A well-stacked nootropic supplement can bring many benefits to your cognitive performance. A majority of people will associate this with enhanced focus, concentration, memory, intelligence, and creativity. While these benefits are sure to boost your performance, they’re no good if you don’t have the energy to utilize them.
Without mental energy, you could find yourself experiencing frequent brain fog, brain fatigue, poor judgement, loss of motivation over the simplest tasks, and losing your train of thought often. If your nootropic supplement fails to improve your energy, it could render all of the other amazing benefits useless.
Before you start shopping for an energy-boosting nootropic supplement, you should understand what it is you’re looking for and how it works to prevent brain fog and fatigue. With the proper research, you could save yourself from false nootropics and dangerous ingredients.
How Do Nootropics Improve Energy?
Nootropics are going to be much different than the typical energy supplements we see today. Energy drinks, coffee, and pre-workout are the preference among most people, but they only lead to a crash and more serious medical concerns. They essentially give you what you need in the short-term, but damage you in the long-term.
That’s not a great way to treat your body, but there are alternatives that can give you that energy boost while working to improve your mental performance.
Nootropics will work naturally to provide energy to your brain throughout the day. When we look at the brain and how it functions, there are four main areas where nootropics will benefit your mental energy — producing adenosine triphosphate, normalizing neurotransmitters, managing stress, and enhancing blood flow to the brain.
Let’s dive a little deeper into these four benefits.
Producing Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)
A nootropic supplement with the right ingredients will help to boost the production and efficiency of mitochondria in your cells. These tiny organelles are the main producers of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in our body, which our cells use for energy. Without healthy mitochondria to break down other compounds into ATP, we will begin to lose energy.
Normalizing Neurotransmitters
Our brains are filled with neurotransmitters that transmit signals from one neuron to a nearby cell. Nootropics will benefit these neurotransmitters in many different ways, especially since the neurotransmitters act in different ways. Two types of neurotransmitters can affect your energy — excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters.
Excitatory neurotransmitters increase the likelihood of a connection, which translates to better cognitive function. Inhibitory neurotransmitters decrease the likelihood of a connection and are known to relax the mind. When you find a healthy balance between the two, you will perform at peak times and be able to get a full night’s rest when it’s time.
Managing Stress
There are many nootropics that will help you relieve and prevent stress in your life. Having stress lingering around can make it tough to get through the day, while also making it difficult to sleep at night. This 24/7 restlessness and stress causes us to burn through our energy much quicker than normal.
When you’re not burning through your energy and you combine that with other nootropics that increase the production of energy compounds, you get increased mental energy throughout the day.
Increasing Blood Flow
Another way our brain cells produce energy is with a steady flow of glucose and oxygen. In order to properly transport these to the brain, a healthy blood flow is required. There are several nootropic ingredients that will achieve this, but not every nootropic product will take advantage of them.
If your nootropic hits the four points made above, you can expect to see an increase in brain energy levels throughout the day. You won’t run out of energy as fast and will always have a steady supply of it.
Best Nootropic Ingredients For Energy
You will come across countless different ingredients when searching for the right nootropic product, but they don’t all perform as claimed. Avoiding ingredients with claims and focusing on the ones with scientific research will ensure your nootropic stack works as intended.
We’ve detailed 8 of the most effective nootropic ingredients for energy. Try to find a product that utilizes one or more of these ingredients.
Acetyl-L-Carnitine
- What It Is: This amino acid is essential to helping our body produce energy. It boosts the amount of mitochondria in our brain cells, which increases the production of energy. It’ll help to restore and protect these mitochondria.
- Recommended Dose: 1,000-2,000mg daily
- Side Effects: Dry mouth, restlessness, nausea, and headaches in high doses.
Rhodiola Rosea
- What It Is: Rhodiola rosea is a traditional form of medicine that acts to relieve anxiety and stress. Furthermore, it improves your cognitive function when under stress. It’s a proven fact that we use more energy when stressed, so anything that will relieve you of it will promote higher energy levels.
- Recommended Dose: 100mg daily
- Side Effects: Drowsiness, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and trouble sleeping in high does.
B-Vitamins (1, 6, 9, 12)
- What It Is: Vitamin B12 is used for cell energy metabolism, while Vitamins B6 and B9 help to improve blood flow to the brain. Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) is essential for glucose metabolism.
- Recommended Dose: B1 (1.2mg), B6 (1.3mg), B9 (400mcg), B12 (2.4mcg)
- Side Effects: Nausea, blurry vision, thirst, skin conditions, and headaches in high doses.
