Passiflora (passion flower) herb is one of the best natural remedies I've tried for sleep. It hits some of the same receptors as the benzodiazepines, and is like a weak xanax, but is definitely different than valerian, which personally I don't tolerate b/c of the grogginess you mentioned. Think valerian probably hits different receptors - I also get severely depressed on valerian for more than a couple nights, while the passionflower is much "cleaner" and has none of those effects. If your issue is that you're getting too ramped up but you don't want to be groggy, the passiflora can calm things down and allow your natural sleep to kick in.
You said natural, but I've found benadryl can sometimes really help ramp down. Claritin, also, surprsingly, which is supposed to be non-drowsy, but definitely makes me sleepy. I buy generic loratadine and it's much cheaper than claritin. Usually only takes half a tab. If I take it more than two or three nights in a row I tend to get nightmares, but that might just be idiosyncratic to me, some liver issue I'm guessing, and might not affect you the same way.
Also, back to herbs, combinations of herbs like skullcap, hops, lemon balm, chamomile can help. One I've used that seems pretty good is called Melissa Supreme by Gaia (no affiliation). Think that has passiflora also, and a few other things, it really seems to calm the system down.
I've suffered sleep issues & severe insomnia for a couple years now, at first totally dependent on benzos, trazodone, & the occasional seroquel to sleep at times. I still take benzo here there, but try not to take too many days in a row. Usually the passiflora is enough now, until I hit a bad patch and need benzos for a couple days. I also take 10mg time-release melatonin, often augmenting with 3/6/9mg. of regular melatonin, which definitely helps - noticeable when I ran out and sleep got a lot worse.
King among all sleep aids, though, has been EEG neurofeedback, which is either ironic or understandable depending on how you look at it, as it was neurofeedback which first turned off my sleep to begin with. But sometimes a new protocol will trigger the insomnia again, and then adjusting it with more training over the next few days will adjust it back. Eventually I'm hoping it will fix it completely again, it's just a matter of finding the right protocol. If you can find someone near you who provides it, it's definitely worth looking into. Sometimes even a session or two can reset things that have gotten out of whack and restore your sleep again.
