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It's great to learn how to get by without meds. That's important, and the meds aren't a magic wand that will miraculously make you happy and productive without any lifestyle changes. But oh, wow, what a difference those meds can make!
I got meds with 37.
Did a degree in CS and was successfully self-employed for years until that.
Everything worked out okay-ish, but meds are a game changer. It really felt like I was playing "life" on hard mode until then.
Brains are complicated stuff so everyone is going to find a different ideal treatment path - some people can manage with exercise alone and have a strict morning regiment, some people find medication to be the perfect pills - others use a mix of both. Trying to train yourself to not be ADHD and maintain completely through self-discipline is indeed hard mode.
1. There are some people that respond terribly to normal ADHD meds and they were part of the reason that ADHD used to be divided into the ADHD and ADD labels with the older version of ADHD labeled persons usually responding poorly to standard medications like methylphenidate.
I was 50th percentile on the CAT in 2nd grade, unmedicated.
I was 90th percentile on the CAT in 3rd grade, medicated.
Figure out how much catch up and passing I did in 1 year... 1 year.
I've gone on to have a nice successful career and life. But without meds and help... No way.
Not because I became smarter, but because I could concentrate for the time IQ tests take.
A good friend almost certainly has ADHD (I say that as someone on the spectrum) which impacts their daily life in a negative way, and I'm just curious if meds could help.
Of course would need to get a diagnosis first but they haven't pursued that yet, and I'm wondering if this could serve as motivation.
Now I can see that a thing needs to be done next week, and hey, I don’t have anything else more pressing at the moment, so I’ll go ahead and start on it.
Unless you’ve experienced both sides of that, it’s hard to understand how people on the other side of it go through life. Me: “Am I the only person in the world who can’t just go what I’m supposed to do before it’s an emergency?” Everyone else: “He had 3 weeks to do this thing. How lazy must he be?”
You don't say.
I think there's some important things to say about neuroscience and ADHD, but I don't think Ray Peat is the authority you want to quote about this subject.
And yes, I agree. ADHD is not a "mental" problem, and cannot be "coached" away. ADHD Coaching is one part of a greater pie (e.g. I personally use both medication and ADHD coaching, and a mix of productivity tools). What ADHD Coaching uniquely offers, is to work with what you have, create systems around you and your life, and to get support from someone who gets it.
However, as you mentioned, it doesn't "solve" ADHD or "coach it away", that is not the purpose for sure!
I can personally (and our members too) attest to the fact that there definitely are benefits, perhaps not for every single person and every single coach out there. For me, I've become more productive as I work to manage my energy, align my days with my circadian rhythm, I've learned new techniques around time blocking, my coach has kept me accountable to things that are hard for me to pull through on, and my general quality of life has improved. Could I have gotten this a different way, on my own? Sure, most definitely. Tons of alternatives including self learning and experimentation! That route was just personally very hard for me.
(To be clear: I'm not recommending Shimmer; the fact that they mention positive psychology is a red-flag for me).
It's like being sober versus being attached at the hip to Narcotics Anonymous. Sure, it helps people, but it's much better, if possible, to not even need it.
1. Incorporating things from previous research that are relatively uncontentious (e.g. flow
2. Tainted by academic fraud (e.g. Critical Positivity Ratio)
Given that you can have #1 without defining a new field of psychology, I associate the field of Positive Psychology with #2.
Our key approach has been providing a mix of psychoeducational coaching interventions to enhance positive attributes in combination with other help our members can obtain - and not on short-term prescribed psychotherapies or medication as a sole mode of intervention.
Also, can we take the next step? If we do now treat ADHD as a brain energetics disorder, how do we treat it? Are drugs like Adderall or Ritalin sufficient based on this view?
The book "Mind and Tissue" by Ray Peat, available on LibGen (and amazon, for $200 used).
>Are drugs like Adderall or Ritalin sufficient based on this view?
From the text,
> the observation that drugs which stimulate the sympathetic or adrenergic nerves (ephedrine or caffeine, for example) will relieve the symptoms,
So yes, stimulant drugs can treat ADHD insofar as they cause a greater supply of energy to be delivered the frontal lobes. Needless to say that stimulants wear you out over time though. A more sustainable solution is to optimize for brain/body bioenergetics generally. You can read more on his website, raypeat.com.
I'm not a shill, the man is dead, I just think this information is far too important not to share vigorously. It's how I resolved my lifelong depression nearly effortlessly.
The somewhat higher rate of mental illness among higher-IQ people (according to some studies), to me, also points to an insufficiency of brain energy as the principal cause. A more energy-hungry brain will fail more readily under an even slightly faulty energy supply.
Also some of our members (for various reasons) can't or won't take medication (which is a whole other conversation) so any behavioral or natural solutions I love to be aware of.