I know that it’s because the brain is wired differently, but what exactly works different? And why do people with ADHD get tired when consuming small amounts of ritalin/amphetamines/cocaine etc?
I know that it’s because the brain is wired differently, but what exactly works different? And why do people with ADHD get tired when consuming small amounts of ritalin/amphetamines/cocaine etc?
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To be clear caffeine affects everyone the same as it doesn’t raise dopamine levels. People with ADHD have low levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain combined with more reuptake cells that vacuum it up when dopamine is released naturally. Drugs that raise dopamine levels like amphetamines, thc, cocaine, opiates bring ADHD peope up to normal because they are operating ar a deficit compared to you. For neurotypical people, they take you way above normal
Long story short, when people without ADHD take stimulants, they jump above their heads. When people with ADHD take stimulants, they first reach non-ADHD level and only then go above.
Because people with ADHD are usually more energized in their normal state, when taking a small amount of some stimulant they feel like non-ADHD people, and in contrast it’s less energetic.
Essentially, people with ADHD are understimulated, so taking some stimulants brings them to a baseline level of stimulation so they can function. Normal people are not understimulated so them taking stimulants makes them overstimulated.
We don’t get tired on Adderall. That’s not a thing
They don’t. This has always been a myth from the early days of amphetamines to try and separate prescribed and other use and make stimulants look more respectable in the public eye.
Generally people’s response will be individual. Many people with severe attention or executive function issues will only have problems and get no benefit, while many people without problems reaching a diagnosis level will notice significant advantages.
There is one relevant point though: people with inhibited executive function have more potential for improvement. People with an already high level of executive function don’t really have much further up to go, so to speak. However, sometimes being on amphetamines can give the subjective impression you do (which can be good for motivation) but in cognitive testing this isn’t really shown to be so.
Think of the ADHD brain like a car engine that’s always running too fast but without going anywhere—it’s just burning fuel without being productive. Normally, stimulants like caffeine or certain medicines ritalin, amphetamine speed up people’s brains, giving them extra energy. But in people with ADHD, these same stimulants actually help their brains find the right balance. Instead of speeding them up, the medicines help organize and calm down their hyperactive mind, allowing better focus and less chaos.
This is why people with ADHD might actually feel relaxed or even tired after taking these stimulants—because their overly active brain finally gets a chance to slow down and rest a bit.
It’s not really that the brain is wired differently, and it’s kind of a myth/misunderstanding to believe that they have the opposite effect on people with adhd. They do the same thing for people with adhd as they do for anyone else.
People are typically rewarded for their effort, learning, and focus by a release of dopamine and norepinephrine, and in people with adhd, this seems to be inadequate. As a result, they’re easily distracted because the brain doesn’t care about what it’s doing and it’s constantly in search of anything it feels could be rewarding. Stimulants crank up that reward pathway, increasing the internal motivation to focus and learn.
We have a faulty dopamine system. Our dopamine production is deficient and our dopamine receptors are faulty, so our brains don’t make enough dopamine and it doesn’t work properly anyway.
ADHD medicines increase dopamine release and make the receptors work better, so at the low clinical doses we take it brings that dopamine system up from a deficient state to something approaching what normal people have.
While for normal people with health dopamine systems, they’re starting from “normal” and generally consuming a far larger illicit dose which pushes that dopamine system far beyond “normal”.
The rebound effect.
For me, it’s caffeine. It increases dopamine, so you have that initial boost, but once the caffine is metabolized, you get a crash… a sense of tiredness or sleepiness.
Factors like dosage, metabolism, and sensitivity play a role in this.
In the morning, when im rested, it helps me wake up. At night, when I’m starting to get tired, it puts me to sleep.
They don’t actually work differently, that’s a misunderstanding.
They don’t. They affect every individual differently. Some ADHD people have realized that they are effected in similar ways and assume that means that ADHD people have a different response, but it’s simply not true. There are plenty of non-ADHD people who react in similar ways to certain ADHD people and vice versa. It’s a very individual thing how you respond to stimulants.