Optimize Your Sleep with Chamomile Tea and Glycine

Sleep is one of the most important things for bodybuilding. If you don’t sleep, you cannot build muscles. Sleep helps your body recover from the day’s routine and prepare for a new one tomorrow. Chamomile tea and glycine can help!

You can’t expect to work out more, lift heavy and build muscle without getting enough sleep at night. It is not an option but a necessity which sometimes gets ignored by many of us thinking that some extra hours in the day will help us.

Far too many people ignore the importance of sleep. Working out extra hours is harmful if you are not getting satisfactory sleep at night.

One of the things that have helped me fall asleep and stay asleep is a wonderful, simple concoction that we learned from @solbrah. It is a mixture of chamomile tea and glycine right before bed.

Chamomile Tea

Chamomile tea is a delightful nighttime drink that is traditionally used to aid with sleep. Its many chemical compounds can help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Chamomile contains the terpene, bisabolol which helps to relax your muscles and induce sleep (it causes sedation). It has flavonoids like apigenin, quercetin, and luteolin. These flavonoids can help people stay asleep through the night by preventing the release of the neurotransmitter histamine which causes nocturnal awakenings.

It can also reduce anxiety and calm you by inhibiting the release of stress hormones. It is also believed to be a powerful antioxidant that protects your cells from damage.

Chamomile tea also has anti-inflammatory properties. Inflammation leads to muscle breakdown which nobody wants if they are looking to build strong muscles. If you see any swelling on your body, chamomile tea may be able to calm down those inflamed joints, especially knees after leg day.

Glycine

Glycine, an amino acid found in many foods like meat, fish, dairy products, and beans helps to calm your mind. Glycine has sleep-inducing effects that are similar to melatonin because it engages GABA receptors in the brain to produce both melatonin and serotonin.

Since glycine is an amino acid, it is perfectly safe for your body. The typical dose ranges from 2-7g. Keep experimenting with the doses by gradually increasing until you start to notice better sleep.

Helps you fall asleep and stay asleep

Those who toss and turn trying to fall asleep at night may find glycine particularly useful. Research shows that glycine will help lower your body temperature and calm your mind. In the morning you will also feel that you got a night of higher quality sleep. Participants of scientific studies felt more refreshed and less fatigue. Give glycine a try if you struggle winding down from a long day or deal with exhaustion in the mornings.

Enhanced Dreaming

One unusual phenomenon we have noticed while using glycine is that our dreams are more vivid and frequent than usual. This could be because our sleep is much deeper while taking chamomile and glycine. Give it a try for yourself and let us know if you experience the same!

How to make

Chamomile tea with glycine is fairly easy to make. Heat some water and let a tea bag or infuser steep. While it is steeping, mix in your glycine powder. You can either measure out 2g with a scale or find a teaspoon. A level teaspoon will be about 3g of glycine. The best time to drink it is 45-60 minutes before bed. This is so that your body has time to process the chemicals and will give you time to go urinate before bed. To optimize your sleep, you must avoid any sort of interruptions and blue light from screens that will alter your circadian rhythm.

And there you have it! You now have a glass of delicious chamomile tea and glycine. The chamomile tea will have an herbal taste while the glycine will have a sweet taste like sugar. It is such a tasty drink that you may mistake it for southern sweet tea! If you are dealing with sleep issues be sure to give this one a try. It has sure helped us over at the Oasis and we think it will help you too!