Nootropics Reviews: The Top Four Best Nootropics For Anxiety And Depression
There’s a lot of simplistic nonsense spoken when it comes to using nootropics for anxiety and depression. People say “Oh, you’re depressed. It’s this neurotransmitter, this smart drug hits it, just take that and you’ll be fine.”
But the truth is that you can’t solve problems just by assuming. It’s one of the reasons why prescription medications have become such a mental health time bomb, they are thrown around like candy, for cookie-cutter reasons.
Anxiety and depression can be crippling, and if you run out of options, then finding the best nootropics for anxiety, depression, and socializing better, can be a lifesaver.
In this guide, I’m going to tell you about the basics around what causes anxiety and depression, how we cope, what doctors do, and what options you have got with smart drugs. I’ll talk you through the basics of some of the most obvious nootropics for anxiety and depression, plus, tell you exactly where you can buy high-quality nootropics online, so you can find out for yourself what works.
How We Can Naturally Deal With Anxiety And Depression
Anxiety and depression caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Specifically, neurotransmitters are not formed in the right quantities, don’t communicate the way they should, or are disappearing more rapidly than they should. These imbalances can lead to chronic symptoms.
At the heart of all this are glutamate and GABA. These are two main neurotransmitter systems related to balance in mood, happiness, and other key emotional functions.
The other three main neurotransmitters are serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These relate directly to states happiness, positivity, and mood.
Naturally, to try and restore the balance of the systems, we are limited to only a very few options. Exercise, diet, altering our state of mind through mindfulness, are pretty much the only options we have.
Other than that, you have professional therapy, which is a step up from trying to help your own mind. Then you also have medication, both professionally administered, and self-medication.
Now obviously, self-medication can be a disaster. Although we are actually talking about self-medication here, by using nootropics for anxiety and depression, it’s a completely different path to using things like narcotics and alcohol.
Anything which will almost definitely create addiction, tolerance, deliver more an imbalance, and alter your state of mind completely when using them, is not going to help you to deal with any aspect of anxiety or depression for long.
Prescription Meds Vs Nootropics
Now look, if you’re on prescription medication for depression or anxiety, I’m not saying to stop taking it. You need to speak to your doctor first. And you certainly shouldn’t take anything on top of prescription medication. This can cause serious problems, such as serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal.
If you’re not on anti-depressant medication, and you’re looking for a more natural way to deal with minor levels of anxiety and depression, then using nootropics can be a relatively low-risk thing to try, especially if you are doing it positively alongside exercise and good diet.
Best Nootropics For Anxiety Explained
So although it’s often oversimplified, at the heart of the problem around anxiety and depression, is imbalances in neurotransmitters, through production, retention, levels, or how messages are relayed.
Which means it’s not as simple as saying you feel anxious, so take XYZ smart drugs to feel better. Worse than that, you can’t determine which neurotransmitter system is out of balance, it could be glutamate, it could be GABA, dopamine, any of them.
The starting point should be diet and exercise, plus looking at supplements like vitamins and things like L-Theanine.
After that, if you’re still feeling down, then it’s worth looking at how each of the five main different types of neurotransmitters work, to see which area you would like to target first.
- Serotonin is crucial. It helps to modulate dopamine and norepinephrine. So regulating serotonin helps to regulate three of the five main neurotransmitter types. It’s also crucial in regulating messages in the brain, which will include levels of anxiety.
- GABA is our bodies main inhibitory neurotransmitter. Messages are regulated by things like barbiturates when they bind to the GABA receptors and normalize the duration of that neurotransmitter communicative state. So anything which helps to normalize GABA will help.
- Dopamine is linked closely to our confidence and happiness. Self-esteem can really be boosted if dopamine levels are healthy. People with social anxiety tend to be happier when dopamine levels are boosted.
- Glutamate is the main excitatory transmitter in the brain. Increased production of glutamate can help lower levels of anxiety and depression.
- Norepinephrine has been linked to anxiety when it’s levels are depleted, or messages are not relayed correctly. Modulating norepinephrine has been proven to ease symptoms of both depressions, and anxiety. This is how beta-blockers work, by modulating this neurotransmitter, but unfortunately, in common with a lot of prescription medications, they can have unwanted side effects.
Different Nootropics For Anxiety And Depression?
When it comes to looking at finding the best nootropics for anxiety and depression, apart from looking at individual nootropics reviews, to see what people are using them for, it’s important to have the right mindset about your journey.
The truth is that some smart drugs work for both anxiety and depression, plus, as you are probably aware, anxiety and depression are closely linked. But what works for one person will not necessarily work for another, and you might have to stack smart drugs to get the full effects, and dosing will be important.
