A recent TikTok trend called the ‘sleepy chicken challenge’, also referred to as ‘NyQuil chicken’, has led to many users on the platform cooking chicken meat in the liquid form of NyQuil—a syrup used to treat cold and flu symptoms. A common over-the-counter medication, NyQuil is known to cause drowsiness in addition to helping alleviate a fever, stuffy nose and cough. So, why are people marinating their meat in cough syrup, and what are the dangers that come with doing so?

In a TikTok video posted by Rob Flo back in September 2020, which now has over 4.7 million views, the user is seen pouring some NightTime—an alternative similar to NyQuil—on chicken, explaining in the voice-over that his wife had recently gotten sick and that he had previously used this ‘magic remedy’. “Sometimes the steam really makes you sleepy,” Flo stated in the now-viral clip.

@igrobflo

who wants a bite? #fyp #nyquil #foryou #chicken #fy #viral

♬ original sound - Rob Flo

Nearing the end of the video, the narrator said, “What you are looking for is that blue colour.” Once done with his cooking, Flo poured the remaining medication from the pan back into the original bottle. Looking at the rest of the creator’s content, one could assume that this concoction was shared with the only aim of going viral—and not to truly cure his wife of a cold. But the damage had already been done.

Shortly after this first video was shared, the hashtags #SleepyChicken and #NyQuilChicken started picking up on the video-sharing platform. While the latter has been banned from TikTok since then, videos of the challenge can still easily be found by looking up ‘NyQuil chicken’ on the app’s search bar.

Trying their hand at the ‘cooking’ trend, some users have shared their own version of the dish, switching Flo’s sizzling pan for a boiling pot. Others can be seen doing something similar with whole chickens instead of just the breasts.

In case you weren’t sure by now, cooking anything in any kind of cough syrup is an extremely bad idea. Not only will your food taste awfully bad, but boiling off the water in a medication could make it much more concentrated and thus raise the risk of an overdose. That’s where things get tricky.

“The risks of an overdose depend on what specific ingredients are in the medicine,” Forbes reported when covering the trend. Yes, different cold and cough medications tend to have different ingredients, but they also always have common active ingredients such as dextromethorphan, acetaminophen, and antihistamines like doxylamine succinate. Too much dextromethorphan, which is an opioid that’s commonly in cough suppressants, can result in “drowsiness, dizziness, seizures, nausea, vomiting, changes in blood pressure, constipation, breathing problems, blurry vision, twitching, palpitations, high fevers, hallucinations, brain damage, and even coma,” the publication listed.

Too much acetaminophen can damage your liver and lead to liver failure while too much doxylamine succinate can result in dry mouth, dilated pupils, rhabdomyolysis, insomnia, night terrors, hallucinations, seizures, and death. Oh and also, too much of any of these can even lead to death. I bet blue chicken doesn’t sound so fun now, right?

Doctor Aaron Hartman, a physician and assistant clinical professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), told MIC, “When you cook cough medicine like NyQuil, you boil off the water and alcohol in it, leaving the chicken saturated with a super concentrated amount of drugs in the meat.”

As if all of these weren’t enough, the trend presents even more risks for whoever in your friend group decides to be the cursed chef, as inhaling vapours of the syrup is essentially taking the syrup. In other words, you have no way of controlling how much medication is making it into your body. This in turn can make overdosing even more likely. Remember how teenagers were once robotripping on cough syrup in the pursuit of cheap highs? NyQuil chicken is basically what happens when they jump on culinary trends within the confines of their own homes.

The challenge is not the first nor the last dangerous (and even deadly) trend to appear online. The Tide Pod challenge probably comes to mind, followed by a swarm of newer harmful ones. As new as this specific challenge might seem, it actually wasn’t invented on TikTok. Its history as a meme and a YouTube trend dates back to as early as 2017, when Twitter user @trjstn tweeted an image of a few NyQuil bottles next to greenish-coloured pieces of chicken with the joke caption, “If she makes you NyQuil chicken…. do NOT let her go.”

if she makes you nyquil chicken.... do NOT let her go pic.twitter.com/ZiQbFcJ4TM

— tristan (@trjstn) April 20, 2017

I have tried everything you can think of to help me sleep. Meditation, reading before bed, yoga—I’ve even tried to give up coffee and tea. Sacrilege! Emphasis on the tried. Nothing seems to really do the trick, but a new (and weird) solution has appeared. A TikTok video went viral on the app towards the end of May, which showed a woman drinking boiled lettuce water for its apparent drowsing effects. Science actually agrees but we’ll get to that later on.

Yeah, boiled lettuce water—that does not sound appealing. TikToker Shapla Hoque uploaded a video where she tests this method and monitors whether or not it actually works. The clip has now been viewed a whopping six million times.

@shapla_11

if you can’t sleep, try this #lettucewater #insomnia #lifehacks #fyp

♬ A Day in My Life - Soft boy

In the clip she maps out her methods, “I’ve washed my lettuce and I’m gonna put it in a cup and then pour some kettle water. […] I added peppermint tea because I’m scared it will taste like shit and no—peppermint doesn’t make me sleepy so it won’t change anything.” Hoque goes on to update us on her journey into drowsiness throughout the clip, ending the experiment saying “another update, lettuce has crack because your sis’ is gone.” Hoque’s TikTok has inspired numerous other users to try the same hack.

Many agreed completely. Apparently, it’s been a long known secret. One comment wrote, “My mum used to do this for me, boiled water and [left] it in the pan for 5 min on minimum heat, always worked for me and it’s all natural.” Another wrote, “In Mexico people bathe their babies in lettuce baths, it’s a neat trick to get babies to sleep.”

In a later video, Hoque updated viewers on the details saying that the process to make the water took around 10 to 12 minutes and the effects began to hit around half an hour after drinking it. She also advised to not use peppermint tea because it can keep you awake. Hoque continued, “Also, reading the comments, people were telling me to use wild lettuce or romaine lettuce because apparently, they have more of the ‘sleepy’ chemical.”

@shapla_11

Reply to @tattooo_titch_tnt excuse my appearance I jus woke up lol #fyp #lettucewater #lifehacks

♬ original sound - shapla

Apparently, she’s right. Romaine lettuce does have more of the ‘sleepy’ chemical but what exactly is it? Lettuce leaves apparently hold a chemical called Lactuca Sativa, which has mild sedative properties. A 2017 study found that “romaine lettuce had a higher lactucin content compared to green and red lettuce.” Researchers tested the effect on mice and found that “the seed extract derived from green romaine lettuce significantly reduced sleep latency and increased sleep duration in pentobarbital-induced mice when compared to other lettuce varieties.”

“Thus, the seed and leaf extracts derived from romaine lettuce induced an increase in the sleep duration at low and high doses respectively,” the study continued. It appears that the science is there. I never thought I’d say that about a TikTok health trend. Furthermore, the study also suggests that some of the best methods to induce drowsiness are often found in more holistic approaches. Goodbye sleeping pills, hello lettuce water. So, now that you know that its sleepy factor has nothing to do with pesticides and other toxic products, are you going to give it a try? I think I might. Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.