What supplements do you use?
Cross-posted to LessWrong.
There's a rationalist tradition of thinking carefully about supplements & nootropics: 1, 2, 3
However, I haven't seen a record of what supplement regimens people end up using in practice.
I've been fooling around with supplement stacks for a few years now and feel pretty good about my current regimen (outlined below), but want to see if there's any low-hanging fruit I've missed.
So I'm curious... what supplements do you use? (Shoot me an email, or reply on the LessWrong version of this post.)
Also curious to hear about obvious mistakes and/or oddities in my current stack.
My supplement regimen –
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, this isn't medical advice, etc. etc.
Background: 27 years old, biological male, ~200 lbs, BMI of 25, pescatarian
Supplements I take:
- Creatine, 2.8 g daily in morning (boosts muscle strength, also may improve cognition if you're vegetarian)
- Vitamin D3, 0.125 mg daily in morning (reduces all-cause mortality)
- Caffeine, 100 - 250 mg daily in the morning, as coffee (boosts cognition, and coffee itself may reduce all-cause mortality)
- Melatonin, 0.5 mg occasionally at night (improves sleep, see also Gwern's melatonin page)
- Cortisol Manager (a branded supplement that contains Theanine & Ashwaganda), occasionally at night or with my second cup of coffee during the day (may improve sleep, and Theanine works synergistically with caffeine)
- Stress B-Complex, a branded supplement that contains a whole bunch of stuff), occasionally during the day (for no evidence-based reason; my partner uses it so it's around the house; sometimes I use it as a vague "help me recover from X" agent)
Supplements I'm considering:
- Apparently Tyrosine boosts cognitive performance during stress. There are noticeable subjective effects when I take 1.0 - 2.0 g on an empty stomach. I tried some recently and enjoyed it. It's safe, cheap, and legal so I may start using it regularly to complement my caffeine use.
- Following this post, I may start taking Vitamin K2 in the morning to complement my Vitamin D3 supplementation.
- Romeo has told me that Choline is a good daily supplement (apparently many people are deficient & deficiency is associated with depression). I haven't poked the literature on this yet.
Supplements I don't take any more:
- I used to take fish oil daily. Gwern likes it, but I didn't notice any effect & was scared off by the potential negative effects. Also I eat sushi sometimes which probably does some of the work fish oil would do.
- I used to take a small aspirin daily but stopped after a large RCT found that the downside risk probably negates the benefit.
- For a while I took lithium to boost mood, but stopped after my replication of Gwern's RCT failed to show an effect.