Prepping for an Uncertain Future with Nootropics
| By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
Here’s something unsettling to consider...
We’ve all enjoyed movies like Deep Impact or Armageddon where an asteroid or comet crosses paths in this entropic universe with our civilization. A few nerds in a laboratory get an alarmingly large bleep on their cosmic monitoring dashboard of an incoming threat and an all-star team of expert scientists, engineers, and astronauts fly into action and blast off into space to save the planet.
While the threat portrayed in these movies is very real, the response and preparation measures are non-existent. In 2013, a panel of experts reported to the United States Congress that it would take at least five years to launch the kind of asteroid intercept mission we’ve seen on the silver screen repeatedly. While NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies has a very nice website, they only received a measly $50 million in funding out of NASA’s $20 billion 2018 budget!
In my view, preventing Armageddon is the one thing NASA should be doing, this ten-figure misallocation of resources profoundly underlies the inevitability of catastrophe. It could be an errant asteroid that sends giant tsunamis crashing over populated continents and cities. It could be political forces inflaming the most violent of our primal instincts. It could be something as mundane as a stock market crash and economic downturn. It could be any one of a hundred things. The only certain thing is future catastrophe, winter is coming...
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No matter how much gold (or lead) you might have stocked in preparation, you (and maybe those close to you) will fail to survive catastrophe if you are not biologically prepared - if your neurobiology is not resilient.
I’ll bring some performance-enhancing Nootropics and immuno-fortifying supplements and biohacks to your attention.
Modafinil
One of the Nootropics that I recommend highest to preppers is the powerful vigilance agent Modafinil which I carry with me at almost all times and certainly when I’m traveling. This is a hardcore quintessential smart drug that enhances cognition, and motivation, and makes you very awake and alert. If I had to trek through a hostile urban environment or drive 15 hours to safety, Modafinil is the pharmaceutical I’d want in my bloodstream. It’s used by air forces and militaries around the world, a study of ten F-117 Stealth Fighter pilots impressively found that it attenuated flight performance for up to 37 hours of continuous wakefulness. The pharmacological purpose of Modafinil is anti-narcoleptic but biohackers and entrepreneurs use it as a cognitive enhancer to work smarter, harder, and longer.
Its advertised shelf life is two years, but there’s good reason to believe that if you really needed it, you could use it after storing it for as long as 10 years. If you predict needing enhanced powers of focus and cognition there’s little downside to stocking up on Modafinil.
Adaptogens
This is a category of Nutriceutical herbs that make your biology more resilient and fortify your immune system.
Rhodiola
This reddish Nootropic is one of my all-time favorite biohacking tools for energy, health, stress management, and immunity.
- You’ll notice Rhodiola’s energizing effect about 15 - 30 minutes after dosing, especially if you consume it as a nice tea, in hot water.
- It’s a wakefulness agent that some regard as an herbal alternative to Modafinil, although I don’t think it’s nearly so potent.
Usage and Dosage: 200–400 milligrams daily to optimize immune function, mitigate stress, and keep your mood bright. You can double that if you’re sick or need to stay up for an extended amount of time.
Siberian Ginseng
Or Eleuthero is an earthy-tasting Adaptogen, that seriously fortifies your immune system.
- In the Soviet Union, massive human trials were conducted with Eleuthero, 14,000 soviets that labored at auto factories, and mines were administered Eleuthero, and impressively total disease occurrence decreased by 30% to 50%. Eleuthero has not just been researched in Russia, over 20 clinical trials have been done around the world.
- Eleuthero is a renowned anti-fatigue agent as demonstrated in a 2012 study of military personnel.
Usage and Dosage: I take Siberian Ginseng often, almost daily especially during the winter season to avoid getting sick. If you’re feeling under the weather you can take up to 900 milligrams but a maintenance dose of 250 - 500 milligrams is fine to maintain health.
Can you combine these two? Yes, it tastes great and it’s two-thirds of the potent performance-enhancement cocktail Adapt-232.
Ashwagandha
This ayurvedic herb has been used for thousands of years in traditional Indian medicine.
- A high performer requires high performance stress management tools to recover and recharge which is exactly the purpose Ashwagandha serves. A 2012 double-blind placebo-controlled study of 64 subjects found it improves stress resistance and quality of life.
- Facing the entropic world demands optimal testosterone levels. Stress and testosterone have an inverse relationship; four clinical trials totaling +370 men found that it’s a real testosterone hack.
Usage and Dosage: Several hundred milligrams daily is a great preventative measure for stress management. After a particularly stressful or big day, I’ll up the dosage to two or three grams so I can get some amazing restorative sleep. It’s safe to take at higher doses.
You can likely find these at your local pharmacy but when it comes to herbs purity and organic sourcing is a concern. There’s a big difference between organically produced adaptogens from a credible source, which is verified by spectroscopy with a certificate of analysis and the cheap stuff.
Piracetam
The classic Nootropic smart drug should be in the medicine cabinet of every sapient prepper. It’s a safe, proven, and affordable drug that enhances memory and cognition.
- It has a short-term, almost instantaneous effect on cognition, energy, and motivation.
- It has a long-term effect of improving long-term memory after dosing for 10-14 days.
- It has a well-researched neuroprotective effect in the cases of traumatic brain injuries.
