: Why does coffee make people with adhd sleepy?
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Does it make them sleepy? It doesn’t make me sleepy?
It doesn’t so much make them sleepy, the theory is is levels them out. Basically adhd is a dopamine issue, either from dopamine insensitivity, or from lack of supply of dopamine. When you dont have enough dopamine or you dont have a strong enough response to dopamine your mind will constantly switch tasks to try to find something to provide a large enough amount of dopamine to be sated for a bit, this is the mechanism behind adhd. What coffee does (more specifically caffeine) is it increases dopamine a bit, so now an adhd brain doesn’t need to switch tasks as often.
In reality people with adhd are already in a sort of stimulus low, and caffeine just raises them back to the baseline.
Now then, personal anecdote I have adhd, if i have just pulled an all-nighter or otherwise got little sleep taking a stimulant like caffeine or the normal medication I take for adhd can cause me to be more tired, however a stimulant can make it harder to sleep I suspect the constant switching of tasks can make it easier to ignore lack of sleep, and when you dont have that anymore it gets harder to ignore.
I think it’s a myth that drugs effect people differently or paradoxaly.
Every study I read or found, show that drugs effect people with ADHD just like normal people. I’ve never seen a single study showing a paradoxal reaction like people always say.
>The present data support the premise that amphetamine improves vigilance irrespective of disease state
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320429079_Amphetamine_Modestly_Improves_Conners’_Continuous_Performance_Test_Performance_in_Healthy_Adults
>The behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological effect of a single dose of dextroamphetamine (0.5 milligram per kilogram of body weight) or placebo was examined in 14 normal prepubertal boys (mean age, 10 years 11 months) in a double-blind study. When amphetamine was given, the group showed a marked decrease in motor activity and reaction time and improved performance on cognitive tests. The similarity of the response observed in normal children to that reported in children with “hyperactivity” or minimal brain dysfunction casts doubt on pathophysiological models of minimal brain dysfunction which assume that children with this syndrome have a clinically specific or “paradoxical” response to stimulants.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22798084_Dextroamphetamine_Cognitive_and_Behavioral_Effects_in_Normal_Prepubertal_Boys
>Of the 585 students who reported using illicit stimulants,
66% (n = 389) reported taking them “to help concentrate”
on school work
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23448261_Illicit_Use_of_Prescription_ADHD_Medications_on_a_College_Campus_A_Multimethodological_Approach
>Insomnia or delayed SOL greater than 30 minutes is one of the most common adverse events associated with stimulant medications
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441938/
Markdown
The best study I’ve found was this, where in a double blind study similar responses were found in normal children to those with adhd.
>The behavioral, cognitive, and electrophysiological effect of a single dose of dextroamphetamine (0.5 milligram per kilogram of body weight) or placebo was examined in 14 normal prepubertal boys (mean age, 10 years 11 months) in a double-blind study. When amphetamine was given, the group showed a marked decrease in motor activity and reaction time and improved performance on cognitive tests. The similarity of the response observed in normal children to that reported in children with “hyperactivity” or minimal brain dysfunction casts doubt on pathophysiological models of minimal brain dysfunction which assume that children with this syndrome have a clinically specific or “paradoxical” response to stimulants. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/22798084_Dextroamphetamine_Cognitive_and_Behavioral_Effects_in_Normal_Prepubertal_Boys
There is this one which shows similar effects.
>The present data support the premise that amphetamine improves vigilance irrespective of disease state https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320429079_Amphetamine_Modestly_Improves_Conners’_Continuous_Performance_Test_Performance_in_Healthy_Adults
Then most normal people take these drugs to help them concentrate just like people with adhd.
>Of the 585 students who reported using illicit stimulants, 66% (n = 389) reported taking them “to help concentrate” on school work https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23448261_Illicit_Use_of_Prescription_ADHD_Medications_on_a_College_Campus_A_Multimethodological_Approach
Then it seems like people with ADHD can get high off these drugs just like normal people
>According to a survey of 334 ADHD-diagnosed college students taking prescription stimulants, 25% misused their own prescription medications to get “high” (Upadhyaya et al. 2005). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/
Then stimulant medication causes sleep issues with people with ADHD as well.
>Insomnia or delayed SOL greater than 30 minutes is one of the most common adverse events associated with stimulant medications
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441938/
If you just want a video here it’s a brief summary
ADHD “paradoxical reaction” to stimulants. Note: this is only in refernce to the behavioural effects of stimulants. #drugnerds #andrewhuberman #adhdstimulants #adhd
My husband has ADHD and coffee does indeed help him sleep. Say what you will, but it works for him.
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