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When looking for the best supplements for energy, there are a few key things to consider, from the actual ingredients themselves to their purity, quality, and, of course, potency.
There are plenty of naturally-occurring substances like CoQ10, Vitamin B12, and L-Theanine that can increase your energy levels and improve your overall productivity, focus, and mood. Additionally, they bring on a plethora of other health benefits, from supporting your immune system and balancing out your hormones to lowering your cholesterol level and keeping your blood sugar within healthy margins. That's why there are hundreds of energy products on the market trying to stand out and find their way into your supplement cabinet.
The Best Supplements for Energy - Our Top Picks
- CoQ10: Luma Nutrition CoQ10
- Vitamin B12: Nature's Bounty Vitamin B12
- Greens Blend: Athletic Greens
- Caffeine with L-Theanine: Cognito Naturals Caffeanine
- Vitamin D: Naturemade Vitamin D3
- Ashwagandha: Organic India Ashwagandha Herbal Supplement
- Iron: Amazon Elements Organic Whole Food Iron
- Magnesium: Mountaintop Magnesium
- Zinc: Thorne Zinc Picolinate
- Amino Acids: Double Wood Essential Amino Acids
Ideally, we should be getting all the important nutrients from our diet alone and supplementing our health and wellness with exercise, good sleep hygiene, and stress management routines, but more often than not, we need the extra push that dietary supplements can help provide.
Supplements for energy are by no means necessary for most people and you should always refrain from taking them before consulting with your doctor, especially if you're dealing with a known health condition. Still, the brands and products we chose and believe deserve to be on this list contain only the highest-quality ingredients and the cleanest formulas, so you can feel safe knowing you're not taking any artificial fillers, thickening agents, or sweeteners.
Why Trust Us?
The health and safety of ACTIVE's readers is of the utmost importance to us. To ensure your well-being when consuming dietary supplements, the ACTIVE.com editorial team prioritizes products that are independently tested by a third party. We've consulted with a team of nutritionists and dieticians to ensure the products we feature are of the highest standard. This helps us create the most accurate, authentic review content for our readers.
CoQ10 - Luma Nutrition CoQ10
Coenzyme Q10, or CoQ10, is one of the most powerful and natural antioxidants, helping you fight oxidative stress, increase your energy levels, and even boost your heart health. It's also linked to improved aging, athletic performance, blood sugar management, and even lowering your bad LDL cholesterol. You might know it from skincare products, but it's actually much more important for the optimal function of other areas in your body.
Luma Nutrition designed a high-quality supplement with 200 milligrams of CoQ10 per serving, helping your body fight free radicals, elevate your mood, boost cellular energy, and increase cognition and brain health.
It's affordable, easy to digest, and absorb, and it comes without any artificial ingredients, bulking agents, fillers, or sweeteners. It's also vegan-friendly and gluten-free, so it caters to a wide range of customers.
BUY: Luma Nutrition CoQ10
Vitamin B12 - Nature's Bounty Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 is a key micronutrient to help convert food into cellular energy. It's therefore considered one of the most essential vitamins you should avoid being deficient in as it can drastically change your energy levels. Additionally, it helps with red blood cell formation, may improve symptoms of depression, and is crucial for carrying out a healthy pregnancy. Pregnant and breastfeeding women usually need to take B12 as a supplement as their needs increase as the fetus grows.
Nature's Bounty has a strong and affordable vitamin B12 supplement with 1,000 micrograms (mcg) per serving, helping improve your energy metabolism and enhance the conversion of food into cellular energy. Their package includes 200 coated tablets that contain no artificial ingredients, fillers, GMOs, gluten, or soy.
BUY: Nature's Bounty Vitamin B12
Greens Blend - Athletic Greens
One of the most sought-after greens supplements on the market, Athletic Greens, now known under the name AG1, is a nutrient powerhouse, with 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and other whole-food sourced compounds that help support your overall health and longevity.
It's basically all you need for a daily dose of a health boost, impacting everything from your sleep, digestion, and hormones to food cravings, stress, and energy levels. It's not the most affordable supplement on the market, but it contains more micronutrients than most other products combined, and it contains only the purest and cleanest ingredients.
BUY: Athletic Greens
Caffeine with L-Theanine - Cognito Naturals Caffeanine
Two important micronutrients for energy metabolism and your overall mood are caffeine and L-theanine. Caffeine is a known stimulant that sends a strong stimulus to your central nervous system and wakes up your entire body, improving your focus and concentration. L-theanine, on the other hand, is an important amino acid that's usually found in green tea. Its role is to help reduce stress, manage anxiety and feelings of nervousness, all while supporting your immune system.
Caffeine itself can often be too potent and even cause jittery sensations in some people who are caffeine sensitive. Combining it with L-theanine gives you all the benefits without the unpleasant side effects. Studies show how these two powerful nootropics together create a strong and positive effect on your focus.
Cognito Naturals Caffeanine combines 100mg of caffeine and 200mg of L-theanine that work better together than when taken alone and help improve your performance, focus, cognition, and overall energy levels. This product is affordable, clean, gluten-free, and vegan-friendly.
