It's worth noting that not everyone responds to modafinil. If you've had genetic sequencing done (I had mine done by 23andme), you can predict your response by checking your Rs4680 status. http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs4680

  rs4680(G;G) carriers deprived of sleep respond quite well to 2x 100mg
  modafinil in terms of improved vigor and well-being, and maintained
  baseline performance with respect to executive functioning, whereas
  rs4680(A;A) individuals barely responded to the drug at all.

    What I found with more experimentation of days both with
    and without Modafinil was that actually, I was just as
    productive if I was well rested, healthy, well fed with
    healthy foods and working on something I cared about.

    On the good side, those tasks which I did line up got
    done, and with great energy, velocity, etc. A good day
    on Modafinil could easily concentrate several days'
    worth of work into one, by getting rid of all the empty
    distracted bits of the day."

I threw my last pack away last year, due to the emergence of a nasty side effect. I'd used it to power through a few insane projects, and had what I would call a decent "honeymoon period": get up at 4am, brain so groggy it was hard to tie my shoelaces, pop 100mg and within 30 minutes I'd be hyper-awake, clear headed and have laser sharp focus. The euphoria he mentions was nothing mild for me either, it really wasn't far off something like cocaine or ecstacy (minus accompanying loss of faculty).

Then gradually another feeling started accompanying it, which I can only describe as a "darkening" of my perception of the world, and strong sense of impending doom which became intrusive and hard to ignore (to the detriment of whatever task was at hand). It rendered me mildly depressed and highly anxious at the same time (although only for about 12-14 hours), and it did so consistently. I've never heard anyone else mention such an effect, but if anyone starts feeling a bit like that (and for me it was frankly a powerful and rather scary side-effect), consider whether the drug is to blame.

I didn't get around to trying Modafinil, but I've discovered that pure caffeine and guarana extract work better than coffee for me. I was a heavy coffee drinker all my life, but several years ago, it just stopped working as well. There's something in coffee besides caffeine that makes me feel jittery and nervous without feeling more alert after a couple of days of drinking it regularly. Basically, it helps with physically intensive tasks, but doesn't help when I have to sit down and do any kind of mental work anymore.

Using 100 mg of caffeine 3x a day, on the other hand, gives me the same effect as coffee once did - I can jump around filled with energy and work at my computer with more energy for longer periods of time. 400 mg of guarana extract (~80 mg caffeine) makes me more alert without the physical tension or jitters - if anyone has "coffee fatigue", as I call it, try caffeine pills or guarana extract (but not in high dosages!).

I've also found L-carnitine to augment caffeine in physical tasks, and taking 400mg of guarana extract with ~200mg of rhodiola rosea and 50mg of L-theanine lets me work and then sleep pretty well, like I never took caffeine in the first place. YMMV, but it's definitely fascinating to see how we can alter our bodies with psychoactives (obviously, you take a risk, so you have to understand that and doing proper research before using anything).

I still want to try Modafinil, but just can't get my hands on it right now...

Is it just me, or does using mind-altering substances to get through one's daily schedule seem like it crosses the line?

I'm always a little baffled when people sacrifice their health for work - it's a very bad decision in the long term. You can always find another job, but once you damage your health, you may never get it back.

I've found it occasionally helpful, but it will in no way fix procrastination -- in fact you can procrastinate (by e.g. reading through top 100 random stories on reddit) more efficiently and with fewer regrets. If you can get into the "flow" (in the psychological sense) you're able to stay there for longer and are less likely to get interrupted, but you're better off starting the day with a clear todo list and by priming things by producing, not consume (as per the recent articles).

If mixing with coffee, consume both well before you intend to sleep; I've found myself a few times in an unpleasant alert but wanting to sleep state.

I have taken 100-400mg of Modafinil daily for about 10 years.

I happen to have my 23andme results (thanks for the tip, tene!) and it looks like I'm rs4680(A;A). Despite what the paper in CPT says, it does have a significant effect on my alertness.

The comments about procrastination and focus all sound familiar to me. So do the comments about addiction: sometimes I'll forget to take it and if I don't have any because I forget to pack it while travelling I don't feel an urge to do anything about it. I only have a few things to add to what's been said already:

1) Modafinil is not a substitute for sleep for me. I've gone without sleep for days while using it, and I do suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation. I just don't notice that I'm suffering from them. The best way to describe it is that I am alert and thinking, but I am missing half my IQ points and don't realize it unless I'm particularly mindful about how I am feeling. I'm great at driving, working out, the boring parts of reverse engineering firmware, and other mindless repetitive physical tasks, though. A few years ago I decided to spend a lot of time at the gym and was performing at superhuman levels: it's just not normal for a 5'8" guy to feel happy about running 6 minute miles at 4 AM on no sleep. When I did that on no sleep I kept losing my keys and phone, though...

