A particularly noteworthy issue is the difficulty of applying such a technique to one’s own actions, a problem which I believe has a fairly large number of workable solutions.
I have had success working around ‘Ugh’ reactions to various activities. I took the direct approach. I (intermittently) use nicotine lozenges as a stimulant while exercising. Apart from boosting physical performance and motivation it also happens to be the most potent substance I am aware of for increasing habit formation in the brain.
Perhaps more important than the, you know, chemical sledge hammer, is the fact that the process of training myself in that way brings up “anti-Ugh” associations. I love optimisation in general and self improvement in particular. I am also fascinated by pharmacology and instinctively ‘cheeky’. Having never even considered smoking a cigarette and yet using the disreputable substance ‘nicotine’ in a way that can be expected to have improvements to my health and well-being is exactly the sort of thing I know my brain loves doing.
I have had success working around ‘Ugh’ reactions to various activities. I took the direct approach. I (intermittently) use nicotine lozenges as a stimulant while exercising. Apart from boosting physical performance and motivation it also happens to be the most potent substance I am aware of for increasing habit formation in the brain.
I like this idea, and might even adopt it myself. But I feel I should emphasize, for anyone who considers adopting this strategy, that it absolutely requires proper bookkeeping, a predetermined rate limit, and predetermined blackout periods. The rate limit protects you if a change in schedule increases the chem-reward frequency by too much. The blackout periods ensure you’ll find out if any sort of dependency forms.
Respect for the process is important, and ‘proper bookkeeping’ sounds like a good theory but I know that this suggestion would ‘absolutely’ make the process counterproductive. Trying this would utterly destroy my exercise programming rather than helping it. Ugh! The opposite of what would work.
Cycling (drugs, especially stimulating ones) is important, both to prevent withdrawal effects and to ensure continued usefulness. But I’ve learned that it is best to do things in a way that works for me.
How about if it were handled by a button in your phone’s UI, which would log the event, roll dice to determine whether you get the reinforcement that time, and enforce rate limits automatically?
That is something I would do. In fact, by preference I would spend a day coding it up instead of two hours in aggregate manually bookkeeping. “Flow” vs “Ugh”!
I should note that the role nicotine lozenges are taking here is not primarily as a training reward, like giving the rat electronically stimulated orgasms when it presses the lever. Nicotine isn’t particularly strong in that role compared to alternatives (such as abusing ritalin), at least when it is not administered by a massive hit straight into the brain via the lungs. No, the particular potency of nicotine is that it potentates the formation of habits for activities undertaken while under the influence by means more fundamental than a ‘mere’ stimulus-reward mechanism. Habits that are found to be harder to extinct than an impulse to take a drug. This is what makes smoking so notoriously hard to quit even with patches and makes the use of fake cigarettes to suck on useful.
In a different thread I’ve been discussing nootropics that enhance learning via the acetylcholine system. Half of those acetylcholine receptors are called nAChRs (Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors). This is not a coincidence.
The other fascinating (to me) fact regarding nicotine is that it has the opposite effect on the sensitivity of the brain’s reward mechanism than other stimulatory drugs of abuse. Where abusing meth, cocaine or coffee will make all rewards you experience in life less salient when you stop medicating, the reverse occurs with nicotine. The systems get downregulated but that mechanism is itself countered with the addition of more receptors leaving a net boost. This means that if you stop using nicotine food starts to taste really good (and you may gain weight!)
How long do you have to do it for before that becomes noticeable?
I have never noticed myself gaining weight, I have noticed food tasting great! In regards to weight gain I can only refer to the experiences of those who quit smoking, although even then the process of quitting smoking provokes all sorts of other complications.
I can say that if you use ritalin every day for one month then stop you can expect everything to seem somewhat dull for a week, like the contrast has been turned down. With nicotine you can approximately expect the reverse. I cannot tell you whether that is good or bad for you in particular.
