Can Nootropics Make You Superhuman - podcast with David Tomen

00:00 In this episode of the Team Superdad podcast, I learn all about nootropics enhancing your performance and landing a gorgeous wife with nootropics expert David Tomen. Roll theme! Welcome to team super dad real dads creating their best lives ever more time more money more fun you are not alone You're on Team Super Dad Hello Team Superdad, welcome back to the Team Superdad Podcast. It's great to have you here if you're a first-time listener then welcome! This is the program and community for dads busy dads who want to create their best life ever If you are expecting a kid if you've got children teenage children maybe they're all grown up when you're waiting on your grandchildren this is the place for you You know life is pretty hectic and if you don't stop to take a look around sometimes

00:58 As our good friend Ferris Bueller once said, then it can pass you by. In the Team Superdad community we're all about creating your best life ever You know we work on the F5 fitness finance focus family and fun and really it's about making gains so wherever you're at in any of those areas welcome! We are here with another awesome podcast episode Today I'm talking to David Tomen, he is a Nootropics expert. Now i didn't know really too much about nootropics until... Well, until my wife was pretty ill. That was back in 2009... no not 2009 2011 and I was listening to podcasts about functional medicine and health and nootropics are basically performance enhancing you know we're going to talk a lot about what types of performance but really any area of your life from sleep to creativity to energy to sex to memory vision the whole lot

01:59 And it was really funny because when David and I finished the podcast, we got talking about some of the things that are mentioned. And you know sometimes I wish I could leave the recording on even after we've said we're done because so much good stuff often happens after that. You'll hear David make reference to where is it? To Performance Lab They're a company based in the UK but he was talking about their vision product and he said it's absolutely phenomenal for improving your, your vision. Your eyesight which is my eyesight deteriorates I think i'm definitely going to try that so much you can take from this now check this today's podcast is pretty technical okay if you've not

02:45 Researched or looked into this subject before then some of it is going to be pretty hard to follow but I really want to encourage you to stick with it. The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, David Tomen

03:24 Like your own personal performance, whether it's in the bedroom, whether it's in the office. Whether is playing with your kids, whether its out you know during your workouts then the subject of nootropics and nutrition and getting wise on what's going into your body and what it's doing for you is absolutely invaluable like there...there is no more important knowledge to have so listen up I will continue with this subject, not every week of course but i will continue to add to it. To bring more people to you and definitely have David Tomen back on again to talk about some more specifics and I mentioned doing a Q&A session with him The

04:22 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, David Tomen. The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, David Tomen. You can join the community for free over at TeamSubida.com forward slash

05:21 Get connected, you'll see the links on the get started page. Really whatever it takes for you to get involved its time to take a stand, to take back control of your life To be the man you want to be, to be the dad your children need you to be and of course to be the partner that your wife or new relationship, your new love wants you to be as well Thanks for joining me I will see you on the other side Hello, good afternoon if you're in the UK. Good morning if you're in the States! This is The Team Super Dad Podcast and my name's Jonnie Jensen, founder and creator of The Team Super Dad Program & Community Today I'm so excited to be joined by David Tomen, New Tropics expert known around the world for his knowledge and skills in new tropics. David, good day to you sir it's a pleasure to have you here Thank you for inviting me, It's a pleasure to be here

06:14 I know. You can see by your tan that you are somewhere sunny! How is the weather today? Where are you joining us from Miami and look it's only supposed to go to 88 Fahrenheit today so that's cool at this time of the year for us It is actually yeah, I love Miami. I've been a few times went there on my honeymoon for a couple of days My family...I've got family who have homes in Florida and stuff So it's a great city Have you always lived there I've lived here since 2001. Went for the sunshine? Well, I was living in the Caribbean and I lived in Antigua for nine years. Okay! And I worked for...I helped build the first cellular telephone company in the Caribbean and we started out as a company called Boat Phone because we were just installing cell phones. This is back early days in cell phones when people were still carrying around these great big 3 watts. Yeah yeah

07:10 with a strap on it so you sling... Yeah, I worked in mobile from 2004 to 2008. So we were pioneers in this and we started putting them on yachts and then a couple of years after that we got bought out by Cable & Wireless big British telecom. And I ended up the group sales and marketing manager for the Caribbean for Cable & Wireless Mobile for nine years And so that was amazing. I love the islands and then when i decided i wanted to leave the islands, I didn't know what to do but I knew that things were happening in the states So I decided to come up here. I knew people...I first ended up in Austin Texas. I was recruited to work for a dot-com

08:00 And the dot-com ran out of money and I was looking for something to do. And I knew people in South Florida, so I ended up in South Florida and I've been here ever since. Never left! Lovely! We're on the Team Superdad podcast of course... So are you a dad anyway? What's your family situation like? Yes, I'm a stepdad. I just celebrated my 14th anniversary with my wife Lara. Congratulations! January 2006 on North Miami Beach. And I saw her, fell in love. Six months later we were married and... So you okay so you this is a good let me ask you about this because this is especially dads who are looking to get into new relationships. So what? You just spotted walking along or...? I saw this gorgeous blonde on down by the water and a friend of mine Robbie was beside me and I said who is that girl down there she's gorgeous

09:02 And she really is beautiful and he says, well that's Lara. And I said can I want to meet her? So Robert being Robert we call him Tarzan because he had this long ponytail hanging down the back. He went down to the water and dragged Lara back and introduced us and we fell in love when we got married six months later and I inherited two kids, two teenagers Wow. Yeah, now I have two grandkids. No because people often feel nervous about us even just introducing themselves to a stranger... I was single for years because I was divorced in um...I was divorced seven years before that and i had absolutely no interest in getting married again like none and I dated here and there but it was just kind of like because I really had my heart broken

