I take Google constantly. The way it works (for me) is amazing. Basically whenever I have a hard problem I can just wiggle my fingers, stare at the screen for a few minutes, and then BAM! I know how people usually solve that problem. Its like my mind has expanded and tapped directly into other people's experiences.
Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
191–200 of 223 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#192I've been taking ~50mg modafinil 5 times a week for years. Last batch I bought was 2 years ago on the grey market (an online indian pharmacy) in 200mg pills form (so I divide them in 4 for a daily dose). I don't take any on weekends or on holiday, and sometimes I take 100mg if I'm going for a long car journey or something else that requires complete attention... The effects are very subtle but noticeable: more alertn…
Have you tried not taking it in a while? I found that modafinil sped my mind up too fast to figure anything out. And I was taking even half what you are taking. Just 25mg.
I've heard that armodafinil has a less pronounced effect- not as sped up and a more pronounced return to normality when it wears off. That's the thing that freaked me out about modafinil- it really seemed to last for ages.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and in my personal experience they're more effective than drugs alone. In fact, with out a process or at least a process-oriented approach in place, ADHD medication or other stimulants alone can create hilarious-but-frustrating situation where you're all hopped up on meds and your laser-like focus gets "locked onto" something totally useless, like reorganizing your music collection instead of completing the prog…
Yeah, but next time think of how quickly you'll be able to cut right to the work because of how organized your music will be!
Haha. The sad thing is that's kind of what I tell myself.
10% of my brain: "I know you have a couple hundred lines of code to write before tomorrow morning, soooooooo let's make a playlist! The ultimate programming playlist!"
90% of my brain: "That is the stupidest idea ever. You should really just get your work done and then you can relax, and maybe put a playlist together for next time."
10% of my brain: "Whatever lol I have veto power"
Annnnd this is why ADHD is classified as an executive functioning disorder and I have no problem believing it's a distant cousin of OCD.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Don't use music or any other form of noise to drown out ambient sounds at work. It causes slow but irreversible damage to your hearing. In game theory terms, such an act constitutes rewarding defection (employer insisting on open plan office) with cooperation (harming yourself in an attempt to help your employer) - always a bad move.
Can you provide some citations for this? At acceptable decibel levels I have a hard time believing this would be the case.
I don't have any citations ready to hand but it's not a controversial claim; a Google search should find some. Intuitively, think of it this way: 'acceptable decibel levels' are what the human ear is optimized to receive at intermittent peak, not constant all day every day.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> So that I can work without having to blast music through $300 noise-canceling headphones (which itself impairs focus, but is the lesser of all evils)? Rather than listening to music, you can listen to brainwave entrainment audio (Neuro-Programmer 3 is a good program to generate these). The lack of words prevents distraction, and the audio can entrain your brain to whatever frequency is best for what you are doing…
>> So that I can work without having to blast music through $300 noise-canceling headphones (which itself impairs focus, but is the lesser of all evils)? I have seen people mention noise-cancelling headphones in the context of noise and open offices. Don't anyone use noise cancelling ear muffs? I am sure listening to music 6-8 hours a day is not good for your ears.
I think people might feel that they look silly with the noise canceling earmuffs - don't they tend to be big and industrial looking?
Anyway, good noise-canceling phones can actually reduce the amount of volume you need. Sometimes I just turn the noise canceling on and enjoy the reduction in noise, without even playing music. Or I can play music quietly to mask the background noise, instead of blasting it.
Pretty comprehensive review of the market leaders. There's really only one brand of headphone that has solid noise canceling.... http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-headp...
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#196No, because Adderall messes with my creativity. I was doing a math major in college, and whenever I took adderall (legally prescribed) before doing a p-set, I always came up with a long and unelegant solution to a problem. It seemed to motivate me to work very hard, but not to work smart. No idea if this was just something I had in my head or there is some neurochemical basis for it.
I use to joke a lot of the code I saw recently bears the distinctive mark of Adderall-induced creativity.
