Looking to start a brain stack. This can be in the form of certain coffees or mycelium etc. things you do or eat daily etc

I am no amateur or opponent to psychedelics, so please don't take this as anti-psychedelics. But I find it very concerning how Psilocybin and LSD and just thrown around as the answer to almost every question on this subreddit. I don't understand why so many find it reasonable to throw around such drastic compounds first before anything else.

And again, I'm not bashing psychedelics or posting about them, and perhaps it's just my experience in this sub, but what I've seen is quite concerning. Psychedelics can have a huge impact on someone's life, and should rarely if ever be given as a first resort.

I've heard that nicotine speeds up the metabolism of caffeine. Does this mean that caffeine then acts more strongly for a shorter period of time? Or will the nicotine simply shorten the duration of the effect, without increasing the effect? (I know that with some drugs, the shorter the effect, the higher the high, eg oral meth VS smoking meth).

Hope you understand what i mean

Thank you

Would appreciate any comments. I'm taking it for liver support and depression. Starting very slowly, but so far seems to help mood.

Realized L-Theanine just doesn't agree with me, any others like this? For like 2 days after taking I always have a multitude of issues, didn't realize it was L-Theanine until I took it again recently. Seems like a shame because I have severe anxiety issues and was hoping it could be useful long term.

Have been playing around with nootropics recently, mainly from watching Andrew Huberman.

I'm currently drinking around 3-5 espressos a day, an occasional ciggy (more like pack), creatine, b vitamins, omega6, and l-theanine. I'm staying away from things like Lions Mane or ashwaghanda since I've seen some bad anecdotal experiences.

Recently saw Joe Rogan talking about nootropic gum called Neurogum so was wondering whether anyone has tried something similar. They market something called "buccal absorption", and they're pretty light with caffeine and l-theanine so they seem like a good alternative for everyday use.

What I'm doing now is pretty unhealthy and gum is good for fighting off nicotine withdrawals, if anyone has tried these or another brand please leave your experience. They have a pretty hefty price tag here in Europe so want to know what you guys think.

Anyone have any, seems really hard to find semax and or selank

Can anyone else confirm ibudilast does not make one want to vomit when snorting it?

Seems to work with NO SIDE EFFECTS INTRANASAL!

Just need confirmation from someone else

Thx

hi guys,
I was a severe asthmatic, dependent on corticosteroids and bronchodilators for years, until I revolutionized my diet and reduced my symptoms by 95%. I am a natural competitive bodybuilder (hp 7% bf), so I took milk whey and peanuts on a daily basis. Although I am not allergic to these foods, I have found them to be the cause of most of the symptoms. After just having removed them from the diet, my chronic asthma disappeared.

Since I started supplementing vitamin D3, K2 and magnesium, all I have left is occasional excercise induced asthma, or worse,"sex induced asthma". In this context, in fact, I have no way to warm up with dignity, and as the intensity increases or I'm exposed to dust, after half an hour, I start to feel a bit tight. Nothing extreme, but clearly ruines the experience.

I resolved this by taking NAC, which made my asthma truly just a memory. The problem is that over time I started to develop a bit of anxiety, and immediately after taking it (generally in the morning) a slight nausea. Symptoms disappeared once I stopped the NAC and the taurine (I was taking around 1000\1500 mg a day of NAC and 3\4gr of taurine ). There's only occasionally a bit of anxiety left, but I think it's part of me and nothing to worry. However, mild asthma has reappeared, ironically almost always while I'm having sex.

I read everything about NAC, and I thought about lowering the dose to around 500mg per day, taken together with magnesium glycinate before sleep, to take advantage of the synergy with glycine.

Another thing I noticed when taking NAC was that I became less impulsive, less nervous, so much that when I stopped taking it my girlfriend immediately noticed that it was as if I was "accelerated". I would also like to avoid this effect if possible. I'm fine with a little "revved up". Maybe a slightly form of autism? I'm an it engineer, and yeah I have an high IQ.

Right now I don't take much supplements, just:

-10,000 iu d3

-100ug k2 mk7

-320mg Mg glycinate ( ever taken citrate but trying now glycinate because I can't find a true form of citrate )

-20mg Zinc

-probiotics in the morning on empthy stomach

-calcium lactate (sometimes because I don't eat diary)

-citrulline\arginine sometimes before workout

It should be noted that when I had an increase in anxiety, I was taking about 3\4g of taurine a day. I have seen that taurine also causes me anxiety, tried it alone during the day, and prolongs my sleep in an unmanageable way (even 10 hours). Glutamine, on the other hand, leads me to have cervical tension, which is strange but I have experienced it several times.

My diet is practically perfect, only organic food and I reach at least 100% of every micro-nutrient taking into account the chronometers application.

Any suggestions are appreciated, I wanna take nac with the least number of side effects. I would do without it but for asthma it is miraculous. Trying to use ginger, turmeric and such herbal things but there's no way...

Any twists in effect when going low- vs. high dose, or unexpected interactions?

