Nootropics
gwern.net
gwern.net
The majority of these people aren't even testing their compounds. They take them blindly or rely on the reputation of other people to tell them that its safe - mostly because they're ignorant, lazy, cheap, impatient or some combination thereof. They also have very little understanding of pharmacology or basic science, and I've seen first hand accounts from drug enthusiasts who go on to describe how they can "feel" the actions at various receptors in their brains based on something they've poorly understood from reading Wikipedia for 5 minutes (which is just complete nonsense.) And what's worse, is that there’s no easy way for the average person to tell what information is good since so much of the Internet is written to seem authoritative.
Suppose I Google a question and find a well-written blog post on serotonin interactions between various drugs that answers my question. Am I really going to know that the article is inaccurate, bias, or incomplete? Or am I going to walk away feeling like I've learned something, because I hate to say it but -- that's largely what the web is these days. None of the real information is on the surface because that would be far too boring for the average reader and boring content doesn't sell. Now combine this with drug use and you have a toxic mix of ignorance that can literally kill people.
I could go on about this subject but I won't rant any more. Just keep in mind that a lot of what’s written about nootropics (and other drugs) is no where near as clean or as simple as the Internet makes it seem, and that most people aren't even in a position to use caffeine therapeutically - let alone safely negotiate complex, poorly understood, and potentially unknown compounds they bought from the Internet (so try not to take Gwern at face value.)
I am afraid of sounding like a shill, but the fact is I'm 30 engineer, who has been trying to feel better my whole life through experiments with: ketamine, CBD, various nutrients, various dietary changes, exercise, being more social, meditation. None of them made lasting improvement like sertraline has, I wish I had been open-minded enough to try it years ago.
In retrospect, maybe it was ridiculous to try to find happiness with all methods other than the ones there are best medical evidence for... I guess I was afraid that somehow I'd be conceding there was something "wrong" with me (which is wonk). I was wondering why nobody had ever mentioned this before, and I realized people who use prescription medications are probably afraid to admit it. So I'm just putting out my sincere recommendation out there, as I wish somehow had done for me.
Which is why in the UK they've experimented with giving patients MDMA for an instant seratonin rush needed to curb depressive symptoms until the antidepressants kick in.
In my case, as with many others with bipolar, Zoloft sent me into a hypomanic episode where I didn't sleep for 3 days and was severely agitated. I had never been diagnosed with bipolar in the ~15 years I had been in treatment. A change in my medication resulted in serious complications.
Recommending specific medications without experience is dangerous. Even doctors with years of experience can't get it right. It turns out for me SSRIs are a poor choice. I was prescribed lamotrigine and it changed my life. I no longer feel depressed for months at time, I sleep well, my libido is normal and I can ejaculate whenever I want.
I've tested a couple of the mentioned drugs myself and thought i'd chip in with my results and learnings
Modafinil/Armodafinil
Definitely works and the side effects are neglectable. It's much as he describes it but im not sure why he can't feel it some of the time as the effect on me is really strong, especially with armodafinil which was almost too much to be hanging around other people :) You feel very awake like a mild cocaine high but have an easy time focusing on the task you are doing, i can definitely recommend it for all nighters and situations where you have to get something out the door !
Melatonin
I've experienced quite a bit with this, since i have really really hard time falling asleep. It's actually a huge issue for me. i've found that "microdosing" works even better than taking the "normal dose" of 2-3mg. I found a supplier in the Netherlands who sells 300ug pills and they have worked wonders for me ! works just as well as the stronger dose but it seems that the lower dose makes you sleep better.
Just my 2 cents :)
You're not alone in this; in fact, I think it's pretty widely accepted among melatonin users that "<1mg doses work better" is just fact. The 2-3 mg dosage contained by most available supplements seems to be motivated by a misguided belief that more melatonin is more effective, in opposition to all the evidence that I've seen.
More likely it's demand from people that generally think 'more = better'.
If I take the normal dose of >3mg, I'll experience incredible irritability the following day. I become sensitive to sound and anything that isn't entirely perfect. Things make me feel unreasonably furious. This is bad. These days I always microdose melatonin.
If I don't fall asleep with the first tiredness crash that happens 20-30 minutes after taking melatonin, I find myself restless and unable to sleep for another 4 or 5 hours. The more melatonin I take, the more intense the initial crash will be, but the harder it is to sleep if I miss that crash.
To me, the entire idea of performance-enhancing chemicals is the essence of Moloch (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) - the supposed optimization that we choose to "gain an edge" and end up worse off than if everyone had just been a bit more cynical and abstained. To what ends? Eventually this kind of thing ends up costing you $50 a month and keeping you on par with everyone else in the office (who also happen to brain-chemistry-hack), side-effects be damned.
Luckily, I can fall back on my experience and relative skill at programming. Many cannot - as a late-aughts college student and "yuppie", I saw "the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" induced by incessant Adderall use in a futile attempt to either "keep up" or "get ahead". To what ends? Some sped their way through upper-levels or toiled through back-breaking entry level jobs only to develop near psychosis, emotional numbness, apathy, and a resume piece that I too gained with considerably less strife.
Don't get me wrong, I drink a cup of coffee (or two) in the mornings to get going, but it's usually an break from my workday, not an essential part of it. More than that, it's enjoyable - added focus and clarity be damned. Silly as it may sound, I've even seen coffee become a problem for the hopelessly driven and chronically sleep-deprived - reducing them to diarrhea-ridden, jittery maniacs!
Maybe the TL;DR here is: sleep more, bike hard, and have some fun struggling instead of constantly grinding for carrots on sticks. It is true, after all, that many people (men, in particular) say their greatest regret was working so hard - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...
Uh? Did you read Gwern? This is literally the opposite of what he does. He is ALL ABOUT weighing risks to overall health. Did you miss the fact that half of his articles detail the potential bad effects of the drugs he's trying?
>Hell, I started smoking cigarettes at 16, which I rank near the top of my worst decisions ever, despite the fact that it helped me hack my brain chemistry
He has an article on non-tobacco nicotine (nicotine gum, patches). His conclusions are, IIRC, 'kinda useful, but has some risks'. He doesn't have a page on cigarettes. You know why? Because cigarettes are THE WORSE. Everyone knows this. It's silly to write off all performance enhancing drugs on the grounds that you once made the bad decision to use possibly the very worse one, from a risk/benefit perspective."
I grant you that brain chemistry hacking may be one step towards em-world, which is as Moloch as it gets, but if you're working on important problems it the edge may be worth it.
