🧠
IQ — the honest picture
0–4 pts
IQ gain on healthy individuals
Nootropics don't raise your intelligence ceiling. They remove drag — fatigue, distraction, and underperformance. IQ tests measure fluid intelligence which isn't pharmacologically moveable in healthy people. Sleep-deprived or cognitively depleted individuals see larger gains.
📚
Memory encoding vs retention
+15–25%
Learning speed on new material
Encoding new information (while awake) improves significantly. The critical trap: modafinil's 12–15hr half-life blunts sleep. Since memory consolidates into long-term storage during deep sleep, studying on modafinil and sleeping poorly can mean poor 1-week recall despite sharp same-day encoding.
⏱
The real edge: time-on-task
+40–60%
Sustained focus duration
The biggest real-world advantage isn't smarter thinking — it's 5–6 focused hours vs 90 distracted minutes. Over weeks, the output gap compounds dramatically even if your IQ number barely moved. This is the Limitless effect in reality.
⚗️
Neuroplasticity compounds
4–12 wk
Time to structural effect
Lion's Mane and Bacopa work differently — they slowly increase NGF/BDNF and memory-encoding efficiency over weeks. No acute buzz, but genuinely alter baseline cognition over time. These are the closest thing to actually raising your ceiling.