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Also … take breaks. Like this sounds lovely but if I’m on a roll I should stay on it. Taking a break means I’ll probably never come back to what I was doing
“Go and sit in a quiet room with no distractions”But Mother, I AM the distraction!
While often associated with children, there are many adults who do at least exhibit symptoms of ADHD, even if they have not been diagnosed with it. The real numbers may remain vague, asstudies showthat many adults who were diagnosed with ADHD in their forties were identified as having it between the ages of 11 and 15.In North America and Europe, where researchers have more data to work with, the estimates range fromthree to five percent of the population, of which less than ten percent were formally diagnosed at a young age. If this proportion holds for the rest of the world, then perhaps five percent of the human population has ADHD, of which the majoritywould be male.
While often associated with children, there are many adults who do at least exhibit symptoms of ADHD, even if they have not been diagnosed with it. The real numbers may remain vague, asstudies showthat many adults who were diagnosed with ADHD in their forties were identified as having it between the ages of 11 and 15.
In North America and Europe, where researchers have more data to work with, the estimates range fromthree to five percent of the population, of which less than ten percent were formally diagnosed at a young age. If this proportion holds for the rest of the world, then perhaps five percent of the human population has ADHD, of which the majoritywould be male.
“Just be yourself”Um, no. I’m hyperactive, hyperverbal, impulsive, and extremely loud. Better advice is to read the room, pause, try to model social behavior, and pace myself.
Clear away your clutter so you have a clean workspace. Ma’am/Sir, the moment that thing goes out of sight, it ceases to exist. Then I will waste time, energy, and/or money recreating it when I need it.
One of the rarer cases where “general advice” and “advice for folks with ADHD” intersect is when it comes to physical activity.Aerobics in particularhas been found to be an effective add-on to ADHD medication in children and also it can help adults focus for longer periods of time.
When it comes to cleaning: Just do a little bit at a time. That’s not how my brain works. I’m either glued to the chair, or I’m cleaning for at least an hour.
Any that essentially boils down to “so I know you have a disorder that makes it hard to self-regulate, but have you tried self-regulating?”
“buy a planner"I own so many empty planners
For children, the effects are even more visible. Besides simply being healthy for the body, kids that aerobic exercise alongside other treatments were found to have ahost of improvements, from increased behavior and motor abilities to faster information processing speed, and better memory, which is pretty important for people with ADHD, as they can tell you themselves.
I’ve been a night owl since I was literally born and most school nights I would lay in bed tossing and turning all night til the sun came up. This caused me to miss a lot of school because I was constantly exhausted and the only advice I got for it was “go to bed earlier!” Always after me saying I couldn’t fall asleep until 6-7 am despite laying in bed all night. A lot of people seriously just don’t understand or care how adhd actually affects you.
As the aforementioned late-diagnosis statistics show, most people simply assume that what works broadly will work for people with ADHD, even if more people have it than one would think. This means that most folks who have ADHD will need to test tips and advice themselves, as this thread shows. So it can be helpful to look online and see what works for others.
I’ve always been told the best way to work/study is to find a quiet space and focus on the sole task you need to do, but recently I’ve found that listening to heavy/energetic music as I’m working on a task just works so much better for me.
Just meditate. Even worse: no screens before or in bed. Are you freaking kidding me?!
“If they wanted to, they would.“Newsflash: There have been COUNTLESS times I have mentally yelled at myself to do something I know I need to do while being stuck on the couch doom-scrolling on my phone. Depression and anxiety doesn’t help.
On the positive side, the increasing awareness of ADHD does bring some more research on the topic. Recent studies show that there might be a stronger link between creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and ADHDthan previously thought. This same study suggested that Leonarda Da Vinci’s self-described procrastination and strange time management may have been an indicator that he had ADHD as well.
“Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself”.No, it turns out people do want regular communication and birthday presents, and don’t always want Fun Facts.
Anything that effectively suggests treatment isn’t needed.Metanalysis has found that not treating leads to a 5-fold increase in negative outcomes compared to any other approach. Depression, anxiety, substance abuse, … We cause a significant portion of traffic accidents (when younger), high rates of teen pregnancy, or just starting a family ~8 years earlier than the general population on average.The idea that it’s just a personality type, or that everyone has adhd, or that it’s a lack of discipline, or that all you need is a planner, etc etc. All bad advice.Tools and discipline help, for sure. But it’s effectively the fact that they aren’t a solution that makes ADHD a disorder in the first place..
Time blocking. I’m sorry but do you really expect me to stop studying in the middle of a chapter just because I finished my block?? Nah, there’s no break until I’m done
I was in a management class and we talked about “Deep Work”. She said there’s absolutely no way you’re able to do deep work while listening to anything.My dude, I literally don’t even pay attention to what I’m listening to, I just need SOME kind of stimulus in order to function. I am at my least focused when I’m working in silence!One of the rules of deep work is literally “embrace boredom” without realizing that boredom often translates as depression in individuals with ADHD. I physically cannot take it, it’s like someone’s pulling hairs out of my skin every moment I’m understimulated. Easily was my least favorite class because it really did just hammer home that business does not give a f**k, even in health (as it was a healthcare-focused management class)
I feel like “ADHD is a superpower” is corny and unhelpful.
