11 replies to this topic

[ActuariallySpeaking]

I just wanted to open this up for discussion based on personal experiences. I can think of 3 types of techniques and wanted to see what has worked for all of you.

 

The techniques are as follows:

1. Herbal Nootropic Supplementation
2. Chemical Nootropic Supplementation
3. Diet, Exercise, and Lifestyle
4. Other Nootropic Enhancing Techniques, such as Low-Level Light Therapy, etc.

In your responses, please state how long you've used your technique(s) of choice, level of enhancement either in cognition or mood, or something else, and some of the side effects you've either dealt with personally or know of someone who dealt with them.

 

I just thought this would be a fun discussion... so have fun and post lots! Also, please take the poll!  

[gamesguru]

Have fairly regularly practiced herbs, a mostly plant-based diet, and meditation for 3 years, with moderate all around mind, body, spirit benefits, and with the most benefits probably attributable the plant-based diet. I'm sure the herbs are adaptogenic and the meditation, too in its own way, relaxing yet educating, but I judge them as more subtly beneficial than the diet. After being on a mostly plant-diet for just a couple weeks I felt like a million bucks and wanted to turn everyone onto the same healthy foods.

Edited by dasheenster, 25 April 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[YOLF]

I'm actually about to start a new regimen so it's not a good time for me to post yet.

[ActuariallySpeaking]

Have fairly regularly practiced herbs, a mostly plant-based diet, and meditation for 3 years, with moderate all around mind, body, spirit benefits, and with the most benefits probably attributable the plant-based diet. I'm sure the herbs are adaptogenic and the meditation, too in its own way, relaxing yet educating, but I judge them as more subtly beneficial than the diet. After being on a mostly plant-diet for just a couple weeks I felt like a million bucks and wanted to turn everyone onto the same healthy foods.

 

It sounds like health has been the biggest impact, and mostly from diet. Would you care to expound on and share about what foods are particularly helpful for you? I'd love to hear more about your particular regimen and diet, as well as what has and has not worked for you in the past.

 

 

I'm actually about to start a new regimen so it's not a good time for me to post yet.

 

You could always post to give me ideas for getting started, and to provide information, then post again regarding your new regimen, as an update in a few months. Up to you :-)

[Absent]

I'm not a huge fan of herbal supplements for specific nootropic effects. Every herbal supplement or extract that I have tried gives initial results but on prolonged use has unwanted side effects. I suspect this is because herbal supplements seldom contain just one chemical. I prefer to know exactly what I am taking, in what quantity, and what effect it has.

[ActuariallySpeaking]

I'm not a huge fan of herbal supplements for specific nootropic effects. Every herbal supplement or extract that I have tried gives initial results but on prolonged use has unwanted side effects. I suspect this is because herbal supplements seldom contain just one chemical. I prefer to know exactly what I am taking, in what quantity, and what effect it has.

 

Would you mind letting us know which herbal supplements you've tried and for how long? Just curious... you are definitely not the first person I've heard this from, and even with the exact same reasoning!

[Absent]

 

I'm not a huge fan of herbal supplements for specific nootropic effects. Every herbal supplement or extract that I have tried gives initial results but on prolonged use has unwanted side effects. I suspect this is because herbal supplements seldom contain just one chemical. I prefer to know exactly what I am taking, in what quantity, and what effect it has.

 

Would you mind letting us know which herbal supplements you've tried and for how long? Just curious... you are definitely not the first person I've heard this from, and even with the exact same reasoning!

 

 

I haven't tried too terribly many, so my opinion is probably a quick one. Off the top of my head, I recall Ginseng, Ginko Biloba, and there were a couple of others I can't immediately think of. 

 

It could simply be that I am always trying to push my supplementation limits, and this is easier to do without side reactions when working with pure chemicals. 

 

One other issue I had with Ginko and Ginseng is that depending on the day and other supplements taken, they would provide inconsistent results. Sometimes they would be an upper, other times a downer. This has never really happened before when mixing pure compounds in which I knew specifically the active ingredient. 

 

Supplementing with herbal supplements is indeed easier for the average person, but for the true nootropic nerd, I think the most flexibility for tweaking lies in pure compounds, but again, I could be wrong. This is just my opinion.

Edited by Siro, 26 April 2014 - 12:34 AM.