It sounds like we agree there.
Moloch specifically refers to zero-sum games. Intelligence enhancement is not that; if everyone in the world gained 10 IQ points we would almost certainly be far better off.
To what ends?
Curing cancer and Alzheimer's, getting self-driving cars on the road by 2025 instead of 2030, colonizing Mars, figuring out how to fix our diets without requiring infinite willpower, etc, etc.
Ever met someone who has burned out? It's not pretty. Did you know that work-related-stress is amongst the largest threats to (particularly men's) health? Have you seen workaholism, stress-induced alcoholism, general-burnt-out-ness ruin relationships? What makes you think nootropics won't cause these problems as well? After all, ex nihilo nihil fit.
Ever think about how much gas you burn getting to work, how much plastic trash you create at lunch or coffee, how much coal it takes to keep the lights and the AC on for you to do what you do? Ever think about how many people died of weird lung diseases to produce that coal? Again, nothing comes from nothing.
Unless your work really is curing cancer, de-acidifying the oceans, or colonizing Mars, it's likely that your work is actually a negative sum game. You're worse off for it, and so is everyone else.
and none of what you mentioned could be magically achieved by one person popping a pill to gain some short term effect, and probably lose something in longer run. feel free to experiment on yourself, just please don't force anyhow this pitiful activity on others.
This is quite disingenuous, he specifically searches for nootropics with few side effects
i think many people also regret not working harder.
For example, carving out some time at night for your side projects that might pay your rent one day vs. staying longer at work to get a leg up on imminent deadlines that were too aggressive vs. working hard to be Employee of the Month vs. working hard to learn programming.
If it makes the entire office more productive, wouldn't that be positive-sum, not zero-sum?
And let's be honest: it's highly improbable that your work is doing anything for the good of humanity. In fact, it's actually very likely that your work (or some constituent part of it) carries negative environmental externalities, e.g. it's bad to do, even worse to do more of. My work certainly isn't essential to the arc of history. So what good is my productivity, especially at these costs?
So you can get to Wall Street or Silicon Valley and take even more Adderall to "get ahead", obviously.
Whatever constitutes risk and reward is with respect to one's own morality.
That aside, my anecdotal experience of mod is its basically a waste of time. Sure you stay awake longer but we can all easily procrastinate a day away regardless, it wont make you any more focused or any smarter. If you for some reason need to improve your focus for a period then dexamphetamines are the way to go, of course you should not pop them every day.
It gave me a much narrower focus - when I was playing pinball at a local bar my scores dropped because I was narrowly focused on where the ball was, rather than where it would be, and I had to consciously force myself into using my peripheral vision.
Another example: I was practicing hand-writing a different (non-Latin) alphabet and had a practice book. Usually I could do one or two pages and then stop for the day, wanting to do something else. On modafinil I did about ten pages' worth.
rs4680(A;A)
aka Met/Met at COMT Val158Met
via http://snpedia.com/index.php/Rs4680(A;A)
rs4680(G;G) carriers deprived of sleep respond quite well to 2x 100mg modafinil in terms of improved vigor and well-being, and maintained baseline performance with respect to executive functioning, whereas rs4680(A;A) individuals barely responded to the drug at all.
via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19037200 Two-time 100 mg modafinil potently improved vigor and well-being, and maintained baseline performance with respect to executive functioning and vigilant attention throughout sleep deprivation in Val/Val genotype subjects but was hardly effective in subjects with the Met/Met genotype.
Also, my psychiatrist prescribed me Modafinil at 100 mg. I felt nothing and fell asleep shortly after taking it. He bumped it up to 200 mg -- still felt nothing. At 400 mg I just decided to quit taking it, because it literally had no effect whatsoever. Bit of a bummer, because I had high hopes for its effect on my ability to stay awake and focus. (Adderall, on the other hand, does produce a noticeable difference.)
The longer you're on though, up to a point at least I imagine, assuming the dose is consistent, you will have a greater withdrawal period that will really suck compared to if you only use them recreationally, which I consider to include situations where you take them only when you need them, such as all nighters; that definitely falls under recreational usage.
Like you said, drugs like this affect people differently and it all depends on the neurochemistry of the individual, which to the best of my knowledge they don't (can't?) test for when they prescribe this stuff.
I was taking 30mg / day (15mg twice a day) and was pretty functional, though I think the dose might have been too high. Later on I would drop down to 15mg / day (7.5mg twice / day) and that was the sweet spot.
If your problem is not sleepiness, it probably won't address it.
What makes you say the effect on the brain of modafinil is "on a different scale" than caffeine?
This depends on your brain chemistry. Most people I've talked to who have used Modafinil do have increased focus, just like other stimulants.
The standard stuff is L-Theanine + Caffeine. For cognitive enhancement any of the "racetams" are considered proven, and you branch out into untested army drugs when you take modafinil.
I've tried each of these and stick with L-Theanine and Caffeine daily. Piracetam had no visible effect on me. Modafinil got me through 36 to 50 hour work days straight, at crunch time when deadlines were needed for an old job. Work was probably at about 60% of its best at the time – easy to get into the zone but also not quite my best. I know it's not healthy but I was also curious and happy to try it out of personal curiosity. YMMV :)
What on earth are you talking about? Modafinil is very much _not_ an "untested army drug". It's pretty well-studied, approved for use by the FDA, and available for sale (with prescription) under multiple names in the US, and by prescription with no other legal restrictions in most other countries. It has a freaking WebMD page[1]!
[1] http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-16964/provigil-oral/detail...
Learned something new today.
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-Experimentation-M...
Melatonin works great for me as well. I take 5mg. Not sure if my dreams are any more vivid than without it, as I've been taking it every night for years. I think I've always had vivid dreams, though I no longer get recurring nightmares (which I had years prior to taking melatonin; not sure when they ended).
I definitely think that if you're taking them under the tongue the doses they sell them in are much too high. Probably make more sense if you're swallowing them.
edit: since everybody is asking the same question about habit forming. I am just passing on the information that I got from my doctor. She made this suggestion to me, and it was beneficial to me. Once I had started using melatonin, I would have trouble falling asleep without it. Valarian root didn't cause that issue for me.
