Why Do Stimulant Medications Affect ADD / ADHD?
Why does taking medical stimulants help people with ADHD? Ask ten doctors and you’ll get ten answers, most of which will bring to mind the proverbial blind men examining the elephant. It’s not their fault. We demand of these good doctors almost god-like answers, including a pill which will if not cure ADHD then at least make these kids appear normal. And yes, it’s our children’s lives we’re talking about here so it’s really this important. But when it comes to ADHD, the only thing most people are sure of is, no one has god-like answers. Including me. So what do I have to offer? As a personality theorist, a lot really, including that a major clue to the actual nature of ADHD lies in that medical stimulants help. Why? It’s simple really. Stimulants alter people’s sense of time and space in a somewhat predictable way. They speed things up and narrow the focus. Moreover, while in theory we’re talking about how medical stimulants affect folks with ADHD, in reality, we all take stimulants, w
