Modafinil: Is This Wildly Popular Smart Drug Safe And Effective? (& What It Can Do For Your Sleep Cycles & Brain Health).
Ben Greenfield Life
Ben Greenfield
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2020
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
bengreenfieldfitness.com/modafinil
Modafinil (also known as "Provigil").
It's the darling of the smart drug industry, and has been for quite some time.
With over 200 human clinical studies in the past 10 years, it is reported to have few to no side effects, to not be addictive and to not be excessively stimulating.
It's used by notable figures like Joe Rogan, Ray Kurzweil, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Tim Ferriss and many others.
It's the entire inspiration behind the smart drug movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper.
Laboratory studies have even shown that it may have potent antioxidative and neuroprotective effects.
Modafinil is also of a high interest to the US military for enhancing alertness and reducing battle fatigue.
Acute modafinil ingestion significantly increases exercise time to exhaustion.
So what could go wrong? Is this stuff too good to be true? Surely there must be some dark biological side of this supposed super smart drug. In today's podcast, I host a guest who knows more about the science of modafinil than anyone I'm aware of, and who, conveniently, happens to live just a few miles from my house: Dr. Jonathan Wisor.
During our discussion, you'll discover:
-How Jonathan became interested in sleep and neuroscience...8:05
-What is Modafinil, exactly?...13:40
-How various neurotransmitters respond to modafinil...19:30
-Antioxidant and neuroprotective effects of modafinil...23:20
-How modafinil use can go wrong...31:15
-Whether or not genetics determine a response to modafinil...47:05
-How Modafinil affects sleep cycles...49:50
-How long does modafinil stay in the bloodstream after taking it...54:15
-Effects of combining modafinil w/ alcohol and drugs...57:55
-Why Jonathan has never used modafinil personally...1:05:50
Episode sponsors: Kion Creatine, Beekeeper's Naturals, Thrive Market, Seed
bengreenfieldfitness.com/modafinil
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. |
| 0:04.8 | That means that every time you get a puff of dopamine, it's going to stay there a little |
| 0:08.0 | bit longer because you've got Modaphanel blocking that re-uptake into the cell that produced |
| 0:13.7 | and released the dopamine. |
| 0:15.3 | Take your Modaphanel, your brain says, hey, everything's great. |
| 0:17.8 | Your muscle is getting a signal from cortisol that says, this is fight or flight time. |
| 0:21.9 | This is not time to store glucose, it's time to burn glucose. |
| 0:24.6 | If you're going to try to use Modaphanel for cognitive enhancement, specifically with the |
| 0:29.4 | goal of restricting your sleep, you will pay a physiological price for that. |
| 0:33.4 | Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. |
| 0:44.2 | My name is Ben Greenfield. |
| 0:46.2 | Welcome to the show. |
| 0:53.2 | Boom, chakalakalakalaka. |
| 0:55.5 | I am not on any mind-altering substances while I am recording today's podcast introduction |
| 1:01.1 | for you. |
| 1:02.1 | Although this entire podcast is about one of the world's most popular mind-altering substances, |
| 1:07.6 | namely Modaphanel. |
| 1:08.6 | Modaphanel, the Wonder Drug, the limitless drug. |
| 1:11.4 | The drug that I believe inspired the movie, limitless or Lucy, or one of those smart drug |
| 1:15.8 | movies. |
| 1:16.8 | Anyways, we're going to talk all things Modaphanel today. |
| 1:21.1 | If you never heard of this wakefulness promoting smart drug that's sweeping the world by storm |
... |
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