Chamomile nudged sleep quality in small trials without fixing insomnia

Key takeaways

• In a University of Michigan pilot trial, 34 adults with chronic insomnia took chamomile extract or a placebo twice a day for 28 days, and their sleep diaries showed no significant difference¹².
• Reviews of small trials found chamomile improved scores on sleep-quality questionnaires, but results varied widely, and only one study checked the product’s purity and strength⁵⁶.
• Each dose in the Michigan trial equaled about 7.5 grams of dried flowers, taken twice a day, so check how many grams your tea bag holds before you compare¹.
• Skip chamomile, or check with a clinician first, if you’re allergic to ragweed or daisies, take warfarin, cyclosporine or sedatives, or are pregnant or breastfeeding³¹².
• Trouble sleeping three or more nights a week for three months is chronic insomnia, and cognitive behavioral therapy, not an herb, is the most strongly recommended treatment⁴¹⁵.

In 2008, researchers at the University of Michigan set out to test an herb they called “the most commonly used herbal for sleep disorders.” Despite that popularity, no trial had checked whether it helped chronic insomnia¹².

They enrolled 34 adults who had lived with insomnia for at least six months². Half took chamomile extract: three 90-milligram tablets twice a day, each dose equal to about 7.5 grams of dried flowers. The other half took look-alike lactose pills, and neither patients nor researchers knew who got which¹².

After 28 days, the sleep diaries told a quiet story. The groups didn’t differ significantly in how long they slept, how fast they fell asleep, how often they woke or how they rated their sleep².

Sleep efficiency, the share of time in bed spent asleep, even came out a bit higher on placebo: 83% versus 78%, a gap the statistics couldn’t separate from chance¹. People on chamomile did slightly better on daytime functioning, but the difference wasn’t statistically significant². Side effects were less common on the herb than on the dummy pills, 6 of 17 people versus 10 of 17¹.

That careful little trial sits beside a stack of studies that sound more hopeful. Sort them out and a fair picture appears.

Chamomile may nudge how people rate their sleep, especially older adults. It hasn’t been shown to treat insomnia. And the cup on your nightstand usually isn’t the product the trials tested.

Older adults rated their sleep better, in trials with weak spots

The most encouraging results come from two trials of older adults in Iran.

In one, carried out in 2014, 77 nursing-home residents in Isfahan took 400-milligram chamomile extract capsules twice a day, after lunch and after dinner, for four weeks⁷. Their scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, a standard questionnaire where lower scores mean better sleep, fell from 8.8 to 5.0. The comparison group stayed flat at about 8⁸.

That’s a big drop. But the comparison group got nothing at all, not a placebo, so residents knew whether they were taking capsules⁷. Expectations alone can shift how people rate their sleep, a pattern our article on placebo effects explores.

The study also shows how messy herbal research can get. What looks like the same 77-resident study appears in two Iranian journals, with the same sample size and dose but different details⁷⁸.

One version names German chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla. The other names Roman chamomile, Chamaemelum nobile, a different plant⁷⁸. One version’s title calls it randomized, while its abstract calls it quasi-experimental, meaning the groups weren’t necessarily assigned by chance⁷.

A second trial, by researchers Adib-Hajbaghery and Mousavi, did use a placebo. It was published in 2017 in Complementary Therapies in Medicine, and only the participants were blinded⁹. In 60 older adults with an average age around 70, 400 milligrams a day of chamomile extract improved sleep-quality scores more than a wheat-flour placebo over 28 days⁹. It didn’t increase total sleep time, according to a summary in the trade publication NutraIngredients⁹.

New mothers: the one trial that used tea

In Taiwan, nurse researchers Chang and Chen studied 80 new mothers who were sleeping poorly. Half drank one cup of chamomile tea a day for two weeks. The other half got usual care¹⁰.

Right after the two weeks, the tea drinkers reported better sleep and fewer symptoms of depression¹⁰¹¹. But the gains appear short-lived. A 2024 paper that reviewed the trial says the benefits didn’t last beyond the end-of-study check¹¹.

There was no placebo tea, and the mothers knew what they were drinking. Still, it’s the only study here that tested a plain cup rather than a capsule.

