Debunking the Study Drug Myth
one night
in the midst of an especially chaotic
finals week during my sophomore year of
college
i found myself in the library trying to
cram as much physics knowledge into my
head as i possibly could in the next
eight hours
i texted a friend about it venting my
struggles and he told me he had just the
thing for me
saying that he’d recently faked an adhd
diagnosis to his doctor so he could get
adderall
and that he could lend me some so i
could potentially really lock in
over the course of the week i was
puzzled
i knew on one hand that i had the hard
work and grit necessary to pull off the
grade
but i also knew that the call of the
unknown had me absolutely stumped
what if there’s an extra edge that i’m
missing out on i thought to myself
what if everyone else but me is in on it
and what if i’m missing out on potential
i was incredibly close to caving in and
i stopped right before hitting send on
the message telling him to go ahead and
get me some
i ultimately decided that i’d rather not
take the chance in the absolute crunch
time
of the semester now to all the students
out there watching this
perhaps this story sounds similar to one
of your own
or maybe you’re one of the up to 30 of
students who have used adderall outside
of a prescription to study
in the hyper-competitive world of today
adderall is now a normalized part of
college life
however it shouldn’t be because those
that use the drug thinking it’ll work as
a quick fix for bad studying habits
could not possibly be farther from the
truth
but first to understand where we’re
going with this it’s necessary to talk
just a bit of relevant science
so dopamine is the feel-good
neurotransmitter in the brain
responsible for the reward system and
motivation for goal-oriented tasks
people with adhd have a deficiency of
dopamine
making it really difficult to do things
like stay concentrated and motivated
adderall helps by returning these levels
back to normal
however when individuals without adhd
take adderall the brain is absolutely
flooded with dopamine
in a high sense of self-confidence
alertness and well-being wash over the
brain
after a few precious hours of
productivity the inevitable crash ensues
and dopamine levels tank lower than
before causing the
exact opposite feeling natural dopamine
levels are so low after adorable misuse
that a study in primates showed a
decrease
of about 30 to 50 percent from natural
levels
this is how addiction starts not to
mention a plethora of mental health side
effects such as
anxiety depression paranoia and even
suicidal ideations
and with adderall addiction is not out
of the question
adderall is classified as a schedule two
drug putting it in the same category as
cocaine
and meth but hey if it makes you do
better in school get better grades
and get that perfect gpa well maybe it’s
all worth it
maybe this is all just a small price you
have to pay to become that
optimal version of yourself well
and this is the reason why we’re here
today what if i told you
that nearly every single study ever done
on this has completely disproven that
exact
idea what if i told you that this
pervasive notion that somehow
illicit amphetamine use will boost
memory focus and learning
has really always just been a giant myth
see sarah and i are part of a student
research team at binghamton university
called be smart also known as the
binghamton student managed adderall
research team
and we’ve actually found that across the
board in nearly every single study we’ve
either conducted or reviewed
illicit adderall use strongly correlates
with lower gpas
i’d like to repeat that illicit adderall
use
strongly correlates with lower gpas time
and time again in our surveys we see
that the very same students who claim to
use adderall for the purposes of
boosting cognition improving memory and
achieving a better gpa
most often will get the exact opposite
results
so taking a step back from all this it
becomes
evident that there’s another factor at
play here that causes people to have
higher gpas and get
and be more productive overall it has
absolutely nothing to do with what drug
they’re taking
in fact we believe that what causes
people to consider using adderall to
study in the first place
is a much deeper condition known as
learned helplessness
so this term describes a person who
feels completely powerless in their
day-to-day life
never giving themselves either the blame
or the praise for anything that happens
to them
and that’s just it life is viewed as
happening to
people with learned helplessness so
let’s do a little self-test
i want you all to think back to a time
where you took a difficult exam
picture yourself sweating feeling
anxious or whatever you felt in that
moment
now when you got your test back and you
saw your score how did you feel
individuals with learned helplessness
who did poorly likely blamed the teacher
for making the
test too hard individuals with learned
helplessness who did
well on the exam likely credited their
high mark to good luck
conversely for all of you who did poorly
on this exam and thought that maybe this
was a reflection of your lack of
preparedness
this would be a representation of
mastery orientation mindset
mastery orientation mindset is quite
literally the opposite of learned
helplessness
this is a growth mindset where
individuals attribute their successes to
their hard work
and believe that their abilities can be
increased through effort
hamsa and i believe that those that use
adderall illicitly
view the world through the lens of
learned helplessness
countless studies support the notion
that those that misuse drugs
have thought patterns associated with
learned helplessness in the case
of illicit adderall use individuals use
this drug because they don’t have the
confidence to perform
well enough on their own this thinking
was the basis for a study conducted at
the university of pennsylvania
this study took 47 subjects and tested
the working memory of them all
these individuals were either given a
placebo pill or adderall
those that were given adderall were more
likely to report that the pill had
enhanced their performance
this is interesting because there was
absolutely no statistically significant
difference
in performance between the two groups on
top of this
both groups performed better than
baseline measurements leading the
researchers to conclude
that their success was a result of their
confidence
this being said there is absolutely
nothing given to you by this pill that
you don’t have already
it really just makes you more confident
in what you do have working as little
more than a glorified placebo effect
it gave you a taste of what you could
potentially achieve if only you have the
