Qualia Mind is the new nootropic formulated by Neurohacker Collective.
Aspiring to be the 'premium nootropic for mental performance', the company's second-generation product sure has a lot of hype around it.
But all the hype is meaningless if the product doesn't follow through with the goods.
So, how does the new Qualia Mind performance supplement stack up?
In this Qualia Mind review, I take a look at the active ingredients as well as the benefits of using Qualia and, of course, my own feedback and the experiment I did with Qualia Mind. The results are going to blow your mind! (Make sure you read to the end of this article for all those results.)
Let's begin.
The team at Neurohacker Collective is passionate about optimizing human cognitive performance and longevity.
With their first-generation Qualia supplement (read my review on that HERE), they formulated a supplement with a clear goal in mind—to be the best nootropic on the market even if it had a premium price point.
They achieved great success with this first-generation product. So many people have sworn by it.
Personally, I couldn't handle a full dosage of their first product but continued to take it in a lower dosage for all the brain-boosting supplements that were in the Qualia capsule (or I should say capsules since a typical serving was nine capsules from two bottles divided between two dosages.)
Fast forward a few years, the R&D team at Neurohacker Collective has now released their new-and-improved Qualia Mind formulation.
This new formula kept what worked well in the original formula and removed what didn't (e.g., the split dosing and nine capsules per serving).
The company behind Qualia Mind
The major noticeable difference is that now there is only one bottle. All the ingredients are packed into one formula. So you no longer have to take some capsules on an empty stomach and again later in the day like you did with the original formula. (Many people would take the first and forget about the second.)
Another change is the new caffeine-free variant. Caffeine is a proven performance enhancer, so it makes sense to include it in a performance-focused supplement. Yet not everyone wants or needs extra caffeine (myself included).
Qualia Mind—This is the new caffeine-free version that I use.
So now, it's possible to get all the goodness of Qualia without the caffeine in the caffeine-free version of Qualia Mind, as well as still having the option to select the caffeinated formula.
The serving dosage is now slightly smaller—down to seven capsules (from nine). That's still a lot of pill-popping though!
The new formula also has lost a few ingredients that were in the old formula.
DHEA has been cut out, which is a good thing, as DHEA is a banned substance for professional athletes. Also, the synthetic ingredient Noopept has been cut.
I believe it was the Noopept in the first formulation that 'buzzed me out' as it is a synthetic racetam-like compound. So I was eager to see how I would respond to the new Qualia Mind formula. (More on this below.)
There have also been a few other minor ingredient changes. The only new addition to the Qualia Mind formula over the old is the introduction of Celastrus paniculatus which is an herb used in Ayurvedic medicine with nootropic and neuroprotective effects.
I'll do a full breakdown of the ingredients below.
The other change is the price. The new Qualia Mind costs $10 less than the original formula.
Oh right, that.
Qualia Mind is a supplement stack consisting of herbs, neuro vitamins, nootropic compounds, antioxidants and adaptogenic extracts designed to help with memory, cognitive function and contribute to a creative and productive flow-state.
It is a highly-researched, premium nootropic. (If you don't know what a nootropic is, read THIS.) Essentially, nootropics are intended to help you perform cognitive tasks better.
For a more detailed description of what Qualia is, have a read of THIS website.
The following is from the Qualia Mind product page:
More Focus, More Drive
Qualia Mind is one of the most advanced and comprehensive mental performance products available. Its fast-acting formula is designed to fuel cognition while supporting long-term brain health. Qualia Mind was made to help you focus better, decrease procrastination, and have more energy. For most, benefits can be felt in as soon as 40 minutes, delivering calm energized focus all day. Discover what you can achieve with this premium, scientifically-researched, high-purity, and safe formula. (Neurohacker Collective website)
The potential benefits of regular Qualia Mind use include:
Pretty neat, right? At the end of this article, I'll share the benefits I experienced from taking Qualia Mind for a month.
