A very good writeup of how it works. Especially the perfection or nothing thing. I found that Trello helps because the stickers you create can be very simple, and I always need a reminder.
I've been in the diagnostic process for ADHD twice. First time I ended up losing all the paperwork, and getting kicked out of it. In the time between the first and second attempt, I developed PTSD which essentially stalled the second diagnostic as they could not cleanly differentiate between the two. For some reason, getting a diagnosis has been nearly impossible for me, despite each diagnostician saying "ADHD is highly likely", and the PTSD was a downstream effect of untreated ADHD.
I'm curious of any other developers have found effective, non-medication based ways to manage this.
Yes to both. I also wear an Apple Watch with the main display being a heart rate graph to monitor my stress levels over the day. I tend to average a resting rate of 100 bpm during periods of higher stress, and between 60-70 in periods of lower stress. Longer periods of high BPM indicates that I need to take a break.
The PTSD presents mostly in incredibly severe trust issues, periodic nightmares related to events, depersonalization, sleep problems, and paranoia. I also have an absurdly overblown startle response that looks more like a panic attack than someone being jump-startled. If I'm startled "badly enough", it triggers a panic attack. "Badly enough" can simply be someone tapping me on the shoulder when I didn't notice them coming up behind me.
I have and am. I got the PTSD diagnosed when I was trying to get the ADHD one done. And most of the sorting things out is directly related to the PTSD aspect, rather than ADHD.
I feel incredibly lucky that my parents got me evaluated for ADHD and Autism when I was still a minor.
It's much much harder as an adult. There is a lot of stigmatization and also this thought of "oh you got through school, oh you got this far" for adults with ADHD.
I used to take medication and it helped me a lot. Now however I have come off of them completely. The side effects can be devastating. In my case, I developed strong insomnia as amphetamines are much stronger than caffeine. Sleeplessness over a longer period can be very mentally deteriorating.
The advice I can give is to actively seek interaction with others suffering from the same, actively accept and ask for all accommodations and help, give yourself enough time for what you need to do and don't compare your experience to the neurotypical one.
It is different and it's a matter of coping and accepting oneself and ones disadvantages as a normal part of life.
Another thing I often say to people in my therapy group is that they should also be politically proactive about their condition. Things like healthcare covered medication, ensured accommodations etc and the fight against stigmatization are political by nature.
> The advice I can give is to actively seek interaction with others suffering from the same, actively accept and ask for all accommodations and help, give yourself enough time for what you need to do and don't compare your experience to the neurotypical one. It is different and it's a matter of coping and accepting oneself and ones disadvantages as a normal part of life.
This has been my approach at this point. I've had to accept that I will likely never get medication, or even a proper diagnosis. My family actively fought every teacher who suggested I had ADHD, and there were several. Very honestly, the only reason I have sought diagnosis is to get accommodation which would let me work within the focus patterns ADHD causes.
My closest friend has ADHD, and my partner is in the process of getting an ASD diagnosis. The majority of my time is spent around neuroodivergent types.
Simply having people around you who share your experience is incredibly helpful, since you can talk to them freely and be understood. I've given up trying to discuss the experience with people who are NT simply because the understanding that the challenges I face are not just inconvenient just isn't there.
>This has been my approach at this point. I've had to accept that I will likely never get medication, or even a proper diagnosis.
I don't see how the rest of your comment follows from this quote. Don't give up bud, its always worth trying. You can simply not take meds if you don't want to.
> don't compare your experience to the neurotypical one
I can't help myself from doing this, but I am not sure if I truly should want to stop making such a comparison. I find it leaves me feeling like I am inferior or sub-human. I have ADHD, and so what? ADHD can make things more challenging, but not impossible (within the realms of reason).
The fact you lost the paperwork should be a pretty damn good indicator and this part made me laugh out loud. I'm glad to have been simply diagnosed by someone who just accepted my story as true. All this talk about diagnosis is just bizarre. It's not a 0-1 sort of thing, they have to trust you. Unfortunately you have to be confident and assertive because they will gas-light you in the name of being 'careful'.
Sports can be an important piece of the puzzle in the ADHD lifestyle. Especially high-intensity, game-like, engaging ones that you can identify with and be good at. I swear my executive self-control and discipline have improved since I started training tennis several years ago.
Now do remembering to fill your medicine when you're off your medicine :) you need extreme executive loading to argue with insurance and RXs especially with the supply chain issues.
The first time I got medical treatment for ADHD, I eventually stopped treatment because I missed a Dr. appt due to being sick and just couldn't get myself to arrange a follow up appointment.
And they vend it out to you one refill at a time too (at least with my provider), and due to the stimulant shortage you have to go to hospitals to get it filled and even then they don't have it available for some time
I ran out of meds once but thank God my lady forced me to go get them asap because she couldn't handle me off the meds anymore
Blame the War on Drugs and our asinine DEA with drug scheduling that is completely decoupled from science and reality. Never vote Republican, they just enjoy torturing the sick.
That's why I use nicotine patches. I don't know how much of the benefit they deliver compared to something like Ritalin, but I do see a measurable improvement. (Including getting a major promotion)
This has caused so many extremes in my life that I know actively avoid stimulant medications even though they objectively improve my quality of life. I wish excruciating agony upon the DEA and anyone who supports the current schedule system. It is just torturing the ill so that mediocre busybodies can feel superior without actually accomplishing anything.
Do you also have an aversion to paperwork? Seems to be "a thing". Paperwork has paralysed me ever since I've been in high school. Have gotten in trouble and paid fines over procrastinating paperwork over my whole life.
I am also on the "Highly Likely", and currently on the waitlist for a clinic. The best thing I did was being open and honest with my partner, as my ADD behaviors would sometimes exasperate her. I did the same with my manager at work, and it can usually get you some degree of accommodation which can help you cope.
I suffer for the 3-for-1 Triple A special: Autism, Anxiety and ADD. Seems to be a fairly common combination. Physical exercise helps greatly with anxiety, and helps to some degree to ADD as it does generate a certain sense of "reward" in my brain.
Last year I sent a friend a package. It took me over a year to send the damn thing. Why? I just couldn't find the motivation to send it. I had all the contents packed up in a box ready to go, and I live like 0.2 mile walk away from a Post Office. Still took over a year to send it.
Oh! I have another. I once drove with expired car tags for like 3 to 6 months. I already had them renewed and everything. In fact, my tag sticker was in the damn glove compartment the whole time. I just kept procrastinating on putting the sticker on because I didn't want to carve out the 1 minute it takes to unscrew the license plate cover, clean the plate, and apply the sticker.
"I'll do it <insert future time>."
It's shit like this that kills me.
Ironically, I had less issues with this kind of stuff prior to being medicated, but I also was younger and had less responsibility in my day-to-day life, so medication might not be a correlated much.
