INSIGHT
-
Positives
- Plenty of bacopa monnieri
- Plenty of phosphatidylserine
- Good range of safe, natural ingredients
Negatives
- Ashwagandha totally unproven
- No long term adaptation support
- No major anti-oxidants
INSIGHT Review Summary
INSIGHT is a nootropic brain boosting supplement designed specifically for vegans. Freemind Supplements explicitly market INSIGHT as a “vegan nootropic”. That’s great, as many supplements are not suitable for vegans. But is it any good?
We think it looks very good. With the exception of Ashwagandha, it is comprised of only scientifically-proven, effective, safe natural brain boosting compounds. The ingredients in INSIGHT are extremely well-dosed, and they cover a wide range of cognitive functions.
The price is slightly lower than we would expect from a premium-grade nootropic stack too. While other stacks such as Mind Lab Pro offer more potency and perhaps better long-term benefits, INSIGHT is still up there with the best of them.
Where To Buy INSIGHT Vegan Nootropic
You can buy INSIGHT directly from Freemind Supplements. They have quite a good online store, and we are sure such a serious supplement company can be trusted to process your purchase properly and responsibly.
Full INSIGHT Review
Freemind Supplements INSIGHT is a comprehensive nootropic stack designed specifically for vegans.
According to Freemind Supplements, INSIGHT is composed of nothing but “scientifically-tested, GMP-certified, all-natural vegan ingredients.”
This is really good to see. While a minority of our readers (and our review team) are vegan, we like to see manufacturers making supplements that are accessible for everyone.
After all, if you aren’t vegan, you can still consume vegan products; it just doesn’t work the other way around.
More often than not, the only reason supplements aren’t vegan is because manufacturers opt for cheap encapsulating agents (gelatin), or they inexplicable include things like whey, fish-derived DHA, or egg albumen.
So we’re already impressed that Freemind Supplements have gone out of their way to offer a serious brain supplement up to their vegan customers (and by extension, to all of us).
So what is Freemind Supplements INSIGHT nootropic all about?
What is it designed to do?
According to the manufacturer, INSIGHT can deliver the following benefits:
- Increased energy
- Enhanced memory
- Boosted focus
- Greater mental clarity
- Lower stress levels
These are all great benefits. Natual nootropic supplements are more than capable of delivering this full range of cognitive enhancements, assuming all the right ingredients are there and the doses are right.
Most interestingly of all, Freemind Supplements make the following claim:
It’s really great to see a supplement manufacturer making such reasonable claims about their product.
All too often, we see nootropic brands slapping all kinds of ridiculous promises all over their stacks: “Super strength formula”, “improves memory in just 1 hour”, “improve intelligence”, and so on.
Natural nootropic stacks can definitely improve focus very quickly. Things like theanine, caffeine, and rhodiola rosea can have a very pronounced effect on concentration very shortly after consuming them.
Yet things like memory function, mood, clarity in the morning, and long-term brain function require a much longer investment if you are to see improvements.
That’s why it’s great to see Freemind Supplements being honest with their customers, telling them that memory improvements will only become apparent after at least 6 weeks of using INSIGHT.
So that’s what this stack is supposed to do taken care of. Now we just need to find out if it can actually do it!
And there’s only one way to do that.
Let’s take a look at the INSIGHT vegan nootropic formula and see if it can really deliver on all of these wonderful promises made by Freemind.
If you have any questions for us, or any product review requests, please let us know in the comments section below or email us directly (our address is on the ‘How We Review’ page).
-See Our Top 3 Rated Vegan Nootropics-
INSIGHT Formula
Freemind Supplements pride themselves in being totally transparent with their formula. Once again, they have impressed us with their obvious commitment to quality, customer satisfaction, and making a great value nootropic.
We’re sick of seeing proprietary blends and shady formulas, so this is very refreshing.
Here is the full INSIGHT formula as it is displayed on the product bottle:
Our Thoughts On The Formula – Positives
There are plenty of really good things to say about the INSIGHT formula.
Both the ingredient selection and serving size allocation is, generally speaking, superb.
In most cases, we have the best possible ingredients in doses much higher than we actually need them to be.
Overdosing
For example, we have more bacopa monnieri than we need.
Above a certain level of bacosides, bacopa monnieri delivers diminishing returns; there’s only so much it can do for memory.
With bacopa monnieri, the key factor is the length of time you take it for, not the dosage. So more is not necessarily better (above the optimal dose). Rather, longer usage is better.
This is especially true with INSIGHT, which uses perhaps the strongest, most potent bacopa monnieri extract we’ve seen to date; 55% bacosides!
At this purity, we wouldn’t need any more than about 120mg per day. In fact, taking more than that would most probably not deliver better results.
This certainly isn’t a negative aspect of INSIGHT; bacopa monnieri is safe and well-tolerated at much higher doses than this. It is just unnecessary!
Another prime example here is rhodiola rosea.
This plant extract is known to significantly reduce mental fatigue, allowing you to concentrate on complex tasks for much longer than you might otherwise be able to.
Numerous studies have noted that rhodiola rosea has a powerful anti-fatigue effect when used as a supplement.
