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Wind-Down Routine for Parents: How to Switch Off After the Kids Go Down
By Roy, founder Last updated 14 October 2026 Once the kids are down, keep your wind-down short and fixed. About 20 minutes is enough to start with: a five-minute list for tomorrow, the lights turned down, and something calm that is only for you, such as a shower, a book or a drink. Let the rest of the chores wait. The evening's job is to get you to bed rested, not to finish the day's list. Australian sources recommend a longer buffer zone of about an hour before bed, and... Read more...
What to Do in the Last Hour Before Bed: A Plan That Fits a Real Evening
By Roy, founder Last updated 14 October 2026 In the last hour before bed, stop anything that keeps your head switched on, turn the lights down, and do one or two calm things in the same order most nights. That means work, email, hard conversations and interactive screens off. Then write tomorrow's list if it is on your mind, have a warm shower or read something quiet, and get into bed when you feel sleepy. Healthdirect and the Sleep Health Foundation both describe this stretch as a buffer zone, a... Read more...
Electrolytes Before Bed: What Sodium Does Overnight, and Will It Make You Wake to Wee?
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 You go about eight hours without a drink, and sodium is the mineral that helps your body hold on to the fluid it has. In lab trials, drinks with more sodium were retained better than drinks with less. What gets people up to wee in the night is mostly how much they drink close to bed, plus alcohol and caffeine, so a small glass with sodium 30 to 60 minutes before bed is a different thing from a big evening... Read more...
Sleep Aid Without Grogginess: What Causes the Groggy Morning, and What to Try Instead
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 The sleep aids most likely to leave you groggy are the sedating ones: the pharmacy antihistamine tablets and, for some people, melatonin taken late or in a prolonged-release form. If you want a sleep aid that won't wreck a 5am start, look for one with no sedating drug in it, and fix the things that matter more than any product: dose, timing, alcohol and how long you actually sleep. Nothing can promise a clear head for every person. This page... Read more...
I Used to Be a Great Sleeper: Why Sleep Gets Worse After 40, and What Helps
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 Sleep changes gradually through adult life. It gets lighter, more broken and a bit shorter, and plenty of people notice it in their 40s. The documented reasons are a body clock that drifts earlier, less deep sleep, more night-time trips to the toilet, and a life that carries more stress, caffeine and alcohol than it used to. For women, perimenopause adds another layer. What helps first is unglamorous and well supported: the same bed and wake times, daylight early in... Read more...
Is It Safe to Take a Sleep Supplement Every Night?
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 It depends on what you are taking. Prescription sleeping tablets are meant for a few weeks at most, because tolerance and dependence build with regular use. Pharmacy sleep aids made from sedating antihistamines stop working within days. Melatonin, magnesium, glycine and L-theanine have no recorded pattern of dependence in the trials I could find, but those trials run for days to months, not years. So nightly use of the gentler options looks low risk for most healthy adults, nobody has... Read more...
Melatonin Over 55 in Australia: What a Pharmacist Can Give You Without a Script
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 Yes, if you are 55 or over. In Australia a pharmacist can supply a prolonged-release melatonin tablet of 2mg or less without a prescription, for short-term use, in a pack of no more than 30 tablets. You ask at the pharmacy counter, the pharmacist decides whether it suits you, and everyone under 55 needs a script. A 2026 request to open melatonin to all adults is still only a proposal. No decision has been published as at 14 October 2026,... Read more...
Sleep After Menopause: What Helps, and Which Supplements Are Worth It in Australia
By Roy, founder Last updated 14/10/2026 Updated 14 October 2026 If you're past your final period and waking hot and sweaty, the option with the strongest evidence is a conversation with your GP about menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). If poor sleep has settled in as a habit, a structured sleep therapy called CBT-i comes next. Supplements sit on top of those two, not in place of them. Magnesium glycinate, glycine and L-theanine are the reasonable ones to try, all sold without a script in Australia, but none is a fix... Read more...
Settl vs sleeping tablets: the morning after is the difference
By Roy, founder Last updated 01/10/2026 There is a pack in the bathroom cabinet. You bought it for a flight, or a bad week, and now it comes out two or three nights in seven. You snap the tablet in half because a whole one leaves you wrecked until lunch. You have been meaning to find something else. Settl is that something else for a lot of people, and it is also not a sleeping tablet, so it is worth being precise about the difference before you decide. Settl is... Read more...
