Creatine Isn't Just for Gym Bros — And Honestly, That Bothers Me in a Good Way

[nina_turns_pages]

So I've been reading up on nootropics for months now, mostly through the lens of Taoist inner alchemy texts and their obsession with cultivating jing. The whole idea of conserving and refining vital essence — it's always felt metaphorical to me. Poetic. Beautiful, sure, but not exactly something you could measure.

Then I fell down a creatine rabbit hole.

For context: I don't lift. I'm the person in the corner with a stack of comparative religion books and a tarot deck. But I kept seeing researchers like David Benton at Swansea University publishing on creatine and cognitive performance, particularly under sleep deprivation and mental fatigue. The mechanisms are documented — it's not snake oil, it's cellular energy metabolism. Your brain uses ATP, creatine helps recycle ATP. Simple biochemistry.

But here's where it gets weird for me personally. After about three weeks of supplementation, I noticed something I wasn't expecting. My tarot readings changed. Not in some mystical woo way — I wasn't channeling spirits. But my ability to hold multiple symbolic associations simultaneously without losing the thread sharpened noticeably. The Hierophant wasn't just tradition anymore; I could hold the tension between institutional structure and personal revelation at the same time, sit with it, let it breathe.

From a Jungian perspective, I'd say my cognitive function around symbolic thinking improved. Maybe. That's my subjective interpretation and I'm not claiming it's controlled science.

What fascinates me is how uncomfortable this makes me. I came to inner alchemy through meditation, through slow practice, through sitting with discomfort. The idea that a powder I bought at a supplement store might be sharpening the same cognitive faculties that monks spend decades cultivating feels almost like cheating. Like finding out the Magician's wand was ordered on Amazon.

I'm not saying creatine replaces practice. But I think we need to be honest about the fact that "spiritual" cognition still runs on biological hardware, and some of that hardware is upgradeable.

Anyone else experimented with this? I'm genuinely curious if others have noticed shifts in their contemplative or divinatory practices.

[boring_sunday_19]

"The idea that a powder I bought at a supplement store might be sharpening the same cognitive faculties that monks spend decades cultivating feels almost like cheating."

I think you're conflating holding symbols with sitting with them — monks aren't cultivating sharper hardware, they're cultivating the willingness to not use it.

[quiet_river_602]

"The idea that a powder I bought at a supplement store might be sharpening the same cognitive faculties that monks spend decades cultivating feels almost like cheating."

In my experience, sharpened cognition and deepened insight aren't the same thing — I've met brilliant diagnostic minds who couldn't sit with a patient's suffering for five minutes.