Top Nootropics for Each Unique Brain – Huffington Post

When it comes to improving cognitive performance, the refrain I hear most often is what are the top nootropics? In an email, the question is relatively easy to answer when I find the time to provide some useful feedback. In person, the question usually opens a can of worms that sees me talking for many hours longer than anyone truly wants to listen.

The truth is, the top nootropics for each individual will vary depending on the unique brain chemistry and environmental factors. Ive created a list of top nootropics of 2017, but this is nothing more than effective and popular nootropics of the current year. Its not meant to name off the most powerful or be any kind of recommendation.

With that disclaimer out of the way, lets proceed.

Nearly two decades ago Dr. Eric Braverman made a few startling assertions within the medical community. While at Harvard Medical school he helped to prove some of the far-fetched assertions, which are almost universally known and accepted today.

The key assertion among his work is that each brain is unique. There may be similarities, but our brain has different chemistry and thus requires a different prescription. In his most famous book, The Edge Effect, Braverman provides readers with a subjective test called the Braverman Assessment test.

While this test is far from perfect, it is one of the closest things that we currently have for understanding the basic elements of our brain (the four neurotransmitters). Expanding upon Bravermans work, Ive put together a guide here for more modern and up-to-date recommendations.

As my friend and mentor Daniel Schmachtenberger(co-founder of Neurohacker Collective) likes to point out, the human body and brain is a complex system. We must take a complex-systems approach if we are to fix underlying, root problems rather than surface level symptoms.

Often times our habits, such as diet, sleep, and exercise, have more to do with our brain chemistry and optimal mental performance than any kind of nootropic or smart drug. As nice as nootropics can be for achieving the top 5 - 10% of optimal performance, they arent the only answer. However, even with all the same lifestyle factors in place and the exact same environment, genetics play a major role as well.

Our genes are as guilty of creating individual needs and brain chemistry as anything else. My friend Zach Obront, founder of Book in a Box, used modafinil on one occasion to increase his mental performance and achieve a higher state of concentration and focus. He felt nothing!

While I cannot assume with 100% accuracy that this is the case, he probably has a Met/Met [A/A] genotype, which was discovered by Dr. Bodenmann. Essentially, in these non-responders modafinil has no effect even when other people experience amphetamine-like effects!

If each of our brains are unique then it is a scary prospect seeking the top nootropics. Each of our answers will be different and it will be challenging to consult only the scientific literature to get any of our answers. Thats because the research might show us what 80 - 95% of the population experiences, but what happens if were outside of those bounds?

Self-experimentation is not for the feint of heart and it isnt something to take lightly with an important organ like the brain. Many of the top nootropics like piracetam and noopept, both of which are often recommended for beginners, has little research on healthy adults. Both are primarily studied through the prism of disease and cognitive decline (Alzheimers, dementia, etc) rather than cognitive enhancement in healthy adults.

So even the drugs that are considered well-studied (or at least used in models besides animals) arent the paragon of virtue we may have thought they were.

Cognitive enhancement studies are not worthwhile for most of the players in this space (i.e: there isnt much money to be made from it), which means that it will be up to us to develop our own science as it pertains to our unique biology.

It is a risk to enhance our cognitive capacity beyond that of our ancestors, but not one that we cannot handle. Of course, those who take the risks have the highest rewards, but it doesnt have to be a daunting future in the biohacking and self-experimentation world.

Alexander Shulgin, perhaps one of the most established and prolific chemists, created hundreds of different psychoactive compounds (primarily psychedelics) in order to enhance human cognitive capacity. His so-called Shulgin method of using new substances has been incorporated into many methodologies for biohackers and nootropics lovers.

With these three steps, we can at least mitigate some of the risk of self-experimentation, find the top nootropics for each of us, and move forward from there.

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Top Nootropics for Each Unique Brain - Huffington Post