Settl vs a magnesium tablet: is one ingredient enough?
By Roy, founder Last updated 01/10/2026 You already take magnesium at night. You bought it because everyone said to, and it did something, or it did nothing, and either way you are still reading articles about sleep at 10.40pm. This page is for you. Short version: a magnesium tablet is one input. The night has three parts. Settl is built for all three: get to sleep faster, wake less at 3am, sleep deeper, wake up refreshed. What a magnesium tablet does, and does not Magnesium has one job in a... Read more...
Settl vs melatonin: which one tonight?
By Roy, founder Last updated 01/10/2026 You are standing in the kitchen at 9.45pm deciding what to take. You have a bottle of melatonin someone brought back from the States, or a pack from the chemist, and you have heard about Settl. Here is the honest version of that choice. Settl is a nightly sleep powder. One scoop in cold water before bed. It is built to do four things: get to sleep faster, wake less at 3am, sleep deeper, wake up refreshed. There is no melatonin in it, and... Read more...
Magnesium Glycinate for Sleep in Australia: Does It Work, and How to Pick One
By Roy, founder Last updated 30 September 2026 The best magnesium glycinate for sleep is one that prints the elemental magnesium on the label, keeps your supplement total under 350mg a day, and carries no vitamin B6 you did not ask for. The evidence that it helps sleep is real but small: the best trial so far found a modest improvement over four weeks in adults who reported poor sleep. Brand matters far less than reading the label properly, so this page shows you how. For a drink rather than... Read more...
Best Sleep Supplement for Shift Workers in Australia: What Actually Helps You Sleep in the Day
By Roy, founder Last updated 30 September 2026 For shift workers in Australia, the non-prescription options with some evidence are glycine, L-theanine and magnesium glycinate, and none of them will reset a flipped body clock on its own. The one with the most evidence is melatonin, which for shift work in Australia means a GP and a prescription, and even then it adds about 24 minutes of daytime sleep on low-quality evidence. What helps more is how you sleep: a dark, cool, quiet room, caffeine cut off around six hours... Read more...
Perimenopause and Sleep: What Actually Helps, and Which Supplements Are Worth It
By Roy, founder Last updated 30 September 2026 For sleep in perimenopause, the supplements with the most evidence are magnesium glycinate, glycine and L-theanine, all sold without a script in Australia. The trials are small, and none of them is a fix for the hot flushes and night sweats that wake so many women up. If night sweats are what's breaking your sleep, the evidence-backed route in Australia is a GP appointment to talk about menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), and if poor sleep has stuck around for months, a structured... Read more...
Yoga Nidra for Sleep: Get to Sleep Faster With a 10 or 20 Minute Practice
By Roy, founder Last updated 13/09/2026 Yoga nidra is having a moment in Australia, and most of what comes up when you search it is either a 45-minute YouTube recording or a page written for a yoga studio in another hemisphere. Neither answers the question people are actually asking, which is simple: does lying on your back listening to a voice for ten or twenty minutes help you get to sleep faster and wake less at 3am, and if so, how do you do it properly? Here is the short... Read more...
Will Melatonin Go Over the Counter in Australia? The 2026 Proposal, Explained
By Roy, founder Last updated 12/09/2026 Short answer: nothing has changed yet. A private applicant has asked the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to delete melatonin's pharmacist-only entry and replace it with an open-shelf pharmacy entry for adults 18 and over. That request went to the TGA's expert scheduling committee in March 2026. As at this update, no decision has been published, interim or final, and today's rules apply in full. This page sets out what is legal to buy right now, what the proposal would actually change, how a proposal... Read more...
How to Tell If a Supplement's Doses Are Real
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 A label can look completely honest and still tell you almost nothing. The ingredient is real, the studies behind it are real, and the amount in your tub is a fraction of what those studies used. None of that shows up as a lie. It shows up as a gap between what's printed and what's proven, and most people never go looking for it. Here's how to check for yourself, in about five minutes with any supplement in your cupboard. What's a proprietary blend,... Read more...
Buying From an Australian-Made Brand vs Importing: What Actually Changes
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 "Just import it, it's cheaper" comes up in every category eventually, sleep included. It's not a dumb instinct. Sometimes the exact same product, in the exact same jar, is genuinely cheaper landed from overseas than bought local. But "cheaper" and "the same purchase" aren't the same claim, and the gap between them is worth knowing before you click buy on an overseas site. Does the ingredient itself change? No. A molecule doesn't know which country it's in. Glycine made in Australia and glycine made... Read more...
What Does "Sugar Free" Legally Mean on an Australian Food Label?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 "Sugar free" sounds like one claim. On an Australian label it's actually three different claims, each with its own threshold, and a fourth word people assume is a claim that isn't one at all. If you've ever stood in an aisle wondering why one product says "sugar free" and another says "no added sugar" for what looks like the same amount of sugar, this is why. Is "sugar free" a real legal category? Yes, and it's narrower than the name suggests. Under Schedule 4... Read more...
What to Check on an Australian Supplement Label Before You Buy
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Most supplement labels are designed to be looked at, not read. Big claim on the front, small print everywhere else. You don't need a chemistry degree to see through that. You need about ten seconds per point, and you need to know where to look. Are the doses actually stated, or just the ingredient names? This is the single biggest tell. A legitimate label states a specific amount for each ingredient, in milligrams or grams, next to its name. If a product lists ingredients... Read more...
Why Australian and US Supplement Labels Don't Match
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Put an Australian supplement next to an American one and the labels barely look like the same kind of product. Different panel, different words, different claims on the front of the pack. That's not sloppiness. It's two different regulatory systems, and once you know the shape of each, both labels get a lot easier to read. Why do US and Australian supplement labels look so different? In the US, most of what we'd call a sleep or wellness powder sells as a "dietary supplement",... Read more...
Can You Legally Import US Sleep Supplements Into Australia?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 You've seen the bottle on a US podcast, in a US pharmacy aisle, in someone's Instagram story. It looks like any other supplement. Add to cart, it ships to Australia, done. Except a product that's perfectly legal to sell in the US can be a different thing entirely the moment it crosses the border here, and the label on the bottle won't tell you that. Is it actually legal to order supplements from the US? Generally, yes, within limits. Australia runs something called the... Read more...
Why Doesn't Settl Carry an AUST L Listing?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 If you've shopped for a supplement in Australia, you've probably seen a little code on the label: AUST L, sometimes AUST R, sometimes nothing at all. It looks like a stamp of approval. Mostly, it isn't. Here's what it actually means, and why Settl doesn't carry one. What does AUST L actually mean? AUST L stands for "Australian Listed" on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, run by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. A product with an AUST L number has been registered as a... Read more...
What Does "Manufactured in a TGA GMP Facility" Actually Mean?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 You'll see "GMP facility" on more labels every year, sleep powders included. It sounds like a stamp of approval. It isn't one, and knowing the difference is worth five minutes. What does GMP actually stand for? Good Manufacturing Practice. It's a set of standards for how a factory runs: how ingredients are received and checked, how equipment is cleaned between batches, how staff are trained, how a finished batch is tested before it's released, and how everything is recorded so a problem can be... Read more...
Listed Medicine vs Food-Format Supplement: What's the Difference in Australia?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Pick up two products off the same shelf. One has an AUST L number on the back. The other doesn't. Both promise better nights. Only one of them is allowed to tell you why. Most people have no idea which is which, or what that number actually buys you. What's actually different about a listed medicine? A listed medicine sits inside the Therapeutic Goods Administration's system. To carry an AUST L number, a product has to be entered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic... Read more...
What Does "AUST L" Mean on an Australian Supplement Label?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Flip over almost any Australian supplement and you'll find a small code near the ingredients list: AUST L, followed by a string of numbers. Most people walk past it. Worth thirty seconds, because it tells you something real, just not what most people assume it tells you. What does AUST L actually mean? AUST L means the product is listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, the ARTG, run by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Listed products sit in the TGA's lower-risk category. To... Read more...
Is Melatonin Available Over the Counter in Australia?
By Roy, founderLast updated 08/09/2026 If you've spent any time on TikTok lately, you've seen the gummies. Bright bottles, five-star reviews, a jar on every US bedside table. The obvious next question, if you're in Australia: can I just buy those here? Short answer: mostly no. There is one narrow counter you can buy melatonin over, and it probably isn't the one you're picturing. Here's the whole picture, current as at September 2026, with the actual rules rather than the version that gets repeated online. The short version Melatonin is... Read more...