I totally get it and have been through exactly what you describe many times.
What finally helped me was (a) the advent of online services for nearly everything, so I can do it all in one session and not have to do multiple steps to accomplish something (or any back-and-forth phone/mail), and (b) a "just do it now" mindset. Like, when a bill comes I somehow finally have myself psyched to pay it online right away (don't ask me how I got here, I don't know. Maybe it's because I tied money handling to checking my bank balance when I get a paycheck - that's when I do most of my banking... seeing a higher balance and moving money around (and by extension, paying bills) feels exciting now to my lizard brain.) Otherwise, if I don't take care of it right away, I know it'll literally never happen.
I know that if I had been born 20 years earlier, I'd have a much worse credit score and probably be much poorer due to late fees. Online services and auto-bill-pay make such a difference.
Paperwork is my nightmare. I don't forget to do them, I just can't seem to get started on them even if they're simple and quick. Things I've done in the past
- Put off paying a traffic citation until I got a late fine that doubled the amount
- Put off gathering paperwork for taxes until my accountant told me if I don't send it now he won't be able to file this year
- Drove around with expired plates for 6 months until the car got towed parked on the street
Looking back, it feels silly to procrastinate on these simple tasks for so long but I guess that's the ADHD brain at work.
If you want to take one more shot at it, try any online pill mill, the diagnostic process is much easier post-covid and may be as simple as a brief in-person interview with a non-MD practitioner.
I always find it interesting when people have a hard time getting a diagnosis. I was diagnosed as a child with ADHD and I've had ... tens of psychiatrists over my life and when I eventually move and go to a new one I've never once had one want to re-diagnose or have me prove in some way that I'm ADHD. I just tell them that I'm ADHD and my other neurodivergent issue and they prescribe me my medication.
I've never told a new pysch who my previous psych was so I'm sure they're not getting my medical records from them unless there's some sharing system I'm unaware of.
I wonder if I come off as strongly ADHD. I've been called "intense" before, whatever that means. I'm definitely fidgety and a horrible leg bouncer.
Lol
I was kind of rediagnosed as an adult and I missed the first appointment. Then it took me half a year to make another one. There I forget half my papers … and so on …
After 1h talk and some tests where I refilled everything so oft that it was a mess they didn’t have any doubt.
Ask a friend to dedicate time to be with you (even on remote) when you fill/send the paperwork. Or hire a secretary/student to do it for you.
You need a crutch, that's OK and totally normal!
Pauses. I am experimenting with basic scheme of 25 mins focus and then 5 mins pause. It is mind blowing how it lowers frustration and sort of ensures that I start work only on a clear task which I often tend to loose to easily.
The biggest surprise are the pauses (no, no email checking or web browsing; get up and move around). While formerly I experienced it that I don't have enough time to do what I want to do, I experience just the opposite of it during pauses. Now, what do I do in this time? Wow. That's new.
But also hard to stick to it. But there is more to it, the rules and principles that go along with it.
Sounds like the Pomodoro Technique [0] (also mentioned in the article). Glad it is working out for you!
I tried that to help with my ADHD with very little and very fleeting success.
The classic Pomodoro is said to be 25minn + 5 mins break, which adds up to half an hour, which is a common measurement unit for time worked. I've discovered that for my needs, a 20 min pomodoro with 5 mins rest works better.
The problem is that Pomodoros are hard to count if you hit flow state and find it hard to stop when the timer rings.
To add a data point, I used to do Pomodoro timing (25+5 min) but now switched to 15 min timer with a loose 2-5 min break. It's still hard to actually pull out of hyper-focus/anxious perseveration sometimes, but the shorter timer period seems to match my task cadence better. And the non-timed break just vibes better because it doesn't feel like punishment then.
I'm sure the post is useful but i'm getting really distracted by the AI anime-like art. Maybe tone it down a bit, yeah? For a post about helping ADHD sufferers focus on what matters, it's quite incongruous.
Extremely relatable. Hyperfocus... I can easily spend over twenty hours focusing on something once I get in the zone, but it's extremely difficult to open the editor and start programming. Coping mechanisms and adaptative behaviors are all good and all but the power of lisdexamfetamine cannot be underestimated.
Lisdexamphetamine is a big help, but the side effects can be devastating.
Of course every person is different, but for me this reduced my sleep quality significantly. I can no longer take any of these meds if I want a good restful night of sleep. When I was younger it was no problem though.
It took me a long time to dial in my vyvanse prescription so it wasn't impacting my sleep, plus not taking it on the weekends.
Stress in all its forms also turned out to be a critical factor in sleeping well, too. Simply taking on fewer responsibilities (which I attribute in part to my particular ADHD) helped a lot there.
I can plus one this. I thought it was the stimulant dosage in the afternoon that was keeping me up all night, but it turns out to be stress! Once that is relieved, things go back to normal.
My doctor suggests I take Vyvanse on the weekends, 7 days a week - I feel like after taking it so long (almost a decade) I don't know who I am anymore off the pills - like I'm a different person almost?
Did your doctor suggest weekend breaks, or is this something you've tried yourself and found works for you?
Every doctor I have had has recommend taking breaks if and when possible. I try to do it myself, and I think it makes a difference. The research on tolerance to medications is not well agreed upon. I am not expert, but I do not see any biological way that the human body would not gain a tolerance to some degree when constantly exposed to an exogenous substance that alters dopamine, GABA, etc..
Nicotine tolerance is real. So is caffeine, cocaine, meth, etc.. I do not see how our medications would be any different.
That's interesting, I found it actually helps with my sleep. As it wears off (around the end of the work day) I feel pretty tired. Plus I no longer need to drink coffee to get through the day, so I think the lack of caffeine helps too.
I just want to offer an alternative perspective because I think it’s important not to discourage people who might be put off trying meds because of the potential downside. Once I had the dosage, and importantly a second dose at mid day dialed in, my sleep actually improved. My sleep problems were caused by adhd, so having it be treated as I was winding down for the night was a huge improvement in my ability to sleep.
I don't take it myself either. I've always been afraid of the cardiovascular risks associated with stimulants. I've seen recent research suggesting it doesn't increase risk but still.
"Coping Mechanisms: Over the years, adults develop various coping strategies that can mask ADHD symptoms. For instance, someone might excessively rely on calendars, to-do lists, or alarms to compensate for forgetfulness."
I certainly agree with calendars/alarms but todo lists for me are a place to put things instead of doing them and then they become a separate problem all of their own
They help me. At least the physical, paper ones do.
I keep my days on track by taking time in the early morning and reviewing the previous days accomplishment/misses/notes and then writing down an outline of today's goals and reminders. Notes throughout the day get jotted in the margins. Something like maybe 70% blogging, 30% to-do list?
