Split open a ripe guarana fruit and it looks back at you. The red skin parts around white flesh with black seeds at the centre, and the effect is so much like an eyeball that the Sateré-Mawé people of the Amazon tell a story about it. A god killed a much-loved village child, the story goes, and a kinder god, to console the villagers, planted the child's eyes. From them grew the first guarana plants. A sad story for such a cheerful drink.
Those seeds can be up to about 6% caffeine. Green coffee beans are about 1 to 3%.
Guarana is a common additive in energy drinks, and on an ingredients list it reads like a fruit, not a stimulant. So when we look for alternatives to caffeine, ways to boost our energy naturally through the afternoon slump, it pays to know what we are really buying.
What caffeine actually does
Caffeine does not give us energy. It hides the tiredness.
Through the day, the brain builds up a substance called adenosine, a slow-rising signal that we are tired. How to Quit Coffee, linked below, has how caffeine fits the same docking points and blocks that signal, so the tiredness is still there, only muffled. When it wears off, the signal lands all at once. That is the crash. The tiredness was waiting for us all along.
And for daily drinkers, much of the lift is the end of a small withdrawal. How to Boost Energy Levels Naturally: Little-Known Remedies That Actually Work has why the morning cup mostly undoes the tiredness and low mood that a night without caffeine has built, and how a strong coffee taken six hours before bed still cut people's sleep by more than an hour. The bill arrives at night, and the next morning we need the cup even more.
That is why caffeine is hard to quit, and why a swap that hides more caffeine is no swap at all.
Read the label
"Natural" energy is often caffeine with a better story.
Guarana is the clearest case, but not the only one. Kola is another: the nut is about 2 to 4% caffeine, it is chewed in West Africa and often presented to guests and chiefs, and it gave cola its name. Best Coffee Alternatives, linked below, has the caffeine in black and green tea, and why matcha and yerba mate carry it too. Green tea extract, green coffee extract and anything sold as "natural caffeine" belong on the same list.
Green tea extract carries a second risk. Liver injury, though uncommon, has been reported with it, mostly from extracts in tablets or capsules, and people with one variant of an immune gene, carried by 5 to 15% of Americans, seem especially prone.
So before anything else, turn the packet over. If the ingredients name guarana, green tea, yerba mate, kola nut or coffee in any form, it is caffeine. Same guest, different coat.
One more name is worth knowing, because it is not caffeine at all. Bitter orange contains synephrine, a close chemical cousin of ephedrine, though it acts differently in the body. When ephedra was banned from American supplements in 2004, bitter orange took its place in products sold for energy and weight loss. American college sport bans synephrine as a stimulant. Abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks and strokes have been reported in people taking bitter orange products, though most were mixtures, so its own part is unclear. Most tests found it did nothing for athletic performance. It is one to leave on the shelf.
Water and salt
The simplest swap is the one in the tap.
5 Ways to Harness Your Energy and Beat the Afternoon Slump has how little water it takes to drag us down. Why "Drink More Water" Is Incomplete Advice has why water alone is half the job, and why a pinch of good salt in a glass of water helps on the days that need it: heavy sweat, illness, the first weeks of low-carb eating. Good salt means plain unrefined sea salt or rock salt, with nothing added, such as .
Water is our main drink, all day. It costs nothing and brings no crash.
Ginseng
Ginseng is named after us. The English word comes from Chinese, from the characters for "person" and for a forked root, because the root, with its two legs, can look like a little human.
The American kind has a story of its own. In 1716, Joseph-François Lafitau, a Jesuit missionary in New France, found it near Montreal by showing the Haudenosaunee a drawing of the Chinese plant. Their own name for it meant "resembles man", or "a man's thigh". Two continents, the same little figure in the soil. Today it is grown mainly in Ontario, British Columbia, Wisconsin and China.
Of the herbs on this list, it has the strongest case against fatigue, and the case is narrower than the bottles suggest. In 2013, 364 cancer survivors with heavy, lasting fatigue, from 40 centres, took American ginseng grown in Wisconsin or a dummy pill for eight weeks, without knowing which. At four weeks there was no clear difference. By eight, fatigue had improved about twice as much on ginseng as on the dummy pill, and side effects were no different between the two. When 10 tests of ginseng for fatigue in people with chronic illness were reviewed, the evidence was modest, the harms were few, and better tests were still needed.
For the ordinary tiredness of a busy life, no effect has been confirmed. Not quite the root of all energy, then. And ginseng is active. It can interfere with warfarin and with sedatives, and Herbs for Stress and Anxiety: What Works and What to Skip has why it is one to stop before an operation, since it can lower blood sugar and raise the risk of bleeding.
Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is usually sold for stress, and Herbs for Stress and Anxiety, linked above, has what it does there. It has a quieter result for energy.
When five tests with 162 people were pooled, ashwagandha raised maximum oxygen uptake, the standard measure of endurance, in athletes and in people who were not. There were only a few tests, and their results varied a lot, so it is a hint rather than a promise.
It comes with real warnings. Herbs for Stress and Anxiety has the rare cases of liver injury linked to it. Leave it alone in pregnancy and while breastfeeding, with any thyroid or autoimmune condition, before an operation, and if you take thyroid medicine.
Rhodiola
Rhodiola, the "golden root" of cold mountain and Arctic slopes, is sold for mental fatigue. Why Most Stress Supplements Fail (And the 9 Worth a Look) has the honest count: of five tests for mental fatigue, three found a benefit, and every one had flaws that make the result hard to trust. Worth a try with modest hopes, and no more.
Maca
Maca is sometimes called Peruvian ginseng, though it is a relative of the radish and the turnip. A turnip with a passport. It grows high in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, and its use took off only after the late 1980s, when it was discovered commercially.