Neurohacker Collective doesn't hide their ingredients behind any 'proprietary blends'—a marketing ploy that many supplement companies use to 'protect' their formula. Proprietary blends are a cunning way for a company to increase its profits by using mostly inexpensive fillers and just adding a little bit of the expensive active ingredients for show.
The good thing for Qualia consumers is that you know exactly how much of each ingredient is in each Qualia serving. Listed below is the full ingredient list of the new Qualia Mind:
Please note, the caffeine-free version does not have the coffeeberry ingredient.
For those familiar with my work on nootropics or who have read my previous review of Qualia, many of these ingredients will be familiar to you.
For those who are new to the world of cognitive enhancers, here is a quick rundown of the key ingredients. Click on each ingredient name to learn more about the benefits of each item.
NOOTROPIC COMPOUNDS
ADAPTOGEN EXTRACTS
ANTIOXIDANTS
NEURO-VITAMINS
AMINO ACIDS
CHOLINE DONORS
For an exceptionally comprehensive overview of the ingredients that have been used in developing Qualia mind, I highly recommend reading the article Qualia Mind—The Building Of A Nootropic Stack.
Ok, so now for the fun part of the review—my feedback!
For four weeks I took the full dosage of Qualia Mind Caffeine Free.
This meant seven capsules a day—taken first thing in the morning—five days a week with two days off. I simply took Qualia during the weekdays and had the weekends off.
What happened? Did I notice anything?
I actually recorded my first time taking Qualia Mind and uploaded it to YouTube. You can watch that clip here → Qualia Mind Does It Work? - First Time Taking It
If you watched that video, you would have seen me talk about the icky fish taste that those capsules had. I emailed Neurohacker Collective about this. As it turned out, I had a bottle from a bad batch. Whoops!
Anyway, they told me to toss it, and they sent a new bottle out.
This meant another week before I started with Qualia, but at least I wasn't ingesting rancid fish oil!
And for the record, the replacement bottle didn't have this effect even after four weeks with an open lid.
If you have read my review of the first Qualia product My Intense Experience Taking Qualia—2018 Qualia Nootropic Review, you would have read about my 'off feeling' that I experienced a few hours after taking Qualia.
I believe this was a result of the Noopept ingredient that was in the original formula but not in the new Qualia Mind formula.
I was anxious to see if I would experience the same effect with Qualia Mind. Well after four weeks of taking the full dose amount, I can say that there was no weird 'spaced out' sensation with Qualia Mind. Good!
Despite that weird sensation I had with the original Qualia, the main drawback was the afternoon slump in energy I had while taking it. I ended up only taking one-third of the daily dosage. Otherwise, every afternoon I needed a nap.
I can say that this did not happen with Qualia Mind. The first day or two there was a minor energy slump, but this did not continue. Even during the first few days when I did experience it, still, it was nothing in comparison to the slump that I felt with the original formula.
To be honest, if I had experienced that same intensity slump, I wouldn't have kept taking Qualia Mind. Any potential upsides simply wouldn't have been worth the crash every afternoon.
Fortunately, this didn't happen!
One of the main benefits of Qualia Mind is improved productivity and less procrastination.
As someone who spends most of my working time writing articles, procrastination can be a big issue for me. So I was eager to see if Qualia Mind would help.
Unfortunately, I didn't notice any changes on this front.
I still had periods where I would struggle to get my writing flow going. Though I would be silly to think that a pill could fix this. Sometimes, I just have to take the bull by the horns and get on with the job.
But since it was part of my experience, I thought I'd share that little observation.
Anyway, don't let that negative put you off using Qualia.
I haven't touched on all the benefits I noticed from my Qualia experiment. Let's do that now.
Before I started taking Qualia Mind, I did two things:
My goal here was simply to get some data around my sleep and cognition before I used Qualia and then to retest during and after my four-week experiment.
Exciting, isn't it? Well, I sure thought so!
Before I started popping 35 Qualia Mind capsules a week, I had collected extensive data averages from my Oura ring regarding my deep sleep.
