Need Sustainable Nootropics For Mental Acuity

[inthedark]

After spending the last week reading every forum post on Lisuride and Metergoline I think it might be worth your while to look into one or both of them. People are getting benefits that include lifting of brain fog, better mental clarity, and lifted mood among others. Sorry if I missed something in the above posts that would preclude their use but on first blush it seems either one could help you a lot.

 

[Waynish]

You're starting with a wrong premise, so you're going to eventually **** yourself. You don't need anything; try hitting a stable base line. Force the belief that you don't need anything except for food. Then you can add stuff to help you on top of that - and I suspect it will turn out much better.

 

[Sicutnoxsilente]

Phenibut is amazing, at the right doses it literally made me happy, like it gave me a positive outlook on life out of the blue, music sounded awesome on it and it was still very ''mild'', it's not like you feel ''high'' so to speak, you just feel a deep sense of well being, anyway the problem is that it makes me sleep like for centuries, it feels like the body needs to recover from it or something and I sleep way too much on it. Other than that I had no side effects, but I guess I stopped it before I built a tolerance or could have withdrawal symptoms (consumed 50 grams of it over some weeks then never ordered it again, although I'd like to try it again).

 

[Terma]

@Wolf
I never tried racetams for more than a couple weeks. After even a few days one of my organs starts complaining, I think my kidneys. Most people don't get that problem.

But that's something to think about. It has quite some benefits, some must come from longer chronic use. I am going to try Fasoracetam for longer (a few self-reports were quite positive), but it seems to have different mechanism.

@Rick_F
You're right, I was eyeing Lisuride again for longer use, though short term it wasn't the best. My memory is clearly not being that good if I forgot that.

@Sicutnoxsilente
Indeed, it's an incredibly useful and insightful substance when nothing else works. The sheer tenacity of its effect is awesome. But I was more impressed by the nootropic and empathetic effects (some people report the opposite - that's why it jumped out to me) than the anti-depressive or anti-anxiety effects. Those ones are more effectively gotten from acute opioids and other things in my exp. YMMV.

 

[Arnold Grape]

Ray talks about thiamin for studying and it could be worth trying b1/ 100-200 mg or more at each meal. I also find something like Pansterone at low doses does a lot for mental acuity, although at the same time progesterone can have similar effects for me personally.

 

[Terma]

@Arnold Grape
Thanks, that's a good suggestion for most people. But I've already tried Thiamine Hcl and even Mononitrate (up to 1500mg/dose), Benfotiamine (250-500mg), Sulbutiamine, and Allithiamine. Surprisingly Benfotiamine was the best and Sulbutiamine the strangest, but I only get mild effect from all of them.

Pansterone I could see helping. It's possible I need to try a wider range of (smaller) doses of Pregnenolone and DHEA, because I tend to overdo Pregnenolone and it might be going to progesterone and sulfated. I think progesterone is anti-nootropic, however. Both in my experience and somewhat in theory.

 

[Terma]

Another thing I forgot to mention is high dose CoQ10. At 1200mg/dose in coconut oil or fat (coconut oil effect is very mild and rarely noticeable), getting better with even higher doses, it does seem to promote my cognition. Maybe there is or should be a study on that.

 

[Terma]

This song illustrates exactly what I want to feel like on nootropics, except... more with more acuity and less male bravado, kidney damage, epinephrine and death:



I hope you know what I mean, it's more positive than you might interpret on a Ray Peat forum.

 

[Terma]

Okay that's not the best example, that's mostly norepinephrine, but I think it also comes with a lot of NMDA agonism.

[And no - that could go totally the wrong way - I'm not looking for methamphetamine]

 

[Terma]

Okay that was way too misleading. To clarify: It's a song about defiance in the face of overwhelming adversity.

In other words the opposite of the popularly-held view on serotonin on this forum. Which according to one theory I posted is mediated mostly by the 5-ht1 post-synaptic receptors. However the 5-ht2a receptors are different and actually promote action [and emotions], which makes sense with pharmacological 5-ht2a effects of both MDMA and Lisuride, and (I theorize) also Phenibut in some doses, as well as the associations such as with suicide victims.

It also comes with NMDA agonism. And I think due to several studied protective effects (see thread with Russian studies), Phenibut (like also probably PRL-8-53) in the right doses probably indirectly increases this also, while simultaneously protecting against the excitotoxicity e.g. excessive nNOS.

I think this is a property of several of the greater stimulants that even Ray sometimes advocated for. They can both increase excitotoxicity and stress hormones through 5-ht2a and NMDA and elicit their beneficial effects (mixed profiles), while simultaneously offsetting or protecting against their negative downstream signaling (the only one being impossible to control maybe being cortisol when you overdo them, hence abusing them is always bad).

 

[moriwatzi]

I think your pharmaceutical interventions have long ago passed the point of diminishing returns.

Why not try something else: meaningful or exciting relations, meaningful or exciting work, exercise, play, martial arts, arts, spirituality, music...

 

[Terma]

Because I'm for all intents and purposes disabled so I can't do ridiculous ***t suggestions like martial arts. My most exciting relations are people dying. I basically live for music but I can't play much due to messed up joints from ciprofloxacin. By the way Phenibut makes music ******* fantastic.

I'm intentionally trying to avoid replying to these types of posts because there's no way I can properly describe how ****88 up my life is. Just take my word for it please.

This is not past the point of diminishing returns. These simply need to be cycled properly. Which is the only Ray Peat approved strategy.

 

[Terma]

Speaking of which, Phenibut seems to slightly increase drumming ability. I'm not a drummer at all because I was never born with and could never learn the coordination sufficiently (even regular practice couldn't do it), but sometimes just for fun still played around with an electronic drumset, which is a little easier on but unfortunately still prohibitively aggravating to joints.

I think that is a nice objective measure of strong nootropic activity, because increasing coordination ability like that appears to me quite difficult.

I have yet to find anything else that can increase that. It would be a very interesting experiment to compile lists of things that do. Or even a list of studies on drumming ability. I never looked.

 

[lampofred]

You sound a bit manic... Maybe focus on reducing stress (lowering serotonin/cortisol and increasing GABA) instead of trying to boost performance. Red light, CO2 baths, GABA-ergic substances such as gelatin and niacinamide, progesterone, anesthetics such as procaine/lidocaine/benzocaine, etc.

 

[Terma]

I mostly post on Phenibut right now and most times I've posted on this forum, except once I was on Phenibut and Alcohol and destroyed half the ***t in my apartment that day. My budget can't take that (but Phenibut is super ridiculously cheap).

I already do Red Light, it doesn't help any related issues, in fact too much aggravates mental irritation even with tons of fructose. I even tried bag breathing and it was worthless.

I take a good amount of Glycine, Gelatin, Lysine (for joint problems; as much as I can tolerate; the first two are not without significant side effects), enough Niacin and sometimes Niacinamide (it does me more harm than good), way more than enough carbs, way covered on this.

Like I just wrote Progesterone sucks **** for this, I even stopped using it at night in low doses because found better things.

I would appreciated not being meta-analyzed too much on this; I know what I'm talking about. The questions I posed as-is appear to have real solutions - it's just early in time for the research side to catch up to the n=1 side.

 

[Nikki]

Not sure, strange combination of feelings. I already ate a bunch of greens and took 15 drops of mk4 today. But it does nothing noticeable.

That said I might have made this worse by taking some vitamin E before eating some salmon sushi. But the K really does nothing for me despite that, I only take some preventatively. I'm not sure what's doing this, it was already getting screwed up before eating. Now I'm rambling. I'm just scared if I die tonight nobody's going to know my cat is alone.

OK I am just getting through this thread, but I read the cat thing and have to say something. You need to have someone check on you every day to be sure you are OK and if you are not, they need to rescue your cat. Do you have friends or family near enough to help in a crisis? Where do you live? PM me if you want. I want to be sure your cat is ok should you wind up unable to care for her.

That said, have you ever tried rubbing DMSO over your chest? It quickly resolves any chest pain and even arrythmias for me. I can't explain it and Ray isn't a fan, but I keep a roll on of it with me everywhere I go. You might research it's effect on the heart and blood vessels.

Also, for cognition, have you ruled out infection? Older people get infections easily and become completely mental. They commonly get UTIs and within weeks can seem like an advanced alzheimer's case. I started to notice when I had to urinate more frequently, I was also misplacing my phone/keys and having a hard time learning things. I took antibiotics and my memory/focus improved. I am not suggesting you have a UTI, but if you have any kind of infection, it can impair memory/clarity. I take MesoSilver but am not sure it's right for everyone. It really helped my dad for 2-3 years, but now doesn't wipe out an infection completely. He got a severe kidney infection because his caregiver had withheld his silver for a few weeks. Since then, it seems impossible to completely clear the infection although it went from bacterial to yeast, which I guess is a positive sign. Silver is supposed to be fungicidal but I have grown mycelium in a solution with colloidal silver, so I don't buy it. Perhaps at high concentrations it is fungicidal, but at best, IMO, it would only slow fungal growth at concentrations one would receive from taking the recommended dosage. The kidneys are the hardest place to get antibiotics to, it seems. Maybe, in a case like my fathers, we can't cure the infection, but we can keep it under control and prevent sepsis. He is currently taking about 4 times more than the 4-tbsp/day dose he needed for maintenance to prevent bladder infection. He is improving little by little.

