By Roy Newlan, 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 straight through, so you're supporting hydration across the one eight-hour stretch of the day when you can't top up.
Think about what overnight actually is. It's the longest gap between drinks you take on all day, every day. You breathe fluid out, you sweat some out under the doona, and Sydney summers don't help. Plenty of people wake up with a dry mouth and a headful of fog and blame the sleep, when part of the story is simply the fluid ledger. Plain water before bed is a half-answer. Without electrolytes, much of it passes through before you're even asleep, which is its own problem at 10pm.
Aren't electrolytes just for sport?
No, that's marketing history, not physiology. Electrolytes are for any stretch where you lose fluid and can't replace it, and a night's sleep is exactly that stretch.
Sports drinks put electrolytes on the map, so the association stuck: bright bottle, sweat, daytime. But the logic underneath, help fluid absorb and hold, doesn't care what time it is. If anything the case is stronger at night. During the day you can answer thirst whenever you like. Overnight you get one chance to set up your hydration, and then you're on your own until morning. That's the thinking behind our "wake up hydrated" line, and it's why sodium and potassium sit in the scoop next to the wind-down actives rather than in a separate daytime product.
How much sodium and potassium is in Settl?
Each 9g scoop delivers about 999mg of sodium and about 200mg of potassium. That's a deliberate, considered dose, not a sprinkle, and it's more sodium than a whole bottle of a typical sports drink.
| Settl, one 9g scoop | A typical 600ml sports drink | |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium | ~999mg (from sodium chloride) | Roughly 250 to 300mg per bottle |
| Potassium | ~200mg (from potassium citrate) | Often little or none |
| Sugar | Less than 0.1g per serve | Commonly 30g or more per bottle |
| Fluid it comes in | One small cold glass | 600ml, plus whatever the sugar makes you want next |
| Built for | The eight hours you can't drink | The hour you're sweating |
The full panel, with what every form delivers, is on the ingredients page. One practical note: the dose comes as powder you mix fresh, so there's no sugar doing preservative duty and no bottle of water shipped across the country.
Won't drinking before bed wake me up at 3am?
A big plain glass might. That's part of the point of the electrolytes. Sodium helps the fluid absorb and hold rather than sprint through, so the glass is small, cold and considered, not a half litre of water racing your bladder to 3am.
The 3am surfacing is its own subject and we've written about the 3am wake-up separately. The short version for this page: the Settl serve is one modest glass, taken as the last thing you do, and the electrolyte base is there precisely so that fluid works overnight instead of interrupting it.
Why is it a drink and not a capsule?
Because the doses don't fit in capsules, and because the fluid is part of the job. Nearly a gram of sodium plus 3,000mg of glycine is capsule-handful territory, and a capsule brings no water with it, which for hydration rather misses the point.
Electrolytes need something to hold onto. A drink delivers the sodium and the fluid together, which is the entire mechanism, and it turns the dose into a ritual: one scoop, cold water, the day is over. A blister strip on the nightstand doesn't tell your body anything. A glass mixed at the same point every night does. The same capsule-ceiling logic applies to glycine, which we've covered in the glycine article alongside why the magnesium is a glycinate.
How do the electrolytes fit with the other actives?
Sodium and potassium are the base layer, holding hydration through the night while the other five actives handle the wind-down. Two jobs, one glass.
L-theanine settles the head, chamomile quiets the day, glycine smooths the wind-down, inositol steadies the night, and magnesium helps the body unwind. Underneath all of it, the electrolytes work the quiet shift, so the version of you that wakes up is the hydrated one, not the parched one hunting for the water glass at dawn.
One scoop, before bed
If you've only ever met electrolytes in a gym bag, try meeting them at 9:30pm instead. One scoop in cold water, the last thing you do, and let the night run its course.
Start your nightly ritual, $99.95/mo. Rather try a single tub first? One-time is $120. Prices inc. GST.
Cheers, Roy