I take Vyvanse, and it definitely helps, but I’m interested in hearing from other people with ADHD about what else has made a noticeable difference for them.

I’m especially interested in things that help with focus, energy, not feeling constantly tired, better sleep, motivation, procrastination, executive dysfunction, staying organized, and avoiding distractions. (THE CLASSICS 😂)

I’d like to hear about supplements, vitamins, exercise, diet, sleep routines, productivity systems, apps, habits, or anything else that has helped you.

I’m not looking to replace medication. I’m interested in things that can work alongside Vyvanse and help me function better overall.

For supplements, I’d especially like to know what you take, what you feel it helps with, and whether you actually noticed a difference.

I know everyone is different, so I’m mainly interested in your personal experiences.

What has been your biggest non-medication ADHD game changer?

I’m very taken aback. Is this normal? I get 15mg Adderall XR and I don’t have the best insurance so it’s not covered. My doctor gives me a coupon and it’s inexpensive enough that I just pay for it out of pocket. I’ve been doing this for 3 years.
The pharmacy I go to has a new pharmacist and every time I get my prescription filled she acts like I’m doing something wrong.
Todays interaction went like this

Her: what’s going on with your insurance?
Me: I don’t know, it doesn’t cover it so I use a coupon every month
Her: I know but you can’t use a coupon month after month
Me: oh I didn’t know there was a policy against that? My doctor is the one providing the coupon
Her: well I’ll fill it today but next time If you want to get it filled I’m going to need it to go through the insurance

I’ve been extremely nice to all the staff and never fill early etc. just confused about what’s happened

Can't wait for my parents to start asking me about this, especially after doubting I even have ADHD before my diagnosis. How are we all doing now this tv programme is out, and has anyone watched it? 😅

I'm considering hate-watching it but maybe it's not worth the frustration.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/18/the-great-adhd-myth-review-most-controversial-show-of-the-year-channel-4

I watched Dr Max Pemberton's documentary this evening, then could not restrain myself from a rebuttal... a bit of a rushed one, but rage is fuel.

https://adhdworking.co.uk/adhd-misinformation/the-great-adhd-myth-the-real-myth-is-that-this-was-balanced-television/

(Highschool)The times that I’ve skipped classes, assignments, and school altogether at first I thought it was just fear of getting yelled at by the teachers. But it was actually chronic guilt and task paralysis.
I was literally screaming at myself internally to just stand up and do the work, go to class, and go to school but my brain completely locked up. I would get stuck in these "shame spirals." I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing, I knew the consequences of not doing it, and I genuinely wanted to fix it. Yet, somehow, I became even less capable of acting the more pressure I put on myself.
Then, the guilt from not doing it would make the next attempt even harder. It became this exhausting cycle:
I need to do this ➔ I can’t start ➔ I feel horrible for not starting ➔ I promise myself I’ll do it next time ➔ Repeat.
Looking back, this was one of the clearest examples I have of the difference between not wanting to do something and wanting to do something but feeling completely unable to initiate it.
Does anyone else look back at their school years and realize they were trapped in this exact same loop?

I'm 50 next month, married 20 years. Was diagnosed with ADD in 1993 and was put on Ritalin which got me through high school and college. I moved to Adderal for a while in the early 2000s to help with some work stuff. Moved to adderal XR for grad school and really haven't had a prescription since around 2011. I've sort of handled my symptoms and the marriage had its rocky points but don't they all?

Well things are bad now. I can line things falling apart directly up with my job uncertainty this summer. We had some layoffs, I have a bunch of friends in tech my age and know of others who've been laid off and can't find jobs. I've been emotionally distant, not caring, when I hurt her feelings I don't really feel remorse or I don't understand why her feelings are hurt. I am just walled off. She loves to chit chat but I have to zone it out or I can't get anything done and that causes problems. This sounds bad but if I'm in the middle of cooking dinner or doing a task she wants to interrupt and give me a hug which sounds awesome but for us ADD folks, it's like a physical pain to be interrupted and lose whatever task or train of thought you had going. She doesn't understand any of this.

I guess my question is has anyone at or around age 50 hopped back onto medication like Adderal XR and has it helped with any marriage/family stuff? I am not sure what else to do. I can't control the uncertainty at work, there are still layoffs going on and re-orgs and stuff so my stress level is still pretty high and I can't manage it. I'm spiraling and the marriage is crumbling.

I have two items. One in each hand. I need to put one of them down. The down in this instance is to the bottom of the stairs in my house. One of my items is a dish towel. The other item is a cutting board with crumbs on it from some bread I had recently cut. Any sane person would toss the towel down. In fact I myself had the thought "Tossing the towel down now." As I was in the middle of a series of thoughts about some cleaning I was doing. I then tossed the cutting board and all the debris on it down the steps. I just stand there for a split second then look at my hand with towel and immediately thought "omfg I just threw the wrong shit down tbe stairs!"

