Brain chemistry

[Anonymous]

Years ago, I worked at a shite little coffee shop in some hole in the wall, but the best part of the job was talking to all kinds of customers who’d come in. One day I was making some small talk with a customer I’d never seen before, and I forget how we got onto the subject, but he mentioned that for about 3% of any give population, coffee acts as a depressant not a stimulant.

This set off a curious little chat where he mentioned that people with ADD had brain chemistry that worked in reverse stemming from the most tippy-top part of the frontal lobe. He said, if you drink coffee and go to sleep within an hour and have the best sleep of your life, you will probably be prone to dyslexia, clumsiness and other assorted things that doctors blamed on other problems like thyroid disease. Since I had recently been diagnosed with early stages of Hashimoto’s around that time, I was flabbergasted and left unsure of what to believe was thyroid related and what wasn’t.

Many years later, I can tell you, based on informal observation, he was right. I have come across many people with ADD, dyslexia, thyroid disease and all of them report the same thing about coffee and brain chemistry.

Is this something that was ever formally studied and proven? Is that why meds like Ritalin seem to be prescribed for a vast majority of ADD-ers? Thoughts, experts and amateurs? I find this fascinating. Especially since I spent many years drinking espresso within an hour of bedtime many a night and had great, restful sleeps and many a fitful night when I didn’t. What do you suppose it could mean in the grand scheme of things, if anything?

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[Anonymous]

Hi Stacerella, funny you mention brian chemistry and how it can affect us ADHDers.

In my case, drinking coffee too late in the day will cause me a great deal of difficulty in falling asleep.

In terms of food and what i’ve noticed has helped(with concentration), is eating lots of fish (Salmon, Shrimps, etc).

I ‘ve been prescribed Wellbutrin, but that didn’t make me any happier nor did it help with ADHD. After a few months, my doctor switched me to Adderall, and although the effects were somewhat noticeable, I felt the negative side effects outweighed the small increase in concentration. Needless to say, I ‘ve decided to stop the meds and live with my “gift” of ADHD and use it to my advantage.

Omega 3 oil capsules seems to help too,

Certain spices seem to aggrevate my ADHD. Its that noticeable, especially the irritability (as my wife likes to point out).

Please forgive my jumping from topic to topic, so much i want to say, just can’t seem to dump it fast enough onto the keyboard

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[Anonymous]

Inneresting…

What spices would those be, may I ask?

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[Anonymous]

The spices were either cayanne, paprika, or the pepper that comes in small round little balls (ca’t recall the correct name, but you get the picture).

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[Anonymous]

Peppercorns or red pepper flakes? Are they black or a red/beige mix?

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[Anonymous]

I believe the black peppercorns.

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[Author]

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