Anecdote regarding 'smart drugs': The most interesting thing I observed in starting treatment of my ADHD as an adult is that it I think that it stimulated my brain such that I was better able to recognise my tiredness. I remember taking dexamphetamine while I was titrating in the afternoon and pulling over an hour later while driving because I felt I was too tired to safely drive. This was after what I had considered a 'normal' amount of sleep in the past.
When I spoke to people who took these drugs in university (almost all w/o ADHD) sleepiness or calmness never reported by them as a side effect. I avoided coffee and 'energy' drinks in the past because I had this effect, and didn't really understand how people took caffeine to keep themselves awake - I thought it was kind of a meme and I wouldn't understand why my coworkers would drink it during night shifts.
I don't think dehydration adequately explains these to me, as I do take care to try to stay hydrated.
I can relate. Various friends took them and I never bothered. They looked like crackheads and it scared me.
I was recently diagnosed with severe ADHD by several doctors (something I've been treating as anxiety/depression for my whole life), and was prescribed lisdexamfetamine.
It makes me super calm and my thoughts organized. When I'm tired, I feel tired. If I'm sleepy, I'm sleepy. My productivity isn't insane, it's just more stable and predictable now.
This is almost exactly my experience. I sat on my diagnosis for a number of years thinking it was wrong and 'this is just me', not really fully understanding the benefits I was giving up by foregoing meds.
After starting I really just didn't need my anxiety meds anymore. Turns out being able to keep your shit together makes you less anxious. Who knew!
Paranoia about the cardiac side effects have led me in to caring a lot about my overall cardiac health, which has meant that I've largely countered side negative effects with the obsession over HIIT and less medication overall. Giving up alcohol has been kind of sad but I'm getting to the age where hangovers are starting to get brutal so maybe it's for the best.
It's also been nice to keep certain aspects of ADHD that I like, like my hyperfocus on certain subjects.
I wish I could tell teenage me to investigate this sooner.
Same story here, just with modafinil. All the signs were there since as far back as I was 7 years old.
I've been able to control my focus so much better which seems to make me less tired. When I sit to get work done and inevitably get distracted, I can recover instead of go down a spiral of unproductiveness. I'm also better at prioritizing my focus on the things that are important, such as a must-have feature for launch, rather than a nice-to-have that I just enjoy working on more.
And surprisingly, I've been getting some of the best sleep of my life so far on a pill designed to keep you awake. Who knew?
> And surprisingly, I've been getting some of the best sleep of my life so far on a pill designed to keep you awake. Who knew
It's my experience as well. I used to wake up really tired. I still get the same hours of sleep but I wake up feeling... normal? which is an improvement. Very unintuitive.
Yeah I feel like I sleep great at night w/ modafinil.
To be clear: I can't sleep well at all for about 8-12 hours following a dose. It has killed my ability to take a lunchtime nap.
But as long as I don't take it after noon, I get great sleep at night. I fall right to sleep in minutes. Plenty of dreams as well, which suggests to me I'm getting in some good REM sleep.
First: congrats on the progress! That sounds great!
I've been thinking about moving in the opposite direction, actually. ADHD meds like lisdexamfetamine/adderall have been moderately helpful.
But I am starting to think that I might do better treating this from an anxiety/depression angle. ADHD is so comingled with anxiety for me that I can't tell them apart. When I'm falling behind on tasks I get anxiety, which is the literal worst thing for my ADHD, so that exacerbates the ADHD, which increases the anxiety.
I'm curious (if you're open to sharing) if you're still treating the anxiety/depression side of things?
I had the same experience with amphetamine. I think it's an ADHD thing. My doctor started me off on a low dose and I was falling asleep when I took it. We bumped it up and I'm working harder to stick to a good sleep schedule. It's mostly subsided, but I do still need the occasional afternoon nap.
I didn't have that same experience with methylphenidate. That one was a much more pronounced effect. I felt pretty locked in and it was easy to focus. The downside was I was getting headaches, stomach cramps, I would sweat more and my heart was always racing like I had too much coffee.
The amphetamine feels much different. It's more of a chilled out effect where all the noise seems to go away. It doesn't make me feel any smarter, but I do feel less distracted and I'm able to complete boring routine tasks. I wonder if that's why I sometimes get sleepy with it. It's like a relaxation spa for my brain.
yeah that's how you know you legit have ADHD, when a cup or two of coffee makes you calm instead of wired. I do have a threshold where if I drink too much coffee I can't sleep, get jittery etc.
I think this is a vast simplification. People vary. Sometimes drastically. Sometimes even from day to day.
I have certain foods that seems to dramatically change the way stimulants like caffeine affect me. For whatever reason if I eat bananas and nut butter (maybe I have an allergy or food intolerance?) I find that caffeine makes me feel like I crash. When taken on an empty stomach I can get very "wired" but it also depends heavily on my sleep schedule and the time of day I take it.
