r/Nootropics

hi, so ive been diagnosed with OCD and depression. i am currently not on ssris or any other psychiatric medication- i also haven't found it super helpful, having been on fluoxetine, escitalopram, sertraline and bupropion at different times in my life. as a result of (i can only suppose) mental illness and probably also laziness, i have next to zero will to do anything except lay in bed and doomscroll. i also have excessive daytime sleepiness irrespective of how many hours i sleep at night. like i can't fight sleep if i lay down for 20 or more minutes/rest my head in a car journey etc., even if im occupied with looking at my phone.

i presently take the following every morning:

1. a vitamin D3 and K2 supplement

2. rhodiola rosea, 750mg (read that it's good for fatigue)

3. ALCAR, 750 mg (i've read that depressed people have half as much ALCAR as non-depressed people)

yet i still can't resist sleeping.

i know modafinil is the gold standard easily available wakefulness pill, but i have a really awful time with modafinil-caused anxiety. or on the other hand, it's ineffective and i end up taking too much modaf with no major upside. either way, my will to sleep can overpower modaf as well.

on a usual day, i wake up, try to will myself to do anything, and end up just eating, sleeping and using the washroom.

other than taking SSRIs or other antidepressants, can anyone recommend anything? my blood tests seem within normal levels, so maybe there's something specific i haven't tested for- i would really appreciate any input. i'm at my (meagre) wits' end.

I am just learning about peptides and am wondering if there is a solution that would work best for me, based on other people's experience. I have been diagnosed with ADHD and generalized anxiety that just creeps out of nowhere and can linger for hours. I get in a vicious cycle where I have so many tasks to perform, which makes me more anxious, which makes me do even less tasks. On top of that, I my short-term memory has turned to garbage, and I suspect it is because of decades of having to rely on benzos for anxiety.

I cannot take stimulants because it exacerbates my anxiety and destroys my sleep. Non-stimulants like Strattera and Guanfacine have no effect on me. For once, I would like to have a quiet brain and be able to actually start and finish a task.

Anyone in the same boat and have any luck getting out of this cycle? Any reputable product links would be highly appreciated as well!

EDIT: To add more information, I am currently taking l-methylfolate, CDP Choline, and Creatine as supplements. For meds, I take pregabalin, cymbalta, propranalol, and xanax for anxiety and Guanfacine for adhd.

I didn't know what nootropics were an hour ago, then I got an ad for GeniusMind and I've gone down the rabbit hole to wind up here.

Naturally I'm skeptical of a magic pill that can improve my life; the list or supposed affects are vast: reducing brain fog, giving energy and motivation, improved cognitive ability etc etc.

But they have quite a lot of reviews on trust pilot, I'm wondering if they're legit or if people just can't see past the hype/placebo.

TLDR: Could anyone recommend an enhancement supplement like this which actually works, or am I dreaming? Of course, I'm aware other factors need to be in order such as sleep and diet etc.

Thanks for your help!

From July 13th to August 7th in 2019 I took an SSRI antidepressant for generalized anxiety disorder. These are among the most prescribed drugs in the USA. Millions of people are on them. Unfortunately a small percentage of people get permanent side effects from them that never go away after quitting the medication.

I only took them for those 25 days and quit because it made me feel 100% numb with zero emotions or pleasure. Over 6 years later I am still stuck this way. The condition is called PSSD and it is likely irreversible brain damage. It took my whole life from me. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.

Every single thing was taken from me. I am a dead man walking, forced to live in 24/7 misery. Every second is torture beyond belief.

Also, I know some people will comment that “SSRI’s can’t do that!” Or, “This is just your mental illness you went to get treated for.”

Not even close to the truth. I never had any of these symptoms before. I went to get help for generals anxiety disorder. And in return I’m left with permanent loss of sexual function and pleasure, numb emotions and extreme anhedonia. I’m living in Hell 24/7. It is so so awful. Can’t enjoy tv or video games, can’t get horny, can’t even masturbate because orgasms are totally numb/pleasureless.

These are all the main symptoms of PSSD and there’s nothing that can be done.

There's a nootropic subreddit, the one missing the "r" in the name where the mod has a company that sells researchy sounding drugs with alphanumeric soup for names. To protect the innocent, let's call this company "Everyscam".

Ever wonder how Everyscam gets away with selling big-pharma's prized research drugs without being sued into oblivion to protect their intellectual property?

Most of those drugs are abandoned. Basically failed pharmaceuticals being sold as nootropics. The rights to some of them have been sold to different companies, who try to find a use for them. There's one, let's call it JUNK-356 that was first tried as a treatment for MDD. When that didn't work it got trialed as an adjunct for MDD. Then it got trialed for various deficits like autism. The original creator dumped it.

So what's the chances that JUNK-356 will make you smarter? Probably zero. But the placebo effect is strong. Nobody is immune to it. If you think it is making you smarter, you might actually study harder and do better on tests, just because you think you can. So I guess that's worth something.

At least most of these failed drugs are probably safe. The creators conduct extensive safety trials before the actual testing begins.

I’m on a creatine, caffeine, Lion’s mane, electrolytes, Ashwagandha stack for focus and memory. I’ve been pretty satisfied with my cognitive performance and settled on this stack because it’s simple and works. I’ve taken it a step further and used cognitive training to sharpen my mind because focus and memory aren’t enough. I train daily on an online program I created that trains my brain to adapt faster and see progress daily.

There’s a gap between research and health performance when it comes to cognitive training. The research favors it but the performance coaching doesn’t emphasize it at all. You can optimize for focus with nootropics, sure, but you’re best off pairing your stack with a behavioral intervention that will stretch your cognitive bandwidth. The way protein and creatine give your muscles the raw power to grow, but don’t make you stronger alone, goes for nootropics too. Nootropics are raw materials; cognitive training is the tension.

I track my cognitive training numbers every day. Some days the improvement is obvious and others are flat but I can see the trend of my speed and accuracy improving. Before you run off to Lumosity or another brain training app you should know that researchers have torn them apart because they gamify the science to the point of uselessness. My online training is based on a validated neuroscience task, and I follow a four-day-on, three-day-off training schedule to let the adaptation consolidate (same logic as rest days for muscles).

If you’re already doing the supplement side, what’s your equivalent of “training under tension” for your brain? 

We all know that memantine is known to help prevent tolerance to stimulants by sitting inside the NMDA ion channels; however, I couldn't find much research on this specific use case of it thus far while trying to put some numbers on how effective it is

If you've used Memantine to combat stimulant tolerance, how was your experience with it? Seems like Memantine is a more powerful tool for the job than some other popular compounds like agmatine sulfate, so if you have any links to research on this, or personal experiences to share, it'd be great to gather some data here for people looking to see if it'd be a solid option for this purpose 🙏

Edit: I'm currently looking into this further, so I'll share any articles I find on this post here for anyone interested as well. If things seem promising & safe, I may do a full washout from MPH with low-dose memantine for 14 days and see how much of an improvement we'll get. If anyone's interested, I'd be happy to share the results on that if I end up proceeding

If there's something that could help me focus for 6 hours straight that would be awesome, but if not that, even maybe like 2 hour focus sessions followed by 30 minute breaks, up until I practice for 6 hours a day.

Is there anything that could help with this? I may be deficient in sleep as well, I try to make up for it with naps.

Also I wouldn't want anything that makes me jittery or makes my muscles tense as that could potentially negatively effect my playing.

Have you tried taking something that raises dopamine/noradrenaline alongside something that raises Acetylcholine? If so, what was your experience (mood, motivation, focus, mental clarity)? Is it a good combination?

Is this stupid? I mean my doctor isn’t hesitant to give me amphetamines like vyvanse and adderall but those aren’t good for you. I figured I’ll try this before I go on to those.

When did you guys start using nootropics?

i've tried adderall but switched to ritalin -- i find that while both increase my focus, they have a tendency to cause excess noep in my brain and activate my fight or flight too much. i don't want to take guanfacine (bone loss/weight gain studies) or any sedating meds due to my co-occuring sleep disorder, but am interested in a low-dose beta blocker that can only moderately cross the blood brain barrier. does anyone have experience w/ this combo?

As some of you may know the sublingual dose of uridine monophosphate is much more bioavailable than oral dosing, leading to a dose of 250mg oral or 25-30 mg sublingual.

The last month I've been taking roughly 120mg of uridine sublingual and wow it's a strong effect. Similar in effect to semax (which I also really like).. but semax is a peptide and uridine just a supplement so I found this interesting.

Maybe people demonized this supplement too much?

