hey there everyone it's michael and during this video today i'm going to talk about my experience
taking cma as a nutritional supplement um it's been about a decade since i discovered zma it has
a neat benefit it doesn't have any side effects so zma is marketed specifically to athletes
to bodybuilders for the purpose of increasing testosterone levels while still being relatively
healthy so zma is made up of three things first would be zinc second magnesium aspartate and third
is vitamin b6 so zma manufacturers claim that it boosts muscle growth and strength while improving
endurance recovery and sleep quality and the way that i was first introduced and intrigued by zma
specifically was because i went through a little period when i actually had low testosterone levels
what happened was i dieted down to about eight percent body fat and my body really disliked it
i felt horrible my testosterone levels were low my energy levels were low and so i was looking for
like anything potentially i could take that would boost my testosterone levels while not having
bad side effects as most agents that are known to improve testosterone levels also have side effects
such as hair loss anger or the horrible chance of actually discontinuing your ability to produce
testosterone naturally so fortunately with zma it was known to not really have any bad side effects
and it's something which has been around for a long time of course everyone's familiar with zinc
magnesium and vitamin b6 most people however are already taking enough zinc and enough vitamin b6
but there are studies which suggest that about 50 of americans are not taking enough magnesium
and magnesium is really important for recovery and especially with sleep so i started using
zma and the traditional way of taking it is the dosages of 30 milligrams of zinc 450 milligrams of
magnesium aspartate and 10.5 milligrams of vitamin b6 so i had taken this nootropic with really high
hopes like it's going to do something boost my testosterone levels but it really didn't do much
however i will admit that it did improve my sleep quality to some extent so fortunately i'm kind of
out of that period with low testosterone and now i have pretty much normal testosterone levels
and the way i did that was i simply increased my body fat levels to go over 10 i noticed that being
under 10 just didn't really sit right with me as far as my energy levels but what i like about
zma is that firstly it really keeps your energy in check you'll notice that you're definitely
getting better sleep like that's pretty much the only sign that it does increase your testosterone
levels i don't really think it did much to improve my testosterone levels i didn't notice
really an increase of libido i didn't notice uh any benefit with respect to like lifting
weights or improving my physique in any aspect but one thing which surely happened was i was
getting deeper sleep and what that seemed like was i was far more often to like for example
dream far more often to wake up in a state where i'm like enthusiastic about the day
feeling energized and that's a really good sign of like how good your sleep is and now i'm only
using it let's say when it's um a specific period during the year where i'm not sleeping as much
because with zma the really neat benefit is like six hours of sleep feels like eight so that's why
i've started taking it again and the note that the the brand really doesn't matter too much i've used
it from like bodybuilding.com i've tried a lot of the common brands now i'm with the canadian
brand called supplement source the doses are 30 milligrams of zinc this has 15 milligrams
of vitamin b6 which is a little bit higher and 450 milligrams of magnesium aspartate it's 90 capsules
three capsules a day so one bottle will last for a month there's not a lot of research that actually
backs the use of zma i wouldn't say it's overrated dma it's like more like properly rated in the
sense like yes it's not that effective but at the same time there aren't really bad side effects
it's kind of pricey not too expensive compared to the other supplements out there and zma does have
benefits to people who maybe aren't just athletes maybe for somebody who needs to improve their
concentration this could be the one supplement which helps you do just that increase your focus
i've even read about experiences from people who really suffered with adhd and whether it was the
zinc the magnesium or the b6 we don't know but the zma did help them specifically with adhd and
for example studying so one of the most popular studies was a study done in 1998 undertaking on
ncaa football players during an eight week spring training program what happened was the control
group was told to stop taking any nutritional supplements and another group was taking cma
tablets and they did report having greater increases specifically in muscle strength which
doesn't surprise me as i've gone and compared zma to other like testosterone boosting supplements
uh including like tribulus or including d-aspartic acid and fenugreek and i think zma is probably the
best out of all of those ones because it actually does something whereas most of them probably don't
i'd be fairly surprised if you were to take it and you didn't at least notice for example
like an improvement with your sleep and everybody of course needs better sleep whether it means
sleeping longer or sleeping more efficiently and making sure that you're getting like restful and
rejuvenating sleep let's go ahead now and break down the three ingredients specifically starting
with zinc which is a mineral that's essential to a number of processes in the body and the brain so
the bottom line is that supplementing with 15 to 30 milligrams of zinc may improve immunity
