Sweet Relaxation: Chamomile and Honey’s Dual Benefits for Sleep and Brain
The quality of your sleep has a huge influence on your brain’s health, impacting everything from your mood in the evening to your focus during the day. Unfortunately, according to the National Council on Aging, over 1 in 3 of American adults don’t get the recommended amount of sleep each night.1
While some people may constantly reach for over-the-counter sleep aides to help with sleep, there are natural dietary and lifestyle adjustments that might be more effective for a long-term, sustainable strategy. These can improve your sleep, reduce stress levels, and benefit your brain.
Keep reading to discover the science of how sipping a comforting cup of chamomile tea and honey before bed can provide you with powerful nutrients and advantages.
Chamomile & Honey’s Brain Health Nutrients: Flavonoids
It’s no wonder that chamomile and honey have been cherished as natural remedies since ancient times—they're both packed with nutrients. These powerhouses are rich in flavonoids, which are plant compounds known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Chamomile alone contains over fifty flavonoids, which are its main active components.2 These include kaempferol, quercetin, myricetin, and apigenin, each contributing to its wide range of health benefits.2, 3 Honey is also rich in flavonoids, boasting a variety of these powerful compounds, including kaempferol, myricetin, quercetin, and apigenin. But honey also contains catechins, a unique flavonoid with powerful antioxidant properties that support brain health.
Next, we’ll explore how these key nutrients tie into some unique benefits.
Improving Your Sleep, Stress Levels, and Brain Health
Sleep, stress, and brain health are deeply interconnected—when one is compromised, the others often follow. Poor sleep, for instance, has been linked to a higher risk of dementia, as the brain lacks sufficient time to perform crucial cleaning routines and other processes.4 Think back to a time when you woke up after a rough night of sleep and experienced brain fog the next morning. On the other hand, stress can also disrupt your sleep. Studies show that exposure to stressful events, whether major life changes or daily hassles, can significantly impair sleep quality.5 Remember that sleepless night before a big job interview, with your mind racing? Stress doesn’t just affect your sleep; it also impacts brain health. Research has found that higher levels of stress in childhood and adulthood are associated with poorer cognitive function and increased mental health issues later in life.6
But here's the good news: when you start to manage one of these areas, the others can improve as well. With the powerful nutrients found in chamomile and honey, you can support better sleep, reduce stress, and enhance your brain health all at once.
How Apigenin Supports Restful Sleep:
Quality sleep is critical for the functioning of your brain. Falling asleep quickly and maintaining sleep throughout the night are crucial for reaching the deeper, most restorative sleep stages, such as REM sleep. The nutrient apigenin is particularly powerful for supporting sleep.
Helps reduce brain activity: Apigenin enhances GABA activity, which can help calm the brain. It interacts with the GABAA receptor, leading to reduced brain activity and promoting relaxation.7
Promotes deeper sleep: Apigenin increases levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) and serotonin in the brain. These chemicals are known to support deeper and more restorative sleep.7
How these nutrients can ease stress:
As mentioned, stress can disrupt your sleep, creating a cycle of poor rest, increased stress, and plummeting brain health. Managing stress is key, and the nutrients in chamomile and honey can help.
Helps the body’s response to stress: Influences cortisol, the body's primary stress hormone, and it regulates the activity of the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, which controls cortisol release.8 Quercetin also improves alterations in the HPA axis, helping to regulate the body’s response to stress.9 Myricetin partially restores the balance of the HPA axis by reducing elevated plasma corticosterone levels, which are often linked to chronic stress and depression.10
Alleviates anxiety: Apigenin's role in enhancing the activity of GABA helps to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.8
Helps in producing dopamine: Catechins and quercetin help optimize dopamine metabolism, enhancing dopamine availability in the brain. This supports mood regulation and stress reduction by improving the brain's ability to manage stress responses and maintain emotional balance.11 Apigenin also helps enhance dopamine production.8
The benefits these nutrients provide for brain health:
Since these nutrients are known as a group of powerful flavonoids, they offer impressive brain benefits. They protect delicate neurons, boost brain function, support the growth of new brain cells, and even help regenerate neurons, providing both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects for overall brain health.
Reduces brain inflammation: Quercetin, kaempferol, myricetin are known for their anti-inflammatory properties. They help reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain by neutralizing harmful free radicals.8, 12
Increases brain derived neurotrophic factor: Kaempferol, quercetin, and apigenin boost the levels of BDNF, a key protein that supports the survival of existing neurons and encourages the growth of new ones, vital for learning and memory.13, 14
Aids the connection between brain cells: Catechins enhance communication between brain cells by promoting synaptic function. This strengthens cognitive function and brain connectivity.15
Helps slow down brain decline: In combination with the benefits above, plus their ability to help break down beta-amyloid plaques and slow their buildup, these all work together to help in slowing down cognitive decline and reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.16
Chamomile Tea and Honey in Combination:
All things considered, it's easy to see why sipping a cup of chamomile tea with honey as part of your nighttime routine can naturally support your brain health. One recent study found that drinking chamomile tea with honey for just 2 weeks significantly improved sleep quality and reduced anxiety in perimenopausal women—who often face more sleep challenges.17
For World Alzheimer's Month this September, we've bundled chamomile and honey with our brain health supplement, RELEVATE, to help you enhance your brain health routine. RELEVATE features many powerful nutrients mentioned above, such as catechins, quercetin, kaempferol, and myricetin, along with 17 brain-protective nutrients inspired by the Mediterranean and MIND diets. While its focus is on overall brain health, nearly 1 in 2 users also report better sleep.18
We've partnered with Herald Tea Co.(sister company to Mizuba Tea) to provide chamomile tea that is organically grown and harvested in Egypt along the River Nile, and Frantoio Grove to include sustainably harvested wildflower honey from the Sacramento Valley, which is raw, unpasteurized, and packed with natural health benefits. Discover how this simple, natural solution can enhance your sleep, calm your mind, and support long-term brain health—all with a comforting cup before bed. Learn more and order by visiting here.
References
1. Sleep Statistics and Facts. https://www.ncoa.org/adviser/sleep/sleep-statistics/.
2. Dai, Y. L. et al. Chamomile: A Review of Its Traditional Uses, Chemical Constituents, Pharmacological Activities and Quality Control Studies. Molecules 2023, Vol. 28, Page 133 28, 133 (2022).
3. Mihyaoui, A. El et al. Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.): A Review of Ethnomedicinal Use, Phytochemistry and Pharmacological Uses. Life 12, (2022).
4. Gottesman, R. F. et al. Impact of Sleep Disorders and Disturbed Sleep on Brain Health: A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association. Stroke 55, E61–E76 (2024).
5. Kalmbach, D. A., Anderson, J. R. & Drake, C. L. The impact of stress on sleep: Pathogenic sleep reactivity as a vulnerability to insomnia and circadian disorders. J Sleep Res 27, e12710 (2018).
6. McManus, E., Haroon, H., Duncan, N. W., Elliott, R. & Muhlert, N. The effects of stress across the lifespan on the brain, cognition and mental health: A UK biobank study. Neurobiol Stress 18, 100447 (2022).
7. Kramer, D. J. & Johnson, A. A. Apigenin: a natural molecule at the intersection of sleep and aging. Front Nutr 11, (2024).
8. Salehi, B. et al. The Therapeutic Potential of Apigenin. Int J Mol Sci 20, 1305 (2019).
9. Silvestro, S., Bramanti, P. & Mazzon, E. Role of Quercetin in Depressive-Like Behaviors: Findings from Animal Models. Applied Sciences 2021, Vol. 11, Page 7116 11, 7116 (2021).
10. Ma, Z., Wang, G., Cui, L. & Wang, Q. Myricetin Attenuates Depressant-Like Behavior in Mice Subjected to Repeated Restraint Stress. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2015, Vol. 16, Pages 28377-28385 16, 28377–28385 (2015).
11. Josiah, S. S. et al. Neuroprotective effects of catechin and quercetin in experimental Parkinsonism through modulation of dopamine metabolism and expression of IL-1β, TNF-α, NF-κB, IκKB, and p53 genes in male Wistar rats. Neurotoxicology 90, 158–171 (2022).
12. Do Socorro Chagas, M. S. et al. Flavonols and Flavones as Potential anti-Inflammatory, Antioxidant, and Antibacterial Compounds. Oxid Med Cell Longev 2022, (2022).
13. Hou, Y. et al. Anti-depressant natural flavonols modulate BDNF and beta amyloid in neurons and hippocampus of double TgAD mice. Neuropharmacology 58, 911–920 (2010).
14. Gao, A. X., Xia, T. C. X., Lin, L. S. Y., Dong, T. T. X. & Tsim, K. W. K. The neurotrophic activities of brain-derived neurotrophic factor are potentiated by binding with apigenin, a common flavone in vegetables, in stimulating the receptor signaling. CNS Neurosci Ther 29, 2787–2799 (2023).
15. Sebastiani, G. et al. Therapeutic effects of catechins in less common neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. Nutrients 13, 2232 (2021).
16. Li, J., Sun, M., Cui, X. & Li, C. Protective Effects of Flavonoids against Alzheimer’s Disease: Pathological Hypothesis, Potential Targets, and Structure–Activity Relationship. Int J Mol Sci 23, (2022).
17. Situmorang, M., Laelatul Qomar, U., Putri, A. & Dewi, S. THE APPLICATION OF CHAMOMILE TEA AND HONEY COMBINATION TO REDUCE INSOMNIA IN PERIMENOPAUSE WOMEN. Prosiding University Research Colloquium (2024).
18. RELEVATE User Experience Study, RELEVATE Direct-to-Consumer users, administered through AYTM (2022).
