Smart drugs, Nootropics, and Academia

[mahagonny]

Glad to hear it Eurotrash, but I heard green tea can thin your blood. I had nosebleeds but it works great for some. Ginger tea with ground ginger root added is my new thing. I couldn't believe all of the benefits identified here: https://bebrainfit.com/ginger-health-benefits/

Or maybe it's just placebo that warms you up and tastes good.

[mamselle]

Half a cooked, boiled, fried, or scrambled egg a day. Something about sulphur, maybe, in the yolk?

I read this so long ago, I don't know where anymore.

I don't always do it, but since the various pro's and cons of eggs keep being bandied about, I never did a whole egg.

I've run no repeatable, stratified, or other tests, so no scientific basis I know of.

And I don't generally like thinking of food as medicine, I'd much rather enjoy it as food, for it's own sake.

But I keep eating them.

M.

[Diogenes]

I do take ginkgo biloba some afternoons with green tea if I have brain fog. It seems to help. I do this maybe once a week. I wouldn't consider this or other smart drugs cheating, but it does suggest something about our profession and work pressure. Weed is legal in the Netherlands, well, it's more correct to say "tolerated," but I can't ever imagine trying to write while loaded.

The benefit is in the caffeine in the green tea. Ginkgo has no shown evidence of being a cognitive boost. Except maaayyybbeeee for long term prevention of dementia. But no mechanism of action has be shown.

[euro_trash]

I do take ginkgo biloba some afternoons with green tea if I have brain fog. It seems to help. I do this maybe once a week. I wouldn't consider this or other smart drugs cheating, but it does suggest something about our profession and work pressure. Weed is legal in the Netherlands, well, it's more correct to say "tolerated," but I can't ever imagine trying to write while loaded.

The benefit is in the caffeine in the green tea. Ginkgo has no shown evidence of being a cognitive boost. Except maaayyybbeeee for long term prevention of dementia. But no mechanism of action has be shown.

There is research that shows Ginkgo can improve sleep quality, reaction time, processing speed, accuracy, and blood flow, though the research is thin I admit.

Coffee remains for me the best smart drug for sure.

[pedanticromantic]

After two weeks, I can report some cognitive boost from lion's mane mushroom.  I feel noticeably better after having started on it.  I expected nothing from it but tried it out of desperation, and am pleasantly surprised.   No high, just an increase in mental clarity and a bit of energy boost.  It is organic, cheap, and legal.  I'm going to increase my dose and keep trying it until the bag runs out (what I bought is powdered), stop for a bit, then try it again to confirm for myself if it makes a difference. I have never had any success with a placebo effect, so this feels genuine, but I will stop and start to see if it was anything else I was doing that made a difference.

Some info with links to peer reviewed studies https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lions-mane-mushroom   The write-up makes it sound too good to be true, so I'd take it with a grain of salt, but there seems to be a lot of studies showing that it actually works to regenerate brain cells and hippocampus functioning, reduces inflammation, reduces anxiety, reduces depression, fights ulcers and even cancer.

The stuff I bought is made in Canada by a company called RealMushrooms (realmushrooms.com).   They recommend you add the powdered stuff to a protein shake or tea, but  it tastes like mushrooms.

[Diogenes]

Here is a fun interactive data visualization about popular herbal remedies. By clicking on the bubble, it'll link to fairly up to date empirical research on the claims.

https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-scientific-evidence-for-nutritional-supplements-vizsweet/