Here is our recently updated Avantera Unwind review. Read on to find out how Avantera Unwind compares to other sleep aids and stress reduction supplements in terms of effectiveness, safety, ingredient quality, and value for money.
Avantera Unwind Review TL;DR Summary:
Pros
- Melatonin is a tried and tested sleep aid (4)
- Contains high-quality forms of Zinc and Magnesium
- Strict manufacturing practices in cGMP and FDA approved facilities
- Should help you sleep better and reduce stress & anxiety
Cons
- Proprietary blend – doses of some key ingredients aren’t shown
- Some unproven ingredients
Avantera Unwind Simplified:
Avantera Unwind is a decent sleep aid/stress reliever. It contains standard ingredients that you will find in other similar supplements. These include Ashwagandha, magnesium, melatonin, and passionflower amongst others.
We’ve found it to be effective for sleep and anxiety, though there are a few issues. Ashwagandha’s dosage is unknown, and so is the dose of lavender and a number of other ingredients. Without knowing ingredient dosages, you can only guess how they will work for you.
We think that for the price of $54.95 for a single-time purchase, Unwind could improve upon some areas before we can recommend it as one of the best options on the market. That said, if the price isn’t a deal-breaker for you, Awantera Unwind could very well be worth a try.
What do we recommend?
-Click to See the Current Top 3 Sleep Aids-
-Click to See the Current Top 3 Stress Reduction Supplements-
About Avantera Unwind
Unwind is a brand new adaptogen/sleep support supplement from the U.S. company Avantera Health. With 30 servings per bottle, Unwind only sells on the official website at the moment. But what does it do exactly?
According to Avantera, Unwind consists of 7 natural, adaptogen ingredients formulated to help you:
- Promote healthy stress response
- Support immune function
- Enhance memory
- Improve sleep efficiency
Natural sleep aids and anti-stress supplements are nothing new. We have been using herbal remedies for anxiety and stress for thousands of years; just think of how relaxing a cup of chamomile tea can be, not to mention stronger substances!
Today, the best sleep aids and stress reduction supplements all contain some ingredients which reduce mental chatter, promote clear, calm headspace, and help relieve chronic tension. The most comprehensive supplements do this without sacrificing your brain function and mental performance – as in, without sedating and causing “numbness”.
The question is, does Avantera Unwind work? Can this supplement really do all of the things Avantera says it can? Are these pills safe? How often should you take them? In this Avantera Unwind review, we answer all your questions and more!
Avantera Unwind Review: Key Facts
Benefits | Helps relieve mental tension, promotes a calm mind, enhances memory, supports mood & sleep |
Ingredients | Magnesium, Zinc, Ashwagandha, Passionflower, Lavender, Chamomile, Melatonin |
Company | Avantera |
Availability | Avantera Health |
Pricing | $54.95 |
How to use Avantera Unwind
Avantera Unwind dosage is 2 capsules, two hours before going to sleep.
Avantera Unwind Ingredients
Here are the ingredients in Avantera Unwind in case that image didn’t load properly for you:
- Magnesium Glycinate (120mg)
- Zinc Picolinate (30mg)
- Avantera Stress Support Blend (390mg)
- Sensoril Ashwagandha Root & Leaf Extract (DOSE UNKNOWN)
- Passionflower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
- English Lavender FLower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
- Chamomile Flower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
- Melatonin (1mg)
This is a fairly standard formula for anti-stress and sleep-enhancing supplements. These same ingredients are found in most similar products.
That said, it is nice to see that Avantera is using some higher quality forms of nutrients, such as Magnesium Glycinate and Zinc Picolinate. Coupled with melatonin, it should be enough to help you get to sleep faster and sleep better as well.
But there are some issues as well. Avantera Unwind is using a proprietary blend, which means you can’t tell the exact ingredient doses that are inside. You can only see the dose of the entire blend with all the ingredients combined.
The size of the proprietary blend is tiny considering the number of ingredients it has. This brings up the question – are some of the compounds underdosed?
Let’s take a closer look.
Magnesium Glycinate (120mg)
Magnesium is a solid sleep aid. It works by reducing brain cell activity; magnesium diminishes the number of signals which transfer between your neurons, effectively “quieting your mind”. It also helps prevent night-time muscle cramps and spasms, relaxes blood vessels, and reduces your heart rate. Supplementing with 200mg of magnesium is shown to be the optimal minimum dosage to unwind the body into a deep, restful sleep.
Zinc Picolinate (30mg)
Zinc is another essential mineral and excellent sleep aid. It regulates countless functions of your body, from hormone production to skin and hair health. In the context of sleep and anti-stress supplements, zinc can help prevent your cortisol levels from rising too high, which can interfere with your sleep.
Zinc Picolinate is an excellent form of zinc; it absorbs and digests very well.
The only potential complaint is the dosage – 30mg is quite a lot! You should make sure to take Avantera Unwind with food because this much zinc is known to cause stomach pain and diarrhea, amongst others. Plus, if you are going to be using this supplement every day, it’s better to take 15mg-20mg of zinc max. To prevent copper malabsorption. (1)
Sensoril Ashwagandha Root & Leaf Extract (DOSE UNKNOWN)
Ashwagandha is one of the most popular anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) herbs today. And for a good reason.
Ashwagandha works by reducing blood cortisol levels. Cortisol is your chief “stress” hormone. It is vitally useful when released in response to threat or danger, much like norepinephrine. However, chronically elevated cortisol is physically and mentally destructive (again, much like norepinephrine).
By diminishing cortisol, ashwagandha can significantly reduce both symptoms and actual feelings of worry, tension, overthinking, and stress.
