I have dealt with generalized anxiety for most of my adult life. Not the acute panic attack variety -- the chronic, low-grade kind where you wake up with a tight chest and a sense that something is slightly wrong, even when nothing is. I have tried SSRIs (worked but killed my libido and emotions), buspirone (four weeks of nothing), and occasional lorazepam (works beautifully but I refuse to become dependent).
I ordered Selank as a nasal spray from a reputable peptide vendor after reading about it on nootropics forums for months. The consensus seemed to be: subtle, takes time, no side effects, might do nothing.
Days 1-3: I administered 200 mcg per nostril twice daily -- morning and mid-afternoon. Noticed nothing. The slight bitter taste at the back of the throat was the only evidence I had taken anything. No mood change, no relaxation, no cognitive effect. I wondered if I had been sold bacteriostatic water.
Days 4-7: Still nothing obvious. I kept a daily anxiety journal (1-10 scale) as I do for any new intervention. Looking back at the numbers later, my average had dropped from 5.8 to 4.2, but I did not notice this in real time. What I did notice, vaguely, was that my morning routine felt slightly less effortful. Getting out of bed was not the battle it usually is.
Days 8-10: A work presentation that I had been dreading for two weeks arrived. I normally spend the 48 hours before a presentation in a state of mounting dread -- rehearsing, catastrophizing, imagining everything that could go wrong. This time, the dread was simply... less. Not absent. Less. I prepared normally, but without the frantic quality. During the presentation itself, I felt composed. Not medicated-calm, just composed. A colleague asked afterward if I had been practicing meditation.
Days 11-14: This is when I became genuinely convinced Selank was doing something. A family conflict arose that would normally have sent me into a two-day anxiety spiral. I felt the initial stress response -- the adrenaline, the tightening in the chest -- but it passed in minutes instead of hours. I was able to think clearly about the situation, respond rationally, and move on. That capacity to "move on" from a stressor without ruminating on it for hours is something I have never experienced without benzodiazepines.
I stopped Selank after day 14 to see if there would be rebound anxiety. There was none. My anxiety crept back to baseline over three or four days, gradually, without any of the sharp rebound I associate with stopping benzodiazepines. I have since resumed daily use.
The key insight: Selank does not feel like taking a drug. It feels like the absence of a problem. If you are expecting a benzodiazepine-like "hit" of relaxation, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for something that quietly takes the edge off chronic anxiety without compromising your cognition or creating dependence, this might be the closest thing available.