Regular exercise has a hugely noticeable effect on my ability to concentrate and keep multiple mental plates spinning at once. However, it's not available in pill form last I checked.
You can do it anywhere, anytime, at any intensity. It's as easy as taking a walk around the block, or as challenging as 50 pull-ups. You control the difficulty, handicaps, and every aspect of the activity. Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.
The best TV infomercial for mental well-being would be a 72 point font that reads: "turn me off and get off your butt!".
EDIT: If you want some help or initial instruction, there is an app for most smartphones that can help you get started at any level. There are many variations of this type of app, but I like the "Johnson & Johnson 7-minute workout" one. You can customize it way beyond 7 minutes, and it has helpful video instruction and voice prompting. Link to homepage: https://www.7minuteworkout.jnj.com/
> Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.
Maybe I am non-normal here, but I've no idea what that feels like. Mind, I've run a marathon before, participated in a few organized athletic sports leauges, been on sports teams, improved my weight lifting substantially, and just gone for mile runs and bit of basketball.
I've never felt like I needed to go out and exercise. Sitting on the couch has always been just fine.
It has always been an internal battle to go out and exercise. I feel like crap after exercising. I'm tired, sweaty, grouchy, my legs are wobbly after any distance run, and it takes about 3 hours for me to wind down. I do sleep better, but I can't exercise after ~6pm if I want to get to sleep by ~10pm. My concentration is shot during the winding down and I can't work or study either. Truely, honestly, I do not like exercising. Like, I know it's good for me, but, man alive, it just sucks to do!
Look, I know I am weird here, but based off the data on rates of exercise, I'm not super certain that I'm too far off the average.
100% agree. When I was at my best, I was lifting weights every morning before going to work & it’s super addicting.
Fast forward to today after a 7 month grueling project, and I’m exhausted every day so I’m being a scumbag and not going to the gym in the AM. I started running a few miles each night about 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been more clear headed than before.
Time to get back to lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again in the AM.
^ A lot of people want a simple solution to their (perceived) problem, which is exactly what this trend - and most diet trends - prey on. They want to be told what to do without it actually being an effort (like exercise or counting calories). They want to take a pill, follow a certain diet, or live off of a shake that claims to provide you with anything you need without having to bother about cooking or flavor.
The easiest way to think more clearly is the one it seems is least tried: a good night's sleep. The second easiest: periodic disengagement from phones, computers, and people.
Stimulants such as the ones discussed in the article interfere with that.
Just plain good nutrition helps too. I've been on Huel (comparable to HN's sweetheart, Soylent) and I find my focus, clarity and mental stamina is noticeably better. A glass of freshly juiced fruits & vegetables makes me feel amazing for hours too. You need to give your body diverse nutrients and a steady metabolism. Empty calories and a sugar crash at 10:30 can really kill your momentum for the day.
This may be a bit OT but CBD have worked wonders for me in terms of better sleep. It really calms you down and keeps your heart rate down which is exactly what I wanted. And I’ve tried everything from melatonin to vitamin D and magnesium.
No offense, but that's kind of a load of shit. As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I can get by alright without Adderall, but there is no denying the profound intensity of focus I get when I take it. And a good night's sleep doesn't even come close.
There are plenty of good arguments against enhancement-style use of stimulants, but to suggest they don't do anything more than decent rest is just silly.
Mainstream nootropic supplements have three primary ingredients: Marketing, placebo effect, and very mild stimulants.
The hyperbolic marketing material primes the user for maximum placebo effect. When the mildly stimulating compounds kick in, the user can actually feel something. All of the marketing material about enhancing brain function through combinations of carefully-researched ingredients feels validated. The user may only feel a mild stimulating effect, but it feels so much more significant after reading elegant marketing about supporting neurotransmission, helping healthy brain signaling, and promoting healthy cell membranes.
It's easy to see why this combination is so effective. Caffeine's stimulating effects are well-known, as are the rebound, tolerance, and dependence that come from repeated caffeine dosing. Remove caffeine from the equation and now the user's expectations are a blank slate, malleable according to whatever marketing materials the team can dream up.
