Exploring Sleep and Testosterone Supplements: An Animal Pak Review

85 day assessment of STAK and PM by Animal Pak analyzed for effectiveness with low testosterone symptoms and sleep quality.

In my analysis Animal Pak PM showed mild effectiveness in improving sleep quality. Though, it appears less effective than its independent ingredients. In a follow-up analysis Animal Pak STAK continues to show benefits in alleviating low testosterone symptoms. Additionally, several noteworthy benefits of creatine were also observed.

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Adequate volume and quality of sleep are critical for recovery and overall well being. It seems obvious, but it’s supported by my data here with the relationship between sleep quality and athletic wellness (r = +0.44, p < 0.001) as well as in a recent study of professional MMA fighters (ref.).

Animal Pak PM ingredients

I’ve conducted previous experiments on CBD and sleep which yielded the following results:

• There was a positive-moderate correlation (r = +0.56, p , 0.001) between total caffeine intake and caffeine curfew. That means the later in the day I continued to consume caffeine, the more total caffeine was ingested.

• There was a positive-moderate correlation (r = +0.59, p < 0.001) between total caffeine consumption and bedtime; the more caffeine consumed, the later I went to bed.

• There was a negative-moderate correlation (r = -0.57, p < 0.001) between sleep score and bed time; the later I went to bed, the lower the quality of my sleep.

• Going to bed early benefitted total sleep time and deep sleep time.

• 30 - 50 mg of CBD benefitted: total sleep time, deep sleep time, and HRV.

We should note that the first three bullet points had a relatively small sample size of 21 days, and that interventional periods in that study were only 7-days each (though multiple CBD brands and dosages were tested).

It’s also been my experience that CBD has a relatively short adaptation phase. This means that it works great for a while, but it is not effective long term.

Percent changes between control group and identified interventions.

Sleep Aides, Data, and Difficulty:

I’ve expressed concerns about melatonin before and that appears to be the most active ingredient in Animal Pak PM. The dosing is moderate at 3mg / serving, but let’s keep in mind that the half-life of melatonin is about 1 hour and the effects can last 4 - 8 hours (ref.).

Most of us have some hard stops in life. For example, I have to get up for work fairly early, at 6:30 a.m. However, I usually train later in the evening from 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.; which means I usually don’t eat dinner until 9:00 p.m.

This means things have to be pretty precise if I’m to unwind and get to bed at a reasonable time while also feeling well rested in the morning.

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Results:

In this initial pilot I wasn’t able to control for caffeine intake, though that will be included in the follow up analysis. Regarding caffeine, Robb Wolf recently had a nice summary of the pros and cons over at LMNT (ref.). Likewise, Andrew Huberman has done a very in-depth analysis as well (ref.).

What’s notable here is that (subjective) sleep quality shows a moderately strong correlation to athletic-wellness (a recovery metric) and hours of deep sleep. The first relationship (between recovery and sleep quality) seems obvious, but what’s less so is that the relationship between sleep quality and deep sleep hours is stronger than that of deep sleep percent — mean absolute quantity of deep sleep is more important than relative quantity.

An earlier bed time, Animal Pak PM, melatonin, and Dream Tea, and date all had mild, but statistically significant, relationships with sleep quality.

Towards the end of this data set, I was tapering off caffeine, so as mentioned above, that will be investigated further in the follow up. Additionally, this may indicate a regular bed time being at least as important as an early bed time. (Note that the negative relationship implies that a later bedtime — larger bedtime value in hours — relates to lower value in sleep quality).

The active ingredients in Animal Pak PM are similar to melatonin and what’s found in may “sleepy time” herbal teas; including Tazo Dream Tea, which was used in this study.

While Animal Pak PM showed modest effectiveness in improving sleep quality, the results were weaker than melatonin alone. However, an ANCOVA regression showed that neither component’s effectiveness is independent of the other. This means that either may be effective, but that they may also be confounded by other variables that weren’t accounted for here.

