65 replies to this topic

[worldeater]

I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences with nootropic use in the academic sphere. I just started taking nootropics this summer, and I've noticed a marked positive effect in my mental stamina, alertness, and speach abilities. I have also noticed some improvements in my memory, although I haven't been really testing my memory that much since I'm on vacation from school right now. I am entering my second year of grad school, and I am very curious to see how my nootropic use affects my academic performance. I am currently taking the following:

Piracetam 1600 mg
Aniracetam 750 mg
Huperzine A 50-100 mcg
Pyritinol 100-200 mg

Multivitamin
Vit B complex
Fish oil

Modafinil (occasionally)
Adrafinil (occasionally)

I remember reading a post by Nootropi either here or on avantlabs about how he benefited really well from nootropics while in college.

Please post any experiences that you've had, whether they were positive, negative, or neutral.

Thanks!

Edited by worldeater, 12 August 2005 - 08:15 PM.

[worldeater]

Hey susmariosep,

Thanks for the reply. However, as the topic implies, I'm more interested in people's accounts of the effects that nootropics have had on their academic performance, not their IQ.

worldeater

[susmariosep]

Wanted, testimonials?


Dear Worldeater:

If I may:

you seem to be looking for testimonials to assure yourself that the pharmaceutical products you are taking are genuinely responsible for your improved academic performance.

For you are telling people here:

I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences with nootropic use in the academic sphere.

I remember reading a post by Nootropi either here or on avantlabs about how he benefited really well from nootropics while in college.

Please post any experiences that you've had, whether they were positive, negative, or neutral.

Testimonials may be accepted as a crude proof, if you have no other really laboratory-wise dependable testing ways and means to find out, whether your impression of improved academic performance is in fact owing to your intake of nootropics.

If you are a born-again Christian, then you and your fellow born-again Christians have no other way of assuring yourself that prayer improves your academic performance, except by testimonials from each other, when you all have been praying to obtain better academic results.


About the contribution of nootropics to your improved academic performance, allow me to suggest to you two questions which you must ask yourself:

First, has your performance truly improved now compared to previously?

Second, is the improvement due to the intake of nootropics?


On the first question, the only sure indication that your academic performance has improved are the higher grades or scores you should obtain in the school examinations when you next return to the campus; until then all you have is a subjective impression that you are now better equipped for academic endeavors than before.

On the second question, unless your IQ score subsequent to your intake of nootropics has increased, compared to earlier scores dating to your pre-nootropics days, then there is no valid basis to attribute your academic improvement to nootropics intake: for academic undertakings will not improve without better IQ scores.

Whether people admit it or not, and whether it is politically correct or incorrect, academic perfomance correlates positively with IQ scores.

Susma

I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences with nootropic use in the academic sphere.  I just started taking nootropics this summer, and I've noticed a marked positive effect in my mental stamina, alertness, and speach abilities.  I have also noticed some improvements in my memory, although I haven't been really testing my memory that much since I'm on vacation from school right now.  I am entering my second year of grad school, and I am very curious to see how my nootropic use effects my academic performance.  I am currently taking the following:

Piracetam      1600 mg
Aniracetam    750 mg
Huperzine A    50-100 mcg
Pyritinol          100-200 mg

Multivitamin
Vit B complex
Fish oil

Modafinil  (occasionally)
Adrafinil  (occasionally)

I remember reading a post by Nootropi either here or on avantlabs about how he benefited really well from nootropics while in college.

Please post any experiences that you've had, whether they were positive, negative, or neutral.

Thanks!

Hey susmariosep,

Thanks for the reply.  However, as the topic implies, I'm more interested in people's accounts of the effects that nootropics have had on their academic performance, not their IQ.

worldeater

[emerson]

After I began using Piracetam and Huperzine A I noticed a distinct change in my performance within classes which required large amounts of rote memorization. In those, I went from floating around the higher scoring members of the class to being at the very top on every test. Annoyingly, those were mostly low level prerequisites I was getting rid of as fast as possible. Still, it was a lot of fun while it lasted! I also had a distinct feeling of making greater connections with topics I did care about, and wound up entering into a lot of subjects I'd had no previous interest in before taking the drugs. The latter, of course, is pretty easy to write off as a possible placebo effect.

