DOSE:

100 mg

oral

Modafinil

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

Does what it says on the package with some side effects worth mentioning.

Background: I'm a functional middle-aged adult with depression and anxiety issues (managed with some common antidepressants) and diagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder. I don't drink or use non-prescription drugs much these days. I've been taking modafinil on and off since I was in my 20s.

I have a combination of frequent insomnia and a job with some scary hazards you don't want to be tired around. Modafinil wakes me up with no caffeine-like jitters and makes it easy to focus on what I'm doing. Effects last about 4 hours, so no issues with insomnia that night if I make sure to take it by lunchtime. Increasing the dose amplifies the effect, but generally 100mg does the job for me.

Main negative side effects I've noticed are jaw-clenching, "border collie syndrome" (runaway anxiety if I take it and don't have a task to focus on), and appetite suppression. A positive side effect is a general mood improvement and increase in sociability, probably because I'm not tired and cranky.

The sneaky thing about modafinil is that if I take it for more than about 3 days in a row, I'll have a "crash day" when I stop and sleep for up to 16 hours. It's like paying back the sleep I borrowed all at once. It's fairly easy to avoid this problem by either using it sparingly or scheduling in the crashes if absolutely necessary, but it's what keeps it from being a "magic bullet" for chronic tiredness for me.

Exp Year: 2022	ExpID: 116902
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 40
Published: Dec 26, 2022	Views: 353
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Modafinil (217) : Medical Use (47), Performance Enhancement (50), Retrospective / Summary (11), Workplace (51)