Is it really necessary to take ZMA only before bedtime?
This keeps me awake. Can’t I take it 3 hours before and have the same results?
I know the idea is to take it to enhance the testosterone peak in deep sleep, but are the minerals really only stored in the testis for such a short time?
Really? I have felt that I’ve gotten much better quality sleep since I’ve started taking it.
Rich,
I think a larger issue is the same one that makes ZMA a “special” blend: that it is a specific ratio, and contains no calcium “filler.” Calcium inhibits the absorption of zinc and magnesium, and is found in many things, so the empty stomach is an important part of the protocol. It’s easiest to have and maintain an empty stomach when you are asleep.
If trouble sleeping is the problem, perhaps taking melatonin at bedtime would help. Others will be along soon on this thread to give you more and more thorough answers, but you’ve been very patient, and after a year I thought you deserved a response. 
Sorry, but that’s not how ZMA works. And it acts as a sleep aide for most people. Just run a search and learn more about.
All that being said, I’m sure taking it 2 hours before bed is fine, just do it on an empty stomach between meals.
I take ZMA 90 minutes after my last meal and take about another 30 minutes to brush my teeth, check my email, this site, etc, before hitting the sack.
So if you take it 90 minutes after a meal you shouldnt have too much calcium to slow down or spoil the absorbtion of the minerals.
And i find taking it 30 minutes before sleeping does help me sleep very well. Its kind of like the deep sleep you get when you are high expect you have some test build up come morning.
What you are suffering from might not be ZMA related. What else do you eat, drink, and do before you go to bed?
heh, and here I was under the impression that you weren’t supposed to ever have an empty stomach. Go figure.
I use Biotest’s ZMA and take it sometimes a while before or during a serving of Low Carb Grow! at night with flax and/or fish oil caps just before going to bed. If I have to sacrifice a little absorbtion from that small amount of calcium, so be it. I generally have a decent amount of zinc and magnesium intake per day anyway so isn’t much of a prob.
Could always do the research and math concerning absorbtions rates, interference, slight increase in dosage, etc. if you don’t get the answer you’re lookin for here. I don’t really have it either. I eat very frequently and is hard to find anytime during the day that I’ll have an ‘empty stomach’ so I just take it whenever at night and don’t worry about it.
Both davo and sam pretty much got it about as good as you’re gonna get it with tryin to take em inbetween meals as best as possible instead of during.
And I wouldn’t recomend ZMA to be the main staple of your sleep cycle nutrition as there are a number of articles on this site explaining the use of proteins and such for this.
Just a comment on “empty stomach”:
The medical definition (as explained to me by people who are meticulous about knowing such things) is that the stomach is “empty” about 2 hours after and 1 hour before eating.
Therefore, if you aren’t constantly snacking, and even if you are eating 5-6 meals a day, you could easily have a 3-hour window of opportunity…several times a day.
For instance: if you wake up at 6:00am, you could eat meals at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm.
Morning Tribex or Red Kat could be at 6:00a.m., and again 12 hours later.
Hot Rox could be at 6am or 9am, and then again at noon or 3pm.
ZMA at 9pm, and a protein snack at 10pm.
(Sorry to be getting so pedantic; just wanted to see it laid out in a logical pattern.)
Tshaw, the problem is, even if the stomach is enpty, the small intestine (where absoprtion takes place) probably is not a since various compents of food can take several hours to be digested and absorbed.
To find the answer we would have to know how long calcium takes to be absorbed after a typical meal, and then how long after taking ZMA do the testis reach peak levels of the minerals.