Avanterea Unwind is using Sensoril Ashwagandha, which, compared to other forms of ashwagandha (e.g. KSM-66), is particularly effective for stress reduction. The only problem is, we can’t see its dosage! 250-500mg per day is shown to be the minimum optimal dosage for reducing stress. (2) The entire proprietary blend of Avantera Unwind is only 390mg.
Passionflower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
Passionflower is a common ingredient in cheaper sleep aids today. Unlike Ashwagandha, there doesn’t seem to be any serious scientific proof for Passionflower’s use as a sleep enhancer or stress reduction supplement. Very few solid clinical trials exist in humans, and none of them have shown a better night’s sleep from passionflower consumption alone. This is a waste of capsule space in our opinion.
English Lavender Flower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
Lavender, or Lavandula, is a family of plants used most commonly for essential oils and perfumes. Inhaling lavender oil – or consuming its powder as a supplement – can temporarily alleviate anxiety symptoms. (3)
Although lavender doesn’t have a sedative effect, it may help improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia.
The minimum effective dosage for Lavender is 80 – 160 mg of a supplement with 25 – 46% linalool (active substance). Avantera doesn’t show us how much lavender it contains nor what its linalool content is. Therefore, assessing how this ingredient will – or won’t affect you – is a bit tricky!
Chamomile Flower Powder (DOSE UNKNOWN)
Chamomile is a delicious caffeine-free tea to drink to relax and unwind. It is natural, relaxing, and it won’t potentially keep you awake like green tea might. However, supplementing with chamomile plant parts has never been shown in scientific research to improve sleep quality in humans.
We recommend just drinking chamomile tea and spending less money on more robustly proven ingredients. This is yet another ingredient that is wasting capsule space here. Better ingredients could be used in its stead – including tart cherry, phosphatidylserine, or taurine.
Melatonin (1mg)
Melatonin is the hormone that controls when you are awake and when you are asleep. It is released when it’s time for you to feel sleepy, it spikes when you need to enter deep sleep, and it wanes when it’s time to get up. Supplementing with melatonin enhances sleep from pretty much every angle – it corrects jet lag, reduces sleep onset & latency, and promotes sleep quality. You need about 2mg of melatonin to feel the full effects, and 5mg for jet lag specifically. (4)
Customer Reviews
Before buying a sleep aid or stress-reducing supplement like Avantera Unwind, it is always worth checking what other customers are saying about its pros and cons.
Unfortunately, since Unwind is still a relatively new product, impartial reviews are difficult to find. The only reviews currently available are those from Avantera’s official website, where it has an almost-perfect rating of 4.8/5 stars.
Does Avantera Unwind Have Side Effects?
Is Avantera Unwind safe to take long-term? What are the side effect risks?
These are likely some of the most important questions for our Avantera Unwind review to answer.
Avantera Unwind looks like a safe supplement for most people to take on a regular basis. The ingredients have all been tested in clinical trials and none of them are known to cause major side effects. The only exception is zinc – higher dosages can cause cramps and diarrhea, and potentially copper deficiency in the long term.
*You should check with a qualified professional if you aren’t sure whether to take this product or not. Remember, our posts aren’t meant as advice – they’re for informational and entertainment purposes only!
Where to Buy?
Avantera Unwind currently sells on their website. It is not available on Amazon or anywhere else at the moment.
The price is $54.95 for only 30 servings if opting for a one-time purchase. This puts it in a similar price range as the best-reviewed sleep aids and stress reduction supplements.
However, it is possible to get Avantera Unwind for $39.95 if you subscribe to recurring delivery and automatized credit card charges.
The Bottom Line
Does Avantera Unwind work?
The answer is yes – Awantera Unwind works for sleep and reducing stress. It has some well-researched ingredients for this purpose, and the risk of side effects is low.
That said, is Avantera Unwind the best anti-stress/sleep supplement we’ve seen?
Not really.
The supplement has a few downsides that make it fall behind our current top picks.
The most obvious issue is the proprietary blend. Without seeing ingredient doses, there is no way to know if they are effective at all. We only have the manufacturer’s promise. That said, it is likely that some key ingredients like Ashwagandha are underdosed, because the minimum optimal dosage for this ingredient is 250mg-500mg, and the entire proprietary blend of Unwind is only 390mg.
Then there is the issue with unproven and untested ingredients. There is not a single robust human study that shows Passionflower alone does anything for sleep or anxiety. The same applies to chamomile, which is great as a tea, but there is no proof that it works when its parts are plucked, dried, and grounded into a supplement.
There are quite a few core ingredients that are missing from Unwind, including Phosphatidylserine and Taurine. These could be added to replace the ineffective ones in the formula.
With that said, Avantera Unwind is definitely not a terrible supplement. It has some great ingredients, some of which have their dosages shown. These alone should be enough to alleviate stress and help you sleep better.
It is just that for the price of $54.95, better sleep aids and stress reduction supplements can be found on the market.
References & Literature
- Duncan A, Yacoubian C, Watson N, Morrison I. The risk of copper deficiency in patients prescribed zinc supplements. J Clin Pathol. 2015 Sep;68(9):723-5. doi: 10.1136/jclinpath-2014-202837. Epub 2015 Jun 17. PMID: 26085547.
- Chandrasekhar K, Kapoor J, Anishetty S. A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety and efficacy of a high-concentration full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha root in reducing stress and anxiety in adults. Indian J Psychol Med. 2012 Jul;34(3):255-62. doi: 10.4103/0253-7176.106022. PMID: 23439798; PMCID: PMC3573577.
- Koulivand PH, Khaleghi Ghadiri M, Gorji A. Lavender and the nervous system. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013;2013:681304. doi:10.1155/2013/681304
- Savage RA, Zafar N, Yohannan S, et al. Melatonin. [Updated 2021 Aug 15]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534823/