I have been promoting the methylphenidate (MPH) lifestyle quite a bit over the last few months. Despite my various articles on this topic, I do not think that people should take this drug, for instance via sourcing it in GTA, if there is no medical justification for doing so. There are also some side effects. In my case, I hardly experience any. The main one is dry mouth. Yes, I am familiar with the information in the packaging slip. Your mileage may vary, but so far my experience is such that side effects are negligible. There is another side effect besides dry mouth, which took a few months to manifest itself: weight loss. More correctly, it took me a few months to realize that I am indeed experiencing sustained weight loss.
Presumably, a lot of people would not consider weight loss a problem. Even in my case it is not. What you see below is a chart that shows my gradual weight loss over the span of several months. The difference between the start and the end points amounts to about 4.5kg, which is roughly 10 lbs. I do not mind this at all. However, I did not plan for this, so I need to take counter measures. I have deliberately obscured the x and y axes, but these are not relevant for the point I am making. I also did some short-term fasts during that time, so the data is perhaps not quite as clear as it could be. Still, there is a very obvious downward trend.
A very interesting aspect of MPH is that you do not feel hungry on it. I am not sure it is adequate to say that it suppresses the sensation of hunger. You can feel hungry while you are on MPH, and sometimes you may even find yourself eating a surprising amount of food, simply because the brain consumes a lot of energy. If I work on a serious task or problem really hard, with tunnel vision for a few hours, a quick snack may turn into a not-so-quick and slightly bigger snack. The general experience, though, is that if you do not actively pay attention to your own body while on MPH, you just do not notice that you are indeed hungry. You may even be familiar with this phenomenon as a non MPH user. Just think of the last time you were really engrossed in some activity. Suddenly you realize that you skipped lunch or dinner and that you are actually really hungry.
My current approach is that I explicitly plan for snacks and meals. Otherwise, I would eat a lot less than I apparently already do anyway. Based on the aforementioned chart, though, I will have to schedule more snacks or bigger meals. Thankfully, you do not need to fight your body when eating. There is no resistance to overcome. However, my previous approach to food, i.e. eating when I feel hungry, apparently does not work well at all on MPH. On a partly related note, it seems that MPH is potentially a great weight-loss drug. This is only a hypothesis. I can easily see this not being the case, for instance if someone’s obesity is a consequence of “emotional eating”. I do not know what this is like, but I do not quite see how MPH could address the root cause of this issue. Likely, anybody who eats to feel good about themselves, or at least less miserable, will not benefit much from MPH in this regard.
Aaron,
Did you find the Merk Manual useful while doing your research on Methylphenidate ?
I have not looked into the Merck Manuals but I did pretty extensive research before I started taking MPH, and I am still regularly reading or skimming papers. A topic I have recently looked into is driving a car on MPH — I do not do that, and will explain my reasoning in a separate post at some point. According to some research, though, it is supposed to be unproblematic. I disagree with this point of view. There is one particularly misleading paper I came across that looked at how well people perform while using a driving simulator, which does not even adequately reflect reality.
I eat like a horse on MPH. Especially during the comedown. My only side effects are very slight dry mouth if any, and also maybe a slight uptick in systolic BP. I’m not sure if it’s the drug or me being on my feet and busy on it, though.
How has your MPH experience been thus far?
As far as side effects go, I’m still on very low doses of the drug. I was given instructions to try a 10 mg tablet here and there to basically test the dose, which is probably near optimal I feel. I’ve been taking days off too. However, I could definitely see the drug causing problems at higher doses, such as decreased appetite.
I don’t know if my threshold for boring shit is all that much higher personally. I’m definitely much more able to sit still if the situation calls for it. With work, it’s something I feel I need to do. I’m able to completely focus on completing all my tasks so that I end up having hours of downtime during the latter half of my shift. During my leisure time, I have to want to do something and then I get completely absorbed in it.
I’ve playing guitar a lot more on MPH and it’s been amazing. I learned a pretty advanced piece of jazz fusion simply from sight reading (I’ve heard the song a thousand times) in one sitting. Whenever I came to a sticking point I could quickly break it down and perfect the technique required to make it sound right without becoming overwhelmed or sidetracked. It’s how imagine elite musicians must practice, whereas in the past I would do these things because I knew to, but very sporadically because boredom would set in. Also, the muscle memory carries over to the next day and I’m able to retain most everything I practiced.
It’s almost like the coping mechanisms I’m able to come with on MPH create a positive feedback loop that helps me later on. Just knowing that I have MPH on tap is also quite relieving, even if I’m not using it during a stressful moment. I’m definitely much more agreeable and less irritable on the drug. I also think that as long as I have timed it correctly that once it’s worn off that I’m and much more able to fall asleep easier, as I’ve had a productive and active day with it.
Processing speed is way faster. I’m much less likely to make mistakes in my work. I retain more information. If somebody is not respecting my time or interrupting me I will let them know and immediately shift back to my work. I have no qualms about denying the ramblings of plebs. Even though my tolerance for nonsense is certainly higher, I get the feeling that the effects of the drug are wasted on mundane things and want to get the most out of it.
Since my ADHD is quite manageable and low to moderate at best, I think adderall would be complete overkill. The amphetamine salts just make too much dopamine, whereas simply blocking its reuptake with MPH is sufficient.
Your experience seems quite comparable to mine, which is great to hear! Your notes on processing speed are interesting. I am not sure my mental processing speed is actually increased on MPH. I have the same perception but my view is that this is the result of being able to focus much better on the task at hand. This is similar to times when I was fully engrossed in something in my pre-MPH days. After all, if you do not get distracted, you simply move directly, i.e. more quickly, from A to B, even if your actual mental processing speed is the same. Without wanting to sound pompous, I am a pretty smart guy. Even without MPH my experience was that I operate on a different level than basically all my peers. The last few months, though, I had a few interactions where I thought that people found it uncanny to interact with me because of how quickly I was able to solve some problems or diagnose the root cause of an issue so extremely quickly. I was taken aback myself because there was an obvious qualitative difference as well. For instance, normally I go through various potential solutions one after the other and spend some time on them but on MPH I just discarded all dead-ends really quickly and precisely when I had (correctly!) determined that this was the wrong direction.
I also have the mindset that I want to get something concrete out of every time I take MPH. However, it is also very interesting to take it when you do not have a concrete goal in mind but only some vague ones. You may find that suddenly chores you had put off for days you can power through in an hour or two. So far, I have not been able to not make use of the superpowers that MPH conveys as I invariably end up getting drawn to something that is worthy of my attention. I can’t quite imagine taking MPH and binge watching a TV show, for instance.
“Without wanting to sound pompous, I am a pretty smart guy…”
No, I get it. I was recently at a fiesta and these Mexican-American guys were trying to put together an arcade-style basketball contraption. They were pouring over the instructions and fucking up the installation, so I just walked up and gave them the solution after looking at the thing for a few seconds. Side note, I’m heading back to the East Coast soon which I’m looking forward.
“I can’t quite imagine taking MPH and binge watching a TV show, for instance.”
Yeah, I view my condition as quite manageable. There’s no need to take three doses a day everyday. If I’m planning on gaming one night, for example, then I’m definitely not taking MPH. I have tried it as an experiment but ended up just wanting to tend to more pressing matters, such as chores etc.
I’m almost too efficient at work now, however. I view this as somewhat as a problem because I generally do not have the intention of going above and beyond.