Hi all, I'm doing first quantified self experiment. How does this design sound to you?
Metrics
• 20 min sample of tests from Cambridge brain sciences site: spatial span, double trouble, object reasoning, rotations, hampshire tree task, spatial slider.
• 10 USMLE Rx questions in 11 mins covering neurology, psychiatry, cognitive sciences and epidemiology, randomised from a pool of 400 questions.
• Subjective report of cognitive ability from one to ten.
These will be taken daily at noon.
Intervention
• Take nothing for one week.
• Take creatine 5g daily for two weeks
• Then take nothing for two weeks
I'm starting with creatine because I'm vegetarian. Then I'll report my findings, re-evaluate value of further experiments and proceed on to some or all of piracetam+choline, Luminosity and dual n-back.
Thoughts on how I can improve this?
Out of curiosity, does creatine change the way the muscles you build look? E.g. my impression is that people who use steroids will develop very vascular/veinous muscles.
No, not long-term. The vascular/veiny musculature that you see on fitness-mag body builders come from a few things: Taking vasodilators (short acting supplements and drugs that cause dilation of blood vessels) is one. The amino acid Arginine causes an increase in Nitirc Oxide in the blood which is a vasodilator. There are other supplements and drugs that do this as well. Also, having low body fat causes this naturally, as well as just having worked out. The vein-bulging look is not something that these people have all day every day.
Steroids DO actuall... (read more)