modafinil

Anyone here every have used it? I travel way too much for work, sometimes jumping countries/timezones every two days for a week or more. My doc was always pushing ambien to promote sleep. But my issue isn’t getting sleep, it’s being awake when I need to be. I’m a regular coffee drinker, but when I’m downing coffee just to stay awake, I’m jittering and generaly feel like shit. I finally talked him into letting me try modafinil for those zone-jumping trips.

Damn.. Pretty incredible stuff. No jittery/speedy feeling at all. Just awake, sharp, motivated and tireless. I’ve only taken it a handful of times, but I can imagine how this would be something ripe for abuse. No side serious affects, no physical dependency, no acquired resistance, but amazing mental acuity and overall performance. It’s banned by WADA which doesn’t surprise me. Almost makes me want to get to my next road trip right away. :) huh, just found out I need to be in London next week. Oh darn. ;-)

Hey MushroomHook,

I have been using it for a while now. If I have a big day, or know I will have only a few hours sleep I usually take 100mg of modafinil. You’re correct, the stuff is amazing!!

In my usage I have found a few limitations and I will share them with you:
- Always recover any sleep debt you have, while modafinil keeps your brain going, the rejuvenation your body gets from sleep is something you cannot live without.
- While its great stuff for concentration and wake-fullness, be wary that while you feel awake and active, the parts of your brain that you use also too need a break, so if your on a roll for 3-4 hours, take a break, eat something, stare off into space or whatever, give your mind a rest. You’ll find when you get back to work you’ll get more done. Also, when I say eat something I really mean it, I’ve forgotten to eat a bunch of times after taking modafinil.

Also, a really neat trick I came up with is to take it 90min before your supposed to wake up. Ill give you an example:
The other day I got to bed at 4am, knowing I had to be up at 8am. So I set my alarm for 6:30am, took a modafinil then went back to sleep. By doing this, it was already in the system and I was good to go when my alarm went off.

Anyway, good luck with it all!