2) Modafinil significantly increases my ability to get out of bed in the morning. I've never taken a sick day since I started using it. If I don't get enough sleep I still zone out a little during the day, but it makes it so much more pleasant to get out of bed and go through my morning routine if I'm missing sleep. I'm certainly in better shape because I have the energy to go work out, as I mentioned.

3) I'm quickly approaching the point where I'll have been on Modafinil for more than 50% of my life, and as far as I can tell there have been no long-term side effects. My partner is a MD and although at first she couldn't believe that it wasn't permanently screwing something up, she's come to accept that Modafinil seems to be pretty safe in my case.

4) Despite what others have said about Modafinil affecting their creative thinking, I have no problems assimilating entirely new concepts or doing other abstract thinking while using the drug.

Hm, didn't expect to see this on Hacker News. Better copy over my comment from Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/q878x/modafinil_... :

> Sure, you won't find studies of people who fried their neurons by using Modafinil for 10 years in a row, but that's because Modafinil isn't that old yet.

Actually, it is. Even ignoring all the animal and French experiments etc, Cephalon got FDA approval and started selling it in the US in... 1997? 1998? That's close to 14 years now.

This is why blogs with no comments annoy me - how is the author supposed to find out that he made an obvious mistake? Or for that matter his claim modafinil is more amphetamine-like that proponents claim - well, I'm a proponent but at least when I claim it has little in common, I have [actual citations](http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil#fn11).

EDIT: I checked; it was approved in December 1998, so 1 December 1998 - today is 13 years, 2 months, and 27 days.

Gwern has a summary article[1] on Modafinil which (among other things) goes through the literature on the effects and side-effects.

[1]: http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil

I've commented on Modafinil before ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=647333 ). Please see caveats there.

I would say that Modafinil does not make a boring task interesting. It does not supply any drive to work.

I characterise the effects as blowing away that fog you sometimes feel is within your head.

Even better, I have found that it is quite possible to sleep on Modafinil. It will be light sleep because if you're indulging then you probably have a lot on your mind anyway and this will dictate how well you sleep.

You'll find that you wake up with some residual effect ( clarity ). This is a good thing, unlike a hangover/comedown.

Interesting. I take modafinil 2-ish times a week, sometimes to skip a night's sleep to work on my own projects, sometimes to get a really productive day at my day-job with a startup.

My subjective experience with driving on Modafinil is very different: I become significantly more aware of everything on the road. It turns me into a laser, sure, but a laser that's constantly scanning back and forth. Too many confounding factors to say why that is.

I haven't noticed any diminishing of 'broad thinking'. Not sure I could claim any increase, though.

His claim that it's better to get productive days through other means seems to be a false dichotomy: Modafinil isn't dangerous like he's convinced it is, and while you can get productive through better health and rest, you can get even more productive by eating healthy, exercising, resting properly, and taking Modafinil. It's not clear why he thinks that Modafinil will force you to be unhealthy, thus making it a choice between "healthy" and "moda" (Honestly, the days when I take Modafinil, I find I have the focus to exercise harder and longer, and the willpower to eat much healthier).

His points about 'shortcut to a really productive day', 'having a clear big task to focus on', and 'drink a lot of water' are all spot-on, though.

I have to disagree with his recommendations: I think Modafinil's value proposition is positive for almost everyone, and proportionally more valuable as the value of your time or focus increases. HN readers in particular tend to have valuable time and extremely valuable focus; Modafinil is a huge gain, something like a large fraction of just the positives of amphetamines, with the negatives of caffeine instead.

The illustrious gwern has an article covering the medical research, benefits, risks, a novel cost/benefit analysis, and supplier information here: http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil

(Yes, it's been linked a few times already in this discussion. Go read it already.)

The thing I find most interesting about Modafinil is how consistent the stories are about how people feel (and work) when they take it.

Everyone talks of extreme focus, but perhaps a loss of judgement about what tasks are actually important.

I don't have any particular conclusions about that - I just find it really interesting.

