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Hacking Your ADHD

Caffeine Deep Dive (rebroadcast)

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8702 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Trimethylxanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug - for many caffeine is such a ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer. How could something so widely used that has so few regulations around it be a drug? But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. I feel like caffeine ticks the box pretty well on all those accounts.

In today's episode, we'll be exploring how caffeine works - some of its benefits and negatives and then we'll be looking at what we know about how caffeine and ADHD mix.

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Find the show note at hackingyouradhd.com/caffeine

This Episode's Top Tips

  1. Caffeine is a psychoactive drug whose primary mechanism is binding to adenosine receptors in the brain. The buildup of adenosine in our system is what makes us sleepy, so by binding to these receptors caffeine is able to keep us awake.
  2. Caffeine has a host of benefits but having too much caffeine near bedtime can affect our slow-wave sleep and reduce our total amount of sleep.
  3. There is still a lot of research that needs to be done on the interaction between caffeine and ADHD but it is clear that many people with ADHD attempt to self-medicate with caffeine.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.

0:06.4

I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.

0:09.9

On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practice to help you work with your ADHD brain.

0:17.1

Tri-Methyl Xanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug.

0:21.4

For many, caffeine is such a ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer.

0:27.6

How could something that's so widely used, and that has so few regulations around it, be a drug?

0:33.5

But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior.

0:41.7

I feel like caffeine ticks most of those boxes pretty well.

0:45.2

In today's episode, we'll be exploring how caffeine works, some of its benefits and negatives,

0:50.0

and then we'll be looking about what we know about how caffeine and ADHD mix.

0:54.9

If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hacking your ADHD.com

1:00.3

slash 91.

1:03.0

But before we get started, this podcast is brought to you by the Skylight Frame.

1:08.3

Ready to reduce the mental load of running a family?

1:10.9

Meet Skylight's smart touchscreen family calendar.

1:13.9

It syncs with all your existing calendars, comes with the chore chart to track everyone's

1:18.0

to do and more.

1:19.4

One of the best ways you can help manage your ADHD is by really using your calendar, but

1:24.1

that won't help if you're never checking it.

1:26.2

This calendar gives you that visual reminder of what's going on all day and what's coming up next.

1:31.3

The Skylight calendar sinks all of the different digital calendars and events your family uses and shows them all together on one beautiful touchscreen display.

1:39.3

And the new Chorchart feature shows organized lists of what each person needs to get done so they can check

...

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