Hydration and Sleep: Does What You Drink Before Bed Matter?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Does what I drink before bed matter? Yes, and it cuts both ways. Go to bed dry and the second half of your night runs hot, shallow and restless. Get the timing or the drink wrong and the cost shows up instead as a bathroom trip at 2am. That's the balance problem, and it's why "drink more water" and "don't drink before bed" are both half right. The real answer is not how much you drink at bedtime. It's what you drink across the... Read more...
Why Sleep Comes in Cycles, and What That Means for the 3am Wake-Up
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Why do I wake up between sleep cycles at all? Because everyone does. Sleep runs in cycles of roughly 90 minutes, and briefly surfacing at the end of each one is a normal part of how a night is built, not a fault in yours. Most of these surfacings are so shallow you never remember them. You roll over, maybe glance at nothing, and drop straight into the next cycle. The problem is never the waking. The problem is failing to drop back down,... Read more...
How to Build a Wind-Down Routine You'll Actually Keep
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Everyone has started a wind-down routine. Almost nobody is still doing the one they started. The problem usually isn't willpower. It's the design of the routine itself. How do I actually build a routine I'll keep? The routines that stick are short, anchored to something you already do, and identical every night. Ambition kills routines, not laziness. A 90-minute ritual with yoga, journalling, a bath and two books is a lovely idea that survives about four nights. A 20-minute loop you could do half... Read more...
Does Eating Late Affect How You Sleep?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Does eating late affect sleep quality? Usually, yes, if the meal is big and bed is close. A large dinner finished right before lights-out commonly makes the first half of the night restless, while a modest meal a couple of hours earlier rarely causes any trouble at all. That's the honest version. The folklore says never eat after 7pm. The research is less absolute than that. What actually shows up again and again is the combination of meal weight and timing: heavy plus late... Read more...
Falling Asleep vs Staying Asleep: Why They're Different Problems
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 "I sleep badly" covers two very different nights. One person lies awake for an hour with a busy head. Another is out in five minutes and wide awake at 3am. Both call it bad sleep, and both often reach for the same fix. That's the mistake this page is about. Why is falling asleep different from staying asleep? Because they run on different mechanisms. Getting to sleep is about switching off arousal, convincing a system still in day mode that the day is over,... Read more...
What Temperature Should Your Bedroom Be for Better Sleep?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 What temperature should the bedroom be? Sleep researchers commonly suggest somewhere around 17 to 19 degrees Celsius for most adults. Cooler than most living rooms, and cooler than most people expect. The exact number matters less than the direction. A bedroom that runs cool beats one that runs warm, almost every night of the year. Why a cool room helps Your core body temperature has to drop a degree or so before you fall asleep, and it stays low through the night. That drop... Read more...
Screens Before Bed: How Much Does It Really Matter?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Everyone has heard the rule. No screens for an hour before bed, the blue light will ruin your sleep. Almost nobody follows it. Here's the more useful question: which part of the rule actually matters? Does screen time before bed really matter? Yes, but probably not for the reason you've been told. The light itself matters less than what you're doing on the screen: a work email or a doomscroll keeps your head switched on in a way no screen filter can undo. The... Read more...
Does a Nightcap Actually Help You Sleep?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 The nightcap has centuries of good PR behind it. A whisky, a wine, a beer on the couch, then off to bed heavy-lidded and warm. It feels like it works. That feeling is real, and it's also where the trick is. Does a nightcap actually help you sleep? It helps you fall asleep faster, and that's where the favour ends. The same drink that knocks you out quickly wears off mid-sleep and fragments the second half of your night, which is why a nightcap... Read more...
What Actually Happens to Your Body When You Wind Down Properly
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Most people think of the wind-down as a mood. Candles, maybe some stretching, a vague sense of relaxing. Nice, but that framing undersells it. The wind-down is a physical process your body runs every night, whether you help it or fight it. What actually happens in the body during a proper wind-down? Broadly, three things: your core temperature starts to drift down, your nervous system shifts out of day mode, and your body's own melatonin begins to rise as the light drops. None of... Read more...
