Nootropics are bioactive compounds, often plant-derived, used to treat cognitive difficulties by boosting brain performance. Similar to adaptogens, nootropics are thought to help the brain resist stress to perform at its best in a way that supports longevity and even fights cognitive decline. To be considered a nootropic, the compound must be able to easily pass through the blood-brain barrier.
Origins of the Nootropic Movement
Nootropics are available in both prescription form and non-prescription form, like energy drink powders, paraxanthine drink blends, and everyone’s favorite nootropic drink: coffee.
Colloquially referred to as “cognitive enhancers”, the term “nootropics” wasn’t coined until 1972, when clinical trials revealed the first synthetic nootropic ever isolated had the ability to boost memory performance. Since then, hundreds of preclinical and clinical trials over the last 50 years have resulted in the development of dozens of prescription nootropics, most often used to treat conditions involving neurological and age-related cognitive challenges.
But what’s beginning to emerge, especially in the world of holistic energy drinks and wellness blends, is the indication that nootropics may aid in mood management. New studies suggest nootropics can support sleep health, mood balance, and management of emotions.
The Underlying Biology of Mood
Your mood is regulated by an intricate system of neurotransmitters, hormones, amino acids, and associated neurochemicals that are constantly being produced, released, and absorbed – it’s how your brain sends signals to every other part of your body.
This implies two things with regard to why there is no standard solution to struggles with mood and affect:
- One person may have similar indicators to another, but they may be caused by entirely different imbalances.
- A given treatment may help one person but fail and/or hurt another.
This makes treating psychological illnesses that include chronic despair particularly tricky, especially if the person also experiences other mental health challenges. The symptoms are varied and interconnected: bad feelings create distress, which results in problems getting quality sleep, which results in exhaustion and chronic unease, which create a volatile feedback loop of stress, lethargy, agitation, and those feelings of hopelessness and dissociation.
In fact, nearly 25% of people who are subject to chronic stress develop a condition characterized by unshakable sadness and low mood. For a deep dive on how stress affects, well… pretty much every aspect of your health, check out our article: Understanding the Dangers & Mechanisms of Chronic Stress.
Most clinical treatments for depressive symptoms stop neurons from reabsorbing neurotransmitters important for mood health, especially those involved in brain structures involving memory, learning, reactivity, motivation, and reward. Serotonin and dopamine are the two primary targets. But there’s also evidence that treatments targeting cognition, neuronal activity levels and hormone imbalances can also help manage mood-related problems like decreased well-being.
This is where nootropics come in.
The Hippocampus & How Nootropics Affect Mood
To understand the implications of nootropics’ abilities to support mood, we must understand how they interact with the brain of someone suffering from a mood or affect syndrome like anxiety or depression. Clinical observations indicate that the hippocampus in people with depressed mood is, on average, around 10% smaller than in people without these types of challenges, and that’s a big deal.
The hippocampus is a main player in balancing hormones and neuronal activity, in turn regulating your mood and emotion. It’s also an integral part of your brain’s stress response system, known as the HPA axis. On top of that, it’s actually the main producer of those ever-important mood-regulating neurotransmitters, including those involved in:
- Learning
- Neuron and motor excitation
- Neuron inhibition
- Memory
- Motivation
- Pleasure
Since levels of and communication between these key neurotransmitters have been directly associated with a host of psychological ailments involving emotional dysregulation and cognitive deficits, it follows that augmenting underactive signaling and hampering overactive signaling can help get the brain back into a feel-good balance.
For more on the HPA axis and chronic stress, read: Understanding the Role the HPA Axis Plays in How You Feel.
One such nootropic that the body produces naturally, but not enough of in people with chronic distress and low mood, is GABA, the body's main calm-down chemical. GABA reduces the activity level of overexcited neurons and is a useful tool in the treatment of conditions that result from dysfunctional communication in the brain.
