Do Sour Cherries Help You Sleep? What Three Trials Found

Sour cherries have been tested for sleep in three small crossover trials, of 20, 15 and 8 people, with modest gains: about 25 minutes more sleep a night in healthy adults on 30 mL of Montmorency concentrate twice a day for a week, less time awake after falling asleep in older adults with insomnia, and 84 more minutes of recorded sleep in the 8 who completed the smallest, supplier-funded trial; a fourth, 30-day trial of 44 found none.^{1, 2, 3, 15} The melatonin that gets the credit is there, but in nanograms: about 13 per gram, so 100 g holds around 1.3 micrograms, roughly a thousandth of a prescription dose, and the better-supported explanation is that the fruit raises the availability of tryptophan.^{4, 3} The stronger evidence for tart cherry is recovery after hard exercise: 14 pooled trials, faster strength recovery (effect size 0.78), about 60 mL of concentrate a day.⁵ The other sleep ingredient readers ask about most has its own trials in the Wellgard ashwagandha guide.

Do sour cherries help you sleep? What the three trials found

Three placebo-controlled crossover trials carry the sleep evidence; a 2025 systematic review found seven interventional studies in all, three reporting better sleep duration, efficiency or onset, with doses and durations too different to pool.¹⁴ Sour, tart and Montmorency cherries are the same fruit, Prunus cerasus, and Montmorency is the variety in nearly every trial; sweet cherries are a different species with no sleep trials.⁴

Three placebo-controlled crossover trials, 43 people, a week or two each, each reporting a gain; a fourth, 44 healthy adults on juice or capsules for 30 days, found no difference in sleep time or quality.¹⁵ Every sleep ingredient's trial figures sit side by side on which sleep supplements have evidence, in the Wellgard sleep guide.

How much melatonin is in sour cherries?

Far less than most pages say. The assay behind the story measured 13.46 nanograms of melatonin per gram of Montmorency cherry, and 2.06 in the Balaton variety.⁴ A 100 g portion therefore carries about 1.3 micrograms. Melatonin is a prescription-only medicine in the UK, used mainly for short-term sleep problems in people aged 55 and over, and a tablet contains around a thousand times what the fruit supplies.⁶ Even the medicine's effect is modest: across 19 trials of 1,683 people it shortened time to fall asleep by 7 minutes and lengthened sleep by 8.⁷ The more likely explanation is the amino acid tryptophan: in the laboratory trial the juice lowered the ratio of kynurenine to tryptophan in the blood, and a cherry procyanidin blocked the enzyme that diverts tryptophan away from serotonin and melatonin.³

When should you drink sour cherry juice, and why before bed?

The trials did not test timing. Both concentrate trials gave one serving in the morning and one in the evening, and the insomnia trials split the juice the same way, so "before bed" is a habit rather than a finding, and no trial has tested a single bedtime dose (what to drink before bed ranks the drinks, foods that help you sleep the plate).^{1, 3} To copy what was studied: a serving on waking and one an hour or two before bed, every day for a week or two, since the trials measured effects after one and two weeks.

Is it safe to drink tart cherry juice every day?

Sour cherry is a food, and daily use for a week to a month is what the trials did; nobody has trialled months of daily juice, and no safety signal appeared in the eight-day recovery trials.^{8, 9, 15} Cherries are high in sorbitol, a sugar alcohol that draws water into the bowel, so juice volumes can cause wind or loose stools in some people; 30 mL of concentrate is a far smaller volume than two glasses of juice. The sugars are natural but real; anyone managing diabetes should count them. And a serving of concentrate supplies potassium, which matters to anyone with kidney disease or on a potassium-sparing diuretic or an ACE inhibitor: ask the pharmacist first; tart cherry juice warnings has the full list. In pregnancy there is no trial data either way; the fruit in food amounts is food, and a supplement is a question for the midwife.

What is tart cherry better supported for?

Recovery after hard exercise. A 2021 meta-analysis of 14 trials found that tart cherry taken around strenuous exercise reduced muscle soreness (effect size -0.44) and sped the recovery of strength (-0.78), mostly at about 60 mL of concentrate a day for a week around the event.⁵ Two UK trials set the pattern: 20 marathon runners on cherry juice and 16 trained cyclists on 30 mL of concentrate twice a day, each for about eight days.^{8, 9} Endurance moved a little, 0.36 across ten trials of 147 people.¹⁰ Small trials, mostly in trained men, but a clearer picture than sleep; what tart cherry is good for sets out every outcome.

How much did the trials use, and what does a serving of concentrate supply?