Edited by emerson, 08 August 2005 - 02:10 PM.

[nuncle]

There is no valid basis to attribute your academic improvement to nootropics intake: for academic undertakings will not improve without better IQ scores.

Nonsense. IQ (in the fluid intelligence sense) is fairly monolithic and is pretty static; it's much harder to manipulate than other aspects of cognitive performance. There are any number of ways one can improve academic performance without making one 'smarter'--e.g., by increasing one's level of motivation or one's ability to focus. Such manipulations don't really increase your peak performance significantly, but they might make you able to sustain intellectual effort for longer periods of time.

Whether people admit it or not, and whether it is politically correct or incorrect, academic perfomance correlates positively with IQ scores.

Uh, yes, but a positive correlation can range anywhere from 0 to 1. Saying the two are positively correlated shouldn't be taken to imply the correlation is anywhere near unity (it's not!) IQ accounts for a substantial portion of the variance in academic performance, but certainly not close to all of it.

With respect to your suggestions for IQ testing: most IQ tests are not designed with repeat testing in mind, and people almost always improve their scores if they take them repeatedly, because they become familiar with the type of questions. For this reason it's not a good idea to put faith in testimonials along the lines of "I took an IQ test, then nootropics for 6 months, then my IQ went up 10 points!"

That said, as a psychologist, I'd be very wary of any sort of introspection-based testimonials. People often pay lip service to the idea the effects they're experiencing are placebo effects, but I don't think most people fully appreciate (a) how powerful such effects can be and (b) how poor human introspection is. There are certainly good ways to arrive at conclusions more quantitatively. For anyone with minimal statistical knowledge, for example, it makes sense to keep quantitative track of what drugs one takes every day, along with indices of mood, physical condition, etc. Then after a few months one can go back and perform quantitative analyses to see, in a more objective manner, what works and what doesn't. I suspect most people's stacks would shrink dramatically if they employed such an approach (although of course, many drugs are taken for long-term benefits aren't necessarily expected to have observable effects).

[worldeater]

On the first question, the only sure indication that your academic performance has improved are the higher grades or scores you should obtain in the school examinations when you next return to the campus; until then all you have is a subjective impression that you are now better equipped for academic endeavors than before.

Thank you for stating the obvious.

academic undertakings will not improve without better IQ scores.

As was just suggested by nuncle, and also suggested by my previous post, there most likely is not a strong correlation between IQ and academic performance. If you believe that having a 4.0 gpa means that you are a genius, or that having a 1.0 gpa means that you are mentally retarded, you are just deluding yourself.

Anyone that has spent any amount of time in high school or college knows that it is the people who are 1) highly motivated and 2) have the ability to maintain a sustained attention span that get good grades. These are both pointed out by nuncle above. Of course 3) whether or not you are naturally interested in a subject will also have a huge impact. And of course 1), 2) and 3) are not mutually exclusive. I am only *assuming* that nootropics can aid in things like 1) and 2). Notice that I've said nothing about the effects of nootropics on intelligence.

Also, as da_sense pointed out, does it really matter if better academic performace is just the result of my *thinking* that nootropics are have this effect on me?

I just think that it would be really benificial to the community if we could get some *anecdotal* accounts of the effects (whether positive, negative, or neutral), that nootropics have had on their academic performance. If you aren't interested in posting your own topic-related experiences, susmariosep, then I would ask you to please create another forum topic pertaining to your own interest.

[LifeMirage]

That's a very productive attitude.


I suggest you now go to any place where you can have an IQ testing and obtain the score.

Then you fast from nootropics and after some days when you notice the sharp mental edge has dissipated, take IQ tests again.

Now compare the scores from both instances of testings, and report here to this thread again.

Do this routine several times, at least four times, four of each testing, with and without nootropics.

Susma:

IQ testing costs about $500 and takes 5-7 hours...also keep in mind the poster of this thread of was looking only those who have taken nootropics....I know since you have little understanding of the brain and nootropics you want to learn more, so I strongly suggest posting any questions on your own thread in the future.

[worldeater]

After I began using Piracetam and Huperzine A I noticed a distinct change in my performance within classes which required large amounts of rote memorization. In those, I went from floating around the higher scoring members of the class to being at the very top on every test. Annoyingly, those were mostly low level prerequisites I was getting rid of as fast as possible. Still, it was a lot of fun while it lasted! I also had a distinct feeling of making greater connections with topics I did care about, and wound up entering into a lot of subjects I'd had no previous interest in before taking the drugs. The latter, of course, is pretty easy to write off as a possible placebo effect.

Hey emerson,

Thanks very much for your account. Could you please tell us how much Piracetam and Huperzine A you were taking while in school?

worldeater

[enemy]

Disclaimer: What follows is purely subjective.

I work a physically-intense night job that leaves me fatigued. I am a full-time university mathematics student in the United States. My curriculum is predominantly problem-solving (both inductive and deductive) with very little rote memorization work.

Sleep deprivation is, to me, the single most destructive factor in maintaining a consistent degree of functional intelligence.
In the fall of 2004, using no performance enhancers, I achieved a 3.41 GPA.

In the spring of 2005, I used piracetam 2.4g/day, hydergine 4.5mg/day, and centrophenoxine 250mg/day. Furthermore, I used modafinil at 100mg every-other-day (EOD). I achieved a 3.71 GPA at the end of this, a slightly more mentally-challenging semester (19 CR vs. 16 CR in fall 2K4).

I cannot conclusively say piracetam, hydergine and centro were the proponents of this increase, but I will say that the modafinil dose for the early mornings was vital, however, coffee probably could be used interchangeably.

I used this regimen for 4 full months with no breaks. Make no mistake, there is a price to be paid. By mid-May, the end of the semester, I had lost a great deal of inductive reasoning ability without my even knowing it. I slept 12+ hours a night for the first 10 days after school ended and only then did I realize the extent of my self-inflicted damage. I am back to "baseline" now, after sleeping ~9 hours a night all summer.

Check the sapho juice thread for my regimen for the fall. Further bulletins as events warrant...

[xanadu]

enemy, I'm with you on the sleep thing. Not enough of it will mess you up physically as well as mentally. It will undo any benefits of nootropics except perhaps in the short run. I don't know too many people who are predominantly interested in the short run.

I'm taking piracetam now and it seems to have a positive effect. I'm thinking of taking some centro with it but am holding off in case it's too stimulating. I seem to suffer sleep problems from most stimulants and don't even drink coffee. I've heard pyritinol is synergistic with piracetam, does it make it more stimulating?

[enemy]

Not to twist the entire thread, but...

What if the short-run is 4 months long? And I totally agree that sleep-dep is absolutely horrible for the physical body as well as the mental. But if the examinations are with respect to solely the mental side of the being, then it is the mental side which dominates my concern...

Though I am an athlete, I am not in serious competition, so sleep-dep's impact on my physical being isn't a pressing issue-- right now.

If I were an olympic athlete however...

[enigma]

Enemy

Make no mistake, there is a price to be paid. By mid-May, the end of the semester, I had lost a great deal of inductive reasoning ability without my even knowing it.

That was probably the Modafinil though, not the nootropics, not the sleep deprivation. I say this just by having read a great deal of testimonials which state similar effects from Modafinil, here and mostly elsewhere, and from my own personal experience (of Adrafinil, with no sleep deprivation).

It almost looks like a conspiracy, that Modafinil has no listed official side effects relating to cognitive decline.

[worldeater]

I agree that sleep deprivation and general fatigue is one of the most serious problems when you are trying to lead a really productive life, and it's an especially serious problem when you're in an academic environment. The stack I've been taking appears to help improve my wakefulness and duration, especially when I first take it in the morning, but I'd have to say that the adrafinil/modafinil is just a godsend for this. About midday after lunch, if I've been reading or writing a lot or doing research all morning, I start to get this really powerful desire to take a two- or three- hour nap. On the days I take adrafinil/modafinil, I simply don't have this desire, or if I do, it's a lot less pronounced. I can see myself using this a few times a week this semester, especially during final papers. However, I don't want to deprive myself too much of sleep. A good night's rest is irreplaceable.

[mitkat]

I'm sorry, what was the point of that?

[LifeMirage]

susmariosep: Your two recently posts have been move to the catcher due to hijacking/disrupting this thread.

Posting completely irreverent posts (hijacking a thread) or posting disruptively to the intent of the poster will be either deleted or moved to the Catcher depending on the post.

