Jasmine tea and ADHD - my experience

I don't know why but jasmine tea often makes me concentrate a bit better. I drank two cups today and managed to fold all my clothes piled up on my chair, organize papers strewn across the floor, not all of them but I didn't do my usual bit of dumping everything to be organized, get overwhelmed and walk away. I did it sensibly! I just filed my bank bills, and cellphone bills, and those are done! I still didn't do everything I had to, but instead of the 20% I will normally do, it was more like 60%.

I started noticing the effect a couple of weeks ago, and I was curious, and yes I do notice I'm more concentrated and not as scattered. It's not miraculous but it helps! I'm doing some investigation on the internet to see if I can find something on this.

I will do further experiments to see if it's all kinds of jasmine tea or whether it's the particular brand I'm drinking and whether the effect will wear off as my body gets used to it. I don't notice the same effect from drinking red tea (Pu-erh) for example or black tea. Though black tea I generally drink with milk so if there was an effect, the milk might dilute that.

The natural culprit for this effect would be the caffeine, but caffeine normally doesn't do much for me, I'm not sensitive to it, if I drink a LOT, I will notice my heart rate is up and I'm jittery but it doesn't help my concentration so I don't bother drinking coffee, coke etc and I don't like these drinks. Not fond of Red Bull, don't like chocolate, etc. The only product with caffeine I will drink is tea.

Another effect I've noticed is that it dulls my appetite. I don't know if this is because it's affecting my appetite directly or whether it has some effect on my anxiety cause I'm an anxious eater, if I get bored, slightly stressed, etc, I will eat. What I will say is not so much I forget about food but that it doesn't seem so urgent to put something in my mouth NOW!

I do know that many people with ADHD self-medicate with food

Self medicating with food
Eating puts them into a pleasant, trance-like state that is a respite from their often active and chaotic ADD brain.

X: Am too lazy to write a proper entry

Thursday, December 27, 2007
Am too lazy to write a proper entry

so I'll post what I posted on another blog of a woman who's discovering she might have ADD.
You down with ADD, yeah you know me


Hi, sounds exactly like me. I was diagnosed with ADD. I really wish I had an offical diagnosis when I was younger (actually I was pretty sure but didn't know what to do about it.) The not doing ANYTHING, being really creative but not setting plans in motion, and especially the food. I seriously crave carbohydrates and mostly salty. I've eaten dry spaghetti because I was so hungry. One thing left off from that list was impatience, a lot of time the reason I eat junk food, even though I don't even enjoy it and feel sick while eating it, is that I have to eat NOW! CAN'T WAIT, NOW!I hadn't related my weird food habits to ADD, I know the connection but didn't really think about it. I've taken meds for depression, anxiety and ADD.

In Spain, we only seem to have access to methylphenidate RITALIN and Concerta, I think Strattera will be coming soon. I'm not fond of meds at all but sometimes it does help. What you can do is take Ritalin occasionally, I don't like Concerta cause it stays in your system for a long time and I don't like the side effects. I take Ritalin occasionally when I really need to. (Like when I HAVE to sort things out so I can be ditzy for the rest of the week and not get into serious trouble.)

I'm not worried about addiction or anything as I'm a monumental forgetter, I always forget to take my meds, and I've been using Ritalin for about a year now and over the years other meds for anxiety, sleep issues, depression. I did hate to take all those pills but I realize I needed them. But talk to your doctor of course. And if you are not feeling right, don't let them stuff the pills down your throat if you choose to take this path and watch your health carefully.And of course keep up the natural supplements. I take fish oil, good for depression, ADD, eczema, asthma and allergies (yep, I have all of those), borage oil, garlic capsules, vitamin E. Good luck