Banana Tea for Sleep: The Recipe and What the Evidence Says

Does banana tea help you sleep? It can be a pleasant, caffeine-free bedtime drink, and bananas do contain magnesium and potassium, two minerals involved in muscle and nerve function. But banana tea itself has never been tested as a sleep treatment, the amount of minerals that ends up in the water is modest, and the evidence that magnesium improves sleep is thin. Below you will find the recipe, an honest look at what is in a banana, and the habits that make a much bigger difference to a restless night.

How to make banana tea

The recipe went viral in the mid-2010s, helped along by a segment on natural sleep remedies on The Dr. Oz Show. It takes about ten minutes and uses three things most kitchens already have.

You need:

1 ripe banana
about 2 cups (500 ml) of water
a pinch of ground cinnamon (optional)

Method:

Wash the banana well under running water, rubbing the skin with your fingers or a soft brush.
Trim off the stem and the tip. Leave the peel on.
Bring the water to the boil, add the banana and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the peel darkens and softens.
Pour the liquid through a strainer into a mug and add the cinnamon if you like.
Drink it warm, ideally an hour or so before bed so you are not waking up to use the bathroom.

The tea tastes faintly sweet and fruity. Some people eat the soft boiled banana afterwards, sprinkled with cinnamon, almost like a simple dessert. The peel is edible, though many people find its texture tough even after cooking.

Organic or not? The original recipe insisted on organic bananas because of pesticides. Banana plantations are often sprayed heavily against fungal disease, so if you plan to eat the peel, organic fruit or a thorough wash is a reasonable precaution. For the tea alone, careful washing is the main thing.

What is actually in a banana?

Per 100 grams (a little less than one medium banana), raw banana provides roughly 89 calories, around 27 mg of magnesium, about 358 mg of potassium and a useful amount of vitamin B6. Peels contain these minerals too, which is why the recipe keeps them on.

To put the magnesium in perspective: the US National Institutes of Health recommends about 400 to 420 mg a day for adult men and 310 to 320 mg for adult women. A whole banana covers well under a tenth of that, and boiling extracts only part of its minerals into the water. The richest everyday sources of magnesium are legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains and leafy greens such as spinach, not fruit.

So the tea is a small contribution rather than a dose. If your diet is generally low in magnesium, eating the banana and adding a handful of nuts or a bowl of beans to your day will do far more than the liquid alone.

Magnesium and sleep: what the research says

Magnesium plays a role in how nerves and muscles relax, which is why it is often promoted for sleep. The studies so far are limited. A 2021 systematic review in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies found only three small randomised trials of magnesium supplements for insomnia in older adults, with 151 participants in total. People taking magnesium fell asleep about 17 minutes faster than those on a placebo, but the increase in total sleep time was not statistically significant, and the authors rated the evidence as low to very low quality.

Those trials used supplements, at doses far higher than anything you would get from a cup of banana tea. They also involved older adults, not the general population. The fair conclusion is that magnesium might help some people a little, especially if they are low in it, but it is not a proven sleep treatment.

A note on supplements: the NIH advises adults not to take more than 350 mg a day of magnesium from supplements unless a health professional recommends it, because higher amounts can cause diarrhoea and, in people with kidney problems, more serious effects. Talk to a doctor before starting one.

Where banana tea may genuinely help is as a ritual. A warm, caffeine-free drink, sipped in a dim room at the same time each night, is one of the cues that tells the body it is time to wind down. That effect does not depend on the banana at all, and a cup of chamomile or warm milk can play the same part.

Why sleep goes wrong in the first place

A racing mind at bedtime is one of the most common complaints, and the worry about not sleeping can keep the cycle going. According to the NHS, typical causes of insomnia include:

stress, anxiety or depression;
a noisy, bright, hot or cold bedroom, or an uncomfortable bed;
alcohol, caffeine or nicotine, especially later in the day;
jet lag and shift work;
long-term pain and conditions such as sleep apnoea, restless legs syndrome or an overactive thyroid;
many medicines, including some used for blood pressure, pain and allergies.

Adults typically need around 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night. The popular claim that anything under eight hours is harmful goes too far; needs vary, and the best guide is how you feel during the day. Persistent short sleep, though, is linked with poorer concentration and mood, and over the long term with a higher risk of problems such as weight gain and type 2 diabetes.

Sleeping pills: a short-term tool

Older versions of this story warned readers away from sleeping pills, and the core message holds up. Most prescription sleep medicines are sedative-hypnotics. They include benzodiazepines such as diazepam (Valium) and temazepam, related "Z-drugs" such as zolpidem and zopiclone, and older sedating antihistamines sold over the counter. Alprazolam (Xanax) is a benzodiazepine prescribed mainly for anxiety rather than sleep.

These drugs can help in a crisis, but their known downsides include next-day drowsiness and dizziness, problems with memory and concentration, falls in older people, tolerance and dependence, and rare "complex sleep behaviours" such as sleepwalking or sleep-driving. Because they slow breathing, sedatives need extra care in people with lung conditions or sleep apnoea, and they are dangerous combined with alcohol or opioids.

That is why the NHS says GPs rarely prescribe sleeping pills, and then only for a few days or weeks when insomnia is severe. If you already take one, do not stop suddenly; ask your doctor how to reduce it safely.

Habits that help more than any drink

The NHS describes insomnia as something that usually improves by changing sleep habits. The most useful steps are unglamorous but effective:

Keep a regular wake-up time, even after a bad night and at weekends.
Go to bed when you feel sleepy, not just because it is a certain hour.
Give yourself an hour to wind down: low light, no work emails, perhaps a warm drink such as banana tea.
Keep the bedroom dark, quiet and cool, and the bed for sleeping.
Cut caffeine and alcohol in the evening; the NHS suggests avoiding tea, coffee and alcohol within six hours of bedtime.
Move during the day, but avoid hard exercise in the last few hours before bed.
Put the phone away; screens and scrolling keep the brain alert.
Avoid daytime naps if you struggle to sleep at night.

If poor sleep has lasted for months or is making daily life hard to cope with, see a doctor. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, available face to face or as online programmes, targets the thoughts and habits that keep people awake and works without medication. A doctor can also check for conditions such as sleep apnoea that no tea will fix.

Banana tea, then, is best seen as a cosy part of a bedtime routine: cheap, harmless for most people and pleasant to drink. Just do not expect it to do the heavy lifting.

Sources: NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Magnesium; Mah and Pitre (2021), Oral magnesium supplementation for insomnia in older adults; NHS: Insomnia; Wikipedia: Banana. The recipe circulated via Real Farmacy, Patriotcrier and Bozzfeed; video by its uploader on YouTube.

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