09:56 But when I saw this girl, man it was just to change my life. So you said she's gorgeous right? Did you think at first she was out of your league? I've never thought that because I always found that really beautiful women tend to have a hard time finding dates Yeah true but equally and that's because a lot of men think they don't have the confidence Out of reach so yeah They're not going to approach them That's brilliant. That's a fabulous encouragement to myself, but also to any dads that are listening to this. Brilliant and you know being a step parent is a challenge as well. You know not it's almost one of those unspoken subjects we cover it a lot on the Team Superdad community and in the podcast its you know... It's as well as responsibility to that child there's also responsibility to the biological dad and not getting in the way and things. It can be a challenging role

10:50 I think that I had a bit of an advantage because I didn't have kids prior. Right So, I didn't know what being a parent was like except for you know my parents who...I've had amazing parents and my dad is still alive he's 94 He worked until he was 86 years old Brilliant! so I had an amazing upbringing but I never had any preconceived ideas of what it was like to raise a kid with another woman. So when I met Lara and her two kids were part of the picture, it was all brand new for me and just kind of figured out as we went along. Brilliant! Well you mentioned as

11:39 The mom and the dad, Lara and the dad yourself you'll get on relatively well. And that makes things so much easier. Sure it does everybody should strive for that. Well thanks for sharing so much of that David. That's good to get related into share with with with the audience as well. So the subject of new tropics Not many people even know what they are, let alone are able to confidently call themselves the New Tropics expert. And you know if anyone's doubting that they should see how much you've written on this subject and all of the different podcasts you've been on so without doubt you're definitely a renowned person in this subject

12:17 What the hell are nootropics though for those people that don't know and how long they've been around? Well, nootropics have been around for millennia because now... well let me tell you where the word nootropic came from. There was a doctor named Dr. Corneliu Gregea who is a Romanian psychologist and chemist and he synthesized paracetam in 1963 And he was in St. Petersburg, I think working with Pavlov. Remember Pavlov's dog? Yeah and his dog yeah He was working with Pavlov and he invented paracetam and he invented paracetam for it is a derivative of GABA so it was intended to be a calming type of drug for motion sickness

13:10 But despite this connection with GABA, that's not the way it worked out. What Dr. Gurgaon found was that paracetam modulates AMPA receptors in a boost of function of acetylcholine in your brain and as a result has a significant impact on learning and memory And so they put it out as a prescription drug and it's still used in some countries today around the world is a prescription drug. There are whole bunch of offshoots off that, so... So one second when you say synthesize that means creating in a lab an otherwise natural product? Correct! It's a derivative of GABA which is a natural neurotransmitter in your brain

13:54 And so Dr. Gurgais saw what was going on that there were a bunch of offshoots all derivatives of GABA with the same nucleus or the same core, people were inventing different drugs all around the world, all racetams based on paracetams and he figured that... He wanted to call this class of drug something and that's where nootropics came from It's derived from the Greek, nou for mind and trepan to bend. So to bend the mind and that was in 1973 And then he went one step further He decided that he was going to define what a nootropic is

14:37 And this is all in, if this is written down it's recorded. A true nootropic enhances memory and the ability to learn that assists brain function under disruptive conditions like a lack of oxygen or electroconvulsive shock. It protects the brain from chemical and physical toxins like cholinergic drugs and barbiturates. It increases natural cognitive processes and must be non-toxic to humans So, but now when you people have taken license with this word and they call everything that affects the brain a nootropic which is not I take issue with that because to my mind nootropics are any cognitive enhancer. That's natural that you don't need a prescription to get in other words You can buy it at your local Whole Foods or as a vitamin shopper your local health food store And you don't need to go to your doctor to get a prescription

15:35 And what the press is doing, is they're taking things like Adderall and Ritalin and prescription stimulants. And they're referring to them as nootropics. I think that's a sin! Well it's a complete disservice... It is. To the definition of a true nootropic. So I've been harping on this for the last five years and just don't know if people are getting my message or not but And I've reviewed full, complete reviews of close to 100 different supplements now that affect the human brain.

16:20 And that's perfect because you just wrapped it all up there at the end by saying exactly what the new tropics are. That's why it is gaining interest from people, because its giving people access to creativity, concentration and higher levels of performance in I guess any area of life really, but quite commonly work and creative arts and those kind of things. Even in the relationships? Hmm. Because there's nootropics that can be used for anxiety. There are nootropics that can be used for depression

17:01 Nootropics for PTSD, nootropics for OCD just about anything preventing Alzheimer's and dementia. Yeah And stroke so there are it's amazing what nootropics can do I kind of stumbled upon it when I first encountered it what 13 years ago now? I didn't...I'd never heard the word nootropic So what were you up to? What was your work then? I was, when I met this beautiful blonde in North Miami Beach. Yeah? I was a yacht broker. Okay! But remember in 2008 the economy recession. Yeah And so um...I couldn't sell a new yacht if my life depended on it and I decided to start a marketing business

17:52 But I was having a real problems trying to build this business and my wife saw what was going on. And so she introduced me to the psychiatrist in Palm Beach, which is north of here who was kind of like a rock star. He's one of these unique individuals that are just amazing at their job and he sat me down within 10 minutes. He diagnosed me adult ADD and PTSD And it took me another 10 years before I think I knew where PTSD came from, but adult ADD. Man that was the story of my life because we were talking earlier about how I lived in the Caribbean for nine years and I helped build the first cellular telephone company there. I've been to 45 countries

18:37 Yeah, one second. ADD that's attention deficit disorder so people might have heard that around more commonly children they talk about not concentrating in class and they've got a problem child on their hands and they're ADD. Right there is ADD and there is ADHD. The H stands for hyperactivity So I don't have a problem with hyperactivity but I had a problem with focus because every time I had a performance review my yearly performance review it was David you were fantastic manager really good with people But you got to learn how to focus. And so I bought the books on how to focus, and I did whatever I could to learn how to focus and I just could not do it. This guy, this psychiatrist said your ADD! He put me on Ritalin and it was like someone turned the lights onto my brain

19:28 Yeah, I've heard about Ritalin. There's something about the ADD brain that is our wiring is messed up so we're not like a normal person and there's something about stimulants that affect dopamine and norepinephrine they affect their receptor dopamine receptors and transporters There's something about the way they work that reroutes how dopamine works in the brain, that helps the ADD and ADHD brain. And dopamine is a very happy drug right? Dopamine is involved in learning and memory it's involved mood its but involved in libido It's I mean dopamine has just been involved in so many different things in our life. But it certainly affects focus and concentration The other one is cytokine

20:23 So what happened is that I had such success with Ritalin. It changed my life a couple of years after I started taking it, I started growing tolerant to it and it wasn't working as well and I'm going no this is not gonna happen! For the first time in my life I can focus you're gonna stop working? I don't think so...so I decided to find out how Ritalin worked And I found that it was a dopamine reuptake inhibitor and it affects dopamine transporters and dopamine receptors. So if it wasn't working, what does that mean? Well maybe I don't have enough dopamine in my brain so I looked that up but this was 13 years ago and there wasn't 12 years ago there wasn't a lot of this information around so I really had to dig for it but I found out you could increase dopamine by taking L-tyrosine

21:19 So I went to a local GNC and got some altyrosine. Is that prescription drug or over-the-counter? Altyrosine is their supplement. Oh, okay! Right... You don't need a prescription to get it. It's easy to get. It's not expensive and so i got altyrosine. And also found out that acetylcholine was involved in brain cell signaling and that was the problem of ADD brain And so I'm going, okay how do I improve acetylcholine function? And I found out that you need a choline precursor to make acetylcholine because you can't take acetylcholine as a pill.

21:57 And I saw an alpha GBC or acetylcholine are both precursors to the synthesis of acetylcholine and acetylalcarnitine is just alcarnitine with an acetyl group added to it as a cofactor in the synthesis of acetylcholine. Take those two together and I have more acetylcholine in my brain. Right, and L-carnitine that's...I think do you see that quite often around gym supplements and stuff? Sure yeah but the problem with L-carnitine is it can't cross the blood brain barrier Yeah so just explain this to people like precursor that's a drug in the body that has to be present so the body can create another drug That's in layman terms right yeah

22:43 So people need to realize this quite often when you talk about thyroid problems and stuff, it might not actually be a thyroid problem. They might have a precursor that's not there is no producing enough TH3 or TH4. These precursors are very important in the way that the human body works and they produce chemicals. Oddly enough, the thyroid hormone is L-tyrosine involved in producing thyroid hormones Right, okay. Because a friend of mine was giving some... And just like you said, you got wise about what Ritalin was doing. People... I would encourage people to get really wise about what the doctor will prescribe or if you've got a thyroid problem so give some quite strong drugs but actually it's the long period of stress could have caused fatigue in the body on the adrenals or whatever else and actually its those precursors that are causing the thyroid problem not a poorly thyroid

23:38 That very well could be true. Yeah, yeah I mean I went severely hypothyroid about seven years ago now and I got really really really sick Was this around the Ritalin stuff? No! I finally got Ritalin working again and everything was hunky-dory and then a few years later I just started getting really sick And...I was just out of the blue Like feeling really physically sick And kind of like vibrating inside and falling asleep at two o'clock in the afternoon, every afternoon. What sort of age is this?

24:19 Pardon? What sort of age was this around 45. Yeah, so quite a lot of Team Superdad listeners are around 35-45 that's all right So yeah They could be experiencing these sorts the same things basically There was finally one day my wife panicked and she thought I was having a heart attack And she took me to the ER and saw these guys tested my heart My heart was fine But they said you're hypothyroid So they gave me Synthroid And Synthroid is just synthetic T4. Right! And I tried using that for three months and I just kept on getting sicker, and I said okay i'm either gonna die or I'm going to fix this...and I found out about natural desiccated thyroid

25:04 Which is taken from a pig or a cow? Yeah, bovine. And my brother's doctor up north and he had sent some down and I started using it and I started feeling better But during that time I completely lost my memory. Just a curious little side effect or additional problem? So, I still didn't had never heard the word nootropic up to that point you know i knew about L-tyrosine and acetylalcarnitin but hadn't heard the word nootropic when I lost my memory

25:40 I started fixing everything else in this body. So, my marriage was on the rocks too. My business was failing we were broke. Lara wanted to leave it was really bad so i was just fighting to get well again. And that is something lots of dads can relate to I call it buckets. So you've got different buckets in your life, all of a sudden they're all looking pretty empty. You sort of panicking trying to find out which one is almost the most important and quite often will come back to your own personal health and well-being as the baseline to improve all areas. In this case it was just that I had to get healthy again so I could start making money again if I expected my marriage

26:26 to survive. And so I started, I chose to live rather than die. I mean how is that sick? Wow! It was a choice and so i started doing research again like I'd done few years earlier when Ritalin stopped working and I learned about how learning in memory work in the brain and that's when I started finding out about nootropics But at that time, now this is like seven years ago. There were no books on it there were no websites on it I had to go to places like PubMed and read clinical studies and I read hundreds of clinical studies To try to figure out how to fix...how to get my memory back And I did

27:12 And when I finally started getting healthy again, just running a marketing company was too much and I was going to concentrate on one thing. So I chose copywriting because I've been a writer all of my life and so I got trained by AWAI up in Delray Beach Indirect response copy. And I started writing copy for dietary supplement companies and I worked with a company in the UK who had an atropic stack, and I wrote some advertorials for them. When I was writing these advertorials, I was having a heck of time trying to find information to back up my copy. So if i'm having such a hard time finding this information

27:59 What's everybody else doing? Because I'm pretty darn good at this. And, um...I figured well the world needs some place to go some- The world needs an authority on Nootropics and that's how Nootropicsexpert came to be! I just decided to create the website and it was five years ago now Yeah, and I thought that was around the same sort of time that I first heard of the word. I was looking at reasons why my wife was ill you mentioned PTSD, that's post-traumatic stress disorder she was experiencing autoimmune condition physical pain vivid nightmare like a whole just disaster right through to seizures and locked out syndrome And I would listen to Sean Stevens model health show podcast

28:47 That led me into some functional medicine podcasts and that led me into new subjects, new tropics. And I was feeling like I was burnt out. I described it as burnt out, I couldn't keep going and little did I know that I was actually quite depressed from everything that's going on but I started taking 5-HTP which is a precursor to melatonin which is a happiness kind of feel good chemical in the body. Well 5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin which synthesizes melatonin It's not the greatest way to increase serotonin because 5-HTP. The problem with finding it, 5-HTP is people dose it too high first and the thing is that direct precursor and you can run into the same problem with dopamine with L-DOPA is if you use a direct precursor when you take that supplement, it immediately goes to your brain and starts making that neurotransmitter

29:45 Like there's no in-between steps, nothing. It grabs the cofactors it needs and it makes serotonin. And what people were finding is that 5-HTP works fantastic for about five or six weeks and then it stops working. And so they're going, why? This stuff doesn't work. And it turns out and this is just my theory nobody's been able to I've never seen any proof of this but my theory on in these clinical studies that show that this is true after four to six weeks of regular daily supplementation of 5-HTP It treated depression but all of a sudden stopped working. I think probably what happened was there became an imbalance of neurotransmitters

30:30 Because when you raise serotonin too much, you depress dopamine. And if you raise dopamine too much, you depress serotonin likewise. So it's always about finding that balance? It's always about finding that balance now you can goose it up And you can have more serotonin, but you also need to support the rest of your neurotransmitters if you're going to do that. If you're going to optimize your brain so that it's kind of like just like supercharging a car... You can supercharge your brain to a certain extent but you've got to be careful how you do that because

31:10 You can't just put new shock absorbers in it and expect to go an extra 100 miles an hour, right? There's more work that needs to be done. So instead of using 5-HTP to raise serotonin use L-tryptophan because L-tryptophan is two steps for making serotonin. It's safer you can use a larger dose its easier to control And so that's what I encourage people to use instead is altryptophan. Okay, nice! I'll definitely look into that and you know it is an interesting segue into this we said people use nootropics in all different areas of life where... This kind of brings it back to basics really You've got your busy dad who's juggling his life feeling a bit exhausted generally wants things to be perhaps slightly better in all areas

32:05 Where does he start with, is it a self audit? Does he need to do like on himself or does he need to go away and find out about that. Did he just suddenly become an expert on nootropics there is there are multi-nootropic that you can start with kind of thing but where does a dad's star when he's looking at this sounds great I can improve myself but where they held my style. Step number one has come to your nootropic expert I've written a few articles on exactly this kind of thing because there's lots and lots of people that are still new to this. And so, I've written articles on the best nootropic stack for the beginner and what I do there is walk people through how to assess yourself because you can't just grab something off the shelf from your local vitamin shop

32:59 Things to get better. You need to kind of like evaluate what's going on and so, what do you want to fix? What do you want to improve? Do you want decision-making and focus in thinking and processing speed to work better? Yes! Or do you want learning and memory to work better or is it a problem with energy and motivation? Or is it a problem with anxiety and depression These are all separate categories. Yeah, and speaking for myself I've moved from depression and anxiety after the breakup you know which got dealt with at the times um and now you get into like the rebuild part of life or wherever it could be a young couple trying to like excel then it gets into focus and creativity and decision making so people's circumstances change as well I can see that

33:55 Yeah, so I've done the research and when you come to the website you can look at some of the different lists that I've made. There's one tab on the main menu called Best Nootropics and there is a table. And so best nootropics for processing speed decision making focus flow in thinking and then the recommended nootropics for that. In this case it's acetyl L-carnitine which is just L-carnitin within acetyl group added to it so it can cross the blood brain barrier Aniracetam, which is one of the racetams. Caffeine, CDP-choline or acetylcholine, lion's mane mushroom, anacetyl l-tyrosine or L-tyrosine and B complex vitamins. Any of those are you can use all of those? Yeah I do Or you can just pick a couple of them and try them and see how they work for you yeah

34:51 And what about caffeine? We talked before we went on air about this Bulk Powders Nootropic that I bought, kind of off the shelf just like you were saying. It's got per 6 capsules which is what it is the recommended dose per if you're taking it on that day takes six capsules so that equals 200 milligrams of caffeine on that day You know, caffeine's in coffee as well and caffeine is everywhere. Why do they put caffeine in a nootropic? Just for the buzz or what does it do? Because when people are new to this and they go to their vitamin shop and they're looking for a nootropic stack to try and the manufacturer wants them to try it and feel something, they put caffeine in it

35:32 For the buzz. Because otherwise if you don't put it in there, you're going to have an effect on your ectropic stack in all likelihood but its gonna take a while for it to work and its gonna take awhile for you to start experiencing the benefits from because a lot of these things are very subtle how they work. Yeah? Okay that's interesting. Caffeine on the other hand... How caffeine works primarily is as an adenosine antagonist What happens is you've got mitochondria, you've got thousands of mitochondria in each one of your brain cells and that your mitochondria produce ATP or adenosine triphosphate which is your main energy supply. That's where your cellular energy comes from. Flowing all around your body? Flowing all around your body especially in your brain and in your heart

36:25 Now, that adenosine triphosphate once it's used it casts off adenosine and adenosine builds up in your body during the day and that's what causes you to start feeling sleepy. So eventually you go to bed. Caffeine blocks that process. It's an adenosine antagonist. An antagonist means that its blocks the way adenosine naturally works in your body and on your brain So that's how it keeps you awake. But, caffeine does a lot more than that! It affects acetylcholine, it affects epinephrine which is adrenaline, it affects serotonin and boost the use of dopamine

37:13 So it can exhaust you in all areas, but too much caffeine can exhaust you in all areas. It's a real drain on the body? It's a drain on the body especially dopamine and the B vitamins...it is also a diuretic so you end up pissing out the b-complex vitamins But its funny that a lot of energy drinks and stuff they pump them full of B vitamins and caffeine Yeah And if you take a look at some of the newer stim...if you are looking for a stimulant stack And so you just want something that will give, that you can use as needed. So say you start flagging at three o'clock in the afternoon and you just need a little extra umph, a little extra boost. You can look for it specifically for a stimulant stack but that stimulant stack needs to be built properly if its got caffeine in it its gotta have L-theanine

38:02 The most basic nootropic stack is caffeine combined with L-theanine because L-theanine helps boost levels of acetylcholine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. It affects alpha and theta brainwaves which provide a calming effect. So it helps calm the stimulant or the jitteriness of caffeine. Yeah, we can all relate to that! But you also need to add in some extra L-tyrosine so that stack should not only have caffeine and L-theanine but it should have some L-tyrosine too because which is a precursor to dopamine. So you're boosting dopamine

38:42 And it should have the B-complex vitamins in it, especially B6, B9 and B12 which are necessary cofactors for the synthesis of dopamine. Right! So that's your stack – that's your stimulant stack. Caffeine, L-theanine, L-tyrosine and B-complex is an amazing stimulants stack. A lot of times what you'll find in the vitamin shop instead is a supplement that just has caffeine and L-theanine That's just it's not enough because altheanine while it influences and a boost, It kind of like boosts these neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine And dopamine in your brain kinda like Ritalin does. Kind of like... Not exactly like but kinda like. It's not actually a precursor to the synthesis of these neurotransmitters Just like Ritalin is not a precursor to dopamine

39:43 Right. Adderall is not a precursor to dopamine. So Ritalin and Adderall just kind of, they're like an interrupter. They just dive right in and interrupt things. They interrupt things and they kinda rewire your brain on how it uses them. Yeah because people those two words people commonly heard them perhaps around children. Children getting prescribed those two things I first heard of Ritalin because people in the London marketing community were getting hold of it to use for creativity and work late nights. And it's effective for that, not the greatest choice but its effective for that. It is also really hard on your receptors. Ritalin is safer than Adderall

40:20 Yeah, by the way. But yeah if you're gonna use stimulant drugs like that you really need to support it with nootropics just to keep your brain safe and from harming it when you're using these stimulants. I think a snack for that too! Yeah well I think that's the important thing is about knowledge. You know this...I hope today we would for people who haven't ever heard about this subject or looked at The creation of movement and chemicals around the body. Some of what we've spoken about today might be a bit overwhelming, kind of like what the hell are they going on about? But in your free guide which will link to from the show notes and we can give a link at the end this as well that's all listed there and explained so that's really helpful for people but it also for me comes back to the importance of knowledge and understanding about these things you know when were chatting together

41:13 Rave culture and MDMA, you know it's a lot of drugs in their simple and pure forms aren't necessarily that dangerous. It is just what they get mixed with or how they get used or abused and thats how the danger can come. And this subject is no different so for people Middle-aged, busy with goals in their life and things they've got to do on a day to day basis. Getting knowledgeable about this subject can be of massive benefit to them is you know... You said so much about how it can benefit people but just in broader terms getting the right nootropic for your lifestyle what can that do for someone who's feeling busy and overwhelmed? It could change your life

42:02 I mean, it can do things. It depends on what you're doing and what you need it for but it can improve your work because all of a sudden you're going to be more productive at work and you're going to be the person at the table that remembers things better than everybody else in the room and is able to come up with facts easier than anybody else in the room. You can think faster on your feet Your relationships are going to be better because your mood is going to be better and you're not going to be as irritable. You're just gonna be easier to live with. Important! And your dream life is gonna be a lot better

42:42 I find it's just there's, nootropics can affect every aspect of your life both at home and at work and in athletics. I've built a stack for the e-gaming community okay um and i did consultations with people in the military so it can help anybody really. Sex life? What about sex life? Sex life, it helps a lot. Well dopamine for example is involved in libido and if your libido is shot take a look at your dopamine levels

43:24 And this can obviously be both male and female, right? It is male and female. Yeah because...and I've written extensively on the aging brain and i consult on the aging brain as well because our brains just are age and they get older and things stop working as well and there are things that like dopamine for example you You lose about 10% of your dopamine production capability per decade starting around age 35 or so. Okay, so by 55 you're 30%, like okay, you're a third down on the guy across the table? Right! So if you are 55 and you have no libido chances are you don't have enough dopamine. It can absolutely affect your sex life

44:19 Can people take these things long term so they get the stack? By the way, for stack that means the cocktail or mix of nootropics someone's taken. That is what stack means right? There is no such thing as a one pill solution That is something that we've been conditioned to believe by mainstream medicine and that's just not the way the human body works or the human brain works. If you're going to fix something, just know it's probably going to take a handful of capsules And they're each going to do something different. But just don't expect to be able to get one thing like 5-HTP or L-tyrosine, St John's Wort and to fix something

45:06 That's not the way these things work. It's going to take probably, you have to learn how each one of these things work if you're trying to fix something and know what you have to put together for the most benefit because dopamine, to synthesize dopamine, you not only need L-tyrosine You need either phenylalanine, which is the dopamine pathway is this. It's phenylalanine to L-tyrosine to L-dopa to dopamine to norepinephrine to epinephrine right? So dopamine and norepinephrine are the two really important ones. Epinephrine is your kind of fight or flight response. Norepinephrine is kinda like your attention and focus

45:54 and alertness, and dopamine is learning in memory and libido and muscle movement. It's involved in all that so but you can't just take L-tyrosine with the expectation of making dopamine because L-tyrosine also requires vitamins B6, B9, and B12 and magnesium and vitamin C all working together to create that dopamine molecule And so you'll see a hint of this if you know what you're looking at when you look at the supplement facts label and some of these nootropic stacks, you can buy in store. If they're saying that this is going to boost your learning and memory and alertness and there's L-tyrosine in it, if you look towards...at the very top or towards the bottom of the list, you're gonna see vitamins B6, B9 and B12. That's why those are in there because their cofactors in the synthesis of dopamine. L-tyrosine just can't work on its own

46:54 So a one-stop, this is called complete nootropic my one. That's actually just a marketing kind of blag bullshit basically you know disrespect to the manufacturer but to have a one Nootropic fits all type supplement is nonsense really it's what we're saying You know you would be really really lucky if it were silver bullet Well, you know we kind of laugh but or you'll probably get some benefit but not But not really be able to attribute any clear benefits to it. Because if you tell me that, Jimmy I want...I need to fix learning and memory so i'm going to say all right let's raise dopamine and raise acetylcholine and prescribe l-tyrosine and acetylcholine and vitamin c and magnesium and the B complex vitamins

47:52 And I can say take this much of each one of these things, right? Yeah. That might not be right for you the amount, right? So it... For example, I use mega doses of L-tyrosine because I use Ritalin and I'm older so I can take a thousand milligrams of L-tyrosine first thing in the morning along with the B complex vitamin and it works fine for me if you tried that You would probably be going around the bend in a book.

48:31 Like in a confused way or just like buzzing. Buzzing, jittery yeah and your heart would be racing and so while each one of these things are common to each one of us different amounts are gonna be more appropriate for what works for me is not necessarily going to work for you Yeah And is that trial-and-error for someone when they go? Absolutely trial-and-error Okay So like anything they start with the lower dosage increase it, well like take it for a week and then increase slightly or take it for another week. This is the right other reason why for beginners or newbies coming to this I discourage them from getting pre-formulated stacks like this because if you take that and either doesn't work or you have a bad reaction to it It's not because all nootropics are garbage You reacted to one thing

49:29 in that formula of six or eight different ingredients, but there's absolutely no way you can tell what that thing is. Yeah So if you put together... If you first put together your own stack learn how to do this Put together your own stack so you end up with four or five or six individual supplements figure out what the correct dose of each of those is and if you've never taken any of these take them one at a time So take the first one and use it for a day, and see what happens. And if there's no bad reaction then add the next one for a day or two to see what happens If there is no bad reaction, add the next one so as soon you have something that has a bad reaction to it You know that you can't use that supplement. Yep got it! This is really important because some people like my wife she cannot take any kind of a choline supplement. If she takes anything with choline in it

50:30 Like alpha gbc or citric choline she just goes bananas she just go psycho and so that wears off right like it's like for a couple of hours something thats not like a permanent thing. No it will definitely wear off its not threatening but its really uncomfortable. Yeah particularly someone who has never taken drugs I suppose. For me it was interesting when after my marriage break down and, and i was diagnosed depressed and went on to antidepressants, I feel like having taken a fair amount of drugs like ecstasy during during my life, I was kind of much more tuned into

51:15 how it was feeling or whether it was working, where there is too much of weather. It's weather I started to feel like oh actually I could start to come off this now someone who has never really experienced recreational drugs too much might not be familiar with those kind of experiences. I call that listening to your body right okay but someone shouldn't naturally shouldn't they should naturally not There's a fine line between overreacting and panicking unnecessarily, and being oblivious to the fact that you're completely wired off your brain type thing. Well, yeah. The only way that you can really make this thing or you can make anything work, this natural substances are drugs work is if you're listening to your body and know what kind of effect it's having on your body and what kind of reaction you're having to it. I mean... Can someone keep a diary? Or say like quite practical things like that take notes? Yeah people do keep a log

52:10 And that's the most effective way to do it, is to take a log. You know keep a log and just keep your diary and this is how much I took at this particular time of the day? And that's the other thing as you can't expect to take this thing in the morning and for expected to work all day for you because a lot of these are amino acids and they have a half-life up two or three hours So that L-tyrosine that you take at 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning is not going to be there any longer at noon. If you want the same benefit at noon, you've got to take it again. And is that okay? Can you keep taking it day and day out? Yes Okay so as long...so you get the stack right and it supports you It's no different than orange juice and other positive dietary intakes This is food Yeah food yeah Well think about this We used to get this from food

53:05 All of this stuff we used to get, other than the adaptogens. We used to get this stuff from food 50 years ago there wasn't a supplement industry 100 years ago there wasn't a supplement industry because we didn't need one. It came from fresh food? We got this stuff from fresh food but it would take a bushel of apples today To get the same kind of nutrition that you would get from one apple in 1959 For all kinds of reasons, because this stuff is grown on depleted soil and our carbon dioxide levels are double what they were.

