Ben Greenfield discusses a range of strategies to enhance creativity and focus, from inexpensive dietary/behavioral hacks (L-theanine paired with coffee, nicotine toothpicks, ketosis-style eating) to commercial nootropic blends (Alpha Brain, Qualia Mind) and personalized stacks (Nootopia). He describes modafinil (Provigil) as a "big gun" smart drug used sparingly (typical 200 mg pill; ~24-hour effect) and warns about tolerance and dopaminergic depletion if overused. He emphasizes moderation, pairing certain racetams (aniracetam) with choline, and preferring well-formulated blends over random underground compounds.
Questions this video answers
About 200 milligrams.
About 24 hours (half a pill ≈ 12 hours).
Provigil (labelled anti-narcoleptic drug).
About $400 for a month's supply (speaker's estimate).
About 100 milligrams paired with a cup of coffee.
Chapters
Every once in a while you need the big guns. You need the, oh, I am in book writing phase. And I'm on deadline three weeks. I'm gonna be sleeping four hours a night and freaking L. Theania. My coffee is not gonna do the trick. Yeah, there's one. And I would consider this to be a smart drug. Okay. You'd only want to use in moderation.
Okay.
To ensure that you don't have. You don't build up tolerance to it.
Okay.
You know, is called Modafinil. Usually a pill of that comes as about 200 milligrams.
Okay.
One pill would give you hyper productivity for about 24 hours.
Got it.
Half a pill, about 12 hours.
Okay.
What you need to realize, though, is that the mechanism of action is that it floods the cell receptors with dopamine and serotonin. So everything feels rewarding, particularly work checklists and TAs.
God gave us all sorts of things on this planet that can be used to enhance our ability to be able to focus and engage in creativity. Including in ancient times, using mortar and pestle and oil extracts and alcohol extracts, et cetera. The ability to be able to concentrate the components of these plants or even synthetically create molecules that are like them to enhance creativity or focus. So coffee would be an example. Green tea would be an example. Nicotine from the tobacco plant would be an example. Like. Like all of these things when used moderately and responsibly and not in a way that would. That would harm your temple. Right. I'm totally fine with like, like chewing.
A piece of nicotine gum. I've heard. I haven't tried. It can. Can help you with creativity, it can.
Help you with creativity, it can help you with focus. And then if you want to get into the nitty gritty of all of that, you could also say, well, for me to be fully present for my family and my congregation, I need to make sure that. That my. My gut and my. My poops and bloating and constipation, all that is in order as well.
Yes.
And so then you just have to make a wise and prudent decision, because most nicotine delivery products are chock full of artificial sweeteners and fermentable compounds and things that would affect the gut. So you got it. So, you know, you got to dig in. And there are some companies, like Lucy for examp, make nicotine gum that has less of the artificial sweeteners in it. You can even import from the Amazon like. Like the. The snortable nicotine compound. Hopping. You can just spray it up your nose and get a similar effect. Okay, so, so yeah, there are, there are workarounds with a lot of this stuff. But to cut straight to the chase, the problem is that you have to know what you're doing because you can drain the brain. Aniracetam you brought up, for example, speeds up the brain like a gas pedal and allows you to just go, go, go is. It also depletes that nutrient that I mentioned is found in walnuts, choline. And so you're driving the car a million miles an hour, you run out of gas in the tank, you crash and you feel crappy. So you would have to pair aniracetam with choline. Right. To be able to actually operate. And so because of that, rather than cowboying your way around random pharmaceutical websites and ordering something because you heard it could enhance creativity, I'm a bigger fan of done for you formulations that are very, very similar to just like over the counter supplements or things you can buy on Amazon that go beyond just like the fringe, like underground biohacking industry stuff that you buy in the dark corners of the Internet. Yeah. So I think some of the better formulated mixes or blends out there and I've got, even though I'm sure that several of these companies have advertised on my podcast in the past, etc. I've got no financial affiliation with with by mentioning any of these. One would be on. It makes one called Alpha Brain.
Yes, I've heard of this.
That one is well formulated. One that I particularly like that I use a lot is called Qualia. Qualia is made by a company called Neurohacker Collective. Okay. And they make a product called Mind. Okay. I like the caffeine free mind mostly because I also like to have a cup of coffee in the morning and I don't like to over caffeinate myself.
Yeah.
So that would be another good done for you. Blend. Um, and then if I could name one more, there's a company and this, this one I'm probably most impressed with. A company called Nootopia. N O O T O P A. Okay. You go to their website, you fill out a questionnaire. Am I easily distracted? Do I struggle with sleep? Do I sleep too much? Do I feel demotivated? Do I feel excessively motivated? It's basically a questionnaire that allows them to determine what your specific neurotransmitter imbalances would be. They then custom design a box. It's not inexpensive. I think it's about $400 or so for a month's supply. Frankly, most of the people I know, including myself, who will get something like that will take closer to two to three months to go through it. Because it's not like I'm popping smart drugs every day. But you know, those more cognitively demanding days.
Yes.
And so Nootopia, Qualia Mind or Alpha Brain would be three examples of supplements that would allow you to get the creativity without risking the idea that you might be depleting something or robbing Peter to pay Paul. And then if you're looking for something that is a little bit friendlier to the pocketbook because supplements are expensive. Sure. The old school writer's friend of cup of coffee and cigarette. Yep, you replicate that with cup of coffee. But what you do, and this is a relatively inexpensive supplement, is you get the supplement called L Theanine.
Okay, yeah, I've heard of this powder.
You can find anywhere. About 100 milligrams paired with a cup of coffee causes the coffee to have a longer slow bleed into the system and L Theanine shifts you into alpha brainwave mode to enhance creativity. Wow. And it's just a cheap hack for a cup of coffee. And yes, even though you wouldn't necessarily want to smoke a cigarette back to the temple.
Yep.
You can use sources of nicotine that wouldn't really have many of the artificial sweeteners or anything in them at all. I think the best one for that is they make nicotine toothpicks. So you can literally have a nicotine toothpick like a cigarette sticking out of your mouth, cup of coffee with a little L Theanine in it, and that's like a dirt cheap hack a lot of people don't know about. That'll get you through hours upon hours of writing. Maybe not as fun and sexy and colorful as some of these pills and stuff. Right. And then the last thing that I would throw in there. Last two things I would throw in there. First of all, from a dietary standpoint, the more you can consume slow burning logs versus fast burning kindling as your fuel, the better. Carbohydrates, starches, processed foods, soft foods, drinkable foods, et cetera. Those would all be fast burning kindling with a steep rise in energy followed by a sharp drop that would best be paired before, during or after a workout. If you're going to use that stuff.
At any time during a state of.
Ketosis accomplished with strategies such as fasting, carbohydrate restriction, higher intake of healthy Mediterranean style fats, putting a little bit of coconut oil or MCT oil in Your coffee or even these newer drinkable ketones that shift you into that state very readily.
Interesting.
Can give you a good long slow bleed of energy that keeps you going all day long. So looking into ketosis and. And particularly not the style of what would be called dirty ketosis where people are doing like sticks of butter and you know, coconut oil. Energy bars.
Yeah, yeah.
Pooping out giant logs grease, but basically more ketosis. Like Mediterranean, like high healthy fats, fish oil, fatty cut of salmon, maybe a little bit of blue zones. Yeah. Almost like a. Almost like a low carb blue zone style diet.
Okay, got it.
That's a healthier approach to ketosis.
And if you want some MCT that.
You gave me this morning. Yeah, yeah, like MC chocolate mct. Yeah, that'll get converted. Yeah, that's great stuff. I forgot about that. Yeah, you can put that in a little bit of coffee. So ketosis, and particularly a like a vegetable plant rich form of ketosis. Okay. Is a good hack for the dietary component of focus and creativity. And then finally every once in a while you need the big guns. You need the, oh, I am in book writing phase and I'm on deadline three weeks. I'm going to be sleeping four hours a night and taking care of the kids and making sure I take my wife on a Friday night date and preaching and delivering a sermon. This is a phase where I need the big guns. Or like I mentioned earlier, I'm flying to Tokyo. I get at 2am, I deliver a sermon or a speech at 8am and frickin l theania, my coffee is not going to do the trick. There's one. And I would consider this to be a smart drug that you'd only want to use in moderation to ensure that you don't have. You don't build up tolerance to it. Okay. Is called modafinil. Okay.
Yeah.
Was the inspiration for the movie Limitless.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Developed for people with narcolepsy and then like Olympians started using it.
Label anti narcoleptic drug. Also goes by the name Provigil.
Okay. I've never tried this.
Yeah, yeah. And so usually a pill of that comes as about 200 milligrams.
Okay.
One pill would give you hyper productivity for about 24 hours.
Got it.
Half a pill, about 12 hours. Okay. What you need to realize though is that the mechanism of action is that it floods the cell receptors with dopamine and serotonin. So everything feels rewarding, particularly work checklists and tasks. Okay. You'll just go and some people Find that it makes them irritable and impersonable. Meaning like with your family you might be like, get out of the way, Dad's got to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that can be an issue. The other issue is that anything that floods the cell receptors long term with dopamine probably seen these new books like Dopamine Nation or people shutting down the dopamines on their phones by switching them to grayscale. The reason for that is that anytime the cells get flooded with dopamine, it builds up more receptors for dopamine on the cell surface and you need more and more dopamine to feel good. So if you were to start to take Modafil and be like, I feel great, I'm going to take this every day. And then you run out or you decide not to take it for a week, you feel kind of flat because nothing feels good. Sex doesn't feel as good, Ribeye steak isn't as good. Taking your kids to the beach doesn't feel as good because you don't have all that dopamine in your system. Yeah. So that would, even though I'm mentioning that as a good strategy.
Yeah, yeah.
This would be like big guns. I'm using this for this one day or this one, you know, one week.
Hard stint of 12 hour stretch, three day stretch, it's like, that's max. That's it, it's over.
Yeah. So in summary, you have your natural mechanisms for creativity, light, sound, cold breath, work. You have your nutrients, you know, things like choline, fatty acids, ketones, local hydrate diet. You have your done for you formulations like Qualia Mind or Onit Alpha Brain or the Newtopia company with the cheap hack being the theanine, caffeine, nicotine. And then you have big guns, something like Modafinil and that would give you a pretty good toolbox.
