Read This Before Using Quietude

What is Quietude?

Quietude is a sleep aid from Boiron. The manufacturer recommends it for providing temporary relief for restless sleep.

Quietude is a homeopathic formula for improving the quality of sleep. The principles of homeopathy require that minute doses of toxins and herbs be used to treat the very symptoms they may cause in large doses.

Therefore, in this case, the active ingredients of Quietude promote sleepiness even though large doses of each of them may cause insomnia.

There are 4 active ingredients in Quietude. All of them can be found in the official Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (HPUS).

Quietude is available in bottles of 60 tablets. The tablets dissolve quickly when placed on the tongue.

The recommended dosage of Quietude is 2 tablets dissolved in the mouth 3 hours before bedtime and then another 2 tablets dissolved in the mouth at bedtime. This homeopathic sleep aid is recommended for adults and children older than 12 years.

How the Ingredients Work

Hyoscyamus niger

Also known as henbane, Hyoscyamus niger was used by the ancient Greeks as a painkiller. It has also been used as a sedative for centuries.

In usual doses, henbane is toxic to humans but homeopaths use a watered down concentration of the plant extract as a remedy for different emotional disorders. The homeopathic remedy prepared from henbane is used to treat mental confusion, agitation, irritability, uncontrolled muscle movements, and seizures.

This homeopathic remedy is prepared from the entire henbane plant in full bloom. Once harvested, the plant is finely chopped down and soaked in alcohol for 10 days. The resulting solution is then diluted to remove the plant’s original toxicity.

The relevant medicinal properties of henbane are its analgesic, anxiolytic and anticonvulsant properties.

The calming effect on the muscles is believed to be due to the alkaloid, hyoscine.

Henbane is not strictly a sedative herb. However, it can help relieve some of the conditions that may make it difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

In this case, henbane can improve sleep by providing relief for pain, anxiety and uncontrollable muscle movements.

Nux moschata

Nux moschata is also known as nutmeg. The homeopathic remedy is prepared from the seeds of the nutmeg tree and commonly used to treat digestive problems, menstrual problems, and dry mouth.

Fresh or dried nutmeg can be used to prepare this remedy. The seeds are first treated with lime before they are soaked in alcohol. The resulting solution is used by homeopaths to treat stomach and rheumatic pains as well as mental conditions involving drowsiness.

A few studies suggest that nutmeg may help relieve stress and remove toxins from the body. The homeopathic remedy is also known to have anti-inflammatory properties.

However, those studies also show this remedy can boost brain activity. Therefore, its efficacy as a sedative is doubtful.

Basically, nux moschata is included in this supplement to help relieve pain and mental distress. Providing relief for these conditions may improve sleep in those affected.

Passiflora incarnata

Passiflora incarnata is also known as passionflower or maypop.

Passionflower is not only a homeopathic remedy, it is also used in traditional medicine for its sedative effect.

While the whole plant (freshly harvested or dried) is used to prepare the herbal remedy, only the fresh or dried leaves are used in homeopathy. In preparing this homeopathic remedy, the leaves are finely chopped and steeped in alcohol.

Although originally a remedy used in herbal medicine, passionflower is now commonly used by homeopaths to treat insomnia, anxiety and irritability. It is known as a tranquilizer and classified as a nervine (for soothing the nerves).

Therefore, homeopaths also use this remedy to control the sleep cycle and treat stress, hallucination, and seizures.

Passionflower is the only ingredient of Quietude with any direct sedative effect. The efficacy of the herb in the treatment of insomnia has been confirmed by multiple studies.

However, most of these studies used passionflower as an herbal tea and not as a homeopathic preparation. Even then the bioactive phytochemicals in herbal passionflower are still found in the alcohol-prepared homeopathic remedy.

Scientists believe that passionflower improves sleep and relieves anxiety by acting on the GABA pathway in the brain. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system and it blocks the effects of excitatory neurotransmitters and stimulants.

Therefore, improving the concentration and/or activity of GABA produces a calming effect in the central nervous system and eases the body to sleep.

Stramonium

Datura stramonium is also known as Jimson weed, stinkweed, locoweed, devil’s weed or thorn apple.

Although the stramonium plant is highly toxic, the homeopathic remedy prepared from it is safe and commonly prescribed for pain, asthma, night frights, hallucination, spasms, epilepsy and violent, mental disorders.

The juice of the plant is used in preparing the homeopathic remedy. Datura is the typical homeopathic remedy. The tropane alkaloids (hyoscyamine, atropine and scopolamine) in the plant which are responsible for its medicinal effects can also cause delirium and hallucination when ingested.

In addition, the toxic dose is only slightly above the safe, therapeutic dose.

Therefore, stramonium does not have any sedative effect. Rather, it may provide immediate relief for different conditions that may interfere with sleep.

Is Quietude Effective?

The manufacturer of Quietude promotes it as a homeopathic remedy for insomnia that is meant to help users easily attain deep sleep. Boiron also highlights that Quietude is unlike most of the other prescription sleep medications and herbal sleep aid because it has no addictive potential.

Quietude does contain natural products but its safety and efficacy are not well studied.

Generally, homeopathic remedies are poorly understood and are the subjects of very few studies. Of the 4 ingredients of Quietude, only passionflower is studied well enough to be recommended.

In fact, passionflower is not strictly a homeopathic remedy. It was adopted from herbal medicine. In addition, of the ingredients in Quietude, only passionflower is proven to be a sedative and/or an anxiolytic agent.

Therefore, the overall sedative and anti-anxiety effects of Quietude rest on Passiflora incarnata.

The rest of the ingredients in Quietude may help relieve nervousness, cough, restlessness, pain, stress and muscular spasms. While improving these conditions may help you sleep better at night, they are only effective for insomnia caused by those conditions.

Therefore, Quietude is a niche sleep aid not only because it is a homeopathic remedy but also because it is only effective for people who cannot sleep because of psychological and muscular disorders.

Furthermore, some of the homeopathic remedies in Quietude are quite dangerous at low doses. Stramonium and henbane are the most important ingredients with high toxicity.

Even though no adverse effect has been linked to Quietude, the combination of different toxic remedies in this product may produce some unforeseen outcomes.

If the safety of Quietude is doubtful, what about its effectiveness? Six out of 10 past users reported that Quiet was effective for their insomnia. Just as explained above, most of the users who found Quietude effective also suffered from restless legs, joint pains, muscle aches and other conditions that previously disturbed their sleep.

Those for whom Quietude worked reported that it did not leave them with groggy feelings in the morning. For most of the users in this group, the sleep aid worked from the first dose although it took a couple of weeks for a few users.

In addition, most users reported only very few side effects.

While there is no sleep aid that works for everyone, the success rate of Quietude is still lower than the leading natural sleep aids on the market.

Therefore, this homeopathic remedy cannot be recommended for everyone. However, if you respond well to homeopathy, Quietude is affordable enough to try out.