The UK sleep and recovery trials used 30 mL of Montmorency concentrate twice a day, 60 mL in all.^{1, 9} A concentrate's label states the serving, usually 30 mL (two tablespoons) a day, the grams of concentrated cherry it contains, its potassium, and the natural sugars. A single 30 mL serving is therefore half the daily amount the trials used, a fact about coverage, not a result. Potassium contributes to normal functioning of the nervous system and to normal muscle function. Tart cherry itself has no authorised health claim in Great Britain, so no sleep, recovery or inflammation wording may attach to it; the trials above are evidence, not a promise about the bottle.

Frequently asked questions

Which fruit or drink is highest in melatonin?

Tart cherries are the fruit most often measured, at about 13 nanograms per gram for Montmorency.⁴ No food or drink comes close to a prescription tablet: a glass of juice holds micrograms.

How much tart cherry juice should I drink every night?

There is no established dose. The healthy-adult trial used 30 mL of concentrate twice a day and the insomnia trials used 240 mL of juice twice a day; a single serving of concentrate is 30 mL.^{1, 3} More than that has not been tested.

Does sour cherry juice upset your stomach?

It can, at juice volumes: the sorbitol in cherries pulls water into the bowel, so two large glasses a day can mean wind or loose stools. Concentrate at 30 mL is a fraction of the volume; take it with food if your stomach is sensitive and stop if diarrhoea persists.

Does sour cherry juice help with gout?

In a year-long observational study of 633 people with gout, eating cherries in the two days before an attack was linked with 35% lower odds of one, and in 50 people with gout, 28 days of concentrate made no difference to urate or flares.^{11, 16} An association and a null trial; urate-lowering medicine prescribed by a doctor is the treatment: cherries and gout.

Does the "sleepy girl mocktail" work?

The drink is tart cherry juice, a magnesium powder and sparkling water. No trial has tested the combination (viral sleep rules and tricks); its parts have: the three cherry trials above, and magnesium's three trials in 151 older adults on does magnesium help you sleep.^{1, 2, 3, 13} Read the magnesium label's elemental figure (how to choose a melatonin-free sleep supplement); neither carries an authorised sleep claim.

Sources

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2. Pigeon WR, Carr M, Gorman C, Perlis ML. Effects of a tart cherry juice beverage on the sleep of older adults with insomnia: a pilot study. Journal of Medicinal Food, 2010. PubMed 20438325.
3. Losso JN, Finley JW, Karki N, et al. Pilot study of the tart cherry juice for the treatment of insomnia and investigation of mechanisms. American Journal of Therapeutics, 2018. Supplier-funded. PubMed 28901958.
4. Burkhardt S, Tan DX, Manchester LC, Hardeland R, Reiter RJ. Detection and quantification of the antioxidant melatonin in Montmorency and Balaton tart cherries (Prunus cerasus). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2001. PubMed 11600041.
5. Hill JA, Keane KM, Quinlan R, Howatson G. Tart cherry supplementation and recovery from strenuous exercise: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2021. PubMed 33440334.
6. NHS. Melatonin: about melatonin, who can and cannot take it. nhs.uk/medicines/melatonin.
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8. Howatson G, McHugh MP, Hill JA, et al. Influence of tart cherry juice on indices of recovery following marathon running. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 2010. PubMed 19883392.
9. Bell PG, Walshe IH, Davison GW, Stevenson EJ, Howatson G. Recovery facilitation with Montmorency cherries following high-intensity, metabolically challenging exercise. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2015. PubMed 25794236.
10. Gao R, Chilibeck PD. Effect of tart cherry concentrate on endurance exercise performance: a meta-analysis. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2020. PubMed 31986108.
11. Zhang Y, Neogi T, Chen C, Chaisson C, Hunter DJ, Choi HK. Cherry consumption and decreased risk of recurrent gout attacks. Arthritis and Rheumatism, 2012. PubMed 23023818.
12. Hillman AR, Uhranowsky K. Acute ingestion of Montmorency tart cherry reduces serum uric acid but has no impact on high sensitivity C-reactive protein or oxidative capacity. Plant Foods for Human Nutrition, 2021. PubMed 33506357.
13. Mah J, Pitre T. Oral magnesium supplementation for insomnia in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 2021. PubMed 33865376.
14. Barforoush F, Ebrahimi S, Abdar MK, Khademi S, Morshedzadeh N. The effect of tart cherry on sleep quality and sleep disorders: a systematic review. Food Science & Nutrition, 2025. PubMed 40964149.
15. Hillman AR, Trickett O, Brodsky C, Chrismas B. Montmorency tart cherry supplementation does not impact sleep, body composition, cellular health, or blood pressure in healthy adults. Nutrition and Health, 2026. PubMed 35790450.
16. Stamp LK, Chapman P, Frampton C, et al. Lack of effect of tart cherry concentrate dose on serum urate in people with gout. Rheumatology, 2020. PubMed 31891407.