Social Nootropics

by Peter C. Marketing Consultant

As you read this title, you may have already formed one pertinent question: what is a nootropic?
Well essentially, a nootropic is what is also known as a ‘smart drug’. This is a supplement or medication that is intended to make you more intelligent, more switched on or better at remembering details.

Of course, the example that will spring to mind for many people at this point is the film Limitless. This film showed what just such a tablet could accomplish if it were to work as advocates ideally hope. The main character Eddie Mora finds himself quickly finishing the book he’s working on, learning to play the stock market, joining a large organization, buying an expensive house, travelling with new friends and becoming the perfect version of himself.

The reality of nootropics is quite different. At best, these supplements and medications can help us to concentrate just a little better, or to remember things in just a little more detail. That is to say that they tend to improve just one category of intelligence rather than improving it across the board. And even then, they often come with side effects.

You are not going to change your life and end up a billionaire overnight from something like L-theanine or even modafinil. But perhaps we’re going about it in the wrong way. After all, it’s not his ability to remember numbers that makes Eddie Mora so successful but rather his ability to impress other people and to work his way through hierarchies. His is shown charming people, impressing them and befriending them. So rather than trying to boost attention slightly, maybe we should be looking to increase our social skills?
That’s what you would call a social nootropic.
And yes, they do already exist!
Social Nootropics – How They Work and Are They Any Good?

Spend any time on a nootropics forum and you’ll find they often talk about social nootropics more than other kinds in fact. Of course, these are likely to immediately change your life either though. Rather, the way they tend to work is by focussing on the doubt and the anxiety that makes it hard for many of us to get on in social situations. Have you ever struggled to make a good impression because you’re second guessing everything you say?

So, take something like 5-HTP. This stands for 5-hydroxy tryptophan, which works by being converted into serotonin. Serotonin is a feel good hormone so it puts you in a good mood but it can also act as a neuroinhibitory to relax your brain activity. Others work by increasing the purely inhibitory GABA.

So, what’s really happening here is that the brain is being relaxed and suppressed, which is preventing you from feeling anxious. But that’s not the same as becoming wittier, more confident or quicker when speaking. In fact, it is quite the opposite. And there still can be side effects.
Now something like piracetam might improve your verbal fluency and yet a lot of people say that this can induce brain fog.

So for the most part, there is no effective social nootropic at this moment. But it’s certainly an interesting subject and something worth following.