Coffee vs Nootropics: 7 Reasons to Switch
By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
Once upon a time, I had quite the raging coffee habit. I would take a cup or two to get started in the morning, some more in the mid-afternoon to vanquish the post-lunch productivity lull, and sometimes a cup or two in the evening to keep me fired up and productive as I worked into the night.
Now as many of you know, actual coffee is quite healthy for your mind, primarily because of all the wonderful antioxidants in it and you can healthily drink up to 4-5 cups daily. My particular coffee habit was most likely NOT sustainably healthy because...
- At home, I would drink the cheap stuff (Folgers) or discounted Starbucks brand coffee if I could find it. Cheap coffee is not a good idea for a few reasons; it frequently contains toxins that can cause brain fog and a host of other physiological problems like obesity. Discounted coffee is often discounted because it is older which means there is a higher likelihood of mold and mycotoxins. I would also add artificial sweeteners and vanilla to my coffee frequently.
- At coffee shops, I would often order those delicious (and expensive) frappe-mocha drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup ingredients which detract significantly from the nutritional value of the coffee.
Nootropics > Coffee
In the past few months, I have switched to nootropics (either Piracetam or Excelerol) and have a perpetual glass of green tea sitting on my desk as my source of chemically-aided mental enhancement and they really are an improvement. This combination is a major improvement over my coffee habit in several dimensions...
- The productivity buzz or energetic feeling is about the same but it sustains throughout the whole day (depending upon which Nootropic I'm taking, if I'm doing my standard dosage of 4200 milligrams of Piracetam, I will drop 4 pills in the morning and 2 after lunch). As opposed to coffee where you get an energy buzz for about 60 minutes after drinking the coffee and then your buzz starts to taper off.
- My focus on tasks and getting things done is significantly improved. I've noticed that I solve technical problems faster, am more articulate, persuasive, and I genuinely feel smarter while on Nootropics whereas I think most people would agree that coffee just makes you feel more wired and energetic.
- Nootropics raise the baselines of the neurotransmitters that make you feel happy, content, and confident. I've noticed that while on Nootropics I generally feel better about life, regardless of what is going on, and cope better with the emotional rollercoaster of being a small business owner.
- I recently had coffee for the first time in over a month and got a serious caffeine buzz off just a small cup. The caffeine buzz is, without a doubt, inferior to a Nootropic buzz, being intimately familiar with both sensations, the Nootropic buzz is smoother whereas the caffeine buzz is frenetic and I'm more mentally critical of myself. The caffeine buzz is just a few degrees of anxiety removed from the kind of paranoid feeling that people get on cocaine or methamphetamines.
- Buying a delicious beverage at coffee shops adds up to $70-$100 monthly for me, whereas the dosage of Piracetam I take (4200-5000 milligrams daily, a pretty high dosage, a lot of people will feel quite Limitless at half this) is under $40/monthly (including shipping). I suppose if I NEVER drank coffee at a coffee shop and just drank the cheap stuff at home it would be less expensive but the vastly superior mind power I get from Piracetam is well worth it to me. Excelerol, as I've said before, is the closest thing I've found on this planet to real-life NZT-48, runs $100/monthly so it's economically equivalent to having a daily Starbucks habit.
- While coffee shops are great casual social environments where I love to spend time, the minutes spent walking or driving to a coffee shop, waiting in line, and waiting for your order when multiplied by the daily habit that coffee is for most people add up and detract from the valuable productive time you have during your workday. In comparison making enough green tea to drink all day only deducts about 120 seconds from my immensely valuable working time.
- Growing up my family always drank crappy, cheap coffee so I got the idea that pure black coffee was supposed to taste terrible (I guessed that you didn't drink it for the taste, you drink it to wake up). This is actually incorrect, if the coffee tastes uncomfortably bitter that usually means it is high in mold and may be unhealthy for you. Healthy coffee tastes great without anything added to it! When I do drink coffee it's a treat that I really enjoy and I only drink stuff that tastes pleasant. Green tea tastes even better and makes for a better daily habit since it doesn't ruin your breath or stain your teeth.
A few sources of toxin-free coffee...
What's Piracetam?
It's the godfather of smart drugs. The good news is it's safe, effective, and affordable. The bad news is that it's getting harder and harder to get your hands on it (you can thank the US government for that!) I've identified a few credible North American sources here.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do Piracetam, if you can get your hands on it - make sure to consume the articles and podcasts I've done about this enigmatic Nootropic, here...
Finally...
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