A History of the smart-drug Modafinil

Modafinil is a wake-promoting drug that is currently the most popular sleep medicine worldwide. It was first created in 1974 by the French neurophysiologist Michel Jouvet and was initially regarded as a sedative because the mice it was originally tested on were so quiet and did not move much after receiving the drug. It wasn’t until the early 80s that it was tested on a cat who stayed up for an entire night at which point a series of basic tests were done to define the pharmacological profile of Modafinil.

-Initial Pharmacological Investigations of Modafinil

Modafinil served as the inspiration for the fictional drug NZT featured in the movie “Limitless” starring Bradly Cooper. Modafinil has been prescribed in France since 1994 under the name Modiodal, and in the US since 1998 as Provigil. Modafinil is an oral wake-advancing specialist, first endorsed in December 1998 for the treatment of excessive sleepiness. Modafinil is a one-of-a-kind wake-advancing prescription drug and has gained in popularity steadily ever since it was first prescribed to the point where now it is used by the military, student, athletes, truck drives, business people and many more.

First being endorsed in the US by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 for Excessive sleepiness for treatment with narcolepsy. Modafinil is promoted in the United States by a company known as Cephalon, who initially rented the rights from the French company Lafon, however in the end bought the entire organization in 2001. In 2007 Modafinil sales made up 1/3^rd of Cephalon’s total profit topping 600 million with about 90% of use expected to be off label.

-Mechanism of action

Modafinil works by invigorating action inside the central nervous system, i.e. the cerebrum and spinal line. The mechanisms are still mostly unknown as it is very complex, affecting multiple neurotransmitter systems. It took a while to gain a basic understanding of how modafinil behaves but now it has become one of the most popular cognitive enhancing drugs by helping sleepiness and promoting wakefulness. It works in a similar way to amphetamines but with much less side effects.

-Modafinil gets used by the military

Militaries all over the world have used different types of amphetamines for specific endurance missions or to improve performance in other situations ever since World War 2. As of 2012 the US air force switched to Modafinil as the only “go pill” approved from these same types of long performance missions. They no longer use amphetamines and now only use modafinil because of the lesser side effects but still the extended wakefulness promoting properties calling it a “super drug”.

-Modafinil side effects

There are some side effects to Modafinil. The main side effects of this drug is irritability, anxiety, quickened heart rate, hypertension, and disturbances of nocturnal sleep. A typical symptom of the medication is migraine, normally identified with portion size, which happens in up to 5 percent of patients. It was the world’s first “safe smart drug”. Researchers of Harvard and Oxford universities who suggested its effects were low risk when taken temporarily. But side effects can include insomnia, headaches and potentially dangerous skin rashes.

Modafinil manufactured by different pharmaceutical companies. Provigil, Alertec, Modavigil, Modalert, Modiodal, Modafinilo, Carim, Vigia all these are brands of Modafinil. It carries many side effects and hence it should be taken only on advice from a registered medical practitioner. Modafinil is an analeptic drug, approved for the treatment of narcolepsy and used primarily to promote wakefulness, but it has gained increasing popularity as a cognition-enhancing agent in patients as well as casual users.

The mechanism of action of modafinil is complex, involving multiple neurotransmitter systems. The effects of modafinil on learning are positive in MA-dependent individuals, as compared with healthy adults who do not abuse MA. 

-Modafinil gets used by students and athletes

For students the trend has been the same as in the military and it is now prized over amthamines for the all-night study sessions so many college students engage in. For gym enthusiasts Modafinil is used to increase motivation and length of training. It is banned in most body building competitions but its use has steadily increased in non-professional athletes where now there seems to be some sort of sleep disorder pandemic taking place in professional athletes which is certainly just an excuse to get a prescription.

In 2003 a sprinter Kelli White was stripped of two of her medals for testing positive for modafinil. At the time Modafinil was not specifically banned but the board claimed that it fell under the umbrella phrase of “related substances” for stimulants. Thereafter it has been prohibited from all major sports.

The guideline of modafinil as a doping specialist has been disputable in the sporting world, with prominent cases drawing in press inclusion since a few unmistakable American competitors have tested positive for the substance. A few competitors who were found to have utilized modafinil fought that the medication was not on the precluded list at the hour of their offenses. In any case, the World Anti-Doping Agency keeps up that it was identified with effectively prohibited substances. The Agency added modafinil to its rundown of precluded substances on August 3, 2004, ten days before the beginning of the 2004 Summer Olympics.

-Trusted vendors of Modafinil

Only until recently has Modafinil been able to be sold online and in the past most users would have to go to the dark web in order to find some. Today you can find Modafinil at ModafinilXL.com as well as Buymoda.org. We recommend ModafinilXL.com because they have slightly better pricing as well as a discreet shipping method as well as their return policy. No one in a western country has ever been charged with the illegal possession of Modafinil and for this reason and others we call Modafinil the safest smart drug on the market.

-Conclusion

In addition to modafinil showing potent effects on the sleep/wake system, it is clear that modafinil has noteworthy neuroprotective effects as well that involve some sort of antioxidative process. While these effects may be coincidental to modafinil’s wake-promoting effects, the role of the ATP breakdown product adenosine in homeostatic sleep regulation is at least suggestive that modafinil’s neuroprotective effects are not irrelevant to the consideration of modafinil’s wake-promoting effects. Because the primary site of action of modafinil’s antioxidant effects remains elusive, we discuss some possible targets for future investigation here.

Modafinil has become a first-line wake-promoting medication and a useful therapeutic alternative to psychostimulant medications for excessive daytime sleepiness. In several trials for narcolepsy, modafinil decreased daytime sleepiness without affecting night-time sleepiness, and when tested for shift-work sleep disorder, it increased sleep latency during night-time shifts.

This Summer

Life update

I started out this summer living in a car in Portland. Now I find myself living in an RV in Minneapolis. So much more than a simple housing upgrade and a move went down this summer, which is something I would like to touch on here as briefly as I can in this blog post.

There seem to be three phases to any adventure. The first is the preparation and work phase which is usually the one that is hardest to do. This was what my time in Portland was like. Working two jobs so that I could afford to travel south. Good times playing hacky sack at a boring ass job, and then weekends on the tricycle delivering people to their destinations. Even though my entire life was dedicated to exploration, I still wish I had more time to explore. It was only a few months spent in Portland before I left for the next phase of my adventure.

By proceeding through the work phase it’s time for the next part of the adventure which is the action phase. My action part of the adventure got jump-started when an old friend called and asked if I wanted to ride the tricycle at a festival in Kentucky. I had about two days to make a decision on if I wanted to go or not but it only took me about 5 seconds to make up my mind. I picked up a few grams of DMT (real shit), shaved my head, and jumped on a plane within a day. Upon getting to Kentucky I realized that the festival that we had been talking about was actually the Kentucky Derby. I joined a team of pedicab drivers and we road in Louisville Kentucky for three days before law enforcement ticketed half of us and then kicked the rest of us out. There is a decent video of the entire event that I posted to youtube that you can find here.

Needless to say, we were pissed but had to pack up and head back west. To save money I hitched a ride with the pedicab guys (who were all from Utah) and spent most of the trip west in a hammock in the back of a box truck. About halfway there I realized that I had a potential RV waiting for me in Denver so I got off in Wyoming and hitched my way south. The RV was promised to me from a friend of mine who turned out to not be the most reliable of persons. To be honest, I knew this going into the friendship but stuck with it because I thought there was a chance that he might pull through. All and all, his friendship proved valuable insight into how poorly some people are put together. The fact that he never came through with the RV was the least bit of troubles. I am talking about a man who makes a good bit of money from selling prescription drugs that he get prescribed from a sketchy doctor. Never coming through on promises is something he would compensate for by making promises with more grandeur. All of these negative attributes were things that I could bear. He was funny and pleasant to hang around and for sure had a positive business input, even if his commitment was only half as strong as his word. Shortly after my time in Denver, he died of a drug overdose which is something I can never forgive him for. All that I put into building a relationship with him is now good for nothing other than to teach me to look for the red flags in people and to take action on not letting some into my life.

Flying out of Denver and landing in Seattle, I got back into my Subaru and headed south where I was to ride EDC in Vegas. I had about a month before I needed to be in Nevada and so decided to take my time going down the cost. I stopped in Pacific City to visit with a friend I had made working on the mountain. I was just looking to stop by for a night or two but when it turned out to be a hippy playground paradise home, I ended up staying for 3 nights. We had bonfires in the woods, kayaking in the ocean, surfing, bow& arrows + guns, some of us tripped our nuts off, and I even got a tattoo. After all of this, I continued to make my way south.

The rest of my trip went quickly before I landed in Vegas. I spent a few days in San Francisco but didn’t find much to do other than walk for miles all over the city. Got all the good tourist things in and made friends with a few people that walk the streets. On my way out I tried to climb half-dome in Yosemite National Park but learned that you need to apply for a permit in order to climb, and there is no car camping allowed in the park. Park security walked up on my car right after I got done smoking a bowl to myself at sundown. I had to wiggle my way out of getting a ticket and possibly searched and then quickly left the park just so that I could get a few hours closer to Vegas.

Upon arriving in Vegas I headed straight to the pedicab garage where I was able to rent a bike a ride the town. One of my favorite places to be in this world is on a bike in a strange place. The click of the mind that says “where the fuck am I and how do I figure this out?” has got to be one of the best experiences of my life. When the sun goes down Vegas becomes a lucrative place to anyone that is working a job. It’s all about strip clubs and dispensaries when on the bike. The days are hot and there is no underground because of the hard desert ground. I spent my days in delirium and my nights exploring and exploiting the town. It was a good warmup for EDC.

For anyone that has not heard of the Electric Daisy Carnival before, its a “festival” but better named as a rave. The largest rave in America. Half a million people show up for a 5-day event and I was seated on the nicest pedicab I have ever road. Two fat lithium-ion batteries were stored under the seat. With the push of the throttle, you could have that thing going 25+ mph in less than 10 seconds. The line of cars to get into to EDC camping stretched for miles. I spent the first hours of the festival driving through car lines looking for people that had too much to carry and needed a lift. I have never met a customer population so ready to spend money. Considering the ticket price was $500+ and the price to camp was more than double that, it should not have been such a surprise.

There are two big factors that go into how much money you make pedicabing EDC. They are how hard you work, and how smart you work. The working hard factor comes about by not sitting in lines. There are times in the city when sitting in a line is most likely the best course of action as it will get you quality rides quickly. At EDC there are so many sales opportunities that your best bet is to get on the hunt and to always be on the hunt. I don’t believe that in the entirety of the festival that it ever took me longer than 10 minutes to find new passengers. The other factor to working hard is sleep. Think about it like this; at any given hour of the day there is $100 potential dollars that can be made. How can you rationalize sleep when there is that type of money out here? The fact is that you need to sleep however and so the trick is to sleep as little as possible. The Uberman sleep cycle is a method for humans to get a little sleep as possible while still being able to function normally. It involves sleep for 20 min naps spaced evenly six times throughout the day. It wasn’t super intentional that I got on to something of this style of sleep but it happened none-the-less. I was also doing some experimentation with a nootropic I had just ordered called “aniracetam” which helps specifically with boosting your mind out of low performance into high performance. All of this hard work was paying bank and I continued to get more hardcore with my routine the further into the festival I got. I even stopped eating all junk food because of how much immediate monetary benefit I got from eating healthy. The second part and the much more valuable part is working smart. By this, I mean supply and demand. As I said earlier, I did not go more than 10 minutes without finding new customers but the average for finding new customers was more like less than 1 minute with a peak time new customer rating of just seconds. At first, I charged a normal city fair of $2 a block. Soon I realized that I wanted to have a good amount of people literally disgusted that I would ask so much. I would ask for the heavens and if I got rejected it would only take me moments to find another potential fair. This little trick made me thousands of dollars over the 5-day event.

