Women wanted to be on him, men wanted to be inside his mind – Bradley Cooper’s Limitless introduced us to the concept of the pill that transforms your everyday man into a veritable Albert Einstein.

It should then come as no surprise that Silicon Valley is leading the way in the race to see who can gobble up the most nootropics, the drugs that are being heralded as ‘mental magic’ and ‘smart drugs’. Of course these aren’t exactly FDA-approved, nor available over the counter at the nearest pharmacy but where there’s a will there’s a way, including smuggling them in from Colombia.

Here’s the Daily Beast with why these nootropics are proving so popular:

They’ll increase concentration, memory, attention span, combat sleep fatigue, and—in some cases—flat out change the way our brains work…like added grease for one’s cognitive gears—a synaptic lubricant that normally healthy people are taking to operate at optimal levels of clarity, stamina, and focus.

In fact it is so popular with the whizzkids over in Silicon Valley that one of their poster boys, Tim Ferriss, recently sung its praises from the rafters:

Just like an Olympic athlete who’s willing to do almost anything, even if it shortens your life by five years, to get a gold medal, you’re going to think about what pills and potions you can take.

The Daily Beast reporter who travelled to Colombia and dabbled wasn’t entirely won over, although he did speak to his sister’s friend who had achieved remarkable success off the back of a regular regimen of nootropics:

…she had gone from a 5 percent monthly error rate (considered to be respectable) to an astounding 1 percent at the health-care provider she works for as a claims processor.

“I’ve been doing this job for 15 years, and I can count on one hand the number of months I’ve gotten an accuracy rate that good,” she said. “It’s rare.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that it is proving popular with California’s cool kids. What’s that about a trip to Colombia local app designers?

[source:dailybeast]