Anyway to simulate the effects of Adderall without the usage of drugs?

[kyrax12]

My Nephew went from being one of the worst students in his class to one of the best in a matter of 3 months on Concerta. He's like a completely different kid compared to how he was before. That stuff works!

Does he have to take it regularly?

 

[FleshLight]

Pay for your own education. You'll find motivation that way.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

Drugs wont do much OP. I also have poor concentration. The trick is dividing the studying into several short-term goals.

Use the SQR3 while reading.
S - Survey the text. Look at headings and sub-headings.
Q - Question it. What do I want from this text.
R1 - Review (Skim).
R2 - Read.
R3 - Recall

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Drugs wont do much OP. I also have poor concentration. The trick is dividing the studying into several short-term goals.

Use the SQR3 while reading.
S - Survey the text. Look at headings and sub-headings.
Q - Question it. What do I want from this text.
R1 - Review (Skim).
R2 - Read.
R3 - Recall

You oblivious don't know the power of Aderral. Can YOU study for 23 hours STRAIGHT without a single break?

That's what the pills let you do. Simple unbroken concentration for over a dozen hours.

I wish I had some.

 

[blinblue]

Well trouble studying.

I just find it really hard to concentrate for a long period of time.

Might I suggest not studying for long periods of time? Study for an hour (or however long you can manage without getting too distracted), go do something else. Study for another hour later, etc.

The key is to figure out what you personally can handle and how you study best, and then do what you need to make it so you don't have to crazy cram sessions.

For me personally long study periods are worthless. I work to understand the material while I take the class, and then I find it pretty easy to spend an hour or so just brush up on a few things and I'm ready for whatever test. During college I never did any crazy long cramming (and never did an all-nighter, which some people find useful, but I never understood). But everyone is different, so whatever works best for you is what you should do. Taking drugs would be a last resort for me.

 

[Rudee]

Does he have to take it regularly?

One pill a day in the morning.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

You oblivious don't know the power of Aderral. Can YOU study for 23 hours STRAIGHT without a single break?

That's what the pills let you do. Simple unbroken concentration for over a dozen hours.

I wish I had some.

Having to study 23 hours straight points to one thing only, inefficient use of time.

What, finish course/semester, fatigue/depression or possible schizo, start again. You do know that these drugs are amphetatmines, right. I just wanted to point out that in the long term, HOW you study is just as important as HOW LONG you study.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Having to study 23 hours straight points to one thing only, inefficient use of time.

What, finish course/semester, fatigue/depression or possible schizo, start again. You do know that these drugs are amphetatmines, right. I just wanted to point out that in the long term, HOW you study is just as important as HOW LONG you study.

I don't think you understand. The pills allow you to use those 23 hours JUST studying. I've seen classmates go without a single break. Its 23 hours of PURE productivity. Their eyes NEVER leave their books and notes. 23 Hours of pure 100% absorbing EVERYTHING they read and do. It's a 100% efficient study session as long as they are under its effects. It's really insane how productive the stuff makes you. You completely shut down the "get distracted area" and can study non stop ignoring every single distraction.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

I don't think you understand. The pills allow you to use those 23 hours JUST studying. I've seen classmates go without a single break. Its 23 hours of PURE productivity. Their eyes NEVER leave their books and notes. 23 Hours of pure 100% absorbing EVERYTHING they read and do. It's a 100% efficient study session as long as they are under its effects.

Ok man. Relax. Iam not arguing with you on its effectivity, but one shouldnt become dependent on it. If you have the time, why put yourself in this situation? Just study t/o the course lecture by lecture.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Ok man. Relax. Iam not arguing with you on its effectivity, but one shouldnt become dependent on it. If you have the time, why put yourself in this situation? Just study t/o the course lecture by lecture.

2-3 days before an exam I go to the Library after class and just study for 8 hours straight.

Enough said.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Enough said.

3 days of studying 8 hours a day is some pretty damn good studying.

Day 1: Layout outline, cheat sheets, learn basics

Day 2. Figure out stuff I do know and get it down perfect, try to learn stuff I don't know

Day 3. Finalize.

Still, 3/5 classes have sub 45 averages, and the teachers don't seem to like curving very much. It's hard to do well.

Also, I'm not really sure what my study habits have to do with the fact that Aderall allows you to study insanely well

 

[HamburgerBoy]

No, it shows that you like to cram shit last-minute. If you broke up studying over longer time periods you wouldn't need to take drugs to cram for 23 hours.

College. So most of the day. A good 4 hours of ignoring class and surfing, 9 hours of doing some kind of work. Another 3 hours of screwing arond.

lol

 

[NikolaeVarius]

No, it shows that you like to cram shit last-minute. If you broke up studying over longer time periods you wouldn't need to take drugs to cram for 23 hours.



lol

Because apparently doing 9 hours of work a day is an easy thing to do.

