Hacking Your Mind
Apr 11th, 2008 by Dave
An informal report by Nature shows surprising number of top academic scientists and college students are using drugs like Ritalin, Provigil and beta blockers without prescription to improve concentration, focus and memory. Attitudes are changing - 80% of respondents (to the unscientific survey) say healthy adults should be able to take the cognitive enhancing drugs, and 69% said they would consider taking the drugs themselves. Personally I’d go the diet and exercise route before resorting to pharmaceuticals, but I can appreciate the utility of being able to switch on more focus and concentration on demand to get things done. I wonder if there are will be new options for switching off that increased concentration when the task is complete - without leaving you impaired (as with the current obvious options).