[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Smart drugs and nootropics are not cheating. But I’d like to elaborate both here in text, and below in the video, to give you a better perspective on my perspective. I’m going to mention a few things here that I didn’t mention in the video, and leave the rest up to the video below.

If we’re going to propose the idea that nootropics are cheating, we have to first be clear about which nootropics we’re talking about. Are talking about Modafinil or Cortex? Adderall or Alpha Brain? Phenylpiracetam or Ginko Biloba? All of this needs to be approached individually, I think.

Because if you look at Alpha Brain, for example, a product by the company “Onnit,” you would find that one of the components of that stack is the amino acid “L-Tyrosine.” But… this is essentially the same L-Tyrosine that’s in the bananas you eat everyday (if you’re as awesome as to eat a banana everyday). Tyrosine goes through a few processes in the brain to become epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

The question you might think is bubbling up in my brain is of course: is eating a banana cheating? And as you might imagine, that’s a ridiculous question. Do you see where I’m going with this?

“You must come with a degree of specificity when you pose the question of are nootropics or smart drugs cheating.“

The general question isn’t enough, and you need to actually understand the chemical nature of what you’re talking about, and what amount the particular nootropics in question, you can find in everyday foods.

Another great example, looking at the Cortex Nootropic, would be Uridine Monophosphate. This ingredient is a major constituent to the human brain, and plays a major role in the functioning of the gaps between axons and dendrites in the brain called synapses. Your brain already uses this compound, from food sources. Beer, for example, though a bit of a funny case for this, tends to have a lot of uridine in it.

Obviously drinking beer to get uridine isn’t cheating, right?

But what about the big boys? Drugs like Modafinil? Well – I admit, that this is a different story, and just like the above stated nutrients, we need to look at what it does to your brain, and compare it with what’s already out there.

Modafinil exhibits neuroprotective actions on the brain. It’s also a strong antioxidant, and though the mechanisms are still a bit foggy, there are SOME clear explanations as to what’s happening.

Hypotheses formed by intelligent scientists suggest (same Pubmed Central article) that the way Modafinil works on improving brain performance, at least in part, is by its ability to enhance enzymes in the brain’s free radical scavenging system (like glutathione). Quoting directly from the above Pubmed post:

“reactive oxygen species feed back positively on the mitochondrion to reduce ATP production and possibly enhance free radical production, such a mechanism could also account for modafinil’s ability to increase the cortical creatine-phosphocreatine pool”

So, if this is the case, then we have to stop again and ask the question: is taking the supplement creatine, for improved strength endurance in the gym “cheating” in the realm of brain performance? We see here that creatine induction had neuroprotective effects on mice with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and there are countless studies pointing to the cognitive optimization ability of creatine monohydrate. The chain of thinking here is: Modafinil improves the brain’s free radical scavenging capacity, leading to more cortical creatine, leading to better brain performance.

And if so, the question can be posed: is taking creatine monohydrate cheating in the same context as is often used when proclaiming that smart drugs and nootropics are cheating?

I hope you see how convoluted this is getting, and how by understanding the mechanisms of action behind some of the most well known nootropics, you can boil them down to being created by one thing or the other, depending on what you do.

You could increase brain derived neurotrophic factor by going on a 5 mile run, or you could take nerve growth factor eye drops like an Italian Nobel Prize winner did after she discovered it. Is one cheating over the other? If you answered yes, taking eye drops with nerve growth factor in them so the substance can cross the blood brain barrier is, why?

It’s because it’s faster, isn’t it? It’s because you don’t have to put in the 5 miles of work to achieve that neurological outcome. It’s faster to just drop the eye drops.

It’s faster to take Alpha GPC, a well known nootropic that improves the synthesis of the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine, than to eat a few egg yolks, which contain the B class vitamin “choline,” which serves the same purpose in the brain. What is wrong with that?

I contend that just because someone is smart enough to find a shortcut to creating the same outcome that something more tireless and enduring would equally create, doesn’t make it neither cheating nor dishonorable. In fact it makes it smart. And this is one of the points I get across in the video.

That a person is in fact intelligent, if they realize that in order to perform better in all areas of life, they need to optimize their brain. A smart person, is a person that understands that where we are right now, in terms of evolution of the human brain, is not as far as we can go, and that experimenting with taking steps in the direction to further the evolution of their own brains, is a good idea.

I could go on.

Alcohol inhibits certain activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, allowing you to be a bit more socially competent when you’re out in the world in the grind of things. Does this make alcohol cheating?

Of course the answer is no, and that’s a ridiculous question. Why though? Why is it so obvious that alcohol is not cheating, but nootropics might be? There’s one answer here, and it’s: because alcohol is ubiquitous. Just like caffeine.

In the video, I talk about the cognitive edge we all know people have when they drink caffeine, compared to people that don’t.

I go into my history as a United States Army combat soldier, and how taking nootropics have helped me to deal with war related brain conditioning. (By the way – here is the link to the video explaining the attack on my platoon in Iraq I reference below)

I make the point that there are people out there that have sleep disordered breathing diseases, that render their brains ineffective the next day, and that nootropics offer quite the benefit to that situation.

And we put all of these concepts together in talking about the idea of entrepreneurs or executives using nootropics to get ahead in their fields.

Cognitive optimization is something everyone should be doing. The small fraction of our population that is doing it, might just be on to something everyone else should pay attention to.

As an entrepreneur that is currently running and building 2 companies, nootropics have been incredibly helpful for me. When I’m done running business A for the day, and its time to go home and build business B, I’m not spent.

By using nootropics, I create an optimized environment in my brain for additional output. I can go home, write more blog posts, do more research, and do more marketing.

After it all, I still have the energy to sit and think about the day that’s past. To reflect on it. I can meditate for 40 minutes, and get into an alpha brain state.

Because for me, and I’d argue for other individuals interested in cognitive optimization, I don’t just plan to wake up at 7, go to work until 3, and then sit in traffic for 40 minutes until I get home to watch TV.

I’m trying to evolve the world. I have goals that are larger than life. I have things I want to explore. And for some of the outcomes I need to create, I need a lot of output power.

And the world is NOT a level playing field. If someone can get the leg up in something, they will, and you are not going to change that being against a certain sector of performance optimization.

The idea that cheating is even a thing fails to realize that cheating is a part of our everyday lives. That rules have to be bent or broken to achieve great things. And that you have to be able to differentiate, based on a person’s agenda, whether they’re maliciously optimizing some part of their performance, or carefully expanding their capacity to achieve great things.

After all, most people aren’t taking nootropics to play with their dogs better.

— BTW — Ray Kurzweil’s supplement regimen can be found here. A small fraction of those are in fact nootropics. I don’t think anyone considers Ray Kurzweil to be a cheater.

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