I've tried Chameleon and Valyrian root tea blends before thinking they might make good sleep aids, but I've never had any luck with them. A lot people say they find those very relaxing, but I wasn't even catching a placebo effect.
So for a while I just assumed all this herbal tea bullshit I see in stores and pharmacies must be just a step above homeopathic products. They're probably pretty good if you like the taste of the herbal blends and find sipping a warm beverage relaxing in itself, but otherwise a waste of time. Clearly if they really worked they wouldn't be sold in large supermarket chains. Instead they'd be relegated to the weird, near grey market status that Kratom seems to exist in, right?
Today at the store I just happened to notice something very alarming. A box of Kava blend tea was the absolute one and only herbal tea variety on the shelf to include a warning asking you to consult your doctor before use, and stating that minors and pregnant women should not consume this product.
Well, that warning instantaneously lit up the junkie addict center of my brain like a Christmas tree, and I impulse bought two boxes. This might have major negative health consequences? Wow, must be the fucking good stuff. I got home and brewed six of them into a single mug of tea, and yep, this shit is psychoactive all right. Subtle, but definitely not placebo subtle. It quite honestly feels similar to a moderate dose of Gabapentin, and it's making me sleepy.
I sure wish I knew this before I most likely took 15 years off the lifespan of my kidneys by using 200mg of Diphenhydramine every night for years just to have a fighting chance at falling asleep more often than every two days.
Yeah, its a GABA enhancer, similar to how alcohol works on that system. It also binds to different GABA receptors than drugs like xanax. Tends to be a bit expensive for the effect you get, imo, but it's kinda nice.
I never tried the tea, but they just came out with instant dehydrated kava mix you can get from various online stores, too. Specifically look for dehydrated, not micronized. The gastro-intestinal system generally doesn't like any of the plant fibers that are hard to filter out with more traditional methods of making it, on top of those methods being a pain in the ass.
There were reports in the early 2000's of liver damage associated with Kava but those reports seem to have been of low quality, and nothing like that has been found since, and it hasn't been found among cultures that have been consuming it for thousands of years.
I like the effect of mixing kratom and kava, but I can't vouch for the safety of doing that.