I spent an average of 1 hour and 36 minutes in deep sleep stage each night.
With an average total sleep time of 8 hours and 9 minutes, my deep sleep percentage was 19.6% prior to taking Qualia Mind.
Before Qualia | |
Deep Sleep Time | 1 hour 36 min. |
Deep Sleep Percentage | 19.6% |
To be honest, those numbers are pretty decent. If you are struggling with inadequate deep sleep, be sure to read my article How To Increase Deep Sleep.
So what happened to my deep sleep when I started taking Qualia Mind?
Turns out a lot happened. My deep sleep skyrocketed!
The first night I tracked my sleep after tracking Qualia for a few days, I hit a whopping 38% deep sleep score!
This is off the charts good! Especially because this was over an eight-hour night's sleep! I had benefited from spending over three hours in deep sleep!
You can see that particular night's data from my Oura app below:
A perfect night's sleep while using Qualia Mind tracked by my Oura ring
It's impressive! Wouldn't you agree?
In fact, not only is the deep sleep score amazing, but the whole night's sleep is textbook perfect. I had no wakings during the night. Deep sleep was predominantly during the first half of the night. REM sleep was mostly during the second half of the night. I even woke up in sync with the sunrise.
Perfect.
I continued to monitor my deep sleep to see if this was a one-off, but it wasn't. Thankfully, my deep sleep remained incredibly high.
In fact, the highest I experienced was 40% deep sleep. Remember, this was over more than a full seven hours of sleep that night.
In all my years working with many clients, I've never seen scores this high! It was very cool.
40% deep sleep score!
So, how did my deep sleep averages look after finishing my Qualia Mind experiment?
Let's look at the Oura data:
It may be hard to see, but the average deep sleep during the time I was taking Qualia Mind was 2 hours and 26 minutes!
I was enjoying nearly a full hour more than prior to Qualia.
It's just crazy how well Qualia helped me sleep!
Note, I'm missing a few days data at the start of my experiment as I hadn't charged my Oura ring. Frustrating, I know, but I still have nearly a month's worth of data to work with.
And what about deep sleep percentage? I worked that out and it was 32.5%
Isn't that astounding? A nearly 33% deep sleep average is what I experienced. I have readers who tell me they have never even seen a 15% deep sleep score on the best nights, let alone a rolling average of more than double that!
I don't mean to gloat, but damn, those numbers are awesome!
So to summarize the data, let's look at the table below:
Before Qualia | After Qualia | |
Deep Sleep Time | 1 hour 36 min. | 2 hours 26 min. |
Deep Sleep Percentage | 19.6% | 32.5% |
After taking Qualia Mind (caffeine-free), I added nearly an hour to my deep sleep, and my percentage increased from under 20% to over 30%!
Not only that, but my sleep was very restorative during this time. I was rarely waking during the night. The only times I was waking was due to an unexpected noise outside, like a wild possum screeching, or the sounds of my wife waking up in the middle of the night to care for our newborn baby.
And I was feeling incredibly energized every morning when I got up.
In fact, I felt so good during this roughly four-week period that I started thinking, 'Qualia Mind truly is the best thing on the market.' It made me wonder if my extra energy and high spirits were the direct results of Qualia's nootropic mood-optimizing blend or if they were side benefits from the amazing sleep I was getting?
If it was the latter, then was the amazing sleep a direct result of me taking Qualia? It sure looked to be the case.
I want to see how my deep sleep score looks in another four weeks, after four weeks without taking Qualia. The objective here is simple—to see if coming off Qualia Mind drops my deep sleep score.
Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to hear about those findings. I'll send an email out next month when I have this data.
Either way, I didn't really care one way or the other if the extra energy and high spirits were a direct or indirect benefit—I was sleeping great and feeling amazing. What more could I want?
Well actually, there was more.
Bring on the results from the second part of my experiment.
The second part of my experiment was testing my cognitive function.
