Shared my Adderall experience in response to OP, but didn't mention exercise.
HUGE +1, since I started working out more even just a few weeks ago, my overall happiness, focus, sleep, etc. have all improved massively.
But I think it's worth noting two things:
1. Almost anyone, regardless of medication or diagnosis, can probably benefit from regular exercise. These benefits are well-documented in the general population.
2. The initial benefit of my medication _without_ exercise was enough of a catalyst to help me finally get off my butt, join a gym, and make the decision to invest in personal training as a forcing function to more regular and high-intensity workouts. Until I started taking meds, I had this illusion that I'd come up with a workout plan, commit to it regularly, combine a wide variety of aerobic/anaerobic/freeweight exercises, and all for free with home equipment, YouTube, and some books. All of that was (and still is) absolutely _possible_, but without medication, I procrastinated it all for the better part of 2-3 YEARS. With medication, I quickly came to the conclusion that the time, stress, and inaction of that plan was not worth the money I could spend on making progress. And now I'm regularly working out.
This is huge and as someone with bipolar/adhd the medicine doesn’t work without regular exercise. It makes me more depressed if I don’t (I believe this is the adhd meds)
It's also great for depression; it's just a lot harder to get depressed people to exercise than ADHD people[1], so compliance is worse.
1: Though it's by no means easy to get ADHD people to exercise; most cardio is boring and there's also: "I'm behind on all of my work and personal projects, and you want me to set aside time for recreation?"
HUGE +1, since I started working out more even just a few weeks ago, my overall happiness, focus, sleep, etc. have all improved massively.
But I think it's worth noting two things:
1. Almost anyone, regardless of medication or diagnosis, can probably benefit from regular exercise. These benefits are well-documented in the general population.
2. The initial benefit of my medication _without_ exercise was enough of a catalyst to help me finally get off my butt, join a gym, and make the decision to invest in personal training as a forcing function to more regular and high-intensity workouts. Until I started taking meds, I had this illusion that I'd come up with a workout plan, commit to it regularly, combine a wide variety of aerobic/anaerobic/freeweight exercises, and all for free with home equipment, YouTube, and some books. All of that was (and still is) absolutely _possible_, but without medication, I procrastinated it all for the better part of 2-3 YEARS. With medication, I quickly came to the conclusion that the time, stress, and inaction of that plan was not worth the money I could spend on making progress. And now I'm regularly working out.