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After being on IRC for the best part of two decades (and the fringe groups who frequent the medium) I have seen the word “nootropics” banded about. The first t

by dijit 3y ago

After being on IRC for the best part of two decades (and the fringe groups who frequent the medium) I have seen the word “nootropics” banded about. The first time, I thought it was a fun idea but nothing I wanted, see; my brain is all I have so I dont much fancy experimenting with it- this is also why I avoided alcohol and coffee despite social pressures. The community that formed went away as quickly as it had been created; various people began having psychological issues. The next time I heard about nootropics I passed along the information. “This time, will be different” the anonymous internet handle claimed. “We know more, we will not do anything dangerous”. Alas, the same fate befell them, and the community that formed quickly dissapated as they became incoherent even amongst each other. Prone to fits of paranoia and delusions of a grandiose conspiracy - which they were the only people who could see the truth. Later, on of my fellow IRC opers followed this path, I gave strict warning that it was hubris to believe himself smarter at drug use for brain optimisation than the scores of admittedly intelligent people who came before. He (much) later would become unhinged and fly cross continent to find me at my irl work location where he threatened my mother. He was incoherent most of the time and dropped out of university. So, forgive the hesitance, but I am even more hardened on the notion that we should probably not mess with our brains too much. I know some people must be pioneers to understand what works but I always took “YOLO” as a warning and not as a reason to throw caution to the wind. That said, I am a heavy user of caffeine in adulthood and I am more susceptible to pressure on drinking alcohol now. So I will admit to being hypocritical when it comes to the socially acceptable brain altering drugs. NB: Nicotine itself is addictive mostly because it has such a long half life, it stays in the body for multiple weeks; so if you decide to take this advice, make sure you wait at least a fortnight between doses.

insanitybit 3y ago
That's definitely an anecdote, but I think the salient point is this: > So, forgive the hesitance, but I am even more hardened on the notion that we should probably not mess with our brains too much And that's true, insofar as we are able to agree on what "mess with our brains" and "too much" means. Is taking some choline "messing" with the brain? Definitely. Is it "too much?" well, perhaps you think so. Is drinking coffee "too much"? Apparently we both agree that it is not "too much", I'm drinking some caffeine right now. One thing about Choline and Caffeine is that they are very well studied, especially in terms of safety. The further you go into the nootropics world the less studied options you'll find - things range from "zero data" to "used for 1000s of years by an unscientific people" to "animal studies exist" and beyond. My personal "too much" is when there's a combination of weak evidence to support benefits and weak evidence to support safety in humans.
- dijit 3y ago
  Well said. I think that is definitely a strong and salient way to think about mind altering chemicals.
pitched 3y ago
The best place to start is the Beginner’s Guide put together by the Nootropics subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/ TLDR: Your starting point is exercise, sleep and sunlight. Nothing after that really has as large of an effect.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  > Nothing after that really has as large of an effect. Most people would disagree - at least, anyone who drinks caffeine would.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    Most people can't understand why they aren't feeling well after 1kg of pasta with meatballs. I love caffeine and coffee, but if we are talking about well-feeling, 5 minute calistenics would make you feel better in 99% compared to a cup of sugar laden cappuccino
    - insanitybit 3y ago
      None of that is relevant. Caffeine has a blatant cognitive effect.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - adrianN 3y ago
        So do sleep exercise and sunlight
        insanitybit 3y ago
        I explicitly quoted "> Nothing after that really has as large of an effect."
VHRanger 3y ago
It might be about the nootropics, but this might also be the conditiona that people who are in IRC chatrooms about braindrugs are more prone to psychotic breaks for whatever reason. Stimulants increase likelihood of psychosis, but that's conditional on dosage and precursor risk variables
- caddemon 3y ago
  Nicotine specifically is also more likely to be used by people with psychotic disorders than the general population, as a form of self-medicating. Many Schizophrenic people report smoking cigarettes to help their symptoms in the short term, though I'm not sure what research says about long term mental health effects of this practice.
financltravsty 3y ago
I would say that's a sampling bias, considering the type of people that frequent IRC. Numerous more students everywhere buy some piracetam or related due to a TikTok video, and never suffer any consequence. I would also mention that nicotine itself has a marginally lower addictive rating if we go by ΔFosB expression. Having been someone that got hooked on cigarettes (and quit), the same habits never formed for nicotine, and the inclination was never there. And it is trivial to quit nicotine (compared to caffeine, even more so for cigarettes). Though, I do agree in essence with your post. It is hubris to play around with this sort of thing. And there is never a free lunch (unless we're speaking strictly of micronutrients and pseudomicronutrients/vitamins).
deegles 3y ago
The best nootropic is really high quality, regular sleep, regular exercise, and good diet. If you don't have the basics down, no supplement will make up for it.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Agreed, and many of the supplements and drugs people are taking actually mess with sleep in a big way; so seems entirely counterproductive.
- bitzun 3y ago
  And once you have all that (assuming exercise is cardio), weight lifting has great mental health effects IME
bezier-curve 3y ago
> Nicotine itself is addictive mostly because it has such a long half life, it stays in the body for multiple weeks. It has a half-life of 2 hours [0]. If it lasted longer I think its withdrawal effect would be less steep and more gradual. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794006/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794006/
FredPret 3y ago
I’ve seen a similar story. Problems that could be solved by exercise, sunlight, sleep, and a positive mental attitude, but then they try nootropics instead. It always ends the same way - psychosis, incoherence, paranoia. The brain is a finely tuned network, use it’s built-in hapiness generators rather than throwing sledgehammers at it.
yojo 3y ago
I think it is useful to draw a distinction between “new” nootropics and those with hundreds of years of demonstrated use. While nicotine has not historically been used in isolation, it has been used both in recreation and religion settings for around 2000 years. Caffeine use is similar, perhaps older. There’s still reason to be wary of higher dosages or new delivery routes, but it seems unlikely that dabbling in low-dose caffeine or nicotine use will make you go crazy, based on the mountain of historical evidence to the contrary.
binary132 3y ago
I know how these communities can be and it honestly sounds much more like a community problem than like a “people who drink some coffee and smoke some cigarettes” problem, because there are many millions of those who don’t have crazy, out-of-control behavioral problems.

