Closing the Evidence Gap in Wellness (w/ Katerina Schneider, CEO of Ritual)

You're watching another episode of The Rest Report. Today, we're taking a step back to look at the bigger picture — the wellness landscape as a whole. What's actually working, what's not working, what's just noise, and how we find our way back to health routines that are realistic, sustainable, and grounded in science.

When you look at the wellness space today, it can feel really overwhelming and confusing. The loudest voices, honestly, aren't always the most qualified, and the most viral advice isn't always the safest. As we head into 2026, the conversation is moving away from extreme biohacking and overnight transformations and toward something more grounded.

That's exactly why I'm so excited about today's conversation. I'm joined by Katerina Schneider, the founder of Ritual.

Natalie: Cat, welcome to The Rest Report.

Katerina: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat all things optimizing wellness and grounding ourselves in the basics and science.

From Welfare Hotel to Wellness Founder

Natalie: I'd love to start at the beginning, Cat. What led you to found Ritual?

Katerina: I was four months pregnant when I started the company. I didn't come from the supplement industry. I was actually an investor here in LA running a fund for Troy Carter, who was Lady Gaga's manager at the time. We invested in over 70 companies — everything from Uber to Dropbox, Warby Parker, Spotify.

I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I'm a refugee from Ukraine. We immigrated to a welfare hotel in Brooklyn. My dad became an entrepreneur, and I had invested in all these amazing CEOs and founders. I always knew I wanted to start something, but I didn't know what that would be. I never had an idea that just kept me up at night.

So when I got pregnant, I started looking at the supplement industry because I had to take a prenatal vitamin, and there was nothing that I really trusted for my health. I looked at the industry in two ways — from a safety and efficacy perspective. Is this safe? Is it going to hurt me? And does it work? Especially during one of the most critical life stages.

There was nothing that met my standards. Fast forward to today, we have the number one best-selling prenatal vitamin in the US and the only leading one that's clinically studied.

Natalie: Wow, that is an incredible story. As a fellow founder in the maternal health space and now a mission-driven founder in the sleep space, I love your lived experience behind it. Honestly, I think that's the way to go when founding wellness companies — you're starting from the source of truth.

Side note: I really love Ritual's prenatal vitamins. They were the only ones that didn't get me sick when I was pregnant, which is actually really hard to find.

Katerina: I hear that a lot. It's really hard, and you're already dealing with a lot of issues in pregnancy — you don't want to get sick from your vitamin too.

Why Help Yourself, and Why Now

Natalie: At BetterSleep, our mission has always been to help people sleep better in a way that feels genuinely supportive. We lean on evidence-based tools, behavioral science, and empathy — guided content led by psychologists and therapists. And now we have series like this, The Rest Report, where we talk to real experts about real problems.

Speaking of going deeper than quick fixes, you just published a book. It's called Help Yourself, and I've been so looking forward to talking about it. It covers science-backed practical approaches to nutrition, skincare, hydration, and the fundamentals. Why did you write this book, and why now?

Katerina: I've always been a fan of the wellness industry. I grew up in a slightly unusual way — my parents were into Ayurveda. We had a Norman Walker press juicer growing up. My mom had breast cancer, and I went with her to a lot of different alternative wellness treatments and centers. I had a blood type diet before I even turned 20.

So I'd been on the other side of the wellness space — the more, I would say, less researched side, the more "woo-woo" side. Starting Ritual, I became a lot more grounded in science. And I just felt like the industry became so overwhelming.

We've gone from 4,000 to over 100,000 supplements in the last 30 years without any major updates to regulation. Consumers in supplements and wellness have had to become their own investigators and federal agents — walking through the supplement aisles asking themselves, "Does this work? Is it safe to take? Does it actually work?" Same with all the wellness trends.

As someone who's been surrounded by some of the leading experts when it comes to medicine, science, nutrition, and wellness, I wanted to help people navigate what I do think is a really important aspect of health in a foundational way — and cut through the noise in a way that's also practical. It doesn't have to be really expensive. You don't need to invest in a $20 smoothie from you-know-where. I wanted to dissect the things I've learned and reference them with studies.

What Concerns Me Most About the Wellness Industry

Natalie: That's brilliant. We need more of this, so thank you. As someone who leads a sleep company, I watch wellness trends closely. A lot of what I'm seeing worries me.

Just taking the sleep space — there's so much content right now about supplements, melatonin gummies for your babies, for your cats, for your dogs. There's so much out there, and it's presented like a magic fix. What often gets left out is the why behind it. Why does this ingredient work? How does it interact with your body? Is it actually addressing the root cause?

That's what I appreciate about your approach. Whether it's the sleepy time elixir in your book or Ritual's magnesium, you don't just share what to take — you explain the science, the why behind these ingredients, how they work in the body, and who they're actually for. Because they're not for everybody. It feels less like chasing hacks and more like building real understanding.

From where you sit, what concerns you most about the current wellness landscape?

Katerina: I'd love to hear some of the wild trends you're seeing, too — being focused on supplements, I see that every day.

