How innovation in sport and circadian science inspired a round-the-clock supplement system
It began with a performance question from inside a pro sailing team: could optimising an athlete’s natural circadian rhythm help them perform better and think sharper? To show up more energised and more often?
That question led the team’s human performance specialists to rethink how routine, recovery and supplementation could support performance around the clock.
And crucially, not just for athletes, but anyone with a high-demand lifestyle.
Our circadian drive
The guiding principle behind the system is often overlooked, in life as well as elite sport – our daily sleep/wake cycle known as the circadian rhythm.
Our internal clock regulates everything from hormone release and energy production to focus, immunity, and the ability to fall and stay asleep.
“Obviously athletes want to take every potential advantage that they can,” explains nutritionist and ainslie + ainslie formulation consultant, Aidan Goggins, whose experience bridges elite sport as well as health in the wider population. “When we’re looking at circadian performance, the very basic thing that everybody understands is that we need enough sleep for recovery.
What’s less well-known is that when our master body clock is in tune with the peripheral body clock, it primes (us) for physical and mental performance during the day, and maximum recovery and regeneration at night-time.”
Why our body clocks are flatlining
When that rhythm is working well, the body performs and recovers efficiently. In modern life, marked by late nights, constant demands, erratic meal-times, screen time and frequent travel, this rhythm is frequently disrupted. That disruption doesn’t just affect sleep; it can impact every aspect of how we think and perform.
“We’re kind of out of kilter with (our rhythm) in our modern lifestyles,” says Goggins. “It’s quite divergent from how we’ve evolved, essentially. So what we try and do is attune someone’s lifestyle – how they eat, and how they train – with the natural rhythms of the body.”
"What we try and do is attune someone’s lifestyle with the natural rhythms of the body.”
Back in balance
The performance team began developing an holistic system to align training, recovery and nutrition to help restore this natural balance.
This included a timed supplement system, developed by Goggins, to support the athlete’s most fundamental systems: energy and immune function in the day, rest and recovery at night.
It's this supplement system that became NIGHT + DAY POWDER. Designed for different physiological tasks, but created together as a 24/7 system. Providing the body with what it needs to support those systems, precisely when it needs them most.
Relax and recover
"Anyone who feels any kind of increased demands on their life, which really encapsulates most of the population, the number one performance – mental and physical – enhancement... is to improve that natural sleep architecture," says Goggins.
They looked at how nighttime performance could be optimised across the board, configuring an evening routine to impact sleep quality alongside ingredients to support relaxation, repair and reduced fatigue on waking.
A focused formula using a blend of six carefully-selected ingredients to perform the task – manesium, managanese, copper, L-Glycine, saffron and tart cherry – delivered in meaningful doses.
“In the evening, the nutrients in NIGHT POWDER have these more soothing, anti-inflammatory properties, focused on recovery, almost like a reboot when you're computer is in sleep mode,” says Goggins.
Prime and protect
DAY POWDER is formulated to prepare the body for work – physical and mental. Its ingredients support energy production, focus, immune resilience and protect cells under stress.
The formulation includes nutrients to help counteract the effects of lives spent under stress – Vitamin D, zinc, selenium, glutamine, Vitamin C, Vitamin B complex – and protective compounds like bilberry extract, L-Glutathione and astaxanthin, with emerging reputations in performance circles for their antioxidant response.
“With DAY POWDER, we’re taking advantage of that improved recovery, and the natural end of the sleep cycle, and providing key nutrients to prime our cells for resilience to stressors throughout the day, as well as providing key nutrients for energy release and focus.”
Designed for athletes, made for everyone
The formulations reflect the real-world experiences and insights that Goggins developed over years in high-performance environments.
It became clear that this approach didn’t apply exclusively to athletes. Anyone leading a high-demand lifestyle, juggling work and family, experience comparable stressors, and are often doing it on poor quality sleep and without all the backroom support and advice that athletes enjoy.
“Performance has many meanings for an everyday life and an athlete just epitomises somebody that we recognise has put high demands, day in-day out, on their body," says Goggins.
By playing to our circadian rhythm throughout the day, from getting early light exposure when we wake to supporting that natural wind down process in the day, we are creating an environment where performance thrives.
“It's a holistic approach, so if somebody's immune system's up, if they're recovering better, then that all feeds into how we perform on a day-to-day basis,” says Goggins. “It's a supplement for anybody that wants to feel their best.”
