Word: mentally
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...mental sharpness is your goal, the answer is clear: stop depriving yourself, and get a good night's sleep...
...haven't already heard the term nootrope, better jot it down. Chances are you'll hear it a lot in the future. A marriage of the Greek words noos, for "mind," and tropein, for "toward," it refers to drugs that enhance mental performance?popularly known as smart drugs. Nootropes aren't new. Amphetamines, first synthesized by a German chemist in 1887 and used in over-the-counter inhalers by the 1920s, were doled out generously during World War II to Allied and German troops to keep them alert. Military pilots still take dextroamphetamine, or go pills, to stay in fighting...
...indirectly. Those molecules amplify the response of brain chemicals called AMPA receptors, among the first players in a long biochemical cascade that takes place in the neuron as it encodes memory. The first of those ampakine molecules has been shown in a recent study to boost the attention and mental performance of healthy, sleep-deprived men. The more powerful compounds in Cortex's untested arsenal, says CEO Roger Stoll, may bolster long-term memory without inducing the jittery side effects of drugs like Ritalin and caffeine...
...them. And as their usage spreads, people may feel forced to take them just to keep up. Would the means to pay for them determine who gets them? Would the rich get smarter and the poor fall further behind? What effects would such drugs have on the personality and mental health of users in the long run? The tendency to forget some things, for example, may be a big part of emotional stability and efficient problem solving...
...pills and snap up supplements touted as brain enhancers. The latter are often a waste of money. Studies examining the cognitive benefits of supplements have either proved inconclusive or shown only modest effects. There's some evidence that the popular herb ginkgo biloba boosts cerebral blood flow and improves mental functioning, particularly when taken with ginseng. But there's also evidence that it doesn...