I've taken it a few times when I really had to push hard to meet a deadline (coding). One time while working my sister texted me to say she just boarded her flight to Canada (from Europe). What seemed like a short while after she texted me saying she'd arrived. During her entire flight (6+ hrs) my concentration never flinched. I find it very effective indeed.

I have taken 200mg of Modafinil daily for more than 5 years.

Before it, I could go to sleep just about anywhere and just about any time. I could easily sleep for 12 to 14 hours a day if I let myself. When I had a work commute of about an hour and a half, I would have to pull over, sometimes four or five times, during the afternoon drive home to take cat naps because I couldn't keep my eyes open. It didn't matter how much or how little coffee I drank, it didn't matter how much I slept the day before, and it didn't matter whether I was eating my typical diet which was fairly healthy, or if I had unusual amounts of junk food that week.

Caffeine doesn't work "normally" for me. I like the taste of coffee, I usually have one cup a day that I sip throughout the morning. However, I don't have a Folgers moment. I am not groggy until I get my first cup. If I drink a soda or coffee or even have a shot of espresso in the afternoon, I don't get a sudden boost of energy. I don't even get the boost of energy from energy drinks. When I drink a lot caffeine or other energy drinks in a short period of time, I find that they will give me a mild case of the jitters, but even then, they don't counteract my actual drowsiness. Hence, I've never gone higher than my typical cup of coffee in the morning and frequently a soda in the afternoon. More than that has almost all down-sides and no up-sides for me.

I took a sleep study, and I was not diagnosed with narcolepsy because that diagnosis is very specific. You must immediately fall into REM sleep. I was diagnosed with a "we have no idea what you have" condition of excessive daytime drowsiness and received a prescription for Provigil. Originally, it was a 100mg dose, but when that was not effective, it went up to 200mg.

It is a bit of a wonder drug for me, but certainly not in the terms that it was described in this article. It doesn't make me hyper focused or give me unusually sharp focus, it just removes the incapacitating drowsiness I suffered in the afternoon. I've actually found that music is more distracting to me during work hours since I started taking it. While I still enjoy listening to various types of music for recreation, I don't play music while working anymore.

I would definitely say it is not addicting in the manner that coffee is. On vacations and at times I didn't have my prescription with me, I've gone weeks without taking it. There are no withdrawal symptoms, other than the fact that I would be excessively drowsy again, especially in the afternoon. If I stop drinking caffeine, I will suffer migraines for about two weeks.

I will agree with the part about broad focus vs narrow focus. I can think better about large system design late in the evening. When I am working on an architecture problem during the afternoon, I find myself frequently rat-holing. I'll focus on one specific part and just keep going back to it over and over rather than spending enough time at the higher level.

> I used a (legal) drug called Modafinil

As far as I'm aware, in both the UK and the US, it's legal only as a prescription drug, i.e. if you buy it online without a prescription it is no longer legal.

Your description of the subjective effects of modafinil sound almost identical to those of Adderall (d-amphetamine). Adderall has a very well established short-term safety profile in therapeutic doses, but long-term use, especially at moderate to high doses, can lead to severe dependency and a host of health problems, in a very similar manner to cocaine. If what you say is true that Modafinil doesn't have the high addictive potential of amphetamines and cocaine, that sounds very appealing, but taking any drug even once if it's too new to know if there are long-term side effects from short-term use really scares me. I'm glad you conclude that sleep, nutrition, and exercise are preferable.

P.S. Wikipedia says Modafinil is Schedule IV in the U.S., which means that, like cocaine and morphine (Schedule II), Modafinil is illegal unless you have a prescription.

Two points I didn't see about modafinil that I've found: 1) There's a long lag from the I take it until the time it kicks in. I read somewhere that it has to be processed by the liver once and the results of that are what actually has an effect. The upshot is, if I take it after about 11am, I will find myself awake after 1am. So for me it's early or not at all.

2) As a hangover/sleepless night cure. Modafinil is a great "fixer" for a slow d-r-a-g of a day. By noon I usually have forgotten I started the day hungover.

I generally take 50mg for the mildest effect, or sometimes 100mg if the need is greater.

My personal experiences with modafinil's effects are similar to the OP's. It increases my focus more than caffeine but not like Adderall. It completely clears away brain fog and eliminates sleepiness. I find it lasts 6-8 hours for me, depending if I'm sleep deprived or not.

