2026 Nootropics Investment Experiment (+400€)

[Davino]

This year one of my objectives is to experiment heavily with Nootropics and see if they work and which ones work best. So final decisions will be made at the end of this year, now I'm just testing things out. 

I've always had lots of problems swallowing pills, but I just saw how that could be very problematic, negatively impacting my life and I'm so glad in the last month I've been able to swallow that pill!

Okay so straight to the point, first I'll list the substances I've been taking for about 10 days.

Basic ones:

• Complete multivitamin and mineral 
• Omega-3 
• Creatine
• Turmeric+Probiotics 

Nootropics:

• NAC (800mg)
• Rhodiola Rosea
• Uridine
• NAD
• Phosphatidylserine
• Lion's Mane (+Reishi) (+Cordyceps)
• Brain Complex pill (Bacopa Monnieri, Ginkgo Biloba, Coline, Ginseng, L-Tyrosine)
• Brain focus pill (Taurina, L-tirosina, L-theanine, 200 mg of caffeine)
• Huperzine A
• Pyrazolam 
• Armodafinil

To wine down:

• Magnesium Bisglycinate
• L-Tryptophan
• Valerian
• GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid)
• Triphala 

Blueprint I'm following (although I always listen to my body and consciousness, adjusting it to every day):

Quote

🟦 MONDAY–FRIDAY (ON)

🌅 Morning – Fasted

NAD+ + Citicoline → 1 cap

Rhodiola Rosea → 1 cap

Phosphatidylserine + Moringa → 1 cap

NAC 800 mg → 1 cap

---

🍳 Breakfast (with fat)

Uridine → 1 cap

Lion’s Mane → 1 cap

Omega-3 → 1 cap

Multivitamin → 1 tab

---

🍽️ Lunch

Brain Complex → 1st cap

Curcuma + Probiotics → 1st cap

---

🌇 Dinner

Brain Complex → 2nd cap

Curcuma + Probiotics → 2nd cap

---

🌙 Night (30–60 min before sleep)

Triphala → Daily, 1 dose

Best taken consistently

Supports gut–brain axis, detox, regularity

---

🟩 WEEKENDS (SAT–SUN) — RECOVERY MODE

🍳 Breakfast

Omega-3 → 1 cap

Multivitamin → 1 tab

Uridine → 1 cap

--

🍽️ Lunch

Curcuma + Probiotics → 1 cap

NAC 800 mg → 1 cap

---

🌇 Dinner

Curcuma + Probiotics → 1 cap

🌙 Night

Triphala → 1 dose

Magnesium → 1 dose (weekends only)

Forms: glycinate / taurate / threonate

Improves sleep depth, nervous system recovery

---

🚫 WEEKENDS — PAUSED

Rhodiola

NAD+ + Citicoline

Brain Complex

Lion’s Mane

 

Initial conclusion:

Absolutely amazing. I wanted to try substances that would give me a permanent/stable change in the way my mind works. This combo has proven to work very nicely. I work a lot during the week and need to stay at my best even when I can't get as much sleep as I'd like to. These substances allow me to do that and moreover raise to levels of intelligence and physical performance I would have never imagined possible.

I'll explain in later posts on this thread more in detail how each one has worked for me or even not much. As well as dangerous interactions between these supplements to consider. Overall very happy, as I made such a strong investment but it's definitely paying off. My intuitions were right that to tap into higher cognitive developmental stages, nootropics would be instrumental, in the same way psychedelics are for higher Awakenings.

Edited Sunday at 07:24 PM by Davino

[Oppositionless]

Is it good to be takin that much? Would it not be better to find just a handful of the most effective ones and only do those? Or cycle them with others?

[Carl-Richard]

Might as well jump on Adderall.

[Davino]

9 hours ago, Oppositionless said:

Is it good to be takin that much? Would it not be better to find just a handful of the most effective ones and only do those? 

But how would I know that before I try a bunch of them?

[Davino]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Might as well jump on Adderall.

