Plant
Valerian
Valeriana officinalis
Also known as: garden valerian, Valeriana officinalis
A perennial herb native to Europe and parts of Asia, naturalized in many parts of North America. The dried root is the medicinal portion, with a notoriously strong and earthy aroma that some people find pleasant and others find offensive (cats are famously attracted to it — valerian is the catnip of certain cat populations). Foundational Western herbalism sleep-and-anxiety support: the most-used herbal sedative in continuous use across European medicine since the time of Galen (2nd century AD). Modern clinical evidence is mixed but consistent enough to support standard use; valerian is one of the few herbal sleep supports with substantial randomized-controlled-trial evidence base.
Scientific / medicinal
Valeriana officinalis is in the Caprifoliaceae (formerly Valerianaceae). The plant is a tall perennial with feathery foliage and small white-to-pink flowers in midsummer. The medicinal portion is the dried root, harvested from 2-year-old plants in fall.
Active compounds: valepotriates (unstable iridoid esters; partially decomposed by drying and storage), valerenic acid and related sesquiterpenes (the more stable principal active class), GABA itself (small amounts; not the principal mechanism but contributes to effect).
Documented mechanism: valerenic acid modulates GABA-A receptor signaling — the same mechanism class as benzodiazepines and many pharmaceutical sleep aids, but with substantially weaker effect and substantially better safety profile. Effects build with several days of continuous use rather than producing strong acute single-dose response (a common reason patients trying valerian for one or two nights conclude it doesn’t work; the herb is more reliable when used over a 1–2 week course).
Documented clinical effects:
- Sleep onset and quality. Multiple meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials show modest but consistent improvement in sleep quality and reduction in sleep-onset latency at standard doses (300–600 mg root extract or 2–3 g dried root in tea before bed).
- Anxiety reduction. Effective for mild-to-moderate anxiety; comparable to baseline pharmaceutical anxiolytics in some head-to-head trials.
Practical
Common preparation: dried root in tea (the strong aroma must be tolerated); tincture; standardized extract capsules. Standard sleep dose: 300–600 mg standardized root extract or 2–3 g dried root, taken 30–60 minutes before bed. Effects build over 1–2 weeks of continuous use; single-dose effects are typically modest.
Cautions: valerian potentiates the sedative effects of alcohol and pharmaceutical sleep medications; combined use should be approached with caution. A small percentage of individuals report paradoxical stimulating rather than sedating response — the cause is not well understood.
The herb is easy to grow in temperate gardens (USDA zones 3–9); roots are ready for harvest in fall of the second year.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Shares substrate with: [[sleep]] · [[nervous-system]]
- Shares approach with: [[lemon-balm]]
- Member of: [[plants]]
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Medicinal
shares approach with
- Lemon balm traditional combination partner; the two are commonly used together
3 inbound links · 4 outbound