I have been off-and-on seriously tempted to find Adderall, but when I stop and think about why I want it, it's because my workload is severe and I don't feel like I'm being productive enough. Then I try to question whether or not I've got unreasonable expectations for how long I can sit in front of a computer and focus on a single task.
Over the last couple of years my diet has improved a lot: less meat, less sugar, almost no junk food, more nuts and fruits and vegetables, and at least a liter of water per day now. Before, it was a rare day that I drank even a glass of water -- I usually preferred chocolate milk or heavily sugared iced tea or something.
I also get a lot more exercise now and try to maintain a more regular sleep schedule.
At 33, I'm in the best shape of my life, and I've found that now when I do need to sit down and do work, I can do it for longer and with less frustration. When I get sick of sitting and focusing on a stupid little screen a couple of feet from my nose, I know it's time to get up and do something else.
So as I gradually develop more discipline in the rest of my life, I wonder if maybe that's all I really needed to begin with. People aren't that far removed from their hunter-gatherer days, and now we sit all day surrounded by walls, without sunshine, eating really poor diets -- maybe an inability to focus and concentrate all day is just our bodys' way of objecting to that rapid change.
"Eat better, get exercise, reduce distractions" isn't a very sexy answer though, when compared to, "take a pill and become awesome like that guy in Limitless."
I regularly give up caffeine for extended periods (months) and then get back on the wagon again for similar long periods of time.
Recently during one of the transitional periods I found that caffeine negatively impacts my ability to play chess. Which is to say that I have relatively well developed (for an amateur) intuition about what moves superficially look good, but at the level I play at, extended periods of concentration are required to actually play better.
Caffeine doesn't help me concentrate, it makes me more impatient, bored faster. So I'm more likely to jump at a move which at first blush looks good. Caffeine actually makes it harder to concentrate for extended periods of time. I know that isn't the conventional wisdom, but I am convinced that the conventional wisdom is pretty much exactly wrong in this regard.
In addition, I have read that caffeine take a long time to get out of the bloodstream (a 'half-life' of ~6 hours) so the effects of large amounts of caffeine during the day translate directly into poorer quality sleep or reduced quantities of sleep at night, which creates a vicious cycle, hence when I get back on the caffeine it quickly ramps up to the multiple cups per day levels.
Your unsexy answer is pretty effective. When i need to produce a lot of code, i have green tea, earplugs that block ~ 30dB of ambient sound, a good ergonomic space for 2 laptops and monitors, plus: guitar and fretless bass for regular breaks, and.. shredded oat cereal. Don't laugh, it takes no time to prepare and doesn't have drastic insulin effects. I think the guitar breaks actually has biggest lift for concentration, memory and steady energy.
Douglas Hofstadter (sp?) in Godel Escher Bach postulates a link between music and maths (and hence programming - though perhaps that should be 'certain kinds of programming')
"Eat better, get exercise, reduce distractions" isn't a very sexy answer though, when compared to, "take a pill and become awesome like that guy in Limitless."
I've never understood these sorts of comments, although they appear reliably in almost every story on this subject. What in the world do diet, exercise, sleep, and clean living have to do with the subject of the story, which is the ethics and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of nootropic drug use?
If anything, having seen concrete beneficial effects from the dietary and lifestyle changes you've made to date, doesn't that make you even more curious about how far such effects can be pushed?
Those sorts of comments tend to appear with another claim: persistent benefits. Which is something which the short-term solutions rarely offer. In that way, they're perfectly on-topic, and calling into question the use of the short-term solutions at all, especially when long-term benefits have not been shown (consistently, at all, take your pick).
Well, for starters, "reduce distractions" isn't very actionable advice in this context. It's equivalent to saying "cheer up" to people who have clinical depression.
I'd be glad to be shown data that better diet and exercise are effective in the treatment of adults with ADD (which is the topic of this subthread). Of course, good diet and exercise are good for you, but that's not the point.
You are correct. The point is that there's no data that shows that ADD medication has any lasting affects, aside from addiction. There's even data that it tends to work for only a few years, and then tapers off. This implies it isn't a solution, and we should be looking for alternatives rather than temporarily putting off the problem.
Here's one. It's anecdotal, but it won't hurt you to try, which can't really be said about the drugs. Then there's also the likelihood that it'll almost never be suggested, because there's little money in getting people to live better - who would fund the research? What studies could be done to show strong connections that wouldn't be easy to write off, when the very act of changing your lifestyle introduces countless variables?
More specifically, 'reduce distractions' is far more actionable than 'cheer up'. One advises a step to reduce the temptation to be distracted, the other advises you to achieve the goal with absolutely no directions.
It doesn't have to be either/or, too. A combination of both might make him even more productive than one or the other. However, if diet and exercise are proven to be effective, they will likely have better long term health benefits than consistent stimulant dosing.
Think in terms of job-to-be-done. For someone diagnosed with ADHD, the desire for something that will allow the sufferer to be able to be productive and focused is real. Medication and lifestyle changes are two answers to the same question.
Over the last couple of years my diet has improved a lot: less meat, less sugar, almost no junk food, more nuts and fruits and vegetables, and at least a liter of water per day now. Before, it was a rare day that I drank even a glass of water -- I usually preferred chocolate milk or heavily sugared iced tea or something.
I also get a lot more exercise now and try to maintain a more regular sleep schedule.
At 33, I'm in the best shape of my life, and I've found that now when I do need to sit down and do work, I can do it for longer and with less frustration. When I get sick of sitting and focusing on a stupid little screen a couple of feet from my nose, I know it's time to get up and do something else.
So as I gradually develop more discipline in the rest of my life, I wonder if maybe that's all I really needed to begin with. People aren't that far removed from their hunter-gatherer days, and now we sit all day surrounded by walls, without sunshine, eating really poor diets -- maybe an inability to focus and concentrate all day is just our bodys' way of objecting to that rapid change.
"Eat better, get exercise, reduce distractions" isn't a very sexy answer though, when compared to, "take a pill and become awesome like that guy in Limitless."