I want to avoid stimulants in general

[Carl-Richard]

25 minutes ago, Davino said:

I want to avoid stimulants in general

"Stimulant" is a meaningless label unless you are referring to a specific process like "stimulation" or a pharmacological mechanism like dopamine reuptake inhibition or general upregulation of such neurochemicals. If you use it to refer to any of the former, these (and probably much more of your list) would be considered "stimulants":

• Armodafinil 
• Caffeine 
• Rhodiola rosea 
• Ginseng 
• L-Tyrosine 
• Cordyceps 
• B-vitamins, zinc, iron, iodine (likely in your multivitamin).

Edited 19 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

@Carl-Richard Yes, those I try not to take regularly.

Although for me stimulant is a degree and there are also different qualities of stimulants. So far Rhodiola Rosea has proven to be very effective, just like a safety net or constant background note. Armodafinil, despite being stimulant it acts in a very different way than regular stimulants. Caffeine is taken in a pill that has other supplements that counteract the most common negative effects.

These I try to take them only when I need them and not abuse them.

I'm open to trying Adderall, but it wouldn't be in a routine. Talking stimulants consistently is not good for your health.

I'm trying to build a sustainable healthy base.

Edited 19 hours ago by Davino

[Carl-Richard]

13 hours ago, Davino said:

 Nootropics:

• Pyrazolam

That you can take a benzodiazepine like Xanax and substitute a carbon with a nitrogen and a chloride with a bromine and call it a "nootropic" tells you everything you need to know about the label. It's a marketing trick.

Edited 19 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Davino said:

Although for me stimulant is a degree

And the degree is in the dose generally, as far as momentary effects and side effects go. If you are completely pharmacologically naive (not desensitivized) to caffeine and you take a mega dose, you will feel like you're on a serious narcotic substance.

 

1 hour ago, Davino said:

Armodafinil, despite being stimulant it acts in a very different way than regular stimulants.

It's selectively dopaminergic and that's about it. Too much dopamine might make you on edge. I cut back my zinc supplementation because it did that to me (it has dopamine reuptake inhibitor functions).

 

1 hour ago, Davino said:

I'm trying to build a sustainable healthy base.

If you are spiritually inclined, consider that your strength lies outside normal brain activity (the "beta band", noisy, mediocre brain waves). In fact, I would suggest the less baseline brain activity you have, the more efficient your thinking will be, as much of the thinking is outsourced to the offline, subconscious processing, and the more able you will be to jump up to gamma when it's needed (the truly high-octane, flow-based thinking). You can't lift super heavy squats if you maintain a light jog between sets. Ideally you should just walk around and breathe a little.

What you ideally want as a baseline is deep rest, and activity only occurs as a response. There is little need in being chronically elevated unless you truly have no time to rest (like during a marathon, or you're a military person marching at night). If you're working a 9-5 or really any kind of normal job, every moment has moments of rest, and keeping yourself elevated instead of resting for those moments detracts from that rest.

When I used to supplement with more things, I felt I was in a constant "beta" state, and I couldn't enter deep rest, and my finesse and refinement of thought suffered. I had probably higher "raw IQ" in terms of spewing out information at a more rapid pace, but the quality, precision and groundedness suffered.

[Davino]

@Carl-Richard thank you for your input. It will be taken into consideration for the final conclusions of the experiment.

Any other comments or advice? What has worked for you?

[Cireeric]

If you are already investing this amount of money you should check out Qualia Mind. It simplifies your stack by a lot and entails a lot of the same ingredients, but more comprehensively thought through, so that they synthesize with each other. I have been experimenting with nootropics a lot and the best cognitive-stack I have found for peak mental-clarity, but also emotional-regulation, stress-resilience and easier access to positive-states, without any downside is Qualia Mind, 5-10grams of Creatine and a few mgs of nicotine (stay under 5mg optimally and dont smoke) here and there. Everything that is more effective short-term for focus, cognitive-edge, mental-alertness usually comes with downsides or downregulation later on for example with Piracetam, Modafinil, Amodafinil, Noopept etc...

[LambdaDelta]

Multiple caps/pills can be unpleasant to swallow, especially the herbal ones, so to ameliorate you may down them with tea or a smoothie instead of water; two birds with one stone. 

Krill oil is worth the premium over fish for Omega-3 IME. 

Funny seeing Pyrazolam as a nootropic, though in a certain twisted way it could be if one's cognitive functions are impaired by anxiety. It's rather innocent as far as benzos go. 

