Ritalin Gone Wrong

Though one could say "Another Nature vs Nurture"-er, this article is interesting to me from a "responsibility" point of view.

Our children are our responsibility. As tempting as it is to put the child in front of a TV, or pop it a pill, or (in the future I am involved in a small way in building) stimulate neurons in the brain to get some effect, there is a huge component of taking responsibility for actually nurturing a child: being near him/her, empathizing and simply supporting.

This article reminds us, we are responsible for the kids, by leading through example and by trying to understand and taking up the challenge of correcting wrong behaviors and supporting correct ones.

I was interested to see that the researcher who wrote the op-ed, a psychologist based at my alma mater, has participated in some of the research projects he reviews in the op-ed. As I read the comments here, I'll be collecting ideas for questions to ask the local researcher in person as I try to learn more about ADD. I was particularly interested to see that the op-ed criticized several earlier studies for their study designs.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

I first became interested in what adult ADD treatments do after seeing a testimonial from an HN participant, a programmer, who said that his productivity increased dramatically after beginning ADD medication as an adult. I have since read parts of quite a few of the recent scholarly publications on ADD, especially those that focus on adult ADD, to try to wrap my mind around the trade-offs of medical treatment versus other approaches to symptom management. (I'm also still trying to make sense of just how ADD is defined, especially among adults who were not deemed to have ADD in childhood. The definitional issues are rather complicated.)

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/attention-defici...

http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-edge-newspaper-2011/mar-18...

Another participant here has already commented that there may be other interventions to consider when grappling with problems of attention focus. What are the best sources on other interventions (diet, lifestyle, etc.)? What are the trade-offs of those? For the occupations most pursued by participants on Hacker News, do you find it helpful to seek ADD medication if you are found to have ADD symptoms? What do your loved ones and colleagues think about your performance on a before-and-after basis if you have tried treatment? On the whole, ADD seems to involve a minority of participants in any occupation, but perhaps a more significant minority among HN participants than among some other subsets of the human population. I'm still trying to get a reality check, and would like to learn more.

>filtering chemicals out of drinking water

I encourage you to give that a shot and report back on your results.

Scary thought: Going cold turkey with coffee has had very similar effects on me (after 2 weeks of 1-2 cups a day; 2-4 shots/day).

I've also had a similar feeling of deadness when I stopped eating meat, dairy and anything with additives for 6 weeks. The first week or so I was completely useless - this could have also been due to me trying to feel my way through to a balanced diet.

So much of what we consume ends up having all sorts of unknown effects on us and the minute we stop consuming them we really feel it - it's easier to never stop.

One bonus of cutting certain stimulants out of my life has been that I've ended up feeling much better.

"To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems".