Supplements/medication to boost brain power

[Anonymous]

Sleep, for sure. And aerobic exercise, weight training, meditation, and long outdoor walks in morning sunlight and repeated again in early evening to help your circadian rhythms.

Have you had a full thyroid panel, including antibodies to check for Hasimoto's? What you describe is often how I felt pre-diagnosis & successful treatment.

[Anonymous]

Like other PPs, I would definitely see a doctor to rule out easily fixable things like thyroid.

I’m having major cognition issues at the moment and here is what has helped:

1. Multivitamin
2. Restrict cell phone use (I get addicted so I have literally had my husband keep it for me sometimes)
3. B12 supplements (although I love the shot more)
4. Fish oil pills (I take them at night because I always get gross burps)
5. lion’s mane
6. Avoid caffeine use after 1 PM
7. 20 minutes of aerobic exercise
8. Walks in nature

Don’t feel like you have to do all these things. Every little bit helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're going to think this is nuts, but try cutting back your cell phone use. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/is-your-smartphone-making-you-less-smart-distraction-addiction-is-real

This!!

[Anonymous]

ginkgo biloba

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important thing for your brain is sleep. Also stress management and an anti inflammatory diet. Dr Amen and Andrew Huberman are good resources to learn more.

Omg no. Amen is a crock. Huber man has some good stuff but tends to be a bit overconfident in his assertions because that’s more interesting than the truth which is that the evidence for effectiveness of nootropics is not super strong. There are some things that may help but results are mixed. It’s also important to pay attention to whether the participants in studies were people with documented cognitive decline vs. healthy adults. Something that helps people with decline won’t necessarily do anything for healthy people. The placebo effect is a big issue when looking at anything other than double blind experiments. Adequate sleep, nutrition, and reducing stress and still the most effective based on the evidence. Good old caffeine works too.

The neurobiology of cognition is incredibly complex. Memories are stored as patterns of activity within neural networks. Interestingly a recent study showed that targeted brain stimulation improved performance on a verbal memory task. Presumably the stimulation protocol activated neural networks that support this type of learning and memory. No drug can produce this type of targeted activation and most people aren’t going to sign up for brain stimulation on a regular basis. But the developments in the realm of noninvasive brain stimulation (e.g. transcranial direct current stimulation) are fascinating from a scientific standpoint.

Why do you say he's a crock? What he shares makes sense. Sleep deprivation, diet and stress affect the brain. I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary that would give me pause.

Exactly. A few narrow minded physicians hate Amen for all of his success. They also hate the fact that Dr. Daniel Amen utilizes actual brain scans of his patients. No wild guessing games about what’s going on in your brain, and what could help. Would you apply a cast to your arm without an X-ray? Of course not.
If I could afford Dr. Amen, I’d drive out to Reston in a heartbeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important thing for your brain is sleep. Also stress management and an anti inflammatory diet. Dr Amen and Andrew Huberman are good resources to learn more.

Omg no. Amen is a crock. Huber man has some good stuff but tends to be a bit overconfident in his assertions because that’s more interesting than the truth which is that the evidence for effectiveness of nootropics is not super strong. There are some things that may help but results are mixed. It’s also important to pay attention to whether the participants in studies were people with documented cognitive decline vs. healthy adults. Something that helps people with decline won’t necessarily do anything for healthy people. The placebo effect is a big issue when looking at anything other than double blind experiments. Adequate sleep, nutrition, and reducing stress and still the most effective based on the evidence. Good old caffeine works too.

The neurobiology of cognition is incredibly complex. Memories are stored as patterns of activity within neural networks. Interestingly a recent study showed that targeted brain stimulation improved performance on a verbal memory task. Presumably the stimulation protocol activated neural networks that support this type of learning and memory. No drug can produce this type of targeted activation and most people aren’t going to sign up for brain stimulation on a regular basis. But the developments in the realm of noninvasive brain stimulation (e.g. transcranial direct current stimulation) are fascinating from a scientific standpoint.

Why do you say he's a crock? What he shares makes sense. Sleep deprivation, diet and stress affect the brain. I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary that would give me pause.

Exactly. A few narrow minded physicians hate Amen for all of his success. They also hate the fact that Dr. Daniel Amen utilizes actual brain scans of his patients. No wild guessing games about what’s going on in your brain, and what could help. Would you apply a cast to your arm without an X-ray? Of course not.
If I could afford Dr. Amen, I’d drive out to Reston in a heartbeat.

I too have wondered why all the anti-Dr Amen sentiment on DCUM. Only thing I can point to is despite all of the claims of how open-minded people think they are on here, all of DCUM is actually quite close-minded and myopic. If it doesn't fit into their very specific and very narrow, small box, it's a crock of $hit. It's snake oil.