Chamomile → Sleep duration and regularity
Higher Chamomile increases Sleep duration and regularity.
Chang 2016 found that two weeks of chamomile tea lowered a physical-symptoms sleep-inefficiency score versus usual care in 80 Taiwanese postnatal women with poor sleep (P=0.015). The difference was gone two weeks after the tea stopped. There was no placebo drink.
Randomized trial · Contested · N=80
Supported by an experiment or a tightly identified design. Read the caveats.
Mechanism
Authors treat chamomile tea as a mild sleep aid. They do not isolate one flavonoid. Chang and Chen assigned 80 postnatal women with a Postpartum Sleep Quality Scale of 16 or higher to two weeks of chamomile tea (n=40) or usual postnatal care (n=40). Assignment was systematic with a random start. The tea arm had lower physical-symptoms-related sleep inefficiency (P=0.015) and lower Edinburgh postnatal depression scores (P=0.020) at two weeks. All three scales were similar at four weeks.
Caveats
Researchers assigned people to a tea or usual care, so this is a trial stamp. The control is usual care, not a placebo drink. More papers of the same design do not settle the claim. This is eighty postnatal women in Taiwan and one subscale. The win was gone two weeks after the tea stopped. This is a journal entry, not medical advice and not a reason to drink chamomile for insomnia.
Effect
qualitative. Chang 2016: chamomile tea 2 wk vs usual care, N=80 postnatal PSQS>=16. Physical-symptoms sleep inefficiency P=0.015. Gone at 4-wk post-test. No placebo tea.
Nodes
Named confounders
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Chamomile → Sleep duration and regularity.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-chamomile-sleep (atlas updated 2026-09-02).
Papers
- Effects of an intervention with drinking chamomile tea on sleep quality and depression in sleep disturbed postnatal women: a randomized controlled trial.
SM Chang, CH Chen · 2016 · Journal of advanced nursing