I use a variety of stimulants to boost my cognitive performance. I take them in rotation, according to strict guidelines to prevent both addiction and tolerance / adaption.
I’m aiming to increase the amplitude of my focus and energy.
https://twitter.com/nickcammarata/status/1389213303331823616
I use stimulants to enhance my highest quality work hours. I never use them to compensate for otherwise being tired, slow, fuzzy, or sleep deprived. In those cases, I’ll typical explicitly rest <link> instead.
A partial exception is for sleep deprivation. If I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I don’t sleep in. Instead, I’ll do some explicit practices to raise my arousal, and build momentum. Then when my circadian dip hit in the afternoon, I’ll take a long nap.
If I have a stimulant scheduled for that day, I will usually take it, perhaps reducing the dosage to make sure that I’m able to nap in the afternoon.
I never take nicotine more than once every 3 days to prevent addiction.
On days when I take nicotine, I’ll take it during my peak work hours, during my morning and/or my evening work block. I’ll typically use a dose of 1 or 2 mg, taken as a lozenge that dissolves over time
As with Nicotine, I make a point not to take caffeine more than once in a three day period.
I take caffeine in pill form.
I’ll typically take between 100 and 150 mg, with about 2x that amount of L-thianine, about an hour after I wake up (so that the caffeine is not competing with adenosine left over in my system from sleep).
Occasionally, I’ll take a lot more than that, when I really want to be amped up for something.
I’m currently experimenting with ADHD drugs.
Currently, I take caffeine every 4 days, and take nicotine every 4 days, offset from the caffeine by 2 days.
ie this schedule: