Managing Your Energy by Timing Your Nootropics

The exact timing of each nootropic depends on several factors.  Half-life, for one, as the longer it lasts, the more it can mess up sleep.  Here’s how to time some of my favorites:

• Caffeine’s “official” half-life is 5 hours, but there’s a huge range of individual differences, going all the way to 1.5 hours on the low-end and 9.5 on the high-end.^[1]Research, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition. Pharmacology of Caffeine. Caffeine for the Sustainment of Mental Task Performance: Formulations for Military Operations. National … Continue reading This wide range is due to a mix of genetic and environment factors like medicine, obesity etc.  Assuming you’re in the middle of the curve, a morning and afternoon dose is a safe bet to time your energy to be productive in the AM and not fall asleep after lunch.  If you’re more the night owl type, push that back 3-4 hours.  On the other hand, if you feel caffeine linger all day, you’re probably on the longer end of the half-life range and should stick to just one dose right in the morning.  Caffeine insomnia is, unfortunately, a factor, so earlier doses will serve you well.
• L-Theanine: I’ve never found this to be a great productivity tool on its own; rather, it’s there to combo with other nootropics.  Time it with whatever it has the best synergy in your stack.  That’s not to discount it in general, of course: I use it regularly for sleep, and it has intermittent value as a way to calm myself during a stressful task or before a major presentation.  One of L-Theanine’s cool traits is that it’s not a direct tolerance builder on its own: I couldn’t find anything in the clinical record showing dependency problems, though note I never saw doses higher than 600 mg so it’s possible extreme amounts would have some effect.  Now, there’s always the issue of psychological dependence, and I wouldn’t use it daily for work (though you can mitigate this with taking baseline days.  Personally, I use it daily or near-daily for sleep and still see benefits in my work stacks, while never exceeding 600 mg in a single day.
• Modafinil (Moda): this is one I need to dose early in the day–preferably as soon as I wake up–if I want to avoid sleep issues.  This is not surprising given its long half-life of roughly 13 hours^[2]Darwish, Mona, Mary Kirby, Edward T. Hellriegel, and Philmore Robertson. “Armodafinil and Modafinil Have Substantially Different Pharmacokinetic Profiles despite Having the Same Terminal … Continue reading.  The upside, though, is you shouldn’t need to redose it . . . unless you build tolerance, which is absolutely possible on moda. That’s part of why moda is one of the most important nootropics to cycle; I advise no more than 3 to maybe 4 times a week
• Phenylethylamine (PEA): timing this one depends heavily on if you’re using an MAO inhibitor or not.  Without one, PEA gives you 45 minutes to maybe an hour of a boost.  That’s still helpful, and I’ve used it for getting my day started, then letting momentum carry me on forward once it wears off.  With an MAO-I like hordenine, you bump that period up to several hours, which makes it more practical for an all-day session.  I use it a max of 3x in one day, and keep it to once or twice a week, as this is another that builds tolerance quickly.

Managing your energy via timing nootropics is crucial to getting the most out of them.  There’s little point in using a short-acting one right before you do 2 hours of drudgery, nor should you be popping something with a long half-life mere hours before you go to bed.  Do what you can to optimize your work routine, then plan nootropic use accordingly.