I’ve spent the last month in Cusco, Peru, doing some trekking and training some local guides for my company Sacred Treks.
During this time, I’ve had a chance to drink coca tea daily and meet with a variety of indigenous guides, teachers and leaders who are advocating for their sacred coca plant.
It’s hard to emphasize how important the coca leaf is to the indigenous peoples who still make up the vast majority of the population in the highlands around Cusco. In the ancient Inca times, people weren’t even allowed enter a sacred temple or huaca without having coca leaves in their mouth.
Today, this sacred plant, which has been so demonized by the modern world is having a resurgence as the United Nations began debating rescheduling it in October 2025, having commissioned a new comprehensive report, which has demonstrated the enormous health benefits of the plant.
In March 2026, the final decision will be made by the United Nations on whether they will overturn the 1961 injunction that made it a restricted plant for export around the world. If it is overturned, this sacred plant could help reconnect people their mind, body and spirit in a way no other plant on Planet Earth could.
In this article, I’m going to focus mostly on the benefits for ADHD but what creative person doesn’t struggle to focus these days? From my 30 day experiment drinking coca tea, I noticed tremendous boost in my focus, mood and productivity that came with almost zero side effects.
I’m going to focus mostly on ADHD here but if I find the inspiration, I’ll go deeper into other beneficial effects I experienced because I was systemically tracking my bio signals with my Oura Ring for HRV, Muse Athena for brain waves and I took my weight, blood tests, glucose and insulin both before and after the experience.
In a nutshell, it was the most effective stimulant I have ever used but it was nothing like typical stimulants like coffee or ADHD medication. It actually lowered my anxiety, boosted my mood from dipping in the afternoon and it significantly improved my sleep and made it much easier to remember my dreams.
It also was very effective for eating better, eating less and fasting resulting in me losing about 6 pounds in the 30 days of drinking coca tea. Just the coca plant alone contains nearly all the plant-based vitamins, nutrients, amino acids and alkaloids necessary to consistently sustain energy without eating.
The possibilities for this sacred plant are almost limitless. There are literally hundreds of medicinal uses for the plants from treating depression, existential anxiety, spiritual malaise, digestive problems, preventing diabetes, weight loss, fasting and much more.
If it’s legalized as a legitimate export in March 2026, I believe it will change the world by helping wake people up in the most profound way.
What Sparked My Interest In The Coca Leaf
I’ve been to Cusco a couple of times on business and I have a winter home near the town of Santa Marta in Colombia, which are the two biggest hotspots for coca leaf consumption by indigenous peoples in the Americas, so I’ve used the plant quite a few times for acclimatization and hiking.
In Santa Marta, there are hundreds of indigenous villages of the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo up in the Sierra Nevada where the men chew coca leaves from from morning to night. In Cusco and the Sacred Valley, the Quechua-speaking people also chew the coca leaves all day long, often having to walk many miles to terraced farms high in the mountains to work with very little food.
When I was doing hikes in these areas, I always enjoyed chewing coca leaves and it gave me this mild sense of peace and tranquillity but it wasn’t until I came across a podcast by two men I highly respect, Wade Davis and Dr. Andrew Weil, in a discussion titled The Sacred Coca Plant, An 8,000 Year History & The Fight To Liberate It that I decided to investigate this sacred plant further.
This led me down a rather deep rabbit hole… Here’s how Wade Davis describes the coca plant:
“Coca is the most beneficial plant that is under-utilized by humanity. It’s a plant that is the greatest gift of Latin America to civilization. It is a plant that has been debased and demeaned and insulted for generations…
This plant has so many benefits and properly grown and developed, you’re talking about an export commodity that could rival coffee as a natural stimulant. It is infinitely more useful and infinitely more beneficial to the body than coffee. And so you’re actually talking about a gift to the world that could allow a country like Colombia, through tax revenue, to secure the funds necessary to pay the cost of peace, having drained its treasury for 50 years to fund a war that wouldn’t have lasted a day without the sordid profits of prohibition.”
It’s a stimulant that’s not a stimulant. It’s something you only know about by the well-being it brings to your day and your ability to focus. The subtle feeling of peace and tranquillity. It helps with focus and concentration.
The sacred is very different than any religious aspiration. It’s about the world around you. It’s not about what happens when you die. The sacred is never divorced from human agency. Ritual is the fertile ground from which the sacred emerges. And so, it’s our intention that turns a chalice into a sacred object or a room of stones into a chapel.”
How The Coca Leaf Helped My ADHD And Boosted Focus
Just a cup of coca tea has a stimulant effect similar to green tea but I found that either chewing the leaves all day or drinking coca flour in a thermos of tea mixed with honey throughout the day builds up the effect and is similar to having the effects of coffee that last all day with no crash.
Now, it’s important to note that consuming coca tea all day, you’re getting about 1-2% of the dose of someone doing cocaine, along with a variety of other health-boosting alkaloids that I will discuss in detail later. The problem with cocaine, which makes it both dangerous, highly addictive and terrible for consistent focus, is that the alkaloid floods into the bloodstream all at once, causing a massive surge of dopamine.
As anyone who has ever researched ADHD medications like Dexedrine, Adderall or Vyvanse knows, they are pharmacologically quite similar to cocaine but they are much more effective because the dose is consistent and they slowly release the amphetamine salts to boost dopamine and focus consistently throughout the day.
What’s interesting about the coca leaf tea is that it also has a similar effect of boosting focus, energy and dopamine all day long but without the horrible crashes, jitters and sleep problems that come with amphetamines for many people.
In fact, I found coca actually made it easier to fall asleep and improved the quality of my sleep. An indigenous teacher from the Q’eros whom I did a coca divination ceremony near Cusco told me that the spirit of the coca leaf speaks to you in your dreams.
I know this might sound fantastic to many people but it actually does. I’ve had extremely vivid and surreal dreams this month and my dream recall has been significantly boosted. It has also made it easier to wake up for the early morning hikes I’ve been doing while I’m here.
What’s In The Coca Leaf?
The coca leaf has been used for thousands of years because it gives steady energy, eases pain and helps the body handle long days in the mountains. Its benefits come from a mix of vitamins, minerals and natural alkaloids.
Most people only know about cocaine, but the coca leaf is the most sacred plant of the indigenous people of the Andes, stretching from Bolivia Peru in the south to Colombia and Venezuela in the north.
It actually contains fourteen different alkaloids that work very differently in their natural state, together it provides a powerful tonic for the mind, body and spirit:
1. Cocaine: Provides mild numbing, stimulant effects and pain relief.
2. Egnonine: Helps your body process fats and carbs and keeps the blood thinner.
3. Pectin: Supports digestion and helps regulate skin pigmentation.
4. Papain: A digestive enzyme that helps break down food.
5. Hygrine: Boosts saliva when oxygen is low.
6. Globulin: Supports blood circulation and helps with altitude sickness.
7. Pyridine: Increases blood flow to the brain.
8: Quinoline: Helps protect your teeth.
9. Conine: Works as a mild anesthetic.
10. Cocamine: Supports pain relief.
11. Reserpine: Helps regulate blood pressure and supports bone formation.
12. Benzoin: Supports the stomach and helps with gastritis and ulcers.
13. Inulin: Helps the liver and gallbladder, reduces harmful buildup and flushes toxins.
14. Atropine: Relaxes smooth muscles and helps digestion.
Along with amino acids and vitamins A, B1, C and E plus niacin, riboflavin and other natural compounds, coca is considered one of the most complete medicinal plants. It helps the body clear toxins and stay hydrated, especially when combined with fruits or herbal remedies.
In terms of biohacking, I found it improved my HRV significantly over the month while inducing an alpha flow state that lasted most of the day. If this plant is ever legalized, there will be a revolution because it’s the ideal plant for today’s generation of digital workers creative professionals and entrepreneurs who sit at a desk all day and use stimulants to focus.
And if you have ADHD, it’s a powerful spiritual medicine that has many benefits beyond improving focus and concentration.
I built the ADHD Entrepreneur Accelerator to help ADHD Founders dial in their content, marketing and sales so they build a growth marketing system for their business.
I also run an cultural ecotourism company called Sacred Treks and a social entrepreneurship community called Social Creators.
- My Counterintuitive Advice for Entrepreneurs with ADHD - February 6, 2026
- How Drinking Coca Tea In Peru For 30 Days Helped My ADHD - February 5, 2026
- 10 Best Music Apps For Boosting ADHD Focus And Productivity - January 19, 2026