Pardon me, that was what I was getting at with the ‘dull’ and the reverse. It applies to all your senses and taste is perhaps the most obvious of those. You could try three days then one day off. That usually makes things taste good. But to be honest I’m not sure that would be the counter-regulation of dopaminargic receptors. It’s probably just being hungry after a few days of stimulant based appetite suppression.
To expect to experience significant withdrawal effects after one month you would need to be using it most days. Within-week cycling slows that down.
I find this to be an intriguing idea, especially having had a lot of difficulty maintaining any kind of exercise regime in the past. Can you explain in more detail the kind of bookkeeping required, and also the effects you personally feel as a result of having developed the habit of exercising?
I find this to be an intriguing idea, especially having had a lot of difficulty maintaining any kind of exercise regime in the past. Can you explain in more detail the kind of bookkeeping required, and also the effects you personally feel as a result of having developed the habit of exercising?
I am not the best person to ask. I’ve always been a health nut and I’ve spent years at a time training for marathons (ie. addicted to running), doing various martial arts and soccer. What I was doing was reforming a running habit after letting it slide in favour of being a gym junkie with some mates. Once I got used to associating exercise with socialization it was amazingly hard to get back into the solo running habit. This is even though I know the time alone in a state of flow, with all the hormones associated with intense cardio, is extremely important to me. It is great for stress relief and gives my brain a chance to think things through, solve problem and occasionally write code in my head.
It would be very cool to read a series of top level posts about this experience. Perhaps...
The first would give the basic idea, plus a set of warnings and provisos as to who might be seriously hurt by trying to replicate your results and general cautions . Perhaps you could create a sub area in the comments for other people to suggestion reasons for caution to be voted up and down?
The second post would give some background theory as to why the general approach should be expected to work, possibly with some links to some psycho-pharmacology and so on. Also useful would be to suggest a way to measure success and/or detect negative side effects—possibly with a logging system like this?
Finally, you provide practical instructions about how to “build a habit” in terms of habit design, and what to take, and when with an explanation of benefits and any side effects or worries that you were harboring on the side.
I think that would be enough for a brave soul or two (who was not likely to boomerang into a bad situation, like falling back into a smoking habit) to try to replicate your success in a documentable and relatively safe way, to see if they got similar benefits.
It would be hilarious (and almost plausible) if, five years from now, one of the primary reasons people gave for not smoking was because it interfered with their use of the “wedrifid method” for nicotine assisted positive habit formation :-)
I like your thoughts! Particluarly that part about the ’wedrifid method”. A place where posts somewhat like what you mention are commonplace is imminst.org.
Before I got into anything quite so experimental I would probably want to post on some basics. There is some real low hanging fruit out there!
I don’t know if you’ve written anything in the last ~year since (pretty sure you haven’t), so I’ve started compiling information at http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine
I would like to second patrissimo in a way more concrete than merely upvoting you. Have you made any progress on this?
The idea of using something as powerful as nicotine both terrifies and tempts me, and I’m not sure I’d want to try it without considerable documentation.
Without condoning or condemning I’d like to point out that there seems to be some mental accounting here, which is to say that the possible harm of nicotine is easily justified by confining it to the health bucket—it’s outweighed by the health benefits supposedly obtained. Would you be willing to go outside the health bucket and apply the same technique to paying bills (which incidentally is the ultimate Ugh field for most people) or studying? I understand this is a personal choice of sorts, just curious about your thinking.
I’d like to point out that there seems to be some mental accounting here, which is to say that the possible harm of nicotine is easily justified by confining it to the health bucket—it’s outweighed by the health benefits supposedly obtained.
I’ll add that the primary reasons that I happen to have a supply of nicotine patches and lozenges are in the other benefits that it can supply if used carefully (and, in particular, with cycling). The biggest downsides to nicotine can be associated with the usual delivery mechanism. There are other downsides too, which are mostly those that come with stimulants (vasoconstriction, increased blood pressure). These are things that can be managed and balanced. There are positive studies on the effectiveness of nicotine in treating conditions like ADHD, with drastic improvements in focus and motivation. I do not swear by it but it is something I keep in my arsenal.