So it’s going to be a journey of exploration, taking low doses of maybe several smart drugs over several weeks, to find which has the best effect on your own anxiety or depression.
In terms of anxiety, racetams are known to help, especially Aniracetam. But other things like cats claw, Ashwagandha, and L-Theanine can also help. Plus, even simple things like omega 3, magnesium, and addressing vitamin deficiencies can improve anxiety levels.
You should also not rule out kratom. So when you’re thinking about buying nootropics online to experiment with, you should rule out kratom as an option.
That’s because kratom has the ability, especially red kratom, to chill you right out. Just a few grams, can take the edge off anxiety. Some green kratom can mix that chilling out feeling, with an increasing positivity and boost energy levels as well.
However, for anxiety, you should steer away from white kratom, because that can make people jittery, excitable, and raise energy levels, making anxiety worse.
In terms of depression, I want to mention racetams, especially Aniracetam. That’s because it interacts with the dopamine receptors, and has been proven to desensitize a specific group of glutamate receptors, the AMPA receptors.
Noopept, Phenibut, and kratom are also good fits for alternative solutions to depression. These can all boost your mood, without affecting cognitive function, which is why people struggle with things like benzodiazepines.
Acetylcholine is another neurotransmitter linked to causing depression when it is deficient. Racetams not only affect glutamate, but they also increase acetylcholine transmission rates. This helps with thought, speech, learning, and memory formation. Although not linked to depression specifically, feeling sharper in your mind can help you to feel more positive.
Key Nootropics Reviews
So obviously, you can’t learn everything about nootropics for social anxiety and depression in this brief guide. But what I’m going to do is go through the four best smart drugs I’ve found for dealing with both conditions.
That will least give you a starting point for your experimentation, you can then shop for them, try them, and see how they help. You’ll learn more about the different effects, and be able to make good judgments moving forward.
Aniracetam
Aniracetam is a synthetic drug, from a group that has been developed since the 1960s, known as racetams. It has been the most closely linked with being positive on both anxiety and depression, for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.
But basically, it works on the AMPA receptors and glutamate in the brain. Because it modulates these receptors, it helps to amplify the response of glutamate, improving several key things.
In addition, it increases acetylcholine transmission. This neurotransmitter helps with quick thinking and quicker transmission between thought and speech. You’ll basically feel sharper, and your brain will work more quickly, which is brilliant when you are struggling with the slowness and fog of depression.
So using Aniracetam, you’ll feel sharper, more focused, it can improve your sleep, and you will have mild anti-anxiety effects as well.
Plus, because it interacts with glutamate, it can increase serotonin levels, which can also increase dopamine levels. Overall, it’s a brilliant starting point if you’re looking to find the best nootropics for anxiety and depression in one go.
I used Aniracetam for about six months. I was careful because I was looking at the side-effects, which can increase with the dose you take. Some of those side-effects can include anxiety. Now obviously, I didn’t want to increase my anxiety, when I was already depressed.
So although 1000 mg is sometimes talked about, I stuck to 300 mg of Aniracetam every morning, before work. It lifted my mood, increased my focus, made me feel like I was achieving. I felt sharper, and the brain fog would lift. That gave me confidence, which started to make my depression more manageable.
Phenibut
Phenibut has a tranquilizing effect, and it gets stronger as the dose increases. It was actually developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, and even into the 1980s, was still used by cosmonauts, to help ease the stress of exit from, and entry to, the atmosphere.
It lasts a long time, with a half-life of five hours, meaning that one dose can last all day. It is a GABA analog, which means it acts in a similar manner to this calming neurotransmitter.
It’s the mechanism of action is poorly understood, but it seems that it reduces the response of signals to and from these receptors, which has a relaxing effect. The higher the dose, the more relaxed and drowsy you will feel. It’s a great nootropic for socializing.
Overall, you’ll feel an improvement in mood, you’ll feel less stressed, you’ll be to sleep better, and so it’s great for both depression and anxiety.
In terms of side-effects, you do have to be a little careful when using Phenibut. If you use too much, and then suddenly stop, you can suffer rebound, which is where the effects you were suffering before come back worse. The other big problem can be withdrawal symptoms. You need to watch the dose and make sure you taper down, not just stop, as this can create a panic in your nervous system.
I use Phenibut occasionally. It’s not something I use regularly, because I don’t want to be hit with withdrawal, or any dependency issues. But once in a while, when things are bad, a dose of around 700 mg really takes the edge off the whole world. It will really calm you down, chill you out, but with the ability to still function during the day. It’s great for social anxiety as well as calming depression.
Noopept
You’ll nearly always see Noopept talked about in the same bracket as racetams, and often sold in the same category as well. However, although it’s structurally similar, Noopept is not a racetam. It’s this slightly different molecular structure which gives it slightly different effects.
