I’ve used 1-2mg of nicotine (via gum) a few of times a month for a couple years. I previously used it a few times a week for a few months before getting a methylphenidate prescription for ADD. There hasn’t been any noticeable dependency, but I haven’t had that with other drugs either.
Using it, I feel more focused and more confident, in contrast to caffeine which tends to just leaves me jittery and methyphenidate which is better for focus but doesn’t have the slight positive emotion boost. Delivered via gum, the half-life is short (an hour at most). That’s not great for a day-to-day stimulant, but it’s useful when I need something at 6pm and methylphenidate would interfere with my sleep. The primary downside is occasional nausea. Now I’m wondering if patches would be longer-lasting and less nausea-inducing.
Gwern noted in his analysis of nicotine that to overcome dependency effects, the user could cycle between different nootropics they use. For example, a three day cycle of nicotine, then caffeine, then modafanil, then repeat and start over with nicotine.
Over the course of several months, I could trial different methods of consuming nicotine, i.e., patches, e-cigarettes, and gum. I would space each of these trials out over the course of several months because I wouldn’t want each of the trials to be spaced too close together, and I wouldn’t want to mess with my body by consuming too much nicotine anyway. As a protection against my subjective experience being useless, I would read more of Gwern’s reviews on nootropics, and perhaps consult online nootropics communities on their methods for noting how they feel. Their could be trials I could run, or ways of taking notes, which would allow me to make the information gleaned in that regard more useful.
I’ve used 1-2mg of nicotine (via gum) a few of times a month for a couple years. I previously used it a few times a week for a few months before getting a methylphenidate prescription for ADD. There hasn’t been any noticeable dependency, but I haven’t had that with other drugs either.
Using it, I feel more focused and more confident, in contrast to caffeine which tends to just leaves me jittery and methyphenidate which is better for focus but doesn’t have the slight positive emotion boost. Delivered via gum, the half-life is short (an hour at most). That’s not great for a day-to-day stimulant, but it’s useful when I need something at 6pm and methylphenidate would interfere with my sleep. The primary downside is occasional nausea. Now I’m wondering if patches would be longer-lasting and less nausea-inducing.
Gwern noted in his analysis of nicotine that to overcome dependency effects, the user could cycle between different nootropics they use. For example, a three day cycle of nicotine, then caffeine, then modafanil, then repeat and start over with nicotine.
Over the course of several months, I could trial different methods of consuming nicotine, i.e., patches, e-cigarettes, and gum. I would space each of these trials out over the course of several months because I wouldn’t want each of the trials to be spaced too close together, and I wouldn’t want to mess with my body by consuming too much nicotine anyway. As a protection against my subjective experience being useless, I would read more of Gwern’s reviews on nootropics, and perhaps consult online nootropics communities on their methods for noting how they feel. Their could be trials I could run, or ways of taking notes, which would allow me to make the information gleaned in that regard more useful.