- Anecdotally it’s a marksmanship biohack that improves a shooter's accuracy.
- It’s also a mitochondrial support supplement.
You’ve probably seen chilling documentaries about the scary Colombian devil’s breath drug scopolamine that erases your memory and transforms you into a helpless zombie that just does everything commanded. Piracetam actually blocks scopolamine from working.
Semax
Is a thoroughly researched Nootropic that profoundly empowers the BDNF mechanism of the mind and memory. So long-term administration empowers long-term memory and is a neuroplasticity hack that may enable rapid skill set acquisition.
It also has a notable protective effect:
- It protects against cellular metal toxicity
- It’s demonstrated as neuroprotective against neurotoxins in animal studies
Selank
The notable Semax cofactor. Together they are a potent cognitive performance enhancement peptide cocktail.
B Vitamins
In the event of catastrophe, you may be dealing with excessive air pollution. This is a big problem already in a lot of major cities. In 2017 a joint team of American, Canadian, Swedish, and Chinese researchers conducted a human cross-over study on air pollution's insidiously toxic effect on our genes and mitochondria.
Their initial findings, on what's obviously a huge problem, were that B-Vitamins are a pretty smart idea and protect your DNA from all that nasty pollution doing its damnedest to give you cancer! So stock up on B-Vitamins.
Nuke-Proof Yourself: Resilience to Radiation
As long as rogue nations yield nuclear weapons, there’s good reason to prepare yourself to be resilient to nuclear radiation. Even if the world is lucky enough to never see nukes again used against populations there’s still a significant risk from natural disasters spreading nuclear waste. Several pharmaceuticals could fortify your neurobiology against the next Fukushima disaster...
- Potassium Iodide - These Nuke Pills are Ultra High Dose for Emergency Nuclear Protection. They protect the thyroid gland from radiation and mitigate the resulting risk of thyroid cancer. The CDC recommends Potassium Iodide to men, women, and children to protect themselves from radiation emergency and nuclear events. An adult would want to dose a single 125-milligram tab daily to protect themselves. The health-conscious will want to check and see if the background levels of radiation in their city are high, if you’re in a hot spot it would be smart to take a small dose of potassium iodide (200-300 micrograms) daily along with your vitamins.
- TIMUSAMIN® - This bioregulator fortifies the immune system against radiation damage as demonstrated in a study of 117 patients exposed to the long-term influence of ionizing irradiation.
- ACTOVEGIN® - A five decades-old drug and cognitive enhancer that is recognized by researchers as a radiation protective agent.
Pain Killers
In the event of catastrophe, you’re going to be wishing that you had some painkillers either for yourself, your loved ones, or for total strangers. Effective pain relief may make the difference between being immobilized in a danger zone or being able to hike your way out to safety.
You could stock up on pharmaceutical painkillers like KETANOV®, ARCOXIA®, BACLOSAN®, and CITRAMON P®. But it would also be very smart to have some natural painkillers in your herbal toolbox like...
- Kratom - A cheap, natural (and for many addictive) opioid herb from Southeast Asia is a powerful pain and anxiety reliever. Any opioid addicts in your vicinity will be desperate for this stuff if their drug dealers suddenly go out of business.
- Blue Lotus - This pain-relieving herb helps with muscle spasms and migraines. It also relieves ringing in the ears.
- Kava Kava - This is an intoxicating herb that many use recreationally but it also soothes chronic pain and treats severe insect bites and stings (might be in handy in a zombie apocalypse!)
In your bug-out kit, you would also want to include...
- Some antihistamine sedatives like ATARAX® or TERALIGEN®.
- Anti-diarrhea medication like Imodium and anti-nausea like VALIDOL® or ginger.
- An EpiPen in the event of severe anaphylactic response could save a life.
- Lavender is a great herb for survivalists to stock; it’s a soothing anxiolytic that relieves breathing problems along with asthma and inflammation that can result from pollution and toxins. It also mitigates allergies. Lavender is the active ingredient of Immuno-enhancing Peptide Complex 03.
Motor Control Enhancement
When SHTF (Shit hits the fan) in a natural disaster or breakdown of civil society enhanced motor control might just save your life or allow you to protect your loved ones.
- Modafinil, mentioned above, is a hardcore motor enhancer good enough for soldiers around the world operating multi-million dollar war machines.
- MILDRONATE is a cognitive enhancer that hacks motor recovery and mitigates dizziness.
- Yohimbine HCL® is a hardcore performance enhancer, used by gym bros and sex hackers, that stimulates motor activity. It energizes you by releasing adrenalin, so don’t use it if you don’t need excess adrenaline or have an anxiety issue.
The most important thing to understand is that in a catastrophic event Nootropics, supplements, and medicine are going to become inaccessible (and potentially, very valuable). Shipping infrastructure will grind to a halt, hospitals will be overwhelmed, and pharmacies will be closed or looted and empty. There will be multitudes of hungry, thirsty, angry, injured, or desperate people demanding to be taken care of. Medicinal supplies of things like insulin will suddenly become very valuable.
Especially if you or a loved one regularly need some kind of medicine don’t wait until catastrophe strikes to stock up!
This article originally appeared on RUPharma.com
A recommended source of pharmaceutical-grade sources of many of the Nootropics mentioned here.
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