Can't say I've ever used an app that felt 1/8th as helpful. It feels like there's some extra brain magic going on in the process of putting thoughts on actual paper that results in more retention and effort of thought put into writing.
For me the most important function of a todo list is to remind me what I am supposed to be doing _right now_. I often get distracted and veer off to do something else, but a quick glance at the top of my todo list gives me that little nudge to go back. Anything further down the todo list will possibly stay undone.
That's a feature of todo lists I think. Well, perhaps not for ADHD per se, but it's a way also to offload and let go of things. At least that's what I remember the lifehack character on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy said.
Todo lists help me deal with tasks not worth doing. I feel anxiety over forgetting things, even if they're ultimately not important - it can be hard to tell what's important in the moment.
Putting it in a todo list allows me to let go of the anxiety of forgetting, because I know I'll triage and prune my todo list soon enough.
Yeah, prioritizing tasks is also part of the problem for me. I use the TickTick app to save my tasks and it has a feature called the Eisenhower Matrix, which allows me to prioritize my tasks in a visual way like a kanban board. Sometimes that's not enough. Keeping to a schedule to form a habit is also a challenge, so I prepend a number to the most important tasks and set up reminders for them. Once I have the big tasks laid out in the app, I revert to old school pen and paper to break the tasks down into smaller parts because it's faster and reduces friction.
Maybe that sounds like overkill, but I've found that having a system for writing down tasks, prioritizing them, and creating a daily schedule/habit are all equally important for people with ADHD.
I used to think they didn't. It is entirely pointless and even something of a distraction if it's something that's currently part of my hyperfocus/obsession.
If it's something I might forget (e.g. an admin task), then if I don't put it in a list and have either a habit to pluck it out of the list or a reminder prompting me then it is usually forgotten.
I also rely very much more heavily on checklists (especially templated checklists) than the average person. If I'm traveling and I don't set a reminder for 7pm the night before a trip with a packing checklist then I will either forget 4 critical items or I will be frantically packing at the last minute or both.
and then they become a separate problem all of their own
I struggle with it too.
There are an infinite number of possible todo systems and different systems will work for different individuals at different times. But, I do feel there are two immutable truths w.r.t. successful todo list tasking.
1. You have to aggressively prioritize and prune them.
2. You should have separate daily/weekly/monthly/"someday" lists. Or some variation on this them. Maybe you do weekly/monthly/someday. Or today/tomorrow/someday. Whatever.
Point is it can't be a single infinitely expanding list or multiple infinitely expanding lists. Otherwise it's just a giant guilt pile that is 50% full of crap you don't even care about any more.
I still struggle but I think embracing those two principles is table stakes
In my case I have to say that is only half true. As an adult-diagnosed ADHD sufferer I cannot say that I developed coping strategies on which I relied excessively that masked my symptoms. Rather, I used to try [0] to develop coping strategies, only for me to eventually drop them for unexplainable reasons at the slightest routine-messing incident or event, regardless of how effective the strategy was being or how good it felt. And then some time later I would [will] try again, under the blissful delusion that this time it will stick overriding the rational memory that I never succeed in setting up a system on which I can rely for the medium-to-long term. Rinse, wash, repeat.
I am now in a low, with no active strategy, and without the mental strength to start working on a new one. Hopefully though I will recover my mojo soon and organise myself again. And I'm sure this time it will stick...
[0] I still try to develop coping strategies, but I used to too.
This is me. I stopped trying to be organized, because I know that as soon as there is some inconvenience or difficulty organizing, I will just get overwhelmed and drop everything I was trying to do. For example, I just cannot take notes or manage a calendar.
I got an e-ink notepad, which helped organize my thoughts better than the 10 different legal pads I would jump between. Still disorganized, but at least now my notes for a single topic are in one place.
For a calendar, my wife hung this acrylic calendar on the kitchen wall and we update it at the beginning of every month. I try to add things as they come up, and I often forget to add things if they are in future months, but it's helped for me to keep track of family arrangements. Any personal appointments I make on my own I try to put immediately into my google calendar, and then my work calendar is completely separate. As I'm typing this I realize I rely heavily on others to manage most of my time...
Remarkable. I really like it. There are a lot out there now: Supernote and Fujitsu Quaderno seem like high-quality products; Onyx Boox has more features; Kindle Scribe is out now, too, and the reviews are good.
I do the same. And while it’s frustrating that nothing seems to stick long-term, I think it’s important to be trying. I’ll create a recurring to-do list of errands and I’ll stick to it for a week if I’m lucky. It feels bad when I find all those errands incomplete the following week when there’s a slight change in schedule, but at least those things got done the first week. And I pivot to a new strategy and try it all again.
The cycle stopped bothering me so much when I realized that’s what it is: a cycle. It ebbs and flows with my energy levels. And frankly part of why I can’t keep it up is probably because I’m putting too much demand on myself. If I need to take a break, I guess that’s just what needs to happen. I’ll probably pick up a more productive routine again next week.
I think that seems healthy to me. As folks with ADHD we are typically novelty-seekers. I think it's ok to accept that one's systems will be ever-shifting.
For a decade or two I've gone back and forth between paper and electronic note-taking and I think that's OK, I don't have to find one perfect forever system for everything.
this hits home with a caveat: Every time I try a new strategy, even if I drop it later, I end up a bit better than before. It's like with each try, my starting point for the next attempt is a little higher. Once I accepted that this is just how things work for me, I stopped feeling anxious about it too.
That's me too (except I was diagnosed as a kid). Only thing that has worked reliably with me is Dexmethylphenidate, but it messes with my sleep, so I get to choose between my brain feeling like mush in the morning or playing the focus-lottery for the rest of the day.
I've recently been wondering if maybe I'm overcrowding myself in this way. I mean I definitely am, but I'm starting to wonder if there are any other options besides burning through tasks whenever I get a good day.
I don't think I've had an empty task list in my entire professional career outside of changing jobs and effectively declaring task bankruptcy. Todoist's end of day notification often says something like "review the 54 tasks remaining for the day".. One day someone will figure out a system that works for every ADHDer in the modern world and we'll have a new tech/space/etc renaissance, haha
Incidentally I saw this meme on Twitter while procrastinating something or other earlier, quite apt https://img.imgy.org/1xkR.jpg
Best of luck to you, me, everyone else struggling with this one!
For me, the biggest takeaway from David Allen's "Getting Things Done" book (which was hugely popular in the early 2000s) was that todo lists require aggressive pruning.
Otherwise they work well at first but quickly become giant guilt piles, aka "54 tasks remaining for the day" syndrome.
(Also then you never get the satisfaction of clearing your daily list, because it is one neverending eternal infinite list)
Which of your 54 daily tasks should be put on a "tomorrow" or "next week" or "next year" list? Which of them truly need to be done in the next 24 hours?
