Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

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Motova
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Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Motova »

Do you know any?

What are your favourites?
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Ricky
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Ricky »

Coffee
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Cianan
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Cianan »

B vitamins—ample doses of choline are particularly effective and admired by biohackers, MCT oil, unprocessed cacao and a cup of coffee only in the morning are some of my staples.

Coffee gets a bad rap, but research on not only its caffeine but phytonutrient and antioxidant content continues to show sterling benefits. Skip lattes and sugar for real pour over or French press coffee from good beans. Don't drink multiple cups in the day and combine it with high-quality fats like those in MCT oil to avert jitters and enjoy cognitive benefits among other kinds.

Stay hydrated, eat nutritiously and reduce inflammation. Meditation is always excellent.
“All is an adornment for clarifying wisdom,
And is purified simply by realizing this.”
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SunWuKong
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by SunWuKong »

Pu Erh tea, after the third or fourth infusion it gets easy to drink, and it gets better with age, some families like to keep a nice stash of 100 year old for special guests. It grows on trees in Yunnan Province, it is related to ordinary tea (camellia) - oh yeah it’s a probiotic food
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Jesse
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Jesse »

Cianan wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:20 pm B vitamins—ample doses of choline are particularly effective and admired by biohackers, MCT oil, unprocessed cacao and a cup of coffee only in the morning are some of my staples.

Coffee gets a bad rap, but research on not only its caffeine but phytonutrient and antioxidant content continues to show sterling benefits. Skip lattes and sugar for real pour over or French press coffee from good beans. Don't drink multiple cups in the day and combine it with high-quality fats like those in MCT oil to avert jitters and enjoy cognitive benefits among other kinds.

Stay hydrated, eat nutritiously and reduce inflammation. Meditation is always excellent.
Ha, I roast my own coffee, and I still drink it with cream and sugar. I just don't get black coffee.. To me. it's kind of like when people say you'll develop a taste for beer.. why? Add sugar and cream, and the coffee is amazing. Became obsessed with coffee after working at espresso shops when I was younger.

My favorite device for coffee is probably the Aeropress, followed by Pour-over, then lastly the french Moka pot. Espresso though, you need a quality machine/grinder tbh, and lots of experience using them.

I saw a while ago when people started using the Goat ghee coffee recipe from the Himalayas. Now it's a huge thing. It honestly sounds gross to me, putting butter in your coffee, but hey I've seen crazier things.

Natural cognitive enhancers is a kinda silly term, just because something is natural doesn't make it good for you. The key with anything is to take it in moderation, and as recommended by real research, and never to follow directions from some new-agey website.

Natural ones I can think of that are not *dangerous/overly addictive/etc* are probably: caffeine(coffee/tea), ginkgo biloba, certain mushrooms, GABA supplements(need to be careful using, and especially mixing these, however.), B Vitamins, and I'm sure there are more you can research.

Note: GABA is created in our brains, and many foods/herbs/supplements can cause our brains to produce more, (which is particularly effective for anxiety disorders, but it has cognitive benefits as well.) However, too much GABA can cause serious issues (too little GABA = High Anxiety, Too much GABA=Seizures, Risky Behavior, etc.)
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Cianan
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Cianan »

Jesse wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:50 pm
Cianan wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:20 pm B vitamins—ample doses of choline are particularly effective and admired by biohackers, MCT oil, unprocessed cacao and a cup of coffee only in the morning are some of my staples.

Coffee gets a bad rap, but research on not only its caffeine but phytonutrient and antioxidant content continues to show sterling benefits. Skip lattes and sugar for real pour over or French press coffee from good beans. Don't drink multiple cups in the day and combine it with high-quality fats like those in MCT oil to avert jitters and enjoy cognitive benefits among other kinds.

Stay hydrated, eat nutritiously and reduce inflammation. Meditation is always excellent.
Ha, I roast my own coffee, and I still drink it with cream and sugar. I just don't get black coffee.. To me. it's kind of like when people say you'll develop a taste for beer.. why? Add sugar and cream, and the coffee is amazing. Became obsessed with coffee after working at espresso shops when I was younger.

My favorite device for coffee is probably the Aeropress, followed by Pour-over, then lastly the french Moka pot. Espresso though, you need a quality machine/grinder tbh, and lots of experience using them.

I saw a while ago when people started using the Goat ghee coffee recipe from the Himalayas. Now it's a huge thing. It honestly sounds gross to me, putting butter in your coffee, but hey I've seen crazier things.
You're right that there are other ways to yield perfectly good coffee, and in fact, I still haven't had a cup from an Aeropress. I've personally owned a few Chemex carafes over the past half a decade. Simple glass and hand-ground beans have been making some fabulous joe. :)

The point about lattes and sugar is that, especially with regard to sugar, it's not going to be the best route for optimizing your performance. Our attachment to sugar and aversion to bitterness subside with time. It's just like weaning yourself off a highly desirable drug. The blitz of sugar and flour in modern diets naturally dulls receptivity to the many, many flavors besides sweetness, and starch apparently has a distinct flavor that we love too. Some do better with milk than others, but I'm not at all convinced of drinking pasteurized milk—basically all American milk is from new breeds of cow whose milk is demonstrably different and incompatible with our digestion. Then the enzymes and proteins are damaged by pasteurization, making it even crazier to assimilate.

