Comment · Thu, October 31, 2013
How and why I take modafinil. A neuroscience grad and trainee doctor's guide.
Original post in this thread
[deleted] · 10 points
The average human sleeps 8 hours a night and lives to around 70 years old – that is 203,840 hours spent asleep! Obviously sleep has many benefits to the self-optimiser such as memory consolidation and learning… But just imagine what you could achieve with just 1-2 hours less a night from your normal routine?
Background:
Modafinil is often described in the literature as a ‘wakefulness-promoting agent’,not as a stimulant (e.g caffeine, amphetamines and Ritalin), this means it shouldn’t produce a high or a buzz like stimulants do. The key difference here is that stimulants typically increase various excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain, such as dopamine, serotonin and glutamate to create the feeling of being wide awake and full of energy. Modafinil on the other hand, although undoubtedly affecting these systems in some way, is more related to turning down the inhibitory pathways, such as GABA transmission. A simple way to think of this is that stimulants are like putting your foot down on the accelerator on a car, whereas modafinil is more like taking the hand-break off that you had forgotten about! It’s for this reason that Mod is prescribed for ‘disorders of consciousness’ su…
What they were answering
[deleted] · 1 points
[deleted]
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
Perhaps I am overreacting a bit because of the beta blocker post. If one needs a beta blocker to prevent unwanted side effects, then they should look at what is causing the side effects first. I don't think we should be advocating the use of methylphenidate, caffeine, and beta blockers as a useful nootropic stack. There are much better, and safer, alternatives out there.
I just don't want new readers to see your posts, then take them as fact as though a medical professional had just suggested the course of action to them. That is what I fear with the way you were phrasing things. We also have to deal with a lot of modafinil posts, so I sometimes take a hard-line approach to addressing the issues, even if it was not your intent to frame it the way I am seeing it. I apologize for that. I don't want to discourage you from posting, as you could have good insight into things.