Your whole life is about energy: getting it, storing it, and using it up.
Every process in your life is better when you’re feeling energized – cognitive and physical performance are both dependent on the amount of willpower and energy you’ve got “in the tank”.
Supplements to support energy are great ways of adjusting your energy levels with very little effort.
They are also a way of supporting secondary benefits and producing the best possible version of you.
We’re going to take you through three of the best supplements for energy that you can buy right now and examine what unique benefits each one brings to the table!
Read on if you’re ready to beat fatigue and energize your life.
Why Use an Energy Supplement?
Your perception of your own energy levels is a crucial factor in every area of your life.
Central fatigue – feelings of low energy and tiredness – are key to your cognitive and physical performance.
Whether it’s a long day at work, an upcoming test, or a tough training session, your energy levels are key.
They directly affect how well you perform, and how long you can keep it up – both of which are central factors in your success.
Energy supplements are designed to fend off fatigue and energize you.
This has knock-on effects in almost every area of life, aside from simply making you feel better and improving your overall experience of life itself.
These are some pretty universal, important benefits, so they’re worth paying attention to.
Energy supplements are also a great way of making up for the fact that foods alone are rarely enough to provide the nutrients and other key compounds to support optimal function.
A good energy supplement will improve your health and performance across a wide variety of nutrients and compounds.
Top-Rated Energy Supplements
1. Performance Lab Energy
A totally nature-identical approach to energy supplements that manages to avoid caffeine and stimulants entirely.
This makes it the only stimulant-free compound on this list – and that’s one of the reasons why we love it.
The Performance Lab Energy supplement offers a way of supporting your energy levels without increasing the stimulant load placed on your heart or adrenal system.
This means a clean, healthy approach to energy that anyone can use, regardless of goals, and a natural approach to energy-boosting.
How does it work?
Let’s take a quick look at the ingredients:
ALCAR (Acetyl-L-Carnitine) is one of the key compounds in this product and has been shown to positively affect cellular metabolism, specifically in the muscles and combatting neurological decline.
It supports effective cognitive function and energy levels naturally, as well as improving blood flow and cardiovascular health.
PQQ is a compound that you’re going to benefit from greatly as a significant player in the metabolism and use of B-vitamins.
It’s a compound that ensues that these vitamins, as key players in the energy metabolism pathways of the human body, are effective and used to maximum effect.
CoQ10 is a universal aspect of cellular metabolism and the high-absorption form included in Performance Lab Energy supports energy production at the source.
Cellular energetics are key to health, performance, and resistance to aging/illness – supporting them with CoQ10 is a crucial aspect of well-rounded energy support!
R-Lipoic Acid, a universal antioxidant. is naturally found in the mitochondria of cells and helps to activate essential enzymes needed for various processes in the body. It helps cells to perform effectively, acts as a precursor for Acetyl CoA, encouraging its formation separately to
ALCAR, and also helps to extend the activity of CoQ10.
In short, the ingredients in Performance Lab Energy increase energy at the cellular level, by boosting ATP in the mitochondria of your cells – the source of all energy in the body. It’s an innovative formula.
What’s more, the piperine in this product ensures maximal absorption rates and makes it a perfect complimentary compound to any other nutritional supplement. It increases the per-gram effectiveness of other compounds by boosting uptake and use.
If you’re also trying to lose weight (and using the energy supplement to offset any related fatigue), we recommend combining this product with Performance Lab SPORT Fat Burner to maximize the effects of piperine and gain the benefits of synergistic effects with compounds in that product.
Benefits
- Totally stimulant-free, offering a different and cleaner experience than any other product we’ve looked at.
- Effective selection of balanced, pro-energy, pro-health compounds.
- Piperine ensures that every gram does the maximum good for your health and energy levels.
- The reliance on nutritional support rather than caffeine provides a long-term, consistent energy boost.
- You can’t get a much more natural energy boost than a product that influences the natural ATP energy in your cells.
2. Genius Caffeine
As you might expect from the name, Genius Caffeine energy supplement foregoes the stimulant-free approach we saw with Performance Lab in exchange for a high-caffeine, high-purity capsule for acute energy boosts.
There is only one ingredient in this product: high-quality caffeine in the most available form that Genius could produce.
The very best form means the very best results from each milligram.
How does it work?
This is a product that provides caffeine with almost no other active parts – compounds like magnesium stearate are included but only as stabilizing agents, and not in high enough doses to matter.
The micro-encapsulation of caffeine assists with a slower release, ensuring consistent adrenal change and supporting improved performance over the course of a day rather than the common, short-term boost associated with caffeine.
This is still going to last around 6-9 hours, but it should come with a steadier “high” than the caffeine-load you’d get from a sugary energy drink.
This makes it a far more useful supplement for intense studying or work, where you need a consistent adjustment over the course of a whole day without the ‘crash’.
Benefits
- The formulation of this caffeine capsule ensures the best possible results for every milligram you consume
- Each capsule provides a scientifically-proven effective dose, while taking multiple capsules can produce short-term energy boosts for a workout or test.
- As a bonus, the manufacturer also suggests this product may help to support weight loss as caffeine helps to trigger thermogenesis, thus helps to burn more calories, and may also act as an appetite suppressant.
- Suitable for vegetarians.
3. Elite Caffeine with L-Theanine
This is another product that is primarily centered on the energy-boosting effects of caffeine in the short-term.
Unlike the previous product from Genius, this product aims at providing caffeine in a “normal” form, while providing a significant dose of L-Theanine.
This is a common amino acid associated with mental performance and reductions in central fatigue.
With a different focus, it’s a lower-quality approach to caffeine but the secondary ingredients are synergistic and provide a more-comprehensive, but less-focused approach to short-term energy.
How does it work?
Obviously, the caffeine intake in Elite Caffeine with L-Theanine is a significant boost – with an equal 100mg per capsule compared with the previous product.
It’s not in a micro-encapsulated form, however, so you can expect a more traditional “spike” of energy with the 30-minute onset and 6-hour tail-out of regular caffeine intake.
The theanine is where this product establishes its own unique benefits – as neither other product on this list includes theanine.
The benefit here is that theanine and caffeine are synergistic – when combined, they markedly reduce the risk of stimulant-related side effects (headaches, the jitters) while boosting awareness compared to caffeine alone.
The combination of the two has been shown to be better than either of these compounds when taken alone.
Thus, the effects of this product are shorter-lived than Genius’ Caffeine, but they provide a more significant short-term benefit.
This makes it a better product for supporting workout performance, stressful tests, and makes it more appropriate for those who experience mild headaches with normal caffeine intake.
Benefits
- Theanine synergies make this the most powerful short-term energy supplement on this list.
- Caffeine and theanine together reduce risks of side-effects for the caffeine-naïve or people particularly sensitive to stimulants.
- Scientific evidence supports the superiority of these compounds being taken together.
Summary
Obviously, these products fill totally different niches.
We picked them out as our top three because they represent our favorite choices across three different key roles for an energy supplement.
All three should work effectively, albeit in different ways.
The Performance Lab Energy supplement is our number one pick, however, because it provides a balanced, natural, nutritional approach to energy release without stimulants.
This puts it in the perfect position to support consistently better energy release over time, rather than the short-term effects of caffeine.
Freedom from stimulants is a great benefit to have, and we think this is a great product for offering an alternative to traditional, caffeine-based energy supplements.
These are three great products, but among other great supplements, Performance Lab shows itself to be the most comprehensive, healthy choice for improving cognitive and physical performance in the long-term.