Really, I don't need you to comment on my study habits. I find that going from 7am-9pm going through a combination of school, research, extracurricular, and job gives me a pretty decent amount of work. I relish those 3 hours of play time at the end. It's pretty hard to study every day for previous shit when you're busy keeping up with new material, if only just barely.

And my previous comments would indicate that I DON"T take Aderall, just that I know how it affects you. So yeah, this conversation really has no meaning. My study habits work for me. . .


I had some more to write, but then I realized I don't have to defend myself from someone who has no idea what my situation is.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I hear bath-salts remove the fear of death, pain and exams, make you feel invincible, as if you can defeat the professor and the entire campus police force in mortal combat with your pencil and your arm that turns from a tentacle into a machete. Just do not go near your parents, it tends to reveal they are actually demons wearing their skin and that your car is a transformer that craves human flesh.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Word on the street is Jenkem works way better than adderall.

 

[ShawnD1]

exercise

This. The only non-drug way to get your brain surging like crazy is if you do crazy stuff. You'll feel that adderall high when your life is in danger.
Doing crazy shit also boosts your sex drive... just like Adderall. The chemicals responsible for keeping your mind vigilant are also responsible for your sex drive.

If you broke up studying over longer time periods you wouldn't need to take drugs to cram for 23 hours.

Also, most of your learning happens during sleep. Serious. This has been studied a lot and it's always the same. The test subject learns a new skill then test their ability. Then they sleep and test their ability when they wake. Their skill after sleep is always significantly higher than when they first learned the skill.

I know it's true because some of my coolest ideas are from dreams. A few days ago I thought of how to build a home made humidifier using towels and a bucket of water

 

[clamum]

Word on the street is Jenkem works way better than adderall.

I've heard this as well, from a couple people actually. Might wanna try it out OP.

 

[911paramedic]

Drugs wont do much OP. I also have poor concentration. The trick is dividing the studying into several short-term goals.

Use the SQR3 while reading.
S - Survey the text. Look at headings and sub-headings.
Q - Question it. What do I want from this text.
R1 - Review (Skim).
R2 - Read.
R3 - Recall

I cant even remember that formula. :\

 

[ShawnD1]

You oblivious don't know the power of Aderral. Can YOU study for 23 hours STRAIGHT without a single break?

You can do that if you do meth. Meth is Adderal + 1 carbon.

Adderall (amphetamine)

Crystal Meth (N-methylamphetamine)

Sure it's possible to casually use these drugs, but it's very difficult to not be taken by them. You get a stronger dopamine surge from amphetamine than you do from having the best sex of your life. When monkeys are given a choice between amphetamine and food, they pick amphetamine to the point of starvation. That could be you.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

are you studious?

I personally had to get away from my dorm when I was an undergrad to get any work done. I had to go to a building on campus and into a quiet study room where others were working. It helped MAJORLY. With a cup of coffee to my side, I was able to bang out a solid 2-4 hours of homework every day. That was about what I needed to really do well in my engineering curriculum.

 

[zanejohnson]

every adderall enthusiast ive known went on to meth....whats better than 23 hours of intense concentration? 48 hours of it!

amphetamines are bad kids...stay natural...smoke pot..but use it as a reward..cant toke till u reach a set goal in yoir studying.....much healthier

 

[zanejohnson]

and....methamphetamine is to adderall like heroine is to morphine..same compound extra acetyl group to make it more efficient crossing the blood brain barrier...

they dubbed it heroin because it was supposed to be there heroin to get all the morpjine addicted ppl off of morphine...worked great

 

[Kaido]

Well trouble studying.

I just find it really hard to concentrate for a long period of time.

Do you have a study strategy?

(this is going to be a big read, but it's worth it if you're stuck in regards to studying)

I didn't have any strategies for studying until well into college, and as a result I had a really hard time studying. I'd stare at the books forever, read a few paragraphs, highlight some random nonsense, take some useless notes...overall it was pointless. I had no plan of attack. I had no idea how the other kids studied, figured stuff out, and remembered stuff.

So the first key is to develop a strategy for studying. By strategy I simply mean something that you can physically do, a procedure you can follow...like making a PB&J sandwich, there are steps you can follow to get the desired results - get out the bread, put on the PB, put on the jelly, slice it, eat it. My approach is to tilt the odds in my favor...break the studying segments down into small chunks and apply a breakdown method to comprehending & remembering the information, rather than just randomly trying to "study". My grades went way up after applying study techniques that actually worked for me. For some people that comes naturally, for me, well...it took until college for me to figure it out :biggrin:

It basically breaks down into two things:

1. Prep work
2. Study time

You need to prepare a schedule that you can follow before the semester starts, and then you need to put in the study time every day following it. Otherwise you're stuck feeling anxiety in class, feeling behind, feeling unprepared, wasting time cramming, and overall having a real bad time. Instead, you can feel good and have fun without having to put in huge amounts of effort in one sitting.