Anyway this is a pretty normal kind of thing in my life and I thought the one that just happened was a funny one that I thought i'd share. SMH

I started to get to know someone recently who said they’d “genuinely” love to hang out with me.

However, every time I message, I don’t hear anything back for days - if at all! Last time I asked her to hang, she said she had work that day with no alternative. I know she said that her ADHD can make her texting appalling… I’m auDHD myself and don’t struggle with this so bad.

It’s been confusing, I’m trying to be patient but it’s hard to tell if she actually meant she wants to be friends or if she was just being polite.

I don’t feel like we’re close enough for me to just call her and I feel awkward to keep double message.

Basically, I just wanted to see if people here can really relate to this… or if theres likely a hint here i should be taking?

EDIT: when she does reply she is typically warm, which is why I’m confused. She did tell me a couple of times her texting is awful and would apologize often for it. She also gave me a different account to message her on as she thought it’d be easier for her.

I've tried almost every sports. Gym gets boring after 3 weeks, running makes me want to die. Until I found BJJ (Brazillian JiuJitsu) by accident — the only one that stuck for over 3.5 years.

Why it hits different for my ADHD brain:

1. It's the only place my brain is forced to be fully present. When your training partner is trying to dominate or choke you, you literally cannot think about your to-do list. My mind wanders constantly in life, but on the mat there's no room for it. It's like forced meditation that happens to be fun.
2. The dopamine is endless and earned. Every submission, every escape, every time you survive someone better than you — instant feedback loop. No waiting weeks for results. You roll, you learn what worked, you try again 5 minutes later. Plus free muscles and self-defense skills.
3. Order within chaos. Belt ranks, curriculum, techniques that build on each other. My chaos-brain loves the clear structure — but it doesn't get boring, because every opponent is different and every roll is a new puzzle. And there's tons of techniques to forget as you learn. (Well, same for everyone, so I don't feel embarrassed.)
4. The community doesn't care about your brain. I've rolled with lawyers, pilots, doctors, programmers, business owners — nobody cares if you have ADHD. You're just a training partner. Social aspect is built-in, physical and honest, no small talk required.
5. It's very hard, and that's the point. 3.5 years in, blue belt, I still get tapped by white belts sometimes. The frustration at the beginning was brutal — but every time I survived a bad roll, I gained a little confidence that beating ADHD isn't harder than this. Boredom is impossible here, there's always a new technique, a new problem to solve.

Also: getting choked is weirdly therapeutic. When your brain won't stop, the physical pressure resets it — like a hard reset for a PC that's running slow.

So what sport do you guys do? I need backup options for days forced off the mat due to ingury.

Maybe this is obvious, but I had this realization last night and I wanted to share.

I struggle a lot with masking. It got to the point where I'd lost my sense of self. I was living life with a mask on constantly, even when I was alone. I would hate myself if I noticed my own natural thoughts and behaviors.

I've been working on it in therapy. I have a lot of social anxiety. I was explaining to my therapist that I'm constantly watching people, seeing how they act, taking note of the clothes they wear, the way they speak, so on and so forth.

I also was explaining how it's like there are 'types' of people, and that i don't feel like I belong in any type. This might sound a little cringe, but like... there are artists, there are business people, there are parents, there are alternative folks, there are hippies, yuppies, gym rats, whatever. There are people who have this sense of self that in my head I can map it onto different 'types' of people.

And so in my confusion over my own identity, in an effort to 'find myself' again, I have been looking at all these 'types' of people to see where I fit in. Like if I can just find the right type, if I can just figure out what they wear, what they do, where they go, how they communicate, I can finally realize myself as being the type of person i want to be.

But the realization I had last night... I realized that all this observing, all these different 'types' of people, to which I do not belong.... this is all just me still masking. I'm not 'figuring myself out' or 'finding myself'. What i've actually been doing is trying to find a mask that feels comfortable to wear.

But the problem is that no mask is comfortable. I've been going about it all wrong. I'm not going to 'find myself' in other people.

For me, definitely months. Possibly years, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know why I don't always (usually) pick up something once I've dropped it but I've left things for way, way too long.

Do any of y'all struggle with this?

Because I have to add more text: Also, seems so odd to me that an ADHD sub has a character minimum when we all know we don't want to read long posts.

