Do you really sleep better from (moon) milk?
It’s such a typical ‘grandma knows best’ piece of advice: drink a mug of warm milk (with or without honey) before going to bed and you’ll sleep like a baby. These days, Instagram is full of the magical drink ‘moon milk’: pastel-coloured, Ayurvedic, vegan milk said to promote sleep. But is that really true?
De Volkskrant investigated. At least in the case of cow’s milk. And at first glance, it looks very promising: cow’s milk contains tryptophan, melatonin and lactium. All three are substances that promote sleep.
Bathroom break
But something is being overlooked here: the quantities. A 200-millilitre mug of milk contains 91 milligrams of tryptophan. But tryptophan only has an effect at a minimum dose of 1 gram, so you would need to drink eleven mugs of milk. The number of bathroom breaks alone would significantly disrupt your night’s sleep.
The same applies to melatonin: the amount in one mug is far too small. Even if the cows are milked at night, when they produce more melatonin, one mug contains a maximum of 5.2 nanograms. That is a few hundred thousand times less than the (minimum) dose of 1 milligram in a melatonin tablet. In short: you can’t drink enough of it to make a difference.
Friesche Vlag once investigated the effect of the soothing lactium, but it turned out to be very small. What was striking, though, was that whether they drank regular or enriched milk, the participants’ total sleep time was on average half an hour longer. So does it work after all?
Moon milk
Yes, but for a completely different reason: a full stomach makes you sleepy, having a bedtime ritual helps you relax, and warm drinks have a psychologically calming effect. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be cow’s milk. Et voilà: enter Ayurvedic moon milk, often made with nuts or hemp. Warm, filling and dressed up with calming herbs such as lavender, chamomile or nutmeg.
One downside: the pastel-coloured drinks are so beautiful that it’s hard not to take an Instagram photo of them. And we all know: once it’s on Instagram, a good night’s sleep is nowhere to be found.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfadzMJho9b/?utm_source=ig_embed
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgpCwi9BsWO/?tagged=moonmilk
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkDMF5pjrwN/?tagged=moonmilk
Also read:
