I've tried Chameleon and Valyrian root tea blends before thinking they might make good sleep aids, but I've never had any luck with them. A lot people say they find those very relaxing, but I wasn't even catching a placebo effect.
So for a while I just assumed all this herbal tea bullshit I see in stores and pharmacies must be just a step above homeopathic products. They're probably pretty good if you like the taste of the herbal blends and find sipping a warm beverage relaxing in itself, but otherwise a waste of time. Clearly if they really worked they wouldn't be sold in large supermarket chains. Instead they'd be relegated to the weird, near grey market status that Kratom seems to exist in, right?
Today at the store I just happened to notice something very alarming. A box of Kava blend tea was the absolute one and only herbal tea variety on the shelf to include a warning asking you to consult your doctor before use, and stating that minors and pregnant women should not consume this product.
Well, that warning instantaneously lit up the junkie addict center of my brain like a Christmas tree, and I impulse bought two boxes. This might have major negative health consequences? Wow, must be the fucking good stuff. I got home and brewed six of them into a single mug of tea, and yep, this shit is psychoactive all right. Subtle, but definitely not placebo subtle. It quite honestly feels similar to a moderate dose of Gabapentin, and it's making me sleepy.
I sure wish I knew this before I most likely took 15 years off the lifespan of my kidneys by using 200mg of Diphenhydramine every night for years just to have a fighting chance at falling asleep more often than every two days.
Kratom is a plant containing several natural opioids. These are fully structurally distinct from the classical opioids like Codeine or Morphine and their semi-synthetic derivatives like Oxycodone, Heroin, Hydromorphone, etc. But they activate the same receptors in the brain, and produce a very similar high.
It's currently legal in most US states, but the DEA really wants to criminalize it more and more as it grows into mainstream awareness. Thankfully it looks like they've yielded to popular backlash against scheduling it for the time being. While Kratom is an opioid, it is honest to god the safest opioid in existence. The most abundant active substance is only a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor (the primary receptor responsible for mediating the euphoric effects of opioid drugs). As a result, it is extremely difficult to fatally OD on the stuff, there isn't enough respiratory depression to halt breathing even at high doses, and it has a ceiling effect that prevents the out of control dose spiraling typical of attempts to compensate for growing tolerance with full agonist opioids. That said, Kratom does produce at least one full agonist opioid, but the concentrations are comparatively low enough to be ignored unless you're using an extract.
This combination of accessibility, legality, and safety profile makes Kratom a very popular and effective drug to use as an aid to quit harder opioids. If you have a tolerance to harder opioids you won't be able to effectively get high on Kratom thanks to the ceiling effect, but it will seriously take the edge off unless you were accustomed to large fentanyl doses.
It is also one of the only means of finding pain relief now that doctors almost universally transform into cops when it comes time to discuss being prescribed opioids.
(I just noticed that your comment is ambiguous, you've mentioned Kratom and Kava, but I'm not sure if you meant to only ask about Kava. The two are completely unrelated drugs with different effects and mechanisms of action. The only similarity between them is that they are both plant based drugs that have slipped through criminalization in the US.)
Also, I'm not aware of any cultural appropriation concerns with either of them, and they are not at risk of extinction like Peyote cactus is.