Sleep remedies are a hot-button topic these days. Doctors agree that the body and brain simply can’t function without proper rest. Yet somehow, almost a quarter of adults will suffer from insomnia each year.
If you’re in that number, you may find yourself bombarded with pill-based “remedies” that come with a long list of unsavoury side effects. When that happens, it’s often prudent to see what nature has to offer.
Naturopathic solutions get a lot of skepticism from mainstream medicine, but tea is an ancient tradition, one that’s been assisting humans and healing our bodies for centuries.
You may be used to getting your tea from a box, pre-packaged at the store for your convenience – but banana tea is found right in your home. And it could be the answer to your prayers.
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How Does Banana Tea For Sleep Work?
Boiled from its namesake’s peel, banana tea has a subtle flavor, is full of minerals, and just might help you get that good night’s rest you’ve been craving.
This is thanks to bananas’ status as an all-star fruit, one of the original superfoods. Bananas serve as a sweet alternative to processed junk foods and provide a cleansing burst of fibre – but what you may not know is that they are also an excellent source of magnesium.
If bananas are an all-star fruit, magnesium is an all-star mineral. As well as relaxing muscles and soothing pains, magnesium quiets the nerves and calms the brain, making it a popular solution to insomnia.
If you’re low on this mineral, then your body will make this known through increased bruising, weakened immune system, general restlessness, an inability to focus, and irritability. These are also symptoms associated with sleep deprivation – meaning the more you’re deficient, the less you sleep, and the more deficient you become. It’s a dangerous and frustrating cycle.
Magnesium supplements do exist, if you’d like to swallow a giant pill. But according to some sources, something you already have in your kitchen can do a much better job.
Banana tea can bring your magnesium levels up, increase your hydration levels, and relax your body as well as your mind, making it easier to fall asleep.
All that considered, it’s clear that banana tea could be an all-in-one fix to your sleepless needs while also improving your general health.
How To Prepare Banana Tea for Sleep
In order to extract the magnesium goodness, experts recommend boiling a fresh banana in hot water. This will allow you to extract maximum goodness from the peel.
Preparation
A popular method is to take an entire banana, wash it thoroughly, and then cut off the tips.
You might not normally think to wash a banana, but since you’ll be using the peel, you want to make sure to remove any residual dirt, bacteria, or pesticides. As always, you should buy organic, non-GMO produce whenever you can.
After your banana is squeaky clean, you can then place it into a pot of boiling water for ten minutes. This gives it enough time to leach out all of its beneficial magnesium into the water.
Flavour
The tea has a sweet, subtle banana flavour that many people enjoy.
For extra flavour, you can try adding cinnamon, which complements the flavour as well as providing its own health benefits.
You could even get creative with your mix-ins and include coconut or almond milk as a natural sweetener.
Other Options
The best part? None of the banana gets wasted.
If you compost the tips, you’re left with a boiled banana, which can be eaten at bedtime for an extra magnesium boost and as a filling late-night snack.
However, many people find that they can put their bodies more completely to rest if they haven’t recently eaten. In fact, many people recommend not eating late at night as a method to maintain weight and overall health.
If you’d like to eat the banana in the morning, it can complement a balanced breakfast.
Here’s a video showing a preparation of banana tea.
The Opposing Side
Detractors of this tea claim it’s the placebo effect, and point out that the immense fiber content of a banana peel may make it hard to digest for many individuals.
Keep that in mind before deciding to eat the banana itself, and try drinking the tea every night for a week to see how it affects your body.
At the very least, your mineral and hydration levels will benefit from the experiment.
Using Banana Tea for Sleeping Naturally
Will banana tea help you rest? Is this the remedy you need for your own personal sleep problems?
Either way, the simple pleasure of a subtly flavoured tea is a wonderful addition to a calming bedtime routine.
Banana tea might just be your new favourite late-night drink. The best solutions to the day-to-day questions of our health are so often found not in a pill bottle, but in nature.
Have you tried drinking banana tea for sleep?