No reason to limit magnesium to weekends only, it doesn't dull anything and your body will gladly use up the 'extra'.

Try ALCAR somewhere along the way, I'm already noticing nice effects on day 2; had to move NAC to the evening since it interferes with my amphetamines too much, which was the right call as it's more about detox/replenishment anyway, while ALCAR actively improves clarity and crosses BBB better. 

Glycine appears very promising for sleep, especially in synergy with magnesium. Since time's limited, play around with biphasic sleep. I currently do ~5hrs + a 30min 'nap' that's more like do-nothing meditation with eyes closed. Feels great, but there's still a lot of tweaking and experimentation pending to optimize the whole protocol. 

Do some blood work every now and then, might provide a bit of useful info. I just go to the clinics where they have all the items printed on a sheet with checkboxes and for whatever the doctor didn't include I add a check myself in a similar style, the lab never notices. Blood/plasma donations are pretty good in general as well. 

Edited 12 hours ago by LambdaDelta

[Davino]

@Cireeric Thanks for the recommendation, just to double check, are you referring to this:

https://www.qualialife.com/shop/qualia-mind

[Davino]

@LambdaDelta Thanks brother, definitely checking those.

I've got a bad deal with my Magnesium though, didn't check the mg and was persuaded by the overall combination, when what I really wanted was Magnesium 

Edited 8 hours ago by Davino

[LambdaDelta]

3 hours ago, Davino said:

I've got a bad deal with my Magnesium though, didn't check the mg and was persuaded by the overall combination, when what I really wanted was Magnesium

There's your lesson, unless it's a multivitamin it's best to purchase every supplement separately. If you want magnesium, buy magnesium. These combos of 3-5 things might not have as good a synergy as advertised, for you at least, or maybe they use lower quality ingredients, insufficient NRV, or the wrong form. So I prefer to make my own mixes, even though it's more bottles to handle & caps to swallow, and costs a bit more. 

Bisglycinate is a fine balanced form, you can even take it both in the morning and befode bed for different purposes. Added bonus, Mg is very effective at resetting tolerance to dissociatives; too bad there's not really anything like this for tryptamines or LSD. 

Oh, and don't forget Tongkat Ali. Gonna borrow Creatine, Uridine, and NAD+ from your stack, see how that goes. 

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Davino said:

Any other comments or advice?

I could add that dopamine is of course not bad, but you want dopamine at the right moment, at the right time, under your control and driven by your wants and desires, what you find important and relevant.

If you're driven by a meaningful goal, that's highly dopaminergic, but it's selective (truly selective, unlike armodafinil's receptor selectivity). It cuts out what is not relevant or conducive to that goal, meanwhile if you get high enough on dopamine drugs that keep dopamine steady irrespective of context, you will find yourself stuck focusing on sometimes completely irrelevant things (in a kind of a psychotic or compulsive way), or just wired out of your god damn mind unable to relax or masturbating yourself to death. Finding the baseline is ideally about finding what you merely need to function (not die) and of course be calm, peaceful, content (and clearminded, etc.). Any action will then spring from an authentic inner drive, not a compulsive pharmacologically mediated angst.

That said, there can of course be value to using these enhancements and stimulants (I already mentioned some cases), but also just in general when used irregularly (to get a state change that could be more productive in some ways or provide a new perspective). Essentially, think the way people use psychedelics; getting a big state change and then waiting usually a couple of months for the next one.

Edited 4 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Michal__]

Sounds good. I bet that works really well.

You've got plenty of adaptogens there, which should balance the negative effects of things like modafinil. 

So it should be healthy too.

Edited 4 hours ago by Michal__

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Creatine has been a huge benefit to me.

As a reference, I begun using it without adjusting anything else diet/lifestyle wise.

I started on 5g for weight training/hill sprints/mountain biking. Benefit 100% power wise. No water retention, but muscles were fuller.

Gradually went up to 20g a day.

Past 10g I found incredible nootropic benefits:

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/110771-creatine/

Still going strong. Still find great benefit. Gastrointestinal issues subsided as I slowly increased dose.

10g 5:30am in morning coffee pre-exercise, 10g midday coffee to work through until 7pm.

I cannot take it later than 12 or I am up all night. Require on average 1hr less sleep.