Over the years I have tested several Nootropic pills, also known as “smart drugs,” these are pills that claim to be designed to help your brain function by improving your memory and helping you concentrate. Most notably I have tried and written about both EXCELEROL which I ultimately found completely ineffective and TRUBRAIN which seemed to help a little. So I’ve started this new category in order to write about the other pills that I have tried.

Recently I came across an article somewhere that mentioned this pill called Adrafinil, so I looked it up. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, it is “a discontinued wakefulness-promoting agent (or eugeroic) that was formerly used in France to promote vigilance (alertness), attention, wakefulness, mood, and other parameters, particularly in the elderly. It was also used off-label by individuals who wished to avoid fatigue, such as night workers or others who needed to stay awake and alert for long periods of time. Additionally, adrafinil is known to a larger nonscientific audience, where it is considered to be a nootropic agent.”

I was intrigued, so I continued to look and found the website AdrafinilDepot.com. The BENEFITS page lists the usual claims you see for all nootropics. But I was most impressed by their listing of SIDE EFFECTS and also their recommendations for HOW TO USE it. I know that may sound odd, but to me the very fact that they list several possible negative side-effects (including headaches, nausea & insomnia) is a positive sign, because that at least shows that the pills do something. Likewise, I was impressed that they stress the proper way to take the pills.

The pills supposedly each contain 300mg of Adrafinil, and the website recommends taking just one pill a day, first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. 600mg, two pills, is considered the highest possible dose, and it says some people may need two pills a day to be effective. But it’s very clear that you should not take more than that in one day. It also stresses to avoid alcohol. And, most importantly, it recommends “cycling” you use of it, to avoid building up a tolerance to it (which is something that I have experienced with over the counter sleeping pills).

“An example cycle would be two weeks on, one week off followed by one week on and two weeks off. This will help minimize its effect on liver enzymes and will help stave off the development of tolerance.”

So the fact that they put all of these specifications down actually gave me hope. So I went ahead and ordered a bottle. I got them on a Friday, too late to try it, so that next morning I took my first pill. I thought I might have felt something, a little extra energy. Unlike most Saturdays, I had to go out most of the day, to hang out with my friends Tina and Randy and their kids, watching their daughter play soccer. So I don’t know if this was the best day to judge the pills effectiveness, as it wasn’t a “typical” Saturday for me. Likewise I went to Church with them the next day. But that day I also took a pill, but I found myself getting tired a few hours later, so there was no energy boost for me.

After the next week of daily usage, I still felt nothing. So I started taking two a day for the next week. Still nothing. Based on the claims of the website, I feel like two weeks of daily usage is enough to make a fair judgment, and for me that is:

It just didn’t work for me. So I can’t recommend it. For the record, I do want to point out that the website does over a full money back guarantee on your first bottle. On a Saturday evening I emailed them with my order # and told them I was not satisfied, and Sunday morning I got a reply informing me that my credit card would be refunded. So they are true to their word. And that means that, despite my recommendations, if you want to try it for yourself you can, with nothing to lose.