I'd be curious to know if anyone else here has felt increased mental clarity after taking antibiotics.

 

[Terma]

(I'm trying to reply to these fast to make up for absence during the week)

OK I am just getting through this thread, but I read the cat thing and have to say something. You need to have someone check on you every day to be sure you are OK and if you are not, they need to rescue your cat. Do you have friends or family near enough to help in a crisis? Where do you live? PM me if you want. I want to be sure your cat is ok should you wind up unable to care for her

I know it's a problem. I live alone and at best I could get someone to check up on cat after 1 week, but that's enough for a cat to starve. I'm thinking of letting a huge bowl of dry food out / dispenser which is usually enough for 1 week since they self-moderate, but there's a bug problem.

That said, have you ever tried rubbing DMSO over your chest? It quickly resolves any chest pain and even arrythmias for me. I can't explain it and Ray isn't a fan, but I keep a roll on of it with me everywhere I go. You might research it's effect on the heart and blood vessels

Interesting. Not specifically on chest though, but I used to keep a bottle of straight DMSO for different reason. I threw it out since after trying a few Idealabs supps it became clear it was ruining my ability to sleep. But I had no idea it did that. Has anyone tried it for emergencies that way?

Also, for cognition, have you ruled out infection? Older people get infections easily and become completely mental. They commonly get UTIs and within weeks can seem like an advanced alzheimer's case. I started to notice when I had to urinate more frequently, I was also misplacing my phone/keys and having a hard time learning things. I took antibiotics and my memory/focus improved. I am not suggesting you have a UTI, but if you have any kind of infection, it can impair memory/clarity. I take MesoSilver but am not sure it's right for everyone. It really helped my dad for 2-3 years, but now doesn't wipe out an infection completely. He got a severe kidney infection because his caregiver had withheld his silver for a few weeks. Since then, it seems impossible to completely clear the infection although it went from bacterial to yeast, which I guess is a positive sign. Silver is supposed to be fungicidal but I have grown mycelium in a solution with colloidal silver, so I don't buy it. Perhaps at high concentrations it is fungicidal, but at best, IMO, it would only slow fungal growth at concentrations one would receive from taking the recommended dosage. The kidneys are the hardest place to get antibiotics to, it seems. Maybe, in a case like my fathers, we can't cure the infection, but we can keep it under control and prevent sepsis. He is currently taking about 4 times more than the 4-tbsp/day dose he needed for maintenance to prevent bladder infection. He is improving little by little.

I'd be curious to know if anyone else here has felt increased mental clarity after taking antibiotics.

I've taken at least 5 antibiotics. 1 of them ruined my life, 1 other introduced a crippling condition, and 2 others were non-permanently quite abrasive on my system.

I have not ruled out chronic infection. In fact I believe that is quite a likely possibility (I am influenced by Paul Jaminet and he was a big proponent of germ theory); however pathogen would not be diagnosable at this point in time for me and may remain indistinguishable from autoimmune disorder. In fact I feel quite confident in the possibility of a brain or sinus chronic infection but it appears impossible to diagnose properly.

 

[Nikki]

Lithium orotate helps my memory/focus. I was taking 1 tab BID, but now try 1 tab TID and am more focused. Some say lithium is sedating. I think becasue I'm less stressed, I'm less tired. I suppose if you don't need it or take huge doses for bipolar issues, it could be sedating but the low doses I take just keeps me mellow/content and I have less fatigue.

 

[Terma]

I haven't tried silver though, just because it's always borderlined on pseudo-science, but it's been several years since I checked if there was any research. I might do that in awhile.

Lithium orotate I still have a bottle in my cupboard. I find it anti-nootropic and only slightly anti-depressive on the first day of 1mg+ administration but becomes irritating and pro-depressive after 1 day. I think a tiny daily dose (< 400mcg) is probably beneficial but I can never remember to split the pills every day to try to for an extended time chronically.

 

[moriwatzi]

Are you Gemini?