The things that concern me most in the supplement industry are rooted in those two categories I mentioned: safety and efficacy.

The Two Questions to Ask Any Supplement

Safety — and the Certifications That Matter

Katerina: On the safety side, consumers have had to navigate: is this safe for me? Is this going to hurt me? Certifications are a really good way for people to navigate the safety of supplements — never just take a brand's word for it.

Some of the certifications I look for when shopping the supplement aisle:

Clean Label Project. They test for over 500 environmental toxins and contaminants — things like glyphosate and heavy metals. Heavy metals are a category we could talk about for an hour. There are currently no health-protective measures when it comes to heavy metals in the space, and that's something I'm super passionate about.

USP and NSF. These verify that what's on the label is actually in the product. That seems wild to need, but especially in the sleep category — you mentioned melatonin — there are studies showing 9 out of 10 melatonin gummies are mislabeled. You hear anecdotally about people waking up more tired than when they went to sleep, taking really high doses of melatonin without even realizing they're loading it up as they go to sleep. So you really want to make sure what's on the label is there.

Efficacy — and What "Clinically Studied" Should Actually Mean

Katerina: On the science and efficacy side: how do you actually know your products are working? What concerns me is the proliferation of the term "clinically studied" — and "science." I think it's being completely misused, especially in the last year or so.

Consumers are starting to care more about products being science-backed and clinically studied, but there's no real framework for understanding what that means. At Ritual we have five clinical studies under our belt, and we've invested in partnerships with leading universities and research facilities.

When looking at supplements to check efficacy, there's almost a pyramid:

Baseline. Make sure the ingredients in the product are clinically studied and backed, and that the dosages in the product match the dosages in the clinical study. Often you'll have products that say "we have magnesium" or "magnesium bisglycinate," but the dose doesn't match the study shown for rest and relaxation. You can't actually make that claim.

Better. Find products that are actually clinically studied on the entirety of the product. That's important because you want to show how ingredients work together. And the population really matters — does the population of the study look like me? Women are not small men.

The holy grail. A company having clinical studies that are double-blind, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed, published in leading journals, with efficacious results.

Natalie: My mind is honestly blown. It puts a lot of work on the consumer, but the fact that you can have a clinical study and the dosage might not even be the same in the supplement — that's so wild, and so helpful.

From "Trust Me" Wellness to "Prove It" Wellness

Natalie: Misinformation makes it really hard for people to know who to trust. Where do you see misinformation hitting hardest, and what's fueling it?

Katerina: We've gone from a culture of mistrust and skepticism — where we're getting our news and information from TikTok or Instagram and AI in many cases — versus our healthcare providers, practitioners, or news sources. There's been a transfer of knowledge.

What we've been programmed to in the last few years is reliance on hot takes. Very quick hot takes where you have a quote-unquote expert with a green screen, referencing a study, and you think, "Oh, they're referencing this study. I should be taking this supplement." But when you zoom out and look at the study, a lot of these studies are on men. A lot are on rodents. They're not diverse populations. Does that evidence actually apply to our bodies, especially as women?

That's where the disconnect is. It's amazing that we're really interested in science finally — drawn to science, health, and wellness. But I think we've gone from an era of "trust me" wellness to an era of "prove it." And I'm so excited for that. Consumers are now asking for the proof, and that's helping fuel their decision-making.

Natalie: What you're saying makes so much sense. I'm not a man, I'm not a rodent. Give me things that are applicable to me as a woman.

Health Literacy, Not Better Answers

Natalie: It sounds like what you're describing comes down to a kind of health literacy — teaching people to ask better questions rather than to look for better answers. At BetterSleep, we try to do that through our content, our blog, our in-app guidance, making sure everything has a credible source behind it. It's on us to get that right.

Which brings me back to your book. Help Yourself is doing something genuinely difficult — taking complex, nuanced research and making it accessible without oversimplifying it. How do you walk that line?

Katerina: It's tricky. It's also how I built Ritual, and how it sounds like you're building BetterSleep — providing information so consumers can make their own choices around their health.

Not everyone wants to go as deep as others do. But providing the information for the person who does really want to go deep — we get excited if they want to go reference a study. If someone's going to follow the trail and go deeper and deeper, that's awesome.

For people who want a higher-level view, you use visual language and design to showcase information in a digestible, accessible way — pulling people in versus pushing science and clinical studies at them. That's super important and has never been more important culturally than right now.

What a Healthier Wellness Culture Looks Like in Five Years

Natalie: I want to end by looking forward, because I think there's actually a lot of reason for optimism. What does a healthier wellness culture look like to you five years from now?

Katerina: My lens of a healthier wellness culture is actually a deeper investment in women's health.

We've committed $5 million so far in research around women's health as a company. We have five clinical studies under our belt, most recently with Cornell around our prenatal vitamin. What I found when developing products for women was just the lack of existing clinical studies on those ingredients, on those categories — especially when it comes to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, and all these inflection points we face as women.

It's impossible to live in a world that feels healthy when we know very little about our bodies. The onus is on companies to invest in those clinical studies. The future for me is a deeper investment in clinical studies, so better products can actually exist out in the world.

