The following will out perform every fancy nootropic:
Drink as much water as you can. Breathe clean air. Walk. Get as much sleep as you can. Lift something heavy regularly.
Drink as much water as you can. Breathe clean air. Walk. Get as much sleep as you can. Lift something heavy regularly.
Drink water while it makes you feel good, but for the love of God, do not force-hydrate yourself, especially if you are not 40.
https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/why-your-hangovers-just-keep-...
If I was being a pedant (which I tacitly now am), I'd be tempted to add two things:
1 - mindfulness meditation. Building the ability of the mind to hold attention is arguably just as useful as training the muscles. Especially for longer term knowledge workers who "get a bit bored of this staring at the screen thing". Like me. This comment is evidence of my ability to procrastinate.
2 - eat wide and well. Up to the individual to decide what that translates into, but eating wide and well will give you all the range of macro and micro nutrients you'll need for optimum cognitive performance.
But: your claim is that all of these things will out perform every fancy nootropic. This dismisses the entirety of pharmacology effectively... which is quite frankly the citation that needs evidence. There is a lot of nootropics / pharmaceutical drugs / herbs / mushrooms / etc out there. It's simply incorrect to assert that sleep, exercise and water are more effective than the intelligent use of some of these things. I get your overall point and I appreciate it and believe a lot of it, but I just think you're wrong in how heavily you assert it.
The benefit of the things listed above is that there is absolutely no downside other than time.
Edit: If you have an example of something that you consider effective, definitely list it please.
I suspect a lot of nootropics are so person-dependant. I can't speak much about nootropics ability to help someone who is already cognitively well-off, but I can definitely say they have significantly helped my mom's ability to remain cognitively sharp despite e.g. something akin to frontal-temporal dementia. Lions Mane absolutely does noticeably improve her cognitive abilities. Mind you, in this case it means that she goes from noticeably poor cognitive abilities to back to just a normal person's cognitive abilities, but that's fantastic from my perspective (maybe not due to Lion's Mane alone though). I've also noticed a surprising effectiveness of high-dose vitamin D + a powerful antioxidant like glutathione. Again though, this is very personalized. My mom, through blood work, we know is suffering from massive oxidative stress, so of course it makes sense that addressing the specific issues that are affecting her will cause a noticeable effect.
I know a lot of people turn to nootropics to enhance their abilities though and I honestly can't say much about that except that personally lions mane does seem to make me sharper (clearer thinking) but that is very anecdotal and much less noticeable than the improvements I see in my mom when she is taking certain supplements vs when she is not. And I'm generally prone to believe most supplements are bs, fraud or not necessary. I've come around to seeing how important certain supplements can be for certain people at certain times.
It also comes with tangential issues like knowing how not to create muscle imbalances, over-eat, over-train, etc. So that is definitely a valuable call out. Furthermore, a brilliant statement (that's common sense to most) I heard in the last few years is that efficiency is the opposite of stability - working out is more load that causes overall efficiency, but creates more risk. In short, you are absolutely right, even if we ignore the extreme scenarios where someone slips a disc or tears a bicep.
I am sure there are people who are responsible for more than themselves and live paycheck to paycheck, so between dependents and themselves have little time.
However, I wager that any person or couple without dependents absolutely 100% has 45-60 minutes to spare per day in the form of basic physical activity with a disconnect from social media and work obligations. It's mindfulness and movement in one.
However it has changed my life for the better and I still recommend lifting for everyone.