confidence
now if these subjects only needed a
little bit of belief
in their capabilities to make these
improvements then imagine
on a broader scale all the achievements
they have robbed themselves of
over the course of their lifetimes so
taking a step back let’s take it as a
lesson to stop
experiencing the world passively as if
things are simply happening to you
without any real input of your own
while life is guaranteed to throw you
some nasty curveballs along the way
a learned helplessness mindset prevents
you from rising to the occasion
and becoming the best version of
yourself in response to all of it
it’ll strip you of your motivation your
ability to take action
and ultimately your self-confidence in
insisting that you can never change your
situation or improve on a specific
ability
you fall into a brutal self-fulfilling
prophecy
now we understand that a lot of this
might be pretty difficult to hear but
there’s plenty of scientific research to
back
all of it up a study at vanderbilt well
we mentioned dopamine earlier as the
neurotransmitter associated with
motivation
and the reward system in the brain well
a study at vanderbilt actually found
that in the prefrontal cortex which is
the area of the brain associated with
higher order executive functioning
slackers have lower dopamine levels than
go-getters
in a nutshell animal models on rats have
found
that learned helplessness correlates
with lower densities of dopamine
receptors in the brain
essentially what this means is that the
attitudes associated with high and low
levels of motivation
literally show up on the biochemical
level however
while some neurological conditions can
absolutely
absolutely require medication to be
fixed it’s also true that you can plant
a seed in your mind
to allow that same dopamine we talked
about to be built
over time barring any substantial
neurological setbacks
it’s absolutely true that a lot of the
wiring of your brain is up to you
and its chemistry is by no means set in
stone
so the brain itself is plastic meaning
that it can adapt to the needs of its
environment
every time you think about a specific
topic or perform a specific
task the neuronal connections in your
brain that allow you to think about this
topic or perform this task
are strengthened conversely for topics
that you don’t think about that a lot
that often
the neuronal connections weaken the
longer they go unused
these thought processes become less
automatic and take more work to remember
right now you might have strong neuronal
connections for a learned helplessness
you might automatically feel like you
have absolutely no control over your
successes or your losses
however over time if you try to reject
these thoughts associated with learned
help assist and actively tell yourself
that you are capable
you have control and so forth these
thoughts will become automatic because
their neuronal connections will have
been strengthened
so this concept that our mindset has an
immense control over every aspect of our
lives can actually be seen in recent
studies
one study was conducted by researcher
alia crum and it revealed how much our
mindset can manifest into
into the physiology of our body
so this study took housekeepers and
split them into two groups
one group was shown a presentation about
how their work was really good exercise
while the other was not
a few weeks later when the researchers
came back they found that the
housekeepers that had been shown this
presentation
had a reduction in body fat
had a lower blood pressure and had lost
more weight than those that had not been
shown this presentation
so what changed these housekeepers
didn’t work any harder than they did
before
their mindset changed and their body
physically responded to this change
this study is a great example of how
responsive our minds are to changes in
thought patterns
using this think about how much of a
difference instilling a sense of
capability will make
the truth is in many many areas of our
lives we are a lot
like the housekeepers in this study and
the fact that a lot of us have fooled
ourselves into thinking we need adderall
to study is but a small piece of
evidence in the grand picture
when many of us were younger it seemed
as though our potential was limitless at
some point though as we got older and
the world got more complicated
we lost that sense of possibility for
ourselves
take it from me i was one of the former
gifted children in early elementary
school who never
ever lived quite up to that in high
school
but just because we forgot about that
potential doesn’t mean that it ever
really went anywhere
and even if we never felt that potential
to begin with you know maybe we didn’t
have the best childhood
that doesn’t mean that we or those
around us ever perceived our abilities
accurately at all
finding our lost potential and trying to
feel capable is an ongoing battle
i too find myself falling down a hole of
learned helplessness thinking at times
this happens most often when i’m feeling
completely overwhelmed with my
assignments
however i’ve been able to overcome this
by breaking down the seemingly
impossible task into significantly
smaller ones
i reward myself for any accomplishment i
make on my way to achieving my larger
goal
and by giving myself these little wins i
increase myself my sense of self
efficacy
and it motivates me to keep going it’s
definitely the furthest thing from a
linear and smooth process
but it works and you can never see it
through if you abandon
all hope at the first sign of struggle
in the less glorious moments this can be
very hard to remember
but sticking to it will but staying
faithful to it
will pay off in the long run as long as
you continue to work hard
and you work smart which is very
important but
as you outdo yourself little by little
the progress should inspire you to keep
going
so bottom line is the next time you come
across a setback or a difficulty in
learning something
don’t see it as a sign that you should
just give up or that it isn’t for you or
that you should pop a pill
understand though that it’s simply a
very necessary rite of passage in
getting to where you need to be
if you’re struggling you’re doing
something right and there’s no drug in
the world that can change this
fundamental fact of progress
to all the students watching this you
owe it to yourselves to bring
to light that same potential that we
keep going on about
perhaps it’s better this way without the
existence of some miracle drug
in the process and the struggle of one
upping each and every one of your
individual goals
no matter how big or how small you
continue to grow and impress yourself
and realize
just how competent you truly are
we wish you the very very best of luck