Brain healing ✓

D2 Dopamine receptor sensitivity & repair ✓

Stimulant effect ✓ (only with mega-dosing otherwise I notice Nada)

Cheap ✓ (sublingual lasts a loooot longer than oral)

Hello everyone, i’m fairly new to the nootropic world and the main reason i want to start researching (and hopefully using) some nootropics is social anxiety, so i was wondering what would be the best ones to be more “social” maybe “talkative” , heard something about L-tyrosine + L-theanine but i’d like to hear someone’s opinion

I want to avoid addictive substances since i’m prone to be addicted so many substances (so no phenibut, benzos, pregab etc)

Maybe it’s worth to know that my social anxiety is through the roof when i smoke weed so i was looking something for it too (yes i’m trying to quit but as mentioned it’s easier said than done)

Any suggestion/advice is appreciated thanks a lot for reading

I find this sub tends to know more than the ADHD subreddit, so I was wondering if anyone knows why if I use ritalin IR to stay awake (rarely do this btw) throughout the night, taking it the next day makes me even MORE tired than I would be if I stayed up all night and just abstained from my meds the entire next day.

also -- recently saw a study that modafinil can cause significant bone loss & heard my doctor say many patients he prescribed moda to reported fractures/bone pain, so i'm wondering if anyone has any general wakefulness alternatives (WELL STUDIED) that have a similar mechanism of action to modafinil. i have idiopathic hypersomnia and take low-dose ritalin for my ADHD but find that increasing the dose makes me feel less tired but can activate my fight or flight too much - alr tried adderall and it activates my sympathetic nervous system even more. the noep is just too much but idk if orexin/histamine is causing the sleepiness that i've had the past few years (even b4 i started stims)

hi, I want to order some things from modafinil pl, anyone, do you have experience with this site? whether its legit? thank you

Can anyone tell me the main effects and differences of the different racetams, especially phenyl, faso, ani and prami. Also how they can be mixed and how much choline in the form of alpha GPC and/or CDP choline is needed? I like a daily portion of supplement need’s pre focus+ with my racetams. Also how important is fat for ani and prami? I take faso sublingual..

So I’ve been on Wellbutrin for almost five years now and it’s the only antidepressant that ever did anything for my depression. I suspect it was the weak dopaminergic effects that made my depression go into remission in the first place. It also helps my SCT and executive dysfunction and makes me more productive and functional on a daily basis and that’s the reason why I’ve been on it for such a long time.

Unfortunately with long term use it started to overstimulate me in various ways. In the end I couldn’t tolerate 300 mg anymore because it started to give me weird side effects I’ve never gotten from it before or to this extent and those side effects were frequent thirst, frequent urination, dizziness, vertigo, headaches, increased sweating, dry mouth, hot flashes, burning sensations, heart palpitations, rapid heartbeat, facial twitches and horrible insomnia and sleep disturbances. And when these side effects escalated I had to back off the dose to 150 mg.

Now I’ve been on 150 mg for about 8 weeks and I can already tell the difference and I’m already noticing it isn’t working as well for my depression as 300 mg did. I’ve noticed my mood is lower overall, I have less interest for things and motivation is significantly lower. And the side effects are still there and they didn’t go away completely despite backing off the dose. The insomnia and sleep disturbances are still there at 150 mg and I really thought backing off the dose would help it, but it did not unfortunately. When I used to take it with Prozac two years ago I had none of these side effects and the anxiety and insomnia wasn’t there either.

Now here comes my theory. When I took it with Prozac it felt to me almost like a completely different drug. I know pairing it with another drug can also change the experience. But I think that the pharmacokinetics were genuinely different when I took it with Prozac. I’ve read that Prozac is a strong CYP2D6 inhibitor and Wellbutrin is also a CYP2D6 inhibitor. When you take them together, Prozac can change Wellbutrin levels and change the exposure of the metabolites. When you add Prozac it can slow down the clearance of the parent drug, which favors dopamine over norepinephrine, so that means you’re overall more exposed to the parent drug. When you take Wellbutrin all alone though, you’re more exposed to the metabolites and especially the major active metabolite Hydroxybupropion, which favors norepinephrine over dopamine.

So can that be the explanation why the noradrenergic side overall hits me harder on Wellbutrin all alone vs when I took it with Prozac? Can this be the explanation why it feels like a completely different drug now vs back then? I mean is it possible that the pharmacokinetics were indeed genuinely different? And it they were. Does it makes sense to add Prozac back so I can get back the same effect that it used to give me?

I know this text got a little bit too long, but I wanted to write everything and give all the information so you know. I would appreciate if someone actually does have any information about this and the drug interactions between Wellbutrin and Prozac.