Ask HN: Should I keep using stimulants?

If you think small doses of Adderall make you more productive, you should talk to a good psychiatrist and get a prescription. And then you should re-evaluate with them frequently, watching out for the downsides. The downsides vary between people, and it can be hard to see them yourself, so you need an expert to help you evaluate.

Productivity is important, but so is your personal life. Stimulants make some people more prone to anger in interpersonal relationships, which can really hurt people around you. So keep an eye on any changes in your behavior. It can help to keep a log of daily mood, productivity, and relationship drama. They can affect sleep, so you end up stimulated but sleep-deprived and less productive after a while. And they can be habit-forming, which means that you'll have trouble being honest with yourself about their effects. So go to a good psychiatrist.

I think there's a perspective you're missing. If you're in school and need drugs to keep up, what's going to happen when you're out of school? Instead of developing strategies for success now, you're using drugs. I think it'll be a crutch you'll find difficult to get rid of.

For me personally, stimulants like Adderall or Modafinil are more or less placebo. They do regulate melatonin, and can sometimes be used as to fix your sleep cycles but that's about it. They don't improve my cognition or productivity. Sure, when I'm not less sleepy I will have better focus. But I think it is much more important to address the cause of why you are unproductive in the first place.

Bad sleeping habits have a huge impact on your daily mental health. Maintain a better consistent sleep pattern and your brain will thank you for it in a long run.

Also, I find that stimulants merely improve your mood and makes work that I find tiring less tiring. But when I'm working on projects that I love to work on, I don't need any stimulants.

I'm just about to graduate from a top 10 computer science program myself so I can say that I've been in your shoes.

The first year adds a lot of pressure and challenge because of the transition to higher-level academics. In fact I often failed my own expectations (and literally failed a couple times too) at the beginning of my collegiate academic career.

I can assure you that if you start to take stimulants without a prescription or diagnosis as early as your first year, your situation will not improve. 3rd and 4th year classes are harder than intro classes or 2nd year classes, and stimulants will not change your mindset, approaches to studying, or priorities in a way that will accommodate you for higher difficulty courses.

You need to take a huge step back from academics and look at what is affecting your performance. Summer vacations and even internships are the best times for that because the stakes are not as high so you have time to reflect on who you are and what you want out of life.

In my first year summer, after a brutally tough semester, I worked a full-time + daily overtime job at a backalley convenience store in downtown Seattle to discover "my bottom line". I wanted to see the kind of life I would lead if I didn't get my act together. Looking back, I was exceedingly hard on myself. But that summer I learned a few things: 1) I never want to be so poor that I can't buy daily essentials, 2) I never want to fall prey to addiction, 3) I want to fall in love with my work so I never have to actually "work hard" ever again, 4) I need to develop strategies to get my behavior together so I can follow through on all these ideals.

When I came back to school, although the transition wasn't immediate I completely changed my lifestyles and approach to college. I went from being a sub-2.0 student to mostly consistently receiving grades in the high 3's.

I also developed actionable strategies to be more diligent about my work and treat myself with more care. You have to eat right, sleep right, and know your brain and yourself if you expect to succeed. Truthfully, although I was diagnosed with ADHD in 11th grade, I have done mostly fine without stimulants because of the ways in which I live my life (it can't be denied that some people definitely need them).

Feel free to PM me if you need any help or advice on figuring things out. I always like to provide assistance where I can.

If you feel you need it, proceed with caution. Make a pledge to take care of yourself and ensure you don't become dependent/you develop healthy usage patterns. I've been taking prescription stimulants (prescribed to me) for a decade and half and there are certainly times when the benefits outweighed the side effects - other times that wasn't the case and the drugs were causing more harm.

Finally, this is off topic, but I have say that the drugs are really life changing for someone with ADD, and I feel like more people should have access to them in a safe manner. There has to be millions of people in the general population that are not diagnosed and should be receiving some kind of treatment. Unequal access to mental health services without a doubt results in some people being less effective in the workforce, which leads to further inequality.

The way you talk sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. If you do that, it will manifest with unhealthy ways - stimulants, breakdowns, etc.

My first year of undergrad was by far the hardest. Weed-out classes are a real thing. It will get easier after year 1.

Taking adderall a few times is hardly abuse, but taking it when you don't need it is definitely a bad habit to begin during university.

It's still an open question whether stimulants are good or bad for you. For example one of 20th century's most famous mathematicians, Paul Erdős, was dependent on amphetamine.

Perhaps the disagree-downvoters can point to some evidence showing moderate usage of stimulants being harmful?

Is there any reason you aren't allowed to slow down and take your time? I have no idea how many credits you are taking or why, but maybe are you are well above "full time" which is usually 12 credits?

I am basically taking the bare minimum for being a "full-time" student. I don't particularly blame the university or its policies, I am just struggling academically more than I have in the past.

Plus, my own time-management issues sometimes result in a need to cram, which is helped by study-aids.

Then it sounds like the real answer is to work on consistently better time management.

What goes up must come down.

go talk to your instructors about the course work. It sounds like you're banging your head on the wall in silence. They are there to teach you, not just lecture at you.

If they pull some sort of weed-out classes bullshit explanation, learn to get respectfully angry and demand your due as a student. You're there to learn, they should not be preventing you from doing that by not doing their own job well enough.

it depends, are you using or abusing? it only really becomes abuse if you take doses in a recreational capacity. as long as you are using standard doses and remember to stay healthy, eat and get enough sleep theres not too much harm in using stimulants, they can be incredibly useful and the potential side effects are minimal enough that in many cases its probably worthwhile

(full disclosure: im actually diagnosed with ADD and am prescribed elvanse/vyvanse for it )

Consider talking to a doctor about your problems instead of asking on HN. No offence.

I am in the process of doing so -- I have appointments, and am waiting.

I just wanted to hear about the experiences of others who may have been in my position: overworked college students in STEM fields

Just take some good vitamins and change your diet.

I take a daily multivitamin and eat very healthy by most college-student standards.

See the amount of mg each vitamin has on the multi and compare to a minimum daily. Say D3 you may want 5000ug/day, while the multivitamin has 100ug/day.

Do you train ? It fixes your head too. Something that you like or run/swim/box/kickbox/muaythai(no headshots)

i tend to disagree with this, i hear people say that exercise is helpful for cognitive enhancement but i found doing any significant amount of exercise leaves me drained and i find my mental performance slips

Exercise after work. Or do light one before work. But you need it. Or before sleeping so the day is closed.

No.

When I made this comment the title of this post was "Should I keep abusing stimulants." I think that if you are classifying the behavior as abuse yourself, there is absolutely no question, you should stop that behavior.

I believe the line between use and abuse is different for everyone, but asking/letting other people draw that line for you is asking for trouble.