Open Thread for January 17 - 23 2014

niceguyanon

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Why do you care about the half-life?

gwern is partly right about my motivations.

I have some sort of sleep disorder (perhaps narcolepsy; the sleep study I had was inconclusive on that, though it did rule out sleep apnea) where the treatment might involve taking stimulants. My sleep quality at night might be particularly bad in general, and taking a stimulant could make it worse. Modafinil's half-life is about 15 hours, which is quite long. Even if I took it in the morning, it still might impact my sleep at night.

Also, the stimulants I have had generally do not agree well with me. Often they ma... (read more)

7gwern12y

Seems relevant for not interfering with sleep. For example, I can't use modafinil after 11AM because it interferes with my sleep that night if taken later; if I take modafinil or armodafinil at 5PM I might as well just skip the night's sleep. On the other hand, I can use caffeine up to 7/8PM without issue, and nicotine up to 10/11PM. (This is unfortunate because I am a bit of an owl and the evening is precisely when I'd like to be able to use a stimulant.)