I found that if it's evening, I'm tired, and I take it that it may take up to 2 hours before my alertness improves. Normally it's about 1 hour.

Other than terrible smelling urine I don't notice any side effects.

Modafinil also seems to be synergistic with caffeine. I can take half the caffeine with the same or better effects.

I tried provigil for two weeks and it made me feel like a zombie. I was less sleepy but I felt kind of 'hazy', like there was something between myself and my thoughts slowing down the interaction. It did make me slightly more productive, and able to completely focus on boring tasks.

One interesting side effect is that it made me a bit more social and during those two weeks I had dozens of extremely boring (in hindsight) conversations with random co-workers. It seems to lower my threshold for boredom more than anything.

Another good take on modafinil:

http://www.gwern.net/Modafinil

  Modafinil is also compared to amphetamines (which are
  often used either for recreation or to treat ADHD), since
  its effect is somewhat similar. Generally, the comparison
  states that amphetamines are bad for you and that 
  Modafinil is not as bad because it "works differently",
  but there is probably more overlap than the proponents of
  Modafinil would like you to think.

Modafinil is not addictive.

I have a prescription for Modafinil (required in the US) and have been taking it for over 5 years. Getting the prescription was fairly simple and required going to a sleep doctor and getting a "sleep study".

I would never have thought of myself as narcoleptic, although I remember frequently being unable to stay awake in high school math class. I think some would characterize me as "a sleepy guy" and I do have to be careful while driving late at night.

I don't take it on weekends, or vacations. Even for up to 3 weeks or a month, I'll go without Modafinil.

Taking Modafinil keeps me alert and excited about my code and my business.

Not taking Modafinil helps me relax and not think about the stress of running a business. I enjoy things like TV and Movies a whole lot more. Playing with my kids is also more fun when not on Modafinil.

But when I need to get back to work, within an hour of taking Modafinil, I am excited about the code in front of me and can work productively for 12 or more hours per day. When evening comes and you know you need rest, there is no temptation to take more Modafinil and work through the night - although that would be possible.

On more than one occasion, I have forgotten to take Modafinil before work in the morning. These days were much less productive, filled with self-promoted distractions and much less excitement about my work. But more importantly, there is no urge or need to take Modafinil; so much so, that I am able to forget about it completely.

These non-addictive characteristics are completely unlike amphetamines (which I have also unfortunately tried in my more distant history).

Addiction is not something that is just in the mind. Everybody who takes amphetamines or smokes cigarettes on a daily basis, will eventually become addicted. Some are able to overcome that addiction, others are not, but the physical addiction is a certainty.

No one who takes amphetamines on a daily basis will ever forget not to take them, nor will they enjoy a 2 week vacation without them. Same goes for the smoker without cigarettes.

Modifinil is quite easily forgotten for long periods of time. I think it is important to note this difference.

Just wanted to throw out there: please don't start any drug meant to impact the way you see the world without supervision (preferably, professional supervision). If something bad/weird happens, you might not be the first person to notice, especially if the response is emotional/perception based.

Getting a full nights sleep every night does wonders for concentration as well. Don't think of your body as the jar your brain walks around in. They are very tightly linked. If I wanted the effects he describes I'd spend 30mins on the elliptical.

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Trying to hack the body like this is the equivalent of fiddling around with some extremely complex code that you have no idea what does (in production, on an infinitely complex system with zero unit test coverage).

The music also made a big difference. Listening to Infected Mushroom while high on Modafinil and coding up a storm made me feel like I was some kind of insane coding machine that could complete pretty much any coding task in record time.

Hilarious :)

On a more serious note - this sounds a lot like taking Ritalin. I was just as productive if I was well rested, ...and working on something I cared about. - this isn't always an option. Sure, heavy use of anything isn't good. Lest we forget it's a drug after all, even regular use might be too much for some.

I really liked the article and the approach on things.

Thanks

Thank you for writing this, it articulates everything i have felt about it perfectly! Eerily similar to my experiences. It has always bothered me that people think these drugs make you smarter, because they dont. I think of them more like shots athletes get in hurt muscles- the shot didn't make you stronger, you just dont feel the pain anymore, at the expense of long term health. Only in very special circumstances is that worth it.

Seems like there's a lot of consensus here that Modafinil has no known dangerous side effects. I'm a little curious and concerned about the potentially fatal skin conditions (SJS, etc.) mentioned in the wikipedia article though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil#Side_effects

Anyone know about this? Is this a race-specific problem? Or just not as dangerous a risk as it sounds?

