Proco Products and Mental Health Medications: Interactions to Know Before You Combine Them

September 8, 2026

If you take a prescription medication for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or another mental health condition, and you're also considering magnesium, omega-3, or one of our sleep or cognitive blends, this is worth ten minutes of your time before you combine them. Some of these interactions are minor and just mean "you might feel extra drowsy." A couple are worth a real conversation with the person who prescribes your medication.

This article is general education, not personalized medical advice. It cannot know your dose, your diagnosis, your other medications, or your health history — only your prescriber or pharmacist can weigh all of that together. Mental health medications in particular should never be started, stopped, or adjusted based on something you read online. If you're on one, the right move is to bring this list to your next appointment or call your pharmacist before adding anything new.

Why these interactions happen at all

Most of what follows falls into one of three buckets. First, additive sedation — two things that both make you drowsy, taken together, can make you more drowsy than either alone. This is the most common issue on this list and usually the least serious, but it matters if you drive or operate machinery. Second, changes to how your body processes a drug — a supplement that affects liver enzymes or a hormone system can raise or lower how much of your medication is actually active in your body. Third, and rarest, a supplement that competes for the same biological pathway as the medication, which is the category the L-tyrosine and MAOI interaction below falls into.

13.2%

of U.S. adults used an antidepressant medication in the past 30 days, per CDC/NCHS data — which is exactly why a supplement brand needs to get this right. Source: CDC/NCHS

None of this is a reason to be afraid of supplements. It's a reason to have one more conversation before you combine them.

SSRIs and SNRIs

SSRIs (like sertraline, escitalopram, fluoxetine) and SNRIs (like venlafaxine, duloxetine) are the most commonly prescribed class of mental health medication, so they're the one most Proco customers will actually be checking against. The main thing to know about is melatonin. Mayo Clinic's drug interaction data notes that fluvoxamine, an SSRI, can raise melatonin levels in the body and cause unwanted drowsiness, and more broadly flags that melatonin can have an additive sedative effect with CNS-depressant medications generally. This isn't a dangerous interaction, but it's a real one — if you're on an SSRI or SNRI and want to try melatonin (found in our Sleep Support and Sleep Formula blends), it's worth starting at a lower intake and asking your prescriber or pharmacist whether your specific medication is one that tends to interact.

Magnesium and omega-3 don't have documented direct interactions with SSRIs or SNRIs. Omega-3's main interaction concern is with blood-thinning medications, covered briefly below.

MAOIs — the one to actually take seriously

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (phenelzine, tranylcypromine, isocarboxazid, and the selegiline patch) are prescribed less often today than they used to be, but if you're on one, this is the interaction on this page that deserves real attention: L-tyrosine, an amino acid in our Cognitive Support blend.

Tyrosine is the direct precursor your body uses to build dopamine and norepinephrine. MAOIs work by blocking the enzyme that normally breaks those neurotransmitters down. Put the two together and you can end up with more dopamine and norepinephrine activity than your body is used to regulating — the same basic mechanism behind the well-known tyramine/MAOI food interaction, just via a different amino acid. Drugs.com's interaction database classifies L-tyrosine with MAOIs like selegiline as a major interaction and recommends avoiding the combination. Warning signs of a hypertensive reaction include severe headache, visual changes, chest pain, or unexplained nausea — this is not a "wait and see" situation, it's a "call your prescriber before you start" situation. If you're on an MAOI, skip L-tyrosine and Cognitive Support unless your prescriber has specifically told you it's fine.

Benzodiazepines and other calming medications

Benzodiazepines (like alprazolam, lorazepam, clonazepam) and related sedative-hypnotics are prescribed for anxiety and sleep, and the concern here is additive sedation from several of our ingredients at once.

Valerian is the clearest case: the Merck Manual states plainly that valerian may prolong the effect of other sedatives and specifically advises against combining valerian with sedative medications or alcohol. Ashwagandha carries a similar caution — its botanical name, Withania somnifera, literally translates to "sleep-inducer," and interaction databases flag it for added drowsiness when combined with benzodiazepines, sleep medications, or opioids. Melatonin, as noted above, carries the same general additive-sedation flag with CNS depressants.