That 2024 paper reported its own trial in Dezful, Iran, which looked at mood rather than sleep. Among 128 women with mild to moderate depression after childbirth who finished the study, 500-milligram chamomile capsules twice a day for eight weeks lowered depression scores a little more than placebo¹¹. The authors urged caution: they ran no lab tests, and they studied only mild and moderate cases¹¹.

Poor sleep and low mood often travel together after a baby arrives. If you’re a new parent who feels hopeless or can’t function, tell your clinician. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

What the reviews add up to

Two systematic reviews, which pool every trial they can find on a question, frame the evidence.

A 2019 review in Phytotherapy Research gathered 12 randomized trials. Chamomile improved sleep quality on average. But the review found only one trial in people with insomnia, and in it, insomnia severity didn’t change⁵.

A 2024 review in Complementary Therapies in Medicine covered 10 studies with 772 adults⁶. Pooling five of them, chamomile lowered Pittsburgh sleep scores by about 1.9 points⁶. Results swung widely from study to study, so that average hides a lot of disagreement.

The 2024 review offers more detail. Falling asleep got easier in three of the four studies that checked it, and nighttime awakenings improved in two of three⁶. Sleep length, sleep efficiency and daytime functioning didn’t clearly improve⁶. And only one study checked whether its blinding worked and tested the product’s purity and potency⁶.

The NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) sums it up plainly: chamomile has a long history as a sleep remedy, but no conclusive clinical trial evidence that it helps⁴. The Merck Manual, updated in 2025, says limited trial evidence supports any use of chamomile¹².

Claim	Evidence level	What it rests on
Chamomile extract improves self-rated sleep quality in older adults	Promising but early	Small trials, some without placebo; pooled gain of about 2 points with wide disagreement679
Chamomile treats chronic insomnia	Not enough evidence	One 34-person pilot trial found no clear benefit25
Chamomile tea improves sleep after childbirth	Promising but early	One unblinded two-week trial; the benefit didn’t last1011
Chamomile makes you sleep longer	Not enough evidence	No clear effect on total sleep time69
Chamomile alone eases infant colic	Not enough evidence	NCCIH says chamomile alone hasn’t been shown to help3

Chamomile for daytime anxiety is a separate question, covered in our guide to herbal teas.

Why chamomile might calm you: a theory built mostly in animals

Chamomile flowers contain compounds called bisabolol, apigenin and luteolin, which scientists think do most of the work¹².

The leading idea centers on apigenin. Researchers have proposed that it binds to the brain’s benzodiazepine sites, the same targets as a class of prescription sedatives, which could produce a calming effect⁹. That remains a hypothesis.

The Michigan team’s trial record is candid about the gap. Chamomile’s calming potential had been tested in animals, it notes, but nobody knows how the herb might cause sedation¹.

Apigenin also shows why dose matters. The Michigan tablets were standardized to contain at least 2.5 milligrams of apigenin each¹. At six tablets a day, that’s at least 15 milligrams. Tea isn’t standardized, and we couldn’t find a reliable figure for how much apigenin a typical cup delivers.

A cup of tea is a different product from the capsules

Most chamomile sleep trials tested concentrated extracts, not tea. This is what the main studies used.

Study	Who	Product and daily amount	Length	Result
Michigan pilot	34 adults with chronic insomnia	Extract tablets, 540 mg a day (about 15 g of dried flowers)	28 days	No clear benefit12
Isfahan nursing homes	77 older residents	Extract capsules, 400 mg twice a day	4 weeks	Better sleep scores; no placebo78
Adib-Hajbaghery and Mousavi	60 older adults	Extract, 400 mg a day	28 days	Better sleep quality, not longer sleep9
Chang and Chen	80 new mothers	One cup of tea a day	2 weeks	Better sleep that didn’t last1011

To compare your tea, look for the grams per bag on the box. Picture a box whose bags hold 2 grams each. Matching one Michigan dose would take almost four bags, and matching a full day would take seven or eight.

Labels also follow different rules. Chamomile sold as a supplement doesn’t need FDA approval, and the FDA doesn’t check whether it works before it goes on sale¹³. A label can say a product supports a body function, such as restful sleep, if it carries the disclaimer that the FDA hasn’t evaluated the claim¹³. Our article on why supplement labels say “supports” explains those rules.

