“Electrolyte packets improve energy and concentration.”
Electrolyte packets do not give you extra energy or sharper focus if you are already drinking enough.
If you feel tired or foggy after a long time without a drink, drinking water helps. Beyond fixing that, a packet's energy or focus label is not backed by evidence.
When you feel a slump, drink a glass of water first and see how you feel.
Safety note: Electrolyte packets add sodium. Too much sodium may raise blood pressure in some people and can cause a serious buildup of fluid in people with heart failure, liver cirrhosis or kidney disease. Adults with high blood pressure are advised to keep sodium to 1,500 mg a day or less.
Talk to a healthcare professional if: you have high blood pressure, heart failure, kidney disease or liver cirrhosis, or you have been told to limit salt or fluids, and you want to use electrolyte packets regularly.
In a trial of 174 young adults kept in a warm room, going without a drink hurt mood and drinking helped. Added salt helped mood a little in some comparisons, but it did not give the best energy ratings, and part of the effect came from how the drink looked. That small fluid effect is the grain of truth, but it comes from one short lab trial, so confidence is limited.
Electrolyte packets do not give you extra energy or sharper focus if you are already drinking enough. When you are a little low on fluid, drinking helps you feel better, but in the one trial that tested this, the drink that left people feeling most energetic had no added electrolytes.
In the 2019 trial, adults aged 18 to 30 spent 3 hours at 30 °C (86 °F). Those who did not drink lost less than 1% of their body weight in fluid and their mood got worse. The electrolyte was a salt capsule taken with the drink. Plain water plus salt tended to protect mood best, but people who got red-colored water without salt reported the most energy, and the same salt worked worse with red water than with plain water. That suggests expectation explains part of what people feel. In a separate lab study of 19 resting adults, adding electrolytes alone did not consistently keep more fluid in the body than plain water; that study was funded by Coca-Cola. Some packets also contain sugar: one Liquid I.V. lemon lime stick has 11 g of sugar and 500 mg of sodium.
- Cousins AL, Young HA, Thomas AG, Benton D. The Effect of Hypo-Hydration on Mood and Cognition Is Influenced by Electrolyte in a Drink and Its Colour: A Randomised Trial. Nutrients. 2019;11(9):2002. DOI: 10.3390/nu11092002. PMID: 31450591
- Millard-Stafford M, Snow TK, Jones ML, Suh H. The Beverage Hydration Index: Influence of Electrolytes, Carbohydrate and Protein. Nutrients. 2021;13(9):2933. DOI: 10.3390/nu13092933. PMID: 34578811
- Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier, Lemon Lime, product page with nutrition facts
- MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine. Sodium in diet. Medical Encyclopedia. Review date April 30, 2026