This cohort analysis found that, when subjects were tested before and after 4 weeks of rhodiola rosea supplementation, “all tests showed clinically relevant improvements with regard to stress symptoms, disability, functional impairment and overall therapeutic effect” at the end of the 4 weeks.
That’s pretty unequivocal.
However, the amount used in this trial, 200mg twice daily, is not at all necessary to benefit from rhodiola rosea’s properties.
Other studies, such as this one, used much smaller quantities and returned similar results.
When taken daily for a long period of time, it is generally thought that no more than 50mg is necessary to lower fatigue, both mental and physical.
Most ingredients are, however, dosed perfectly.
-See Our Ingredient Guide For More Details-
Perfect Dosing
Both theanine and phosphatidylserine are dosed at 100mg per serving.
That is absolutely perfect for these two ingredients.
100mg of theanine is enough to completely remove any side effects you might get from your daily barrel of coffee, while making the caffeine you consume more effective at enhancing focus and boosting energy.
Phosphatidylserine is a vital component of brain cell membranes. We generally have all we need as we either consume it in our diet or the body synthesizes its own.
However, supplementation is a good idea if you want to optimize cognitive function.
Ginkgo biloba is another great example here.
Most stacks that contain Ginkgo biloba only provide about 50mg per serving. Here we have 100mg, which is 25mg more than you will find in health food store own-brand ginkgo supplements.
For ginkgo biloba, 100mg per day is enough to deliver enhanced neural blood flow without you incurring too much in the way of side effect risks.
Minor Drawbacks
There are some minor drawbacks here that need highlighting.
The main problem with this supplement is the use of Ashwagandha; an unproven, over-hyped, ineffective herbal extract.
This stuff is a very popular herbal supplement. It is taken around for world to alleviate all kinds of maladies; anxiety, insomnia, depression, impotence, general illness, and some people even claim it can help treat cancer (it can’t).
However, we have never seen a single study affirming any of these claims )especially not the cancer one).
We think Freemind Supplements have bought into the hype a little here and sacrificed their commitment to only using well-tested, thoroughly proven natural nootropics.
Another minor drawback is the under-dosing of ALCAR.
It’s rare to actually see ALCAR dosed close to where it needs to be in a serious nootropic supplement. Yet we still need to point out that the dose used in INSIGHT is less than the amount we’d need to see to be impressed.
ACLAR is heavily involved in energy metabolism. It has the ability to directly improve your mitochondrial capacity. Mitochondria are your cellular engines; improving their work capacity means more energy, mental energy included.
ALCAR is also thought to be able to protect mitochondria, neurons, and a host of other neural cells from damage.
It is, all-in-all, a wonderful brain booster, yet it is almost always under-dosed significantly.
The minimum effective dosage for the purposes of boosting cognitive performance for the long-term seems to be about 630mg.
INSIGHT contains just 500mg per serving. Better than most, yet still not good enough.
Finally, INSIGHT falls foul of the same crime as so many other natural nootropic stacks reviewed on this site.
They have obviously been dead set on including Tyrosine, but when it came down to it, they just couldn’t commit the formula space to it.
So instead of going hard or going home, as you should with amino acids, they limped in with 150mg of Tyrosine.
Tyrosine can seriously help you stay on point during times of peak stress and mental strain. However, taking less than 500mg is absolutely pointless. You will not get any meaningful benefit from taking 150mg daily.
-Lion’s Mane Mushroom & Long-Term Enhancement-
INSIGHT Review Conclusion
All things considered, this is a great natural nootropic stack.
INSIGHT by Freemind Supplements is sold explicitly as a “vegan nootropic”. Yet by any standard this is a fantastic supplement, capable of delivering everything it says on the tin.
Yes, it has some issues.
But these are minor problems.
Yes it could be more comprehensive.
But it could also be a lot thinner!
If you’re looking for a powerful, reliable, safe nootropic to help you get the most out of your mind, then you can do an awful lot worse than INSIGHT by Freemind Supplements.
There are more powerful, comprehensive nootropics offering better results and longer lasting benefits, but INSIGHT still stands well above the vast majority of other brain boosters on the market today.
This stuff hasn’t been on the market for very long. Perhaps in the future we can expect a relaunch with all the nagging problems fixed. We live in hope.
We have reviewed hundreds of nootropics and this supplement is still the most impressive. Our review team used this product for months and all experienced:
- Heightened focus
- Enhanced memory function
- More mental energy
- Better mental performance under stress
Read our full review to find out if this is the nootropic you have been looking for.
I really don’t think your bias against ashwagandha is unjustified. Check out this link for the numerous studies proving its benefits.
https://examine.com/supplements/ashwagandha/
Hi Cleapho,
You don’t think it is unjustified?
Neither do we…
It isn’t bias, it’s opinion based on existing evidence. Bias is quite a loaded term and we do think your use of it is unjustifiable here.
We appreciate you linking us to some studies though. We’ll check them out and, if they have merit, we’ll allow them to inform our reviews going forward. We’ll also certainly re-write our INSIGHT review if we deem it necessary.