Chapter one of our September energy series. The gut series resumes when the tub is back in October.

The afternoon has a shape, and most of us blame the wrong hour for it. Here is the curve, and the one place on it where a scoop earns its keep.

7:00am, the first coffee

Caffeine gets to work fast and peaks within the hour. It is doing exactly what you asked. The morning feels handled.

10:30am, the quiet peak

This is the hour people describe as "in the zone." It is also the hour that decides the afternoon, because whatever you put in now is what the 2pm version of you is running on. This is where a mid-morning scoop sits: not at the slump, but well before it.

1:30pm, lunch reroutes the traffic

Digestion is expensive. Blood flow moves toward the gut, and the after-lunch settling of blood sugar follows. Caffeine's half-life is roughly five hours, so the first coffee is at about half strength by now. Nothing has gone wrong. The morning's inputs have simply run their course.

2:00pm to 4:00pm, the curve

This is the hour the second coffee gets reached for. It covers the next sixty minutes and then hands the problem back. The afternoon is not a caffeine problem; it is a planning problem, and the plan was set at 10:30.

Where a scoop fits

The Brain x Energy Powder goes in at the quiet peak, one scoop in water or milk, every day. Each scoop carries 3g of creatine monohydrate, 200mg of L-theanine and 48% freeze-dried Neuroberry® blackcurrant. It also carries Vitamin B5, which contributes to normal energy production, and the Vitamin C of Neuroberry, which contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, as part of a healthy and varied diet.†

One scoop, one glass, at 10:30 rather than at 3.

Raspberry blackcurrant, mixes smooth, 28 scoops to a tub. Four weeks, which is the length of a fair trial.

†Ārepa Brain x Energy Powder contains Vitamin B5, which contributes to normal energy production, and Neuroberry® blackcurrant, very high in Vitamin C, which contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, as part of a healthy and varied diet. Ārepa is a supplemented food.

Chapter two, Sunday: why we built it, from the founder.