L-Theanine
- What It Is: L-Theanine is a definite for any nootropic claiming to boost mental energy. It is known to maximize the effects of stimulants, while suppressing the jitter feeling and crash. If you happen to find caffeine in your nootropic stack, it’s best if paired with L-Theanine. It can also improve sleep quality.
- Recommended Dose: 100mg daily (less if paired with caffeine)
- Side Effects: Upset stomach, nausea, and irritability in high doses.
Ginkgo Biloba
- What It Is: Ginkgo biloba works to increase the blood flow to your brain. It does this in two ways: making your blood thinner and expanding your blood vessels. More blood flow to the brain means more glucose and oxygen.
- Recommended Dose: No more than 100mg daily
- Side Effects: Upset stomach, headaches, and sleepiness in extremely high doses.
TeaCrine
- What It Is: TeaCrine is similar to caffeine, working as a stimulant to increase energy and focus. This is preferred over caffeine due to the large amounts of caffeine we already consume on a daily basis.
- Recommended Dose: 150-300mg daily
- Side Effects: Increased heart rate, nausea, and headaches in high doses.
L-Tyrosine
- What It Is: L-Tyrosine will act similarly to Rhodiola Rosea by relieving anxiety and stress. It will allow you to perform better in stressful situations, which helps you store your energy for later. Pairing this with other nootropics can maximize the effects.
- Recommended Dose: 150-300mg daily (more is better)
- Side Effects: Headaches, heartburn, and nausea in high doses, but extremely rare.
Citicoline
- What It Is: Citicoline effectively delivers choline and uridine to the brain, which will improve its overall performance. One of the specific benefits of citicoline is increasing the amount of ATP stored in the frontal cortex. This will increase your levels of brain energy.
- Recommended Dose: 250mg daily
- Side Effects: Headaches, restlessness, nausea, and GI disturbances in high doses.
Best Nootropics For Energy
With the above nootropic ingredients in mind, you should be ready to start shopping for the best product to fit your needs. There are plenty to choose from, but it’s important to pay attention and perform due diligence when shopping. Many products will pair effective ingredients with dangerous or cheap ingredients that could harm you.
We’ve compiled a list of our top-3 nootropic supplements that promote improve mental energy — among other cognitive benefits.
Mind Lab Pro
When it comes to nootropics that work, there’s none better than Mind Lab Pro. It is known to improve every area of your cognitive function, including your mental energy. It contains Vitamins B6, B9, B12, Citicoline, N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine, L-Theanine, and Rhodiola Rosea — all of which are listed above.
It’ll also include Bacopa Monnieri, Lion’s Mane Mushroom, Phosphatidylserine, and Maritime Pine Bark. These will further help to add cognitive benefits. Mind Lab Pro will cost $65 per bottle, but you could save some money by ordering 3 bottles at once for $195 — they’ll even throw in a free bottle.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON MIND LAB PROGenBrain
GenBrain is another trustworthy nootropic that comes with many different benefits. It won’t have as many ingredients as Mind Lab Pro, but it’ll be just as effective in boosting your mental energy and avoiding brain fatigue.
In regards to the nootropics listed above, it contains Ginkgo Biloba and Acetyl-L-Carnitine which will help your body to produce more energy and better manage stress. It’ll also contain Bacopa Monnieri, which is one of the most powerful nootropics that boost memory and recall.
There’s one more ingredient in GenBrain — vinpocetine. There are several studies that show this ingredient to dilate blood vessels and prevent blood clots. This can help improve the blood flow to the brain, but it wasn’t listed above due to insufficient research.
This nootropic will run you $50 per bottle (one-month supply). You will save money for buying in bulk. Three bottles will cost $100 and five bottles just $150.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON GENBRAINHVMN Sprint
The final nootropic on our list is HVMN Sprint. They have a line of four different nootropics — Sprint, Rise, Kado, and Yawn. Sprint is designed to increase your brain’s energy and focus, while the other three will focus on other areas of cognitive improvement.
It does have 200mg of caffeine in it, which I typically try to avoid in a nootropic. Still, caffeine is a preference among most people and HVMN Sprint also includes L-Theanine — which makes the caffeine more effective.
There is also 400mg of Ginseng, which helps to reduce the effects of fatigue, promotes a calm and tranquil state, and improves reaction time.
HVMN Sprint is going to be your most-affordable option at $25 per bottle. You can stack any of the other three HVMN stacks (Rise, Kado, Yawn) to add cognitive benefits to just Sprint.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON HVMN SPRINT