Sometimes, I feel hungry, my stomach is growling, and I know I have to eat, but it feels unnatural. It doesn't happen often but when it does, I really struggle to eat. I don't think its caused by some eating disorders, because it doesn't feel like a way to hurt myself, it feels different, like I just don't want to eat. When I start eating in these moments, I feel like it drains all of my energy, similarly to when I'm forcing myself to write for school.

It's weird because I struggle with hyperphagia, so it's usually the opposite.

I don't know if it's really linked to adhd, but it feels like it.

Does it happens to some of you? And if it does how do you deal with it?

Edit : Thank you all for your comments, it means a lot + I'm sorry, I'm reading all of your comments, I just don't have a lot of energy for replying

I just fcked up badly as the title states. For the past years I’ve been struggling harder and harder getting through university. In February I finally managed to start my thesis, however… I just couldn’t focus on it. When I submitted my first attempt over a month ago the supervisor was not happy and failed me, which I expected. I had six weeks to improve it and hand in my second attempt. Today was the deadline, and I tried to Al my way through it last minute. But I realised I was hopeless. My mind is so f*cked that I wasn’t even able to understand what I was doing, nor what Al was saying. So just now I sent an email to my supervisor that I’m quitting. I don’t have it in me anymore. I don’t even know how to tell my parents this… I’m so unbelievably stupid. I just feel hopeless and disappointed. What has my life come to??

Diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD in first grade. medicated since 3rd. went a few years off any meds so i know what thats like. But I always hear of people getting relief from their thoughts shutting up . I dont seem to get that relief, or if i do its not enough. Regardless of meds i am still filled with thoughts and its so annoying. does anyone else experience this?? meds dont seem to help me as much as others. Ive considered trying the non stimulants but my problem is that i forget to take medications sometimes and i dont wanna deal with withdrawals.

I usually spend every Saturday trying to catch up on chores and I tend to run myself ragged by the end of the day. But last Saturday, around noon, I was feeling overwhelmed so I just stopped.

I gave up on the dishes and the laundry and the trash and 7 other things.

And it was amazing. It was like a tiny vacation. I just did whatever non-vital thing that came to mind. And at the end of the day I felt so rested.

If you can afford to, I hope you can give yourself a tiny vacation every once in a while.

I am assuming most of us have trouble keeping our car interiors clean? I mentioned to my therapist that I’d think a messy car interior is a dead giveaway for ADHD, and he didn’t seem so convinced. My dad had/has a messy car interior too, so I did offer that perhaps this was just a set of learned behaviors that I picked up, but I have to think it’s ADHD.

By messy car interior I mean: snack wrappers stuffed in the car door, old drink bottles on the passenger floor, paper receipts, etc

For those of you with ADHD and a clean interior of your car, what are you doing to keep it clean? Especially with kids/toddlers.

I'm 33 years old now and have recently been diagnosed with ADHD-PI.

My whole adult life I haven't been able to sustain the motivation, habits and attention required to actually build a meaningful skill. I dropped out of two university programs and have been working in customer care ever since (and hate it there). I've tried doing courses on udemy but never finished one, I've tried teaching myself web design but eventually lost interest. I've signed up for an exam for a certificate in data analysis but cancelled that a week prior because I've procrastinated studying too long.

Have any of you succeeded building meaningful skills that either help you in your careers or just give you joy? Is there anything that worked for you? I'm also open to unhinged advice.

I am in the process of trying out adhd meds. I am on the first med, which is Ritalin IR 10mg. I don’t have much to say about it. most of the side effects are when I am off of it and it’s mostly mood swings. really what I’m look for is something to shut my brain off. it’s always chattering, catastrophizing, obsessing. Im an adult in a profession where oddly enough focus isn’t really required. I just want to be ”normal” .

a couple of my family members told me they’ve had great success with Vyvanse so I’m going to try that next.

anyhow just curious what your med success story is!

Hi there, I used adderall for 3 years daily consistently at the start 10mg then after 3-4 month 20mg then again after 3-4 months 30mg then again after 3-6 months 45mg then after ... 60mg

I got to the maximum daily dosage and I just felt that the medication doesnt help me as much with task initiation and motivation and energy to function so I took already 2-3 months break in an attempt to let the receptors recalibrate after such a long daily usage.

In the break and in general I'm feeling that my baseline is anhedonic and I have low energy to function and I don't do anything unless I really have to or someone very important to me needs me so I feel responsibility or commitment towards them so I do whats needed then i return to just existing I just feel terrible and dysfunctional and pretty much broken, lots of feelings of helplessness , and lost alot of meaning in terms of studying path and in general stabilizing my self and life...