[Absent]

For some reason I am unable to edit my post but I have also had very inconsistent results with Gotu Kola. I can use it maybe a few times a month, whether for anti-anxiety effects, or simple to get a really good sleep, but taken more than a few times consecutively it has some undesirable effects, or it just loses effectiveness all together very quickly.

[gamesguru]

I love bacopa and ginkgo, they're really excellent; when used sporadically or consistently. I've used them both 30/30 days before, and 90/120 with cumulative benefits. Ginkgo's proven to help with dementia and Bacopa is proven to enhance cognition...how can you go wrong with these two? Have dabbled with ginseng and ashwangandha, not nearly as much as bacopa or ginkgo, but I still found they were more subtle, mediocre, even biologically inactive. My meditation is nothing extraordinary, but it helps. My diet I suspect is my ace in the hole; it's made me feel five years younger; although I still have aches, pains, and health issues, I feel healthier. I use the elliptical machine at the gym, 20 mins HIIT 2-5x weekly, another ace in the hole. What I eat varies from day to day, but on a weekly basis I average 7 cups rice/quinoa/spelt, 1 cup of olive oil, 5 cups nuts (mostly pecans and pistachios), 10 cups kale/broccoli/spinach/cauliflower/yams/etc, 7 cups of legumes (mostly black beans and red lentils), 7 cups fruit (berries& kiwis mostly, some dates for the sweet tooth), 5 cups mushrooms (mostly button), 5 servings fish (mostly sardines or salmon, for vit D), and some spices, white tea, and pure cacao to ice the cake. I really believe in going the extra mile and staying the course with the whole let thy food be thy medicine philosophy. I basically follow Dr. Weil's pyramid, I try to use only the finest mother nature has to offer 100 healthiest foods, and I often watch my favorite youtube channel as I eat my homemade creations. I haven't eaten any processed or restaurant foods in over 2.5 years; it's no lie or exaggeration when I brag that I have become a world-class eater. I can't say for sure, but in addition to physical youthfulness, I feel like I have a clearer mind and greater ability to cope with stress than most of my classmates, who all eat junkfood and live an embarrassing lifestyle.

 

Forskolin and cynaroside for CILTEP are chemicals both isolated from plants. Most extracts tend to contain standardized levels of active constituents, with the inactives thought to be biologically inactive: ginseng to steroidal saponins, ginkgo to terpene lactones and flavone glycosides, bacopa to triterpenoid saponins, and ashwagandha to alkaloids and steroid lactones.

And I must disagree with the assumption that single drugs are more consistent than plant extracts. Tea, a slurry of natural chemicals, is rather consistent in effect when compared to some isolated drugs, such as 7,8 dihydroxyflavone, amphetamine, or LSD, which I found all to be horrendously inconsistent in effect.

 

There's an extent to which treating disease with drugs is foolish, you're not really attacking the root of the problem. I'm not saying all diseases, but surely at least two fifths of all, can be treated with proper diet. I just think proper diet ought to be the first course of action, and when that fails, then try drug therapies.

Edited by dasheenster, 26 April 2014 - 03:45 AM.

[ActuariallySpeaking]

 

 

I'm not a huge fan of herbal supplements for specific nootropic effects. Every herbal supplement or extract that I have tried gives initial results but on prolonged use has unwanted side effects. I suspect this is because herbal supplements seldom contain just one chemical. I prefer to know exactly what I am taking, in what quantity, and what effect it has.

 

Would you mind letting us know which herbal supplements you've tried and for how long? Just curious... you are definitely not the first person I've heard this from, and even with the exact same reasoning!

 

 

I haven't tried too terribly many, so my opinion is probably a quick one. Off the top of my head, I recall Ginseng, Ginko Biloba, and there were a couple of others I can't immediately think of. 

 

It could simply be that I am always trying to push my supplementation limits, and this is easier to do without side reactions when working with pure chemicals. 

 

One other issue I had with Ginko and Ginseng is that depending on the day and other supplements taken, they would provide inconsistent results. Sometimes they would be an upper, other times a downer. This has never really happened before when mixing pure compounds in which I knew specifically the active ingredient. 

 

Supplementing with herbal supplements is indeed easier for the average person, but for the true nootropic nerd, I think the most flexibility for tweaking lies in pure compounds, but again, I could be wrong. This is just my opinion.

