I Replaced My Evening Snack with This Specific Herbal Tea for 14 Nights – The Sleep & Recovery Boost Was Real 

The fitness community is heading toward over-optimization.

Fitness influencers will tell you what and how much to eat at any point throughout the day. However, this usually leads to a skewed metabolism that can hinder your sleep, recovery, and training performance.

As a personal trainer with almost two decades in the trenches, I decided to tackle these issues with a simple and intriguing experiment. I replaced my usual protein-rich evening snack with an ashwagandha herbal root tea.

In this article, I share how making this switch impacted my sleep quality and my body’s ability to recover from intense training. You’ll also learn about how you can implement this into your own routine.

We have a lot to unpack, so sit tight and read on.

The 14-Night Journey of Drinking Ashwagandha Root Tea

I consumed the ashwagandha tea about an hour before my usual bedtime (around 10:30 PM).  To start the winding-down process, I dimmed the lights, put away all the electronic devices, and read a physical book. I sipped the tea slowly, usually finishing it within about 15 minutes.

Here is an overview of my experience with this two-week experiment:

Week One

I noticed a subtle but definite shift within the first few nights of starting this challenge. I typically fall asleep relatively easily, but I drifted off even faster after adding ashwagandha tea to my routine.

Although I did not wear a sleep tracking device on my wrist for this experiment, I paid close attention to how rested I felt in the morning.

Around the fourth day, I noticed that I experienced fewer sleep interruptions throughout the night. I wasn’t waking up as frequently to readjust or feeling restless. I closed my eyes in the night, and they reopened when the alarm went off.

This new routine was working well, as I woke up feeling more refreshed and less groggy than usual. Even if I experienced a little grogginess in the morning, it dissipated quickly.

Week Two

As my body started adapting to this new routine, I was calmer after drinking the tea. I felt relaxed and less prone to those pre-sleep anxieties that can sometimes creep in.

My sleep was now even deeper and more restorative than the first seven days.

Unlike some other bedtime routines I’ve tried in the past, the consistency of the benefits of drinking the ashwagandha tea was quite remarkable. It wasn’t a roller coaster of good nights and bad nights; it felt like a steady cruise.

I must add that I felt strong cravings for my usual evening snacks during the first few days of this challenge. However, the warm and comforting nature of the tea helped me get over those pre-bedtime urges.

Best of all, my energy levels felt stable throughout the day. I had long battled mid-morning and afternoon energy crashes, but this wasn’t the case anymore.

Breaking Down The Evening Snack Habit

I train in the evening and have my dinner within an hour of the workout. Since I aim to push myself in each session, I am pretty exhausted by the end. The post-workout meal replenishes my glycogen stores, but I start feeling hungry before it’s time for bed.

For years, my go-to evening snack has generally been a protein shake with a banana or Greek yogurt with some berries and nuts. However, I sometimes eat a small serving of lean chicken with sweet potato if I have a particularly grueling training session that day.

Although these weren’t massive meals, they were just enough to satiate my hunger and provide enough fuel for optimal recovery.

All was going well until I noticed an issue. These protein-heavy meals were ramping up my metabolism, and my digestive system had to work in overdrive to process the food, making it harder for me to fall and stay asleep.

Depending on the snack, I sometimes also experienced late-night blood sugar spikes, followed by a crash, which impacted my sleep quality.

Finding a Smarter Approach

At this point, I knew something hard to give. I began questioning my evening snack and started looking for something that could boost my sleep and recovery rather than just provide calories and macronutrients.

Don’t get me wrong; the latter is important too. I increased my protein and carb intake in the three big meals to ensure I had enough nutrients in my body to maximize gains.

That said, I began searching for the perfect snack to improve my sleep and recovery.

During my research, ashwagandha popped up repeatedly for its adaptogenic properties. It showed immense potential for reducing stress and improving sleep quality. I was particularly drawn to the fact that this was an ancient herb that offered a more holistic nourishment and recovery.

As someone who has been in the fitness industry for almost two decades, I have seen countless fads come and go. I knew I had to research this supplement thoroughly before starting this 14-day challenge. After all, who wants to spend money on a supp that is a complete waste of time, energy, and money?

Ashwagandha Root Tea: A Brief Introduction

Ashwagandha is a powerful herb that has a rich history in Ayurvedic medicine, a traditional Indian system of healing that spans thousands of years. This herb is popular for its rejuvenating and adaptogenic properties, meaning it can help your body adapt to stress.