Would you be willing to go outside the health bucket and apply the same technique to paying bills (which incidentally is the ultimate Ugh field for most people)
Bills are not a problem for me. I get them, I click a few buttons on my computer and they are gone. I don’t think nicotine (via this delivery mechanism) would be especially effective for bill paying unless you think of a way to form the process into a habit or ritual that nicotine can enhance the learning of. I suppose you could use the direct reinforcement mechanism if you delivered nicotine via gum or via an inhalant form.
or studying? I understand this is a personal choice of sorts, just curious about your thinking.
Absolutely. And I do use nicotine for studying at times (usually patches that I have cut into the desired dose). Partly for learning mental habits and partly for enhanced focus and motivation without the agitation that comes (with methamphetamine (at least, for me). Again, I don’t swear by it but it works.
Is the dosing based on experience or did you invest into some basic pharmacology studies?
Basic pharmacology studies, case studies from like minded individuals and personal experience. (If the dose is too great cut it into smaller pieces next time.)
Also, what’s your criteria for patch vs. lozenge?
Do you want to do something specific that lasts 3-5 hours or do you want stable benefits to motivation and focus over a day? You can approximately consider total dose to be a limited resource, based on cycling to prevent dependency and reduced effects.
I (intermittently) use nicotine lozenges as a stimulant while exercising.
I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever been an addicted cigarette smoker before? For those of us who have I suspect the risks of a total relapse to smoking (as opposed to other delivery methods) would be too great. I can image it could be effective though.
I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever been an addicted cigarette smoker before?
I have never smoked a cigarette. Nor have I ever had a remote tendency towards addiction to any substance. That is even one of the reasons I gave when describing why this is an effective technique for me personally. I am more at risk of becoming addicted to discussing substances on the internet than the substances themselves.
For those of us who have I suspect the risks of a total relapse to smoking (as opposed to other delivery methods) would be too great. I can image it could be effective though.
Absolutely. The habit of smoking is ingrained for life, that particular power of nicotine over memory at work. And I’m not talking about the habit of getting yourself a nicotine fix. It is a habit of physically getting a cigarette, lighting it, putting it in your mouth and sucking on it. Adding a nicotine trigger back into that would be absolutely insane.
I have had success working around ‘Ugh’ reactions to various activities. I took the direct approach. I (intermittently) use nicotine lozenges as a stimulant while exercising. Apart from boosting physical performance and motivation it also happens to be the most potent substance I am aware of for increasing habit formation in the brain.
Perhaps more important than the, you know, chemical sledge hammer, is the fact that the process of training myself in that way brings up “anti-Ugh” associations. I love optimisation in general and self improvement in particular. I am also fascinated by pharmacology and instinctively ‘cheeky’. Having never even considered smoking a cigarette and yet using the disreputable substance ‘nicotine’ in a way that can be expected to have improvements to my health and well-being is exactly the sort of thing I know my brain loves doing.
I like this idea, and might even adopt it myself. But I feel I should emphasize, for anyone who considers adopting this strategy, that it absolutely requires proper bookkeeping, a predetermined rate limit, and predetermined blackout periods. The rate limit protects you if a change in schedule increases the chem-reward frequency by too much. The blackout periods ensure you’ll find out if any sort of dependency forms.
Respect for the process is important, and ‘proper bookkeeping’ sounds like a good theory but I know that this suggestion would ‘absolutely’ make the process counterproductive. Trying this would utterly destroy my exercise programming rather than helping it. Ugh! The opposite of what would work.
Cycling (drugs, especially stimulating ones) is important, both to prevent withdrawal effects and to ensure continued usefulness. But I’ve learned that it is best to do things in a way that works for me.
