{"id":15,"date":"2026-02-12T03:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/?p=15"},"modified":"2026-02-12T07:41:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:41:01","slug":"a-brief-history-of-modafinil-and-what-the-future-might-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"A brief history of modafinil and what the future might hold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Modafinil is a wakefulness-promoting agent (or eugeroic) which was first synthesized in the 1970s by a French pharmaceutical company called Lafon. Although it originally emerged as a promising treatment for narcolepsy, it also showed an increase in wakefulness and performance<\/a> in healthy people, so Lafon decided to market modafinil for this purpose under the brand name Provigil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of modafinil<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modafinil was eventually licensed to Cephalon (who later became Teva) and was first approved by the FDA in 1998 as an adjunct treatment for narcolepsy. It\u2019s not currently approved for any other disorders, but can be prescribed \u2018off label\u2019 for conditions including sleep apnea, shift-work sleep disorder and chronic fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first (and perhaps most famous) user of modafinil was a French computer programmer called Michel \u2018Micha\u2019 Lagarde who took modafinil to stay awake during the final stretch of his work on a new video game. He became so productive that he ended up working non-stop for three days and nights straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popularity soars in the 21st century<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The success of modafinil as a wakefulness-promoting agent led to a huge increase in its popularity, and by the mid-2000s it was being used by a wide range of people<\/a> including software developers, surgeons, military personnel and even truck drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as its popularity increased, so did the number of \u2018modafinil experiences\u2019 being reported online, and it wasn\u2019t long before modafinil became a household name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, after an Instant.ly poll showed that it was the most Googled term of 2011, modafinil was officially named \u2018Word of the Year\u2019 by the New Oxford Dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past few years, there has been a huge amount of media coverage surrounding modafinil, and countless articles have been written about it \u2013 from its use as a cognitive enhancer by students to its increasing popularity as a lifestyle drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popular articles have included a profile on a New York investment banker who takes modafinil to make all-nighters, an article about how it\u2019s used by the military (mostly by helicopter pilots) and even an article about how it can make you love your spouse more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s even a book called The Dark Net, which features an entire chapter on how modafinil is used by online drug dealers to stay awake while conducting their illegal business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does the future hold for modafinil?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a contentious issue and one that raises a lot of questions. For example, what effect will the legalization of marijuana have on modafinil? Let\u2019s face it, two of the most popular \u2018smart drugs\u2019 that are used by people looking to get ahead are modafinil and cannabis, and they both happen to be illegal in the US. There\u2019s no doubt that if marijuana was legal, modafinil would be too, and in fact, it\u2019s possible that there wouldn\u2019t even be a market for it in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modafinil is a wakefulness-promoting agent (or eugeroic) which was first synthesized in the 1970s by a French pharmaceutical company called Lafon. Although it originally emerged as a promising treatment for narcolepsy, it also showed an increase in wakefulness and performance in healthy people, so Lafon decided to market modafinil for this purpose under the brand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modafinilview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}