I've noticed I can get an incredibly productive boost from caffeine when I take it at a time that disrupts my current circadian rhythm. I (used to) usually drink coffee in the morning and it rarely felt like it helped at all. I knew if I was desperate I could drink it around noon and see a big boost but then I wouldn't be able to go sleep on time and would pay for it the next day
Genetics, diet, microbiome, epigenetics, sleep habits, study habits, social health, seasonality, etc all likely play some role in the way people metabolize caffeine.
There is no published evidence that stimulants universally make people ADHD more tired or calm.
And personally I believe given the right conditions anyone might get to experience the effect of caffeine actually making them sleepy.
> Genetics, diet, microbiome, epigenetics, sleep habits, study habits, social health, seasonality, etc all likely play some role in the way people metabolize caffeine.
> And personally I believe given the right conditions anyone might get to experience the effect of caffeine actually making them sleepy.
There was a 6 month time in my late 20s when I was averaging 3.5 hours of sleep during the week while working two jobs and going to school. The third energy drink of the day seemed to signal my body to be tired.
Years later with a much better life balance and fully off of caffeine for months at a time a single 12 ounce can of Coca-Cola at lunchtime was enough to keep me wired until late into the evening. Some time after that, while fully off of caffeine for about a year, 80 mg accidentally ingested from caffeinated protein bars disrupted my sleep deep into the night and took a couple of days to recover from.
I could definitely do better with procrastination, and sometimes have trouble focusing, but am pretty sure I don't have ADD/ADHD.
It sucks that meds used to work this way for me, but now they just don't. They stopped working after a couple months, and never started working again, even after taking absolutely nothing for weeks. It's been almost a year since they've worked and I'm convinced my brain just patched a backdoor or something and just wants me to be useless and dysfunctional all the time.
They are probably still working, but you’ll never get the same rush of excitement/euphoria that you felt in the first few months.
The euphoria is a negative side effect in my opinion. That’s what leads to abuse and addiction. Don’t chase it!
I’m sure you’ve heard all this before, but make sure you’re getting enough sleep and exercise. Also, avoid acidic drinks in the morning like coffee and OJ when taking your medication. The acid can break down some of the medication before your body has a chance to absorb it.
> They are probably still working, but you’ll never get the same rush of excitement/euphoria that you felt in the first few months.
> The euphoria is a negative side effect in my opinion. That’s what leads to abuse and addiction. Don’t chase it!
Yeah that's so not what I'm talking about.
When they worked, I was able to practice art, take regular showers, get chores done and stay focused without getting bored and compulsive. It doesn't help with any of those anymore. I can't use it to draw, can't take regular showers, can't get chores done even if they're staring me in the face, and boy do I get extremely, painfully bored all the time. And this happens whether I am on or off stimulants.
Again, they used to work. That is, actually treat the ADHD. And now they don't.
Yeah, back when I drank a lot of coffee, one cup would make me feel calmer, while going too far and drinking like 3-4 cups (which I did do once to see what it was like) makes me feel like shit, have a headache, be unable to sleep well, etc.
After stopping, even one cup makes me jittery and I no longer feel like I need to drink coffee to feel awake.
Agree. If I don't drink coffee for a couple of weeks, which I rarely do due to the extreme migraine from withdrawal (3-4 days), and then drink one with half a spoon of coffee, I'm extremely alert and focused for house. Now I'm drinking like at least 10 cups a day with zero benefit.
It is easy to quit without headaches - slowly reduce your caffeine intake over a few weeks. Quitting cold turkey (abruptly stopping) will give most people nasty withdrawal symptoms.
I regularly give up either (a) using caffeine only pills and breaking them to linearly decrease caffeine dose, or (b) measured reduction of instant coffee over time.
Start at your current caffeine intake, every morning take one dose (might start high) and reduce slowly over say 3 weeks. It requires significant patience and self-control, but it has worked for me. My main problem is ensuring I don't have social coffees: it is easy to fall back into the habit of drinking coffee if I don't follow the titration regime.
One easy thing you can do to reduce your caffeine intake is to drink 1/2 caff or have every X coffee be decaf. I switched to 1/2 caff and tapered down, that was a lot easier for me.
When I spoke to people who took these drugs in university (almost all w/o ADHD) sleepiness or calmness never reported by them as a side effect. I avoided coffee and 'energy' drinks in the past because I had this effect, and didn't really understand how people took caffeine to keep themselves awake - I thought it was kind of a meme and I wouldn't understand why my coworkers would drink it during night shifts.
I don't think dehydration adequately explains these to me, as I do take care to try to stay hydrated.