Your quadruple shot Red Eye from Starbucks isn’t the most evidence-based approach to optimizing your cognition for a steady workday. It may get your motor running, or turn you into a jittery mess once the full impact of the bean has soaked into your brain. There’s a better way to start your day, and it’s much more likely to support your thinking than hijack your mind: caffeine (with L-theanine), creatine monohydrate and citicoline. All supplements that are water/coffee soluble, flavorless and research-backed.

What the published data has to say about our 3Cs: 

Caffeine (+ L-theanine): A 2025 meta-analysis found caffeine+L-theanine improves choice reaction time by roughly half a standard deviation (SMD ≈ −0.48; negative = faster) and improved vigilance accuracy (SMD ≈ +0.20), attention switching (SMD ≈ +0.33), and mood in the second hour (SMD ≈ +0.26) versus placebo [1]. Combining the two also significantly reduces the jitters that adenosine receptor blockage can cause (how caffeine works) and doesn’t reduce the wakefulness effect from your drip coffee. This combination translates into something real you can feel throughout your day: crisper decisions and brighter spirits as the day wraps up.

Citicoline (500 mg/day): In a 12-week RCT in healthy older adults, 500 mg/day improved episodic memory and a composite memory score versus placebo; effects were statistically robust across computerized tests used in clinical research [9]. In a separate 2-week RCT in healthy volunteers, 500 mg/day improved psychomotor vigilance and visual working memory versus placebo [8]. And in a 4-week, three-arm RCT in healthy women (n=60), citicoline cut commission errors on CPT-II versus placebo; using the published means and standard errors, the between-group effects were moderate-to-large in magnitude (commission errors d≈0.70 at 500 mg; omissions d≈0.52) [7]. This means from this supplement (over time) that supports synthesis of phosphatidylcholine (a key structural component of neuronal membranes) and boosts acetylcholine and phosphocreatine in the brain you sustain attention longer and make fewer mistakes over the course of the day. Not a bad haul given very mild side effects.

Creatine (3–5 g/day): A 2024 systematic review/meta-analysis (24 studies, ~1,000 participants) reported a significant, small-to-moderate improvement in memory (SMD ≈ +0.31) and faster processing-speed time (SMD ≈ −0.51); attention time also improved modestly (SMD ≈ −0.31) overall, with the strongest effects under stress or in select subgroups [6]. Older trials showed reduced mental fatigue under load (e.g., repeated math, partial sleep loss) and gains on working memory and reasoning, especially when brain energy is taxed [13–15]. Mechanistically, this boosts the brain’s phosphocreatine buffer; you get a bit more ATP generation when you’re maxing your brain (or muscles) out [14]. The cognitive effect is not dramatic every day for every person; it’s reliable enough that over weeks it will likely show up as more consistent output and more days able to get all the way across the finish line [6].

How does this compare to prescription stimulants in healthy, non-sleep-deprived adults? A 2020 series of meta-analyses across modafinil, methylphenidate (MPH), and d-amphetamine made it pretty clear: MPH yielded a small overall improvement (SMD ≈ +0.21); modafinil showed selective, small benefits (SMD ≈ +0.12); and d-amphetamine showed no reliable overall enhancement in non-sleep-deprived healthy adults [3]. An earlier meta-analysis reached the same general conclusion: stimulant effects in healthy people exist but are truly very modest and inconsistent across domains [2]. This means in a typical rested adult without ADHD, the average benefit of FDA-Scheduled, controlled substances often touted as “smart pills” just aren’t very effective. And that is without weighing in the very tangible side effects that stimulants bring. The net benefit of psychostimulants is meager if not negative. The caffeine-theanine/citicoline/creatine stack won’t mimic the subjective jolt of amphetamines, but on objective tasks—vigilance, switching, recall, processing time—its aggregate effects are superior to the average non-ADHD stimulant result, and the side effect burden is much smaller [1,3,6–9,13–15].

The 3C morning mix that I have as my morning ritual.

• Coffee (or ~100–200 mg caffeine) with L-theanine 200 mg (powder, mixed in). That dose pairing is what most trials approximate; it’s where the reaction-time and vigilance effects show up reliably, and the L-theanine blunts the jitters of caffeine without curbing the cognitive benefits [1].
  