The BrainGear supplemented listed in the article is a prime example; The raw ingredients in each drink cost pennies (search Amazon for bulk Acetyl L-Carnitine, Choline, Inositol, and the other ingredients if you're curious). Their largest costs are likely distribution, storage, and marketing. Many of the ingredients can be found in similar quantities in a regular, healthy diet that includes eggs, leafy greens, and a cup of green tea each day. There is nothing magic, noteworthy, or particularly valuable in this supplement, yet here we are reading a vox.com article where a journalist happily links to their product and fails a strawman attempt to debunk it by solving some Sudoku for a couple of days. This is a great marketing success story.
People want an edge, but everyone wants to take the shortest path. Nooptropics, supplements, etc are perceived path shorteners where perhaps no such one exists. It seems that the power of the mind (i.e. placebo) is the only real thing here. I would like to see how meditation/mindfulness apps and adoption measure against nootropics.
== UPDATE ==
I did not mean to imply that stimulants like caffeine, amphetamines, etc are placebo. I should have made a clear distinction between such classes of nootropics and those that do not contain such ingredients or those that are proven not to have effect. I agree, the coffee I had this morning was not a placebo for increasing my wakefulness.
> Nooptropics, supplements, etc are perceived path shorteners where perhaps no such one exists.
At least one exists - caffeine. Double-blind studies have proven many times that it improves alertness, which leads to higher scores on many mental performance tests. I find it implausible that no others exist.
They exist, WW2 was proof of it. It gave us both Meth(axis) and Cocaine(allies) among other things. It's just that it comes at a very high cost of the users long term health and/or sanity.
I can imagine that we could use bio compatible chips to accurately measure blood levels of different vitamins and proteins. With this personal bio data you could identify if you have an imbalance of anything and address it, improving congnition and other conditions. Maybe this would be something a company like Apple or Fitbit develops as it seems like a natural extension of the health tracking they already do.
The first thing we'd need to do is evaluate the optimal value of various vitamins, proteins, minerals, and other supplements for all humans- we're definitely not there yet. Our current blood tests allow a relatively large range of 'normal' for pretty much anything the blood uptakes.
I doubt everyone needs the exact same balance of chemicals/nutrients. That puts us back into the "level of pain" area of subjectivity. "Does this new vitamin balance make you feel better?"
We'd not want them to feel too good, mind you. That would be drugs!
If you go to the doctor, they can do your bloodwork on an old-fashioned big machine. It will probably tell you that everything's fine, unless you're sick or living on Cheetos. If a bio-compatible chip could do the same thing, you'd probably just end up with the same admonitions to not live off of a diet of pure french fries. If new biomarkers were discovered, they would become available on the big machine before they became available on the chips. So, the present is big machines, the future is big machines, maybe the far future is implanted monitoring devices.
i am not sure measuring blood levels constantly and interpreting them without real knowledge is a good thing for your mind. I think it's good we don't know about this all the time, if you do regular check up and get an OK back, that fine. Doing it constantly would just create anxieties for a lot of people.
I remember the first time I used a specific industrial gas recreationally. I felt the arteries in my brain open up, and there was a sort of clarity that wasn't there before.
Then the benefits faded into the background, and I now don't notice the effect like I did the first few times.
I think remedial biology hacking works this way. If you're deficient in a specific area you'll notice a huge benefit right away. If you don't need a specific hack, you won't notice a benefit.
Another brain-hack that I noticed the first few times was Methylene Blue [0], a potent MAOI and general metabolism-booster. I started out with microgram-level doses, and I definitely noticed ... something.
But then it too faded into the background, and I don't notice the benefits so much anymore. I still use this one occasionally but this too doesn't have exactly the magic I'm looking for. (I use it on my dog though - she developed a tumor when my dad took care of her for a few months - he took her off all the supplements and fed her what I consider junk. He left for the summer and my dog is back on my supplement program; I think she's got her spunk back. [Edit: google scholar has some articles about methylene blue having anti-tumor activity]).
