My Student Journey with ADHD Medication 2 – The Science of Breakfast and Exercise

At 21 years old I’ve been put on ADHD medication just after my very rough third year of university has ended. Join me in this recurring column as I talk about the many highs, lows and unexpected twists that medication brings to my student life.

So, weeks two and three have come and gone, it has been an interesting time.

Unlike in week one, there was no novelty or rush of new projects to keep me busy, instead, I was met with a fortnight that was, for all intents and purposes, empty.

But still, I kept myself busy with a little breakfast-based experiment and a lot of exercise to fill my days.

However, I also made a rather disheartening discovery in the process, so let’s talk about it.

Breakfast Science

I briefly mentioned in my last column that the stimulant effects seemed to have been lessening as the week went on and that I believed my lacklustre breakfast was to blame.

Over the first week, I tended towards just having Weetabix and banana for my breakfast and as I felt the stimulants begin to wane, my hypothesis was born.

I believed that a low-calorie breakfast composed of only fruit and fibre simply wasn’t absorbing the stimulants and that a more substantial breakfast that included some form of protein would absorb the stimulant far better and allow me to return to my former power!

And thus, breakfast science.

I started with an egg-based approach as they are healthy, easy to use and cheap (in Scotland at least).

So, for the next two days, I started my day with scrambled eggs and toast with Siracha.

And it worked!
My mind became clear again, my functionality returned, and I could achieve the things I wanted to again.

But then I hit a major issue; eggs are boring.

Yeah, I got sick of eggs in two days. Damn.

But not a total loss, my hypothesis was proven and now I just needed to find a sustainable breakfast.

The key things I was looking for were: something with a bit of protein, simple to make, generally healthy and cheap.

And after much thinking and googling I landed on what I consider the perfect ADHD breakfast:
Fat-free Greek yoghurt, protein granola, melon chunks, banana and honey.

It’s easy, tasty, full of protein, two of your five a day and less than £1.50 per portion from Aldi.

Additionally, most of the breakfast can be prepped the night before which is very helpful for anyone on ADHD meds as before breakfast, and before stimulants, is a time when very few brain cells are firing so the less that needs to be done to get some stimulants absorbed the better.

I’ll admit I spent a frankly silly amount of time thinking about breakfast this week, but it really has made a massive difference.

Besides, I don’t start my new job until next week, so this experiment was one of the only things filling my time.

The other, was exercise.

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

I like exercising, well kind of, it’s complicated.

Essentially, I love the results I get from exercising and I love the way I feel after exercising but the actual act of exercising I find a bit… dull.

It’s just the same actions again and again which is not exactly stimulating.

Especially things like yoga and Pilates, which I’d love to be able to do, are just so boring that I can’t really bring myself to do them, despite knowing how much good I know they’d do me.

This brings me to my point, since starting the stimulants I have done a full home-floor workout almost every day and have run either five or ten kilometres every other day and it’s not even felt like a chore.

In fact, exercising has become the highlight of my days, partially because I haven’t had anything else on but still.

Like with most other tasks and chores the act of starting to exercise has become a much less mountainous task in my mind and I don’t just get bored and wander off halfway through anymore.

On top of all of this, for the first time in my life, I am actually consistently feeling the rush of endorphins when I exercise which has only happened once or twice before in my life.

This isn’t surprising as individuals with ADHD often have lower baseline levels of endorphins.

However, studies have now found that stimulants can increase the levels of endorphin production in the brain on top of the increased levels of dopamine.

If you want to know a bit more about the relationship between ADHD and endorphins you can find it here.

This consistent exercise has done wonders for my physical and mental health.

I have been running two to four times a week for the last few months and was even more consistent last year but I haven’t done a proper floor workout since last summer.

I would end up taking up to an hour just rotting in bed attempting to will myself into starting the workout, but it would rarely work.

Even in the cases that I did start the workout, I was always horrifically bored and ended up wandering off after the first or second set.

But not anymore, now I’m able to start the workout with relative ease, I do still get carried away by TikTok or YouTube a lot, and once I’m started I’ll bash out the whole thing rather than half-arsing it as usual.

Exercising like this has done me the world of good. I feel better, I look better, my mornings have structure and I no longer feel like I’ve totally wasted a quiet day so long as I at least got a workout in.

It’s even given me a goal to work towards as I’m now signed up to run a charity 10k in June which has further boosted my motivation.

I would really urge others with ADHD to build a little bit of consistent exercise into their daily lives but I am well aware that it is a lot easier said than done for many of us especially if you are not medicated.

To Wrap Up

Once again I have ended up going on for far more words than intended so I once again have to commend you if you’ve made it this far.

The last two weeks have taught me that medication is not a silver bullet that will just automatically fix all my problems.

Instead, medication is like a mental lubricant that just gets the system moving and it’s on me to actually achieve.

But these changes in my routine have made a massively positive impact in my life and how I’m feeling so I would urge anyone in my position to try adopting something similar.

Things still haven’t been perfect, I think the medication’s effectiveness may actually be fading now.

But I will talk more about that next time as well as what it’s been like starting work medicated and trying caffeine again, spoiler alert but it’s really fun.

So I hope you’ll join me again next time to here more about my journey with ADHD medication.

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