BUY: Cognito Naturals Caffeanine
Vitamin D3 - NatureMade Vitamin D3
Vitamin D3 is one of the most essential vitamins for the optimal function of your immune system, bone health, muscle function, and converting food into energy. Unfortunately, due to the current human lifestyles and overall reduced exposure to sunlight, a large percentage of people are vitamin D deficient, making supplementation a necessity rather than a recommendation.
Vitamin D3 is made through your skin and it's stimulated by direct sunlight. Depending on the time of the year and the weather, some areas of the world that get less sunlight than others have severe vitamin D3 deficiencies amongst their population.
Nature Made is one of the most popular and doctor-recommended brands on the market and their vitamin D3 supplement with 2,000 International Units (IU) per serving supplies you with the optimal amount to replenish your stores and help optimize your body functions.
Made without any artificial ingredients, this formula is clean and affordable so you can stay safe knowing you're only absorbing the best supplements.
Ashwagandha - Organic India Ashwagandha Herbal Supplement
Ashwagandha is one of the most potent adaptogens in the natural world, helping your body better adapt to stress and lower your overall inflammation. It also helps support your sleep and relaxation so you feel better throughout the day.
Organic India Ashwagandha is one of the best ashwagandha supplements on the market as it's organic, vegan-friendly, halal, and made without any artificial ingredients. All of their herbs are grown using Ayurvedic bio-energetic methods that include unique soil fertility management that improves the nutrient richness and increases the overall quality of the crop.
BUY: Organic India Ashwagandha Herbal Supplement
Iron - Amazon Elements Organic Whole Food Iron
Iron is another essential micronutrient with a large role in your energy metabolism and oxygen transport throughout your body. It's a major component of hemoglobin, a protein found in your red blood cells, and it's crucial for thyroid health.
Amazon Elements is a new line of supplements from Amazon that is all certified organic and made with 100 percent non-GMO ingredients and zero pesticides. Their iron supplement is no different, and it's made with no gluten, dairy, artificial ingredients, or synthetic compounds.
Made from whole foods that are entirely based on plants, it supports maximum nutrient absorption. High quality at a fraction of the price!
BUY: Amazon Elements Organic Whole Food Iron
Magnesium - Mountain Top Magnesium
Magnesium is one of the most essential minerals in the human body, responsible for the optimal function of over 300 processes. Being deficient is rare, but many people need more magnesium on a daily basis than they're even aware of.
Getting it from a high-quality supplement is one of the easiest ways for your body to absorb magnesium, and 300 mg per serving from Mountain Top is more than enough to support your daily activities.
Free of all major allergens, dairy, gluten, and artificial ingredients, this magnesium oxide supplement is affordable, potent, and easy on your stomach. It's also third-party tested to ensure potency, purity, and high quality.
Zinc - Thorne Zinc Picolinate
Zinc is an essential trace mineral that is necessary for carrying out over 100 chemical reactions. It's extremely important in supporting a healthy immune response, cell growth, and the creation of DNA. It's also crucial for healthy hormone balance, especially in women and their reproductive systems.
Thorne is known as one of the best quality supplement brands on the market and their zinc picolinate supplement offers 30 milligrams of the most-absorbable form of zinc, helping support general wellness, overall immune function, skin health, energy levels, and even eye health.
Free from artificial ingredients, fillers, thickening agents, and colorings, this zinc supplement is definitely one of the cleanest on the market. It's slightly more expensive than other brands, but most don't contain this unique form of zinc which is proven to be the most absorbable.
Amino Acids - Double Wood Essential Amino Acids
Protein is one of the three most important macronutrients our body is made of. Next to carbohydrates and fats, protein has a large role in building your muscles and supporting your metabolism. Protein is built from 20 amino acids, nine of which cannot be made by our bodies and thus need to be obtained from outside sources.
This powerful amino acid supplement from Double Woods contains all nine essential amino acids, including the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), per serving and helps improve your energy levels, promotes muscle growth and recovery, supports nutrient absorption, and improves your athletic performance and exercise endurance.
BUY: Double Wood Essential Amino Acids
FAQs About Supplements for Energy
What vitamin is lacking when you're tired?
When you're feeling fatigued and tired, you might be lacking in a variety of different vitamins and minerals, but two of the most crucial ones to replenish are vitamin B12 and vitamin D3.
Does B12 give you energy?
Vitamin B12 is an essential micronutrient in helping transform food into energy, therefore supplying you with more energy throughout the day. It's one of the most important vitamins to ensure you're getting adequate amounts of in your diet.
What can I take to get my energy level up?
When you're feeling fatigued and need an energy boost, some of the best supplements you can take include vitamin B12, vitamin D3, L-theanine, CoQ10, and ashwagandha.
What is the strongest vitamin for energy?
The strongest vitamins for increasing your energy levels include vitamin B12 and vitamin D3. They are some of the most important micronutrients for energy metabolism, oxygen transport, and overall focus and productivity.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
About the Author
Karla Tafra is a published author, speaker, certified nutritionist, and yoga teacher. She's been writing about nutrition, health, fitness, and overall wellness topics for over 12 years. Her work has been featured on popular sites like Healthline, Psychology.com, Well and Good, Women's Health, Mindbodygreen, Medium, Yoga Journal, Lifesavvy, and Bodybuilding.com.
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