The total system he prescribes is perhaps a little elaborate, in many peoples' opinions.
Some people have great success with his system as described! I don't want to prejudice your thinking!
But I think perhaps 10x as many people found a lot of value from the principles he describes and adopting the bits of his system that work for them. (I am one of them) I'm just mentioning that in case you start reading and think "uhhhh this is overkill".
And then some time later I would [will] try
again, under the blissful delusion that this
time it will stick
First... damn. I know the struggle. Much love to you and much respect.
Just an idea w.r.t. systems. Have you tried prioritizing "ease of use" over "completeness and awesomeness"?
I made some progress myself that way lately. I was always trying to organize things in some kind of... I don't know? perfect and aesthetically pleasing way? In hindsight, I think I was telling myself I had to get to some perfect system like these garages, where everything is perfectly organized and has a purpose and place.
Instead what worked for me in the end was a bunch of clear plastic bins from Home Depot, with big labels on them. They are not literally childrens' bins but in spirit, the end solution for me was not too far away from this:
I don't see why any of that would be excessive or exclusive to people with ADHD. Neurotypical people forget important stuff all the time and would also benefit from good organizational skills and reminders about important deadlines.
I recently started talking to a therapist again after several years not, this time focusing on ADHD. I never realized until now the sheer number of little tweaks I've integrated into my thinking and behavior, nor the degree to which I've optimized them all for maximum likelihood of actually getting stuff done. No one approach works consistently, but every now and then I get lucky and one does, and that's a real improvement over not doing them.
> For instance, someone might excessively rely on calendars, to-do lists, or alarms to compensate for forgetfulness."
Holy objects. Can't survive with any of these things.
I have 2 calendars running (it's actually only one, but I have Outlook mobile installed, plus Apple Calendar- they sync to the same calendar , I get two separate notifications for everything so I can't just dismiss them as easily).
I swear that every time I read an article by somebody who claims they've been diagnosed with ADHD, it is the same formula: "when I was a child...", "I didn't know what it was", ..., "I was finally diagnosed with ADHD", then finally "I have super powers no one else has so I will use them to my advantage".
I read a book once decades ago about ADHD, and it said lots of children are misdiagnosed with it. One of the very common causes is that kids who don't eat regularly (or eat sugar then crash) will encounter low blood sugar. The body reacts to this by dumping adrenaline in the bloodstream and ... voila ... an excitable kid with little focus.
Between decades ago and now we've recognized that sugar only causes excitableness in children who are prompted (Clever Hans style) by adults who expect such an outcome.
The wisdom you're referencing is circa the 70's, it's been attempted many times since and has never replicated.
The comment you're replying to doesn't seem to mention the debunked "sugar rush". The "crash" on the other hand seems to be more replicable.
Also your framing ignores that the "prompting" can be circumstantial rather than targeted. The "rush" is frequently misattributed to sugar when it can actually be better explained by the food itself being a rare treat (and thus exciting) or the situation in which it is provided being special (e.g. a party). Or it can simply be the joy of eating something very tasty.
It's less Clever Hans and more "kids are more prone to sudden outbursts of strong emotions and adults blame it on food".
It's both under- and over-diagnosed because the funnel for children is teachers who have basically been trained to refer the "problem children" for diagnosis.
I have a son who has extreme anxiety, and kept getting referred by teachers for ADHD. Hyper-vigilance for danger can make it hard to focus on arithmetic, particularly in an elementary school classroom. The psychiatrist ended up putting a note in his file because this was happening.
Meanwhile, I also have a daughter who is so obviously ADHD: she forgets to turn in her homework; there were 6 of her jackets in the lost and found in October; she will go to school without her eyeglasses; &c. But, she doesn't disrupt the classroom and is otherwise seen as a "good kid" so she was never referred by a teacher.
I used to be your daughter! Super quiet, got all my work done on time, was seen as "gifted", but would lose absolutely everything (and I mean everything).
I really suggest some sort of setup to maintain structure as she gets older - being aware of a diagnosis or having medication / therapy would've really saved a couple painful years in university for me
I have been personally diagnosed with ADHD and have benefited from medication but it doesn't come without its costs. My wife was diagnosed when she was very young and we've had a lot of time to run self experiments and discuss ideas.
I don't think people want to hear this but I believe so many people think they have ADHD because of a lack of discipline. Even people with ADHD will understand what I'm talking about. Some days you can take your medication and still get nothing done with endless distractions.
We live in a world full of distractions and our attention spans are being whittled down with every new dopamine slot machine on our phones. What's rare today is someone stopping themselves from reaching for the digital crack and embracing the less stimulating but more rewarding long term goal slog. Treating every focus problem you have as a medical issue or a fleeting lack of motivation gives you an easier out. What you really need to accept is that sometimes you just avoid discomfort and the only thing missing is forcing yourself to get shit done and being content with it.
The good thing is that while getting started sucks, if you're consistent with it you can train your mind to seek out and crave long term goal progress and completion in the same way you can train your body.
> if you're consistent with it you can train your mind to seek out and crave long term goal progress and completion in the same way you can train your body.
How? I mean, one of my major symptoms is that I can't for life do either! "Training my body" doesn't feel like something natural or within range of possibility.
Yeah, I found it close to the annoying "you could try not to have issues... harder". I'm glad some people find they can actually change their behaviours. But it's more of a "if you /CAN BE/ consistent with it" issue for others.
"Life is suffering". Better to accept it. There is joy in life but what you are present for even without training your mind is suffering. It's way easier to recognize and remember than joy.
What do you mean by "natural or within range of possibility"?
One is consistent by doing, not by feeling (of course feelings have their own place in life). I don't enjoy going to the gym per se. I let go of that and go. I don't go because I feel happy and motivated before exercise. First, I went because people for thousands of years have saying so, and biologically it makes sense. Then, because I know how I feel in the short and long term after the exercise.
I do different sports for enjoyment and different for keeping in shape of course. I love hiking but going to a gym is more sustainable as a regular way of keeping in shape in all seasons and weather.