 

 

I appreciate your expounding more on your previous comment. And, it sounds like, for you, it definitely makes sense to go more with the chemical compounds since, as you said, it is easier for you to tweak dosage to zero in on the exact effect you are looking for - which makes a lot of sense. It also sounds like you are looking to push the limits, so to speak, which again is easier to accomplish with compounds since, most of the time, more compound means more effect (until diminishing returns and possibly even negative returns kicks in).

 

I guess for me it will come down to whether this is something I want to test out and if my goal is to push the limits and see what provides the most significant improvement, or if I'd be content with marginal improvements with less effort... I guess I'll probably end up trying more than one technique, to see what I like the best - and I think that is very important with nootropics in general - "Find what works best for you."

 

Thanks again for contributing, do you mind my asking which chemical compounds you've used, in what doses, for how long, and what the effects that you've seen have been (both good and bad)?

 

I love bacopa and ginkgo, they're really excellent; when used sporadically or consistently. I've used them both 30/30 days before, and 90/120 with cumulative benefits. Ginkgo's proven to help with dementia and Bacopa is proven to enhance cognition...how can you go wrong with these two? Have dabbled with ginseng and ashwangandha, not nearly as much as bacopa or ginkgo, but I still found they were more subtle, mediocre, even biologically inactive. My meditation is nothing extraordinary, but it helps. My diet I suspect is my ace in the hole; it's made me feel five years younger; although I still have aches, pains, and health issues, I feel healthier. I use the elliptical machine at the gym, 20 mins HIIT 2-5x weekly, another ace in the hole. What I eat varies from day to day, but on a weekly basis I average 7 cups rice/quinoa/spelt, 1 cup of olive oil, 5 cups nuts (mostly pecans and pistachios), 10 cups kale/broccoli/spinach/cauliflower/yams/etc, 7 cups of legumes (mostly black beans and red lentils), 7 cups fruit (berries& kiwis mostly, some dates for the sweet tooth), 5 cups mushrooms (mostly button), 5 servings fish (mostly sardines or salmon, for vit D), and some spices, white tea, and pure cacao to ice the cake. I really believe in going the extra mile and staying the course with the whole let thy food be thy medicine philosophy. I basically follow Dr. Weil's pyramid, I try to use only the finest mother nature has to offer 100 healthiest foods, and I often watch my favorite youtube channel as I eat my homemade creations. I haven't eaten any processed or restaurant foods in over 2.5 years; it's no lie or exaggeration when I brag that I have become a world-class eater. I can't say for sure, but in addition to physical youthfulness, I feel like I have a clearer mind and greater ability to cope with stress than most of my classmates, who all eat junkfood and live an embarrassing lifestyle.

 

Forskolin and cynaroside for CILTEP are chemicals both isolated from plants. Most extracts tend to contain standardized levels of active constituents, with the inactives thought to be biologically inactive: ginseng to steroidal saponins, ginkgo to terpene lactones and flavone glycosides, bacopa to triterpenoid saponins, and ashwagandha to alkaloids and steroid lactones.

And I must disagree with the assumption that single drugs are more consistent than plant extracts. Tea, a slurry of natural chemicals, is rather consistent in effect when compared to some isolated drugs, such as 7,8 dihydroxyflavone, amphetamine, or LSD, which I found all to be horrendously inconsistent in effect.

 

There's an extent to which treating disease with drugs is foolish, you're not really attacking the root of the problem. I'm not saying all diseases, but surely at least two fifths of all, can be treated with proper diet. I just think proper diet ought to be the first course of action, and when that fails, then try drug therapies.

 

Once again, thank you for your great contribution. I found your post to be quite informative and interesting. I will definitely look more into some of the things you mention here. I wonder, have you ever attempted or thought of attempting to add in any other sort of nootropic with your regular regiment? I'd be interested in hearing how a combination of the two would work - perhaps just adding in something like Piracetam.

 

Anyways, thanks again for your input and continued contribution to this thread.

 

 

 

Anyone else? I'd love to hear from more people, especially if you've had a different experience than what has already been discussed on this post.

[gamesguru]

From 2010-2012 I experimented with a lot of synthetic nootropics, including: piracetam, aniracetam, tyrosine, theanine, sulbutiamine, alpha-gpc, PS, alcar, hupzerine, inositol, pyritinol, picamilon, vinpocetine, forskolin, NADH, PQQ, CoQ10, TMG & NAC, lithium, magnesium, nicotine, noopept, mematine, selegiline, propranolol, afobazole, tianeptine, BPAP, and 7,8-dihydroxyflavone. I had less than two years experience with the above synthetics always taken concurrently with herbs, so perhaps I lack a proper understanding of their profile and you should take my opinions on synthetic nootropics with a grain of salt.

 

In terms of efficiency and consistency the above-listed synthetics seemed on par with ginseng or ashwagandha; none seemed as effective or consistent as ginkgo or bacopa.  I am not sure whether the synthetics are mediocre in themselves, or if my juggling act (combining herbs with synthetics) muddied the otherwise clear waters. I get the feeling that our mind is too delicate to take advantage of wild combinations of brain supplements, or some stacks do not synergize because they antagonize, resulting in more brain fog than clarity [as I discovered to be the case with caffeine and piracetam, or ginkgo and ashwagandha]. Paradoxically and disappointingly, more is less. This would explain why many of us have unsuccessfully sought an effective, complicated stack, when in fact the better results are to be obtained from simple combinations.

 

Another thought to consider when buying herbs or synthetics: synthetics are sometimes being synthesized without proper care, resulting in untested impurities, which lends a vote of confidence to herbs. Also compared to lifestyle changes like good diet, they are more likely to create a dependency or withdrawal and to be unsustainable habits later in life (how long are you going to procure pqq+coq10, into your 90s, and how bad will your body rebound when you break the habit?) Not that it's easier to maintain a good diet into your debilitated years, but I like to fancy it as such.

Edited by dasheenster, 07 May 2014 - 03:12 AM.

[ActuariallySpeaking]

From 2010-2012 I experimented with a lot of synthetic nootropics, including: piracetam, aniracetam, tyrosine, theanine, sulbutiamine, alpha-gpc, PS, alcar, hupzerine, inositol, pyritinol, picamilon, vinpocetine, forskolin, NADH, PQQ, CoQ10, TMG & NAC, lithium, magnesium, nicotine, noopept, mematine, selegiline, propranolol, afobazole, tianeptine, BPAP, and 7,8-dihydroxyflavone. I had less than two years experience with the above synthetics always taken concurrently with herbs, so perhaps I lack a proper understanding of their profile and you should take my opinions on synthetic nootropics with a grain of salt.

 

In terms of efficiency and consistency the above-listed synthetics seemed on par with ginseng or ashwagandha; none seemed as effective or consistent as ginkgo or bacopa.  I am not sure whether the synthetics are mediocre in themselves, or if my juggling act (combining herbs with synthetics) muddied the otherwise clear waters. I get the feeling that our mind is too delicate to take advantage of wild combinations of brain supplements, or some stacks do not synergize because they antagonize, resulting in more brain fog than clarity [as I discovered to be the case with caffeine and piracetam, or ginkgo and ashwagandha]. Paradoxically and disappointingly, more is less. This would explain why many of us have unsuccessfully sought an effective, complicated stack, when in fact the better results are to be obtained from simple combinations.

 

Another thought to consider when buying herbs or synthetics: synthetics are sometimes being synthesized without proper care, resulting in untested impurities, which lends a vote of confidence to herbs. Also compared to lifestyle changes like good diet, they are more likely to create a dependency or withdrawal and to be unsustainable habits later in life (how long are you going to procure pqq+coq10, into your 90s, and how bad will your body rebound when you break the habit?) Not that it's easier to maintain a good diet into your debilitated years, but I like to fancy it as such.

 

The overall tone you present here represents a very good point - within your point about how more is less, you really hit more on the paramount importance of doing the appropriate amount of research before you get on any regiment, ESPECIALLY when you are dealing with substances that effect the way your brain is working. That's why I have been researching these things thoroughly ever since I realized the possibilities a couple months ago, and why I started this thread, and why I plan to continue my research until I'm VERY comfortable with what I am putting into my body and the possible side effects and the way the combinations react together and all of that.

 

I was hoping to get a lot more input from a variety of sources on this thread, so that I could have a download of ideas and knowledge from the best and brightest people in these forums, but so far participation has been fairly paltry. However, I do very much appreciate the participation of those who have taken the time to comment and share their experiences. Hopefully participation will pick up in the near future and I'll have tons of information to sift through and piece together.