The first few times you take it or you go up a dose it feels pretty amazing. For some reason I want to say it feels like your head is full of light, but don't even know what that's supposed to mean. There's some extra energy and a little more motivation, but if you're looking for a pill that will turn you into a super-productive maniac look elsewhere. It mostly just keeps you awake and what little extra motivation you gain will be offset in part or in full by being more more easily distracted. I've never noticed any sort of increase in cognitive function. What I have noticed is that I get exhausted from physical effort very quickly.
When I take it long enough I start to pick off all of my facial hair (there was maybe a year where I never shaved, but had no facial hair), and lose a lot a weight quickly. Recently I dropped around 40 pounds in a few months.
However, I started going to see a new doctor. He recommended to Selegiline. I had some reservations, as it is officially classified as a MAOI, but he had some impressive credentials (PhD in neurobiology and MD, Postdoc in psychopharmacology and neuronal regeneration, APA President, wrote APA Textbook of Psychopharmacology) and seemed personally familiar with it.
It has been a revelation for me. It provides similar benefits without the tunnel-vision or distractibility. Most importantly, it doesn't have a noticeable narcotic/stimulant effect, nor does it have the dietary restrictions of MAOI. It does partly metabolize into Levoamphetamine and levomethamphetamine, but it's a minimal amount and you don't feel it. I'm still young, so I cannot attest to its supposed anti-aging/neuroprotective qualities.
Interesting. I just moved and my new doctor just recently suggested maybe trying MAOI's. I've found a medication that has been absolutely wonderful for depression, but I have yet to find anything that helps with anxiety other than Klonopin and that's definitely not a long-term solution (I'm tapering off of it for the second time right now). I haven't been taking stimulants for ADHD though, I've been taking them for narcolepsy.
I'll definitely look into Selegiline now, thanks!
Edit: Oh wait:
> it doesn't have a noticeable narcotic/stimulant effect
I kind of need the stimulant effect because of the narcolepsy.
I've never heavily researched the exact pharmacology, but the patch version of Selegeiiline is completely safe as long as you don't gorge yourself on aged, aromatic cheeses or a bucket of miso soup. The only thing I've had to restrict is ingesting amino acid supplements as it's high in tyrosine.
I'd still check it out as I have recently discovered that Selegiline is the Holy Grail of nootropics. Medications for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's tend to have neuroprotective properties and there is even decent evidence of neurogenesis.
> I kind of need the stimulant effect because of the narcolepsy.
The first few days I was on the medication, I did feel an adderall-like effect. My doctor told me that the 10mg patch does metabolize to about a 5-10 mg dose of adderall. Perhaps your doctor will prescribe a higher dosage to counter that effect.
BTW, you have to be one of the few people I've talked to that took Provigil for it's intended effect.
This sucks.
I tried a lot of different combos of medications and was lucky to have a doctor that let me very clearly experiment with what worked.
My dose: Adderall XR 30mg + Adderal 10mg (around 2pm)
I tried Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin and Concerta (long acting Ritalin)
Ritalin had the best cognitive effects but the worst side effects. I slept, but I didn't really sleep. Over time, I developed terrible atrophy as well as a deep sense of apathy.
Adderall has been my rock. Straight Adderall is "bad" for me – the side effects are very strong. Any nervous tick I have is amplified very intensely. I play with my hair, I fidget, I bite my lips etc...
Adderall XR is very stable, but not very strong. So I take it, and sometimes I supplement with direct Adderall.
The most functional combo I ever had was accidental, it was Concerta + Adderall (not XR) but my doctor said it was bad/questionable to mix the two kinds of stimulant (ritalin/adderall) so I abandoned it.
It really is about finding the sweet spot between cognitive benefits and side effects. I still have some side effects, but my invariant is sleep. If a medication fucks with my sleep, I don't take it. Adderall, if anything, helps me sleep better, so it works quite well for me.
A solution to picking off facial hair, if that's really the problem, is to shave it all off. Same with hair on your head. If then, you are doing great, then problem solved.
Also, it doesn't hurt to get a barrage of tests done, maybe you have more stuff going on than just ADHD, and other medications may have a more significant effect on your wellbeing.
I actually don't have ADHD, I have narcolepsy, but it comes and goes (hence this being the 3rd time I've been on Dextroamphetamine).
Welp, as long as you can manage things, that's what matters.
I've tried various other treatments over time and they usually end up as very distracting blunders so I've settled where I'm at now for about 8 years.
I do shave my head about once every 6 months when I start fidgeting with my hair incessantly.
I don't think it's supposed to be looked at as a one shot article or blog post, but rather a collection of notes / anecdotal evidence / experimentation.
Here's an example related to placebo that's linked to from his blog. http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/689936-My-Paper-quot-Noo...
See also: https://www.gwern.net/Statistical%20notes
I'm not saying he's a perfect researcher, but give him some credit instead of assuming he doesn't understand what he's talking about.
I may be of the minority here but I am definitely not the minority in the real world.
If you care about health why not exercise and eat healthy and never take any type of drug for any reason unless you are sick.
The person who made this site has been willing to test, meticulously document and analyse his results. He's pretty informed as to the side-effects, so no, I don't think he's "bat shit crazy", he's doing us a service.
In his most highly rated drug, modafinil, he took it on 8 different days and could tell which one it was 5/8 times.
8 days, couldn't tell the difference 3/8 times and it is his most highly recommended drug.
He definitely needs to try drug free, exercise and sleep over a month.
You have to at least be impressed with the level of rigor he did manage for a person working alone to test hundreds of chemicals.
If you compare his rigor to that of a fully funded NIH experiment, yes it will be found lacking. But if you compare it to all of the personal the experimentation that any of us do on a regular basis i.e. trying out a low protein diet, a paleolithic diet, TDD, sleeping more, not being on the computer before bed etc... Then it is the height of rigor.
Not to mention foods that people take to make themselves "feel better" (ie. modify mood), like chocolate or ice cream (or chocolate ice cream! mmmmmm).
Hang on now...most people find consuming caffeine and alcohol batshit crazy? Do you live in Utah or something?
Last I checked, caffeine in moderate doses has a mixed bag of positive and negative effects that's not clearly net negative.
There's controversy around whether moderate alcohol consumption (think 1 drink/day) has a positive effect. (Some studies say it does, but it's argued it's a statistical anomaly because people who don't drink at all are weird, e.g. former alcoholics, people with medical conditions that forbids them any alcohol, etc.)
"Conservatively, a bottle of melatonin pills will cost about 6 USD for 150 pills". This is the part I find interesting. I live in NZ, and melatonin isn't readily available - unlike most drugs here it's not government subsidized. It costs $20 for 10 pills, and you have to visit a doctor.
Crazy accessibility and cost difference.
ARAS = Ascending Reticular Activating System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_activating_system
Then ctr+f melatonin and shortly lower there is some good information about how melatonin is not that great. Highly recommend the general article - incredible amount of information.
I disagree. I think huge numbers of people take nootropics frequently if not daily (caffeine and prescribed mood-altering drugs) and I'd bet that you'd consider these completely normal and non-crazy. But that belief is based in normativity, not logic. All of these substances have negative side effects, and the industry around prescription drugs is very much at odds with the actual research around prescription drugs. In fact, the only substances on the list which I think probably don't have negative side effects are ones that most people probably don't take (Fish Oil and Vitamin D3).
> If you care about health why not exercise and eat healthy and never take any type of drug for any reason unless you are sick.
What's a drug? What's sick?
Arguably, refined sugar is a drug, or the dopamine that you get from surfing news sources like HN. And things like caffeine, which are entirely normative, aren't even arguable: they're just obviously drugs.
Arguably, being inflicted with a need to work 40 hours a week on tasks that don't fulfill our emotional or social needs is a horrible chronic illness. It certainly has affected my life more negatively than my chronic allergies (which I live with, untreated).
Choosing to take a nootropic should be about the tradeoffs, and health definitely is not the only factor.
But it is the biggest factor; without your health, you have nothing. When I'm weighing alternatives and tradeoffs, I tend to think in a sort of "three laws" mode:
1) If it's good for my long-term health, do it.
2) If it increases my athletic performance and doesn't conflict with 1), do it.
3) If it makes me look or feel better and doesn't conflict with 1) or 2), do it.
That's simply not true. That may be your priority, but it's not everyone's, and the assertion that "you have nothing" is ridiculous.
If I could live to the age of 50, make a major positive change in the world in that time, and then die, I'd make that trade. Of course, you don't get a guarantee that solid, everything is probabilistic. But there are definitely cases where you can trade health for some other value, and many of us are willing to make that trade.
> 1) If it's good for my long-term health, do it.
> 2) If it increases my athletic performance and doesn't conflict with 1), do it.
> 3) If it makes me look or feel better and doesn't conflict with 1) or 2), do it.
This is laughably simplistic. For example, according to this, money never comes into your considerations. Cool story, bro.
Plenty of people take e.g. extra calcium (or even just make sure they eat/drink plenty of high-calcium food/drink) to help their bones remain strong. Is taking extra chlorine (or again just eating high-chlorine foods) to help your brain remain clever really so different?
I can't even tell if you're serious. Trying to improve on nature is the foundation of science.
This is an interesting statement. I would say, trying to improve on nature is one particular notion that was instrumental in the history of science. Specifically, we can trace this back to alchemical beliefs in the notion of perfecting the human soul/body/etc. via aqua regia and so on, which were about achieving an "art" which would exceed the limits of what we are given by Nature.
Much of what is "science", however, does not come from this school of thought. The quiet life of a naturalist, delighting in the observation of an ant colony or the nesting habits of a bird species, seems to have little to do with trying to improve on nature and is much more of a piece with simply enjoying being close to it.
How about coffee, vitamin d, calcium and tyrosine?
All of them have proven benefits, nothing fringe: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o...
That combined with exercise, sleep and eating well is pretty much my "stack."
Personally I would rather not risk the possibility of destroying my brain with something unproven. However, for things with proven benefits and little chance of side-effects, well, why not?
So, while I would prefer to avoid self-experimentation personally, I am glad others are working to establish what works, what is safe, etc.
You can get vitamin d by going outside every once in a while.
While it certainly is possible to "get vitamin D" by going outside, that doesn't mean it's enough.
The leading theory as to the advantage of having white skin is that it assists in providing more vitamin D in latitudes without as much direct sunlight. This means the amount you get by "going outside once in a while" is not sufficient (otherwise we wouldn't need the advantage of getting as much as possible)
Likewise, drinking coffee removes calcium and vitamin d from your body, so it is wise to replace them, especially if you drink a lot of coffee.
Also, while I might not "need" to supplement them because I am getting "enough" that doesn't mean I won't benefit by taking more. Indeed, we're talking about Nootropics here, not just staying alive.
so I ask again, what is "normal" food? where do you get your ideas of normal from?
Maybe we do. But if you really care about health, why stop there?
It is scientism at its worst.
why is that important to you? what counts as "sick"? what about mental health? what about spiritual health?
Eat a healthy balanced diet, get intense physical exercise for at least 30 minutes every day, and sleep an adequate amount. It's really not too difficult. It does require discipline, but discipline is only difficult if you make it difficult.
I've never really understood the whole concept of brain enhancement drugs. What are they really doing for you? Is it at all possible they are effective only due to the placebo effect? What are the long term risks of using so many different substances?
You've seen what gwern has written. He makes clear the monetary trade off. He also explains how some of the drugs are well studied, and most probably safe.
These people aren't crazy. You just don't understand...
Quick, let's ban everything except alcohol & cigerettes! They only kill a combined ~7.5 million people per year. Nice and sane.
I performed well on the Cambridge mental rotations test. An anecdote, of course, and it may be due to the vitamin D I simultaneously started. Or another day, I was slumped under apathy after a promising start to the day; a dose of fish & coconut oil, and 1 last vitamin D, and I was back to feeling chipper and optimist.
- little/no caffeine everyday (I do love chocolate, but I don't eat it everyday)
- exercise, both strength and conditioning (not just HIIT, but also LSD)
- and importantly, ability to mentally box up and put aside highly stressful or critical issues (I mull over them and rigorously tear them apart, then decide on the first step - how to eat an elephant? one small bite at a time. If my subconscious then processes it further, all the better the next morning after a good night's sleep).
At the end of the day, my employer could care less about the hours and outcomes of the project, it was a total waste of time. Stay normal, have good relationships in life, routine, exercise, diet. It didn't result in any net happiness gains, analytical mind took over and I became good at doing things for other people, but not living.
The key I find is to only use them when you have already outlined in a detailed way a significant set of tasks that need to be performed or a particularly critical meeting where you already have a very strong background.
For learning, general creative process I don't use them.
The biggest problem is managing the physical addiction (ie, you feel very tired) when you're not taking them.
Also there is some evidence that nicotine increases incidence of cancer. Not to mention what it does to my blood pressure, though I find constant exercise helps manage that.