Before taking Qualia Mind, I took a specially designed test used for cognitive research. This test was done through Cognifit Research.
It is about a 45-minute test that uses various forms of challenges to test the following five key areas:
I took this test twice (spaced a week apart) to get an accurate baseline.
My first score was 590, and the second score was 585.
My baseline (pre-Qualia) average was then 587.5
After finishing my bottle of Qualia Mind, I did two more tests over a two-day period. (Note, the tests do change every time.) These tests are designed and used by leading researchers to track cognitive function.
My results are below (and higher is better).
Yes, my score improved after taking Qualia!
From my baseline average of 587.5, my first follow up test result jumped to 625 and the next day my score was 637!
This is an average score of 631.
Which means my cognitive function improved by 7.5% in a space of only four weeks while taking Qualia Mind!
Before Qualia | After Qualia | |
Cognifit Average Score |
587.5 | 631 |
Percentage Increase | - | 7.5% |
It will be interesting to see what my scores look like after I stop taking Qualia for four weeks. Will my scores return to baseline?
Be sure to sign up to my newsletter to find out since I'll be sending out an email with these findings in a few weeks time.
My cognitive boost from Qualia shouldn't come as a surprise.
The team behind Qualia have been doing extensive testing with users of Qualia through the independent testing company Cambridge Brain Sciences.
The results of this research can be seen here → https://neurohacker.com/qualia-mind-pilot-study.
Some of the key findings from users taking Qualia Mind include:
▲ 85.4% increase in scores for ability to concentrate/avoid distraction
▲ 37.2% increase in scores for planning skills
▲ 31.1% increase in scores for visual representation
▲ 16.9% increase in scores for verbal reasoning
▲ 13.3% increase in scores for verbal short-term memory
That's pretty impressive, right?
Those scores line up well with my own findings.
If you would like to try Qualia Mind and see your cognitive ability performance scores before and after taking Qualia, just order a bottle of Qualia HERE. (Use discount code FERGUS to save.) And you will be given access to your own Cambridge Brain Sciences test.
After reading these findings, no doubt you're keen to give Qualia a try for yourself.
I mean, who wouldn't want to take Qualia? It's proven to boost cognitive function. It had a profound impact on my sleep, mood and energy. Plus, it's packed full of ingredients that have been shown to be safe and effective.
The only reason you might not rush off to add Qualia to your supplement stack is because of the price.
Qualia is a premium product. A huge amount of resources have gone into developing this product. And only the best ingredients are used in beneficial amounts in the formulation without hiding behind any 'proprietary blends'.
Naturally, this means a high cost.
A price for one bottle of Qualia Mind (lasting you one month) costs $139. But if you sign up on a subscription plan you can get your first bottle for $69 which is a lot more appealing.
Also, I do have a Qualia Mind discount code. It's FERGUS. Simply enter that at the checkout screen to save 15% on your Qualia order.
As you go to buy your Qualia, you will notice two options: regular Qualia Mind and the caffeine-free version.
I personally used the caffeine-free version, but if you do fine with metabolizing caffeine then go with the regular version for the extra performance benefits.
The price is the same.
If $69 is too much, even with my 15% discount code FERGUS, but you still want some of the benefits I had with Qualia then there is a cheaper alternative.
It's called Qualia Focus.
This sells for $35 on a subscription or $59 as a one-time purchase. The discount code FERGUS will work with Qualia Focus as well.
I have yet to try Qualia Focus, but the reports I've heard are promising—just not quite as good as the flagship Qualia Mind formulation.
As for the differences between Qualia Mind and Qualia Focus, I pulled this from the Neurohacker Collective website:
What is the difference between Qualia Mind and Qualia Focus?
Qualia Focus & Qualia Mind are both premier, research-based nootropics designed to support and maximize brain health.
With increased ingredients, dosages and additional nutrient synergies, Mind provides more robust support for attention, accuracy, and focus in stressful environments and demanding situations.
