Yes. I suspect it boils down to body chemistry. When I have caffeine, my recall is quicker and I'm more creative and focussed. Unfortunately, I can't stay caffeinated all day or my eye starts to pulsate and it feels like my heart is racing.
If I could maintain my caffeine 'high' all day, I'd be much more successful, but it's not worth the health risk. I do alright, financially, in spite of that, but I'd like to accomplish more meaningful work. The comparison of my work between my morning coffee high and afternoon crash is night and day.
I took Adderall once. I don't know it it was a placebo effect or not, but I knocked out a complicated physical simulation model (that I'd been puting off for months) in about 5 hrs, and to this day I've found very few errors in that model. ...I'm just saying.
> I don't know it it was a placebo effect or not, but I knocked out a complicated physical simulation model
It's not a placebo effect. That's what Adderall does. While I never recommend abusing drugs, the fact that you're using caffeine for self treatment and you respond so well to Adderall may mean you have undiagnosed ADHD.
It's worth going to a psych and getting a prescription for it. The great thing about drugs like that is you can take them on days when you really need to knock projects out of the park, and be normal on other days.
The mathematician Erdos apparently did amphetamines for productivity and a friend bet him to quit for a month. He said:
> "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month."
My guess is that he used them for self-medication much like they're used formally now for ADHD treatments. I am NOT recommending you take drugs illegally, but it is fairly easy to get diagnosed for ADHD and get a prescription. It might be a big help.
I stopped taking Adderall after someone here on Hacker News pointed me to some literature that indicates ADHD patients being treated with Adderall have an 8x higher risk of Parkinson’s than those with ADHD who did not receive treatment. I can’t look it up as I’m already feeling anxious with everything going on and don’t feel like reliving that particular trauma. The study was done in Utah.
If I could maintain my caffeine 'high' all day, I'd be much more successful, but it's not worth the health risk. I do alright, financially, in spite of that, but I'd like to accomplish more meaningful work. The comparison of my work between my morning coffee high and afternoon crash is night and day.
I took Adderall once. I don't know it it was a placebo effect or not, but I knocked out a complicated physical simulation model (that I'd been puting off for months) in about 5 hrs, and to this day I've found very few errors in that model. ...I'm just saying.