Sleep: Evidence-Based Supplement Guide

Sleep is the single most common reason people in Avelor take a supplement: 37 of 72 people with a saved stack hold something taken for sleep, across 42 saved items. That makes it the place where an honest account of the evidence matters most, and where the gap between what is sold and what has been measured is widest. The research splits unevenly. The strongest findings are about **when** you sleep rather than what you take. A 2024 analysis of accelerometer data reported that how *regular* someone's sleep is predicted mortality more strongly than how *long* they slept (PMID 37738616). A large prospective cohort reported the same direction for irregular sleep and all-cause mortality (PMID 36229362). A 2020 systematic review of sleep timing and consistency in adults reached compatible conclusions (PMID 33054339). These are observational studies. They report that regularity **predicts** outcomes. They do not show that making an irregular sleeper regular produces those outcomes, and no trial has tested that. The best-evidenced thing you can change is caffeine timing, and it is the only item here that has been tested as the action itself. A randomised trial gave caffeine 0, 3 and 6 hours before bed and measured the effect on sleep (PMID 24235903). A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis examined caffeine's effect on subsequent sleep (PMID 36870101). A 2025 randomised trial examined dose and timing together (PMID 39377163). Supplement evidence is thinner than the shelf space suggests. Melatonin has randomised evidence for sleep timing (PMID 33417003) and is a hormone rather than a nutrient, which is why it is treated differently below. Magnesium has a systematic review of its role in sleep (PMID 35184264) and a randomised trial in older adults (PMID 21199787). Light therapy has a systematic review and meta-analysis (PMID 37002704), but the trials underneath it are largely in people with diagnosed insomnia disorder rather than in the general population.

1. **Fix the wake time before anything else.** Regularity is the variable with the strongest observational association (PMID 37738616, 36229362). 2. **Move caffeine earlier.** This is the one step tested directly as an action (PMID 24235903). 3. **Get daylight early.** Supported by light-therapy evidence, with the population caveat below (PMID 37002704). 4. **Only then consider a supplement**, and tell whoever prescribes your medicines that you are taking one.

Where the research supports a timeframe, the caffeine trial measured effects on the **same night** (PMID 24235903). The magnesium trial in older adults ran **eight weeks** (PMID 21199787). No duration is given for the regularity findings, because those are observational and describe habits over months to years rather than an intervention with a start date.

- **The strongest evidence here is observational.** Sleep regularity predicts outcomes. That is not the same as showing that changing it delivers them, and this guide does not claim it does. - **Light-therapy trials are mostly in diagnosed insomnia disorder**, plus PTSD and CPAP-resistant sleep apnoea. Applying them to a general reader extrapolates beyond the population studied. - **No dose appears in this guide.** Dosing is a clinical decision and is held for clinician review rather than published here. - **Three of the interventions named have no canonical Avelor entity yet**, so they cannot be linked to interaction checking. See the ID list below. - **This guide has not been reviewed by a clinician.** `reviewStatus` above says so.

- **Melatonin is a hormone, not a nutrient.** Raise it with **the clinician who prescribes your medicines** before starting it. That matters particularly if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are taking an anticoagulant or an immunosuppressant, or are managing a seizure disorder. Avelor does not recommend a dose. - **Stopping caffeine abruptly matters if you take lithium.** Caffeine increases lithium clearance, so reducing caffeine can raise serum lithium. Raise any planned change with **the prescriber who manages your lithium** (PMID 38621222, 3338980). - **Persistent sleep problems are a reason to see a clinician**, not a reason to add another supplement. Loud snoring with daytime sleepiness in particular should go to **a doctor**, because it may indicate sleep apnoea, which supplements do not treat.

| Entity ID | Name | | --- | --- | | `avelor:sup:magnesium-l-threonate` | Magnesium L-threonate | | `avelor:sup:valerian` | Valerian | | `avelor:sup:lemon-balm` | Lemon balm | | `avelor:sup:apigenin` | Apigenin | | `avelor:sup:taurine` | Taurine | | `avelor:sup:coffee` | Coffee | | `avelor:sup:5-htp` | 5-HTP | **Named and not linkable.** **Melatonin** and **caffeine** have no canonical entity in the registry, and magnesium exists only as the L-threonate form rather than as a general entry. Until those exist, the interventions with the best evidence on this page cannot be connected to interaction checking. Recorded here rather than linked to an invented ID. **Resolving is not the same as being checkable.** The interaction catalogue keys on a collapsed name string, not on an entity id: all 504 catalogue rows, 0 of which join to `registry_entities` by id. Of the seven entities above, three carry a catalogue key (`valerian`, `coffee`, `5-htp`) and four do not (`magnesium-l-threonate`, `lemon-balm`, `apigenin`, `taurine`). The magnesium case is the one with teeth. The catalogue holds 20 rows keyed on `magnesium`, and `Magnesium L-threonate` does not collapse to that key. A user taking the threonate form is shown a recognised ingredient and matched against none of the 20.

| PMID | Title | | --- | --- | | 37738616 | "Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration: A prospective cohort study" | | 36229362 | "Irregular sleep and all-cause mortality: A large prospective cohort study" | | 33054339 | "Sleep timing, sleep consistency, and health in adults: a systematic review" | | 24235903 | "Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed" | | 36870101 | "The effect of caffeine on subsequent sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis" | | 39377163 | "Dose and timing effects of caffeine on subsequent sleep: a randomized clinical crossover trial" | | 33417003 | "Effect of melatonin supplementation on sleep quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials" | | 35184264 | "The Role of Magnesium in Sleep Health: a Systematic Review of Available Literature" | | 21199787 | "Magnesium supplementation improves indicators of low magnesium status and inflammatory stress in adults older than 51 years with poor quality sleep" | | 37002704 | "Light therapy in insomnia disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis" | | 38621222 | "Sudden Reduction in Caffeine Intake Increases Serum Lithium Concentration to Supratherapeutic Level: A Case Report" | | 3338980 | "Lithium tremor and caffeine intake: two cases of drinking less and shaking more" |