3 replies to this topic

[124]

Hello.

I'm new to this whole nootropics game. But i started out last week with some Piracetam 50x1200mg from ucb and to supplement it i took strong multivitamins, letchitin(343mg choline and 282mg inositol pr day) and an essential fatty acids supplement(470mg cholin and 47mg inositol pr day). I divided my PIR dose into 3 doses of 1600mg with 4-6 hours between each.

The first day was very positive, I got a lot done on my paper and had superb concentration. My mood was so good that day, so I were looking forward to a great experience and a nice grade!
But the following days i became more tired, confused and it ended up with a complete writers block.. I Seemed to know what to do, which theories to use and how to apply them to my case.. But i completely lost my focus and the bigger picture when i started to write again..

I have earlier had some performance anxiety during these exams and i have been under a great deal of stress due to certain circumstances in my personal life..

So I'm looking for a second opinion on this from someone who has a greater experience with piracetam and maybe anxieties.. And i would greatly appreciate that if you refer to any scientific sources that you post a link since I have access to most databases and love to read

I have now been taking Piracetam for 5 days..

Edited by 124, 06 February 2013 - 08:07 PM.

[jadamgo]

But the following days i became more tired, confused and it ended up with a complete writers block.. I Seemed to know what to do, which theories to use and how to apply them to my case.. But i completely lost my focus and the bigger picture when i started to write again..

2 hypotheses here:
1. Tunnel-vision. Too much piracetam leading to overly focused attention, to the point of obsessing over minor details, which makes you lose sight of the big picture.

2. Anxiety. Rare side effect of too much piracetam, probably increased by other factors like exhaustion, causing you to get anxious. Anxiety disrupts focus and is anathema to creativity. You need to feel okay to write, and if you don't feel okay, you can't write because you can't follow a train of thinking from "big picture" to "what I need to do right now."

Either way, cut piracetam dose to 800mg once at the begnning of every study/work session. Also, let yourself rest. Nootropics may enable you to push yourself beyond fatigue, but they don't prevent the fatigue from fucking your head up. You still have limits -- respect them, because your brain has to work right before you can do this sort of mentally intensive work successfully.

Sorry, no science right now because it's past my bedtime. Maybe if you asked a more specific question, tomorrow I could cite some peer-reviewed sources in a response.

[124]

But the following days i became more tired, confused and it ended up with a complete writers block.. I Seemed to know what to do, which theories to use and how to apply them to my case.. But i completely lost my focus and the bigger picture when i started to write again..

Either way, cut piracetam dose to 800mg once at the begnning of every study/work session.

Thanks a bunch! Great answer

But I have few questions:
Do you mean only 800mg pr day? Just want to be, sure because i usually have 2 or 3 sessions a day..
And since i have 1200mg ucb pills, would you go for 600mg or 1200mg pr session(or pr. day)?

Do you have any thoughts on how to possibly counter effect the tunnel-vision and/or the anxiety? Since i don't know whether they stem from the same effect of piracetam I'm asking about both..

Your advise and help is much appreciated!

[jadamgo]

Oh, no, I meant 800mg every dose. But I didn't realize your pills contained 1200mg each.

I think you ought to try 600mg per session, and if that doesn't work, go to 1200mg per session.

As for handling the tunnel vision or anxiety, the best advice I can give you is to break down the process of going from "big picture" to "individual phrase" into more steps, so each step is easier to do. I like to start from a thesis statement for an essay, and then write several approaches to proving it. Then for each approach, I write several sources or lines of reasoning I could use. Next, I make an outline of the whole paper, with each paragraph represented by a single sentence. Then I go into the outline and draft each paragraph in a very informal, vague way, not even correcting typos or checking to make sure my writing makes sense. (All of that comes later -- the most important thing to do when outlining is to just get something on the paper, and you can fix the broken parts later.)

Once I've finished the outline, I start drafting the paper, and this time I try to write it nicely. Sometimes I go in order from beginning to end, but if I get writers block for part of the essay, I skip several sections ahead and start writing about something different. Once the draft is finished, it's time to start revising.

That's just my process; try the parts you're interested in and see if they're useful.