Seems like most properly extracted brands of Lion's Mane are really pricey - anybody tried growing their own? How much would you need to grow to actually keep up with a strong daily dose? And what would the required processing/extraction be like?

I am fascinated by nootropics and I've been disciplining myself very well, running 2 miles daily at 4AM to improve blood circulation, (Hopefully also brain function) drinking tons of water, and taking 40 Degree Cold Showers Daily. I take Fish Oil, Zinc, and Vitamin D3

I literally today just learned about ginkgo biloba and It seems like its EXACTLY what I'm looking for. What is a good starting dose? Can I take it with other Supplements? What are good brands and how often can it I take? I've heard several times daily.

Thanks in advance, all advice is very welcome!

I wanted to start including a cup or 2 in my daily routine to help with hormonal acne and memory improvement but I'm seeing that it can lower testosterone. Lots of opposing opinions in all the skincare subs. Does anyone have any real information on this?

P7C3 is a very interesting compound potentially capable of rescuing or at least saving brain from degeneration [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. Availability of this compound on the market seems to be non-existent though.

There is something called Aspero oil, supposedly made from Frankincense which also contains P7C3 compound. I suppose the P7C3 does not come from Frankincense. There are at least two identical online stores selling this product [6], [7].

I was unable to find any link between Aspero and P7C3. No information about content of P7C3 in Aspero either. I have few reasons to believe the "P7C3" text in Aspero oil description has any relation to P7C3 family of compounds covered by actual research.

The main question here is: can aspero oil be used as a carrier to actually obtain P7C3, otherwise unobtainable directly?

A side question is why producer of Aspero included reference to P7C3 specifically in description of their product. What makes it (in marketing terms) better than any more recognizable compound with similar (neurogenic, because that's the property they referred to) properties such as NSI-189.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4163014/
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-018-0244-1
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124714007062
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25220467/
[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30258178/
[6] https://kookybrea.com/products/aspero
[7] https://charmingsuzzie.com/products/aspero

Can nicotine lozenges reduce immune functioning? I’ve been sick almost every month for the past 6 months. I do have a two year old , but I don’t think all parents get sick that often. I use 2-3 x 1mg lozenge per day.

I have been taking 5mg of LO for several months and it seems it helps more than I thought it would.

Recently went on vacation and forgot my LO. The withdrawal symptoms was increased anxiety and horrible sleep.

When I got home I increased LO to 10mg. Since the increase my anxiety has been much worse. I have read that some can experience paradoxical effects. I seem to experience this from magnesium too.

Last night I only took 5mg and today I already feel much calmer. Thoughts?

Hi all. I’ve tried NAC a handful of times, but every single time, I end up coughing all night long, and just generally feeling like crap. Anyone else experience this? I’m wondering why this keeps happening? I haven’t gotten an answer anywhere, and hoping someone here can explain why I can’t tolerate it?

Anyone used it for this? If so, how were your experiences?

Anything that helps anxiety usually helps OCD, but interested of anyone taken it specifically for OCD.

Reading that continued use can cause serotinin imbalances, I am currently taking Tyrosine once a week (1.5 -2 grams). It is a good plan?

is arcalion safe for long-term? must it be cycled? can i use it continuous. reason i am asking is because i see mixed google results. cheers.

So I have been taking ND saffron maximum potency saffron last 3 weeks, and finally decided to take stock on its effects, which are mostly wonderful! I take it at night (60mg 2 pills) and have the hardest heaviest sleep in my life but wake up restful and ready to take on the day, carried through the day I'm very relaxed, and start to enjoy life again (came off of ashwagandha after a year of taking it daily and suffering adhendonia) and have a way better outlook on life, not to mention my anxiety and overthinking of things has really been reduced and I'm even taking on leadership roles before and being out spoken to groups of people I would never of have been before, so saffron has been a game changer in my overall life, hasent been a "drugged" feeling but kind of removes all the mental blocks and crap that has held me back so I can feel like I can begin to make my own life my own way again.

Annnnd now the bad part. I have this spacey disassociative feeling all day now, the best way to describe it is I feel "out of it" like I can look at a big scene of something but Im not registering anything unless I really focus on it specifically and try, almost like a camera out of focus, Never use to be like this and when I tried using caffeine to help it actually made it much worse, made me even more unfocused and wired, its a shame how much good saffron has done for me to deal with this brain fogginess, DAE have any idea on mechanism of actions that saffron would work so good and so bad?

Good source? Anybody got anything better? I hate the payment options. I don’t carry shit coins

I tried to take fish oil on and off for a year, I took it for 5 months and it helped my skin and hormones a lot, but it wasn’t worth it for me to have clear skin but feel like shit. I tried with expensive cod liver oil, normal omega’s 3, krill oil they all make me feel really bad: terrible brain fog to the point I feel out of mind, lightheaded/dizzy, insomnia, increased heart rate, fatigue, etc. Then when I stop taking it takes me 2 weeks or a month to go back to normal

Which is better? To take it once in a while (when I need it) or to take it for some amount of time, then take a break and take it again (cycle)? Are the effects accumulating over time or do they just disappear?