Yep, I know a lot of people who have the most horrible lifestyles who claim to have ADHD. I had previously been entirely useless in my life and claimed to be depressed. As soon as I made an effort to be happy and implement healthy coping mechanisms I quickly became a much more functional human being. I have found myself recently wondering if I have ADHD a lot. I'm starting to realise this may be the same thing and I do need to have some self discipline. I am pre-disposed to being disorganised, terrible at dealing with time and very contrary in the face of things I don't want to do. However, I'm pretty sure these are things I can sorta improve on and are not so tied to my brain chemistry that I must yield to them. Recently I had a gf who was hypersensitive to all noise, practically unable to sleep, extremely hyperactive, addictive tendencies, impulsive to a ridiculous level, terrible relationship to food, always talking too much or too little to hold a conversation as expected, worse concept of time than me, constantly living in an extreme level of chaos. She was recently diagnosed ADHD and nothing has ever been less surprising to me in my life. That gave me a good insight about what is the difference between me being pretty disorganised and always feeling like it's hard to start doing things, and what being ADHD looks like. Mainly, I do not have all these other neurodivergent tendencies like hypersensitivity. So hopefully I will be able to continue working towards functioning as a normal adult although I do find it sorta challenging. I am investigating physical medical reasons for my difficulty focusing and still looking to see if I can get assessed though, just to rule anything out. But I think I can do a lot more with my behaviour than I think.
Erm a lot of things. Diet and exercise are literally key. Diet less so, I can be depressed with a great diet. But with adequate sun exposure and exercise it's pretty hard to be super depressed unless you have a serious chemical imbalance. (edit: I also think having goals in your exercise that you actually care about somewhat helps).
I go outside and stare at the sun every morning for like 5 mins (this is so key I can't even overstate it). I take a cold shower after that (proven to increase your baseline dopamine). I exercise almost every day. I try to never spend a whole day in my house unless I'm sick, preferably spending the majority of the day outside my house. I try to get 8 hours of sleep at least 5 out of 7 days a week, by which I mean 9 hours in bed with the lights off. Being in bed 8 hours isn't sufficient. All this makes me feel awake and sorta alive.
I keep a journal where I set myself goals for the day and I reflect on my performance and my state of mind at the end of the day. Sorta a bullet journal deal with a bit more feels but in a practical way. It's for monitoring and encouraging iterative improvement and for analysing and mitigating negative thought patterns. This allows me to keep myself accountable but also just cope when I'm literally crying in the evening for no reason. It's like my emotional support book.
I was having trouble with caring about anything I usually would. I just started trying to act like I cared. Like acting curious, being highly engaged. And it sort of leads to you naturally being more interested after a while.
I try to create social interaction for myself every week even if no-one invites me to do anything.
I have Freedom app on my phone blocking most stuff for the first 5 hours and last 1 hour of the day. I also don't listen to music or podcasts in the morning. This leaves my brain feeling less sluggish and helpless.
I sign up for really random stuff sometimes just to make my life interesting.
Lastly, I do a lot of deep breathing when I'm trying to get things done because I tend to get anxiety about literally any task.
Edit: I don't know why I need so much going on to make myself function like a normal person. But it works a lot better than not doing this because otherwise I literally curl up into a ball, give up on life and get fired from jobs.
For a while there I thought I had ADHD, and started looking for avenues to get diagnosed. But when I talked more with some friends who have serious cases of it, I started to doubt. Instead of going for the medication, I removed distracting apps from my phone and logged out of socials. It took a few weeks to settle into the routine, but now my focus/attention problems are all but gone. Go figure!
I have diagnosed ADHD and I do not have social media (besides HN), distracting apps or anything. I just have stock GrapheneOS on my phone, no extra distractions.
This helps tremendously but doesn't really affect the core issues of adhd, which are a lack of focus when that is needed. Note that it's not a general lack of focus and not a lack of discipline. People with ADHD often fall into depression because they cannot focus well enough even with the right discipline and motivation.
Exactly. I came to the conclusion that for me it was an environment/discipline issue because (among other things) my severe-ADHD friends would try the same tactics with 0 effect. If I can manage attention issues with lifestyle changes alone, it’s probably not a brain chemistry problem.
I do think it’s a testament though to how brain-rotting the always-on socials/apps/notifications can be. They messed me up so bad I literally thought I had a medical condition! Yikes.
I found an article written... a while ago now which describes the issue already, having the internet under your fingers and endless short form distractions: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/nadd/.
> My mother first helped diagnose me with NADD. It was the late 1980s and she was bringing me dinner in my bedroom (nerd). I was merrily typing away to my friends in some primitive chat room on my IBM XT (super nerd), listening to music (probably Flock of Seagulls—nerd++), and watching Back to the Future with the sound off (nerrrrrrrrrrd). She commented, “How can you focus on anything with all this stuff going on?” I responded, “Mom, I can’t focus without all this noise.”
I'm confused btw; the date on the page mentions it was written in 2003, but the article mentions Slack which didn't exist until 2013, unless the article's been kept updated over the years.
> Me, I’ve got a terminal session open to a chat room, I’m listening to music, I’ve got Safari open with three tabs open where I’m watching Blogshares, tinkering with a web site, and looking at weekend movie returns. Not done yet. I’ve got iChat open, ESPN.COM is downloading sports new trailers in the background, and I’ve got two notepads open where I’m capturing random thoughts for later integration into various to do lists. Oh yeah, I’m writing this column, as well.
the current version:
> Me, I’ve got Slack opened and logged into four different teams, I’m listening to music in Spotify, I’ve got Chrome open with three tabs where I’m watching stocks on E*TRADE, I’m tinkering with WordPress, and I’m looking at weekend movie returns. Not done yet. I’ve got iMessage open, Tweetbot is merrily streaming the latest fortune cookies from friends, and I’ve got two Sublime windows open where I’m capturing random thoughts for later integration into various to-do lists. Oh yeah, I’m rewriting this article as well.
Not really. ADHD is well documented in brain scans that show a lack of activation and structural differences. You can actually see the difference between the brain of a person with ADHD and a control. It's not just 'having weak discipline' and 'not trying hard enough.' It would be like looking at someone with no arms and saying 'I believe that this person can pick up a ball but they just lack the discipline.' Nope, the structural basis to make that happen is absent. That's ADHD.
I dislike this post because medication is only a (meaningfully large part) of managing adhd. It’s not a magic pill that solves it and if the patient doesn’t have a holistic approach that includes mindfulness, exercise, diet, managing other mental health issues, and structure - then they’re still likely to fail.
I’d encourage you to read more about adhd because a huge symptom of it is lack of long term perspective in decision making. It’s like one of the defining characteristics. Trying to dismiss that as someone being lazy or undisciplined is a damaging stereotype to spread. It’s the equivalent of telling someone with depression to snap out of it or get some sunshine
I think you missed my point. I'm mostly talking about the litany of people on social media that believe they have ADHD without brain scans or any formal diagnosis.
Almost everyone suffers from some lack of discipline and some mistake it for being neurodivergent. People with ADHD can also lack it. Your point of taking a holistic approach is correct and I wasn't trying to single out medication. People with ADHD don't get a free pass on building discipline. In fact, to your point they require more of it to overcome their struggles. Medication, mindfulness, exercise, diet, and structure all take a lot of effort and consistency. It requires you to be more disciplined.
