Catnip Tea: How To Make It, Benefits, Babies - Greatist

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GreatistCatnip Tea for Humans: Benefits, Risks, and How to Brew It

Medically reviewed by Sade Meeks, MS, RD, Nutrition — Written by Megan Brown — Updated on October 25, 2024

How to make catnip tea
Catnip tea benefits
Catnip tea for babies
Risks and side effects

Discover the potential benefits of catnip tea for humans. This herbal brew might aid sleep, ease anxiety, and soothe period pain. But be cautious of its side effects and consult your doctor before sipping.

Catnip doesn’t just help kitties get down and rowdy. Humans can also consume this plant from the mint fam when its leaves are dried and made into a tea.

So what are the health benefits of drinking catnip tea?

Sippin’ on catnip tea *might* help with:

insomnia
anxiety
period problems
colds and pain

But research on catnip’s effects on humans is super slim and outdated, and catnip tea comes with major risks for certain people.

Here’s what to know about catnip tea before you start sharing herbs with your cat.

How to make catnip tea

A cup of catnip tea is fairly easy to make.

Boil 1 cup water.
Add 2 teaspoons dried catnip leaves or flowers to your cup of hot water.
Let the tea steep for 10 to 15 minutes and cool down before you drink it.
For more flavor, add some lemon, honey, or agave.

If you’ve smelled catnip from your feline’s stash, you know it has a distinct earthy smell. It has a similarly woodsy, grassy taste. Adding lemon while the tea steeps will also help bring out its low-key mint and citrus flavors.

Possible catnip tea benefits

Anxiety relief and improved sleep

While this hasn’t been heavily researched in humans, catnip tea is believed to have a calming effect thanks to a compound called nepetalactone. This is similar to valerian and acts as an herbal sedative. The relaxation effect may help reduce anxiety, improve your mood, and help you sleep.

Take note: If you have insomnia and take a sedative like clonazepam (Klonopin) or zolpidem (Ambien), catnip tea could cause too much sleepiness. Chat with your doc before adding catnip tea to the mix.

GI issue relief

If spicy foods and hot sauce are the loves of your life, your gut might pay the price. Catnip tea may help ease stomach cramps and gas by relieving muscle spasms in your intestinal tract.

Period pain relief and regulation

Period pain can suck, and catnip might help with cramps by relaxing your body. Catnip can also stimulate uterine contractions, which could potentially help irregular periods get back on track. But again, there’s not much science backing these claims.

Cold remedy and pain relief

Catnip has been used as a cold remedy, a pain reliever, and a treatment for hives. But once again, this is strictly based on anecdotal evidence. You can try some catnip tea for your aches and cough, but it’s not proven to work.

Word of warning: Catnip tea IS NOT for babies

A screaming, restless baby can lead parents to try all possible solutions, but catnip tea shouldn’t be one of them.

Catnip tea is often marketed as a remedy for infant colic and a way to help bébé sleep through the night. But there aren’t enough studies on infants and catnip to know whether the herb is safe.

Catnip can cause vomiting in children, and the sedative effects could be too much for little humans.

Other risks and side effects of catnip tea

Drowsiness

One of catnip tea’s biggest benefits can also be its downfall. If you’re not trying to relax and catch some Zzz’s, you’ll want to avoid catnip tea. It’s especially not a good idea to drink catnip tea in the morning before that Zoom meeting.

Drink the tea at night to see how the drowsiness hits you.

Medication interactions

If you’re preparing for surgery, stop drinking catnip tea a few weeks before you go under the knife. The tea could interfere with your central nervous system or the anesthesia.

Catnip tea shouldn’t be mixed with other sleeping medications. Mixing it with over-the-counter cough and cold medicines is also not recommended.

Diuretic effect

Too much catnip tea may act as a diuretic and make you pee way more than usual. If you’re taking prescription lithium, this could affect how your body gets rids of lithium and result in too much of the drug staying in your body.

Early labor

Some people tout catnip tea as a “cure” for morning sickness, but it should actually be a hard pass for pregnant peeps.

Because catnip tea can stimulate uterine contractions, it’s possible that drinking the tea while preggo could lead to premature labor.

Worsening PID and heavy periods

The uterine contraction effect also makes this tea a bad idea for folks with pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or heavy periods.

Catnip tea can make PID symptoms and heavy flows even worse.

Upset stomach and vomiting

Even though some folks drink the tea to soothe and relieve digestive problems, it can bother others. If you experience an upset stomach after some sips, stop drinking the tea.

Too much catnip tea can also cause vomiting in adults and children.

Headaches

Although some people swear catnip tea helps relieve pain, it can cause headaches for others. Again, skip the tea or drink less if you’re getting headaches.

Allergic reactions

If you’re allergic to any plants in the mint family, you may have an allergic reaction to catnip. Seek medical attention ASAP if you experience an allergic reaction.

tl;dr

Catnip tea may help improve sleep, reduce anxiety, address period probs, or relieve pain, but research on this is slim and outdated. Keep it to a few cups per day to avoid excessive drowsiness and GI effects.

Because of its side effects, you’ll want to totally avoid catnip tea if:

you’re pregnant
you have PID
you have heavy periods
you’re taking lithium
you’re taking sleep medications
you’re preparing for surgery

You also shouldn’t give catnip tea to babies or children.

Before you start sippin’, it’s also a good idea to talk with your doctor to make sure the tea won’t interact with any medications or health conditions.

3 sourcescollapsed

Grognet J. (1990). Catnip: Its uses and effects, past and present.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480656/
Sarheed M, et al. (2020). Cellular base of mint allelopathy: Menthone affects plant microtubules.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7524878/
Sherry C, et al. (2008). Pharmacological studies of “catnip tea”: The hot water extract of nepeta cataria.http://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13880207909067451

FEEDBACK:

Medically reviewed by Sade Meeks, MS, RD, Nutrition — Written by Megan Brown — Updated on October 25, 2024

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Catnip Tea: How To Make It, Benefits, Babies - Greatist

So what are the health benefits of drinking catnip tea?

How to make catnip tea

Possible catnip tea benefits

Anxiety relief and improved sleep

GI issue relief

Period pain relief and regulation

Cold remedy and pain relief

Word of warning: Catnip tea IS NOT for babies

Other risks and side effects of catnip tea

Drowsiness

Medication interactions

Diuretic effect

Early labor

Worsening PID and heavy periods

Upset stomach and vomiting

Headaches

Allergic reactions

tl;dr

must reads

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