I make such a coffee with grass-fed butter every day! It's great. When you blend it, it turns into a delicious latte that's not a latte, the fat globules so small that there's no real sense of oiliness. The butter even creates foam. With MCT or coconut oil, I swear by it. It's absolutely packed with nutrition when the butter is from well-nourished animals. I've gotten to be leaner, healthier and more energized than ever with at least a couple tablespoons of grass-fed butter every day. Just having the fats from milk is a completely different experience.
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Jesse
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by Jesse »

Our attachment to sugar and aversion to bitterness subside with time. It's just like weaning yourself off a highly desirable drug. The blitz of sugar and flour in modern diets naturally dulls receptivity to the many, many flavors besides sweetness, and starch apparently has a distinct flavor that we love too. Some do better with milk than others, but I'm not at all convinced of drinking pasteurized milk—basically all American milk is from new breeds of cow whose milk is demonstrably different and incompatible with our digestion. Then the enzymes and proteins are damaged by pasteurization, making it even crazier to assimilate.

You really gotta try the AeroPress, it's pretty cheap still these days. If I had to make a comparison.. It's like a mixture of French Press, Drip Coffee, and Espresso.)

Well, I pretty much agree with everything except the above parts I quoted. I think sugar is simply a matter of preference. Sure you can overdo it, and in large amounts, it can be addictive, but that said, I enjoy sugar. I think most people do, I'm perfectly content using it, while not having to try to detect the smallest most subtle flavors in my coffees haha. :tongue:

Then again, when I brew coffee or espresso, I make sure that there is no bitterness in the brew before adding cream, and sugar which would mask any bitterness. When you start with excellent fresh coffee, brewed properly with no bitterness at all, I think the cream and sugar add even more to it, I have a few friends on each side. Most people will argue for one or the other. :shrug:

However I also like Soy/Almond/Coconut Milk, and creams as replacements. Coffee with a dollop of Coconut Cream does taste absolutely amazing, and the cream does have quite a bit of coconut oil in it, so I imagine it's fairly similar to what you're doing with adding coconut oil.

After a quick look, the main difference in American cow milk they have found is a certain protein, Termed A1. This is found primarily in milk from one breed of cow that's prized in America because it produces more milk than other breeds. ( Holstein cows ) This milk has more A1 protein, while cow species favored in other countries contain more A2 Protein.

However, there are many different breeds of cow used in America, and you can find many types of milk ranging from free-range, 100% grass-fed (of specific cow breeds), to the horrible atrocity of caged warehouse cows that are damn near surgically attached to pumps. (and I imagine this is where you'll find the Holstein cows primarily, as these types of immoral companies are more concerned with money than anything else.)
The A1 protein is much less prevalent in milk from Jersey, Guernsey, and most Asian and African cow breeds, where, instead, the A2 protein predominates. [1]
Tbh with the number of Americans who consume milk, and dairy products on a daily basis, I really can't imagine the numbers these people are publishing are accurate but seem more a product of some agenda they are promoting.
If you start with dairy, we consume about 630 pounds of milk, yogurt, cheese and ice cream per year. About 31 pounds of cheese alone sailed down our gullets. [2]
Anyway, my point is -- you have Milks, Cheeses, Ice Creams, Heavy Creams, Half-and-Half, Butters, Protein Powders/Shakes, Milk Protein Isolates, and Tons, and Tons of Misc Dairy By-products which are used in darn near everything.

And, I think with the numbers they are telling us here... (That 1 in 4 Americans are lactose intolerant), combined with the sheer amount of dairy we consume here in America -- this definitely would have caused such a large amount of dairy-based health issues, that it would have long since been a major medical topic that everyone would know about, and generally agree upon.

Simply because, with that amount of dairy being consumed, people would be able to easily link dairy to the resulting medical consequences. (If they actually were lactose intolerant, or allergic to the A1 Protein, or if modern milk was incompatible with our digestion, etc.)

You would almost certainly see a large drop in dairy consumption, and large groups calling for manufacturers to stop using dairy, or dairy byproducts (or at least dairy with A1 protein) in their products. It definitely wouldn't be some grassroots thing as it appears to be from searching google.

Here's an article on American Dairy Consumption, and reference [2]
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/20 ... -this-year

Here is the article I read about the proteins. also where Reference quote 1 is from.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... k-america/
(uhg sorry, I really hate motherjones.com, they are like a neo-liberal cult, but it was one of the top articles on the subject in google, and tons of people read them.)
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seeker242
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Re: Natural Cognitive Enhancers?

Post by seeker242 »

Meditation :meditate: :smile:
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