Need a shortcut to your health and fitness goals? Supplements to the rescue! But watch out for the unintended consequences.

The lights were out; the house was quiet. The TV was off; the smart phone was out of reach in another room. Divesting myself of all temptation to engage in sleep-robbing activities, I hit the sack at a very reasonable and decent hour. Despite all that, with my mind in high gear, the night passed minute by minute, hour by hour, in inexorable, unstoppable, wide-awake hyper-alertness. I spent the entire night desperate for sleep that would not be had.

Even my sure-fire, bedtime Benadryl trick failed to deliver. I got up that morning without a wink of sleep. No self-delusion on that front, I was sure of it. I had never before been that wide awake over the course of a full night. What happened? I needed to know and did my best to sort it out.

I had a grueling workout right before bedtime, but nothing new there. I tend to work out at night, and sometimes I’ll engage in a vigorous workout immediately before hitting the sack. Late-night workouts don’t seem to bother me, in fact, they tend to help me sleep, so I ruled it out. 

What about dinner? Hmm; couldn’t recall anything out of the ordinary there. What else might have caused it? Was there a pre-bedtime, sleep-robbing argument that tripped me up? Nothing came to mind. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t put my finger on what kept me awake, so I decided to chalk it up as “just one of those things.”

A few days later and another sleepless night. This time, I was determined to figure it out. 

There had been another late-night workout; but I was sure that wasn’t the cause. I thought, then thought some more, and suddenly: Kaboom! What about that new brand of Yohimbine I had just started taking? Maybe that was it.

Why take Yohimbine before bedtime? 

Here’s why: some studies have shown that a pre-exercise hit of Yohimbine can promote fat loss. How? By boosting lipolysis. (Whatever that is, and who really cares so long as the fat melts away.) 

It made sense to me: A hit of Yohimbine. A late-night exercise session. Then blissfully sleep as the fat melts away. Sounds great so long as it all works.

I needed to test my theory, so I waited a week to overcome my sleep deprivation, then downed another Yohimbine supplement right before bed. Sure enough, it happened again. 

Being a slow learner, I needed to try one more time, and once again, a dreadful, sleepless, wide-awake night was my reward. I had used Yohimbine before for the same fat-burning reason, but this new brand had sleep-sucking super powers the previous brand lacked. Once I gave up on the brand, my hyper-sleepless-wide-awake nights went away and didn’t come back.

So what went wrong?

Turns out that when it comes to dosage information, labels on some supplements cannot be fully trusted. Maybe that’s not such a big deal when supplementing with vitamin C, but as my experience will tell you, that’s not what you want with Yohimbine.  

Looks like I may have been downing a lot more yohimbine content than what was advertised on the label. 

With a little investigation, I found a study that looked at 49 brands of yohimbine supplements sold by seven major USA retailers. According to the study, when it came to the advertised yohimbine volume, actual content ranged from 23% to 147% of the content specified on the label.

Here’s the moral of the story.

Monitor your supplements carefully. Buy only quality supplements that meet good certification standards. And pay attention to their effects on your body and on your sleep! 

Not all supplement brands are created equal. Even when the dosage levels printed on the label seem the same, they may not be. So do your due diligence and pay attention to what your body is telling you. If a supplement doesn’t agree with you, quickly dump it, move on and don’t look back.