“Don’t worry about it”.As if I can switch off my thoughts. I have literally 5 trillion thoughts going through my mind at any given moment, at least a few of those thoughts are going to be worrying about “it”. I wish it wasn’t the case, but I’m literally worrying about everything everywhere all at once.
After talking to a therapist about my struggles with the work, she said to me “you have to be disciplined”
Generally any type of advice that questions why you do something a certain way when you could do it a cheaper/better/more environmentally friendly/more natural way. This messed with my ability to function for years before I got a handle on it.Examples:- Why would you drink protein shakes? It’s more natural to get your nutrients from food you can get that same protein from x amount of lentils!-Why do you pay to have your car cleaned? You can do that yourself for free!-Why are you paying for pre prepped fruit and veg?! It’s cheaper to buy the bag of whole carrots and they don’t come wrapped in plastic!These are real life examples but it’s now absolutely everywhere especially with the rise of TikTok, a lot of content is aimed at efficiency and streamlining our budgets so I see a lot of this cropping up. Even one hairdresser making videos about ‘Why buy an airwrap? You can create this style with a hairdryer and hairbrush!”If someone with ADHD or any condition impacting their executive function has found a way to do the thing then that is perfectly fine. The advice above led me to 1. Not eat, because protein shakes were now wrong and I didn’t have it in me to prep lentils daily, shockingly. 2. Have a car so messy I couldn’t have passengers. 3. Not get any fruit or veg at all in my diet.
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I have to, HAVE TO, be listening to something that stimulates my brain or I will completely zone out at work. Also while driving.
“break a task into smaller tasks” except now I have a hundred little blocks instead of one huge block and I still have to do it, great.
“You need to make a list and write these things down"I have lists. I have text files saved on my desktop and documents, google docs, google sheets, google keep, apple stickies, apple notes, 2 black moleskines, a handful of legal pads, Microsoft one note, and random folder up pieces of paper in my pocket.
When you start to get depressed - go and do stuff! Wow, really, tell me how? Second - when depressed, I was depressed ever only because I was burnt out.Going out and socializing just made me more overstimulated, tired and desperate due to not being able to keep up with others.So my new advice would be - when getting depressed, first sleep and be alone for a few days, engage with hobbies/hyperfication, and then after this see people and do some light excersise.
“Just make a schedule for the day and follow it!”Excuse me, I’d rather rip my own eyes out, thank you.
My dad is fond of telling me: “Ya gotta want it.” I hate when he implies that I don’t want to get better. The kicker is that he has ADHD too (diagnosed or not I don’t know, but he says he does and I believe it). It’s really frustrating and makes me feel like nothing I do is good enough.
Pomodoro technique. Its the worst.When I finally get to do the task I need to do the task. Otherwise I am again stuck in getting to do the task.Same with 45minute school lessons. Literature begins, 30 minutes into it I finally accept that we begun literature, 15 minutes to go and now I have to transform myself into math?? How?
“If you can’t get yourself to focus on something, just take a st ton of breaks!” This includes all pomodoro bs and adjacent stuff.I don’t know about y’all, but if I took breaks like that, I’d never be able to focus. I need at least half an hour to even start focusing at all, and I’ll need another half an hour after I take that break. And if I do manage to focus on something, I need to cram that st several hours straight because I know if I break that focus when I have it, I won’t be able to get back into it. I won’t put a f*****g alarm to distract me every 30 minutes, that will just kill me more.This kind of extends to any kind of “slow, steady and consistent”. People say I need to do a little bit of x every day in order to stay motivated and not burn myself out and I believed that lie until I realized that is precisely how I’ll burn myself out. Doing things in intense bursts is the only thing that has ever worked for me. “slow and steady” has never done me any good. I need to do things in bursts, go as fast and as long as I want to, and then take a break when it comes to it. It’s the only way I can get anything done.
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“Just clean on the go. If you see dirty dishes, clean it.” Have you ever even considered that I don’t even see the obstacles when I walking? You already saw me cooking with a whole 1 liter bottle of soy sauce in front my chest. I will dodge the bottle, move around it like it a immovable object, not even acknowledge it there until you pointed it out and remove it.
my favorite is “You just need to focus” like if i had full control over my ability to focus i would be taking over the world rather than trapped in a cubicle farm
Stuff like “write a To-Do List” or “use a planner” make me roll my eyes every time, along with “Have you tried meditation?“Sometimes people keep giving the same stupid piece of advice despite me having told them that it doesn’t work for me. Oh, you can just get up and do whatever it is that you need to do? Cool, love that for you, but my brain is wired differently!!! Smh NTs just don’t get it and it makes my blood boil.
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