Somehow, in my seemingly endless naivete, I long assumed that performance-enhancing drugs were confined to the rarified worlds of, I don’t know, performance. Professional baseball; Olympic gymnastics; Project Runway designers just before Bryant Park. (I’m kidding; I have no way of knowing if designers pop pills. But if they don’t, Christian’s hair simply has no explanation.)
It did occur to me, though, while watching the latest Democratic presidential campaign debate: How in heck do these people do it? I’m 36, and I get sleepy well before The Daily Show. How does a lady born in 1947 gogogo for 12 months straight without benefit of a month-long holiday on a Texas ranch? Never mind Hillary Clinton; John McCain is almost as old as my dad, and Pop’s favorite hobby is napping. It’s maybe the thing he’s best at, other than annoying my mom.
So when I read this piece in the Sunday New York Times about so-called “brain enhancement,” I thought, a-ha:
In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance.
Academics? Geeks are taking what amount to performance-enhancing drugs, when the performance in question is…acing a research paper?
Apparently, this behavior extends to students—but then again, what pills won’t you try in college?
Surveys of college students have found that from 4 percent to 16 percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to improve their academic performance — usually getting the pills from other students.
So it’s no stretch, really, to figure this goes on in the workplace, too.
“Suppose you’re preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview — in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs will be very attractive,” said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. “The desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for beauty, or athletic ability.”
Back to the presidential candidates. I’m not suggesting anyone takes anything stronger than a double espresso. But, geez, wouldn’t the temptation be there? If nerds are knocking back uppers to best other nerds, good grief—what about those in the midst of the longest, most visible and excruciating job interview known to the modern world? I’ll tell you, it would drive me to drink—and then some.
Now that I mention it, I’ve got a rather key interview tomorrow morning—not for a job, but in connection to a project I’m very keen to pursue. I need to be on point, lively, whip smart, not easily cowed. Formidable, even. I need to dazzle. Yet I’ve spent today schlumpfing around in a fog because my three-year-old decided that daylight savings meant the clock jumped forward three hours and therefore breakfast ought to be served at 4:30 a.m. A teeny little pill could wipe away my fatigue, couldn’t it, not to mention my overwhelming sense of inadequacy?
And then I remember I’m pregnant. Oh, my kingdom for a maternity-friendly beta blocker.
What do you think—do academics, students and professionals have a right to brain-enhancement drugs, or is it cheating?