Yes, definitely try a few. Most are disgusting, but you only need to find one or two that work for you. “This is Food”, Jimmy Joy, Soylent, …
There are also bars and other forms, but I found that the liquids go down easiest when not hungry at all. Only two good bars: Vanilla and Almond & Fig from Jimmy Joy.
Your local supermarket probably has some of those.
It’s very different for everybody, but here are things that would apply to SOME:
**It’s more like things about neurotypicals: **
Love it, nothing would get done without it. A few tricks and changes I applied over the decades:
One of the things I love about it is that it gives a unit of measure. It’s no longer like: I want to be a programmer, so I have to do this for a couple of years with no clear end. It’s a unit of progress that can go on a todo-list and be checked off.
So yes, for learning new things, it’s still my way to go. Usually with 1 unit per day only, 45 minutes, sometimes 25. Most other tasks offer a different breakdown. E. g. cleaning up - can’t just do it. But it is less threatening with checkable tasks like: 1. put all garbage in a bag. 2. put all non-foods in box 1. 3. …
I work from home, and I have to use lots of methods. Then it works.
Just two examples:
I always have to work strictly with todo-lists. When it’s not on a list, it’s not getting done. On the other hand, putting it on the list, rather than doing it, feels like 55 % of the mental effort.
Implementation intention: My brain takes offence to “must do now” orders. Instead, when I catch myself on a youtube/scrolling binge, I set a trigger (e. g. time, end of video) at which I do one item from the list. If there is no list, I write the list. That way, I get to continue enjoying for a bit longer, but now guilt-free (!), and can continue guilt-free after doing that one thing.
I think the big picture is huge and not entirely known. One angle: A cause of ADHD is a bad gut biome. This may also affect the bioavailability of micronutrients, thus leading the deficiencies. Compensating for that by taking more, with supplements, could help with additional symptoms.
Long before I had a diagnosis or meds, I had some good runs, few years even, and even back then, I saw the link to certain foods. When fixing multiple problems at the same time, the effect was enormous.
Some caffeine, but well distributed, as a poor man’s stimulant, combined with drinking a lot, very specific foods … I think it was a mix of “medication”, hydration, gut biome (low sugar, probiotic foods) and fixing multiple deficiencies at the same time. When that extra energy results in more physical activity, additional amplification happens.
So yes, I believe that multi-vector attacks on your health problems work in synergy, better than the sum of their parts.
As for iron specifically, a lot can be done wrong. What I recall: Best in the morning before first coffee / tee and some time in-between, with Vitamin C. Personally, I can’t stomach it, so I got to ignore that rule and just take it with the biggest meal.
What works best for me is to focus on what I CAN fully control. Taking a hike and having fun is overwhelming, because who knows how I will feel. On the other hand, making the plan to eat my lunch sandwich at the lake (hiking destination) is totally doable.
When there is no list and the weekend starts, I work with implementation intention: Totally do keep scrolling until time X, then make the todo-list, then back to scrolling. Next thing would be to do ONE item from the list at time Y.
It’s similar with the “plan” to sleep at midnight. Better: By midnight, I’ll be setup perfectly so that I could sleep, the rest is not my job: Pyjamas, teeth brushed, room temperature, bed ready. Sometimes that leads to sleep, sometimes it doesn’t, but better than when I don’t even give it a chance, or when I feel pressure to fall asleep.
Oh, he might be me. 1 also applies to 2: Don’t see “dentist” as this complex task that is about figuring out what to do, getting the money, getting it done.
Focus on one thing: Get a quick cheap appointment for a first assessment. Typically 10 - 20 minutes, I think, unless he does same day x-ray.
OP would feel like a million bucks when he walks out and has a first idea how how extensive the work will be. When I was in that situation, I was sure it would be horrific, like many pulled teeth, expensive dentures. In reality, there were just lots of discolourations and 5 cavities, which is not great, but so much better than I thought. And it’s likely that my case is already near worst-case, because with anything more, there’d be enormous pain and infections.