It has a loyal following for energy and libido, and very little to show for either. Fertility Herbs: Which Work, and What Matters More has the mixed results: modest gains in some small groups, nothing in others.
Peppermint
Mint comes with a myth. In Greek legend, Minthe, a river nymph loved by Hades, was turned into the plant by his jealous wife, Persephone, and the Greeks also called it hedyosmos, sweet-smelling. The sweet smell turns out to be the useful part.
Peppermint is the one on the list that works in seconds, and it works through the nose. Aromatherapy Scents for Relaxation and Mood has the test in which people in a room scented with peppermint did better on memory tests and felt more alert than people with no scent at all. A sniff, not a sip.
A few drops of oil, such as this , on a tissue by the desk is enough. Keep it off the skin of small children and away from their faces, and as a tea, skip it if you get heartburn, since peppermint can relax the valve at the top of the stomach.
Ginger
Ginger has a long story and a short list of proven uses.
It does not grow wild anywhere. It exists only because people have grown it for thousands of years, and it travelled far: ginger was found aboard the Gribshunden, the flagship of King Hans of Denmark and Norway, which sank off the coast of Sweden in 1495 carrying luxuries to a royal summit. Even kings packed ginger.
For energy, there is nothing behind it. Where it may help is nausea in pregnancy. As a hot, sharp, caffeine-free cup, Best Coffee Alternatives, linked below, has it among the good swaps, and that is reason enough to drink it.
CoQ10, B12, magnesium and creatine
These four are sold as the body's energy nutrients, and each is real. Whether they help depends mostly on whether we are short.
CoQ10. Our cells use it in making energy. How to Boost Energy Levels Naturally, linked above, has the 13 tests and 1,126 people in which those taking it reported less fatigue than those on a dummy pill, a small to moderate effect. It can interfere with warfarin and with insulin, so check before you take it. If you do, a brand with independent testing of what is in the capsule, such as , is worth the extra cost.
B12. Tiredness is a sign of running short, and topping up helps the people who are. Why Am I Always Tired: When Chronic Exhaustion Has a Cause That Sleep Can't Fix has who that is: about 6% of people under 60 and about 20% of those over it, people on metformin or long-term acid-reducing tablets, and anyone who eats no animal foods. B12 comes from meat, fish and eggs, so a plate built on them has it covered. One more quiet reason to love an egg breakfast.
B12 has a dramatic history. Its best-known deficiency is pernicious anaemia, and "pernicious" means deadly: before about 1920, it was. In 1907, patients survived one to three years on average. Then a lazy laboratory technician fed George Whipple's dogs raw liver instead of cooked, and their blood recovered far faster. Around 1926, George Minot and William Murphy put their patients on raw liver, and they improved fast. The three shared a Nobel Prize. For those patients, the cure in the liver was B12.
Magnesium. The Epsom bath is the popular route, and it is a pleasant one. Why Am I Always Tired has the reviewers who found nothing to support magnesium through the skin. Enjoy the bath for the bath.
Creatine. Best known from the gym, it is also a quick energy reserve for the brain. Brain Fog: What Causes It, and What the Timing Tells You has the sixteen comparisons in adults in which it improved memory, attention and processing speed a little, and why meat and fish, its natural sources, mean that people who eat plenty of them start with fuller stores. It holds up under strain too: during a night without sleep, people given creatine thought faster and did better on tests than those given a dummy.
What the coffee was covering
Most afternoon slumps are not a shortage of any herb. They are a shortage of something plainer.
5 Ways to Harness Your Energy, linked above, has the usual suspects: short or broken sleep, too little movement, a meal that drops blood sugar by mid-afternoon, and too little water. How to Boost Energy Levels Naturally adds the stuffy room and the dim day. Each of them costs less than a supplement, and each fixes the thing the coffee was hiding.
5 Ways to Harness Your Energy also has a swap that beat caffeine head to head. Tired young women who were short on sleep felt more energetic after ten minutes of easy stair walking than after a low dose of caffeine.
And it has the cheapest fix of all, the short nap. After a short night, a ten-minute afternoon nap improved sleepiness, fatigue, vigour and thinking at once, and the lift lasted up to about two and a half hours. Five minutes did little. Thirty left people groggy before it helped.
When it is more than tiredness
If the tiredness has gone on for weeks and sleep does not touch it, it may not be tiredness at all. Why Am I Always Tired has the causes worth a blood test, low iron, an underactive thyroid and low B12 among them, and the clues each one leaves. No herb fixes those. A test does.
Back to the eyes
The Sateré-Mawé gave guarana a story about seeing clearly. It is a good one to borrow. The energy aisle is full of products that promise something new and deliver the same caffeine in a different jacket, and a few honest herbs with small, specific results.
So start with one or two changes, not ten. Water, good salt, a better night, a walk after lunch. Add a herb only if it fits what you need, and only once you know what it can and cannot do.
The next time you pick up a "natural energy" product, turn it over first, and put it back if it says guarana.
Ready to come off it altogether? How to Quit Coffee: Getting Through Caffeine Withdrawal — why caffeine gives energy the way a loan gives money, the timetable of the worst days, the one cup that ends a quit on day two, and the two good ways through.
Want a cup that still feels like a ritual? Best Coffee Alternatives: What's Really in Each Cup — what is in each cup, the step-down drinks, decaf, and the caffeine-free cups worth keeping.
Know someone on their third energy drink by lunchtime? Send them this, and maybe a glass of water.
Disclaimer: This article is general information. For advice about your own health, talk to a qualified health professional, especially before taking any herb or supplement if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, have a thyroid or liver condition, take regular medicines such as warfarin, insulin or thyroid hormone, or have an operation coming up. Tiredness that lasts for weeks is worth a blood test.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, All For Life earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. We only link to products we would recommend without the commission.
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