Did Apigenin Really Improve Sleep on Huberman Lab?

On Huberman Lab, fifty milligrams of apigenin about thirty minutes before sleep went with a subjectively better night. Apigenin is a derivative of chamomile, taken in supplement form. Sleep was not measured, and the person taking it is not a sleep tracker.

Papers on apigenin include control groups, but they are not published in blue ribbon journals, and the show calls the papers somewhat interesting. Chamomile has long been thought of as a mild sedative. The reply on the show is no to chamomile tea and no to taking apigenin. After a look at the sleep data, the show says the evidence is mostly subjective rather than objective, hard sleep measures, so the result is unclear and is not dismissed. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

A personal test on the show would record a supplement-free baseline for a month, then a month on the supplement, using objective metrics from an Oura Ring and subjective notes written in the morning. Both kinds of measures count in sleep research. The negative experiment is to come off for another month and see whether things get worse.