Students turn to ADD and ADHD prescription drugs in times of stress
Have you ever had difficulty concentrating on homework? What about refraining from spacing out during class or on a test? This is perfectly normal, and you are not alone. A lot of students like you are suffering from an inability to concentrate on the task at hand, which of course impairs academic achievement.
Disturbingly enough, however, many of your classmates are enlisting the help of prescription drugs for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
You probably know students who are taking Adderall, Ritalin or another prescription drug. Perhaps you yourself are one of these students under the influence. Many takers of these drugs claim to have noticed a significant change in the way they were thinking during the time that they were taking ADD and ADHD prescription drugs, because drugs that help you focus are indeed altering the very chemistry of your brain.
Some students stop taking the pills once they come to this realization, while others continue to take them for lack of a better way to concentrate.
ADD and ADHD are diagnosed in both adults and children. Symptoms can include inattentiveness, hyperactivity, becoming bored very quickly, an inability to concentrate on a given task for more than a few minutes, and an inability to listen when spoken to. ADD and ADHD are similar in symptoms, but those diagnosed with ADHD are more hyperactive in their distractedness, as opposed to quietly spacing out and being unable to concentrate.
There is no cure for this perfectly ordinary problem, which is often treated with pills. These are prescribed despite the fact that, as with other prescription drugs, ADD and ADHD medication has side effects. The ADD and ADHD medication known as Adderall contains amphetamine, which, if misused, causes heart failure. Other side effects, while not fatal, can be debilitating and painful.
The drugs may not be necessary either way, as it seems as if most of the population (children in particular) share these “problems.” Some people have even gone so far as to say that everyone has ADD or ADHD. It has been suggested that this is not a true disorder, but merely one of the many problems that we as human beings face.
So why use the pills?
The average attention span of college students is 25 minutes, which is of course only a fraction of the usual time that a class lecture or assignment takes.
According to University of Kentucky researcher Alan DeSantis, 25–34 percent of college students are abusing ADHD prescription drugs to overcome this short attention span, particularly during times of intense stress. This is not merely the percentage of students who use it, but the percentage of students who are taking the pills more than they should be.
Though the use of prescription drugs can increase one’s attention span and may seem helpful to students, consequences from their abuse are a danger that every user should make an effort to go without.
Short attention spans, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity are perfectly ordinary problems, and we should not shut down the parts of ourselves that make us human simply to do better on a test that we already have the ability to study for without drugs. Generations of students before us have gone without drugs to complete their work; there’s no reason to expect our generation to need them any more than they did.
Here is the reality: children are being given medication as a form of lazy parenting, and upon reaching adulthood, these same individuals are continuing to use these pills because of the help they think they are getting from them. We as a society are using dangerous drugs that are legal only in the United States and Canada for a simple problem that everyone has.
It is far better for students to have trouble focusing than to take drugs that not only alter the way they think but that also can cause health problems if abused. If we are using medication for an inability to concentrate, we may as well invent pills to avoid other ordinary aspects of humanity, such as stress-eating and nose-picking.
If the course load that students are dealing with makes many of them stressed enough to begin taking prescription drugs, perhaps what they need is time off from school or to add activities in addition to school that make them happy and give them the strength to move forward.
Many of the students using ADD and ADHD medications in college are those who have continue taking the medication that their parents have given them since childhood. Old habits die hard, after all, and in some cases, perhaps they need it.
But if you are one of the 25–34 percent of students taking ADD and ADHD prescription drugs to excess, it might be time to try going without it. Unless you’ve been properly diagnosed, this is a medication you do not need for a condition you do not have.
It’s funny because a lot of people who actually have ADHD don’t want to take any medication. They like the way their brains function, even though the symptoms cause problems sometimes.
It’s also weird that stimulants help to focus the ADD brain (it seems counter-intuitive). But to a “normal” person, these drugs make you feel like superman. After all, it’s just the same as speed/meth, just dialed down to metabolize slower.
I agree that these meds are extremely addictive and dangerous for the vast majority of people!
-B
There are irresponsible doctors who choose the easiest way to deal with ADD or ADHD. This should be avoided since this will only makes things worse for a person suffering from this condition!