I have zero tolerance for those seeking to disturb rather than inform The Immortality Institute.

Based on your own statement [susmariosep: Since I am not a scientist though scientifically oriented -- in my own view of my thinking self, and certainly not one trained in laboratory tasks essential to the pharmaceutic search for life extension, I do not go into threads and posts about nootropics and such related questions.], ignoring my comments and appearing only to want to receive attention....any future postings on the Nootropic forums will be carefully reviewed.

Yours In Health

Edited by LifeMirage, 17 August 2005 - 06:11 AM.

[worldeater]

I was just thinking... I can imagine in the future, when nootropics become more prevalent and their use is more widespread, that high schools, colleges and universities might screen students for nootropic use, in the same way that athletes are screened for steroid use. I could imagine that they'd begin by testing for things like ritalin or adderall at first. Just a thought...

[xanadu]

Why on earth would universities try to stop people from enhancing their abilities? That's the governments job.

[worldeater]

Why on earth would universities try to stop people from enhancing their abilities?

I'd imagine that a university official would deny that they were trying to stop people from enhancing their abilities. They would argue that they are just trying to level the playing field. They'd say that when only a portion of the student body is using these performance enhancers, that they have an unfair advantage over the portion of the student body that isn't taking them. This argument is nothing new. It's the same one we get from sports organizations like the NFL and MLB in the states. Now there could be any number of reasons why only a portion of the students are able to use these enhancers (financial reasons, health reasons, etc.).

That's the governments job.

Both MLB and the NFL regulate to some degree the use of steroids within their respective sports. Private companies also regularly test their employees for drug use. Whether or not it's the goverment's job, and I personally don't believe it is, it is private institutions that can and do enforce their own regulations with regard to performance enhancing substances.

[Sorry for the tangent. It would still be interesting to hear people's personal accounts of using nootropics in academic environments.]

[LifeMirage]

To employ ways and means that are not natural-born resources and not naturally developed skills, as with intakes of so-called smart drugs, that is cheating, essentially stealing, grabbing the fair chance of others to an opportunity, for example, admission to a college and also acquisition of academic honors, medals, recognition.


This might appear to be stating the obvious, but I just think that you are missing what is obvious.

Improving one's health through natural means (many nootropics occur naturally in the body) which result in better functioning is not cheating.

Every edge that can be taken should be in my opinion....nootropics can bring out the best in yourself....cognitively speaking.

[LifeMirage]

I believe at the time I was using 2.4g piracetam, divided into three doses per day. For the huperzine, I usually took 50mcg in the morning and then 50mcg again mid-afternoon.

100 mcg is a relatively low dose to take daily..I usually recommend 200-300 mcg daily with great results.

[xanadu]

This has turned into a philosophical question. What is fair and what is cheating? Should those of us with higher IQ's be dumbed down so that we don't have an "unfair" advantage over the less gifted? Should only those of us who are a little slow get the enhancing drugs? I guess Einstein would get tossed out of school for being a cheater.

The comparison to steroids is unfair, in my opinion. Steroids have been shown to have negative health consequences when used to enhance athletic performance. The rationale for banning them was to protect the participant's health. That makes a lot of sense to me. There is no such reason for banning nootropics. To say that only those with money can afford them is not a good reason. Might as well ban private coaches and nutritionists, they give a boost also and cost money. I don't believe any university bans the use of such drugs but I shudder to see PC thinking moving in that direction. Apparently the government thinks the same way you do, sus, they are planning to take these things away from us.

[enemy]

Maybe nootropic use can be an issue insofar as determining precedence in academically competitive situations, i.e. college admissions.

But then again, at the end of the day, you've either cured cancer, or you've sat on your thumb; whether you're on smart drugs or not.

[eternaltraveler]

I don't see anything wrong with using any kind of performance enhancing drugs in any field. I personally would only use those that are beneficial to my health.

On a side note the idea that steriods are horribly horribly bad for you for the most part is overblown. With proper monitoring they can be used fairly safely.

[xanadu]

sus, you again give an illogical argument. According to your thinking, to improve oneself in any way is immoral. So athletes who train and do exercise are cheating because not everyone has time or motivation to do those things. People who study hard would be cheaters too. Those who eat a well balanced diet or take vitamins would be cheaters in your eyes. Could it be that you are rationalising laziness? If exceptional people could be held back, then lazy slobs wouldn't look so bad. That wouldn't be at the root of your beliefs, would it?

