[chrischen]

From what I understand your description is also experimentally validated. People on ADHD medication become like zombies and no longer seek short term excitements that cause distractions.

Perhaps there's something else in ADHD people wiring that cause a different response, but even normal college students took ADHD medication to help focus.

[Amezarak]

Precisely. It's not that stimulants help people with ADHD focus. They help everyone focus, regardless of whether they have ADHD. [1]

> Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams.

> Versions of these drugs had been given to World War II radar operators to help them stay awake and focus on boring, repetitive tasks.

> And when we reviewed the literature on attention-deficit drugs again in 1990 we found that all children, whether they had attention problems or not, responded to stimulant drugs the same way.

I've always been baffled how I didn't see this for myself years ago - after all, that's exactly what caffeine does for millions of people.

Worse, though, people with ADHD are prescribed stimulants for long-term use, and even after the medicine ceases to be effective - because your body adapts to it over time - you can't just stop taking it, because withdrawal sucks.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/childrens-a...

[mickronome]

So I have ADD, and I can't tell you if my brain is different or not. But I have exactly zero withdrawal from methylphenidate after years of use. If I don't take it, I simply don't get anything done. I have stopped taking it for several week at one point, and then I start spiraling down to my pre-diagnosis state since I forger to eat and sleep.

I get much less impulsive also, car rental managd my own mood much better. My blood pressure add resting heartrate has also improved since I started with the stimulants. A bit unusual according to my doctors.

YMMV - the medication is crude, but being without is not really an option - it's really nice to start being able to plan, and actually decide what actions to take instead of simply doing whatever feelt good at the time.

[KMag]

I don't smoke, but I do use nicotine gum from time to time to help focus. I find it faster acting and more effective than caffeine, with a shorter half-life.

I should probably talk to my doctor to see if I have ADHD, instead of occasionally self-medicating.

[KMag]

It's probably best to not think in terms of a binary ADHD diagnosis, but rather on an attention spectrum.

Students low on the attention spectrum (but either just above ADHD diagnosis or without the resources to get diagnosed) are probably more likely to self-medicate.

So, the fact that some students who self-select for self-medication show improvements isn't necessarily evidence that someone in the middle or upper end of the attention spectrum will see improvements. However, it does suggest a need for research into the effects on randomly selected non-ADHD-diagnosed people.

[reitanqild]

> People on ADHD medication become like zombies and no longer seek short term excitements that cause distractions.

Definitely not generally true.

Why do people continue saying this?

[chrischen]

Because I have ADHD medication and have seen people on it?

[reitanqild]

Well, quite a lot of other people also take ADHD medication or has friends or relatives that takes them and no, not everyone becomes zombies.

A lot of people just get better lives. YMMW.