Inside the World of NOOTROPICS
Full disclosure: I’m writing this while sipping a hot cup of cognitive-enhancing herbs. I’ve spiked my afternoon espresso with a powder labelled Neural Nectar, an earthy blend of plants and mushrooms with mythical sounding names like rhodiola and lion’s mane, and so far I’m feeling … well, my regular 3pm self. But I’m still hopeful there’s a burst of brilliance waiting for me at the bottom of my mug. Why? Like many of my twenty and thirty something peers with big workloads and even bigger goals, I’m fascinated by the idea that a powder or a pill could shift my brain up a gear.
It’s not as futuristic as it might sound: so-called ‘smart drugs’ are already here. Also known as nootropics (which loosely translates from Greek as ‘to bend the mind’), they cover any substance used to improve aspects of brain function, such as memory, learning and focus. Good old caffeine? Yep, that’s a nootropic. But, what really