I'm skeptical because people so often attribute many of the negative effects of other chemicals in tobacco to nicotine with no evidence (a point the OP hammers home at https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine). Even the FDA seems comfortable with this conflation, as evidenced by their disposition toward e-cigs.
It's hard to conduct these experiments with a population of 1 and no control group.
I don't about anyone else's experiences, but Modafinil seems to have a positive effect on me in terms of the way I work. I use it maybe once a week if I feel I need to focus.
Placebo? Who knows. Same effect as living a healthy lifestyle? Probably not, but then again I've never tested it. Does it have the same effect on everyone I know? Some say yes, others say it does nothing for them. But that's not strange at all. Some people just have different experiences with different things.
300mg of L-theanine is equivalent to about 12 to 38 cups of tea (tea naturally has a wide range of L-theanine content, depending on the tea and how it is processed). Up to 1,200mg daily is considered safe, however, like with all drugs, you should only take as much as needed to get the effect you want.
I did the nootropics for about 2 months or so.
Short term I've felt improvement to my memory, my thinking has changed, I had more mental energy and sharpness.
However, it also changed my personality and the way I was seeing other people, which resulted in me gathering the courage to separate from my wife.
In retrospect, this was a very good move for both of us, but at that time it wasn't that peachy.
I've stopped taking those nootropics because I didn't like the robot that I've become.
However I still like the idea of chemically tuning your consciousness.
10-15 micrograms of LSD is the solution for me, because it opens me up emotionally, increases enjoyment of music and art, while also allowing me to tackle complexity with ease.
Any throwaways here willing to share their experiences ?
Testosterone has been life changing. The amount of focus and drive I get running high normal levels is insane. The only time problems crop up that cause issues at work, is when estrogen gets out of line. Estrogen that is out of range, high or low, causes severe issues. I only have issues when running supra-physiological doses of testosterone though.
For more info, check out /r/steroids[0]. Fantastic wiki with tons of info on running safe cycles, or long term usage.
[0] www.reddit.com/r/steroids
...if caffeine were a new drug, I wonder what
Schedule it would be in and if people might
be even more leery of it than modafinil.
...
So I eventually got around to ordering another
thing of nicotine gum...
A second dose was similar, and the third dose
was at 10 PM before playing Ninja Gaiden II
seemed to stop the usual exhaustion I feel after
playing through a level or so.
Yes, he writes very lengthy, detailed articles. Lovely. But they are anecdotes. And artisanal anecdotes at best.
To summarize gwern: A layman tries some stuff that is innately accessible to any layman, and writes haughtily aloof essays.
What's your reason for believing it should?
I'm asking these questions rhetorically.
The downside is that you build up tolerance pretty quickly and that feeling dissipates. At this point, I really only notice if I don't take it (as you might with your daily cup of coffee). I honestly don't know if I continue to get on-going benefit, but I'm don't have any side effects, it may have some neuroprotective effects and getting off would be hard.
Below is a post I wrote on a Ray Peat Facebook group that I think fellow coders and behind-a-desk workers might fight interesting. I've been a serious procrastinator and slacker, and it was a long journey of trial and error in getting diet and lifestyle right. I'm thankful to the amazing work of Dr. Ray Peat, which isn't mentioned enough around Hacker News.
⁂
Some comments on maintaining high energy, productivity, creativity and noticeably faster rational thinking (System 2 in the dual process theory) in my day job as a programmer.
◈ Basics first. That is, salt, sugar, calcium, magnesium, A, D, C. If you're lacking any of these you'll have energy problems very quickly. Buy magnesium chloride, add eggshell powder to your mashed potatoes. Get 1g vitamin C pills. Take 5 times as much vitamin A as you take D.
◈ Meditation daily. The main goal of daily meditation for me is to reinforce a stoic mentality, mainly the principle of being indifferent to the external. This is paramount in learning to deal with all kinds of stress. A simple line of thinking that will slowly help you deal with psychological stress better.
◈ Coconut oil-fried eggs. The generally accepted notion around here is that an extremely low fat diet is best for metabolism, i.e., oxidative metabolism is about 15x times more efficient (paraphrasing RP). But saturated fats are extremely good for our brains, because they are used together with cholesterol to generate several hormones (including the wonderful progesterone and pregnenolone). So whatever your brain condition is, if you fry 5 eggs in about 3 tbsp coconut oil, you'll equip your body with the elements it needs to restore its full capacity.
http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2010/12/28/high-cholesterol... http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/cholesterol-longevity.s...
◈ Aspirin and K2. I was for sometime doing 4g aspirin a day, but I noticed that much isn't necessary. Just 1-2g a day along with 1mg K2 is enough.
http://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aspirin-brain-cancer.shtml http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2012/04/22/ray-peat-phd-on-...
◈ Fruits, Lysine, Juices, Niacinamide, Methylene Blue, Coffee. I mention all of these in a single sentence because I use them in sequence, hourly, to keep a long streak of productive hours. I drink some fruit juice (orange, grape, even serotonin-ladden pineapple) with 10gtt 2.3% methylene blue, then eat some fruits (I keep sliced guavas and papayas in the frigde) with 100mg niacinamide and 500mg lysine (serotonin antagonist), followed by 100ml sugared coffee. Rinse. Repeat. I think in total I have been consuming nearly 60gtt 2.3% methylene blue and 1.5L coffee in a stretch of programming work, all with maximum focus, energy, no tiredness (taking very short breaks).
https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/methylene-blue-mb... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgeZJoir70w https://selfhacked.com/2013/08/25/methylene-blue-the-cheapes...
Main benefit of MB is its effect as a NO and estrogen antagonist, which improves thyroid function and overall energy levels. Stay away from fish oil, polyunsaturated fats are extremely toxic yet you don't see it in the news -- that's because they're everywhere, it's a huge industry and it's not going to go away easily. But PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids) are the #1 source of all kinds of metabolic disorders, including brain fog. Also avoid things that raise serotonin -- serotonin, contrary to decades of misinformation, does not make us happy -- its role in happines is only peripheral. High serotonin in reality is associated with aging, depression and anger. You should aim for high dopamine and low serotonin, in general -- that's why I take a lysine supplement, it competes with serotonin for entry in the brain.
https://pranarupa.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/pufa-because-this... https://pranarupa.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/serotonin-inflamm...
Happy reading.
I'm going to try frying my eggs with coconut oil now, thanks for the tip.
From what I can tell—and having experience with MB & his diet)—he's full of shit.