Noopept has been considered as one of the best anti-depressant nootropics you can get for years now amongst the knowledgeable.
It stimulates both dopamine and serotonin receptors, which as we now know, have a dramatic effect on our mood, happiness, performance levels, and lowering anxiety. When you feel motivated, at your best, and also relaxed, that’s a great combination for any nootropics for depression and anxiety.
Something else about Noopept that is often overlooked, is that some studies suggest it has the ability to keep the mind healthy over time. It increases the production of an antibody in the brain that helps to beat the buildup of something called beta-amyloid tissue.
As we age, this tissue can build up, blocking the passage of neurological messages, leading to conditions like Alzheimer’s.
On the downside, Noopept can spike your blood pressure quite significantly. So if you suffer from high blood pressure, for god’s sake get yourself checked out by a doctor, before you use it.
experiences with Noopept have been very positive. You have to be careful with the dose. Because most things you take care in the hundreds of milligrams, it’s easy to overdose, if you not aware of the dosage. A high dose of Noopept is only 30 mg, so I stuck to 20 milligrams, and really responded to it.
You’ll feel an overall cognitive boost. You’ll feel slightly sharper, slightly brighter, slightly more positive. You won’t feel as tired, but you’ll still feel relaxed. You also have a great mood, because that serotonin and dopamine is being kept in play for longer. I also felt more lucid, more aware of everything around me
Kratom
Now, kratom is not a smart drug, it’s not a chemically artificial nootropic. However, when it comes to considering nootropics for anxiety and depression, from my own experiences, kratom is something that should be considered within that class of solutions.
In terms of anxiety, red kratom, and to some degree green kratom, are very good for calming you down. Red kratom especially, has a calming and pain-relieving effect. It will make you feel peaceful, happy, but you’ll still have full cognitive sharpness, especially at a lower dose. It’s great for social anxiety as well.
In terms of depression, white kratom, and some green kratom will energize you. You’ll feel an energy boost, physically and mentally. You’ll feel sharper, happier, and less willing to hideaway.
But note that white kratom is not good for anxiety, because the energy can be irritable, and create more anxiety. And on the other side of that coin, red kratom can sometimes not be good for depression, especially at higher doses, because you feel even less able to move or be cognitively positive.
I’ve used kratom on many occasions, white, green and red. I suffer from anxiety and depression at times, and it’s great to be able to tailor one substance to what you need. You have to mess around with dosage, to find out what good for you, but overall, moderate doses of kratom can really take the edge off depression and anxiety, just as well as any true artificially created nootropic.
Where To Buy Nootropics & Kratom Online
Nootropics reviews will always tell you about a single place where you can get smart drugs, but I’ve been searching around for two years, and buying nootropics online is not as simple as just reaching out to one store.
What I’ve actually found in my experience, is that there are very few places that sell high-quality smart drugs. More than that, you need money-back guarantees, and guarantees that what you are buying is 100% pure.
How on earth can you trust someone whose importing Phenibut from Eastern Europe, without any quality checks being done?
So I settled on two places to buy the things I’ve talked about here, the smart drugs Aniracetam, Phenibut, and Noopept.
The first place is Purenootropics.net.
They do a wide range of smart drugs, but they don’t sell Phenibut. But they sell everything else, and to give you an example of the price and quality, you can get 90 capsules of Noopept, each of 20 mg, for just $19.99, which is brilliant.
They also sell a Noopept sublingual solution. A dropper bottle, with each drop being a 10 mg dose. Better than that, it’s strawberry flavored, which takes away the horrible taste.
The second place is Absorbyourhealth.com.
These guys are brilliant, I call them a smart drug superstore. They sell literally everything, and the prices are brilliant.
As I haven’t talked about Phenibut yet, so I’ll talk about buying it from Absorb Health. They sell it as a powder, with 50 g costing $30. That’s a lot of doses for your money, and it’s backed up by a lab testing guarantee, a moneyback guarantee, and free shipping.
The third-place I want to tell you about is Coastlinekratom.com.
They sell the purest kratom powder. They do now also stock capsules, but it’s not evident until you select the drop-down box in the product listing.
It’s the purest kratom powder I’ve ever found. They sell all the main types of red, green, and white kratom. They also have independent lab testing guarantees, a moneyback guarantee, and they offer free postage.
As an example, Red Bali is a smooth red, which can help ease the symptoms of anxiety, even at lower doses. 100 capsules will set you back $42.99. That’s quite expensive, but you are getting complete convenience. 100 grams of loose Red Bali powder will cost you just $39.99.
So there you go, it’s really easy to start experimenting with nootropics for anxiety and depression. Hopefully, my review on buying nootropics online, from the three trusted retailers I’ve mentioned above, will help to get you started on your journey.