There's been a pullback in funding at the NIH and around women's health, so it's important for companies — especially companies leading women's health — to invest in that research themselves. I have three girls. I want to make sure their future is bright, with a ton of options, body literacy, and education around all the life stages they're going to go through.

Natalie: I love it. I hope that's our future, too. So many of our users are like you, like me. For me personally, I was struggling with a health issue for years after I gave birth. My son is six years old now, and for the last five years I'd been struggling with the fact that I just couldn't sleep.

Ultimately, last year I found out it was because I was anemic. That was after going to so many doctors who never gave me a blood test after pregnancy to think, "Oh, maybe you lost a lot of blood in pregnancy."

So on your point about women's health — yes, absolutely.

When You're Struggling and Don't Know Where to Start

Natalie: For things like when you can't sleep, you just become desperate. As a mom, as a founder, I was desperate. For someone listening who feels overwhelmed, who's tried everything, who doesn't know who to trust or where to start — what's your one piece of advice?

Katerina: What happened to you is connected to my advice. If you're struggling with a health issue, going to a healthcare professional is number one.

A lot of times, especially with serious issues, we don't actually know what's going on with our bodies. It can sometimes be as basic as a deficiency in vitamin D or iron — and yet we invest in a cooling mattress or a sleep supplement.

Even though I'm selling supplements for a living, I'd rather people be healthy and understand their bodies and have longer-term health than a quick fix. Avoid quick fixes. If you are struggling with a health issue — I'm clearly not a healthcare professional — but going to your healthcare professional is critical.

The Sleep Supplement Conversation: Magnesium, Tart Cherry, and the Melatonin Question

Katerina: Maybe you're not struggling with a health issue. Maybe you already have great sleep but want even better sleep. Here's what I learned formulating two sleep products at Ritual — how to navigate supplements in the sleep category.

I thought magnesium was a really amazing supplement for sleep. It turns out magnesium is really good for rest and relaxation of your muscles and your mind, but there wasn't enough clinical evidence around magnesium and deep sleep — what people are connecting it to culturally. That was interesting to me.

It's how we formulated our magnesium supplement. We layered in a clinical dose of tart cherry from Michigan — tart cherry is what had clinical studies around sleep. The combination of something with the potential to relax your muscles and mind, plus something with clinical evidence around sleep, has been really effective.

We also launched a melatonin product. I know there's a lot of skepticism around that space, but it's one of the most clinically studied ingredients when it comes to sleep, especially for people dealing with severe sleep issues. We took a different approach there.

A lot of people were taking melatonin gummies — and 9 out of 10 melatonin gummies were mislabeled. People were taking way too much melatonin at the beginning of the night, then waking up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep, and waking up groggy.

What we created is a BioSeries melatonin. It's almost like microdosing throughout the night — it mimics your body's release of melatonin. We ran the clinical study with Exeter University, and people actually woke up rested.

I'd say "pick your player." I don't think melatonin is for everybody. I personally take the magnesium product every night. I'll take the melatonin product when I'm traveling, to adjust to jet lag. But I couldn't take a high dose of melatonin at the top of the night. I would certainly wake up in the middle of the night.

Natalie: I completely agree. When you're really struggling, getting actual medical care is sometimes what's necessary. What I'd add is that — especially if you're a woman — it might take a couple of iterations. For me, it took seeing four or five doctors to get to my root cause.

If you really feel like you're struggling, the expensive shiny solution isn't your answer. It's getting that medical help. And if you don't get the answer on the first go, keep trying. Your health really matters.

That's one of the key things at BetterSleep we're trying to support people with. At the end of the day, if you're really struggling, you need to connect with a medical specialist. In the interim, you can connect with the basics — which is what we try to help with at BetterSleep. Clearing your mind. Helping you sleep soundly. Building the foundations of good health through good sleep.

If you're really struggling, there is help — sometimes through medical advice, sometimes through getting back to the basics. Everything you're doing at Ritual is really similar to what we're doing here at BetterSleep with our advisors: helping users get to the root cause of what they're struggling with.

Where to Find Katerina

Natalie: Cat, this conversation has been exactly what I hoped it would be. Grounding, honest, and genuinely useful. Thank you for all the work you do and for bringing that same commitment to science and transparency to Ritual. Where can people find you to learn more?

Katerina: The best place to learn more about Ritual is on ritual.com. I love sending people to our site because we share our clinical studies — it's a place to dig in on the ingredients.

Ritual is sold nationwide in Target. We're in Walmart, and more recently on the West Coast in Costco. Whole Foods nationwide. Amazon. The book, Help Yourself, is on Amazon. I hope you enjoy it.

Natalie: Thank you, Cat. This was such a wonderful conversation, and I'm so grateful for your time and all the wisdom you shared with us.

Katerina: Thanks so much.

If you take one thing away from today: wellness does not have to be complicated. The basics done consistently are enough.

Follow BetterSleep for more science-backed resources, subscribe to The Rest Report, and take good care of yourselves out there.