6 ms·

Adderall helps a lot. I have family members with ADD. One says it helps a lot with insomnia, as well as concentration. (Apologies, I accidentally hit the dow

by russell 17y ago

Adderall helps a lot. I have family members with ADD. One says it helps a lot with insomnia, as well as concentration. (Apologies, I accidentally hit the downmod button.)

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- gojomo 17y ago
  Please don't sweat single mistaken votes. They need neither correction nor comment; it averages out soon enough.
rjurney 17y ago
I love Adderall. Without it, I can't even take the trash out. With it, I can plan months and years in advance.
- mad44 17y ago
  Wow! How did it feel the first time you used it? The reason I am asking is, I am having problems with ADHD but I haven't tried any medication yet. What you said sounds very promising. I cannot ever imagine myself planning for the next day and being able to follow that plan. I sometimes am just like as you described, cannot even take the trash out, because I have so many things in my mind, confused.
  - rjurney 17y ago
    The first time I took Adderall I was angry and upset that I'd missed years of my life because I couldn't piece fragmented moments together into a cohesive whole identity. It was like waking up from a long sleep. I was 18.
  - bwd 17y ago
    I have recently begun experimenting with Adderall (under dr. supervision of course). My symptoms don't seem to be as bad as others' but I do have problems with planning and problems with executing a plan without getting distracted once I've made it. The distractibility makes programming difficult because I tend to want to take a short break before tackling a difficult design or debugging problem but then end up surfing the internet for 30 minutes before I can get back "in the mood" to move forward again. Adderall seems to take care of these problems and keep me focused on the work even when it gets difficult. At this point I look on it as a performance enhancing drug.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    I've been using Ritalin, not Adderall. Here's my experience: I started on Ritalin 15 years ago or so. At first, I found myself oddly calm and rational, even at what struck me as really inappropriate times (such as during an emotional conversation with my wife). Like I became Mr. Spock. Then I noticed that my personal soundtrack disappeared. There was always music running though my head. Assorted, pop-ish, catchy melodies. And they were gone. Sadness. I think I stopped taken it then, but shortly later went back on it. The effects were not as striking. (The soundtrack returned, hooray! and has not left again since then.) Nowadays, I find hard to say how well it works. I more or less take it when I feel like it, and I think it helps, but it seems I've acclimated. (Side note: I'm pretty sure the Ritalin, plus Wellbutrin, were key to my quitting smoking. Take note, all you stimulant-chasing dopamine-deprived chain smokers.) On the other hand, years ago I felt as though there was a TV in my head and someone was changing the channel every second. That's gotten much better. But on-demand focus, still not so good. Now I wonder if I should try Adderall. I did a stint with Strattera, but it didn't seem to do much. Meanwhile, I'm writing possibly commercial apps to help me stay organized, so maybe there's an upside. :)
- wheels 17y ago
  My feelings are mixed on such. I was on Ritalin as a teenager and I felt like it stripped me of my creativity and started refusing to take it. I had trouble focusing a lot of the time (though I also have the ability to hyper-focus). I've taken a few times illicitly since just to have a reference point, and I still find that the mental gymnastics that I've had to develop as an adult (I'm 28) to try to get myself to hyper-focus on the whole are a better coping mechanism than taking amphetamines on a regular basis. I feel like scatter-brained-ness is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, it contributes to difficulty in staying "on-topic" on a regular basis; on the other hand, I feel like it's been the mechanism that's allowed me to broaden my interests and to absorb a lot of information in usually disconnected areas and sometimes connect pieces that might be less natural for others without this "affliction". This is of course an anecdote, and I believe as others have pointed out concentration is spectrum and there are extreme poles where medication may be the only option, but I'm leery of it becoming a catch all solution as it has become in the US (but not in other developed countries).
  - aswanson 17y ago
    Does alcohol help with the ADD? I remember around that age that moderate drinking would dampen some of my scattering and made me feel as though I could focus more.
    - wheels 17y ago
      Not predictably. Right now often jumping into a debugging session I'll have a glass of wine or so, but historically if I look back over the most productive phases of my life they've varied between times where I didn't drink at all to where I drank too much. The most effective coping mechanisms have been combinations of removing distractions and sometimes short meditation. More recently I find if I'm distracted that going running for 15 minutes will help clear my head. If I find myself procrastinating too much I often run Freedom.app for an hour or two at a stretch to help drop me into the zone. When I'm working in an office I tend to start extremely early or extremely late so that I'm alone at the office for long stretches. When I'm working from home (I live with my co-founder) I tend to shut the door for long stretches and occasionally notice that I shift my sleeping schedule so that a large block of the time where we're awake is mutually exclusive.
cyunker 17y ago
I take Adderall. Helps with ADD, but for me it causes insomnia.
- stanley 17y ago
  Do you work late into the day, up to the moment when you go to sleep? After taking Adderall my brain would sometimes be too wired to come down, at first I attributed this to the medicine but later realized it's simply exhaustion.
  - cyunker 17y ago
    No, I'm careful not to take it too late. It's not that bad, just my sleep isn't as good and I wake up more at night. Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives.

by russell 17y ago

Adderall helps a lot. I have family members with ADD. One says it helps a lot with insomnia, as well as concentration. (Apologies, I accidentally hit the downmod button.)

