Used in poker for years -
New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
101–110 of 141 posts
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#102Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
>not being able to silent my thoughts when I sleep What do you mean by that?
Thoughts are mainly about work and problems that I need to solve. When I am trying to sleep, I will sometimes work on a problem in my head because it's "bothering me", and this can postpone my sleep by up to an hour. This happened to me a lot in college on homework sets. Some sets would take hours to complete, and if I could not solve a problem before sleeping, I would "give up" and go to sleep, only to continue thin…
keep thinking softly to fell asleep in a vivid dream and solve the problem
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#104I've been taking 400mg of Magnesium Glycinate two times a day along with 200mg of Theanine (also twice a day) with my usual two cups of coffee. I feel fantastically focused without the jittery edge that accompanies caffeine alone.
Thank you! I've been looking for something like this to ameliorate the toxic aspects of caffine, whilst maintaining its positive effects.
On this topic, and related to the OP is the following study from 2010:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20614853
"RESULTS: Paraxanthine, caffeine, and modafinil significantly promoted wakefulness in both WT and narcoleptic TG mice and proportionally reduced NREM and REM sleep in both genotypes. ... However, the higher doses of caffeine and modafinil, but not paraxanthine, induced hypothermia and reduced locomotor activity, thereby confirming the lower toxicity of paraxanthine."
I was wondering whether anybody here has experience with paraxanthine?
According to Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine
"Caffeine is metabolized in the liver into three primary metabolites: paraxanthine (84%), theobromine (12%), and theophylline (4%)"
I'd also be interested to know whether anybody had authoritative references to the LD50 toxicity in humans for caffine and its 3 metabolites ...?
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure that I initially heard about them through Tim Ferriss's podcast with Charles Poliquin (a world renown strength coach). He talked about them when outlining his sleep routine. http://tim.blog/2016/11/06/charles-poliquin-mass-building-pr... (you will sleep like a rock with a large dose of Magnesium Glycinate, especially if you've been deficient for a while (most coffee/soda/alcohol drinkers are))
I've always shied away from magnesium because of the laxative properties. Have you not experienced that with the glycate form?
Even taking in excess of 1,000mg, it may be a fairly running bowel movement but it's nothing that a normal session to the toilet can't handle.
Body gets rid of the excess and I move on with my day. I could back it off, but honestly, it just isn't that burdensome and I enjoy the consistency of taking the same amount every day.
And there may be days where I'm more stressed and the body could use more magnesium, so I just stick with my dosage.
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#106I actually did a test myself with pot a while back, also playing against a computer, my thinking there was that it would provide the most consistent opponent skill level. I tried varying amounts. I saw a fairly significant improvement with small doses, less than what someone would use for entertainment purposes, an amount just before what could be called a high. I think it may increase concentration at the right dosa…
Anecdotal: I used to play chess frequently against a friend, who smoked pot pretty regularly. When he was sober, I usually would win. When he was starting to get high, he would usually win. When he was fully not sober, we would usually tie. I do not smoke, so I was always sober during these games.
So you're suggesting there's something analagous to the Ballmer Peak but for pot?
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#107How do they know it's not due to confidence boost? These drugs can make you feel "good" and confident, which all top competitors spend a lot of time trying to build up.
The mechanism doesn't really matter. Perhaps these drugs simply do make people feel good and consequently they perform better. In the end it still increases their performance on these tasks.
I think it's a significant difference. For example, this would mean it's unlikely to benefit Alzheimer's patients.
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#108Does this mean Adderall/Ritalin really does make you smarter/more creative? As opposed to the folk wisdom that it increases your focus at the slight expense of creativity?
Of course, this is assuming that creativity plays a role in chess, which depends highly on whether we are studying amateurs as opposed to grandmasters.
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#109Dopamine?
Re: New Study Finds Performance-Enhancing Drugs for Chess
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just a side effect; isn't this why stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall are used as treatment for hyperactivity and attention deficit?
Not exactly. Being hyper-focused on one thing is actually symptomatic of ADHD, and amphetamines like Adderall and Ritalin may exacerbate or mitigate this tendency (as I understand it mainly from personal experience, but also some literature), depending on the individual and external factors.
No, I'm pretty sure being "hyper-focused" is the opposite of ADHD, considering that "focus" and "attention" are synonyms and "deficit" and "hyper" are opposites,
And the effect of amphetamines is improved focus (as well as slight euphoria and wakefulness) BUT one possible problem is that people lose control of what they focus on and tend to get lost in the details. I. e. you start out writing a letter and end up reading about 18th century calligraphy.