Piracetam - Day 1

Today, piracetam arrived from Amazon. I've tried it before, in 1999, along with Hydergine. I threw up Hydergine and felt nothing from piracetam. I don't recall how big of a dose of piracetam I took, but I do recall wondering if it might be a placebo or, in the best case, provide an undetected long-term cognitive benefit.

I ordered it again to see if it helps with focus and motivation. I've read claims of both benefits. Piracetam is often called the first nootropic and is regarded as extremely safe with little or no side effects. Maybe it's sugar. If so, it's the worst-tasting sugar on the planet.

Tonight, I took my first of two "attack" doses at around 4,200 mg. Tomorrow morning, unless I experience poor sleep, I'll take the same amount. Then, I should be able to take less, maybe half.

I'm taking it with Alpha-GPC. I've seen this advised several times, since piracetam depletes choline and the combined effect is supposedly greater than when taking either alone.

What have I felt so far? I took it around 9 pm and, about an hour later after eating something, I actually felt foggy, mostly in the sense that I felt myself visually zoning out while watching a show. Of course, I tend to do this when I'm tired, so I can't attribute it to piracetam, and the show isn't that interesting.

I do have a slight headache. But, again, this could be from piracetam, Alpha-GPC, both together, dehydration, or a number of factors.

As for cognitive benefit, I'm sitting here wondering if I would normally write this long of a post at 11:49 pm. If I feel tired, it's only slightly. And I slept around 1 am last night, getting a little over 5 hours of sleep, so I would expect to be dozing off right now. So, maybe piracetam, Alpha-GPC, or both together are reducing drowsiness. If so, great! Although, I do love sleep. And I do wonder if choline has a natural cycle in the brain (e.g., less or more at night) and if I shouldn't take it at night.

I also definitely feel calm and focused. I recall reading that piracetam is a derivative of GABA and people take GABA for stress, so maybe piracetam provides a nice calm feeling. If so, I might take it for that reason, alone, given the other potential benefits. It would be like Super GABA.

In any case, I'll sleep now and see how I feel in the morning. Hopefully, bright-eyed!

Recent observations

Here are my recent observations about my ADD.

Times distracted, associated activities, and observations

1. In the late afternoon, I seem to have less focus. I assume this is a combination of my natural circadian rhythm and caffeine intake. Drinking more caffeine, enough to feel the boost, if that's even possible given my intake, would get me through the afternoon, but I would feel more tired in the evening.
2. Partly because of brain training and cardio, mornings aren't as productive. So I need to do these things quicker, since the point is to help manage ADD.

Rate of distraction (1-10)

1. I rate late afternoon distraction as 5. I still get stuff done, but it takes a lot of effort.
2. Morning exercise gets a 3. That's because I seem more productive overall lately and I have faith that morning exercise will help.
3. I rate this week's overall productivity as 7.

What I eat, when, and the effect, if any, on ADD

• This week, I ate less meat than usual, but more protein in the form of powdered whey. I was more productive this week, and maybe the lack of digestive effort allowed blood flow to stay more upstairs than usual, but I can't be certain, especially since it wasn't that much less meat. But it does make sense that less time to digest allows for more mental energy. I wonder if more chewing would help. Hey, it's oral digestion!

Progress with ADD-related problems

Rapidly changing interests

This week wasn't so bad. I'm not sure why.

Inconsistent productivity

I was less productive the first half of the week, but much more productive (compared to lately) the last half. Part of that was a quick deadline. I like having deadlines. And I need structure. But not too much, of course.

And I finished a book! I finished Irrational Man. It was pretty good. I learned that I want to read Sartre.

Winding conversations

I think I'm doing better with this lately. I seem better able to stay on topic or veer less widely. I'm not sure why. Brain training comes to mind, but I can't be sure and I don't know why, specifically.

Moodiness

This week, I was really down one day. That was because I felt rejected by something small and ultimately insignificant. The rest of the week proved fairly upbeat.

Structure of this blog

This blog needs structure. If I plan to gain insight into my struggle with ADD, then I need to track related problems. Here is what I plan to track:

• Times distracted, associated activities, and observations
• Rate the distraction from 1-10
• What I eat, when, and the effect, if any, on ADD
• Progress with ADD-related problems

MindSparke progress

For eight days, I have used MindSparke to increase working memory. Working memory is how much information you can hold in your head at once. How does this help ADD? If you take more in, even with the same amount of attention, you have more to process and act on. So, maybe you get more done. Of course, you need to be able to process it all and have the motivation to act. But, together with Lumosity, I'm hoping to see improvement, which I gauge by my level of productivity.

Back to MindSparke, here is my progress.

My progress with MindSparke after 8 sessionsWhat does this mean? The exercise being measured is called n-back. You can also read the research that got all the attention connecting it to increased fluid intelligence. What the chart above shows is that my average n-back score has increased, from 2.6 to 3.5. Basically, where dual-back exercises strained me at first, leading to a real headache (a first for me with brain training), I'm now fairly comfortable with 4-back and find myself straining with 5-back. It feels good to improve at this, or anything for that matter. The question is whether I see transfer into daily activities. Again, for me, the biggest benefit would be productivity. Oh, and better planning wouldn't hurt.

My LQ and BPI at Lumosity

On July 7, I joined Lumosity. I joined to help with all areas of my brain, but mainly to see if, by improving my cognition in general, I could lessen ADD's destructive influence. Lumosity's games cover such factors of mental ability as processing speed, memory, attention, flexibility, and problem solving.

Today, I received an email and Lumosity is introducing something akin to IQ called the Lumosity Quotient, where, like IQ, the average is 100. I just took their small battery of tests and here are my scores and my resulting LQ:

Attention: 106
Flexibility: 132
Problem Solving: 123
Speed: 136
Memory: 138

LQ: 137

Of course, I don't know the percentile. And I wonder if I can retake the tests or if that would invalidate their study. Then again, if they don't either prohibit users from multiple attempts or discount those attempts, then their study isn't good!

I'm proud of my LQ, but I wonder what contributed to my Attention score being so low, especially given that my highest BPI (Brain Performance Index) is in the Attention category. It's 1407, which is higher than 97% of Lumosity members. In fact, my lowest BPI is in the Speed category, which is my second highest here. Here are my BPI scores and the overall one.

Attention: 1407 - 97%
Flexibility: 1351 - 92%
Problem Solving: 1191 - 83%
Speed: 1188 - 73%
Memory: 1376 - 90%

BPI: 1302 - 91%

So, to wrap up, the difference in ranking order between LQ and BPI scores are as follows.

LQ, BPI

Attention: 5, 1
Flexibility: 3, 3
Problem Solving: 4, 4
Speed: 2, 5
Memory: 1, 2

Maybe I'm in a speedier, less attentive state at the moment? It does seem like speed and attention scores could oppose one another, since more attention might coincide with slower reaction time and less attention might coincide with impulsively clicking.

Update

I retook the LQ tests:

Attention: 127
Flexibility: 138
Problem Solving: 121
Speed: 128
Memory: 149

LQ: 146

Attention went way up, speed when down, memory went up, and my LQ went up considerably!