  

• Citicoline 500 mg (powder, mixed in). The best evidence for memory and vigilance improvements in healthy adults clusters at 500 mg/day over weeks; more isn’t better. In fact, higher doses had poorer responses [8,9].
  
  

• Creatine monohydrate 3–5 g (micronized powder, mixed in). Expect subtle benefits day-to-day; clearer effects accrue under stress, cognitive load, and over weeks via improvements in memory and task time [6,13–15].
  
  

Don’t short-change Sleep: This is not a trivial add-on. Partial sleep restriction reduces cognition with medium-to-large effects across domains (e.g., meta-analytic g ≈ −0.38 for moderate restriction; lapses on vigilance tasks g ≈ −0.78 in acute deprivation). No supplement stack makes up for poor sleep over time [4,5]. If you cut out an hour from total sleep, you’ll likely give back more than the 3C stack just added.

Read more in-depth about the 3C’s here: https://getgoldmind.com/pages/ingredients

What to expect in practice. If you already sleep 7.5–8 hours, the 3C stack’s “real world” effect is fewer dumb mistakes, easier attention shifts when appropriate, and a touch more working memory available when the grind gets grindy. On paper, mixed together: caffeine+theanine yields ~0.3–0.5 SD improvements on speed/attention metrics in acute sessions [1]; citicoline adds ~0.5–0.7 SD reductions in impulsive errors on sustained attention and strengthens memory over weeks [7–9]; creatine adds ~0.3 SD to memory and speeds completion time on processing tasks, with clearer signal under stress [6,13–15]. You won’t notice all of that every day, but across a month you’ll notice your cognitive floor rising.

Bottom line: More caffeine is not better. Prescription stimulants are not better. A reasonable, safe morning routine with evidence-based dosages of select supplements can give you a decent leg up on the cognitive competition and help you think your best (with very few side effects).

 

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Endnotes

1. Payne ER, Aceves-Martins M, Dubost J, Greyling A, de Roos B. Effects of Tea (Camellia sinensis) or its Bioactive Compounds l-Theanine or l-Theanine plus Caffeine on Cognition, Sleep, and Mood in Healthy Participants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutr Rev. 2025 Oct 1;83(10):1873-1891.
   
   

2. Ilieva IP, Hook CJ, Farah MJ. Prescription stimulants’ effects on healthy inhibitory control, working memory, and episodic memory: a meta-analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2015;27(6):1069–1089.
   
   

3. Roberts CA, Jones A, Sumnall HR, et al. How effective are pharmaceuticals for cognitive enhancement in healthy adults? A series of meta-analyses of cognitive performance during acute administration of modafinil, methylphenidate and d-amphetamine. European Neuropsychopharmacology. 2020
   
   

4. Lim J, Dinges DF. A meta-analysis of the impact of short-term sleep deprivation on cognitive variables. Psychological Bulletin. 2010;136(3):375–389.
   
   

5. Lowe CJ, Safati A, Hall PA. The effects of sleep restriction on cognitive performance: A meta-analytic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 2017;80:586–604.
   
   

6. Xu C, Bi S, Zhang W, Luo L. The effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2024;11:1424972.
   
   

7. McGlade E, Locatelli A, Hardy J, et al. Improved Attentional Performance Following Citicoline Administration in Healthy Adult Women. Food and Nutrition Sciences. 2012;3:769–773.
   
   

8. Al-Kuraishy HM, Al-Gareeb AI. Citicoline improves human vigilance and visual working memory: The role of neuronal activation and oxidative stress. Basic and Clinical Neuroscience. 2020;11(4):423–432.
   
   

9. Nakazaki E, Mah E, Sanoshy K, et al. Citicoline and memory function in healthy older adults: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Journal of Nutrition. 2021;151(8):2153–2160.
   
   

10. Rae C, Digney AL, McEwan SR, Bates TC. Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2003;270(1529):2147–2150.
    
    

11. Watanabe A, Kato N, Kato T. Effects of creatine on mental fatigue and cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation. Neuroscience Research. 2002;42(4):279–285.
    
    

12. Roschel H, et al. Creatine supplementation and brain health. Nutrients. 2021;13(2):586.