Here's an approach that might work for you:

Problem 1: Prep Work

1. Get the course outline from your professor. For example, I took a college Trig class awhile back and the professor covered chapters 1 through 7 in the first semester, which was about half the book. So I didn't have to study the whole book - just half of it.

Action: Get course outline/requirements list (this may involve talking to the professor if they don't print one out for you)

2. Buy or print out a month calendar (MS Word has some free templates) for every class you are taking. A printed one works best because digital ones tend to disappear (out of sight, out of mind) - a paper one is something you can pull out, hold in your hands, look at, and mark up. Per the course outline, fill in the due dates for what your professor requires you to deliver. That includes homework, quizzes, and exams. Not every class is the same (English, history, art, math, etc.) so just apply it as needed. Basically, treat it like a job - you have to deliver certain things to your boss (teacher) on certain dates (deadlines). This way, you now have a clear path to follow for studying & working. I would also recommend putting the action items associated with the deliverables on your calendar, i.e. if you have a math assignment due, put a schedule item to put it in your backpack the night before so you don't forget it and leave it at home when it's due the next day.

Action: Acquire a monthly calendar of the semester (for each class).
Action: Write in deliverables on their due dates (ex. pg. 51, problems 1-41 due on 5/11/2012).
Action: Write in prep for deliverables (ex. put homework assignment in bookbag the night before)

3. Develop a schedule of (1) class times, (2) study times, and (3) work (on assignments) times. There are times when you will need to be in class, times when you will need to study in order to figure out how to do the homework and prepare for exams, and times when you will actually need to do the homework assignments. The best way to be a confident study is to prepare early. If your homework assignment is due on Friday, do it on Monday instead of the night before. Then you can be carefree all week - zero stress. Put yourself ahead of the curve this way. Get your studying done early, get your assignments done early, prepare for your exams early. This reduces stress like nothing else.

In order to do this, you will need to look at your existing schedule (other classes, your job, your free time, when you have the most energy & free time, etc.) and figure out how early you want to be. Planning things out & breaking things down like this is the most efficient way of doing things and requires the least amount of effort. For example, if you have 50 math problems due in a week and you want to be done well before it's due, break it down into 10 problems a day. You have 7 days to complete it, so Day 1 is 10 problems, Day 2 is 10 problems, etc. Then your 50 problems are broken down into manageable chunks (instead of a huge overwhelming mess that requires a long period of concentration) and you are finished in 5 days - 2 days before the actual assignment is due.

So if the 50 problems were assigned on Monday and were due the following Monday, your first week's calendar would simply read "10 problems a day, Monday - Friday". Which is pretty dang easy. I also suggest adding specific times to WHEN you are going to do this, other than "just sometime today" because then you never get around to it I call this a Time Leash - ex. "work on 10 problems from 4:30 - 5:00pm". This gives you both a specific appointment time and an amount of time - so you know both when to start and how long you plan on working on it for, so it doesn't feel like forever.

Action: Add 3 items to your calendar: class times, study times, work times. Assign specific times (ex. 4:30pm - 5:30pm) on specific days (ex. Monday 5/11/2012).

4. How create an Expected vs. Actual Tracking document. I use these at work - they tell you what the plan is, and what you actually have done. Basically, it's a way to be accountable to yourself. If you never write anything down, it's hard to keep track of how well you're doing. Tape this inside your binder or above your study desk so you can keep track of your study plan and motivate yourself. I use Excel for this (Google Docs Spreadsheets works too). Basically it looks like this:

| Specific Action | Expected Date | Actual Date |

So the first line might be:

| Pg. 52, Problems 1-10 | Due 5/11 | Completed 5/12 |

Nice, easy, bite-sized chunks that you can see & keep track of in a list. What gets hard about school is trying to do too much at once (cramming) either due to the lack of a study strategy or getting behind or having no plan. So having a simple plan that you see in front of you, on paper, every day, is really helpful.

Action: Print out an Expected vs. Actual Tracking document, based off your calendar. Include deliverables, deliverable prep (ex. put hw in bag the night before), study times, work times, class times.

So now you have a nice document to work on every day that includes a list of everything you need to do for your class, broken down into nice small chunks. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Rather than trying to cram for 2 days straight before an exam and making yourself sick & stressed out, you can cruise along through the semester with minimal work and lots of confidence from being prepared early. I highly recommend assigning specific times and specific lengths of times (i.e. Time Leashes) so that you have an "appointment" to fulfill, rather than an unconfirmed "sometime today" entry, and also so that you don't feel like you have to study alllll day long - just for 10 minutes or 25 minutes or however long you decide you need for that specific task.