[worldeater]

I just modified my stack, and I'm feeling very positive results. I feel more relaxed yet vigilant, which basically translates into my feeling more focused. I also feel noticeably more relaxed in social situations.

Here is my old stack:

Piracetam 1600 mg
Aniracetam 750 mg
Huperzine A 50-100 mcg
Pyritinol 100-200 mg

Multivitamin
Vit B complex
Fish oil

Modafinil (occasionally)
Adrafinil (occasionally)

Here is the new stack that I'm getting better results with:

Piracetam 3200 mg (1600 mg morning, 1600 mg afternoon)
Huperzine A 200 mcg (100 mcg morning, 100 mcg afternoon)
Pyritinol 100 mg (100 mg morning)

Multivitamin
Vit B Complex
Fish oil

Modafinil (occasionally)
Adrafinil (occasionally)

Basically what I've done is that I've stopped taking the Aniracetam, while doubling my Piracetam intake. I've also increased my Huperzine A intake. I am running low on Pyritinol, so I'm only taking one 100 mg tablet per day. However, I'd like to try 400 mg Pyritinol per day (200 mg morning, 200 mg afternoon).

Even though school obviously hasn't started back up again, I feel like this new stack is putting me in a great mental "zone" for studying. I'll be posting throughout the school year with my results.

Any recommendations or comments are welcome.

worldeater

[LifeMirage]

Here is the new stack that I'm getting better results with:

Piracetam 3200 mg (1600 mg morning, 1600 mg afternoon)
Huperzine A 200 mcg (100 mcg morning, 100 mcg afternoon)
Pyritinol 100 mg (100 mg morning)

Multivitamin
Vit B Complex
Fish oil

Modafinil (occasionally)
Adrafinil (occasionally)

Basically what I've done is that I've stopped taking the Aniracetam, while doubling my Piracetam intake. I've also increased my Huperzine A intake. I am running low on Pyritinol, so I'm only taking one 100 mg tablet per day. However, I'd like to try 400 mg Pyritinol per day (200 mg morning, 200 mg afternoon).

Even though school obviously hasn't started back up again, I feel like this new stack is putting me in a great mental "zone" for studying. I'll be posting throughout the school year with my results.

Any recommendations or comments are welcome.

worldeater

Looks good, when you up the Pyritinol to 600-1,200 mg as needed (or 400-800 mg daily) you should see an impressive difference. Also I would add Aniracetam to work with Piracetam when you can.

[worldeater]

Looks good, when you up the Pyritinol to 600-1,200 mg as needed (or 400-800 mg daily) you should see an impressive difference. Also I would add Aniracetam to work with Piracetam when you can.

Hey LifeMirage thanks for the feedback. I'll report back with results when I start taking the extra Pyritinol. I'm in an extremely demanding grad program, so I can use all the help I can get. I'm going to see how I react to the extra Pyritinol for a while, and then I'll try adding a little Aniracetam. From what I've read Pyritinol is great for improving concentration, which would be perfect for my situation.

worldeater

[susmariosep]

I don't engage in illogical statements.


Before anything else I would like to request LifeMirage to allow this side discussion on unfair competition to continue here; because the author of this thread, Worldeater, is the one to have brought it up:

I was just thinking... I can imagine in the future, when nootropics become more prevalent and their use is more widespread, that high schools, colleges and universities might screen students for nootropic use, in the same way that athletes are screened for steroid use. I could imagine that they'd begin by testing for things like ritalin or adderall at first. Just a thought...

(The above is the complete text of Worldeater's message [Posted: Aug 11 2005-14:01 | link = http://www.imminst.o...568].)

His thinking in the above message shows that he has a concern which I understand as a question addressed to himself and people like him, making use of nootropics in order to improve their academic performance, a question which is essentially whether it is fair or unfair to others also engaged in academic performance but not using nootropics.

His thinking shows a sense of egalitarian nobility focused on the need for the maintenance of a level playing field, wherever competition for rewards is open to everyone on the basis of equal opportunity.

Sad to say, he appears not to be interested in pursuing the issue, in order to reach a policy adoption of whether it is fair or unfair, to be adopted namely by himself if nobody else, as a personal code of conduct.