GABA is a slightly different story, and worth being honest about: the research on GABA supplements and medication interactions is genuinely incomplete, and — as we've written about separately — how much orally supplemented GABA actually reaches GABA receptors in the brain (the same receptors benzodiazepines act on) is a real open question, not a settled one. That doesn't mean assume it's automatically safe to combine with a benzodiazepine; it means the evidence to reassure you either way just isn't there yet, so it belongs in the same "ask first" conversation as everything else here. See our piece on what oral GABA supplements can and can't do for more on that.

None of this means these ingredients are off-limits if you're on a benzodiazepine — plenty of people manage both. It means the sensible order of operations is: ask your prescriber, start with one new thing at a time, and pay attention to how sedated you feel, especially before driving.

Lithium

Lithium has one of the narrowest therapeutic windows of any commonly prescribed psychiatric medication — the gap between an effective blood level and a toxic one is small, and lithium levels are sensitive to hydration, sodium balance, and kidney function. That's the context worth knowing if you're on lithium and considering magnesium. Major interaction checkers, including the one referenced in our own piece on how magnesium interacts with medications, do not list a confirmed direct pharmacological interaction between oral magnesium and lithium. But because lithium's safety margin depends so heavily on your fluid and electrolyte status, and because higher doses of magnesium can cause loose stools or diarrhea in some people, meaningful fluid loss from any cause is a legitimate reason to loop in whoever monitors your lithium levels — not because magnesium itself is dangerous, but because anything that changes your hydration is relevant when you're on a drug this dose-sensitive.

If ashwagandha is also part of the picture, there's a second, unrelated reason to mention it to your care team: lithium itself is well known to affect thyroid function over time, and ashwagandha has separately been shown in research to raise thyroid hormone levels. Neither is dangerous on its own, but if you're on lithium and someone is already keeping an eye on your thyroid, adding ashwagandha is worth mentioning at your next check.

Other mood stabilizers

For anticonvulsant-type mood stabilizers such as valproate/valproic acid and lamotrigine, two of our ingredients show up in interaction databases, both rated moderate rather than severe. Ashwagandha and valproate is flagged because both can, rarely, affect liver function, and combining two things with that shared risk profile is generally something to monitor rather than avoid outright. Valerian and lamotrigine shows up for two reasons — the general additive-sedation effect described above, and some early laboratory evidence that valerian may weakly affect an enzyme pathway involved in clearing lamotrigine from the body. That second point is based on lab and animal data rather than strong human trials, so it's a "worth asking about" flag rather than a settled finding.

A quick note on omega-3 and blood thinners

This isn't a mental-health-medication interaction, but it comes up often enough for people managing both a mood disorder and cardiovascular health that it's worth a mention: high-dose omega-3/fish oil can have a mild antiplatelet effect, and periodic monitoring is reasonable if you're on an anticoagulant. We've covered this in detail separately rather than duplicate it here — see does fish oil interact with blood thinners.

Bacopa and the Cognitive Support blend

Bacopa monnieri, the other standout ingredient in our Cognitive Support blend alongside L-tyrosine, has some preliminary evidence worth flagging honestly rather than ignoring. Early research (mostly animal studies) suggests bacopa may raise thyroid hormone (T4) levels, similar to the ashwagandha effect above, and may weakly affect liver enzymes involved in metabolizing certain psychiatric medications. This evidence is limited and not the kind of thing that should cause alarm, but if you're on an antipsychotic or another medication that's sensitive to liver enzyme activity, it's a reasonable thing to mention to your prescriber before adding bacopa.

Key takeaway: Most of these interactions are about additive drowsiness — real, but manageable with a conversation and some caution. The one to genuinely avoid without medical guidance is L-tyrosine with an MAOI. Everything else on this page is a reason to ask before you combine, not a reason to assume the worst.

Bottom line

Supplements aren't inert just because they're sold over the counter, and mental health medications aren't a category to guess around. If you take an SSRI, SNRI, MAOI, benzodiazepine, lithium, or another mood stabilizer, the safest way to add any supplement — ours or anyone else's — is to tell your prescriber or pharmacist what you're taking and let them check it against your specific medication, dose, and health history. Never stop, skip, or reduce a prescribed mental health medication based on anything in this article or anywhere else online.

This article is for informational purposes only and has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It is not a substitute for advice from your doctor or pharmacist, especially regarding any medication you take for a mental health condition — never stop or change a prescribed medication without talking to the prescriber first.