Creatine is an ergogenic compound, it decreases both physical and mental fatigue.
Creatine increases the ability to synthetize ATP, raising your overall energy level in body and mind. ATP is the transporter of chemical energy for cellular metabolism, it transports the energy obtained by burning food. Creatine also increments the presence of oxygen in the brain.
Creatine is naturally produced by the human body in little quantity (it is mostly found in skeletal muscles) and is also contained in meat and fish, people eating meat on a daily basis assume more or less 1 gram of Creatine everyday, however assuming more is beneficial. The supplemental suggested dose is 3 grams daily. As it is found in animal foods only, vegetarians totally lack Creatine in their diet, so their bodies have to build it from scratch, but our livers are not able to make enough of it for optimal function, just enough to survive. Creatine deficiency is a possible cause of depression. A dosage of 3 grams per day is totally risk free in healthy people and has a great benefit on fluid intelligence and memory. Vegetarians can feel the difference even more.
A 3 grams scoop of Creatine Monohydrate.
Creatine brings mental clarity and synergically helps the effects of other nootropics, as they can increase your ATP consumption, using them alongside It helps keeping your energy high. It is also neuroprotective, it preserves the function of GABAergic neurons.Tests involving fluid intelligence and memory show a significant advantage after Creatine supplementation, you can test it by yourself with “Dual N Back”. Supplementing Creatine gets rid of brain fog.
It helps building muscle faster, keeps high bone density and boosts testosterone levels (even more if taken alongside Beta-Alanine!).
It gives you more strength in the gym, it increases your maximum number of repetitions in a given physical exercise.
The natural production of Creatine in the liver requires Methylation, supplementing Creatine relieves the need for methyl donors as the body no longer needs to produce creatine by itself. This means that it increases the availability of methylation for other purposes, so Creatine works like a methyl donor in this sense. Methylation is essential to a lot of biological processes, like gene activation.
Brain Energy and Muscle Power
We are not used to see Creatine as a supplement for brain function as it’s mostly advertised as a bodybuilding shortcut to gain mass faster. The latter is certain, but it’s not the only purpose of Creatine. Creatine supplementation makes you feel more energized after just a few days and that’s sure beneficial to exercise, but it also helps in any other task, studying for longer periods of time for example, as the brain consumes more energy than a muscle.
Creatine causes muscles to retain water, resulting in an increase in mass, some people take it just for this reason as it makes them look bigger, however I look at it as a side effect, it is worth the benefit.
When I first started Creatine, my weight increased by 3 kg in a month, and I when I cycled it out of my stack I quickly lost that additional weight in a few days. You can easily notice an increase in strength while working out but the main reason why I suggest to try it is the overall energy gain, it’s easier to get up in the morning and being productive. Creatine gives a mood boost as well, it just feels right.
Creatine assumption and dosages.
A lot of different types of Creatine are available, but it’s better to stick to standard Creatine Monohydrate, not only because it’s cheaper, it’s also the most studied type, proven to bring risk-free benefits in healthy individuals, other forms of Creatine are less known, most of the tests have been using Monohydrate.
I have ordered mine from MyProtein.
It takes some days to load, it doesn’t matter when you take it during the day, its effects are only long term, some people suggest to do a loading phase with an higher dose (as much as 20 grams!) in the first days to fill your muscles of Creatine and then go down to 3 grams for manteinance, I personally prefer to take only 3 grams even in the beginning and just wait more time to load, there’s no need to hurry. The 3 grams dosage could be low for some athletes that may prefer a dose of 6 grams, still safe. Loading phases and higher doses are just for bodybuilding purposes, if you want to use Creatine as a nootropic, 3 grams a day are enough!
You can buy quality Creatine here.
Creatine possible stacks
Creatine can be used alongside Beta-Alanine (It increases carnosine in muscles) to achieve even more strenght, but that’s not a nootropic stack, that’s pure physical performance stuff. Beta-Alanine lowers Taurine levels, so it’s suggested to take them together, so the stack becomes Creatine+Beta-Alanine+Taurine. This is a really powerful energetic stack. Taurine also prevents the downsides of Caffeine, that’s why they put it in energy drinks.