I'm not sure I like the word disciplined but I'm being pedantic. It takes tremendous effort, finding the right resources, and setting up structure to be successful. Which maybe is discipline? Idk
> I believe so many people think they have ADHD because of a lack of discipline
A fundamental characteristic of my ADHD is lack of discipline. I cannot force myself to do something if ADHD is getting in the way. On the rare occasions it's not, and I have initiative (a truly precious resource), it doesn't matter how much or little I enjoy the task, or how uncomfortable the task is, it's getting done.
As I'm sure you know, ADHD diagnosis, like many other diagnoses, needs two things:
1. Have at least N of M symptoms on a list.
2. Have those things have a material negative impact on your life.
> the only thing missing is forcing yourself to get shit done
...yes? Obviously?
As far as I understand it, that's the whole point. People who don't have ADHD just don't struggle with that to the point that it shapes their life, it's just an occasional annoyance that doesn't require any special effort to deal with.
I got diagnosed with ADHD a couple years ago, and it has remained a shit show since then. It was a shit show before, but now medical appointments and crazy restricted medicines have been added to the mix (I ran out of an addictive antidepressant this weekend, not fun). It feels like everybody agrees I'm sick but nobody has an effective treatment for me. I went to see all the doctors who accepted to see me (it's not that many, the appointment system is made to fend of patients, not help you see a doctor), nobody had any magical insight. I lost the best job of my life because of my inability to stay on track.
I don't find this hyperfocus to be unique and became quite resentful when diagnosed later in life by a therapist + psychiatrist. In my case, I was confused as to why I was always underperforming and needed to work extra hours to catch up with my peers, for example. It is not lazyness, when alone I’m a dialed down version of Martin Lorentzon (reference here from the Spotify docuseries)
As a child, I had nicknames related to "crazy." Today, the one thing I take pride in related to ADHD is my ability to think outside the box.
I personally don't believe in any "superpowers". Its just adversity you face, nothing good about it. I'd rather not have it obviously.
But maybe my experience is different became I later also got diagnose with having Aspergers.
What is everyone’s experience getting officially diagnosed and treated? I match up pretty closely with textbook symptoms and all of the free online “tests” indicate I should get treated for it… but how? I’ve found places that offer an ADHD screening at the tune of multiple thousands, not in network with any insurance, but those places don’t also treat it. I’m more interested in pharmacological treatments rather than typical therapy (after over 40 years, I’ve developed coping mechanisms like the author), but it’s hard to choose what type of doctor is best here.
What experiences does everyone here have?
OP didn't report trouble getting someone to believe they have ADHD, they reported indecision and difficulty identifying someone who offers treatment and arranging an appointment.
As someone who did get diagnosed: It took me _five_ attempts to get all the way to an appointment with a psychiatrist (inability to find a suitable psychiatrist, lost referrals, missed appointments etc). Navigating the medical establishment with untreated ADHD is hell. Now I've got treatment for it, I could do it easily, but it's really hard to overstate just how non-functional you can end up.
Because the symptoms are easily faked, I needed a significant range of retrospective evidence - quotes from school report cards, interviews with my parents - which I had to arrange prior to assessment. If I hadn't been able to produce those, I likely would not have been able to get treatment.
Not me, but my BFF managed to get diagnosed in her mid-30s. She was killing her heart with all the stimulants she was taking and her other ways to cope. I don't k own hoe she got diagnosed, but she definitely didn't do it for thousands of dollars. She couldn't have afforded that.
I do know that therapy and medication made it night and day for her. She immediately dropped all caffeine. Her sleep and general mood was so much better and she wad way less flakey. She doesn't dismiss therapy although I know she hasn't gone every week for a while not and mostly goes when she's feeling like she needs it. Medication was a trip and error, but she's much happier with this steady state.
Yes, but they also can have side effects, some worse than dealing with ADHD. There are various non-stimulants like Atomoxetine which are also approved for ADHD and work for some that can't use the stimulants safely.
I got diagnosed and then got medication. Ritalin/medikinet is the default here.
It felt like a really strong coffee. It did not really help as I could just focus intensely on the wrong things for hours then crash. The comedown was not fun. The side effects were not fun. The benefits were questionable.
Above all, my lifestyle is built around ADHD. My work is structured to accomodate my quirks. I was happier riding the waves as there were almost no consequences for doing so.
Perhaps another type of medication would have worked better, but no medication at all is good enough.
One thing I appreciated is that they titrated the medication safely. I hear that American doctors start people with a much stronger dose. German doctors seem more moderate, and more willing to try therapy first.
you will need to tell us your location; it will vary greatly across the world.
In the UK, for me, diagnosis wasn't too hard via BUPA - my phsychiatrist seeing me for my other mental health problems recommended me and it was relatively quick to get an ADHD diagnosis; now, however, I am stuck - there's a UK shorage of medication so my psychiatrist is unwilling to proscribe for a new patient whilst existing ones aren't getting what they need. Until that gets unblocked I'm in limbo; additionally BUPA do not cover any ADHD costs (except the diagnosis) - after that you're on your own and you either need to self-fund or go via the NHS; the NHS won't "just" prescibe; for me they want that to come from the psychiatrist and they'll then pick up the medication part of it - but see above about BUPA not funding ADHD costs.
If you go NHS all the way then you'll be on long waiting lists and, presumably, some sort of post-code lottery as to your experience.
I'm willing to self-fund to get to the point where the NHS will take over (and apparently that's a dice-roll too; my GP says he will prescribe once the shrink gets me on a stable dose, but not before - apparently some GPs refuse and require that you go via the NHS for everything, so you're on long waiting lists again); but am currently unable to progress due to the shortage of medication, as mentioned. I am also expecting relatively large bills as I will need to self fund both the psychiatrist and the initial medication prior to the NHS picking it up.
Anecdotally (reading ADHD forums on reddit) experiences in the US sound much more random.
Expect to pay between £700 - £1500 (initial consultation, titration fees). Then the ongoing medication costs.
Honestly I am torn on this issue, I don't think we should have a nation filled with amphetamine users, but right now I'm a self funded founder and I can't justify this cost. So I have no choice but to self medicate with medication I have procured myself through alternative means...
The other option is "Right To Choose" through the NHS - you ask for a referral by your GP to a private ADHD specialist.
The NHS ADHD waiting list in my region was over 6 years but using RTC, I was diagnosed in around 6 months with no extra cost and prescriptions costing the NHS standard. Places like ADHD360 and PsychiatryUK focus on high throughput / low cost so the amount of time and qualifications of the practitioners won't match hand-picking a private psychologist but you can't argue with the cost.