* You should look into that. Nicotinamide inhibits the sirtuins. You'd probably be better off with nicotinic acid or nicotinamide riboside (NR).
https://pranarupa.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/pufa-because-this... https://pranarupa.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/serotonin-inflamm...
To me, Peat's notions on PUFAs and serotonin are the most important ones to grasp.
When I see studies like the following (grabbed from Dr. Rhonda Patrick's Twitter feed) it makes me question his position on fish oil.
I also found fish oil beneficial to my recovery process, after I got cognitive problems following MB.
Studies:
* Study links omega-3s to reduced mortality[0]
* Consumption of omega-3s linked to lower risk of fatal heart disease[1]
* Lower risk of bowel cancer death linked to high omega 3 intake after diagnosis[2]
* Omega-3, omega-6 supplement improves reading for children[3]
* Stroke-like brain damage is reduced in mice injected with omega-3s
[0] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/g-slo062216.... [1] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/tuhs-dco0623... [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719214830.h... [3] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914085808.h... [4] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160822140534.h...
The modern diet is overloaded with Soybean Oil, an oil which should only be used as biodiesel. It takes years of a low-PUFA diet to obtain all the benefits. Some degree of temporary relief may be provided by Omega-3 supplementation, but this intervention doesn't address the cause of any condition.
"In the last couple of years there has been a lot of "noise" in the media about how the SIRT-family of genes can extend lifespan when activated by things like exercise or, preferably, by certain chemical compounds like resveratrol (which putatively acts on SIRT-1). Ray Peat has stated his opinion that activating those genes is not likely to lead to life extension and may even be implicated in some cancers. In one is his articles he talks about how niacinamice/nicotinamide (vitamin B3) acts in a way approximately opposite to resveratrol. Also, there are independent studies that found niacinamide silences SIRT-1 and SIRT-2 in high doses. An interesting study came out recently that seems to corroborate Ray's views. It looks like it's niacinamide that actually extends life while resveratrol so far has been a bust (several clinical trials halted due to resveratrol increasing mortality in patients)."
https://raypeatforum.com/forums/threads/sirtuins-and-life-ex...
I've read anti-agingfirewalls.com with great interest. Here's one of the articles:
"PART 3: Slaying Two Dragons with the Sound of Silence: – How to Keep Your Repetitive DNA Turned Off with “3 Songs”: Sirtuins, Polycomb Proteins, and DNMT3. And a Master List of Drugs and Natural Compounds for Cancer Chemoprevention"[0]
Anti-ageingfirewalls.com is a tour de force. And it's at least worth reading the earlier articles (some of the recent articles on NAD require significant knowledge).
As far as I can tell, Peat contradicts the consensus. I've tried his methods, and had terrible results. He also goes against the information I'm exposed to. He may be correct, but I assign a tiny probability to that. I wouldn't recommend anyone start with Ray Peat.
[0] http://www.anti-agingfirewalls.com/2013/05/20/part-3-slaying...
Bonus points to anyone who knows his real name, fan club located in #gwern on freenode especially after the darknet markets research.
Is this an alternate reality where HN is actually Slashdot circa 2008, I can't tell right now.
Fuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understand_(story)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...
There's also the classic "Flowers for Algernon" from 1958.[1] I'd strongly recommend reading the short story (and avoid the book, unless you want to witness the ruining of a great story that was best left alone).
Good introduction to general brain health.
It takes effort! Preparing for bed early and disciplining yourself to put the light out is not easy. Not nearly as easy as popping a pill. But it's so much more effective than any drug listed here.
And for a safe and provable quick cognitive boost, take some caffeine, preferable green tea with theanine.
Sleep tips that help me:
1. meditation: still experimenting with body-scan vs. breath meditation, they both help but have different effects.
2. magnesium: makes my body more relaxed.
3. sleeping less if needed: improves likelihood of falling asleep the next day, it's a tricky thing to do but applied sparingly and timed right it works really well. When I do this I prefer to sleep the 6 to 7 hour range.
4. reduce stress: sometimes hard to do but pretty essential for me.
5. flux.
6. opening your window for sunlight during the day: get vitamin D first thing in the morning.
7. buy quality decaffeinated tea: some green tea manufacturers say it's decaffeinated but it's not really. Or maybe it is but it still keeps me energized and awake.
8. no caffeine after 2: preferably not after 12, preferably not at all, use meditation and power naps as a first line of defence, only add caffeine when those 2 aren't enough. Preferably do the power nap + caffeine wombo combo (takes 20 min. for caffeine to reach your brain which is also the ideal power nap time).
I'm curious about other sleep tips that you guys have. I really want to improve this as much as possible.
Distance is not that important - what matters is time and intensity: run at least 20m with 10 of them near your upper limit. Make sure you pick a sustainable pace that makes it hard but not impossible to breath. Don't compare to others - your body needs to be challenged relative to itself. Run comfortably for 10 minutes then a little more than slightly uncomfortably for another 10.
You will feel better as soon as you stop. You will feel calmer, focused, confident and strong for hours after. You will feel better next day. When I had a bad funk it helped me get out of it.
I tried a lot of other forms of exercise from weights and swimming and HIIT and martial arts and yoga. They all help (in other ways) but not as well as running. If you can, complement it with weights 1-2 a week, and yoga 1-2 times as well.
I'll just add that many people are mentally exhausted, and frustrated they cannot sleep. But I bet they are not physically exhausted. HIIT, distance running, whatever works, etc. are all great ways to tire out your body.
I did not respond to your sibling comment who speaks of anxiety. It sounds like a real pathology and something I have no business generalizing about.
You, however, mention no such thing so I am emboldened to encourage you to exercise - something not mentioned in your list.
I would experiment with both walking for 2-3 hours (on a day off, presumably) and also a 1.5 to 2 hour intense weightlifting workout (primarily focused on your thighs/legs[1][2], since they are the biggest muscles.
I'm not saying to do these things on the same day, just that they are both good candidates for an exercise activity which could influence your ability to go to sleep.
I like your list - especially getting out in the sun early and setting your circadian rhythms, but your list strikes me as it would somebody putting special air filters in their car when they've never taken it in for an oil change. Only reach for the specialized optimizations when you've exhausted the major factors.
[1] which implies squats and deadlifts, although a real leg press (the kind you load with plates, not select weight from the stack) would also do the trick.
being nitpicky here but we shouldn't be promoting "time in the gym" as a measurement of a workout's success. frankly, if you're doing an "intense" workout for "2 hours" something's wrong.
