Johannes C. Mayer's Shortform

Johannes C. Mayer

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I have been taking bupropion for two weeks now. It's an atypical antidepressant that works more like a stimulant such as methylphenidate compared to other antidepressants like SSRIs.

So far my experience has been very positive. Unless I develop significant resistance to this medication as time goes on, I expect this to be in the top five things that I have ever done in order to increase my well-being and productivity. It does not have any annoying side effects for me. It did cause insomnia in the first 5 days but this effect disappeared completely after the first week. It was also very easy and fast to get a prescription (in Germany). It's not available in the UK or Australia iirc.

Therefore I tentatively recommend if you are even slightly depressed sometimes, that you read this document.

For me it was especially useful because it helped in 3 ways:

Make me less depressed (works very well for this. That is what it is for what it is prescribed for after all)
It makes me less fatigued (I had some chronic fatigue before. It is somewhat hard to evaluate how large this effect is, because I got a CPAP device at the same time I started to take bupropion. But there seems to be a noticeable difference before and after I take the bupropion.)
It slightly lessens ADHD symptoms (this is mainly useful for me right now because it takes forever to get a prescription for ADHD medication unless I would put in a lot more time into optimizing to get one faster)

It might even make sense to think about this if you are experiencing any subset of these problems.

1Johannes C. Mayer3y

I watched a video where a doctor said that ADHD does not give you any benefit. I am a lot more creative than other people I think. Specifically a lot more creative than people who are as intelligent as I am. To me, it is unclear if that is not tightly linked to ADHD. As you mention that stimulants can reduce "mental noise/creativity" I am curious what your experience is with this. To be clear I think making your mind less noisy and improving executive function is a very very useful tool. But maybe it is a mistake to use amphetamines as the main signal for being productive. Maybe it would be better to have some days where you are productive off amphetamines because that might allow you to do qualitatively different work. E.g. do some ideation and exploration, and then use the amphetamines to dive deeper into what seems promising.

6Mir3y

Having read a few of your posts, I think you're correct about this. I believe in your general approach! [...] When I first started taking them, it revealed to me that I'd never known what it felt like to be able to think a thought through. Metaphorically, I imagine it sorta like being born with COPD and never realising what it feels like to fill my lungs with air. But I've probably always had a severe deficiency of whatever the stimulants are correcting for; and others who're doing just fine on that front may not share my experience. I take stimulants in the morning, and I'm soon enthusiastic about thinking deeply about ideas. I become more creative because the relevant threads-of-thought have some room to build upon themselves, probably because my mind is now able to mute the noise and non-relevant threads. When on stimulants, I'm much more likely to get lost down rabbit-holes during research, and often don't catch myself before hours have passed. The lack of oomph I feel when off stimulants helps me prioritise only the most essential bits, and it's easier to not overdo stuff—though mostly by virtue of being less capable of doing stuff. Slightly relevant fun RCTs: 1. Alcohol concentration (sorta the opposite of stims of you squint) of 0.069-0.075 BAC seems to enhance performance on Remote-Association Tests (ie semantic metaphors) 1. "On average, intoxicated participants solved significantly more RAT problems (M = .58, SD = .13) than their sober counterparts (M = .42, SD = .16), t(38) = 3.43, p = .001, d = 1.08. Interestingly, this increase in solution success was accompanied by a decrease in time to correct solution for intoxicated individuals (M = 11.54 s, SD = 3.75) compared to sober controls (M=15.24s, SD =5.57), t(38) = 2.47, p = .02, d = .78." Sci-Hub | Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 487–493 | 10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.002 1. Subjects who got RAT question

The lack of oomph I feel when off stimulants helps me prioritize only the most essential bits.

That is very interesting. I think I have a tendency to get hyperfocused on things even when not on stimulants, but it is most of the time the wrong thing. E.g. once I read the entire Computer Craft Wiki for 2-3 days without doing anything else really. I was literally addicted to it. The same happens when I code.

Based on very limited experience I would say that when on stimulants I am not very good at prioritization. Like you say I just keep working on the same ... (read more)