Hard to say without some idea where you are, but it was not hard for me. It did cost me a few hundred $ overall, but the process was fairly simple. It did take a few months to get a spot for a remote appointment (if I lived in the city it would be faster in person) And I just knew the clinic knew who they're dealing with (reminder sent a week and a day before, reminder sent about payment, reminder about a followup, etc.) Maybe try finding some group which may have experience / specific contacts in the area? There's bound to be a country/state-specific group online where you can ask.
Every now and again a certain disorder becomes more culturally prominent and psychiatrists get a wave of patients interested in being screened. The unfortunate part is this is what's happening with ADHD at the moment. Mostly outside of America it was always hard to get a diagnosis because ADHD is treated by 'drugs of abuse' (which really sketches doctors out.) It's a very common experience for people to try get a diagnosis only to have a doctor that either believes ADHD is BS or that the patient is just after getting high. But now there's a new stigma too: doctors who believe the condition is being massively over-diagnosed.
I think in America you should still be able to get access to meds fast. But trying to chase local doctors means all the slowness that comes from a local economy (you really want an ADHD specialist because of stigma.) I would be trying to find telehealth options if they're there. I do agree with you about the behavioral approaches. The best option IMO is pharmaceutical. Stimulants are ~70-80% effective for people with ADHD.
If you live in the US - go to Zoom care - talk to a doctor, fill out a survey - walk out with a prescription. I don’t use medication anymore but when I first discovered it, it changed my life for a time - and in the US it is incredibly easy to get prescribed from my experience.
Maybe it’s dependent on the location? It absolutely is the case currently where I live and it’s not just Zoom care, basically any primary care provider has a survey for this, it’s kinda how it’s diagnosed.
If you're in the US, talk to your GP, family Dr or w/e. They can prescribe but they cannot diagnose. They'll refer you to someone. You probably want to be referred to a counselor rather than a psychologist.
You should _really_ consider therapy in addition to any medication. The meds will be amazing for a month and then useful for a year. After that you're going to have to make a decision about how you want to continue treatment. Keep bumping the dose and adjust to the side effects or 'typical therapy'. By then, that therapy is going to be much harder to apply to your life than it would have been in the first few months when you started the meds.
Not in the slightest. It adds flavor to the page and makes it more approachable than just a wall of text. This is one of the benefits of generated images - it is a nice middle ground between creating your own and choosing from stock images.
Yeah. These are basically glorified stock pictures that superficially seem to fit the content. But images shouldn't just be about aesthetics: they should also complement the content. AI-generated stock pictures don't have any sort of hidden meaning, you're wasting your time if you look at them.
I think we need to really take a hard look at today's world of tech and how we communicate and collaborate.
I find that, if time allows, I get a massive productivity boost after 4:30pm and everyone is either winding down or leaving. All the sudden, the walls flatten, the horizon deepens and I enter a deep state of flow.
Around 10 AM, after an elongated "stand up", I should be ready to go... And yet it's absolutely impossible to not alt-tab 300 times per hour, and I can't seem to even remember the code I just typed or what the hell I'm even trying to do.
Even if I close Slack, Outlook and turn off all notifications, I've got a minute-by-minute cron job in the back of my head that ticks
"Hey! One minute has passed. The world could be on fire! Is it?"...
I remember once I had to travel for family, to a different timezone, I was super productive. Only 1 14" screen and a different timezone. Pedal to the metal.
Ah, the 90s. The CRT, the keyboard, the fullscreen applications, the lack of communication. 1 or 2 emails a day. Bliss.
Add to today: kids, imessages, facebook, twitter, mastodon, instagram, emails, slack, discord... How the fuck do I even survive the week?
If you haven’t tried any sort of mindfulness/meditation program, I’d recommend one. I like Ten Percent Happier and enjoyed the app and its content (not affiliated in any way).
Being able to think about nothing is a skill/habit/muscle that needs to be learned and practiced. My mind still can churn but at least now I have the tools and some ability to tell it “not now” and quiet it some. It’s been pretty dramatic, especially in being able to fall asleep quicker.
Agreed. I like the vibe of Ten Percent Happier which is kind of like "Yeah, I thought this meditation stuff was bogus, but, for some reason it helps. No, it won't solve all of your problems, but it does seem to make things 10 percent better. And don't even think about saying 'Namaste.'" :-)
Unfortunately genuine ADHD is a physiological problem that requires stimulant therapy _and_ cognitive behavior therapy in conjunction. Your dopamine and/or acetylcholine receptors are out of whack. This is why coffee and cigarettes/vapes are so prevalent. Methylphenidate or dexamphetamine work best but you pay a price. Yes, I have real world executive function research lab experience, so I know a bit of what I'm talking about. You need a good neurologist.
Maybe you can provide some perspective here: it seems almost universal that people who start these medications never find a dose that provides durable benefit over the long term. Makes sense; we acclimate to a new dopamine baseline, right? Almost everyone I know ends up on a significantly higher dose than they started with.
And the stories of feeling like a zombie when off meds are very real and pretty freaky.
I was on Adderall for ~6-7 years. The following is just my personal experience but it seems to match well with the vast majority of anecdotal experiences I have read about in many many years of being immersed in this stuff... although these won't be true for 100% of people.
Almost everyone I know ends up on a significantly
higher dose than they started with.
One: At least in the US, for whatever reason, doctors tend to initially prescribe you a very low dose. I think this is a big part of why everybody ups the dosage.
Two: Many/most people seem to avoid dosage creep by reducing or limiting their dose on weekends or on other days when it is feasible. If you take e.g. 20mg every day, 365 days a year, it's pretty much guaranteed to lose effectiveness. But if you can take that down to ~5-10mg on weekends that helps. Also weaning yourself off of it entirely from time to time seems to provide a reset. Doctors seem to never tell anybody this.
And the stories of feeling like a zombie when off
meds are very real and pretty freaky.
Well, let's call it what it is... it's withdrawal. However to put it in perspective, most people find it milder than or similar to caffeine withdrawal.
If you do significant amounts of stimulants every day and then go cold turkey you're gonna have a real bad time for a day or three.
On the other hand if you steadily taper your dosage down to 0mg over ~3-7 days it's not bad at all.
Again, doctors seem to never tell anybody this.
BTW, while I am kind of "rebutting" your points I am not pushing Adderall. There are downsides to it. It made me more high-strung and prone to arguments and stress. The frequent shortages are a nightmare. And so on. I eventually moved on.
I'm not convinced nicotine is not a better medication. Sure, it's probably more addicting, but it also seems to have plenty of other benefits, is more socially acceptable, and seems to have much less a profile of debilitating side-effects.
Of course, the same tolerance issues will creep up, perhaps even more so, but there is no red-tape, no doctor visits, no shortages, easy access, etc..
Is nicotine as effective as amphetamines or methylphenidate? I have no idea, but probably not, and that is mainly why I haven't experimented much with it. I will say that it's effective enough to plenty of people with ADHD self-medicate with nicotine, and seem to do fine enough.
