[Loser]

Originally posted by TerranC:
Drink Red Bull. No, seriously. Drink some kind of energy drink; it'll give you that itchy energy that you just wanna get rid of.

A stimulant is a stimulant. Caffeine, Nicotine, Ephedrine, Methamphetamine, whatever. Humanity needs to be more careful with these things. Yes, some of them are worse than others, some more addictive, more likely to make your heart stop, more likely to cause cancer, but ain't a one of them good for you.

That said, I'm currently using a stimulant nasal spray (one of those Generic Afrin types you can't use for more than three consecutive days) because it's cheap, it works (nose clear, breathing fine), and the A-FRICKIN'-LERT side effect is a help on this stupid shift. Use them? Fine, sure. But use them carefully.

One thing most people aren't aware of is that grapefruit juice changes the way just about any chemical interacts with the body. Some drugs get their primary effect strengthened, some weakened, some have a side effect blown way out of proportion. This was mentioned briefly in popular media about three years ago when doctors began to study whether drinking grapefruit juice was causing certain seniors to have adverse reactions to their medication (and they take so much, you know). It's not the vitamin C (which I'm sure one-out-of-three people reading this are thinking), it's something else.

In the case of most stimulants, grapefruit juice will lengthen the term of noticeable effect and also decrease the degree to which your body adjusts to the chemical. This is the case for all four stims I mentioned above. In this usage, sweetened grapefruit juice is just watering down the active ingredient: more bitter is more better.

If you are going to use stims, drink some grapefruit juice about ten minutes beforehand. If you want a nice mellow, constant stim don't touch caffeine. Go for nicotine patches. Buy the biggest ones possible and cut them into quarters. But be careful, because you will get addicted. (Never ever smoke while wearing the patch, not only will it put more nicotine in your system that you will like, but it will ruin the 'quit' potential of the patch.)