2 hours, maybe 2.5.

No one works for more than that, it's not how brains work. Or bodies for that matter, you gotta pee eventually.

OK maybe I'm pedantic and shouldn't count breaks... But then where lies the threshold? A fifteen minute coffee break? An hour long lunch break?

Could we use scrum storypoints to brag then (I once finished 12 points in a day!) — not really, because they're not standardized units of work.

Lines of code then? Well, the dev who copy pastes Java classes would beat the guy adjusting a dense Python script, without necessarily doing more.

No, the only true measure is of course grams of amphetamine per week, and in that metric I win from everyone.

😂😅😶😣😓😟😖😧😵😰🚑

Joking of course.

I used to consume at least 2-3g of amphetamine per week. Slowly switched to unholy amounts of redbull and coffee, eventually tapering that shit off as well.

Now I'm at 2-3 espressos and 2L of green tea per day.

Stimulants are certainly my weak point.

@rsync haha yeah 😁

@bittersweet are you sure we're not long lost brother.

I had the exact same problem. I got psychosis from using to much and had to stop, but wow the amount of work I got done.

I was diagnosed with ADHD, though. I never used to believe in that until I looked into it more. My life and all my problems made a lot more sense.

Stimulants don't necessarily make you smarter or faster, they just make you feel like you do. They did studies on this. Unless, you genuinely have ADHD, then they unlock more brain power because they help you concentrate your thinking.

Feels good to see that I'm. Not the only one. I have a full time job and a startup in an incubator at 3h from home.
I never had concentration problems or anything. But I'm so stressed and busy lately, I feel like I get shits really done only when I take some!

@rant1ng

I personally highly doubt the scientific significance of a diagnosis tbh. It's an indicator, sometimes a very clear one, but psychiatry is hardly an exact science.

Psychiatrists are just making educated guesses based on a list of descriptions given by the patient.

I don't doubt ADHD could be classified as a disorder, although I think it's not a boolean value, more of a spectrum.

As such, the efficacy of medication is not boolean either.

The tangible effect "vector" seems to be the same for both patients and non patients, they just have a different "origin".

In all cases, a low (!) dose of amphetamine gives increased cognitive control, while higher doses make people so associative to internal impulses that the focus loses cohesion and it all falls apart into "jitters" again.

People on the ADHD spectrum might just find that the net effect is more beneficial, because their therapeutic dose moves them closer to a focus value which is considered "normal".

The notion that for some people it's medicine, while for others it's a drug is something doctors love to tell, but it's not based on research — amphetamine (again, occasionally and in low doses!) works great for students and fighter pilots as well as ADHD patients.

The problem is that it's REALLY easy to build tolerance. Amphetamine is not super addictive, but still a bitch when you let that tolerance build up and start upping your dose.

When using prescribed desoxyn (meth) or dexedrine, any doctor should also give you instructions to take regular breaks from the meds to allow tolerance to reset, for example take it for five days, then stop during the weekends. ADHD certainly doesn't give you a magic kind of metabolism where amphetamine suddenly prevents vasoconstriction or muscle atrophy instead of causing it.

@bittersweet

Yeah, I looked into all of that :) I'm like you, I read up everything, from every angle. I don't take anyone's word for granted.

But the more I look into ADHD, and especially autism and similar (because it runs in my family) the more I am fascinated by it.

I agree it's not an exact science, but they have over a century of data to back all this up.

Believe me, it took a lot to give them that credit, because like I said, I'm a very independent thinker.

One of the major clinchers for me, realizing I had ad/hd, was that some forms of amphetamine actually made me sleepy and calm. This effect is only seen in ad/hd patients, according to the research.

I have been working without them for 3 months now though. I decided to take a long break, and it has been really beneficial. I think they helped me get my workflow back, like training wheels. Now, I don't need them so much.

@rant1ng Yeah I have a large jar for tough days, but have found other ways to find focus.

My issue is that the general population seems to think of psychiatric disorders as a "get diagnosed, so you know whether you have it" yes/no thing. But whether it's about ADHD, autism or even psychotic susceptibility, you can recognize patterns in the majority of people.

Sometimes you meet someone who drives the meter into the red, sometimes they would score a 30%, it's more of a multidimensional field/continuum.

For you, medication might be noticeably beneficial because you score quite to the right side of the bell curve.

I've been diagnosed with 3 different disorders by 3 different psychiatrists, and I think if I'd visit a new one I could add a bunch of new labels. And my girlfriend, who has never visited a psychiatrist, would likely get similar results.

I see psychiatric diagnosis as a useful tool to gauge what kind of person you are, but absolutely useless to put label printers to work.

@bittersweet Your points are totally valid.

They tend to start with a "blanket diagnosis". For example, I've been diagnosed with bi-polar many times, but I know for a fact I don't have it. A blanket diagnosis gives them the opportunity to see how you respond to medicine, which is a much easier litmus test to use. Once they see you a few times and get your reaction and get to know you better, they can narrow things a bit. Mental health is a long process that can't be solved in a few visits.

In my case, I saw 5 different doctors who all basically said "I knew you had ad/hd within 2 minutes of talking to you". When I took the standardized test, my intention was to fake it, to get drugs, but was surprised to answer genuinely and pass.

It just takes time and a lot of work to narrow things down. But some people definitely do get misdiagnosed, b/c frankly, they are stupid, not in tune with their own thoughts and behaviours, and lack initiative.

@rsync Wait aircraft mechanic? Are you the reincarnation of a certain aircraft mechanic who recently deleted his account?

@bittersweet a large jar of pills?

Because... you could make money from me :)

@rant1ng

Well and treatments are basically blunt tools. It's not like lithium was forged in the cores of stars billions of years ago to treat schizophrenics.

We're mostly just randomly shuffling through shit to see which molecules have more beneficial than negative effects.

We are at the point where we know what a receptor looks like, and we can reason "we need something big on position 4 of the phenol to serve as an agonist, but using bromine makes it a bit too neurotoxic, let's try fluorine or maybe a propyl group? Or what if we use iodine on position 3?"

But it's still so much trial and error, just minmaxing of properties. There's no such thing as "the cure for x". Just molecules which add a +5/-2/-1 modifier to your stats, so you call it medication instead of a toxin.

@rsync really glad you're still with us 😁

@bittersweet I gotta move to amsterdam

@rant1ng Deleted my previous comment, don't think it's wise to post my inventory on the internet 🤔

But most of it has nothing to do with my location, more with previous employment and certain broad foreign legal exemptions. Pharma companies are literally above the law.

have you tried cbd??

@gatoMalicioso I've tried 6 phytocannabinoids and many of the synthetic naphthoyl/naphthylmethyl indoles and quinones. I prefer human bio assays, lab mice are messy to keep and do not answer when you ask the question "are you high?".

For recreation, I'm not that big a fan of cannabis though.