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What are smart drugs? Can you supplement your way to genius? These are primary burning questions I was anxious to ask my guest this week, Dr. Andrew Hill.  You see, Dr. Hill received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA in 2012, studying how attention operates in the brain. He is also the director of the Alternatives Brain Institute, where they help clients look at their brain function as well as examine how their mind works, and work with them to build strengths and resources, flexibility, and better performance. Sounds pretty rad.

But the kicker is this. Dr. Hill is the lead Neuroscientist for a new startup called truBrain, a company with a mission to help optimize your productivity and efficiency without relying on excess caffeine or prescription medication. They are creating a new type of energy drink! One devoid of the useless sugars, caffeine, and wasted crap and they are replacing it with …. nootropics.  Little drink packages that remind me very much of the old school kool-aid packages.  And in these packages there is a promise of mental clarity, calm energy, productivity, memory increase, and more! Could it be true? If so, someone needs to alert all of the college kids who are popping way too many adderalls.  

Well – let’s find out! Can these supplements make you amazing, smarter, better, faster?

“Nootropics are analogous to vigilance promoting drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin. The difference is nootropics aren’t used to remediate a specific problem, they are used to enhance existing cognition.”

-Dr. Hill

Quotes from Andrew Hill: 

[shadowbox]”Happiness is not the ultimate goal.  There is a wider range of needs.  You don’t care about happiness if you are constantly thinking about needing to eat.”

“I’m not even sure what happiness is, I’m not even sure if it’s real.”

“The brains whole job is to become the best it can while at the same time taking as much happiness as it can out of the environment.”

“You want your brain to be fat and think.  You want your cortex to remain juicy and plump.”

“Most importantly, nootropics are supposed to have pretty much no side effects.  Even caffeine has too many side effects to be considered a nootropic.”[/shadowbox]

What we learn in this episode:

• What’s the best drug to take if you just want to feel happy all the time? (Please note, we do not recommend this option).
• Does neurofeedback work? And when is it useful?
• Can you diagnose ADHD with neurofeedback?
• How useful are smart drugs? Do they really work?

Resources:

trubrain.com/smartpeople

www.alternativesbh.com

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Episode Special!

Our friends at truBRAIN are offering $20 off of a $50 trial kit. Use the offer code smart20 or use our link: trubrain.com/smartpeople