In March of 2023, a viral post hit TikTok regarding a new DIY sleep aid: The Sleepy Girl Mocktail.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Being that I don’t Tik the Toks, I didn’t become aware of this until recently after this viral trend percolated through Instagram and then finally wound up on old-folks websites like CNN and Better Homes and Gardens.
The recipe is simple: 1 cup of tart cherry juice, one scoop of magnesium powder and top it off with some seltzer, fruity sparkling water or other mixer of your choice. It’s important that this is a ‘mocktail’ and has no alcohol in it, as alcohol can have very detrimental effects on sleep. And according to the wisdom of the wellness influencers, this is the magic recipe to get the sleep of your dreams.
Let’s break down the ingredients and see what we have here.
Tart Cherry Juice
First off, this is not regular cherry juice. Most people are familiar with sweet cherries, which are darker and, you guessed it, sweeter. These are typically what is found in the produce section of most grocery stores and are grown in the pacific northwest. Tart cherries are fire engine red and have a much tarter or sour taste. They are harder to find but are often the types used to make cherry pies.
Both types of cherries are high in antioxidants, but the tart cherries also seem to contain sleep-associated chemicals like melatonin, tryptophan and procyanidin (which seems to increase the availability of tryptophan to the body).
In 2006, a study was performed looking at the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of tart cherry juice on the prevention of exercise-induced muscle damage in college athletes. Some of the study participants noted that they were also getting better sleep, which then led to the study of this beverage on insomnia.
A group of 15 older adults (above age 65) with sleep difficulties were included in a placebo (Cherry Kool-Aid) controlled sleep study assessing tart cherry juice’s effect on insomnia severity, time to fall asleep, sleep efficiency, waking up after falling asleep, and total sleep time. Each participant drank 8oz of beverage in the morning and again 1-2 hours before bedtime. Tart cherry juice drinkers had a benefit in reducing insomnia severity and waking up after falling asleep, but there was no effect on time to fall asleep or sleep efficiency.
This study was on a very small group of people, but other similar studies have also shown modest benefits of tart cherry juice on sleep quality. Conversely, there are studies that show no benefits at all of tart cherry juice on sleep. Why the discrepancy? Observational studies on people and their diet are notoriously difficult to do. How do you control for all of the other things that could affect sleep? Caffeine and alcohol intake? Differences in exercise or fatiguing activity? How comfy their beds are? Drippy faucets? The people in these studies probably have dozens of different things in their lives that affect sleep, and every day they may change. Contolling for all of those variables is impossible unless you had the participants in a sleep lab and could control for all of it (which was not done in any of these studies).
As of now, there is no scientific consensus on tart cherry juice’s effect on sleep.
Magnesium
Good Lord, magnesium has hit the wellness zeitgeist with a fury. According to the blogosphere, magnesium can cure just about damn near everything: boosting energy and exercise performance, elevating mood, regulating blood sugar, improving heart health, soothing muscles, reducing inflammation, preventing migraines, reducing PMS, strengthening bones, reducing anxiety and ….. treating insomnia.
Normally, when I see a supplement claiming to treat this many things, my mind screams “snakeoil”. However, magnesium is a necessary mineral for the human body, binding to ATP (the molecule of energy) and making it biologically active. It is also necessary for over 300 different reactions in human metabolism, so in this case, it actually makes sense that a deficiency might have such sweeping effects.
It’s estimated that 50% of Americans are not getting enough magnesium in their diets although true deficiencies are rare. A large meta-analysis covering many studies of over 7000 people found some conflicting results. Observational studies (like the ones above with tart cherry juice) showed benefits of Magnesium supplementation on sleep. Whereas randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials (the gold standard) showed much less (or no) effect. Again, studies on humans and what they eat and drink are really…. REALLY….. hard to do and often give conflicting results.
Is the mocktail safe?
Unless you are allergic to something in tart cherries, then yes, this is probably very safe. Be careful with the magnesium supplement and follow the instuctions (one “scoop” of brand A might have a lot more magnesium than brand B, so follow package directions). There are also different types of Magnesium and each affects the body in a different way.
Magnesium citrate seems to be the type that is absorbed by our bodies best, whereas magnesium lactate is more gentle on the digestive tract. Magnesium malate has less of a laxative effect, so that would be good if you don’t want to get up in the middle of the night with a bathroom emergency. Magnesium taurate seems to have more of a blood sugar regulating and blood pressure stabilizing effect. Magnesium threonate seems to be the type that supports brain health the best, while magnesium sulfate is the best at soothing aching muscles (often used topically). The TikTokker above was using Magnesi-OM by the Moon brand which contains: Magnesium gluconate, taurate and citrate.
A word on supplements: I do not trust most supplement brands. Like AT ALL. They are not FDA regulated so no one is checking to see if the bottle actually contains what it’s supposed to. A 2015 study found that only 21% of tested supplements were positive for what the bottle claimed it contained (the worst performer, WalMart brand, was only correct 4% of the time in this study). More on this here.
My rec is always to get your “supplements” from the food you eat. Want more Magnesium? Here are some good reliable sources: nuts, seeds, leafy greens, fortified cereals, beans, avocado, dark chocolate, soy.
If you are doing the Sleepy Girl Mocktail and need a powder, try to find a brand that has third-party testing done on it for quality control. There is usually a sticker on the bottle that indicates this. USP verification is one of the most common.
One last thought….
The effect of the Sleepy Girl Mocktail might be totally due to the placebo effect. I know that “the placebo effect” is often trotted out very condescendingly… but it is real, predictable and verifiable. Hundreds of studies have shown that our bodies respond predictably to routine, behavior and expectations. Having a nighttime routine can indicate to your brain that it is time for bed and that may have appreciable effects on your body.
If this is the case, then the mocktail itself is not causing the sleep improvement. It is the brain’s expectation of “bedtime” because of your nighttime ritual that is leading to an easier time falling asleep. That doesn’t make it any less effective.
So, if you are interested in the Sleepy Girl Mocktail… give it a shot. It’s safe, relatively inexpensive and probably tastes ok (unless you hate cherries). Don’t expect this to cure your insomnia, but creating a bed time routine with a beverage like this is a good way to wind down at the end of the day.
Stay happy, healthy and informed.
Jessica at TCA
Gragossian, A. et al. Hypomagnesemia. 2023.
10 Types of Magnesium (and what to use each for). Healthline.