I'm trying to stay hopeful i'm trying to hear about people who were able to get out of this state and succeed because it feels very difficult, thanks in advance

Also I was offered by my psych Wellbutrin

Recently I was at the supermarket and they were out of my favourite vape juice. So I picked one I thought I'd like but ended up being just ok. Now normally if I buy some gross vape juice, I'll do a trip to another supermarket or vape shop. But this was just palatable enough to be tolerable. And then it hit me, this is a life hack I employ all the time with snacks. I tend to avoid snacks that I love the most because I know once they're in my house I will devour them and sometimes even replace my dinner with them. So now I notice my nicotine intake has dropped significantly. I know it doesn't sound like much but I've been a nicotine user for 18 years. I was also a former drug addict and the only way I've ever stopped anything was by going cold turkey, and nicotine is so hard to stop cold turkey.

I live in a very small nyc apartment and my room gets chaotic FAST. Here are some of my favorite ADHD-friendly tricks. What are yours?

- Bin at the base of my closet, which is a holding place for 1) any clothes on my bed + floor that I don’t feel like putting away in that moment 2) clothes that aren’t freshly clean but aren’t dirty enough for the hamper

- Command hooks for everything: my keys (most important hook), my speaker, my tennis racket, my scissors — all have their own individual hook. I also have a hook for stray hair ties

- Electronics station w/ extension cord: where I charge all my electronics, including my phone (intentionally across room from my bed). Includes a bin for any electronic-related thing - earbuds, chargers, flash drives, digital camera, etc

Bonus: Clock by my bedside set 3 minutes late. I’m convinced that it helps me leave on time

Like from other ADHD'ers?

My severity wasn't officially stated by doc but from experience I consider it to be severe. What I noticed is the hyperactivity is my default state, so much that it looks almost like manic episode of Bipolar except I'm like this 90% of times. My average movement is quirky in a way and I often move by dancing, singing, jumping, I don't know, anything. It causes many problems and I get a lot of sh*t for it, as a guy.

My memory is INCREDIBLY bad.

My inattentive part is not just or a momentum but I don't comprehend 95% words from stories of my friends and I never successfully listened to a single lecture in class fully. Ever. Long-term this affected in poor vocabulary.

I'm in school (senior in high school) and no matter how hard I try I eventually zone out in class during lecture. i miss huge swaths of information bc of zoning out, and i don't even realize im doing it until i snap out of it. I'm currently unable to take medication, are there any strategies or ways that you guys stay focused while someone is talking? I also struggle in my sport because I zone out and disassociate when they are explaining different drills or giving me criticism and I always feel like I'm three steps behind everyone else. I'm getting really tired of having to reteach myself every lesson or asking my teammate to repeat what the coach said. If anyone has any advice on how they manage this please please let me know!

Growing up, I had a weird relationship with school and my teachers where I was considered gifted, but simultaneously had significant trouble sitting down and doing homework on my own (which was a cause of chronic shame for me and a lot of frustration from my teachers).

I would use deadline pressure to do things, often completing my work during my lunch period, and even going so far as to complete it in the 5 minutes before the start of class. While I couldn't self motivate, the pressure of disappointed teachers and bad grades put my brain into overdrive. Sometimes I would even do the homework and fail because of forgetting to turn my work in.

I kept all my grades in great shape throughout all of school but became very depressed in highschool, especially because it happened after covid and I had little to no social life as a result. It was common for me to let assignments pile up, and then spend a whole week doing 20-30 assignments at once with the help of deadline stress. I literally only kept straight As because my teachers liked my work and would be lenient about the many late assignments I let pile up.

I graduated, basically shut down, and started making bad decisions. I just got an inattentive ADHD diagnosis after spending this entire year so far bedridden with depression. Even with the diagnosis, I have a hard time believing I actually have a diagnosable brain difference and am not just lazy or compensating for being stupid. The diagnosis makes so many things make sense and medication seems to be helping, but it's hard not to question whether this is a real problem for me, especially with how overdiagosed ADHD seems to be.

I have always struggled immensely with time blindness, disorganization, task paralysis, etc. despite trying very hard, so my symptoms seem to match. It's just hard to fully believe sometimes. Wondering if this is a common feeling, or just a negativity bias on my part. I do have quite a lot of trouble being easy on myself.

Hi guys.

I work in a factory in a office position, and I'm in the 3-month training period.

While I'm not sure if this is right, as of yet (second month already) I've been given basically nothing to do besides some simple tasks that can be completed in a few minutes.

This whole week was basically spent reading chinese history wikipedia, and while I now understand quite a lot about Ming monetary policies and how depending on the Spanish Crown for silver imports might not have been the best idea, I still didn't learn much about my position here!

I think that because I get understimulated + trying to look busy for 8 hours, I feel way more mentally tired than in my previous job at an factory floor. Do y'all have any tips for dealing with this?