The good news is that if you are sedentary, older, or sedentary and older, even a little bit of exercise will be extremely effective. Go for that long walk, or maybe a shorter jog, and do some pushups and un-weighted squats. You'll be exhausted, and you'll be less likely to injure yourself. :)
TAX THE NERVOUS SYSTEM WITH ISO-LATERAL MOVEMENTS. Exercise is commonly recommended to improve sleep. The problem for me was that results were unpredictable. I might exercise for 20 minutes and fall asleep in 10 minutes, or I might exercise for two hours and fall asleep in two hours. There was no repeatable cause and effect. It seemed like a coin toss. This changed when I began to incorporate iso-lateral (one-arm or one-leg) resistance training. I logged faster to-sleep times after 8 out of 10 training sessions. The more complex the stabilization required, the shorter the to-sleep time.
How do you manage doing intense work for 2 hours? Professional hockey players don't even do that kind of work on game night.
Edit: I see a few people are asking the exact same question. Guess I should read first.
Because the sun sets usually some time between 17 00 and 21 00 depending on the season, and we usually go to sleep between 22 00 and 24 00, we usually switch of the main lamps around 21 00 and maybe even switch from ambient lamps to candles later on.
My wife introduced this because it should help with natural melatonin release and strengthen the circadian rhythm, and based on my anecdotal experience, it does help.
This became even more important once our baby-girl has been born, because the difference with trying to put her to bed when the lights have been dim for an hour vs. when we just switched of the main lamp is really noticable :-)
Some other 'sleep favourites' of mine would be Skeptoid, Lore, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, 99% invisible. Give it a try. I use the Stitcher app and set the timer to turn off streaming at the end of an episode. I'm usually asleep within 10-15 minutes or listening.
Edit: Also try f.lux on your computer and Twilight on your phone. They work for me, but I'm more than willing to accept that the effects my be purely placebo.
Dan Carlin is great, but way too intense and interesting for me to sleep to. I pay attention to the podcast and want to hear "just another 20 minutes" instead. 99% invisible is perfect in this regard. Roman has a great voice, good editing and nice, mellow music in his production. I listen to it a lot.
I also like to listen to The Moth, Hello Internet, Radiolab and Benjamin Walker's theory of everything when I go to sleep.
- Whenever I'm in a relationship and sleep together with someone I have no sleeping issues at all.
- Having the pill Stilnoct prescribed helps immensely. I don't take them often. But just being aware that I have them reduces the stress around falling asleep.
- If I feel that it's one of those nights when I can't fall asleep I just treat it as any other sickness. I email my colleagues telling them that I'm working from home the next day and turn off my morning alarm.
- Journaling. Write down everything that has happened to you during the day before you go to bed. A lot of timea I can't fall asleep because my mind is obsessing/processing recent events. Spend 10 minutes to write them down. It's like running a database drop script.
- Get a spike mat. It'll be uncomfortable in the beginning but you'll slowly get used to lying on it. This has worked wonders for my friend and I was thinking of getting one, but that was before my sleep problems just disappeared.
* Melatonin -- get the low dose chewable kind from Trader Joes and take 30 minutes before you go to bed
* Keep the bedroom cool and completely dark -- there is research the connects insomnia with warm body temperatures in some people (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18603220)
Unfortunately whenever i get too hot, my body's way of self regulating is apparently to wake me up with a nightmare. Happens consistently in fact.
My problem was thinking/working while trying to sleep, too much internal monologue. I also realized I am unable to have an internal monologue/actively "think" while listening to other people speaking (I'm a verbal thinker). So I started listening to audiobooks while trying to fall asleep. Now I'm off in about 5-10 minutes every night and take a couple of months to make it through a book.
That means both physically and mentally. It's crazy how much even 1 hour of intense workout per day helps you sleep. And challenging your mind enough to actually run out of steam by the end of the day helps a lot too.
The implied trick is to arrange your life so it supports your natural rhythm. For me that means being at office no earlier than 10am and living so close that I can roll out of bed as late as 9:30am if needed.
Sometimes getting up so early makes me tired during the day (I'm not a natural morning person) so I'll take micro naps to mitigate.
And getting an early start to my day is fantastic. I can run, read, meditate, etc before I start my work day.
I'm at the gym by 5am for an hour or so for weights abd running.
There are no cool white fluoros or CFLs in my house, nor outside.
I find this regime thoroughly exhausts me physically and mentally, and I have no trouble falling asleep and staying alseep unless I get cold.
Macworld wrote a decent breakdown of the Night Shift quackery when it was introduced:
http://www.macworld.com/article/3047121/iphone-ipad/ios-93-t...
A better analogy would be artisanal water: the touted benefits of their particular magical bottle of H₂0 may be quackery, but the benefits of hydration are irrefutable.
Anecdotal, yes, but it worked for me.
Might be this minimized blue light effect as they suggest, or could just be a sort of recognized pattern/habit my brain now associates with bed. I don't know why, but it works for me. I'm getting sleepy now just thinking of it..
it's mostly mental, not physical. Hence a placebo is precisely what we need.
I have found that I sleep much much better with a total absence of noise and light, so I now use ear plugs and an eye mask. This has improved the quality of my sleep a lot.
Also, we all have a cycle that lasts approx. 90 minutes; you will fall asleep more easily at the end of that cycle; the time window is around 10 minutes. You need to be prepared to go to bed when that window starts; if you start preparing to go to bed when you feel sleepy, by the time you're in bed the moment's passed and you need to wait another 90 minutes.
Physical exercises and outdoor activities are very helpful with sleep and overall well being.
I should really get automated curtain opening. Surely there are some programmable/wireless buttons these days.
Also, you might consider getting some real data on your sleep and try to correlate that with your daily activities. I've used the Ōura ring for that to discover what helps me sleep better.
Yes! Magnesium changed my life!
I was certain that I was living with a hard depression... until I read somewhere that lactose intolerance can lead to magnesium deficiency.
I started taking Magnesium and felt the effect immediately. All of my body is physically relaxed. I struggled with muscle cramps and spasms, they are gone thanks to increasing my magnesium intake.
The body truly is a machine... !
I recommend:
The History of Rome by Mike Duncan
Revolutions (also by Mike)
The History of Philosophy without any Gaps
The British History Podcast
It took a few months to train my body and mind, but now I fall asleep in under 5 minutes after I go to bed.
1) I lie on the side and cover both ears, one with the cushion and one with the blanket.
