regain my ability to concentrate

I finally got a Ritalin prescription. Tried it (20 mg) 4-1/2 hours ago. Not much effect, as far as I can tell. I got a bit of a headache, felt a tiny bit dizzy, and felt somewhat calm. I’m not sure my concentration improved, but I wasn’t frazzled and I only once forgot what I was doing while in the middle of it. I didn’t get annoyed by slow-loading web pages. I was kind of sleepy (I didn’t get much sleep last night), and got a little hungry. I did not feel any great improvement in my ability to consciously direct my attention, though perhaps there was some; hard to say.

The plan is to try Ritalin for two weeks, and then Adderall for two weeks. Then the semester begins. Hopefully by then I’ll know what works.

It’s been about six weeks since the end of the semester, and I’m still not fully recovered. Much improved, but still finding concentration for more than five minutes or so difficult. That’s a big improvement over 2 seconds, so this is progress.

My feeling after two semesters of grad school is similar to how I felt for about nine hours after an agonizing pair programming session with someone who jarringly interrupted every few seconds. A horrible sort of internal rhythm, where no flow can ever get going.

I’m not sure what to do about this. Ideas so far:

1. Sleep a lot and do nothing for weeks or months until the agony goes away. (What I’ve been doing.)

2. Participate in an in-depth discussion on an email discussion list. (I’ve been doing this, too.) Writing doesn’t require more than short bursts of focus, and you can easily pick up where you left off. Spending a couple hours on one long message is helping me get out of that mode of “expect to be interrupted the instant any flow gets going”.

3. Listen to Kraftwerk. (I started this about a week ago.) I tried listening to Kraftwerk a year or so ago, and thought they were dull and repetitious. Indeed they are. But right now, dull and repetitious is good therapy.

4. Take some sort of job that’s not too demanding. A little focus, a little something completed, a little more focus, and so on, ought to make a nice feedback loop to bring me back to my normal ability to concentrate.

5. Get diagnosed with ADHD-I and try Ritalin or Adderall.

6. Brainwave entrainment. Supposedly you can externally force your brain waves into “beta”, inducing the high-attention state. Sounds iffy, but it also sounds harmless if it doesn’t work, and it costs essentially nothing.

7. Watch movies. I watched recordings of a TV show during the semester, and I think that helped regain a little concentration. It’s completely passive, and you follow one coherent thread for half an hour.

8. Spend some more time in San Francisco. Just a few days back “home” brought rapid improvement.

Has anyone else here lost their ability to concentrate? If so, how did you get it back?