At the other end of the mind-hacking spectrum, the mainstream mental health industry takes cognitive decelerants and tells certain patients that they have a chronic condition that requires chemical lobotomization. Today these drugs are marketed by the prescription drug cartels as anti-psychotics, but originally they were known as major tranquilizers. Patients can't protest the side effects of their medications because the psychiatrist will use the complaint to claim that their patient "lacks insight" into their condition, which justifies the use of force to make them take the drugs the professional thinks they require. Psychosis is mostly a treatable metabolic problem, but patients are much more profitable to the industry by pretending they have chronic conditions.
Because the best cognitive enhancers are natural substances and safe patent-expired medications, profiteers swoop in to repackage these vitamins and other Over the Counter substances. Everyone has to figure out what they actually need on their own.
The best mind-hack I've had is certain kinds of body work, which helped me relax like nothing else. Sometimes massage/etc practitioners have the magic touch that gets my body to turn off, but they tend to not know what they did and I don't consistently get the effect. It's very frustrating.
[+] [-] module0000|6 years ago|reply
You can do it anywhere, anytime, at any intensity. It's as easy as taking a walk around the block, or as challenging as 50 pull-ups. You control the difficulty, handicaps, and every aspect of the activity. Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.
The best TV infomercial for mental well-being would be a 72 point font that reads: "turn me off and get off your butt!".
EDIT: If you want some help or initial instruction, there is an app for most smartphones that can help you get started at any level. There are many variations of this type of app, but I like the "Johnson & Johnson 7-minute workout" one. You can customize it way beyond 7 minutes, and it has helpful video instruction and voice prompting. Link to homepage: https://www.7minuteworkout.jnj.com/
[+] [-] Balgair|6 years ago|reply
Maybe I am non-normal here, but I've no idea what that feels like. Mind, I've run a marathon before, participated in a few organized athletic sports leauges, been on sports teams, improved my weight lifting substantially, and just gone for mile runs and bit of basketball.
I've never felt like I needed to go out and exercise. Sitting on the couch has always been just fine.
It has always been an internal battle to go out and exercise. I feel like crap after exercising. I'm tired, sweaty, grouchy, my legs are wobbly after any distance run, and it takes about 3 hours for me to wind down. I do sleep better, but I can't exercise after ~6pm if I want to get to sleep by ~10pm. My concentration is shot during the winding down and I can't work or study either. Truely, honestly, I do not like exercising. Like, I know it's good for me, but, man alive, it just sucks to do!
Look, I know I am weird here, but based off the data on rates of exercise, I'm not super certain that I'm too far off the average.
[+] [-] brogrammernot|6 years ago|reply
Fast forward to today after a 7 month grueling project, and I’m exhausted every day so I’m being a scumbag and not going to the gym in the AM. I started running a few miles each night about 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been more clear headed than before.
Time to get back to lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again in the AM.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apo|6 years ago|reply
Stimulants such as the ones discussed in the article interfere with that.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaequery|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandvm|6 years ago|reply
There are plenty of good arguments against enhancement-style use of stimulants, but to suggest they don't do anything more than decent rest is just silly.
[+] [-] juandazapata|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotTheFBI|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|6 years ago|reply
The hyperbolic marketing material primes the user for maximum placebo effect. When the mildly stimulating compounds kick in, the user can actually feel something. All of the marketing material about enhancing brain function through combinations of carefully-researched ingredients feels validated. The user may only feel a mild stimulating effect, but it feels so much more significant after reading elegant marketing about supporting neurotransmission, helping healthy brain signaling, and promoting healthy cell membranes.
It's easy to see why this combination is so effective. Caffeine's stimulating effects are well-known, as are the rebound, tolerance, and dependence that come from repeated caffeine dosing. Remove caffeine from the equation and now the user's expectations are a blank slate, malleable according to whatever marketing materials the team can dream up.