53:44 A few decades ago, which means that plants are growing faster and which is a good thing But they're growing so fast that what nutrients that are in the ground that they typically draw up They haven't got time to drop because of growing so fast. Okay? Yeah And then nutrients are lost during harvesting their loss during transport their last drink storage Their last drink cooking there last drink processing So by the time you get that food on your plate And so everybody, especially in our modern world and in the Western world that is not eating like really really super fresh food right from the field outside into the kitchen and onto the table every single day are deficient in so many things. So the biggest favorite you can do yourself is find a really good high quality multivitamin.

54:42 And you'd be amazed at how much different you would feel if you just had these nutrients in your body. Yeah, yeah and I similar to...I've got one from bulk powders in the UK and it is a good one. I trust that it comes from good ingredients and has the right amount of all those essential nutrients and vitamins in it You know, I think it's important to say if something is a couple of dollars off the shelf in your supermarket that's not the same as something that's ten dollars or ten pounds from a specialist provider. That's correct and there are a couple of issues and i've written extensively on this too. The dietary supplement industry has self-policing

55:32 Really, there's no authority that like the drug industry that is governed by some government authority. The supplement industry of self-policing so the multivitamins that you can get from your supermarket or from Target or Walmart are just they're synthetic. The vitamins are synthetic and the minerals are ground up rock Not great then. Your body doesn't recognize it as food! Okay, so this is a really important subject you know someone could listen to all this and then go out and buy something cheap because they were trying to save money and actually know that you need to put in the research not just what your going to take but where your gonna purchase it from So whats your advice on finding a good supplier? A good source or shop

56:24 Come to Nootropic Sexpert. Hey, of course! A sound advice. Just know what you're buying and know how to read a supplement label because not only do you want to find out but you want to know that you're getting the right form of each vitamin in the right form of each mineral. The minerals need to be chelated minerals and not ground-up rock and the vitamins needs to be made from either food source or from yeast But in a form that when it gets into your body, your body's going to go, aha! That's food. I can use that and so it'll get into your cells and it will use vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E like normally would if you were getting it from a meal. And the other thing that you want to watch for too is toxic ingredients because every supplement facts label has other ingredients underneath of it

57:23 And there shouldn't be any other ingredients other than the capsule the thing is in, because what I've discovered is it's not necessary. And you're going to see things like magnesium stearate and silicon dioxide and just these chemical names that you don't know what they do They're not there for your benefit. Yeah, yeah like a clean because it could be the thing they clean the machine with or something like that is... That's they use um they use them to help the powders flow through machines so that doesn't stick. Yeah. They use it for a preservative so it doesn't spoil when it's sitting on the shelf. They use it for color. They use it so it smells better and but if you take a look at these chemicals

58:12 Every single one of these is toxic somehow to your body, right? Like silicon dioxide is used as a colorant but it does bad things in your body. And so you want to avoid that. It is possible to make these supplements without other ingredients in them So you want the natural ingredient in the capsule that your body's going to recognize this food so then I can go Oh okay! I can use this And you don't want anything else in that capsule. And it's possible to find, it's really difficult to find there is somebody up the road from you Optinutra they got their offices in Leamington Spa They make a multivitamin that they call...they've got their own and its grown on the lab on different types of yeast It's called Nutrigenesis, they're vitamins and minerals

59:10 And that was the first time in my life that I ever took a multivitamin and actually felt the difference. Yeah, well they call it Optinutri. The line of supplements is called Performance Lab and they also make a nootropic stack It's a different company but its owned by Optinutria Mindlab Pro which I've been using for last five years as the base of my stack But this is where I first got a hint of how these supplements can be made naturally and there's no toxic ingredients in them. And they even make the capsule that they put the stuff in, it was made out of fermented tapioca instead of cellulose or veggie capsules which are basically bark tree bark

1:00:02 And this is, people are thinking oh this sounds like a lot of hard work. It's the exact opposite of taking no responsibility so drinking coffee all day you know just burning ourselves out eating lots of processed foods it's The impact is so significant and it'll change your life. Yeah, to take that level of responsibility and interest it's about looking after something to get the results you want. So you're wondering why your life isn't working quite well? You want your relationship better? You want your business to perform better? You wanna have a better time with kids? You wanna have more fun? You wake up in more energy

1:00:48 you're not prepared to put the work in. It's, this body that we have been gifted is a high performance vehicle and so working out exactly what helps it run effectively and then going to the best possible source for that fuel basically is where we can find the success and results that we strive for. Yeah! And when you think about it how much money do you spend on the supermarket every week? Alright, so spend a little bit more on the supplements that you're getting and all you're doing is supplementing what your eating everyday. And your brain is going to work better, you are going to feel better and perform better.