The last night of EDC I worked until well after the sun came up The guy I rented my bike from came to get what was his late in the afternoon. I remember stumbling to help him lift the bike into the back of his truck, I then crawled by into the comfort of my Subaru and passed out so hard I did not notice the desert heat for even a moment.

EDC was the highlight of my summer. With the money I made I was able to pay off the last of my cc debt and go to another festival in southern California- Lightning in a bottle where I was able to send more than a few people on a DMT trip of a lifetime. After LIB I moved back to Denver where I rented a spot in Cap-Hill, continued to work pedicabs, and opened up my own business generating and selling leads door-to-door for a few different companies. Tree trimming and roofing were my bread and butter. A hailstorm hit pushing my life, for the first time, into economic prosperity. I bought a motorcycle and a motorhome and moved back home to Minnesota where I do most of the same thing but now with old friends. I road pedicabs at the Sturgis motorcycle rally and was even able to fit another festival in called Shangri-la (best festival ever). I now find myself wearing a flannel and looking out the library window at falling leaves in a chilled Minneapolis downtown. It has been a wonderful summer. The greatest summer.

The third part of any adventure is the post-trip recuperation time. It’s a time that I often become introverted and sometimes madly depressed. It can be hard to accept that in the end there you are and for all the changes that you feel that you have gone through, once again you find yourself back at your baseline, back in boredom. For me, it sometimes takes a long time to pick myself up and get back into preparation build mode but in the end, there is nothing else I can do. With every trip I get better and the past few months in MN I have been able to release myself from the post-trip depression faster than ever and have started to prepare for the next adventure.

In less than a month I will head into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where I will start my season as a Ski/board-instructor at Vail Resorts. This life would be something of a dream to me many years ago but now I am growing accustomed to it. I often feel scared and nervous but now, my excitement far suppresses any negative emotions that might prevent me from moving forward. The fun doesn’t stop there and already I am ready for the next adventure to come.

Much love,

-Chris

Lions Mane- For Your Health

With all the different new supplements and smart drugs popping up on the market nowadays it can be hard to decipher which are legit and which are trying to capitalize on the new fad. Well I have some good news for you. Lion’s Mane has been tested by science and this is what they have found out.

#1- Memory, Focus, and Concentration

Lion’s Mane is a neuropeptide which is something that help support neurons in your brain which is what helps your brain process and transmit information. There is scientific literature that points to the fact that Lion’s Mane take for 4 weeks can help photographic memory. It can also do wonders for anyone that has cognitive impairment and needs to get back to baseline.

#2- Reduces depression and anxiety

Studies have shown that Lion’s Mane can reduce depression and anxiety just as effectively as leading pharmaceutical manufactured drugs but without many of the undesirable consequences which means that it can be a great alternative for anyone that is suffering from the unwanted side effects from pharmaceuticals.

#3- Increase in Energy

Many people claim that mushroom energy is much more stable compared to the energy that comes from say, coffee. Lion’s Mane natural is packed with antioxidants that help with cell growth and intra cellular energy exchange. It has also been shown to slow the buildup of lactic acid and can be used by athletes for performance.

#4- Keeps the brain Healthy

The reason Lions Mane keeps the brain healthy is because it has been proven to increase NGF (Nerve Growth Factor), which is just what the brain needs to save itself from damage. Lions Mane has also been shown to regenerate damaged brain cells which means its great for people with degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

#5- Supports gut and cardiovascular health

Like most fungus, Lions Mane has many antibacterial properties that will protect the stomach from different infections including; inflammatory bowel syndrome, Crones, and leaky gut.

Lions Mane can be found outdoor in North America and Asia. Popular dishes involve cooking the fungus in butter. If you can not or do not wish to find wild Lions Mane then you can order some online as a dietary supplement.