How about if it were handled by a button in your phone’s UI, which would log the event, roll dice to determine whether you get the reinforcement that time, and enforce rate limits automatically?
That is something I would do. In fact, by preference I would spend a day coding it up instead of two hours in aggregate manually bookkeeping. “Flow” vs “Ugh”!
I should note that the role nicotine lozenges are taking here is not primarily as a training reward, like giving the rat electronically stimulated orgasms when it presses the lever. Nicotine isn’t particularly strong in that role compared to alternatives (such as abusing ritalin), at least when it is not administered by a massive hit straight into the brain via the lungs. No, the particular potency of nicotine is that it potentates the formation of habits for activities undertaken while under the influence by means more fundamental than a ‘mere’ stimulus-reward mechanism. Habits that are found to be harder to extinct than an impulse to take a drug. This is what makes smoking so notoriously hard to quit even with patches and makes the use of fake cigarettes to suck on useful.
In a different thread I’ve been discussing nootropics that enhance learning via the acetylcholine system. Half of those acetylcholine receptors are called nAChRs (Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors). This is not a coincidence.
The other fascinating (to me) fact regarding nicotine is that it has the opposite effect on the sensitivity of the brain’s reward mechanism than other stimulatory drugs of abuse. Where abusing meth, cocaine or coffee will make all rewards you experience in life less salient when you stop medicating, the reverse occurs with nicotine. The systems get downregulated but that mechanism is itself countered with the addition of more receptors leaving a net boost. This means that if you stop using nicotine food starts to taste really good (and you may gain weight!)
How long do you have to do it for before that becomes noticeable?
I have never noticed myself gaining weight, I have noticed food tasting great! In regards to weight gain I can only refer to the experiences of those who quit smoking, although even then the process of quitting smoking provokes all sorts of other complications.
I can say that if you use ritalin every day for one month then stop you can expect everything to seem somewhat dull for a week, like the contrast has been turned down. With nicotine you can approximately expect the reverse. I cannot tell you whether that is good or bad for you in particular.
I was more interested in the food tasting really good part.
How often during that month would you have to use it to get that kind of response, in your experience?
Pardon me, that was what I was getting at with the ‘dull’ and the reverse. It applies to all your senses and taste is perhaps the most obvious of those. You could try three days then one day off. That usually makes things taste good. But to be honest I’m not sure that would be the counter-regulation of dopaminargic receptors. It’s probably just being hungry after a few days of stimulant based appetite suppression.
To expect to experience significant withdrawal effects after one month you would need to be using it most days. Within-week cycling slows that down.
I find this to be an intriguing idea, especially having had a lot of difficulty maintaining any kind of exercise regime in the past. Can you explain in more detail the kind of bookkeeping required, and also the effects you personally feel as a result of having developed the habit of exercising?
I am not the best person to ask. I’ve always been a health nut and I’ve spent years at a time training for marathons (ie. addicted to running), doing various martial arts and soccer. What I was doing was reforming a running habit after letting it slide in favour of being a gym junkie with some mates. Once I got used to associating exercise with socialization it was amazingly hard to get back into the solo running habit. This is even though I know the time alone in a state of flow, with all the hormones associated with intense cardio, is extremely important to me. It is great for stress relief and gives my brain a chance to think things through, solve problem and occasionally write code in my head.
It would be very cool to read a series of top level posts about this experience. Perhaps...
The first would give the basic idea, plus a set of warnings and provisos as to who might be seriously hurt by trying to replicate your results and general cautions . Perhaps you could create a sub area in the comments for other people to suggestion reasons for caution to be voted up and down?
The second post would give some background theory as to why the general approach should be expected to work, possibly with some links to some psycho-pharmacology and so on. Also useful would be to suggest a way to measure success and/or detect negative side effects—possibly with a logging system like this?