The purity gap in the research applies to your shelf, too. If only one trial in a review checked its own product, it’s fair to ask how any bottle was tested.

Who should skip chamomile or check first

For most adults, a cup of chamomile is a low-risk habit. NCCIH rates it likely safe at the levels found in tea and food, and possibly safe for adults and children who use it as a medicine for a short time³. Problems are rare, and the ones NCCIH lists are nausea, dizziness and allergic reactions³. Some people need more caution.

• People allergic to the daisy family. If ragweed, chrysanthemums, marigolds or daisies set off your allergies, chamomile is more likely to as well³. The Merck Manual describes watery eyes, sneezing, upset stomach, skin rashes and, rarely, anaphylaxis, a severe whole-body allergic reaction¹².
• People on blood thinners. Interactions with warfarin have been reported³, and chamomile may strengthen the effect of anticoagulants¹².
• Transplant patients. Chamomile may raise blood levels of cyclosporine, an anti-rejection drug, according to Merck, which cites a 2005 report on herbal teas in kidney transplant patients¹².
• People taking sedatives or drinking alcohol. Chamomile may add to the effect of sedatives, including alcohol¹². NCCIH calls this a theoretical concern³. Don’t combine them and then drive.
• People on hormone-related medicines. Chamomile may act a little like estrogen. NCCIH says that could make birth control pills less reliable and could aggravate cancers that estrogen feeds, such as breast or uterine cancer³. Merck adds tamoxifen and hormone therapy to the list¹².
• People on other prescriptions. Reported interactions also involve some drugs processed by the liver, a category that covers many medicines³. Ask your pharmacist.
• Pregnant or breastfeeding women. Safety in pregnancy and breastfeeding hasn’t been worked out³. Experts disagree, as our herbal tea guide explains, so ask your prenatal clinician.
• Babies. Some multi-herb products that include chamomile may help infant colic, NCCIH says, but chamomile by itself hasn’t been shown to help³. Ask your pediatrician before giving a baby any herbal tea.

Run your own two-week chamomile test

A careful self-trial can tell you more than a vague impression. Our guide to testing a remedy on yourself explains the method. This is a version for chamomile.

1. Pick your measures. Each morning, rate your sleep quality from 0 to 10. Estimate how long it took to fall asleep and how many times you woke.
2. Record a baseline week. Do this before you start chamomile, with no other changes.
3. Choose one form and one amount. Write down the product, grams per bag or milligrams per capsule, and the time you take it.
4. Keep everything else steady. Same caffeine, alcohol, bedtime and wake time.
5. Run it for two weeks. That’s the length of the tea trial in new mothers¹⁰.
6. Set a stop rule now. Stop if you notice watery eyes, sneezing, a skin rash, an upset stomach or dizziness, reactions listed by Merck and NCCIH³¹².
7. Compare averages on decision day. If your sleep score didn’t improve by a point or two, chamomile probably isn’t doing much for you.

Date	Chamomile? (form, amount)	Sleep quality 0–10	Minutes to fall asleep	Times awake	How I felt at 2 p.m.
______	Yes / No, ______	______	______	______	______
______	Yes / No, ______	______	______	______	______

A ritual worth keeping, with honest expectations

Herbalists have turned to chamomile for sleep for centuries, the Michigan team’s trial record notes¹. That tradition deserves respect. A warm, caffeine-free cup can signal the end of the day, the way a dim lamp or a warm shower does.

You don’t need a clinical trial to enjoy a ritual. But keeping tradition and proof in separate boxes protects you. If chamomile makes your evenings calmer, keep it. If you’re counting on it to fix months of broken sleep, the evidence doesn’t support that, and waiting too long can delay help that works.

When poor sleep needs more than tea

MedlinePlus, from the National Library of Medicine, lists signs that you may have a sleep disorder and should talk with a health care provider¹⁴:

• You regularly take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep¹⁴.
• You wake several times a night and struggle to get back to sleep, or you wake too early¹⁴.
• You often feel sleepy during the day, nap often or fall asleep at the wrong times¹⁴.
• A bed partner hears loud snoring, snorting, gasping, choking or pauses in your breathing¹⁴.
• You feel creeping or tingling in your legs or arms in the evening that eases when you move¹⁴.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) says insomnia is chronic when it happens three or more nights a week for three months or longer¹⁵. It suggests keeping a sleep diary for one to two weeks before your visit¹⁵. Your chamomile log can double as that diary.

NCCIH notes that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, called CBT-I, is the most strongly recommended treatment⁴. A coming article in this series covers when to seek that help.

NCCIH notes that severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, can occur³. If you have trouble breathing after taking chamomile, call 911. You can report a bad reaction to a supplement to the FDA by calling 800-FDA-1088 or using its online form¹³.

Questions readers ask

The bottom line

Chamomile is a gentle, low-risk bedtime ritual for most adults. Small trials, mostly of extracts in older adults, suggest it may help people feel they slept better. A trial in people with chronic insomnia found no clear benefit, and many studies had no placebo or didn’t test their own product.

Enjoy the cup if you like it, and match your expectations to the evidence. Check for daisy-family allergies and drug interactions, test it fairly for two weeks, and see a clinician if poor sleep keeps coming back three or more nights a week.

Related reading

• How to judge a cup of herbal tea, which is gentle but not automatically harmless
• Feeling better after trying something isn’t a test, but you can run one
• A warm shower and a to-do list do more for sleep than a nightcap
• Why supplement labels say ‘supports’ and never say ‘cures’
• Placebos ease how you feel but rarely change what doctors measure

Sources

1. University of Michigan (sponsor). “Chamomile for Chronic Primary Insomnia.” ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01286324, accessed October 2026. classic.clinicaltrials.gov
2. Zick SM, Wright BD, Sen A, Arnedt JT. “Preliminary Examination of the Efficacy and Safety of a Standardized Chamomile Extract for Chronic Primary Insomnia: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Pilot Study.” BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2011;11:78. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
3. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Chamomile.” NIH, updated November 2024. nccih.nih.gov
4. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. “Sleep Disorders and Complementary Health Approaches.” NIH, updated May 2024. nccih.nih.gov
5. Hieu TH, Dibas M, Surya Dila KA, et al. “Therapeutic Efficacy and Safety of Chamomile for State Anxiety, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Insomnia, and Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Phytotherapy Research, 2019;33(6):1604-1615. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
6. Kazemi A, Shojaei-Zarghani S, Eskandarzadeh P, Hashempur MH. “Effects of Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) on Sleep: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials.” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2024;84:103071. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
7. “Investigation Effect of Oral Chamomilla on Sleep Quality in Elderly People in Isfahan: A Randomized Control Trial.” Journal of Education and Health Promotion, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, accessed October 2026. jehp.mui.ac.ir
8. “Effect of Chamomile Extract on Sleep Quality of the Elderly.” Evidence Based Care Journal, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, accessed October 2026. ebcj.mums.ac.ir
9. NutraIngredients (trade press). “Chamomile Extract May Improve Sleep Among the Elderly: RCT,” on Adib-Hajbaghery M, Mousavi SN, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2017;35:109-114. December 11, 2017. nutraingredients.com
10. Independent Nurse (trade press). “Chamomile Alleviates Postpartum Depression and Sleep Problems,” on Chang SM, Chen CH, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2016. independentnurse.co.uk
11. Eradi M, Abedi P, Ansari S, Dastoorpour M, Golfakhrabadi F, Fakhri A. “The Effect of Chamomile on Moderate Postpartum Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Dezful, Iran.” Jundishapur Journal of Natural Pharmaceutical Products, 2024;19(3):e146826. brieflands.com
12. Shane-McWhorter L. “Chamomile.” Merck Manual Professional Version, reviewed July 2025. merckmanuals.com
13. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. “Dietary Supplements: What You Need to Know.” NIH, updated January 4, 2023. ods.od.nih.gov
14. MedlinePlus. “Sleep Disorders.” National Library of Medicine, updated December 4, 2025. medlineplus.gov
15. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “Insomnia: Diagnosis.” NIH, updated March 24, 2022. nhlbi.nih.gov