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Comment by hvs | Hacker News Reader

As someone with serious concentration issues (unless I'm hyperfocused, I may have undiagnosed ADHD) I found the biggest help for me was cutting out caffeine.

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hmm... caffeine actually helps for ADHD as it's a stimulant. I can only take my meds on weekdays and I've pretty much had life long addiction to either coke, pepsi or red-bull. When I started taking effective medication I basically stopped drinking caffeinated drinks. Just don't need it. I can't take my meds on the weekends, and virtually always I go get something with caffeine in it to help.

it depends - caffeine uses different receptors than are helpful for many people with ADHD, and since it isn’t managed by someone outside, it’s easy to get big swings of usage or other problems due to, well ADHD.

It’s common that folks with ADHD will use Caffeine, it just doesn’t work as well as other stimulants for many people.

As I said, I may have ADHD as I have a lot of the classic symptoms, but I have a daughter with diagnosed ADHD and I do not have nearly as significant symptoms as she does. All I know is cutting caffeine improved my general concentration and significantly decreased my anxiety as a bonus.

As a person completely unqualified to diagnose anything but with similar problems, I suspect the real root of your issue might just be the anxiety. If you could address the roots of that, caffeine would probably become irrelevant.

Untreated ADHD is a common cause of anxiety

ADHD travels with friends and anxiety definitely tends to be one of them! When you get a proper diagnosis they try to rule out if it's not simply just anxiety, and or something like obstructive sleep apnea. Both of these can have ADHD-like symptoms. Luckily for me I have all three of these things, so it's been fun teasing apart what's what, but that's why a formal diagnosis is an important process.

Same here. Caffeine helps me getting into the first hyperfocused session, but after that the rest of the day is usually just me floating around. Quitting caffeine has an overall positive effect for my base dopamine level.

Me too, mild sedative helps, like after a beer I can finally concentrate. Makes RTO a problem. :)

Was this on the short term?

No, it's complete. I was drinking 4-5 cups of coffee a day and my brain was a cluttered mess. Now it's just mildly cluttered.

On a much smaller time scale, I have noticed that when I skip my usual morning coffee (say, running out of coffee, going for a run with an accountability buddy, or traveling and staying in a "coffee desert"), I feel remarkably clear-minded and calm, even though I crave the smell, taste, experience of coffee. When I let it last, this mental calmness lasts until early afternoon, when I'd usually get coffee #2 of 2, as the dull withdrawal headache sets in and I chemotactically writhe my way toward increasingly desperate sources of caffeine.

I've been drinking at least 2 cups of coffee ("cups" is a fuzzy measure) for maybe 15 years. Maybe I should power through the withdrawal and discover for myself if I've accidentally been undermining my mental clarity and life quality this whole time, instead of giving myself energy and helping concentration as I'd been assuming.

I kinda feel the same. I wake up very calm (most days), and in a few minutes, not sure if its only the caffeine, or the mind worrying about the day... I start to "rush" and worry.

Maybe I just got used to the feeling and have to feel it to start working.

Even tea? :(

You might be able to get away with a cup of tea every once in a while, but I tend to be an "in for a penny in for a pound" type of person, so it's complete elimination or 4-5 cups of coffee for me.

I stopped drinking tea and my daily anxiety halved :)

To me green tea had a similar effect as coffee. Both feels great and gives huge energy and motivation boost, but at the costs of calmness, clarity and sustainability over the day.

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