The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
I appreciate that you've probably reviewed the literature more closely than I have. Maybe a month or so ago, I saved a review paper, and I was wanting to go digging through the cites, but I haven't had time yet (the motivating question was concerning which/how many papers dealt with effects specifically of gum/patches). Perhaps you could help me with a few specific questions:
(1) You say, "It's a shit nootropic". Is this because you think that the worthwhile effects are, indeed, minimal? Is it worse than, say, caffeine? Or is this judgment coupled significantly with the dependency risk?
(1a) Is any of the above possibly conflated by possible interactions with, say, ADHD meds or even caffeine alone?
(2) Is there any dependency risk data you can point me to for gum/patches? I think Zyn is likely to be closer to vaping/chew tobacco than gum/patches (I can accept that perhaps Gwern got this one wrong). I've seen plenty of statements like that FDA one; note that it calls out pouches. Is there anything in the literature specifically for gum/patches?
For disclosure, I have toyed around with gum on a few occasions. I would use it for specific parts of my day that I wanted a mild stimulant and perhaps some increased habit forming, like going to the gym. When I would, for example, go on trips where I wasn't expecting to have gym access, I never experienced any withdrawal or cravings. It's more of a pain for me to buy than, say, protein/creatine, so I've also just gone long stretches without having any without any difficulty. If anything, I feel like I feel more withdrawal effects from coffee or even caffeinated tea. This may be personal variation and apart from the data, which is why I would be interested in whether you've seen any data specifically for gum/patches.
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