Gentlemen.
You’ve decided to learn about nootropics in your quest to improve your cognitive function.
In the past videos, you’ve learned about the various types of nootropics, but in this
video, I finally get to how to take nootropics, and the results that I’ve achieved in taking
them.
Hi, this is Lance Hitchings, and I decided to do this 3-part series of videos on the
subject of nootropics because of the many potential benefits to be derived from taking
nootropics.
In the first two videos in this series, I talked about how the brain works, about the
history of nootropics and the benefits of taking nootropics.
I discussed neurotransmitters and the role they play in mental cognition, and I covered
most of the different types of nootropics and the listed the benefits of each.
I you haven’t watched those videos, I’ve put links to both of them in the description
below.
In this video, I’ll be going over the protocols for taking nootropics, discussing subjects
such as dosage, frequency, cycling and stacking.
And I’ll wrap it all up by talking about the actual results that I’ve achieved by taking
nootropics.
Alright, so the whole goal of taking nootropics is to obtain specific desirable cognitive
effects.
So it’s important that you understand how you take nootropics and how often you take
nootropics will affect your outcomes.
Your brain chemistry and certain chemical substances can interact in complex ways.
So the same substance taken at different dose or at different time can have different effects.
So let’s talk about some of the different aspects of taking nootropics…aspects like
dosage, frequency, tolerance, dependency, cycling and stacking.
Dosage
So, one of the biggest mistakes that many beginners make is in thinking that more is
better…that taking more of a substance will produce more benefits.
But that’s not always the case.
With some nootropics, there’s an upper limit on the effects, and taking more will not produce
a greater effect…but it can increase the side effects or become toxic.
Conversely, taking to low a dose might cause the main effect to be unnoticeable.
Everyone is affected differently, everyone processes nootropics differently, so the key
is to find an optimal dose that works for you.
Frequency
Nootropics are only active for a limited amount of time in your body, so you might need to
take a specific nootropic multiple times throughout the day.
However, some nootropics are fast-acting and short lived, others can remain active for
a long time.
Noopept, which is very closely related to the racetams, is very fast-acting and short
lived, with a half life in humans of about 30 to 60 minutes…meaning that you might
need to take it 3 or 4 times a day.
Oxiracetam, another racetem, has a half life of over 8 hours.
So if you’re stacking nootropics, you need to have an understanding of how long the different
nootropics remain active in your body.
And you need to adjust accordingly.
You don’t want to take the entire stack every time you re-dose.
Some you’ll take once a day, some you might take every other day…and some you might
take 3 or 4 times a day.
Overdosing can result from either taking too large a dose of a nootropic or from taking
it too frequently…and overdosing can lead to 2 different outcomes.
The first is tolerance.
Your body can become tolerant to the nootropic, requiring larger and larger doses.
This is also known as the “honeymoon period”, where you get a great effect when you first
start taking it, but then the efficacy of the drug will drop as your body becomes more
used to it.
The other effect of overdosing can be dependency, where the nootropic becomes habit-forming.
This become particularly obvious when suddenly quitting after continually taking at above-recommended
doses, which can cause some nasty withdrawal-like symptoms.
Special care should be taken when using phenibut, which is open to abuse potential at high doses.
If you feel that a dependency is forming, you should wean yourself off the drug gradually
over a period of many days, rather than going cold-turkey.
Cycling
OK, so the technique of “cycling” has been developed by nootropic users as a response
to tolerance and dependency.
Since many of the nootropics produce similar results, you could cycle through a number
of various nootropics that all produce the same effect, thereby experiencing a continual
effect without developing a tolerance or a dependency for any one drug.
Stacking
Alright, let’s talk about “stacking”.
Stacking refers to taking two or more drugs at the same time in order to enhance the overall
effect.
Stacking is done for two different reasons.
One reason is that some nootropics are compounding, mean that they work together synergistically
to produce effects that are stronger when combine than when taken separately.
For example, taking priracetam or noopept boosts the acetylcholine receptors of the
brain.
Which causes your brain to demand more acetylcholine to satisfy this demand.
Taking Alpha GPC or CDP-choline increases acetylcholine synthesis in the brain and stacking
it with a racetam boosts the effectiveness of that nootropic.
But other nootropics are combined in order to reduce the side-effects.
In the previous example of taking a racetam and a acetylcholine enhancer, the increase
brain activity can consume a large amount of celllular fuel, resulting in brain fatigue.
Adding creatine to this stack can reduce the brain fatigue, due to creatine’s ability
to combine with phosphate in the brain and provide additional brain cell fuel.
Another example, and probably the best-known of nootropic stacks, is combining caffeine
with L-Theanine.
Caffeine is a well-known stimulant of both physical and mental activity, but can cause
the jitters.
L-Theanine can cause an increase in dopamine and serotonin levels, and since it’s an
anxiolytic, it can reduce anxiety and the jitters.
So stacking these two nootropics together can produce the positive effects of caffeine
while not producing the jitters.
Like I’ve said, evaluating the effectiveness of taking nootropics can be really difficult
because it can be so difficult to perceive.
When your brain starts working better, it feels so natural that it can be really difficult
to notice…until you stop taking nootropics.
So let me set the stage.
When I first decided to experiment with nootropics, I was in the process of writing scripts for
this channel and for an online course that I am preparing.
Now, I’ve been a creative for my entire professional career, but on the visual side
of things…not the “words” side.
Although I have a lot of experience at copywriting, it’s not really my thing.
I’d much prefer to work on images.
So I had some scripts to write…and I was procrastinating.
I’d had several false starts, I just couldn’t get my thoughts organized.
And then I started taking nootropics.
And I really didn’t notice any difference…at first.
I certainly didn’t feel any different.
And I didn’t think that I was thinking any different.
I didn’t feel that my cognitive functions were working at an accelerated rate, I didn’t
feel that my memory was any better.
I didn’t feel that my focus or my motivation was much improved.
Except that I suddenly had about 12,000 words written.
I had suddenly found the focus and the motivation to sit down and write 35 pages of copy.
And it was coherent, focused, organized copy.
And since then I’ve written an additional 30 scripts for my YouTube channel…averaging
about 1,500 words per script.
That’s an additional 45,000 words.
Not bad for someone who hates to write.
So then, I stopped taking nootropics for a while.
And that’s when I actually noticed a difference.
Before, the difference was in my results, not it how I perceived my brain working.
But after I quit taking nootropics, I noticed a big difference in how my brain was working.
I didn’t have as much clarity, I was foggy, my thinking wasn’t as organized, I had much
less focus and much less motivation.
So, now I’m back on nootropics…and again, I don’t really feel any different.
I can’t perceive that my brain is working any different.
But I know now that it is.
Not just because my work output is way up there again, but also because I tested it
and went without for a while.
So, would I recommend it?
Cautiously.
I’m not sure that it’s for everyone.
And given that the research is a bit thin and that there is no long term research, I
would certainly be cautious in recommending it.
But as far as I can tell, there are very few bad side effects.
Mostly, they take the form of building up a tolerance or a dependency.
So I hear.
I’ve been cycling my nootropic supplements, so I haven’t really experienced either one.
But I’ve been taking them for almost a year, and they’re now definitely a regular part
of my supplementation regime.
And that wraps it up for this introductory primer series on nootropics.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
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