Also, what helps the most is using the buddy system. I'm not going to say this is a requirement, but it helps immensely - it's like working out. If you workout by yourself, you have no one to be accountable with. If you have a workout buddy who is meeting you at the gym every night, it's a lot hard to skip and a lot more fun to do when you have someone to do it with. Depending on your level of shyness, you may or may not want to get together with a few people, or at least one person, and follow your printed schedule to stay on top of things. I've done some of my best work in study groups (usually right after class for like 20 minutes) because it forces you to get going on what you know you need to do.

Problem 2: Study Time

Studying is difficult if you don't have a study method or strategy or plan of attack. Basically, you need a way to study. What steps do you follow? What are you trying to do, exactly? "Learn the material" doesn't mean anything - we need to get more specific than that - we need things we can actually do. Simply put, studying is work. You follow a procedure and get the desired results. Therefore, you need a procedure for studying. Then you can simply put in the time and get the results. So - studying basically boils down to 2 things:

1. Comprehension (understanding the material)
2. Retention (remembering the material)

Comprehension is the first task you have to tackle. For example, in math, you need to understand the formulas so that you can use them to solve problems. Second, you need to remember those formulas so that you can solve problems on your exam. Those are two entirely different things - you can understand things and then forget them later, and you can also memorize things (like formulas) but have no idea how to use them to solve problems. For most classes, you need both.

The way that you approach this depends a lot on your learning style. Someone mentioned the SQ3R method - that's a great outline, but that's not a procedure you can actually follow to get the results you want (understanding & remembering the material). A lot of it depends on how you learn, but the first step is identification - do a quick scan of the material you are working with. And remember, the real first step is identifying which chunk of information you want to work with - chapter 7? Section 1 of chapter 7? The first 10 pages of chapter 7? This goes back to your printed calendar (Expected vs. Actual) list. You need to have a specific task in front of you to complete. If your haven't built up your study skills already, start small - do 5 pages in the morning, 5 pages in the evening. Whatever it takes so that you can do a little bit & make progress well before your assignment is due.

Anyway, do a quick scan & identify what you will be learning. Create a basic outline. So let's say chapter 7 of Trig is: the Law of Sines, the Law of Cosines, and the Law of Tangents. Now you know what you are studying, and it isn't an overwhelmingly huge amount of information - it's something you can tackle - 3 things, not 100 (like you would encounter if you were cramming). From here it really depends on what type of learner you are - for example, I am a visual learner and I like to draw mindmaps of things (little tree diagrams) sort of like this. Once I have the thing figured out (a definition, a formula, whatever), I write it out into my notes. Then I memorize my notes using this method:

http://johnplaceonline.com/study-smarter/how-to-memorize-anything/

So my study session would go something like this:

1. Gather materials at appointed time (printed calendar, textbook, paper notebook, pencil)
2. Scan material & create an outline
3. Mindmap each piece of information and think about it until I figure it out
4. Write out my own notes
5. Memorize my notes

Comprehension is the hardest part. Scanning the material & creating an outline is easy (it's the most fun part for me, haha). Memorization is easy (once you master the trick - it can take a couple weeks to nail it down, but it works great). The hard part is figuring it out. Learning new stuff takes a long time and is hard. Once you figure it out (whatever piece of information you're studying), it's a piece of cake - like tying your shoe. Really hard as a kid, now you don't even think about it as an adult. You may need additional help here - stay after class and ask the teacher, start a study group, hire a tutor - do whatever you need to do to stick with your schedule and understand the material for that day. Getting behind is the worst thing you can do, because then things start piling up, and you start feeling behind & lost & overwhelmed, and you get anxiety, and you cram or quit coming to class or miss assignments and your grade gets lowered.

The bulk of the work of studying is the prep work - figuring out what you're going to study, when you're going to study, how long you're going to study, and making sure you don't bite off more than you can chew at one time. That's where the first steps of creating a schedule comes into play. Then when the day comes to study, you know exactly what you need to do and it's only a small amount that you can complete using a study procedure, not a huge amount that you have no idea how to deal with.

The key is knowing what to do, getting down to business at the time you've chosen every day, and getting to work following a procedure (studying or doing homework). It's like doing the dishes - you know how to load them into the dishwasher, you know how to run the dishwasher, you know how to put the dishes away - it's simply a matter of doing it once you know what to do and how to do it.

This is what you need to develop and build your strength in - your study skills. You can use stuff like Adderall, but unless you have ADD and can't truly deal with things, you'll just end up abusing your body and not really learning anything. Short-term it can seem like a good idea, but how would you feel if you finished up 4 years of school on drugs only to say, I passed but I didn't learn anything? How sad would that be? You want to go to school, you want to study with ease and be a confident, prepared student, and you want to learn things from the time you put in there. Otherwise, what fun is that? :awe:

Hope that helps

 

[FearoftheNight]

woo organic chem!