The BrainGear supplemented listed in the article is a prime example; The raw ingredients in each drink cost pennies (search Amazon for bulk Acetyl L-Carnitine, Choline, Inositol, and the other ingredients if you're curious). Their largest costs are likely distribution, storage, and marketing. Many of the ingredients can be found in similar quantities in a regular, healthy diet that includes eggs, leafy greens, and a cup of green tea each day. There is nothing magic, noteworthy, or particularly valuable in this supplement, yet here we are reading a vox.com article where a journalist happily links to their product and fails a strawman attempt to debunk it by solving some Sudoku for a couple of days. This is a great marketing success story.
[+] [-] dpflan|6 years ago|reply
== UPDATE ==
I did not mean to imply that stimulants like caffeine, amphetamines, etc are placebo. I should have made a clear distinction between such classes of nootropics and those that do not contain such ingredients or those that are proven not to have effect. I agree, the coffee I had this morning was not a placebo for increasing my wakefulness.
[+] [-] LeifCarrotson|6 years ago|reply
At least one exists - caffeine. Double-blind studies have proven many times that it improves alertness, which leads to higher scores on many mental performance tests. I find it implausible that no others exist.
[+] [-] syn0byte|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeCube|6 years ago|reply
Just like Dumbo's feather, if you feel better then you felt better ;)
[+] [-] aantix|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solotronics|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SolaceQuantum|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jklinger410|6 years ago|reply
I doubt everyone needs the exact same balance of chemicals/nutrients. That puts us back into the "level of pain" area of subjectivity. "Does this new vitamin balance make you feel better?"
We'd not want them to feel too good, mind you. That would be drugs!
[+] [-] whatshisface|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kayoone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MockObject|6 years ago|reply
* Provigil
* 2000IU daily Vitamin D during the darker half of the year
* Weightlifting, it really improves mental focus
* Get to sleep early enough to wake before the alarm goes off
* Strong coffee
[+] [-] alexhutcheson|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benhebert|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotTheFBI|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tcj_phx|6 years ago|reply
Then the benefits faded into the background, and I now don't notice the effect like I did the first few times.
I think remedial biology hacking works this way. If you're deficient in a specific area you'll notice a huge benefit right away. If you don't need a specific hack, you won't notice a benefit.
Another brain-hack that I noticed the first few times was Methylene Blue [0], a potent MAOI and general metabolism-booster. I started out with microgram-level doses, and I definitely noticed ... something.
But then it too faded into the background, and I don't notice the benefits so much anymore. I still use this one occasionally but this too doesn't have exactly the magic I'm looking for. (I use it on my dog though - she developed a tumor when my dad took care of her for a few months - he took her off all the supplements and fed her what I consider junk. He left for the summer and my dog is back on my supplement program; I think she's got her spunk back. [Edit: google scholar has some articles about methylene blue having anti-tumor activity]).
[0] Methylene blue, the cheapest cognitive enhancer: https://selfhacked.com/blog/methylene-blue-the-cheapest-cogn...
At the other end of the mind-hacking spectrum, the mainstream mental health industry takes cognitive decelerants and tells certain patients that they have a chronic condition that requires chemical lobotomization. Today these drugs are marketed by the prescription drug cartels as anti-psychotics, but originally they were known as major tranquilizers. Patients can't protest the side effects of their medications because the psychiatrist will use the complaint to claim that their patient "lacks insight" into their condition, which justifies the use of force to make them take the drugs the professional thinks they require. Psychosis is mostly a treatable metabolic problem, but patients are much more profitable to the industry by pretending they have chronic conditions.
Because the best cognitive enhancers are natural substances and safe patent-expired medications, profiteers swoop in to repackage these vitamins and other Over the Counter substances. Everyone has to figure out what they actually need on their own.
The best mind-hack I've had is certain kinds of body work, which helped me relax like nothing else. Sometimes massage/etc practitioners have the magic touch that gets my body to turn off, but they tend to not know what they did and I don't consistently get the effect. It's very frustrating.
[+] [-] ejaculatingDude|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MurlockHolmes92|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]