Caffeine Deep Dive

Hacking Your ADHD

William Curb

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 702 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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

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.
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.
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, part of the ADHD Rewired Podcast Network.
0:09.8	I'm your host, William Kerb, and I have ADHD.
0:13.1	On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practice to help you work with your ADHD brain.
0:20.4	Tri-Methyl Xanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug. For many, caffeine is such a
0:26.5	ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer. How could something
0:31.5	that's so widely used, and that has so few regulations around it be a drug? But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function
0:40.4	and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior.
0:45.0	I feel like caffeine ticks most of those boxes pretty well.
0:48.3	In today's episode, we'll be exploring how caffeine works,
0:51.3	some of its benefits and negatives,
0:53.5	and then we'll be looking about what we know about how caffeine works, some of its benefits and negatives, and then we'll be looking
0:54.2	about what we know about how caffeine and ADHD mix.
0:58.0	If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hacking
1:01.9	your ADHD.com slash caffeine.
1:05.3	All right, keep on listening to find out what that morning cup of coffee does to you.
1:16.8	Thank you. I don't know many people who don't partake in at least a little caffeine.
1:21.4	Most of that caffeine is consumed during the first few hours of the day, although for many
1:26.1	of us with ADHD, we find that it's
1:28.4	something that we reach for far more frequently. To first understand how caffeine works,
1:34.3	we also need to understand adenosine, which acts as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in our
1:39.6	brain. It acts as a central nervous system depresent and inhibits many processes associated with wakefulness.
1:46.9	As the day goes on and the levels of adenosine and our brain increase, so do our levels of sleepiness.
	...

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