My Favorite Modafinil Cofactor

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 thinkingYou 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.

There are several different ostensible Modafinil cofactors out there

  • Caffeine
  • Grape Seed Extract
  • L-Theanine
  • Phenylpiracetam
  • Noopept+Choline precursor

I’ve tried all of these, Phenylpiracetam is probably my second favorite but there’s one cofactor of Modafinil that rarely gets mentioned which is uniquely a lifehack.

If you’re well-acquainted with Modafinil you’re well aware that it needs a cofactor because…

  • Modafinil has a steep tolerance curve that you want to mitigate.
  • Modafinil is expensive! You want to get the maximum bang for your buck out of it.

If you want to take your Modafinil game to the next level you owe it to yourself to try this combination...

100 milligrams of Modafinil + 5 milligrams of Nicotine

Nicotine molecule

My favorite Modafinil cofactor is Nicotine! Yes, the addictive stuff that goes in cigarettes! But I don’t smoke cigarettes, I quit successfully several years back actually. A couple of you might be saying…

Isn’t Nicotine like a scary addictive drug that causes cancer?

The truth is that it’s the hundreds of other burning toxic chemicals in cigarettes that you inhale the smoke of that cause cancer! Nicotine in moderation is pretty safe. I’d encourage you to read the recent meta-analysis papers done on Nicotine. They seem to indicate that if you don’t already have cancer or if you’re not at high risk for cancer it’s pretty ok for you to consume Nicotine alone. I’d say it’s at least as safe as Modafinil.

They really complement each other!

Modafinil often makes me way too myopic. If I need to do some creative work, have a social thing to do, or a client call Modafinil puts me in a rigid linear thinking mode where I’m not as creative as I should be. Nicotine balances this out — it is the classic creativity drug!

In a 2008 study, done at Yale University’s School of Medicine, nineteen smokers, participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study.

In each of three experimental sessions, subjects were treated orally with a single 200 mg or 400 milligram dose of modafinil or placebo. Two hours and 10 min following the medication treatment, subjects received a single 2 milligram nicotine lozenge. Both doses of modafinil alone increased the rating of elated-depressed on the Profile of Mood States. subscale in the direction of depressed and increased ratings of negative affect on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS).
In contrast, the 200 mg modafinil dose combined with a 2 mg nicotine lozenge, increased the rating of energetic-tired in the direction of energetic on the POMS subscale. Modafinil attenuated self-reported rating of ‘drug strength’ in response to the nicotine lozenge. Modafinil, alone or in combination with the nicotine lozenge, did not affect tobacco withdrawal symptoms.

Here’s what one researcher has to say about nicotine:

“To my knowledge, nicotine is the most reliable cognitive enhancer that we currently have, bizarrely,” said Jennifer Rusted, professor of experimental psychology at Sussex University in Britain when we spoke. “The cognitive-enhancing effects of nicotine in a normal population are more robust than you get with any other agent. With Provigil, for instance, the evidence for cognitive benefits is nowhere near as strong as it is for nicotine.”

You take some Modafinil and you feel pretty great for about 8–10 hours but then you lose your focus and motivation. It can be kind of annoying because Modafinil has a long half-life, up to 20–22 hours after you take it, it may disturb your sleep. Yet over time, you’re going to develop a tolerance to Modafinil so you’re going to be super focused for 8–10 hours and then you’ve got like 8–10 hours of downtime, where it’s not quite worthwhile to try to get to sleep but you’re not really firing on all cylinders. If you take some Nicotine toward the end of your Modafinil day, you get another 90 minutes of solid productivity and focus.

Armodrafinil

Like today, I woke up quite early around 7 AM, I did 100 milligrams of Armodafinil first thing in the morning. I had a quite productive morning and early afternoon, and when I could tell that I was on the downside of the pharmacologically enabled productivity curve of the day I dosed some nicotine. It pepped me up and I ended up working about 16 hours, I don’t recommend working 16 hours but doing it maybe once a week really stimulates your productivity.

Any Nootropics user has faced this midday dilemma…

You do your Nootropics in the early morning and have a kickass morning but by the early or late afternoon, you can kind of tell that the Nootropics are wearing off. You could do more Nootropics or have ANOTHER coffee but then you know that you’re going to have problems falling asleep. Nicotine has a fast-burning, short half-life, it gives you about 90 minutes of focus and creativity, and then it’s out of your system and you’ll sleep like a baby. So from time to time, I will actually do some Nicotine at like 10 PM.

The real upside of Nicotine is that it’s very affordable — this packet of Nicorette gum that I picked up at a pharmacy but what I recommend is that you pick up a 5%-7% liquid USP solution. It’s under $20 for a 60-90 day supply of Nicotine.

Nicotine GumA much tastier (yet pricier) option is Lucy's organically-flavored 4mg Nicotine gum, This stuff beats the pants off Nicorette in the taste department!

There are some tremendous upsides to Nicotine but I urge moderation. Nicotine is poisonous, if you do too much of it too frequently you will poison yourself. I also urge moderation with Modafinil; I encourage people to not do Modafinil more than like 3–4 times weekly max. If you limit your Nicotine usage similarly you’ll avoid building up much of a tolerance to either. So they really do go together well!

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