5 Mood-Boosting Nootropics to Try
There are dozens of compounds considered nootropics, and some of the best ones are easy to find in health drinks focused on stress resilience and mood support. MTE’s energy drink blend includes the nootropics paraxanthine, GABA, L-theanine, and a saffron derivative, as well as several adaptogens with nootropic abilities, like ashwagandha, and superfoods with nootropic abilities, like amaranth. So, first, let’s talk about GABA’s role in depression for, like, one more minute:
GABA: A Calming Nootropic
It’s been shown in clinical studies that GABA deficits and irregularities in GABA expression are extremely common in psych conditions characterized by anhedonia and despair. As well, the chronic stress that comes with those difficulties hurts GABA’s ability to support mood even more.
Current clinical studies explore what GABA supplementation or other GABA-altering treatments can do for low mood, resulting in several data sets that show significant mood and behavioral improvements with healthy GABA function.
L-Theanine: A Stress-Busting Nootropic
A main actor in green tea, L-theanine is most often used to support stress management, which makes this nootropic potentially useful for recovery, mood and cognitive performance.
People self-report L-theanine supplementation is able to calm them without making them drowsy. In one clinical study, after 8 weeks of L-theanine supplementation, all participants scored lower on a diagnostic scale used for chronic emotional distress.
Saffron: A Mysterious Nootropic
Saffron is well-documented as a holistic alternative to pharmaceuticals used for mood, and studies consistently observe increased mental health and treatment safety when using this nootropic for chronic melancholy. In fact, one study showed that not only was saffron more effective than placebo, but it worked as well as therapeutic levels of a commonly-prescribed compound.
A meta-analysis of the current literature on saffron supports the claim it’s an effective treatment for low mood in the short-term, and presents fewer adverse symptoms than pharmaceuticals. What we’re not so sure about with regards to saffron for mood support is the how or the why of it all. MTE’s formulation includes Affron®, a clean saffron extract with concentrated abilities.
Paraxanthine: A Caffeine-Alternative Nootropic
A major factor in chronic numbness and despair is inhibited motivation and low energy. Paraxanthine energy drinks may help fight these symptoms of tiredness, acting as a nootropic that supports energy and focus without caffeine. Motivation and productivity lead to feelings of self-efficacy, which helps prevent long-term struggle with low mood.
In a study investigating paraxanthine vs caffeine for energy and focus, athletes were given cognitive tests before and after a 10 km run. The paraxanthine energy drink group outperformed the caffeine group in attention, accuracy, reaction time, and memory but did not experience any stimulant-type side effects.
Amaranth: A Superfood Nootropic
Amaranth is a superfood for a reason, with clinical data indicating it supports and protects almost every vital system in the human body, including our nervous system. An animal study demonstrated that amaranth was not toxic even at ridiculously high doses, and that it reduced behavioral signs of low-affect conditions at equal levels to two common pharmaceutical chemicals.
What We Don’t Know About Nootropics
Interestingly enough, the main shortcoming of clinical evidence on nootropics and mood is that there’s almost no clinical data to indicate that nootropics act on healthy individuals. However, it’s important to keep in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The initial discovery of the first isolated nootropic’s abilities in the '70s happened by accident – solely because one scientist decided to look at involuntary eye movement. Had he not done that for no particular reason, we may never have known about that nootropic.
While so far, nootropics look like safe and possibly effective ways to change the way we look at the treatment of chronic conditions involving emotional dysregulation, we’re looking at quite a few years before clinical research can create a body of data big enough to confidently support the hypotheses about nootropics for mood.
How a Daily Wellness Drink Powder Supports Your Mood
Medical research is turning towards natural and holistic treatment methods for physical and mental ailments we previously thought required harsher methods like synthetic chemicals and surgical interventions. A caffeine-free energy drink blend of adaptogens, nootropics, and superfoods added to your daily diet can act as a protective way to support your physical and mental health with energy that actually feels good.
MTE is a new kind of energy experience – more than a temporary boost that borrows from tomorrow to get you just a bit of energy today. Nootropics support energy, focus, mood, and sleep all without caffeine. It’s a new, stress-free, sustainable paradigm. Check it out.
