Pre-Workout Supplements Interfere with Sleep and Recovery in Young People
Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health
Briana Mercola
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
- Young people who use pre-workout supplements face more than double the risk of sleeping five hours or less per night, a level of sleep loss that undermines mood, learning, and physical recovery
- High-dose stimulants in pre-workout products keep your nervous system in a stressed, alert state, making it harder for your brain and body to shift into deep, restorative sleep
- Short sleep doesn't just cause fatigue; it pushes your body to adapt to exhaustion rather than strength, slowing progress even when training effort stays high
- Teens and young adults are especially vulnerable because their brains, nervous systems, and hearts are still developing, making stimulant exposure more disruptive
- Better performance comes from protecting sleep, fueling workouts with food, and prioritizing recovery, not from relying on stimulants that interfere with nighttime repair
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are you pushing through evening workouts with a pre-workout drink only to lie awake for hours and |
| 0:04.9 | wonder why your gains are stalling? Welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. Stay informed |
| 0:10.8 | with quick, easy-to-listen summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No |
| 0:15.7 | reading required. Subscribe for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights. Hello and welcome to Dr. Mercola's cellular wisdom. |
| 0:24.6 | I'm Ethan Foster, and today we're looking at how stimulant heavy pre-workout supplements |
| 0:29.6 | undermine your sleep, your recovery, and ultimately your progress, with a focus on what large-scale data show for teens and young adults. |
| 0:38.9 | I'm Alara Sky. |
| 0:40.8 | This conversation centers on one clear pattern. |
| 0:44.6 | When you trade real energy for artificial stimulation, your nervous system stays revved at night, |
| 0:50.4 | and the repair phase gets cut short. |
| 0:53.5 | Let's start with what researchers actually found when they tracked sleep in young people who |
| 0:58.0 | use pre-workouts. |
| 1:00.0 | A study in sleep epidemiology analyzed 912 adolescents and young adults, ages 16 to 30, across |
| 1:08.0 | Canada, about 22.2 percent, reported using pre-workout supplements in the past year. |
| 1:13.9 | Participants reported average nightly sleep over the prior two weeks, grouped from five hours |
| 1:18.8 | or less, up through nine or more, giving a practical view of how much rest people really get. |
| 1:24.5 | The standout result was the shortest sleepers. Pre-workout users were more than twice as |
| 1:29.2 | likely to sleep five hours or less per night compared with those sleeping eight hours, the study's |
| 1:34.1 | reference point. A relative risk ratio of 2.53 isn't a marginal difference. Five hours represent |
| 1:41.7 | severe restriction that impairs memory, mood regulation, and physical recovery. |
| 1:48.0 | Importantly, the association held even after adjusting for age, gender, education, |
| 1:54.2 | symptoms of anxiety and depression, and whether participants did weight training in the past 30 days. |
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