One Scoop vs a Cupboard of Separate Supplements
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Settl exists because I used to be the cupboard. Six separate products lined up on the kitchen bench, measured out one by one, every single night. This page lays out what buying each active separately actually looks like, honestly, and what one scoop covers instead. How does one scoop compare to buying each active separately? Replicating the Settl formula from standalone products means buying 6 to 7 separate items and dosing each one yourself, every night. One scoop of Settl carries all seven actives... Read more...
Is Settl Sugar Free? What Thaumatin Is, vs Stevia
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Settl tastes like passionfruit and carries almost no sugar, which raises a fair question: what's doing the sweetening? The answer is thaumatin, a natural protein most people have never heard of. This page covers the sugar numbers on the panel, what thaumatin is, and why we chose it over stevia. Is Settl sugar free? Each 9g scoop carries less than 0.1g of sugars, and the nutrition panel reads 0.1g of sugars per 100g. The Australian food standards code doesn't actually define a "sugar free"... Read more...
How Much Magnesium Do You Actually Need a Night?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Magnesium labels are a mess of big numbers, and most of them are measuring the wrong thing. This page lays out the actual Australian recommended intakes, the upper limit for supplements, and how to read a label so the number you compare is the number that matters. How much magnesium does an adult actually need a night? There is no per-night figure, because the Australian recommendation is a whole-day number covering everything you eat and drink. For adults it sits between 310mg and 420mg... Read more...
Proprietary Blends Explained: Why Doses Matter
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Pick up almost any sleep or recovery supplement and somewhere on the label you'll find the words "proprietary blend". It sounds like a trade secret worth protecting. Usually it's something simpler: a way of not telling you the doses. This page covers what a proprietary blend actually is, why brands use them, how to read one, and why Settl doesn't have one. What is a proprietary blend, and why does it matter that Settl doesn't use one? A proprietary blend is a labelling format... Read more...
Why Electrolytes Belong in a Nightly Drink
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Electrolytes got typecast. Somewhere along the way they became the property of gyms, marathons and neon bottles, and the idea of taking them at night started to sound odd. Settl's biggest active after glycine is plain sodium, with potassium behind it. Here is why. Why does a sleep drink need electrolytes? Because you lose fluid all night and can't drink to replace it. Sodium and potassium help the glass of water you have before bed stay with you through the night, instead of passing... Read more...
What Is Inositol, and Why Is It in a Sleep Formula?
By Roy, founder Last updated 18/08/2026 Of the seven actives in a Settl scoop, inositol is the one that raises the most eyebrows. It sounds like a lab chemical and reads like a typo. It's neither. This page covers what it is, why it turns up in evening routines, and why we put 900mg of it in every scoop. Why put inositol in a sleep formula? Inositol is in Settl because it steadies the night, the quiet stretch after you've already fallen asleep. Most sleep ingredients work on getting you... Read more...
Chamomile Extract vs Chamomile Tea: What Actually Ends Up in the Cup
Chamomile tea is a real ritual and a weak dose. What a teabag holds, what a 45:1 extract delivers, and how Settl keeps the plant without the mug. Read more...
Glycine Before Bed: What It Is and Why the Dose Is 3,000mg
The smallest amino acid, the biggest active in the scoop. What glycine does at night, why the dose is 3,000mg, and why capsules can't practically deliver it. Read more...
What L-Theanine Does, and Why the Dose Is 200mg
L-theanine is the tea-leaf amino acid that settles the head without sedating. What it feels like, why 200mg is a full dose, and why it never works alone in Settl. Read more...
Melatonin Alternatives in Australia: What Actually Works, and What You Can Actually Buy
Melatonin is everywhere, and it's not for everyone. Why we left it out of Settl, and what we built the nightly formula around instead. Read more...
Melatonin vs Magnesium for Sleep: What Each One Actually Does
Not all magnesium is equal. Glycinate, citrate, oxide and threonate compared, the doses worth taking, and when to take it before bed. Read more...
Tired but Wired at Night: What Actually Helps You Switch Off
Exhausted all day, wide awake at 10pm. Why the tired-but-wired feeling happens and the wind-down routine that ends the day properly. Read more...
Waking Up at 3am Every Night? What Actually Helps
Falling asleep is easy. Staying asleep is the hard part. The common reasons behind the 3am wake-up, and the simple changes that help you sleep through. Read more...