Pros
- Decent sleep aid
- Ashwagandha is highly effective at lowering cortisol & improving muscle strength
Cons
- Missing key ingredients such as magnesium and zinc
- Doesn’t affect the metabolism or fat burning
- No effect on nighttime cravings or appetite suppression
- $39.99 for 30 servings
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep is a sleep aid with safe and well-studied ingredients such as Ashwagandha and melatonin. It is decent at what it does – improving your sleep quality and duration. However, as far as the “anabolic” part goes, Anabolic Sleep is missing some key ingredients that would get it closer to the market leaders such as Performance Lab Sleep. Anabolic Sleep is also using some unproven ingredients like GABA, which doesn’t absorb very well. For the price that you’re paying, there are definitely better options to be found on the market.
What do we recommend?
>Top 5 Fat Burners of This Year<
What is Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep?
Beyond Raw Anabolc Sleep is a GNC-exclusive supplement that helps you achieve restorative, deep sleep.
Exercise can be tough on the body and can slow down your recovery process. If you aren’t careful with your sleep, your progress can slow down massively. This is where a supplement like Anabolic Sleep claims to be especially helpful.
It features clinically dosed ingredients like Levagen and Suntheanine which are said to help you;
- Power down; supporting relaxation and a healthy stress response
- Achieve restful sleep; improving both sleep latency and duration
- Recuperate; reducing inflammation while promoting an optimal anabolic environment
This sounds promising, but we’ve already seen plenty of supplements like Anabolic Sleep. What makes it different from the rest – and how will it work for you?
Let’s investigate further.
How to Use Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep’s dosage is 2 capsules 30-60 minutes before sleep. If you need “additional support,” the manufacturer says you can safely take up to two servings at once.
Keep in mind, though, that taking 2 servings per night means the supplement will last you only 15 days.
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep: The Ingredients
Here are the ingredients in Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep:
- Palmitic Acid Monoethanolamide (300mg)
- L-Theanine (200mg)
- KSM-66 Ashwagandha Root Extract (600mg)
- GABA (100mg)
- Melatonin (3mg)
Here is a more detailed look at the product label;
It’s good that Anabolic Sleep has no proprietary blends; we can see the amount of every ingredient on the label.
The ingredients themselves look good, too. We have Ashwagandha (and not just any, but the patented KSM-66 version) which is by now a well-studied cortisol “buster,” along with L-Theanine for relaxation and Melatonin to promote deep sleep.
Now, there are also a few downsides to Anabolic Sleep. It is using some ingredients that haven’t been proven to work, particularly GABA.
Let’s explain this in further detail by breaking down each ingredient and the science behind it.
Palmitic Acid Monoethanolamide (300mg)
Palmitic Acid Monoaethonolamide, also known as PEA (Palmitoylethanolamide), is a naturally occurring compound extracted from fat in foods. Peas, egg yolks, and animal foods contain PEA in high amounts, and your body also produces some PEA naturally on its own.
PEA plays an influence on your body’s inflammatory response. In particular, it gets released in high amounts as a response to injury or stress. In other words, PEA helps manage inflammation and may improve feelings of comfort.
Your body’s PEA production goes down with age, so the idea is that supplementation of PEA helps you replenish its levels and maintain optimal benefits for inflammation and stress response.
But does PEA supplementation really work?
According to current evidence, it may have some slight benefits. However, it’s nowhere near as effective as supplement manufacturers would like you to believe! PEA could be a decent supplement for long-term health support, but you probably won’t feel anything. There are better ingredients to include in its stead for reducing stress, boosting metabolism, and improving sleep specifically.
L-Theanine (200mg)
L-Theanine is a chemical found in green tea and some types of fungi. You’ll often see theanine used together with caffeine in supplements due to theanine’s ability to reduce jitters from the stimulant. Theanine does this by increasing the brain’s production of GABA, a calming neurotransmitter that soothes anxiety and slows down the firing between your neurons.
What many people don’t know is that L-Theanine also increases your brain’s alpha waves. Most of our days are spent in beta waves which are associated with constant thinking, alertness, and arousal. Alpha waves, on the other hand, are elevated when the brain is in a more relaxed state. This benefit alone makes L-Theanine unique amongst supplements and one of the best natural compounds for relieving anxiety and tension.