OTOH, lots of Lisp or Smalltalk code I saw earlier could be attributing to LSD or psilocybin.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most commercially packaged frozen meals have lots and lots of sugar, salt and oils added to low quality (cheap) ingredients to make them palatable. Some people think freezing food destroys its quality, but I think that the evidence for that is weak and fails to regard the loss of quality that comes from keeping things in the fridge for another day. When I stopped eating ready meals I lost a kilo in a week, I believe…
Sugar and salt I understand. Do you have more info on the oils? Have not heard that before.
A ton of cheap food uses hydrogenated oils, which have been shown to have negative impact on your circulatory system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenation#Health_implicatio...
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#198NO! I investigated nootropics extensively. If you want to know the fruits of my research: * anything that "works" has a very pronounced psychoactive effect on the brain. Which is scary in the long-term. * by far the biggest cognitive boost you can get is SLEEPING WELL! Do this FIRST! It's easy to fix and gives a huge boost in output. * caffeine works as well as many nootropics, with little to no side-effects if taken…
> SLEEPING WELL
I sleep 3 to 4 hours per night. Sleeping pills leave me groggy for days, so they are out. Every 2 or 3 weeks my mind and body give up and I manage to get maybe 7 or 8 hours sleep. Insomnia sucks.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sugar and salt I understand. Do you have more info on the oils? Have not heard that before.
A ton of cheap food uses hydrogenated oils, which have been shown to have negative impact on your circulatory system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenation#Health_implicatio...
Oh yes, I forgot to even mention them because they're an automatic 'no' to me.
Re: Ask HN: Do you take nootropics?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
have you tried listening to white/pink/brown noise instead of music? it works wonders for my concentration. there are numerous noise generators online, i like this one: http://www.simplynoise.com/
No. Don't use music or any other form of noise to drown out ambient sounds at work. It causes slow but irreversible damage to your hearing. In game theory terms, such an act constitutes rewarding defection (employer insisting on open plan office) with cooperation (harming yourself in an attempt to help your employer) - always a bad move.
I'm a guy who likes music LOUD. Like, walking to class with my Walkman in college would cause people I'd pass to stop talking and stare at me. I've bought new players because they weren't loud enough. I didn't like my Nexus phone (in part) because it wouldn't play music as loud as the iPhone. I'm 46 now, and setup and manage the sound system at my church, where we like it, er, noisy. I can say with confidence that I'm the second-best set of ears in the house (behind the pastor, who has perfect pitch), and that I've lost nothing of my hearing over my lifetime.
Additionally, I say that as someone who has had to -- at various gigs -- listen to music in headphones to drown out office noise while I programmed and sysadminned. I know the "loud music causes hearing loss" is a popular thing to say -- I've heard it my whole life, just like "sitting too close to the TV causes vision loss" -- but I just don't think it's true, or at least conflated with normal loss with age (which my wife is finally admitting to).
That being said, I've recently started trying various tricyclic antidepressants for migraine prophylaxis, and I've found that they can have quite an influence on concentration. Amitryptilene had a small-but-noticeable effect. Nortriptylene had a PRONOUNCED effect. It was like that movie with Bradley Cooper. I just zoned in for the whole day. I LOVED it, but it was making me (an INTP) completely manic. I'm now trying Desipramine, and it, too, has a small-but-noticeable effect. I'm trying to live with its side effect (itching) by cutting the 10mg pills in half, but it's getting worse again, like it's building up in my system or something.
When I'm on these drugs, I don't WANT to listen to music. I find that I _notice_ that it's a distraction. It's been a habit, but I work at home most of the time, and, when my concentration wavers, I stick through the issue by "ducking" it out loud, to myself.
So, IANAD, but it seems to me that a low dose of a TCA could be considered a nootropic. There are, like, 9 different drugs in the class, all with varying side effects. I wish I could talk to an expert to correlate the various known brain-chemical effects with the various cognitive and side effects, so that I could chose the best one for me after trying 3. Seems like that ought to be enough information to zero in on the right dopamine, seratonin, et. al. profile for me. If seratonin is the MAIN chemical involved with the concentration side effect, then there's a whole class of SSRI's to deal with. But I don't know.