Posted by revaaron on July 13, 2007, at 13:30:34
In reply to 'racetams-anyone tried these? benefits?, posted by KayeBaby on July 6, 2007, at 8:05:36
Kaye-
I've started on Piracetam. I also have some Aniracetam, which also is supposed to have more of an energizing effect. I've been taking 2400mg for about a week of the Piracetam and haven't seen too much yet. I don't feel any more energized or stimulated, which isn't the point but a lot of people report it. I tried one regular dose of Aniracetam but didn't notice anything different than the Piracetam, though it was a pretty low dose of the Aniracetam.
I've noticed some effects from the Piracetam, but it's hard to know if its placebo. I've not had anything that really crops up in social interactions or mood, but I've had a noticable boost in the ability to process and compute more complicated problems. AD/HD wise, it doesn't help at all with staying on task, focus, motivation or attentiveness, but what I get out of it is that when my attention is engaged on something I work deeper. In a way I work faster, but that's a side effect of what I feel the primary effect to be.
It's hard to describe, so I'll try with an example. I'm a computer programmer. One of my tasks is writing scripts to generate reports from our database. For most companies that isn't too big of a deal, but we have a really weird database structure where everything is stored in these elaborate trees. I often have to mentally work really hard after a certain point of complexity to bring up the right kind of data, the loops to take out the data I need, etc. I oftentimes have to create these scripts very iteratively, trial and error, lots of looking at what is in the database etc. It's often mentally exhausting, though pretty rewarding and fun.
The last few of days I've been doing a lot more of this, because we had release yesterday. I was able to churn out a few of these scripts in a 1/4 to 1/2 of the time it would've taken otherwise. It isn't that I'm working and processing faster, but I can keep track of the tree of data that I'm trying to visualize and rearrange in my head, and keep it all straight. To contrast, dextroamphetamine doesn't especially help with providing this effect in me, but they are very complimentary. I don't rule out placebo, and I assumed it was doing nothing until Weds and Thurs when I was whipping through these scripts quite quickly.
Outside of programming projects, I've not seen much. I think that the effects of the 'racetams could be very easily overlooked depending on what kind of work/hobbies you do. It's not like a stim where there are many noticable in your face effects.
I think a better test would be to see if I lose this ability when Piracetam has stopped. After a month I'll figure out how much I've seen in the way of effects- if it's obvious, I'll continue, but if it's not I'm going to try a single-blind stoppage. Have give me a pill that will contain sugar or Piracetam at a random date, and maintain that for 2 weeks, all the while watching for differences. This isn't like a real RCT but it's as good as I'll get.
The research around the 'racetams isn't quite as crappy as Sigs suggests. There has been a fair amount of good research that supports their usefulness, ruling out placebo in at least some people.
A great place to talk about the 'racetams and similar substances is imminst.org. Relatively scientific and level headed folks, not quite like reading reports on Erowid. :)
I'm pretty interested about Nefiracetam but none of my regular sources carry it.
Aaron
poster:revaaron
thread:768031
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070710/msgs/769371.html