Adrafinil is a powerful drug. It converts to Modafinil in the liver, and proceeds to give you a profound wakefulness and cognitive optimization.
It’s like something out of the Limitless movie. You dose with the chemical, typically orally, but as we’ll find out in this post, sublingual is an option, and within 15-30 minutes, the entire state of your brain changes.
Adrafinil is wakefulness promoting, and was designed like Modafinil, to essentially prevent tiredness. It does so by acting on the neurotransmitter GABA, in an inhibitory way, all while invoking the release of the catecholamine neurotransmitters.
What usually results is a profound sense of wakefulness that is comparable to getting large quantities of sleep, and lasts quite long.
Adrafinil, like Modafinil, is eliminated through urine, and has quite the long half life. Interestingly, the lower the dose of Adrafinil, the longer is stays active in your blood, and is detectable in your urine.
This suggests that higher doses of the substance induce a quicker elimination (see section 2.3).
Adrafinil is useful in a myriad of circumstances. Anecdotally, it works quite well at alleviating caffeine withdrawal induced cognitive impairment.
Recently, I quit caffeine for the hundredth time. I like to cycle off of coffee intake a few times a year, to get my adenosine receptor functionality back to normal. Caffeine is also a bit harsh on my stomach.
And during this off cycle, I experienced the usual set of symptoms that come with caffeine withdrawal: cognitive impairment, fatigue, and headache.
This time it was particularly painful. I was near useless cognitively, and I really needed to do something to get my brain functioning again.
So I decided to dose Adrafinil, but rather than take the substance orally, which most people do and I have in the past, I instead decided to take it sublingually (under the tongue, to dissolve into and enter the blood stream faster).
This prevents the first pass metabolism of the drug, into Modafinil, and I suspected that it would onset a bit quicker too. And it definitely did.
Within about 15 minutes of dosing 40MG of Adrafinil sublingually, I was awake and alert, and noticing the benefits. But it could have been a bit stronger. So, in the interest of experimentation, I took it a bit further and sublingually dosed another 40MG, for a total of 80MG of sublingual Adrafinil.
And this was a perfect dose for me, that amplified my focus and left me with a great bit of mental energy to attack the day’s tasks. And – the cognitive impairment from my caffeine withdrawal basically dissipated. It was quite the experience.
Amazingly, and considering my 10:00 AM administration, I felt like I had a cognitive leg up until about 11PM that night.
Near the end of the night, it was subtle, but I could feel myself having the edge while playing Battlefield 4 multiplayer, online.
In that game, a war based first person shooter, your reaction speed and hand eye coordination to direct the sight of your weapon to the enemy matters a lot.
It’s actually the difference between performing well, and getting your ass handed to you by other players.
And I was performing quite well, all the way into the night.
But wait – is Adrafinil even effective sublingually? Doesn’t it have to be metabolized into the liver first, to convert to Modafinil?
Apparently, the answer is no. Adrafinil sublingually is just as effect as orally, if not more. The onset was 10-15 minutes quicker, and it seemed to be a bit cleaner of an effect overall.
It didn’t upset my gut, which it, and Modafinil normally do to a small extent (I’m recovering from a silent reflux disease – tons of things fuss w/ my gut).
So this might be a great administration method for Adrafinil, and Modafinil, for people with Acid Reflux, LPR, (laryngopharyngeal reflux) or gastritis.
And the effects were strong and pronounced. I was convinced! So I decided to make a quick video detailing my experience. We’ll talk about the onset, the conversion, and how Adrafinil must maintain effects on the nervous system, similar to Modafinil, even without passing through the liver and being converted to Modafinil.
Enjoy!