Notably, we added ingredients PQQ, Phosphatidylserine, DHA, and CDP-Choline to the Qualia Mind formulation to support cellular energy production and cell membrane (lipid bilayer) health. These additions support cell fluidity and responsiveness to neurotransmitters, and the formation of synaptic connections between neurons in the nervous system (synaptogenesis) used for memory and learning. These ingredients are especially important for persons wanting to optimize memory and brain health through the aging process.
Qualia Mind has CDP-Choline, Sunflower Lecithin (supplying Phosphatidylserine) and an increased dosage of Uridine. These provide extra support for the critical choline pathway involved in memory and attentional focus.
Of note: Mind and Focus are not intended to stack together.
Which one should I buy?
Determine which product is right for you and your goals by viewing the differences here:
As everyone has differences in biochemistry, if Qualia Mind does not work for you or your chemistry, you may then want to try Qualia Focus.
Formulation
For the full list of the ingredients in Focus, why they were chosen, and the research behind them, please review the formulation section:
https://neurohacker.com/qualia-focus
For the full list of the ingredients in Mind, why they were chosen, and the research behind them, please review the formulation section:
https://neurohacker.com/qualia-mind/formulation
For additional insight into how Neurohacker Collective Qualia: The Complex Intelligence Behind Its Formulation and Neurohacker Dosing Principles to better understand some of the thought processes behind the formulation. (Content from the Neurohacker Collective website.)
Pretty much, if your budget allows it, I'd go with Qualia Mind.
Also, there is no caffeine-free version of Qualia Focus.
The Qualia Range—Remember, discount code FERGUS knocks another 15% off these prices.
Yes, I will continue to take Qualia Mind.
Well actually, first I will take a four-week break from Qualia. I want to see what happens to my deep sleep score and my Cognifit scores. Will they return to my baseline average?
If you haven't already, sign up for my newsletter to be the first to hear about these updates.
But after that, I will work Qualia Mind into my ongoing supplement protocol.
I mean, why wouldn't I? My sleep quality was amazing. I didn't have any energy crashes or side effects. I'm ingesting quality ingredients that have been shown to be safe and effective. Also, my cognitive performance scores were better than they were without Qualia.
I also have a bottle of the new Qualia Eternus anti-aging/anti-stress supplement. So, I may do an experiment with that first, which will mean waiting to resume taking Qualia until after the Eternus experiment.
You may be wondering whether you should try Qualia for yourself after this review.
I hope I have provided plenty of information to help you make an informed decision.
Alternatively, head over to the Neurohacker Collective website as that site is chock-full of quality info.
Also, be sure to read my article on nootropics.
To be honest, I think it's worth a shot. The potential upsides are numerous: quality sleep, improved cognitive performance, high spirits, extra energy, brain health, etc. And the only trade-off that I'm aware of is the cost.
Remember, if you do want to save 15% off your Qualia Mind, Qualia Focus or Eternus product, be sure to use discount code FERGUS when buying through THIS website.
Yes, I do get a small cut, but you also save. It's a win-win. And those few dollars I earn allow me to continue to do these types of experiments and share my findings with you all.
If you have any other questions, please leave them below.
And remember to sign up for my newsletter as I'll be sending out updates on my Qualia Mind experiment.
One of our writers, Christa, has just published an extremely intricate review of Qualia Night in a 2-part series. See the blog posts below for her review:
Also, you might be interested in these nootropics as well:
Our writer Christa just published an excellent blog post on Cognifit that can be read HERE.
This blog post was written by Alex Fergus. Alex is a ISSN Sports Nutrition Specialist, Fitness Professional and certified Superhuman Coach who continues to expand his knowledge base and help people across the world with their health and wellness. Alex is recognized as the National Record Holder in Powerlifting and Indoor Rowing and has earned the title of the Australian National Natural Bodybuilding Champion. Having worked as a health coach and personal trainer for over a decade, Alex now researches all things health and wellness and shares his findings on this blog. Learn more about Alex's Credentials HERE.
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