modafinil (the 'smart' pill)

[vickyB22]

modafinil - does it work? does it have any side effects? recently read an article in grazia. would this help to keep me focussed when dealing with kids & essay dead-lines? has anyone tried it???

ren.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil eading this...

sorry, will try again

what was the grazia article saying abiut it? what was their interest? weight loss and improved mood/concentration/iq i assume...

doesnt seem very conclusively proved that its good for any of those things, but doesnt seem awful iyswim. dunno, id possibly give it a go and see if it helped if i came across it, but i wouldnt go asking my gp for a prescription, personally.

It sounds more like a tool to cope with sleep dep - DH read about it in New Scientist, apparently they've found you can use it to stay up for 40 hours without cognitive impairment. Then you sleep for a normal night and are fine.

I'm pretty about it all. I suspect a good diet, exercise, etc etc, are a better route to good concentration.

hmmm, yes. i think it would easily be over-used and then youd just run yourself ragged. you may not be cognitively impaired in the short term, but your body still needs sleep, no? and if you used them over a period of time, say for studying...

v occsional use might be ok, but would be v tempting to overuse methinks

Well, quite. Sleep is there for a reason, who knows what sort of long-term damage these things do, particularly to the brain. Not worth the risk.

i don't think it's anything to do with slimming, it's used to treat narcolepsy & to aid concentration (according to grazia). just wondered if anyone had first hand experience of it. as running & good food don't seem to clear my foggy head...

I know it's not about weight loss - but I find a good (varied, lots of veg, low GI) diet and lots of exercise help with concentration.

After having read up on this extensively, I have decided to order some. I have terrible problems with concentration, procrastination and daytime sleepiness (despite getting decent sleep now) - all of this in spite of a good diet and reasonable amounts of exercise.

Hopefully this will help to lift the fog.

Yes - I've had several full blood checks recently for a number of reasons, but nothing's ever come up.

I have a 6mo DS and although I wouldn't say my symptoms are worse since I had him, I just can't get away with my absent mindedness and distractability any more. I'll put him on the rug in the front room (which is about as safe as you can get in our house), pop upstairs to the loo, decide to get some washing on, get distracted by the computer / a magazine article / the cats / tidying up and before I know it 20 minutes has gone by without barely a thought for the wellbeing of my son. This scares me.

I know I should probably go to my doctor (I wonder if I may have adult attention deficit disorder) but I'm afraid of getting laughed out of the surgery, or being accused of being a timewaster and attention seeker. (Got to love your parents for giving you all these complexes eh!)

I've always been like this, but like I said I can't get away with it any more. I have real responsibilities.

Well it arrived and I tried it.

I have to admit, it's not the miracle drug I was led to believe - I'm not doing long division in my head or anything. However, it is much better at keeping me awake during the day without any of the side effects that you get with caffeine. From what I can see, I have no side effects at all, and this is taking a 100mg dose a day. The effects last for about 10-12 hours, so it's not the sort of thing you want to take when you have your mid afternoon sleepy time, but rather on a morning when you get up.

I still have trouble focusing on things I don't want to do, but I don't get that "brain zoned out" effect where one minute I start wondering which weekend my Dad is coming up to visit, and next moment I "surface" to find that 15 minutes has gone by.

My driving seems a lot better as well - I usually zone out quite a lot if I'm in steady traffic (i.e. not driving to my limits), but I've found it easier to pay attention to the road when it's not fast-paced and exciting.

Anyway, thought I'd just update this.