If dentist anxiety is involved, first step is to find a dentist who specialises in that. Like, when you first come, he’d have a talk in the office, not the dentist chair, and only if you feel like it, he’d have a look based on your limits (e. g. no instruments in mouth, not on the dentist chair, etc.).
Yes, the anxiety, guilt, pressure that gets it done eventually in a panic frenzy, when the adrenaline kicks in. It was not a good life, though.
For my son, I don’t want that, I want to be understanding that he might have a dopamine/noradrenaline imbalance that would make it disproportionately cruel to force him to clean his room right now. (He’s getting checked, of course, but in the meantime got to take my best guess.)
But the result is that he does not get even priority tasks done, sometimes.
I’m sure I can find a different way for him, starting with getting him checked. Some methods also work for him. E. g.: Don’t have to do it right now, but when it’s 5 p.m. / the video is done / whatever, set a stopwatch and do 10 minutes of cleaning. Or, since he can’t find where to start, do one thing: All garbage into a bag, or all toys into the box, or all dirty clothes into the wash.
Don’t get your anxiety back, find a different way for yourself.
A lot can be learnt, as I did for decades. Always obsessed to try all the various methods, and enough of them work for me, to a degree.
But I think when it has gone to the point, there is more to it. In my case, it was the ADHD. My brain did not follow through with the plan to start doing the task, always had to push through some inner “pain”, and that is not pleasant. For others, it might be depression. So I had a lot of pain just to do the highest priorities barely good enough, while a normal brain would do it all without the effort, and kick in sweet dopamine rewards after each task.
Most important is to not get hung up on some image of what you “should” do. See if you are capable of improving yourself for 15 minutes per day, exact, with a stopwatch.
A first 15 minute session might just be a best effort of assembling study material.
Then see how it goes: Can you learn something new during that time? If so, you can do it, and it’s just a matter of time.
What motivates me is that after those 15 minutes I’ll be smarter than I have ever been before. You can also do 25 minutes if you feel it.
I have done great at times, long ago, to study something new. Most times it didn’t work out, though. One of my most toxic thoughts is: I should basically know this and it shouldn’t take long, I’ll just skim through the material. No, real progress happens when I set aside a brief moment to learn just this one little basic thing, but for real, with taking notes, practising if applicable. Turn that into a daily habit, and it’s really powerful.
Yes, crashing pretty hard sometimes. But it’s a great blessing, even just 3 good hours per day, or 30 good days in a year can change a life.
Have you been taking it for long? My worry is that this kind of effect that we are talking about diminishes greatly after a while, because it is kind of similar to how coffee, opioid painkillers etc. improve this and may not be based on big changes in the prefrontal cortex. 2 months for me so far, slowly going up from 12 to 24 mg as it diminishes.
I also wonder about another thing: The fact that a low dose works well on me & gives me such a high, and the relatively low duration could mean that I just metabolise it faster, like on the very lower end of the half-life range.
I know I’m making mistakes with my son. I just hope that I’m getting more right than I get wrong.
Exactly. I won’t be making THAT mistake, but certainly others that my parents didn’t. Who knows how it all adds up.
I even had a referral from my GP to get checked for ADHD, after asking him specifically, but still no appointments. I would have taken one in a year, but not even that.
Another 15 months later, I found a private practice that specialises in it. They are running it pretty smart, like a business: Psychology graduates without therapist training do the time intensive work of testing and talking, eventually write an expert assessment as a psychologist. Then a licensed therapist writes the official diagnosis after reading that and talking for 15 minutes. If needed, a psychiatrist finally just signs the prescription.
Bit frustrating to pay for all of that out of pocket, while insurance premiums are over EUR 900 per month.
It’s going a lot better so far for my elementary school child. Called the best looking clinic, which has psychiatrists and therapists, and got an appointment in 3 months. Didn’t bother trying for something sooner, as 3 months wasted seem like nothing compared to my over 30 years, lol.
How similar the life stories are. Maybe your depression diagnosis is just wrong, result of a line of questioning that caught problems caused by ADHD.
