|
 |
Neuro-enhancing drugs & language learning | ||
Tags: Brain | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5506 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian | Message 9 of 51 18 July 2009 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I personally have recently been prescribed "Ritalin" but it's only for the next year while I'm in college because my depression has been affecting my grades and it has been for a while, it isn't a jump-on-the-drug-train thing. It isn't like Adderall in that there isn't a large amphetamine component. I took "Provigil" at one time for sleeping too much and it's general effect was that I didn't feel bad or sluggish. I didn't want to study or anything necessarily. Anyway so "Ritalin" does keep me from thinking about a bunch of other stuff while in class and allows me to do the things I have to do when I have to do them. That said, they aren't things I didn't have the intellectual ability to do before. So I think yeah, sure, if you really just hated slogging through grammar portions of languages but knew that you had to get through it to understand then it would help. It helps someone study anything. But other than that I don't really think it would. Mainly because you need to surround yourself with the language and you can't be on the drug all the time.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5811 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 51 18 July 2009 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
No, even if he was to succeed I would not applaud it. It would be a very stupid thing to attempt: three days without sleep? You'd have to be completely mad! Even if it worked for that one person, it still wouldn't be advisable for everybody else.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ruan Diglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5981 days ago 95 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 11 of 51 18 July 2009 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Smart drugs won't help you, and even if they do, they'll f**k you up. But shrooms really
do help a lot, and there are no long-term side effects. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5566 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 12 of 51 18 July 2009 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not brilliant, but that sounds like a great pasttime! Oh, the hallucinations after hour 60 should be quite entertaining. If only I had some free days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cojoda Newbie United States Joined 5560 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, German | Message 13 of 51 19 July 2009 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||
|
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I do not condone illegal drug use.
Having severe narcolepsy, I have taken my share of stimulants: Ritalin, Adderal, Provigil, Dextroamphetamine, Methamphetamine. Being narcoleptic, my experiences with these drugs would be far different than your normal person. I started with Provigil (modafinil). It helped calm the insane sleep attacts and make them tolerable. However, I still didn't feel quite awake. It was like part of my brain was still very much asleep. I didn't like that feeling very much. Once my dose was increased to 600mg, I started having bad reactions and was lucky to remember my own name. With Ritalin I might as well have just been drinking water. Adderal was ok, but just didn't ever do nearly enough. Dextroamphetamine was good, but had to many side effects like tremors. Methamphetamine was great, and had few side effects (it is far more active on the CNS vs the PNS). But I lost my insurance and it isn't available as a generic in the US, so I could not afford it and went back to the Dextroamphetamine. Now on a dose of 100mg a day. My doctor would like it to be higher, but that is all I can tolerate. Of course that doesn't even take into account the the Clonazepam and high doses of Xyrem (legal GHB and thus the most heavily regulated Rx drug in the US) that I take to sleep. Might sound like a lot, but it's still not nearly enough. I can barely work, but at least I can work! (for now at least...) Current meds: Dextroamphetamine: 20mg every 2 hours 5x a day Clonazepam: 1g 2 hours before bed Xyrem: 4g 2x a night Overall effects on my memory: Good! But then again thats only when compared to the absolute mess I am when unmedicated. Narcolepsy has made somethings about language learning a real pain. Especially vocab! However, grammer has been relatively easy. The hardest thing is trying to get my language time in (usually after work) with only the limited time my last dextro dose is still active. After that dose wears off I become completely useless due to the crash. Hope I haven't rambled too much. I am typing this well after my last dose wore off, so sorry for the rambling, spelling mistakes, grammer, ect.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| parasitius Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5798 days ago 220 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Cantonese, Polish, Spanish, French | Message 14 of 51 19 July 2009 at 11:17am | IP Logged | ||
|
Okay when I was a little kid I was put on Ritalin since I didn't pay any attention in school, and the only thing it did was make me lose my appetite. They subsequently tried "paying me" $$ to pay attention, and I just didn't have the willpower no matter how badly I wanted that money. Instead of this bullshit, they should design an educational side track for such kids called 'willpower training'. I intensely WANTED to study but couldn't gain the self control (fighting to get it) until about age 24, after graduating college.
In college when I couldn't study at all I got a prescription for a sort of slow-release Ritalin (can't remember the name) and the only thing it did was make my heart pound and make me unable to sleep. I can't tell you how disappointed I was as I started the prescription the week before finals and was thinking I'd gain the power to actually study for my exams. In general I dislike drugs of any sort and will avoid even headache meds, but if there was a way to enable myself to study in all those years I lost, I surely would have been up for it. ---------------- As for 72 hours of LR: I didn't necessarily mean without sleep so much as I meant that it would be a wonderful experiment to see if one could FORCIBLY change the operating system of their brain through sheer unrelenting intensity within an unbelievably short time frame (as we all know a time frame of a few years is quite possible and even common for some). We already have preliminary evidence from some experimenters which indicates a certain amount of LR leads to a fit of spontaneous thinking in the target language. I am INTENSELY EAGER to know just how much further this particular effect would grow with a 10x dose. As for actually doing it, I suspect the vast majority of people in this world don't have the willpower to carry out such a wondrous experiment, considering so few on this board could stomach the idea of 10 hours of LR in a day and just argued instead of trying it, so perhaps there is a soul out there that might 'gain' the willpower to do this awesome curious experiment with the aid of chemicals. Perhaps my curiosity will get the best of me one day, but for now I'm at least fantasizing of doing it without anything to aid me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 15 of 51 19 July 2009 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I used to take the stimulant drug ephedrine, but it actually made me more forgetful and just a little bit crazy. I wouldn't recommend it for long term use.- It's only useful for staying awake and enhancing physical stamina, and any effects on your intellectual capabilities are usually an illusion produced by the increased confidence that most stimulants tend to produce.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5566 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 16 of 51 19 July 2009 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Parasitus, there is a theory that a part of the frontal lobe is used for so-called executive functions, including will-power, the ability to prioritize, to inhibit actions and to plan. This part is said to develop fully only in the mid-twenties.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
