I spent 8 weeks systematically finding my minimum effective dose using a rigorous self-experiment protocol. Here is the methodology and results.
Why dose-finding matters: Most people start at 200 mg (the standard prescription dose) because that is what they read about. But individual response varies enormously. Your minimum effective dose might be 50 mg — saving money, reducing side effects, and improving sleep quality significantly.
The protocol:
- Weeks 1–2: 50 mg on working days. Same timing (7 am), same conditions.
- Weeks 3–4: 100 mg on working days. Same conditions.
- Weeks 5–6: 150 mg on working days. Same conditions.
- Weeks 7–8: 200 mg on working days. Same conditions.
- Daily productivity tracking: subjective focus (1–10), output (tasks completed), side effects, sleep quality
My results:
- 50 mg: Mild effect, noticeable but subtle. 6/10 focus score average.
- 100 mg: Clear effect. 8/10 focus score average. Minimal side effects.
- 150 mg: Marginally better focus (8.5/10). Headaches on 20% of days.
- 200 mg: Slightly stronger focus (9/10). Headaches on 35% of days, occasional anxiety, worse sleep.
Conclusion: My optimal dose is 100 mg. The jump to 200 mg provides minimal additional benefit against meaningfully worse tolerability. I have used 100 mg ever since.
This is exactly the scientific self-experimentation approach the community needs more of. Systematic, controlled, tracked. The result (100 mg optimal) is what most long-term users arrive at eventually — you just found it in 8 weeks.
The marginal benefit from 100 to 200 mg not justifying the side effect cost is the finding most people reach after months of trial and error. This shortcut could save people a lot of wasted suffering.
Did you track anything objective alongside the subjective ratings? Word count, code commits, task completion rate?
I tracked tasks completed from my todo list and estimated time-to-completion on defined task types. The objective and subjective data correlated well. 100 mg had only slightly fewer completed tasks than 200 mg, not proportionally fewer despite lower subjective focus rating.
The dose-response curve for modafinil is non-linear — much of the therapeutic effect comes at 100 mg and the additional 100 mg provides diminishing returns. This result is consistent with pharmacological predictions.
Would you do this experiment again with armodafinil to find your optimal armodafinil dose? Or is 100 mg modafinil satisfactory enough that you would not switch?
Satisfied with 100 mg modafinil as my standard. Considering a similar experiment with armodafinil at some point but the 100 mg protocol works well enough that I am not urgently motivated to change.