So I know that there is a lot of broken science and misconceptions going on with lithium, in pretty much all directions. On the one hand you have people believing that lithium is kind of unhealthy, because it is prescribed in crazy mega-doses to mentally ill people. And it makes them associate all kinds of negative things with it, like toxicity, gout, increased risk for XY - none of which really hold true at lower doses and when not studying people who were somehow ill to begin with. Then in the middle there is this total absence of scientific research on low-dose lithium or in the lithium orotate form (which presumably is just a plain free lithium donor in "normal" doses). Then somehow this stuff is a total hype with some quack-ish doctors, who tend to make totally outlandish bro science statements and health claims with extreme confidence, based on like 19th century science and untelling micro studies (on like fruit flies and shit) that don't even relate to human consumption and that don't abstract to anything useful at all.

But still it is kind of an intriguing substance, because of the boldness of statements made about it, then the total absence of any science about it, and then also people sometimes reporting either zero effects at all or totally outlandish improvements. Many of the things claimed that exonerate lithium and paint it as hypothetically beneficial in the low dose range are rather reasonable. In the 19th century it was pretty common for doctors to be overconfident and make outlandish health claims. However still in awareness of this, it is striking how extremely verbal they were about how it improves gout in their patients. Since lithium is supposed to prevent crystal formation, and it has no real anti-inflammatory effect, it is also reasonable to assume that any further trials and studies of it were simply running too short to be able to confirm whether or not it is actually useful. And it was never used in the first place in people who not-yet had inflammatory gout to begin with to treat. Nowadays pretty much all medications against gout are anti-inflammatory, i.e. meant to prevent symptoms not disease - which may or may not be a product of such deficiencies of the scientific and health care apparatus. Then there are people with strong insane symptoms like brainfog and anxiety, and they basically report to be immediately cured by taking just small amounts of lithium, that basically cannot be expected to have much of any effect at all. Although there is no science to back up the claim that lithium is some kind of essential nutrient, from user experiences it often/sometimes makes the extreme impression, as if they experience the same sort of improvements in a manner as if for example taking B12 or vitamin D when extremely deficient.

If you think of colloidal silver for example, it wouldn't be unthinkable that even if lithium had no biological function to begin with, it could have various beneficial long-term effects with virtually no side-effects (except for blue skin). On the other hand something like fluoride has very small negative effects on the nervous system, but it is still rather benign. If you think of colloidal gold, it actually shows to increase various markers for nerve regeneration ... however it is also known to be a neurotoxin (can cause peripheal nerve degeneration) and those markers simply could be the result of some form of damage that the body has to repair. Though, no one knows if this is more of a repair-stimulating, than damaging process at a certain low dose. Since lithium sort of has similarly associated positive effects on nerve regeneration, it would make me cautious as well, if it weren't for the fact that mega-dosing it against psychiatric disorders had not been found to cause as much of a corresponding neurotoxicity (though neurotoxic effect is know, arguably this could just be the result of lithium's therapeutic index being so low, and then people generally having a lower threshold to tolerate general lithium toxicity).

So who knows? What has been kind of concerning to me is that people commonly report a sort of depressive effect from 5-10mg lithium from lithium orothate, i.e. being less able to focus and less energetic. However, who knows why this is, since most people who take it had biopolar disorder to begin with. I was wondering if it could also have the opposite effect, the same way as for example eating healthy vs. unhealthy does. And whether or not lithium could result in general improvement of quality of life, either in normal people or people who might have issues with fatigue or depression, but not with agitation from anxiety or mania or such. There is virtually nothing to be found in this regard on the internet. Personally speaking, I came across lithium orotate as potential means to prevent/reverse gout. And then it got me curious if it couldn't also be beneficial otherwise, or at least be benign enough to take it for years at a very low dose.

Ever since I started doing it, my dreams have a common motif of me searching for something that was just there in a dream, for an object that just ceased to exist, or for a drawing in a newspaper. It seems to affect memory formation and somehow I seem to retain memory of the dream that the dream already forgot. I am switching to doing it only in mornings, to see if it makes any difference.

Every morning when I wake up I take a walk for 15 minutes and enjoy the sun. I work from home so a few hours later I’ll go out and read my book on a bench somewhere.

I heard that it can help your internal clock, because when you get that sunlight in the morning it sets a 16 hour countdown to when you’ll get tired again. The effects on my sleep quality and how long it takes me to go to sleep is tremendous.

Not only that, it improves my mood, productivity, energy levels, etc.

Dosage is 1800mg per day in two doses

Is this a common effect of nac? I’m taking it for anxiety which I think it’s helping a bit with.

To preface, I have schizoaffective disorder and anti-psychotics + mood stabilizers have really put a damper on my overall enjoyment of life. I stumbled across NOW supplements Dopa Mucuna and everything that I've read online says that it may help with things like insomnia and overall mood. I was just wondering if you guys had any personal insight into what this could possibly do/help with.