Can you take Alpha Brain with coffee?

For those of you that don’t know, Alpha Brain is one of the most popular nootropic supplements on the market today. This was arguably the first brain supplement to target the mass market. So popular is this stack today that the Alpha Brain ingredients list has been copied by thousands of other nootropics over the years.

However, those of you who have read our detailed review of Onnit Alpha Brain will know that this is far from the best brain supplement on the market today. Still, thousands of people continue to use Onnit Alpha Brain, in large part because people like Joe Rogan have given it endorsements (although he has no idea what’s in Alpha Brain).

Because so many people use Alpha Brain every day, we constantly get questions from people wondering how to best use this nootropic for cognitive enhancement.

We recently received a question from one user wondering whether it was OK to take Alpha Brain with their morning coffee.

This is a very good question; some nootropic stacks are designed for use alongside coffee, while others are totally unsuitable for combining with caffeine.

So is it safe to take Alpha Brain with coffee?

Let’s take a closer look at the Alpha Brain formula and find out!

What is in Alpha Brain?

To find out whether Alpha Brain is safe to take with coffee, or even if there is any benefit to taking Alpha Brain with coffee, we need to examine the formula.

Here is the Alpha Brain ingredients list as it is shown on the Onnit website:

As you can see, Alpha Brain does not contain any stimulants. There’s no caffeine, theacrine, theobromine, or methylliberine in this stack.

So unlike many nootropic stacks on the market today, Alpha Brain poses no risk of causing the kind of side effects associated with stimulant use. You do not need to worry about double-dosing your caffeine when using Alpha Brain and drinking caffeinated drinks like coffee.

In fact, Alpha Brain contains some ingredients known to be actively beneficial when used alongside caffeine. This means that, in theory, Alpha Brain and coffee go extremely well together!

Should you take Alpha Brain with coffee?

Taking Alpha Brain and coffee together might actually be a wise move if you want to maximize your mental energy, memory and focus.

Some of the ingredients in Alpha Brain are potentiated by caffeine, while others make caffeine itself a more potent, effective nootropic while simultaneously limiting side effects.

For instance, one of Alpha Brain’s main ingredients is Alpha-GPC. This is a cholinergic which increases the availability of acetylcholine in the brain. As the brain’s primary executive neurotransmitter, more acetylcholine means greater focus, better working memory, faster information processing, and better mind-muscle connection.

The evidence suggests that combining cholinergics like Alpha-GPC with caffeine produces significant and rapid increases in focus, concentration and alertness; more than taking either nootropic in isolation.

Alpha Brain also contains ingredients which help manage caffeine’s side effects, so heavy coffee drinkers may benefit a lot from taking Alpha Brain and coffee together.

Alpha Brain contains L-Theanine. This amino acid is found in very high conentrations in black tea, and in green tea in lesser quantities.

Clinical trials have shown that Theanine actively suppresses the side effects of caffeie while simultaneously enhancing its beneficial effects. So taking Theanine with caffeine makes caffeine more effective while preventing jitters, hypertension and anxiety.

But, there’s a problem.

We hae no idea how much L-Theanine we get from each serving of Alpha Brain because Onnit have decided to hide the nootropic’s doses behind proprietary blends.

So whether or not Alpha Brain will potentiate caffeine in practice is unlikely. If there was enough Theanine in this formula to make a difference, why hide the dose among a proprietary blend full of cheap filler ingredients?!

Brian Johnson, PhD

Brian Johnson is current Editor of Vagarights.com and a long-time writer for VAGA. A former psychologist, Brian is passionate about improving mental health and finding ways to stave off cognitive decline. He is an expert on nootropics, cognitive enhancement and biohacking more broadly. You can see his work on Google scholar.