On the other hand, while the Dream Tea didn’t have a significant relationship with bed time, it did have a statistically significant relationship with both total sleep time and sleep quality. Dream Tea’s relationship with sleep quality was independent of Animal Pak PM, but the relationship with total sleep time was not independent of Animal Pak PM.

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Summary of Animal Pak PM:

With a retail sticker of more than $1 / serving, I can’t give a strong recommendation for this product. My pilot data does show some efficacy, but it’s not significant enough in my opinion to recommend compared to what herbal tea or melatonin (independently or combined) may offer for a fraction of the cost.

However, even those relationships weren’t stellar; which is a reminder that “pills and potions” can easily be confounded in the data and overridden in our actual lives by many other lifestyle factors, choices, and behavior patterns.

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Follow Up: Animal Pak STAK and Testosterone

Previously, I did a 37-day test of one of Animal Pak’s testosterone support supplements, “STAK.” The initial test found positive correlations with mood, decreased soreness, decreased stress, improved AWQ, improved sex drive, and improved Low-T symptoms.

The follow up data conflicted with the pilot in that in the follow up there was not a significant relationship between Animal Pak STAK and (decreased) soreness or stress.

However, results remained generally consistent, favorable, and mild to moderately strong regarding the relationship between Animal Pak STAK and mood, sex-drive, AWQ, and (decreased) low testosterone symptoms. Generally, the strength of the correlations (r) decreased slightly, but became more robust (decreased p-value).

Magnesium’s relationships with sex drive improved from the pilot to the follow up, both in terms of strength of correlation (r = +0.40) and statistical significance (p = 0.0002).

Vitamin D continued to show positive correlations with (reduced) stress (r = +0.24, p = 0.0244) and AWQ (r = +0.23, p = 0.0318). However, in the follow up data Vitamin D did not have a statistically significant relationship with the low testosterone symptoms measured as initially indicated in the pilot. As I discussed in the initial review, this could be because Vitamin D’s effect may be dependent on accumulated blood levels (chronic) versus day-to-day intake (acute).

It’s also important to note that I decided on the criteria, metrics, and Low-T symptoms to be evaluated prior to the follow-up assessment. In other words, I didn’t do anything sketchy like construct variables and definitions post-hoc to make a given supplement or intervention look more favorable.

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Additional Findings:

There were also some unexpected, yet nevertheless interesting, findings to come out of this data regarding creatine. I’ve written about the benefits of creatine before, so it’s nice to have real-life data that’s consistent with the literature.

We can see that supplemental creatine (5g / day) had a positive - mild strength relationship with reduced soreness, reduced stress, reduced fatigue, and improved recovery (AWQ).

This appears similar in process to my rationale for reintroducing carbohydrates during endurance training; except translated to creatine / ATP for explosive Olympic weightlifting — the training sessions I consumed creatine prior to.

The effect of Vitamin D and Animal Pak Stak on recovery (AWQ) appears to occur independent of each other with 0.05 and 0.01 significance respectively. This observation was not present in the pilot data.

Lastly, magnesium maintained a consistent positive, moderately strong, relationship with sex drive, though the relationship was not independent of Animal Pak STAK — likely due to STAK being the primary source of supplemental magnesium in this test.

In this data, magnesium did not have a significant relationship with low testosterone symptoms in general, which conflicts with the pilot data which may indicate an interaction between creatine and magnesium which were not independent of each other in the pilot data regarding their effect on the low testosterone symptoms being evaluated (e.g. recovery and sex drive).

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Summary:

• Animal Pak PM has a mild, but statistically significant benefit to sleep quality. However, these effects can likely be more affordably achieved by behavioral interventions or independent use of melatonin or Dream Tea.

• Animal Pak STAK’s benefits for testosterone support are confirmed in the follow up analysis, as well as magnesium’s benefit to sex drive.

• The positive effects of Vitamin D on low testosterone symptoms being dependent on time / accumulation also appear to be confirmed by this data.

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Data Availability:

• Annotated Data: Google Drive

• Raw Data: Git Lab

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Affiliate Disclosure: I do receive a sales commission from Animal Pak for links on this page.

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