Many younger adults use focus boosting drugs without a prescription to help them study and stay on track with work. However, new research suggests that such drugs bring healthy adults very few — and only short-lived — benefits while placing their cognitive health at risk in the long run.

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"Adderall and other stimulants [...] are the perfect chemical accomplice in a society that prizes productivity above all else," notes a short article that featured last year in The Lancet.

Adderall is an amphetamine based drug that doctors prescribe to individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or narcolepsy — a condition that causes people to fall asleep suddenly, even in the middle of the day.

The manufacturers of this drug created it to allow people with these conditions to remain alert and focused. Increasingly, however, healthy young people have started procuring and using this and similar drugs as a way of "hacking" their brains to enhance performance while working or studying.

A 2016 study by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, found that in the United States, the nonprescribed use of Adderall had increased by 67% among young adults over approximately 6 years.

Yet, according to a new study by researchers from the University of California, Irvine, the nonmedical use of psychostimulants such as Adderall only brings short term benefits. The team found that in the long run, these drugs, in fact, negatively affect focus, working memory, and sleep quality, creating a vicious cycle.