Life Hack: If I drink lettuce water, will I go to sleep faster at night?

This week we try out a very strange TikTok remedy for insomnia

Trouble sleeping? Why not pour yourself a cup of lettuce water?

Honestly, TikTok has the strangest content sometimes. Very often when I find hack videos I have to double-check them to see if they are real or a joke. The latest 'suspicious' one to catch my attention involved an unconvinced woman trying a trick she heard of to tackle her insomnia: placing some lettuce in boiling water, letting it steep before removing the leaf, and then drinking the water.

“Apparently, drinking lettuce water makes you sleepy,” @shapla_11 says in her video, before adding she struggles to fall asleep most nights.

She washes a handful of lettuce leaves and puts them in a mug. After boiling her kettle, she adds water to the mug too. She added a peppermint tea bag in case she wouldn’t like the flavour, but later posted an update advising against this as peppermint is proven to keep you awake — chamomile tea would be a better option if you really hate the taste of lettuce water.

She let the mixture brew for 10 minutes before removing the lettuce and taking a sip, noting it “tastes like nothing.”

Lettuce get a good night's sleep

The video cuts to a few minutes later where, clearly drowsy, she gives her verdict.

“I do feel slightly drowsy, not hella sleepy, like knocked out but I do feel a bit sleepy.”

Finally she updates from under the covers, unable to open her eyes from tiredness: “Your sis is gone…”

She goes from skeptical to a true believer of the lettuce trick in 57 seconds, so I obviously had to try it.

I don’t suffer from insomnia, thankfully, but I do take an absolute age to fall asleep at night unless I’m absolutely exhausted. So I popped some lettuce in a cup, added hot water and once it was a palatable temperature, I put it to the taste test. Much like the original poster, the taste didn’t bother me, even though I didn’t add any flavourful tea bags to the mix.

A little while later, I went to bed and, whether it was a placebo effect or actual magic, I don’t know but I definitely fell asleep faster than usual.

The next morning, I did some research and it turns out drinking lettuce water to fall asleep is actually backed by science. Lettuce contains a high level of lactucarium, a white milky substance that is understood to induce sleep, relieve pain and promote relaxation.