The potential benefits of ashwagandha lie in its active compounds, primarily a group of steroids called withanolides. Don’t worry, these steroids aren’t like the synthetic anabolic compounds that have become synonymous with bodybuilding.

In moderate doses, withanolides can help: (1)

• Reduce cortisol levels
• Support recovery and sleep
• Lower inflammation levels
• Boost testosterone (indirectly)
• Improve stress tolerance and endurance

They are often marketed as natural anabolic compounds due to their regenerative effects in muscle tissue and the nervous system.

Nonetheless, too much of anything is bad, and going overboard with ashwagandha can interfere with your thyroid function, cause liver enzyme elevations, or result in mild side effects like nausea and diarrhea.

Thanks to its growing popularity, ashwagandha comes in different forms and varieties, from powders to capsules to tea bags.

I went with the ashwagandha root tea for this experiment as it was a convenient way to incorporate it into my evening routine.

Start by heating a cup of water and let it cool slightly off the boil. Then, steep the teabag for about 5-7 minutes. This allows the beneficial compounds to properly infuse into the water, resulting in an earthy, slightly better taste.

While some people might want to add zero-calorie artificial sweeteners to the tea to mask the earthy flavor, I actually found it quite calming, as it helped me wind down.

Potential Mechanisms of Ashwagandha: The Science Behind the Benefits

This is how ashwagandha can help you achieve your goals:

• Lowers stress levels: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study found that ashwagandha can help lower cortisol levels, the body’s primary stress hormone (2).  Elevated cortisol levels can disrupt sleep patterns and hinder recovery.
• Soothes the nervous system: Ashwagandha can influence various chemical messengers in our brain to calm down our nervous system. This can reduce anxiety and promote the feeling of ease.
• Fights Inflammation: Intense training can cause microscopic tears in the muscle tissue, leading to inflammation and soreness. Ashwagandha possesses anti-inflammatory properties, which can help accelerate muscle recovery by reducing free-floating radicals in the body.

Subjective Feelings & Sleep Quality Improvements

Irrespective of what anyone tells you, how a new routine makes you feel subjectively is just as important as the objective results. After all, you won’t stick to something for long if it feels weird and uncomfortable. 

As soon as I finished my cup of tea, I noticed a wave of subtle calmness washing over me. My mind is usually racing at night, which makes me toss and turn in my bed. However, I felt the edge soften and my thoughts slowed down after switching to the ashwagandha tea.

My typical evening snacks were nutritional, but they sometimes made me feel a bit heavy. The tea offered a completely different experience. Instead of feeling physically full, it made me mentally and emotionally lighter.

The act of preparing the tea, the warmth of the mug, the gentle aroma — it all contributed to a more relaxing experience leading up to bed.

By the end of this 14-night challenge, it was clear that the ashwagandha root tea wasn’t just a replacement for my usual evening snacks; it was a big upgrade.

Role of Sleep Quality

Sleep quality and quantity are incredibly important for optimal recovery.

Waking up feeling more rested and revitalized every morning was the biggest noticeable improvement at the end of this 14-day experiment. It almost felt like my body and mind had enough time to properly recharge overnight.

Although I don’t have objective data to back this but I experienced a greater sense of deep, restorative sleep during this challenge.

Ashwagandha root tea elevated my sleep quality to another level, and I felt ready to tackle the world each morning.

Workout Recovery Enhancements: Bouncing Back Faster

I followed my typical training schedule during these two weeks. I hit the weights four to five times a week, focusing on compound movements, and did two to three HIIT cardio sessions to maximize fat loss.

There was no dip in my workout performance, which meant that giving up the high-protein evening snacks wasn’t hindering my progress. The intensity was consistently high, signaling that my recovery was on point.

To my surprise, my delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) reduced significantly. It still occurred, but it felt less intense and didn’t linger for as long. This helped me recover faster between workouts and allowed me to push myself to the limit in each session, which is key to long-term, consistent progress.

Conclusion

Replacing heavy meals with a warm, herbal beverage helped my brain and body unwind and prepare for bed.

I am more than pleased with the results of this 14-day experiment and have decided to make the ashwagandha tea a part of my daily routine for the long term. Try this for yourself if you’re looking for a natural remedy to improve your sleep and recovery. You won’t be disappointed, I promise!

---