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Performance Lab has crafted Sleep, a potent blend brimming with elements like L-tryptophan, magnesium, and melatonin, all with the intent of guiding the sleep-deprived into a realm of peaceful slumber.
But can Performance Lab’s claims be proven through scientific evidence or is it all just smoke and mirrors? Furthermore, what was my experience with Sleep, and what do other real users have to say about Sleep?
This article aims to provide a thorough analysis of the ingredients in Sleep by answering various questions. It will delve into the relevant medical research to offer an honest assessment of the formula’s effectiveness. Additionally, I will share my personal experiences to determine if the supplement had any impact on my sleep.
Main Takeaways
- Performance Lab’s sleep formula incorporates several ingredients like magnesium, whole Montmorency tart cherry, and L-tryptophan, which have noteworthy evidence behind them.
- From my experience over a two-week period, Sleep played a supportive role in gradually adjusting my bedtime routine, making it easier to retire for the night a bit earlier than usual.
- This supplement will set you back $44.00 USD for each bottle, which means the cost per day can range from $1.47 to $2.93 (depending on your personal dosage).
Ingredient Analysis
Performance Lab’s sleep formula is a straightforward one that features a few research-backed ingredients, including:
- Magnesium
- Whole Montmorency Tart Cherry
- L-Tryptophan
- Organic Sea Buckthorn.
But how effective are these ingredients at promoting sleep quality? Is there sufficient evidence to prove that they actually work?
Let’s break down each one to get the answers we seek.
Magnesium
Look at magnesium as an ingredient that could potentially help you fall asleep.
It works like a switch in your brain, turning down the busy signals and turning up the quiet ones, helping to control your sleep and wakefulness.
In fact, there is research suggesting that if you don’t have enough magnesium, you might have trouble sleeping.
This systematic review & meta-analysis shows that older folks struggling with insomnia who take extra magnesium could get to sleep about 17 minutes faster. This, however, does not mean you can sleep longer or have better quality sleep.
Interestingly, if you’re someone with restless leg syndrome and can’t help but move your legs during sleep, there’s also research suggesting that taking extra magnesium may help reduce these symptoms, leading to fewer wake-ups and more efficient sleep.
Whole Montmorency Tart Cherry
Tart cherry is best known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory content, but it’s also a relatively rich source of melatonin, and also plays a role in increasing the availability of tryptophan, which is used to synthesize melatonin in the body.
As you might already be aware, melatonin is a hormone that your body makes when it’s getting ready for sleep. You can think of it as your body’s “bedtime” signal that is generated by a small pea-sized part of your brain called the pineal gland.
When it starts getting dark outside, your eyes send a message to your brain saying, “Hey, it’s getting dark out,” and your brain then tells the pineal gland to start making melatonin. This increase in melatonin makes you start to feel sleepy.
So, melatonin plays a big role in controlling your sleep-wake cycle – which is your body’s built-in 24-hour ‘clock’ that tells you when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to wake up. During the day, your melatonin levels are low because your body doesn’t need to sleep. As it gets darker, the levels increase, helping you fall asleep at night.
Some studies have shown that consuming tart cherry might help you sleep better since because it has a lot of melatonin, the “sleep hormone”. For instance, both older people with insomnia and younger people who sleep fine have experienced its benefits.
L-Tryptophan
L-tryptophan helps our bodies make serotonin, a very important chemical that helps regulate mood and also sleep. It’s a messenger that helps different parts of our brain communicate about how we’re feeling and when we should sleep or wake up.
Sleep science isn’t so simple that you can just consume more L-tryptophan to sleep better because other factors can affect how much serotonin your body produces and how well you sleep, but getting enough L-tryptophan in your diet can help.
In fact, this systematic review of 18 studies where participants took L-tryptophan before bedtime for an average of about a week.
The study’s main interest was in seeing if L-tryptophan affected the time people spent awake after initially falling asleep (WASO), how efficiently they slept, how much REM sleep they got, and how long it took them to fall asleep.
Out of the 18 studies, only 4 made it into the final part of the review. In these 4 studies, they found that L-tryptophan did reduce the amount of time participants spent awake after falling asleep, and the more L-tryptophan they took, the less time they spent awake.
However, L-tryptophan didn’t seem to affect the other aspects of sleep they were looking at, such as how efficiently participants slept, how much REM sleep they got, or how long it took them to fall asleep.
Organic Sea Buckthorn
Sea buckthorn is a type of plant that grows in many parts of the world, including Europe and Asia. You might recognize it for its bright orange berries.
These berries, along with the leaves and seeds of the plant, have been used in traditional medicine for a long time.
Performance Lab suggests that among the different bioactive compounds it contains, serotonin is among them, which might facilitate sleep.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find much evidence to prove sea buckthorn’s sleep benefits, aside from a s