KSM-66 Ashwagandha Root Extract (600mg)
Here we come to Ashwagandha, one of the most studied herbs in ancient Ayurvedic medicine. Traditionally referred to as the “Smell of the Horse,” indicating the herb’s ability to endow the strength and virility of the animal to those who ingest it.
And according to science, these traditional claims are not too far from the truth. Ashwagandha is shown to boost strength & testosterone levels in men while enhancing fertility and sex drive in both genders. More relevantly, in this case, Ashwagandha is one of the best stress-busting supplements out there; being able to reduce blood cortisol levels by 30% in some cases.
GABA (100mg)
This is an interesting one.
GABA is, as we’ve mentioned, a neurochemical that helps you relax and get to sleep. Your brain produces its own GABA and can create it from different compounds. There are certain supplements that can boost the production of GABA in your brain, and there are GABA supplements like Anabolic Sleep which directly provide GABA itself.
So, is taking GABA supplements an effective way to boost your GABA brain levels? The answer is – no!
The issue with GABA supplements is that they have poor absorption. GABA’s large molecular structure makes it difficult to pass the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain.
Your brain likes to keep its own GABA that it produces; it doesn’t like GABA from outside sources so to speak.
Therefore, it is no surprise that GABA supplements are often shown to be ineffective at doing anything at all.
Melatonin (3mg)
Good sleep is paramount to proper recovery and healing. It is also vital to keep your anabolic hormone levels in check. This is where melatonin can help massively.
Melatonin is the single most important ingredient for any sleep supplement. Melatonin is your body’s chief sleep hormone; it helps to relax the mind, unwind the body, and improve deep sleep.
The dosage of 3mg is solid. This is high enough to help with everything from sleep onset, sleep duration, to sleep quality.
The only downside is that Anabolic Sleep contains synthetic melatonin. We would prefer to see a natural form of melatonin; such as the one from tart cherries.
Our Thoughts on the Ingredient Profile
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep is quite good at improving sleep; we’re not just too sure about the anabolic part. Apart from Ashwagandha, it doesn’t have anything that promotes the release of anabolic hormones.
This brings us to the main issue with Anabolic Sleep. It is missing quite a few important ingredients. Magnesium, zinc, and Phosphatidylserine are some of the best natural recovery aids – that also happen to boost your anabolic hormones and metabolic activity.
If you’re looking for a simple sleep aid that may help boost your exercise recovery, Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep is definitely not a bad option. But for anything more advanced, such as improving your fat burning while you sleep and reducing nighttime cravings, there are better options available on the market today.
Editor’s Pick:
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Customer Reviews
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep is a relatively new supplement on the market. Apart from some “testimonials” on GNC’s website, we weren’t able to find too many independent reviews online.
On GNC, Anabolic Sleep has an average score of 4.0. You’ll see that most people are happy with the product, but there are some that didn’t get the results they hoped for. For what it’s aimed to do, though, Anabolic Sleep seems to be well-received amongst most of its customers.
Does Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep Have Side Effects?
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep contains a moderate dose of melatonin, which can sometimes cause drowsiness in the morning. That said, Anabolic Sleep is a relatively harmless supplement with well-studied ingredients. It is unlikely to cause any major side effects in most people.
Still, if you have a health condition, speak with your doctor before taking Anabolic Sleep, just to be on the safe side.
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep Review Summary
Beyond Raw Anabolic Sleep is a decent sleep aid – but that’s about it.
It contains melatonin and Ashwagandha, two key ingredients that should help you relax and fall asleep more easily, along with improving the depth of your sleep itself.
But since it’s missing some key ingredients like zinc, magnesium, and phosphatidylserine (PS), Anabolic Sleep is quite tame in the “anabolic” part. It doesn’t quite hold up against the market-leading products such as Performance Lab Sleep.
We would also like to see more fat-burning and nighttime craving suppressant ingredients included. This would make Anabolic Sleep far more effective overall as an anabolic and metabolic enhancing supplement.
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