Lavender

The flowering tops of Lavandula angustifolia, and the essential oil steam-distilled from them. The European Pharmacopoeia requires that oil to be 20-45% linalool and 25-47% linalyl acetate; those two molecules carry the smell and very nearly all of the research. Our strip carries a lavender extract, which is not the same material as a distilled oil.

Linalool and linalyl acetate damp down voltage-gated calcium channels at nerve terminals — mainly the T- and N-type — which lowers the amount of glutamate and substance P a firing neuron releases. Linalool also behaves as a partial agonist at the 5-HT1A serotonin receptor, the target buspirone works through, and a PET study in healthy men found 5-HT1A binding potential reduced after 160 mg daily for at least eight weeks. What it does not appear to do is take the benzodiazepine route: the older reports of GABA-A activity needed concentrations far above anything an oral dose produces. That is the interesting part. The trials found no sedative effect and no impairment of driving or machine operation, and the investigators read the sleep improvement as a consequence of being less wound up rather than of being sedated. How much of this survives at 20 mg of an extract is unknown, because nobody has tested 20 mg of an extract.

Used to support the wind-down and a normal bedtime routine. The clinical work on a standardised oral lavender oil was done in patients with diagnosed anxiety disorders at four times our amount. That is a description of the research, not a claim for this strip.

Anyone building a bedtime routine who wants a traditional wind-down botanical in it. Not for under-12s. Not for anyone with a known fragrance, linalool or Lamiaceae allergy, anyone pregnant or breastfeeding, or anyone already on a sedative medicine. And not for anyone hoping a strip will do what an 80 mg capsule did in a ten-week trial.

One strip at actual bedtime, as you genuinely wind down, not hours early. Keep it away from alcohol and from any other sedative. In capsule form the burping is reduced by taking the oil with a glass of water or just before a meal; at 20 mg in a strip it is unlikely to come up at all. It sits alongside the melatonin and valerian already in the formula, and there is no reason to add a second lavender product on top.

Realistically, nothing you can pin on the lavender. At 20 mg next to 1 mg of melatonin and 50 mg of valerian, whatever you notice is very unlikely to be this ingredient. In the 80 mg oral trials the change built over six to ten weeks and showed up as less mental restlessness first and better-rated sleep second — not as drowsiness, and not on the first night.

The EMA's HMPC lists lavender oil as a traditional herbal medicine for relief of mild symptoms of mental stress and exhaustion and to aid sleep, in adults and over-12s; that listing rests on 30 years of use, not on trial evidence. The strongest oral data is a 2023 meta-analysis in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience pooling all five double-blind placebo-controlled trials of Silexan 80 mg/day for ten weeks, n = 1,213. It was superior to placebo on the Hamilton Anxiety total score. For a 50% or greater HAMA reduction, 51.8% responded against 38.8% on placebo — a rate ratio of 1.34, P = 0.004, number needed to treat 8; for CGI much or very much improved, 59.5% against 39.8%, rate ratio 1.51, P < 0.001, NNT 5. Adverse events did not differ significantly from placebo (OR 1.16, P = 0.24). The analysis was financially supported by Dr Willmar Schwabe GmbH, which manufactures Silexan. Comparator trials set Silexan against paroxetine 20 mg over ten weeks in 539 adults with generalised anxiety disorder (Kasper, Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2014; HAMA fell 14.1 points on 160 mg, 12.8 on 80 mg, 11.3 on paroxetine and 9.5 on placebo) and against lorazepam 0.5 mg over six weeks (Woelk and Schläfke, Phytomedicine 2010). Sleep improved as a secondary outcome, and the investigators' own reading is that it followed the anxiolytic effect rather than sedation. For inhaled lavender, a 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in Holistic Nursing Practice pooling 11 RCTs in 628 adults reported a standardised mean difference of -0.56 (95% CI -0.96 to -0.17, P = .005) for sleep quality; those trials are small and largely at high risk of bias. NCCIH's position is that oral lavender might be helpful for anxiety but that the research is limited by small samples, a lack of independent funding and a lack of participant diversity. Not supported: any evidence at 20 mg, any evidence for a lavender extract as opposed to a distilled standardised oil, any insomnia treatment claim, and any anxiety-disorder claim for a strip.