I’ve recently added something new to my nighttime routine.

And unlike most wellness habits I’ve tried, this one didn’t involve buying a red light, waking up at 5am, or doing seventeen things before I’m allowed to go to sleep.

It’s glycine.

I started taking it at night before bed, and the thing I’ve noticed isn’t necessarily that it completely knocks me out.

It’s how I feel the next morning.

I’ve been sleeping properly and then waking up feeling… awake.

Which sounds like an incredibly basic requirement of sleep, but if you’ve ever slept eight hours and woken up feeling like you were hit by a small bus, you’ll understand why this got my attention.

There have been mornings lately where I’ve opened my eyes and thought:

Wait. I actually feel rested?

Naturally, I needed to know why.

First: What even is glycine?

Glycine is an amino acid, one of the building blocks your body uses to make proteins.

Your body can produce glycine itself, and you also get it through foods containing protein. It’s involved in a whole list of processes in the body, including the nervous system.

And this is where things get interesting for sleep.

Glycine acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and nervous system, and researchers have been investigating whether taking it before bed could influence sleep quality.

Small human studies have found improvements in people’s perceived sleep quality after taking glycine before bedtime. There’s also research suggesting it may help people feel less tired the following day after restricted sleep.

Suddenly my suspiciously good mornings started making a little more sense.

The body-temperature connection is kind of fascinating

One proposed explanation has to do with something we don’t talk about nearly enough when discussing sleep:

body temperature.

Your core body temperature naturally falls as you prepare for sleep.

It’s part of the biological transition from we’re awake and doing things to okay babe, we’re shutting down for the night.

Research on glycine suggests it may increase blood flow near the skin and help lower core body temperature. Scientists have proposed that this temperature change could be one mechanism behind its potential effect on sleep.

I find this fascinating because we’re constantly being sold things designed to make us sleep.

Sometimes the actual biology is much less glamorous.

Your body basically wants to cool down.

But it’s the morning after that sold me

This has been the biggest thing for me.

I don’t just want to fall asleep.

I want sleep to actually do its job.

I want to wake up feeling restored rather than negotiating with my alarm clock like we’re going through a difficult divorce.

And interestingly, one small study looked at people whose sleep was deliberately restricted. Participants took 3 grams of glycine or a placebo before bed.

Those taking glycine reported less fatigue the following day, and researchers also found improvement on one measure of vigilance.

That obviously doesn’t mean glycine guarantees you’ll leap out of bed looking like a woman in a mattress commercial.

But it caught my attention because it mirrors what I’ve personally been noticing.

I’m waking up and actually feeling like I’ve slept.

And that is the entire point, no?

Is glycine a miracle sleep supplement?

No.

And this is where wellness TikTok and I occasionally need to have a meeting.

The research is promising, but it’s not enormous.

A systematic review of human glycine research found potential benefits for sleep, but also pointed out that the studies in healthy people were small and had a high risk of bias. We need larger, better-quality trials before anyone can confidently say glycine is the answer for better sleep.

So I’m not throwing away everything else I know about sleep and putting glycine on a tiny pedestal beside my bed.

I’m still paying attention to the basics.

Getting enough sleep in the first place.

Keeping my room cool.

Trying not to scroll myself into another dimension at midnight.

Giving myself time to wind down.

Getting daylight during the day.

Glycine is one little addition to that bigger picture.

What I’ve learned from trying it

The biggest lesson for me has actually been that good sleep isn’t just about the number on the clock.

Eight hours isn’t automatically eight good hours.

How restored you feel matters too.

And since adding glycine to my nighttime routine, I’ve noticed a genuine difference in that feeling.

Could some of that be because I’m also being more intentional about sleep generally?

Absolutely.

I’m one person, not a clinical trial.

But that’s also how I like approaching wellness these days.

I try something.

I pay attention to my body.

I look at what the research actually says.

And then I decide whether it’s earning a place in my routine.

Right now?

Glycine is staying.

Because waking up and thinking wow, I slept GOOD instead of immediately calculating how soon I can get back into bed?

Tiny luxury.