Ingredient Spotlight — Alpinia galanga (enXtra®)

Energy That Doesn't Betray You at 3 P.M.

You don't have a focus problem in the morning. You have one at 3 p.m. — when the coffee that carried you leaves the bill on the table. A human trial tested an ingredient built for exactly that window.

The crash is the part nobody sells you on. The first cup feels like control. By mid-afternoon it feels like withdrawal — the flat, foggy dip right when the day still needs a version of you that's awake. You've learned to push another coffee into the gap and start the cycle again. There is a different chemistry for that hour, and it doesn't come from a stimulant.

The trial

In a randomized, double-dummy, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study, researchers tested Alpinia galanga extract — the active in enXtra® — against caffeine, placebo, and a galanga-plus-caffeine combination, in 59 healthy adults who were habitual caffeine drinkers. They measured mental alertness and sustained attention over five hours using validated attention-network testing.

What they found

• Alertness, on its own — no caffeine needed. Alpinia galanga raised mental-alertness scores above baseline at 1, 3, and 5 hours, with a significant increase versus placebo (p = 0.042 at 3 hours).
• It softened the caffeine crash. When combined with caffeine, mean response time improved significantly — by about 15.6 ms at the 3-hour mark — the window where caffeine alone tends to fade.
• Sustained, not spiky. The alertness effect held across the full five-hour window rather than peaking and dropping.

The researchers' conclusion: Alpinia galanga produces a beneficial effect on mental alertness, and combined with caffeine it "impedes the caffeine crash" and improves sustained attention at three hours.

Most energy borrows from later. This is the rarer kind that doesn't.

Why it's in the system

We built around actives that answer a specific failure point, not a vague promise. Caffeine owns the first hour; almost nothing is designed for the fifth. Alpinia galanga is one of the few ingredients with human data pointing precisely at sustained alertness — with a stimulant, or without one. For a cognitive system meant to hold a full working day, that's not a nice-to-have. It's the point.

Reference: Srivastava S, Mennemeier M, Pimple S. Effect of Alpinia galanga on Mental Alertness and Sustained Attention With or Without Caffeine: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Study. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 2017;36(8):631–639. doi:10.1080/07315724.2017.1342576.
Read it: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28910196

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.