Can lettuce water help you sleep? This is the question that many social media users are asking themselves after the emergence of a 2021 TikTok video in which a lady suggests that this is the ideal hack to solve your insomnia issues.
The video shared by Shapla Hoque has been viewed more than 1.5 million times with many of her followers having attempted to try the hack themselves.
In the video, she is seen taking a leaf of lettuce while filling the cup with boiling water and adding mint tea for an extra kick.
“Apparently drinking lettuce water makes you sleepy, so – sis, don’t sleep, I’m going to try it out,” she says in her video.
She later updated her followers saying that she feels slightly drowsy in one of her follow-up videos. Since then, the viral video has been making waves on the internet with many agreeing that it does in fact work.
@shapla_11 if you can’t sleep, try this #lettucewater #insomnia #lifehacks #fyp ♬ A Day in My Life – Soft boy
Experts have their say
While many have indicated that the effect of drinking Lettuce water does work, few studies have been done to prove that this is in fact true.
In an article posted by Healthline – a health and wellness website – Korina Burkhard, sleep expert and board advisor at Dozy Sleep says that the theory behind this trend is caused by the sedative properties found in lettuce.
She adds that lettuce contains lactucarium, a milky substance in wild lettuce believed to contain analgesic and mild sedative properties that promote relaxation and help with sleep.
Meanwhile, she adds that while these sedative properties do exist, the concentrations of these found in a cup of lettuce water are likely too low to have any real effect.
Furthermore, Sleep Opolis – experts of sleep – highlighted that lettuce water advocates often refer to a 2017 study published in the journal Food Science and Biotechnology for sleep which was done on mice but say that this does not have the direct same effect on humans.
“Many citing this study don’t mention that lettuce extract is not what was used to put the mice to sleep — phenobarbital, a medication used to slow your brain and nervous system, was. So, saying that lettuce extract is sleep-inducing based on this study is inaccurate.”
Also see: 5 Surprising health benefits of biltong