blood sugar levels eye heart and skin health but it's not advised to exceed the upper limit of 40
milligrams especially for those of you who are eating a lot of meats and eating a lot of beef
specifically so some of the common side effects of taking too much zinc can include digestive issues
flu-like symptoms and reduced copper absorption and antibiotic effectiveness if you are taking
antibiotics of course from my experience personally when i've gone through periods
and taking like a lot of zinc just to give it a shot and see what changes would occur if any uh
one thing i definitely felt was like less mental fatigue that took place during the day like i'm
somebody that i can work long stretches without needing to take breaks and i felt like zinc
made that even better and like instead of for example working like four hours without a break
i was able to go like five or six hours without taking like i mean a long break like a long hour
break because zinc made it such that i had like more mental energy to get tasks done be in a
resourceful state and not have it such that any time i was to do work i was to feel like mentally
drained it didn't really do that and that made it such like it was a no-brainer as far as like
make sure that i'm getting my daily zinc intake whether it's through diet or through supplement
form or a nice easy way around it is if you take a multivitamin daily then ensure that it does
contain zinc so that makes it such that i don't need to always be taking my zma during the course
of the year i'm only using it again when i want to go through like a 30 day experiment and maybe get
better sleep or catch up on sleep let's now take a look at magnesium which is a dietary mineral and
you can argue that about 50 of people are actually deficient in this really important mineral so
it's really common especially in developed countries to have a magnesium deficiency that's
often caused by diabetes or other conditions so a lack of magnesium will raise blood pressure
and actually reduce insulin sensitivity which to some extent makes it such that when you eat food
your body can't be efficient and utilize that food for fuel so the higher your insulin sensitivity is
the better you seem to function and the more energy you have especially after eating it's
not clear based on the research whether or not magnesium will help specifically with athletic
performance but one thing's for certain is that it is helpful with recovery and specifically
with sleep and there's a lot of research you can read about with respect to its effects against
depression and adhd and as we browse through on exam.com we can see lots of benefits with respect
to first blood pressure we have of course here magnesium levels being notably higher there's
a reduction in asthmatic symptoms and scrolling down to some of the really important measures we
can see that there are benefits with respect to sleep quality so there is an improvement
uh noted in people specifically with poor sleep quality so that's what the studies found they
found that if you take people who already have bad sleep and you give them magnesium then it
should be helpful but if you were to take somebody who's already sleeping quite well
magnesium may not be all that effective it can be kind of confusing when you start getting
into taking magnesium as a supplement as there are so many different forms of magnesium one
of the favorites that i've recently come across is called magtine it's magnesium l-three nade because
once you consume magazine you can actually feel it working you feel slightly more alert you feel
like you're in a better mood and at the same time it really helps with sleep so it's it's
really very strange in the sense you can take this nootropic which will help with energy and
at the same time help with sleeves so i've talked about magtine magnesium l3 in this video over here
i would really recommend giving that a watt it is one of the more expensive forms of magnesium
but it certainly works so most people notice a good benefit when they take magnesium specifically
before bed but if you do have any suspicions of you maybe not ingesting enough magnesium in the
day then it's such that twice a day may be right for you and moving on to the last ingredient which
is vitamin b6 quite honestly i'm really not sure why this is added to zma i mean there's one study
they found where the use of vitamin b6 did help to enhance the absorption of zinc however in this
study it was conducted on rats and there's only one study which pretty much shows that but we
do know that vitamin b specifically vitamin b6 is responsible for good energy levels so this may not
help but it makes it such that zma is ideal for athletes because then they don't need to just take
it um before bed like i recommend people do and like how i do but more so even during the course
of the day you can expect to take zma and not feel like tired, or lethargic which isn't the feeling
that it should promote even if you take it prior to bed it's just that what so is that's when you
should get the best benefits from it of course before adding any nutritional supplement to your
daily routine or your monthly routine please consult with your general practitioner first
these videos are simply educational i talk about my experience but i don't recommend you take zma
or any other supplement that i've discussed but do consider checking out some of my other videos
if you found this information helpful thank you so much for your interest in nootropics and the
best way you can support this channel is by clicking subscribe or if you're a returning
visitor be sure to drop a comment below i read all the comments and i absolutely love
getting your feedback on the videos and i look forward to seeing you all next time take care