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Nootropics Worth Trying

My general advice for what smart drugs + supplements to try is remarkably similar to gwern’s:

  1. Modafinil/armodafinil
  2. Vitamin D
  3. Fish oil
  4. Creatine
  5. Caffeine+theanine
  6. Melatonin
  7. Piracetam+choline

I’m a non-responder to the last two, but I know many people get good mileage out of them. And all of these are pretty cheap and have nearly nonexistent side-effect profiles. So it’s pretty reasonable to try them out as a personal experiment to see if any of them help you.

See on www.gwern.net

Author Description

Louie Helm is a Machine Learning Engineer

9 Responses to “Nootropics Worth Trying”

  1. November 28

    Scott Fowler

    Something else I picked up from Gwern: nicotine. (Inhaling smoke is the part of smoking that’s bad for you; MAO inhibitors in cigarette smoke is the part of smoking that causes addiction and cravings; in terms of addiction and safety profile nicotine is extremely comparable to caffeine).

    Modafinil, caffeine, nicotine is my triumvirate of stimulant-type nootropics, this list covers everything except nicotine, thought I’d mention it.

  2. November 28

    James D Miller

    Great list but I would add Rhodiola Rosea, Magnesium and Aniracetam/Piracetam rather than just Piracetam.

    http://examine.com/supplements/Rhodiola+Rosea/

  3. November 28

    Paulo Roberto Ribeiro

    What’s your caffeine dose and frequency?

  4. November 28

    Louie Helm

    Caffeine is something I just have occasionally via energy drinks. I don’t supplement regularly or in some special way with that.

  5. November 28

    Peter Scheyer

    I dunno if you’ve tried Hyperforin, the active ingredient in St. John’s Wort. if you check amazon for a product called Perika you can find a relatively high dosage of it. OTC wide-spectrum reuptake inhibitor. I find it phenomenal for self-medication v akrasia- 2 perikas (or 1/4 of an Amoryn, which has the hyperforin but also has a b-complex. I usually get my b-complex from other sources but the combo is available in Amoryn if you want it) in the morning, 2 at lunch.

    • November 28

      Scott Fowler

      “OTC … reuptake inhibitor” is such a beautiful combination of words. Thanks for this tip.

  6. December 8

    Tenoke

    […] worthwhile nootropics. One similar list I’ve seen recently is Louie’ Helm’s post, which also cites […]

  7. January 8

    jesper

    I think you are missing many other nootropics. I would recommend to visit http://www.nootropicssupply.com and create a true nootropic stack. My recommendations for a nootropic stack are as follows:

    piracetam
    aniracetam
    oxiracetam
    citicoline
    ALCAR
    sulbutiamine
    L-dopa