I bought pack of generic modafinil (do not remember exact brand). It was manufactured in India.

It had no effect on me. I tried up to 4 100mg pills at once (i.e. I started with half table one day and each day increasing dosage). Although, I also suspect it might be a fake, since I was buying from some online "pharmacy". Provigil both too expensive and require doctor's approval.

Just found about piracetam, thanks to this thread. just ordered :)

Interesting timing, just when I was about to swallow a 100mg pill of modalert to pull an all nighter and I find this on HN. I usually keep a few of them in drawers at home and work for one of those `rare occasions`. Tonight happens to be one of them.

Someone brought this up last time we talked about this on HN so I thought I would mention it here. Modafinil is technically a _stimulant_, not a cognitive enhancer (like piracetam).

I have heard it very difficult to get a prescription for Modafinil, even if you have work sleep shift disorder because most doctors aren't used to prescribing this drug.

Prescription of modafinil for any reason other the conditions for which it's indicated (hypersomnia or accepted off label use) is highly irresponsible of physicians.

For anyone that's interested, when he says "online pharmacy", what that really means (at least in the US), is:

A. An Overseas pseudo-legal (at best) operation that will send you the drugs discreetly in an envelope. The success rate of getting it through US Customs will be good as long as it's not shipped from a hot spot and does not come in a package.

B. A Mexican drug dealing operation that smuggles the drugs across the boarder to a US stash house, which then takes orders online, receives payment for the order via MoneyGram, and ships the orders out from within the US overnight by FedEx to your door steps.

I would agree that occasional use isn't a good idea. I've done that and it really is more trouble than it's worth. That said I still do it. If I have a day where I'm extra lazy I'll take a Nuvigil (Armodafinil, which is the active isomer of Modafinil) and be productive but with some side effects which include

Headaches

Nervousness

Some inability to focus between tasks

I've also found dosage has a sweet spot. I wouldn't take less than 150mg of Nuvigil as lower dosages make me strangely more nervous.

Stuff I've tried over the course of the last year or so:

1) Caffeine pills, 200mg each, around $4 at Walmart. I wrote about this before. The effects are far superior to coffee. More consistent, no intestinal distress. I could take one upon waking, and another around lunchtime. I haven't been taking them daily for a few months now, and my daytime productivity is certainly lower.

2) Piracetam with Choline Citrate and, sometimes, Centrophenoxine. I would usually take around 2g Piracetam and 1 - 2g Choline in the morning, and repeat the dose in the afternoon. It definitely has some effect, but I can't say whether or not it's really a positive one. I suspect that the key (like what the author of this article mentioned) is to have your tasks laid out clearly. I definitely had a few weeks where I got a tremendous amount done, but it was early on in the project when I knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. Overall, I say the jury is out on whether or not Piracetam has a beneficial effect on me. It might increase crankiness, which I've never read about from anyone else.

3) 1,3 Dimethylamylamine (DMAA), one of the three primary ingredients in Jack3d (a very popular pre-workout supplement). I settled on 2x20mg DMAA pills and 1x200mg caffeine about 30 minutes before my workout. Initially, I would get a mild sense of euphoria while walking to the gym. After about three doses, the euphoria seems to have gone away, but I am still able to power through my weight lifting routine without hesitation or procrastination. I've done this every other day for about a month now, and as long as I'm getting sufficient sleep, the effects seem consistent. I generally take it at around 5pm, get to the gym at 5:30, work out for 60 - 90 minutes, go home, and eat. By 11pm I'm very sleepy, and I don't have any more trouble getting to sleep before midnight than I normally do. Like most Internet/information addicted people, I certainly have my nights of senselessly clicking until the wee hours, but this seems unaffected by the DMAA + caffeine. By the way, I wear a heart rate monitor when experimenting with this, and I don't think I would do any intense cardio while on it. I don't believe I'm anywhere near a problematic dose level, but I'll err on the side of caution.

4) Cardio. I started feeling depressed heading into the holidays, so I did 30 minutes of moderate cardio (140bpm heart rate) every day for two weeks (I typically do a lot of cycling in the summer months, but not so much in late fall through early spring). My depression lifted very quickly. In general, I'm of the opinion that 30 minutes daily or every other day will do quite a lot to increase general alertness throughout the day. I'm going to experiment with something even easier: taking a morning walk first thing in the morning every day.