Seven Goldfish

euphemistically thought fertilizer

A personal RCT on Saffron for ADHD

Small, citizen science RCT at home; anxiety down p = 0.028, sleep improved p = 0.085, focus… *shrug* probably. Then I zoom out to the formal trials and make a dad-level decision.

“RCT or GTFO.” Sentiment on the Internet

Why I did this

I’m temperamentally a guy who is good at long stretches of uninterrupted deep work. I don't particularly think of myself as ADHD, but I wouldn't rule it out. With tasks it's hard for me to start and frustrating for me to stop. Currently my life is 300 random things that should get done, only ~50 things can possibly get done, and I have to choose what is actually a priority on a day by day basis. I'm being a drama queen about it, but it is all inherently pretty disorganized. So: I ran a tiny, actually blinded randomized trial on myself.

What I did (kitchen-table methods)

I randomized days, kept myself blinded to the condition (“Active” vs. “not”), logged outcomes, and only unblinded at the end. I’m not trying to publish in a journal; I’m trying to decide. With small N, you look for stable patterns and keep the math honest, not fancy.

What it felt like (subjective)

Day 1 was unmistakable for me:

oh, I just took a drug.
Task initiation was easier, once I decided on a task I could finish it without wondering if I had picked the right task. Sleep also felt less brittle. I typically fall asleep with ease and struggle with waking up in the middle of the night. It seemed slightly perceivable during the trial, but I didn't really know what days I was dosed so it was harder to tell.

Many “dose” mornings had a deal-with-stuff mode tone. All the complexity was there, but I would pick something work it down and then pick something else. Anxiety’s edges softened. Sleep felt sturdier. Not every day; life also intervened sometimes. One day my hip/back went out and I did stretching full-time for two days, which nuked productivity regardless of drugs. Another day my gut issues flared up and I was just miserable.

What the numbers said (objective)

anxiety dropped on saffron days (largest, cleanest movement). Sleep quality ticked up on saffron days, and, both predictably and independent of condition, better prior-night sleep predicted a better next day on my ADHD composite (and somewhat on anxiety). Focus/Productivity/Mood all leaned in the right direction but didn’t clear the small-sample fog; the simplest read is that focus rode the anxiety/sleep improvements.

I also could tell dose vs placebo days better than base rate: I guessed correctly ~65% of the time. During the trial I said several times that I thought my "guess if this was a placebo day" column would be 80%+ accurate, I got a p = 0.008 which means it wasn't my imagination, but I overestimated my clarity. This is what blinding is for: calibrating vibe to reality.

Zooming out: what the trials say

The pediatric literature is what first made saffron interesting. A small, double-blind randomized trial in kids found saffron produced symptom improvements comparable to methylphenidate over six weeks—provocative, though obviously underpowered and short by medical standards (Baziar 2019).

A follow-up pilot in kids/teens added an objective continuous performance test (CPT-3) alongside parent ratings; again, comparable efficacy overall, with a hint that saffron helps hyperactivity more while MPH covers inattention better (Blasco-Fontecilla 2022).

For adults, there’s a randomized placebo-controlled trial where adding saffron to methylphenidate beat methylphenidate alone over six weeks (Pazoki 2022). It fits my pattern as well

Zooming out, a 2024 systematic review of four trials (≈118 patients) says the quiet part: “promising signal, safe enough short-term, please run larger multicenter trials” (Seyedi-Sahebari 2024).

There’s also sleep-specific evidence in non-ADHD adults—consistent gains in subjective sleep quality, sometimes stress/insomnia scores—which lines up with my “sleep as propellant” story (Rafiei 2023).

Putting it together

My N=1 data say: saffron lowered anxiety, likely helped sleep, and that combo probably made focus easier. The formal trials point in the same direction—especially for anxiety/sleep/hyperactivity—while admitting we need more power and duration to make regulators happy. For my purposes (dad-level decision-making), that’s enough.

Honestly I don't know why this isn't red-hot. Seriously, here is an Herb, reasonably priced by medical standards, That treats ADHD as well as amphetamine and stacks nicely with it as well. It likely doesn't have any of the long term side effects either. At the very least it's going to have different long term side effects.

Decision & what I’m actually going to do

Mission accomplished. I’ll dose my kid, watch closely, and measure what we care about. I have a few close friends with a good dose of the ADHD and I think I'm going to see if I can rope them into trying to replicate my study.

For myself this feels like a useful tool in the toolbelt. I'm likely going to take Saffron on any days when I expect a large load of work or complexity. I'm also going to do some much more casual experimentation with taking a lower dose later in the day to see if it helps with sleep.

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