1:01:32 And just finally, because we haven't mentioned it yet. Is this a subject to consider for our children? I don't mean like drugging our children but like... To what degree particularly if the doctors are prescribing something you know let alone you know let alone the rest of us but there is this spectrum where doctors are happily prescribing Ritalin for our kids then we've got our kids who naturally want to eat Harry Bow and Nerds and McDonald's and then you've got the conscientious parent at Natural food, which we've just heard has virtually got no nutrients in itself. So then at what level? I mean, I give my kids a multivitamin but at what level can we think about this in terms of supporting our children?

1:02:14 I've done lots of now personal consultations with parents that want to help their kids and have to be careful here because the human body is an amazing machine. And when you're young like that, it's very forgiving They typically come to me when they're dealing with something like autism or their kid has got ADHD and the doctor wants to put them on Adderall, and the parent doesn't want them to go on it. So what do they do? And you can do similar things that you do as an adult but you just have to scale down the dose a lot to be more age appropriate. Just to see an example of this, go to some place like Amazon and look at an adult multivitamin

1:03:02 A high-quality adult multivitamin and a high quality kids multivitamin. And compare the amount of each ingredient, yeah? And that'll just give you some indication. Yes it's huge difference. Yeah they're using the same thing that adults are but much smaller amounts because higher amounts can be toxic. Yeah and people have got to take great care in doing this I mean like I'm sure speak for yourself but Buying lots of supplements for their kids. But on a basic level, like you just said, a decent multivitamin for our children is probably a good idea. Yeah amazing! Wow I've got so many other questions that we could ask or dig into now but it's really interesting to consider because we never even touched on this in the UK A lot of people who are aged 35-55 were probably part

1:03:58 Rave and clubbing culture, and quite a lot of recreational drug use. And the impact that might have had on them and how we can be supporting that as we move into middle and later stages of life. I'm pretty certain as well off the back of this podcast episode and this live stream today, we'll get lots of questions. Dad's inside the Team Superdad community if you've got questions then by all means ask them and we may be able to in future create a Q&A session or something with David that can work in a way for specific questions yeah

1:04:36 David, this has been fascinating. I kind of apologize but also make no bones about it for people who thought like what the hell was that all about? It took me years to understand the kind of podcasts and information that i was reading about my wife's now ex-wife but her condition you know until i started to really understand adrenal fatigue and precursors Hippocampus and I was like, it's not until you've listened to a whole bunch of podcasts or read a whole bunch of blog posts or picked up a couple of books that the repeated reference

1:05:18 chemicals in the human body and to these supplements that it all starts to line up and like any education, it then starts to make sense. It then starts to become something familiar. Then start to become something you have a greater degree of confidence about and the wrong thing is get put off on the very first time you look at it because it sounds overly complicated. The benefits are definitely worth it and that knowledge that someone can take on board is what will build their future confidence and success, so they just have to stick to it and put the work in. I actually wrote a book too called Head First that's been really popular and its almost 600 pages first book since 1992 under tropics

1:06:07 Wow. And it's basically a manual for your brain, so... Listen let's wrap up by telling people where they can The main website is NewTropicsExpert.com

1:06:50 And there you can download your free book. It's called Secrets of the Optimized Brain, it's I think 92 pages and it's got 90 some supplements... 80-some supplements in it that I briefly describe how they work what they do on your brain why you would want to take it and the recommended dosage so it's a nice preview All I ask is for your email address. And so, I've got a newsletter too once you subscribe. I also have a YouTube channel with over 100 videos on it, Nootropics Expert that has got a ton of information people seem to love that we've got a Facebook page nootropicsexpert and i try to tweet a couple times a week so I'm on Twitter

1:07:38 And my book, Head First The Complete Guide to Healing and Optimizing Your Brain with Nootropic Supplements. That's available for less than what you'd pay for a pre-formulated nootropic stack so I think it is well worth it! And also I offer personal consultations You can hire me for an hour and I'll walk you through this stuff. Just tell me what your problems are, what kind of meds you're taking? What kind of supplements you're using right now? What your goals are? And we'll spend an hour together and we'll figure out with what you can do to make things better. Absolutely brilliant!

1:08:16 A whole range of things for everybody. There really is no excuse now for anybody, you know whatever you've taken from this last 60 minutes together David's resources will help you to go to that next level whether it's the ebook the videos or Book in Time with David it will definitely be worth your while David, thank you so much. It's been absolutely brilliant I look forward to follow-up conversations because i'm pretty sure they're going to be them and as far for you and me goes enjoy the rest of the summer in Miami And good health sir to you and your family Thank you for having me it's been a pleasure cheers That was brilliant! Getting David on the show was bloody great. I reached out to him not everybody says thank you

1:09:07 Most people say thank you, not everyone says yes and I understand that. There's a lot of people inviting experts On the podcast these days, David said yes. We had a great time He really got a lot out of it We had a great chat before and afterwards And I hope it was the value to you like I said in the intro You can't expect to understand this subject inside out on the first time you've heard about it But stick with us stick with Team Superdad I'm gonna keep adding to this helping you as I learn myself About what kind of nootropic stack? I might need The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, David Tomen

1:09:56 Memories, my memory is pretty good as it goes but we in a lot of areas maybe libido who knows I need to get around relationship before I can work out how my libido is. But anyway I hope you took a lot from this please share it with other dads that you know and mums as well you know that this time of life for women can be particularly tricky and I think the nootropic subject is really useful for women as well that's how I first got introduced to it in fact Thanks again. I've said thanks about six times, but I just love doing this podcast it was brilliant! I love doing them all in fact and i hope its of value to you Leave us a review come and join the community And I will see you on the next episode of The Team Superdad Podcast for now team super dad out See you next time bye This has been Team Superdad Find us at teamsuperdad.com