A casual community for people with ADHD
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From what I understand, most ADHD medications are stimulants. Caffeine is too. Apparently a lot of ADHD people self-medicate with coffee or energy drinks unintentionally.
I know that anecdotally it’s true. Almost everyone I know with ADHD consumes caffeine like crazy.
I only take caffeine for ADHD. I think it's important to make sure it's a set amount of milligrams. Don't be drinking 3 Monster energy drinks one day, and then 1 the next day, or you may find yourself unfocused, tired, whatever. Or if you start increasing your intake, you might establish some new normal, and that might be bad for side effects.
I think that's probably true for anyone who drinks a lot of caffeine daily. Everyone eventually is just drinking it to stay awake and not get a headache from caffeine withdrawal, or they're increasing how much they consume exponentially over time 😅
Yea sounds like me. 😖🤣🤪🙄
Yep, ADHD’er who consumes hundreds of mg of caffeine a day, checking in.
🤘🏻
All caffeine does to me is raise my blood pressure.
Caffeine also doesn't keep me up or energetic, I tried with copious amounts of caffeine tablets and drinks. But no dice
Sadly, my anxiety issues have been way more severe lately and now if I ingest caffeine, I get massively severe anxiety symptoms
I'm the opposite I've always mainly avoided caffeine because it makes me feel uncomfortably wired and makes my heart beat feel weird.
I’m the same way. I can consume hundreds of mg's of caffeine and then fall right asleep.
Me too
There is a gene (iirc) that’s linked to caffeine management and metabolism. You’ve probably got it. It also means that you don’t a lot of the measured benefits (eg sports performance). There’s also tolerance that develops over time but that’s different. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780443138683000533
ADHD is linked to caffeine tolerance but, speaking for myself, I get very jittery with more than my usual 2 strong cups of coffee. I do intentionally keep it that way; I don’t want caffeine tolerance.
Yea, I think it could be both my ADHD and a tolerance. One helluva tolerance if you ask me. LOL
Dramatic amounts of caffeine and sugar is nothing. Long ago when I was in my 20s and 30s I was told that it seemed to have the opposite effect and calm me down.
That's quite frequent. My Not-a-doctor, simplified understanding is:
Caffeine doesn't target processes related to dopamine but it's a stimulant. Outside of hyperfocus mode, ADHD brains are constantly understimulated because the lack of dopamine makes things not feel engaging and interesting. This is why our thoughts race, our brain is struggling to find ALL THE THINGS (thoughts, hobbies, worries, plans, memories) that might give it the stimulation it needs.
Since coffee is a stimulant, the brain gets what it's looking for and doesn't need to race through all the possible thoughts, it's happy. The two main problems are:
Inversely, I have a pint of beer and I'm absolutely bouncing off the walls.
We're all glorious! LOL
It's part of the adhd experience for sure.
Ha! Figured. That's why my doc said too. My wife looks at me like I'm a crazy person for the amount of caffeine I drink.
It's a pretty common experience. In my twenties I would regularly do quad shots two or three times during a shift
Not all stimulants work the same. Otherwise ADHD-targeted drugs wouldn't even need to exist and we could all just do meth or coke or whatever.
Coffee doesn't make me hyper or energize my brain so I can focus more, it just helps me avoid falling asleep when I'm exhausted.