Scientific Validation of Lemon Verbena’s Traditional Sleep Benefits

Insomnia is way too common. So is anxiety. And the two often even come together. Lemon verbena is a herb that has traditionally been used for sleep. Modern science is increasingly validating that traditional use.

Lemon verbena is a herb that originally came from South America. This double-blind study gave either a placebo or 400mg of lemon verbena extract standardized fort 24% verbascoside and 28% total phenylpropanoids to 71 people with sleep problems. The study lasted for 90 days.

The people in the lemon verbena group self reported significantly better improvement in their quality of sleep than the placebo group.

And those subjective ratings were verified by objective ones. According to the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, there was significantly greater improvement in the herb group for overall score, time to fall asleep and sleep efficiency. And, according to actigraphy, which measure movement during sleep, lemon verbena led to significantly greater improvement in time to fall asleep and wakefulness and number of times waking up after falling asleep.

As a bonus, there was significantly greater improvement in anxiety in the lemon verbena group.

Interestingly, lemon verbena significantly increased levels of melatonin.

There were no adverse events with the lemon verbena.

Other recent studies have also demonstrated the sleep and anti-anxiety benefits of lemon verbena (Curr Top Nutraceutical Res. 2015;13:95–102; Phytother Res 2018;33(2):350-9; Nutrients 2022;14(1):218).

Nutrients. 2024 May;16(10):1523.

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