2) I imagine a story I made up once and go trough it in my mind. It's always the same story, only a little different each time.
Then I fall asleep.
Apparently it can be quite calming.
Another thing I have not see you mention is diet. Lots of factors there. All anecdotal but i've tried raw paleo diet in the past and eating raw meat has usually given me a happy buzz during sleep while eating fruits in the evening has usually caused me issues. Everyone is different so I can't say what will work for you but it should be something you experiment with a lot.
I might try this again soon, but I am and addict!
Edit: I will add that I have found vitamin B6, zinc and melatonin to have significant effects as well. (Deep sleep and intense dreams)
What is your screen usage (phone, computer, tv, tablet etc) like in the hour or two before going to sleep?
Have you tried reducing or eliminating it?
2. video games
Also can attest through personal experience that the caffeine + power nap works wonders (I usually use my espresso machine)
I also have random sudden panic attacks. I stopped drinking coffee (which helped a lot) and I would only drink 1 cup of green tea once a day in the morning. Instead, I take modafinil during the day to try to stay awake. The daytime tiredness has nothing to do with sleep or my food intake (I have done extensive research on nutrition), I am fairly physically active, currently training for my first 10k. If I drink coffee I will be fine in terms of alertness but it will make my anxiety crazy (not always but a lot more than not drinking any coffee). So I started taking modafinil which works great without making my anxiety/panic attack any worse.
Even with no coffee and good nights of sleep and being fairly physically active, and trying out all the self-help methods I could get my hands on in the last couple of years, I still couldn't fix my anxiety/panic attack issues. The only thing that works is benzo (clonazepam 0.5mg once a day). It works amazing - not only I am happiest when I am on it I am also the most productive (because of less anxiety and panic attack). I have been taking it for the last 3 months regularly (prescribed) and I am already addicted to it. If I try not to take a benzo for one day my anxiety is off the roof - the feeling is horrible and I can't get anything done the whole day.
At the moment I am trying to find the best way I can get off my dependencies on benzo but still keep my sanity.
The point of my post is that sometimes life is not as simple as "getting a good night's sleep" because even something as simple as "getting a good nights sleep" can be quite a bit struggle for some of us.
I have them, and they're amazing. I have pretty cool LED lighting in my apartment and can make my whole living room any color I want at night. If I set in to pure blue and put on the glasses, it's like being in pitch blackness (except a couple of items glow brightly).
It's not like looking at things with an orange tint at all, even though the glasses are obviously orange.
That being said - the benefits I get by using them is amazing. It's weird how much of a difference it can make, I get tired quickly after putting them on in the evening. If I forget to put them on I usually end up staying up too late, getting too little sleep and often ruining the next day. Personally I find it way more effective than flux.
By the way - blue light isn't just a negative thing, but also a huge positive. In the morning I use a Philips goLITE BLU HF3332, and it really improves both my energy and mood quickly after just a few minutes of usage.
Those two simple items, a blue light and a pair of blue-blocking glasses, have improved my life significantly. Try it out (especially the glasses, it's just $9).
It has made a noticeable difference!
Personally I can't stand Flux. I hate the false colors it creates.
Well - nobody mentioned weed yet. Give that a try - slows down your mind, relaxes your body - you'll sleep in no time.
I still try various 'stacks' that people suggest (often Tim Ferriss), and am currently on Ubiquinol, Creatine and Policosanol before bed.
If I don't perceive any benefit after a month or two though, I tend to move on, as there's a huge commercial market wrapped around all of this, so evidence is required for me to keep spending.
1) now through 8hours from now
2) every SMTWRarsday from 11:30pm-8:30am
The issue is that I want to block only the main, 'browsing' pages while allowing deep links to that same site. For example, I want to block reddit, when googling some question turns out an answer that's on a niche subreddit I've never seen, I need to be able to read it. However, the site blockers I've tried require me to unblock the whole site or turn them off, and thus become pointless.
https://(www|np).reddit.com/?$
https://(www|np).reddit.com/r/[^/]+/?$
https://(www|np).reddit.com/user/[^/]+/m/[^/]+/?$As a side note, I also think MJ counts as a nootropic when used properly, and I often think about Carl Sagans Mr. X article about it in this light, in the sense that a different perspective can help you solve issues or think about issues in a different way than you might have otherwise. This is why I highly suggest that people trying MJ try to be productive while on it instead of just (read: only) vegging.
When I was a kid I could just barely hear my parents decompressing by watching Barney Miller and All in the Family (yes I am older) and that helped me sleep.
P.S. No one will do it for you. (Not even your parents.)
And anyways, why not both?
Here's a concise definition[0]:
"(of a drug) used to enhance memory or other cognitive functions"
There are other definitions. All the ones I've seen have exogenous substances as a common denominator, however.
It's a figurative usage. The OP is not suggesting sleep is literally a nootropic, but that it is something that performs the same function. Like "the best defence is a good offence".
And I don't think it's derailing the topic to talk about relevant alternatives.
In particular, DO NOT use phenibut for long periods of time. The withdrawal can be potentially life-threatening, including horrible seizures that paramedics may not even be able to deal with because it's not a traditional GABA agonist.
Regardless of whatever huckster or snake oil salesman tries to tell you, this is probably one of the most dangerous drugs that's marketed as a nootropic, but is really a recreational drug.
The best nootropic stack is a good night sleep, healthy diet and exercise, and reading a book that teaches you something new.
and reading a book that teaches you something new.I'm trying to understand if Chrome is infected. Chrome and Safari both display the add while FF doesn't display the add.
> [This is] A record of nootropics I have tried, with thoughts about which ones worked and did not work for me.
> These anecdotes should be considered only as anecdotes, and one’s efforts with nootropics [should be considered] a hobby to put only limited amounts of time into due to the inherent limits of drugs as a force-multiplier ...
In fact, the writer actually agrees with you, in a sense, in that second sentence. He mentions that the piece is strictly anecdotal and should be taken with a grain of salt, and that you shouldn't burn too much time on this stuff because there are limits to what you can achieve.
Maybe you should give the article another go. You might learn something new, or at least have wasted your time in an engaging way.
But I didn't see it - I couldn't "see the forest for the trees."
So take it as strike two against the author and therefore against nootropics: while there might be a wealth of detail that it uncovers, too many details will make you lose the perspective, and, indeed, the whole point.
Like when someone writes a groundbreaking optimizing compiler or something, but can't even tell you why.