Finally, you provide practical instructions about how to “build a habit” in terms of habit design, and what to take, and when with an explanation of benefits and any side effects or worries that you were harboring on the side.
I think that would be enough for a brave soul or two (who was not likely to boomerang into a bad situation, like falling back into a smoking habit) to try to replicate your success in a documentable and relatively safe way, to see if they got similar benefits.
It would be hilarious (and almost plausible) if, five years from now, one of the primary reasons people gave for not smoking was because it interfered with their use of the “wedrifid method” for nicotine assisted positive habit formation :-)
I like your thoughts! Particluarly that part about the ’wedrifid method”. A place where posts somewhat like what you mention are commonplace is imminst.org.
Before I got into anything quite so experimental I would probably want to post on some basics. There is some real low hanging fruit out there!
Please do! I would be very interested in a series on “use of chemicals to increase willpower”. I would even contribute...
I don’t know if you’ve written anything in the last ~year since (pretty sure you haven’t), so I’ve started compiling information at http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine
I would like to second patrissimo in a way more concrete than merely upvoting you. Have you made any progress on this?
The idea of using something as powerful as nicotine both terrifies and tempts me, and I’m not sure I’d want to try it without considerable documentation.
Without condoning or condemning I’d like to point out that there seems to be some mental accounting here, which is to say that the possible harm of nicotine is easily justified by confining it to the health bucket—it’s outweighed by the health benefits supposedly obtained. Would you be willing to go outside the health bucket and apply the same technique to paying bills (which incidentally is the ultimate Ugh field for most people) or studying? I understand this is a personal choice of sorts, just curious about your thinking.
Good questions.
I’ll add that the primary reasons that I happen to have a supply of nicotine patches and lozenges are in the other benefits that it can supply if used carefully (and, in particular, with cycling). The biggest downsides to nicotine can be associated with the usual delivery mechanism. There are other downsides too, which are mostly those that come with stimulants (vasoconstriction, increased blood pressure). These are things that can be managed and balanced. There are positive studies on the effectiveness of nicotine in treating conditions like ADHD, with drastic improvements in focus and motivation. I do not swear by it but it is something I keep in my arsenal.
Bills are not a problem for me. I get them, I click a few buttons on my computer and they are gone. I don’t think nicotine (via this delivery mechanism) would be especially effective for bill paying unless you think of a way to form the process into a habit or ritual that nicotine can enhance the learning of. I suppose you could use the direct reinforcement mechanism if you delivered nicotine via gum or via an inhalant form.
Absolutely. And I do use nicotine for studying at times (usually patches that I have cut into the desired dose). Partly for learning mental habits and partly for enhanced focus and motivation without the agitation that comes (with methamphetamine (at least, for me). Again, I don’t swear by it but it works.
Is the dosing based on experience or did you invest into some basic pharmacology studies? Also, what’s your criteria for patch vs. lozenge?
Basic pharmacology studies, case studies from like minded individuals and personal experience. (If the dose is too great cut it into smaller pieces next time.)
Do you want to do something specific that lasts 3-5 hours or do you want stable benefits to motivation and focus over a day? You can approximately consider total dose to be a limited resource, based on cycling to prevent dependency and reduced effects.
I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever been an addicted cigarette smoker before? For those of us who have I suspect the risks of a total relapse to smoking (as opposed to other delivery methods) would be too great. I can image it could be effective though.
I have never smoked a cigarette. Nor have I ever had a remote tendency towards addiction to any substance. That is even one of the reasons I gave when describing why this is an effective technique for me personally. I am more at risk of becoming addicted to discussing substances on the internet than the substances themselves.
Absolutely. The habit of smoking is ingrained for life, that particular power of nicotine over memory at work. And I’m not talking about the habit of getting yourself a nicotine fix. It is a habit of physically getting a cigarette, lighting it, putting it in your mouth and sucking on it. Adding a nicotine trigger back into that would be absolutely insane.