by dijit 3y ago

insanitybit 3y ago

That's definitely an anecdote, but I think the salient point is this: > So, forgive the hesitance, but I am even more hardened on the notion that we should probably not mess with our brains too much And that's true, insofar as we are able to agree on what "mess with our brains" and "too much" means. Is taking some choline "messing" with the brain? Definitely. Is it "too much?" well, perhaps you think so. Is drinking coffee "too much"? Apparently we both agree that it is not "too much", I'm drinking some caffeine right now. One thing about Choline and Caffeine is that they are very well studied, especially in terms of safety. The further you go into the nootropics world the less studied options you'll find - things range from "zero data" to "used for 1000s of years by an unscientific people" to "animal studies exist" and beyond. My personal "too much" is when there's a combination of weak evidence to support benefits and weak evidence to support safety in humans.

dijit 3y ago
Well said. I think that is definitely a strong and salient way to think about mind altering chemicals.

pitched 3y ago

The best place to start is the Beginner’s Guide put together by the Nootropics subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/ TLDR: Your starting point is exercise, sleep and sunlight. Nothing after that really has as large of an effect.

insanitybit 3y ago
> Nothing after that really has as large of an effect. Most people would disagree - at least, anyone who drinks caffeine would.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  Most people can't understand why they aren't feeling well after 1kg of pasta with meatballs. I love caffeine and coffee, but if we are talking about well-feeling, 5 minute calistenics would make you feel better in 99% compared to a cup of sugar laden cappuccino
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    None of that is relevant. Caffeine has a blatant cognitive effect.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - adrianN 3y ago
      So do sleep exercise and sunlight
      - insanitybit 3y ago
        I explicitly quoted "> Nothing after that really has as large of an effect."

VHRanger 3y ago

It might be about the nootropics, but this might also be the conditiona that people who are in IRC chatrooms about braindrugs are more prone to psychotic breaks for whatever reason. Stimulants increase likelihood of psychosis, but that's conditional on dosage and precursor risk variables

caddemon 3y ago
Nicotine specifically is also more likely to be used by people with psychotic disorders than the general population, as a form of self-medicating. Many Schizophrenic people report smoking cigarettes to help their symptoms in the short term, though I'm not sure what research says about long term mental health effects of this practice.

financltravsty 3y ago

I would say that's a sampling bias, considering the type of people that frequent IRC. Numerous more students everywhere buy some piracetam or related due to a TikTok video, and never suffer any consequence. I would also mention that nicotine itself has a marginally lower addictive rating if we go by ΔFosB expression. Having been someone that got hooked on cigarettes (and quit), the same habits never formed for nicotine, and the inclination was never there. And it is trivial to quit nicotine (compared to caffeine, even more so for cigarettes). Though, I do agree in essence with your post. It is hubris to play around with this sort of thing. And there is never a free lunch (unless we're speaking strictly of micronutrients and pseudomicronutrients/vitamins).

deegles 3y ago

The best nootropic is really high quality, regular sleep, regular exercise, and good diet. If you don't have the basics down, no supplement will make up for it.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Agreed, and many of the supplements and drugs people are taking actually mess with sleep in a big way; so seems entirely counterproductive.
bitzun 3y ago
And once you have all that (assuming exercise is cardio), weight lifting has great mental health effects IME

bezier-curve 3y ago

> Nicotine itself is addictive mostly because it has such a long half life, it stays in the body for multiple weeks. It has a half-life of 2 hours [0]. If it lasted longer I think its withdrawal effect would be less steep and more gradual. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794006/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794006/

FredPret 3y ago

I’ve seen a similar story. Problems that could be solved by exercise, sunlight, sleep, and a positive mental attitude, but then they try nootropics instead. It always ends the same way - psychosis, incoherence, paranoia. The brain is a finely tuned network, use it’s built-in hapiness generators rather than throwing sledgehammers at it.

yojo 3y ago

I think it is useful to draw a distinction between “new” nootropics and those with hundreds of years of demonstrated use. While nicotine has not historically been used in isolation, it has been used both in recreation and religion settings for around 2000 years. Caffeine use is similar, perhaps older. There’s still reason to be wary of higher dosages or new delivery routes, but it seems unlikely that dabbling in low-dose caffeine or nicotine use will make you go crazy, based on the mountain of historical evidence to the contrary.

binary132 3y ago

I know how these communities can be and it honestly sounds much more like a community problem than like a “people who drink some coffee and smoke some cigarettes” problem, because there are many millions of those who don’t have crazy, out-of-control behavioral problems.