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

gojomo 17y ago
Please don't sweat single mistaken votes. They need neither correction nor comment; it averages out soon enough.

rjurney 17y ago

I love Adderall. Without it, I can't even take the trash out. With it, I can plan months and years in advance.

mad44 17y ago
Wow! How did it feel the first time you used it? The reason I am asking is, I am having problems with ADHD but I haven't tried any medication yet. What you said sounds very promising. I cannot ever imagine myself planning for the next day and being able to follow that plan. I sometimes am just like as you described, cannot even take the trash out, because I have so many things in my mind, confused.
- rjurney 17y ago
  The first time I took Adderall I was angry and upset that I'd missed years of my life because I couldn't piece fragmented moments together into a cohesive whole identity. It was like waking up from a long sleep. I was 18.
- bwd 17y ago
  I have recently begun experimenting with Adderall (under dr. supervision of course). My symptoms don't seem to be as bad as others' but I do have problems with planning and problems with executing a plan without getting distracted once I've made it. The distractibility makes programming difficult because I tend to want to take a short break before tackling a difficult design or debugging problem but then end up surfing the internet for 30 minutes before I can get back "in the mood" to move forward again. Adderall seems to take care of these problems and keep me focused on the work even when it gets difficult. At this point I look on it as a performance enhancing drug.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  I've been using Ritalin, not Adderall. Here's my experience: I started on Ritalin 15 years ago or so. At first, I found myself oddly calm and rational, even at what struck me as really inappropriate times (such as during an emotional conversation with my wife). Like I became Mr. Spock. Then I noticed that my personal soundtrack disappeared. There was always music running though my head. Assorted, pop-ish, catchy melodies. And they were gone. Sadness. I think I stopped taken it then, but shortly later went back on it. The effects were not as striking. (The soundtrack returned, hooray! and has not left again since then.) Nowadays, I find hard to say how well it works. I more or less take it when I feel like it, and I think it helps, but it seems I've acclimated. (Side note: I'm pretty sure the Ritalin, plus Wellbutrin, were key to my quitting smoking. Take note, all you stimulant-chasing dopamine-deprived chain smokers.) On the other hand, years ago I felt as though there was a TV in my head and someone was changing the channel every second. That's gotten much better. But on-demand focus, still not so good. Now I wonder if I should try Adderall. I did a stint with Strattera, but it didn't seem to do much. Meanwhile, I'm writing possibly commercial apps to help me stay organized, so maybe there's an upside. :)
wheels 17y ago
My feelings are mixed on such. I was on Ritalin as a teenager and I felt like it stripped me of my creativity and started refusing to take it. I had trouble focusing a lot of the time (though I also have the ability to hyper-focus). I've taken a few times illicitly since just to have a reference point, and I still find that the mental gymnastics that I've had to develop as an adult (I'm 28) to try to get myself to hyper-focus on the whole are a better coping mechanism than taking amphetamines on a regular basis. I feel like scatter-brained-ness is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, it contributes to difficulty in staying "on-topic" on a regular basis; on the other hand, I feel like it's been the mechanism that's allowed me to broaden my interests and to absorb a lot of information in usually disconnected areas and sometimes connect pieces that might be less natural for others without this "affliction". This is of course an anecdote, and I believe as others have pointed out concentration is spectrum and there are extreme poles where medication may be the only option, but I'm leery of it becoming a catch all solution as it has become in the US (but not in other developed countries).
- aswanson 17y ago
  Does alcohol help with the ADD? I remember around that age that moderate drinking would dampen some of my scattering and made me feel as though I could focus more.
  - wheels 17y ago
    Not predictably. Right now often jumping into a debugging session I'll have a glass of wine or so, but historically if I look back over the most productive phases of my life they've varied between times where I didn't drink at all to where I drank too much. The most effective coping mechanisms have been combinations of removing distractions and sometimes short meditation. More recently I find if I'm distracted that going running for 15 minutes will help clear my head. If I find myself procrastinating too much I often run Freedom.app for an hour or two at a stretch to help drop me into the zone. When I'm working in an office I tend to start extremely early or extremely late so that I'm alone at the office for long stretches. When I'm working from home (I live with my co-founder) I tend to shut the door for long stretches and occasionally notice that I shift my sleeping schedule so that a large block of the time where we're awake is mutually exclusive.

cyunker 17y ago

I take Adderall. Helps with ADD, but for me it causes insomnia.

stanley 17y ago
Do you work late into the day, up to the moment when you go to sleep? After taking Adderall my brain would sometimes be too wired to come down, at first I attributed this to the medicine but later realized it's simply exhaustion.
- cyunker 17y ago
  No, I'm careful not to take it too late. It's not that bad, just my sleep isn't as good and I wake up more at night. Overall, the positives outweigh the negatives.