I have ADHD. Why does caffeine make me anxious but nicotine calms me down, when they are both stimulants?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “adhd coffee makes me anxious“
I have ADHD. Why does caffeine make me anxious but nicotine calms me down, when they are both stimulants?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “adhd coffee makes me anxious“
Nicotine affects almost every neurochemical pathway via agonisation of acethylcholine receptors, which is a mediator of neurosignals and speed of that messaging.
Caffeine is much weaker in the context of affected mediators.
It’s hard to know about a particular case for certain, but it’s probably relevant that these medicines effect different neurotransmitter pathways. Caffeine works by binding to adenosine receptors but not functioning like adenosine, thus blocking the ordinary adenosine signalling. Adenosine is most known as a signal for sleepiness, but it also has certain trickier roles, some of which seem to be at least peripherally implicated in at least some cases of ADHD. Nicotine, contrariwise, binds to a subtype of acetylcholine receptors, and once there, does function somewhat like acetylcholines, a family of neurotransmitters that includes both dopamine and noradrenaline, whose shortage in synapses is known to play a major part in ADHD. For comparison, the canonical ADHD medicines work by causing increased release of dopamine to synapses (the dominant mechanism for the amphetamine family of medicines) or by inhibiting the reuptake of dopamine and usually also some noradrenaline, because they’re chemically very similar (the dominant mechanism for methylphenidate and its close relatives), which means that once a dopamine signal has been activated in a synaptic pathway, it will remain active slightly longer than it would without the medicine. As you can see, nicotine’s mechanism of action is closer to the main ADHD medicines’ than caffeine’s.
With ADHD why does nicotine calm you down and caffeine makes you anxious? I also have ADHD and in all of the reading i have done about it apparently nicotine helps the symptoms of ADHD. Do not know why but it does. A lot of people are smoking more and not realizing it but they are self medicating. ( or maybe they do) And it does help. Caffeine is still a stimulant and that is why it is making you anxious. Just because we have ADHD it does not mean all stimulants will help our symptoms. Instead of smoking to get the nicotine you would be better to talk to your doctor and be put on the right medication for your symptoms. Smoking is only going to complicate things by hurting your lungs down the road. I am much better controlled with ADHD meds than nicotine.
Stimulants in general calm me down. Maybe cause that one works better, maybe it’s a placebo effect.
The thing is the internet can’t answer this. It’s all pharmacology and neurology stuff. And that’s something to ask a doctor.
All stimulants are not created equally.
Even within the stimulant class of medications, there are two classes (amphetamine and methylphenidate) and many choices of delivery systems within each class! Different people, different responses.
As for nicotine and caffeine, yes, they are both stimulants — but their chemical makeup is very different. So are the receptors they target.
This paper from 2000 touches upon the differences:
“…whereas nicotine increased EEG power in some higher frequency bands in some conditions, caffeine decreased EEG power across almost all conditions. Serum cortisol concentration, vigor, and pleasantness were increased by nicotine, but not by caffeine. Level of depressive mood depended on an interaction of caffeine and nicotine. Vigilance performance was enhanced significantly by caffeine and was increased almost significantly by nicotine. The findings were interpreted in terms of common and differential mechanisms of the two drugs.”
Effects of nicotine and caffeine, separately and in combination, on EEG topography, mood, heart rate, cortisol, and vigilance.
It all depends upon your particular symptoms of ADHD. Just like when you have an infection the doctor might prescribe a certain antibiotic or some other one, depending on the symptoms. It’s the same thing with ADHD. Different metabolic characteristics respond to different drugs (in this case nicotine and caffeine) in different ways.