So it should be to the credit of rational and right-thinking people here to resolve that issue for him, for him to adopt or not to adopt, as a code of personal conduct in the competition arena that is academic performance, concretely, the school.

---------

Here is my position about whether it is fair or unfair for users of nootropics to compete in the school with non-users -- I will just reproduce my post as follows:

Blaming nature or blaming man's intervention,
i.e., giving the credit to nature or to smart drugs.


I would like to bring the attention of the posters here to the fact that when people born with better physical and mental resources excel over people born with less such resources, nature is responsible and we can maybe blame nature, or give the credit to nature.

But when people ingest chemical substances produced by laboratories intended to enable them to perform better and longer, than they could by their natural-born resources, and compete with people who don't ingest such substances -- and they keep hidden their use of such enhancers, that I believe and universal sense of fairness will agree with me, is unfair competition.

All such kinds of extrinsic addition or embellishment or accretion not original in an individual, to endow him with an edge of advantage over rivals who do not indulge in such improvement from outside his natural born resources, are unfair in any competition scenario, be it in the campus, in sports, in arts.

Intake of performance improving drugs in sports is prohibited not because it is harmful to the performing athlete, but because it is unfair: to use a judgmental word but valid on the basis of universal sense of fairness, it is cheating.

In academic endeavors the same moral perspective should apply.


Now, what might be a possible arrangement to legitimize the use of all kinds of performance improving substances, is for schools and organizers of sports events to be the exclusive distributors of the kinds and quantities of such drugs, to be administered namely equally to contending individuals.

That I believe will be a bizarrely absurd projected landscape; then it would be a competition on the efficacy of products produced by food supplements and smart drugs manufacturers, not so much or not honestly -- because not essentially -- a contest between natural human entities as begotten by nature.

Come to think about it, in which case we can then pit a natural born man with all his physical and mental resources against a rival who has ingested performance improving substances and smart drugs, to see after repeated testings, which contender in the long term, say five years, ten years, can achieve better, and last longer on the basis of a healthy and functional life.

Susma

I would like to take therefore very grave exception to the charge of Xanadu in this post reproduced below that I am engaged again in another illogical argument:

sus, you again give an illogical argument. According to your thinking, to improve oneself in any way is immoral. So athletes who train and do exercise are cheating because not everyone has time or motivation to do those things. People who study hard would be cheaters too. Those who eat a well balanced diet or take vitamins would be cheaters in your eyes. Could it be that you are rationalising laziness? If exceptional people could be held back, then lazy slobs wouldn't look so bad. That wouldn't be at the root of your beliefs, would it?

Please, Xanadu, read my post again, and tell me if that justifies your post above alleging that I am making another illogical argument. Also tell me where is my earlier illogical argument.

If you had been reading my posts carefully and thoughtfully, then I suspect that your post above charging me with another illogical argument was written, no not on bad faith, but on dubious faith. It is not allowed to act on bad faith, but almost equally deplorable is to act on dubious faith. -- Amsus, Ph.D., UHK*

Susma

*UHK = University of Hard Knocks

[eternaltraveler]

But when people ingest chemical substances produced by laboratories intended to enable them to perform better and longer, than they could by their natural-born resources, and compete with people who don't ingest such substances -- and they keep hidden their use of such enhancers, that I believe and universal sense of fairness will agree with me, is unfair competition.

All such kinds of extrinsic addition or embellishment or accretion not original in an individual, to endow him with an edge of advantage over rivals who do not indulge in such improvement from outside his natural born resources, are unfair in any competition scenario, be it in the campus, in sports, in arts.

Susma,

the above is a ridiculous idea of competition. Do you even know what competition is? You would be better not to use that word in your arguments. Because you are attacking the idea of competition itself. And if you don't think competition itself is fair; tough. That's life. Deal with it. Do you think businesses share all their trade secrets with each other? Get real.

And as far as nature being the final judge of such things. Screw nature. Nature gave us a start, and I’m happy about that. Kind of like the abacus was a start for the supercomputer. There is much room for improvement.

I suppose flying in airplanes isn't fair either. Nature didn't give us wings after all. It probably makes all those poor birds feel really bad about themselves how we can fly much faster and carry much more and we weren't even born with wings.