<story><title>Nootropics Survey Results And Analysis</title><url>http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/16/nootropics-survey-results-and-analysis/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xcelerate</author><text>What I find interesting is the fact that modafinil and caffeine ranked almost the same.  I&amp;#x27;ve always thought it would be interesting to try modafinil because of the widely claimed cognitive benefits and how it has less drawbacks than caffeine, but if it ranks essentially the same as caffeine, there&amp;#x27;s really no point to trying it that I can see.  Caffeine doesn&amp;#x27;t really do &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; much to be honest.  It seems as though none of these really have any profound effects on mental capability.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robbiep</author><text>The difference between caffeine  and modafinil come down to two things for me - 
- length of effect (caffeine seems to pick me up for had ran hour to an hour with a 30 min lead time - vs 12 hours with modafinil with a 45-1hr lead time)
- side effects (if I am really tired and have to get a big day out, I might end up havering somewhere between 6-12 &amp;#x27;doses&amp;#x27; of coffee. Cf. 200 mg modafinil- by 3&amp;#x2F;4 through the day on the caffeine track I am jittery, have a noticeable essential tremor, my eyes are gritty - all this vs nothing on modafinil- nothing for me at least)&lt;p&gt;Few notes:
Modafinil was a massive productivity booster while I was at uni. I would occasionally do a 36 hour period of solid study or work or whatever to cover a whole bunch of content and take up to 600mg modafinil durin this period, sometimes followed by a normal 8 hr sleep, then repeat. It was wonderful; I covered huge sections of my curriculum efficiently. The only side effect I have ever really felt from modafinil is a slight bit of &amp;#x27;coke mouth&amp;#x27; when taking a high dose, and a minor bit of jaw clenching a la MDMA at the high doses as well.&lt;p&gt;Now I use only when work is very busy and I have been stupid with my sleep, 100mg mane for a couple of the days of the week seems to work very well although I am not an &amp;#x27;every day&amp;#x27; doser and always prefer to be around 36 hours from my last dose if I am going to drink or take any other substances (I find I don&amp;#x27;t get the sensation of drunk if still on modafinil)&lt;p&gt;Edit: to more directly respond to your post, as opposed to ramble, you note that caffeine doesn&amp;#x27;t do that much to your mental capacity.
Modafinil doesn&amp;#x27;t really either. The studies that have looked at mental capacity, creativity etc whilst under modafinil cf. amphetamines cf. placebo have all shown decreasing returns for people of normal or high baseline cognitive function. Modafinil is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; going to make you smarter. But if you take it in the right environment, it can make you a lot more productive</text></comment>
<story><title>Nootropics Survey Results And Analysis</title><url>http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/16/nootropics-survey-results-and-analysis/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xcelerate</author><text>What I find interesting is the fact that modafinil and caffeine ranked almost the same.  I&amp;#x27;ve always thought it would be interesting to try modafinil because of the widely claimed cognitive benefits and how it has less drawbacks than caffeine, but if it ranks essentially the same as caffeine, there&amp;#x27;s really no point to trying it that I can see.  Caffeine doesn&amp;#x27;t really do &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; much to be honest.  It seems as though none of these really have any profound effects on mental capability.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wwweston</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a little skeptical about that. I wonder about having two considerations (benefits&amp;#x2F;drawbacks) apparently boiled down to one number.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d hazard a guess that the level of enhancement both bring are about the same for many people... but that the drawbacks of caffeine are more or less something that everybody&amp;#x27;s used to.&lt;p&gt;For me, using adrafinil to get by on less sleep was &lt;i&gt;considerably&lt;/i&gt; more desirable than using caffeine.&lt;p&gt;Then again, the drawbacks of caffeine are strong enough for me that I generally don&amp;#x27;t use it, so I might be an outlier.</text></comment>