Different for me is that I had some good years where one aspect worked out great, e. g. 4 great years of education around 30 out of nowhere, after so many previous attempts failed. A few years of healthy relationships and even marriage, before it all fell apart again. I am still able to draw a lot from skills learnt during those 4 years.
Still no clue where those “good years” come from and where they went, just hoping that now, with treatment, it’s all going to be good years, at least in terms of ADHD.
This is SO insane. I wonder in my case how something could have been done sooner. The suffering has been going on undiagnosed and untreated for at least 35 years.
One thing that would have helped is if either a teacher or my parent who is a teacher would have been like: Ok, maybe 5 % chance of attention disorder, check it out please.
Sometimes, I suspect that a teacher got it and reported it to my parents, who angrily rejected it. There was a weird conflict between them and a teacher that made no sense, because I got along with that teacher, and what little I got was him “talking shit”, yet he was the most thoughtful and scientific of them.
Another option: Just do a “full checkup” on people starting early in life, even for things where no indication has been reported. The vicious cycle of doctor visits: Patient comes, reports symptom -> questions -> tests -> whatever going on in their minds -> diagnosis. It doesn’t work, at all. I feel like overall, a lot of money would be saved in the global economy (nobody cares for saved suffering anyway) if the procedure for things were: Doctor attempts treatment if it seems simple just once, if it fails, go full Doctor House. Might overall save money. All the negative findings from this would be a goldmine of information, and saved money, for 1 or 2 decades of doctor visits.
For ADHD, why doesn’t everybody do a multiple choice test, not wasting any trained professional’s time if it is clearly very negative? Further steps only if it is not very clearly negative.
And at some point, after decades of this, they pick up on what it caused, rather than the ADHD itself. The result of other people and yourself telling you that you are just an assclown who can’t handle your own household, appointments, education, job.
In hindsight, the earliest that I presented something to a doctor that should have lead to ADHD, if investigated with full force, were gut / digestion problems in the 90s. 2000s, I came to a doctor for a sick note as things at a crappy workplace got “too much”, got benzos, which helped through the worst. I often used the “too much” phrase over the next 2 decades, usually met with benzos or “can’t really do anything with that phrase”.
They study so long, shouldn’t there be question techniques that get to the bottom of things? Even with a psychiatrist, when I said really clearly what was going on from my perspective, they were like: Wow, that doesn’t help at all, can’t do anything with that information. The way things are, you have to self-diagnose, then find out how to nudge them in the right direction by saying the right things.
What really works for me to have my cake and eat it: I keep doomscrolling / watching until a time I set, with the extra bonus that it’s guilt-free.
E. g. I have to sleep and it’s already 30 minutes late, and I’m watching a video. 10 minutes later doesn’t matter now, so I turn off the guilt and pressure completely and really enjoy watching another 10 minutes, then go to bed.
Result: A lot of my time is still spent procrastinating, but I also get like 50 % done of what I should get done, rather than 0 %. And procrastinating is a lot more fun without the guilt.
Oh yes, I remember all those guides and methods about procrastination, the procrastination monkey etc. In the end, if you need to try and evaluate all the methods, and chain the dozen that work best, just to start your laundry, the most important method becomes: Check for mental problems. Could be a depression causing that, could be ADHD, could be something else.
Well 60 mg is still not stronger than a fat line of speed, which people usually survive, and you have the extra benefit that they checked you for heart and other problems that would change the odds.
Consider that the half-life is long, so 24h later, you’d still have the equivalent of 1/4 of the extra 30 mg, so you should take about 7 mg less, which would be about 23 mg. NAM (not a mathematician).
Nice! Yes, immediately ready food is important for our condition. It gives us the freedom to prepare something nice occasionally because we want to, not because we are already shaking and in a crash.
Understanding that I need to rest proportionally to what I do on stims, and ignore how I feel (in this particular case), has been such a breakthrough. Now I’m benefitting from meds until bedtime, not just 4 hours. I really thought the meds wore off, and that’s how it felt … but I was just dashing around with half the calories.