If nicotine were half as effective, it still might be better, at least for my circumstances.
I am someone with severe adhd and I only use meds ( adderal) if needed. The side effects are heavy on the long run.
Having coping mechanisms and and understanding surrounding is way more important.
Without that and only meds I am only the person with the highest tension in the room.
And my adhd was measured. Low dopamine.
Btw I tried a adhd friendly diet and sports once . I don’t know if it was placebo or real but it felt like it helped much.
Mini meditative naps of 5 minutes also help if my brain is on the run.
Honestly in my opinion meds are the easy way out but the side effects make alternatives necessary. On the long run there need to be better solutions that imply that society has to go a step toward the mentally divergent or Ill and respect their behavior as good willing and maybe find a better way to incorporate those in the workplace and social life.
Sorry for edit:
For example. If I have one of those adhd moments, where I am bit to specific about something and talk too much because of it, my friends recognize this and tell me to „ wake up“. And everything is fine. But if someone like this is needed.. there I am ;)
I have, n=1, used racetams to help. Due to Trump Era policies, that door is closing fast. The thing that pisses me off the most is that drug holidays are illegal in some states. The FDA really does everything they possibly can to hurt people with ADHD.
I was in a clinic where they did ct or mri and measured my brain and the dopamine release. That was as a child.
I did say this because most adhd is loosely diagnosed and brain scans are rare but the final proof. Sorry my English is not so good
I've been on meds for about four years now and I'm now on a (slightly) lower dose than I was for the first few months after I started.
The higher dose was better for my emotional regulation and my focus, but it made my body feel wired all the time.
The dose I am on now does provide significant benefits compared to not taking it, especially when combined with daily vigorous exercise (likely at least partially due to improved sleep).
But I've never been on Adderall and I've never been on an IR med and I'm a woman diagnosed in childhood and again in adulthood, so I'm an ADHD unicorn really.
Did modafinil ever come up in your lab? I was DXed ADHD somewhat by surprise and due to the situation, medication was not an option (and is rather difficult to obtain in my country anyhow). After reading about off-label use of modafinil for ADHD, I gave it a go, and it has worked very well from my POV.
The lab was Air Traffic controllers. Same brain structures, but much, much higher functioning. I had many conversations with the psychologists about ADHD, but we were focused on measuring cognitive workload based on UI changes--measuring prefrontal cortex loading. I did most of the physiological event extraction from the terabyte event databases. Ironic (in a twisted fashion) that I would miss an interaction because ADHD, but the human factors engineer could pick it up right away. I tried the unregulated modafinil prodrug adrafinil but never asked the Doc to prescribe it. Our subjects probably didn't have ADHD.
Manage medicine. Sign IEPs. An Ed. D is best for the cognitive behavioral therapy. Neurologists will typically know ADHD better than non specialized psychiatrists. Some GPs, like mine, are well versed in it and can manage it. Indeed it seems like regulations kill any hope of helping ADHD afflicted. You really need a caring person to help you. Remember, you take your medicine before it's in your system. I see it like this. ADHD keeps you from paying attention to indoctrination, but doesn't stop you from learning, so you are dangerous.
As someone with a lot of focus potential, its mildly frustrating to read these accounts because even I'm terribly distracted, if I let myself be. But I've been meditating for a while and, in conjunction with a lot of discipline around avoiding social media, have been able to hit a sweet spot.
I wonder though if I never discovered these two things, and simply absorbed everything I read online and convinced myself I had ADHD and got on meds. It's modern life, getting people down. There's simply no way to break through without recognizing that life is inherently distracting, and finding strategies around that.
This is not dismissing the reality of ADHD, however, only to note that medication is overprescribed and that many confuse biology with extremely targeted algorithms designed to capture attention.
And then there are the drug companies who capitalize on workers required to maintain long periods of focus; knowing they are vulnerable to performance pressure, they flood the industry with marketing. Next thing you know, an entirely healthy person's attention is destroyed, because the new baseline is oriented around a stimulant which they do not need, and which operate contrary to someone who actually has ADHD, which meds benefit. Like the opiate crisis, its all just an everyday American tragedy.
Seriously, though, there might be external factors at play; different social circles might use these things and abandoning the apps could be the same as abandoning the groups.
You’re at work. Sure, there’s Slack - but dial the notifications down as much as you can. Almost none of us need access to social tools in that time. If you can’t help yourself then do what developers do and use tech to stop you reaching for those things.
At my company, we have daily standups and they throw off my whole morning. I only really work effectively when I am left to it and so have outlook/slack/messages turned off during periods where I am trying to focus - has got me in trouble with management a few times but I am not sure what else i can do.
The piece was a good read but its so personal to me that it doesn't really help sadly.
> has got me in trouble with management a few times but I am not sure what else i can do
Don't worry about it. I think this is good advice for any software engineer. Eventually you'll be senior enough or on a different team and it won't be a problem.
Agreed, I'd add to give your manager your phone number for emergencies and tell them you've allow-listed their number to ring when others can't. Then get back to flow
Sometimes there are genuine emergencies. If your company got hacked and is all hands on deck, you kinda have to be interrupted. There are situations in which emergencies may not be paged through normal systems.
If you have the kind of clueless/toxic manager who is going to abuse this sort of arrangement, they are probably never going to agree to this sort of arrangement in this first place.
For nearly all working relationships, I think it's reasonable to keep an emergency communication channel open.
If you like the company/team enough to work there, you should learn to respect the way it operates.
Hopefully it doesn't sound too combative, but I wanted to express that it's a two way street and compromises have to be found. I dislike various things in my company on a personal level, but often make sense from company/team point of view.
daily check-in throws off my morning too. i have an hour from when i start til check-in, which is not enough time to get into deep work. looking forward to moving to a new timezone where i can take advantage of that timing with two hours before check-in.
WFH encourages scheduled meetings. It's a nightmare. I'd much rather just get an interruption out of the blue than have someone schedule a meeting to talk to me, because in the run-up to the meeting I won't try to start anything (what's the point if I've got a pending interruption?) At least my standups are first thing in the morning.
I don't understand it. My company is fully remote but they are absolutely horrendous at async comms. I was trying to walk someone through adding a docker build process to their CI and.... he just couldn't communicate/understand it through slack and he wanted to schedule a meeting. Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you.
Thanks.
Beyond that I refuse to do daily standups. I'll quit a company if they won't let me do async or communicate through slack. I'm not logging in and the start of my day being a meeting every single day. Absolutely not. I've been there before.
Interesting. I like the daily meeting - gives me an anchor for my day that works with the meds. But like most ADHD people when unmedicated I get more productive at night, so I can see why you'd hate the daily checkin.
I'm about 20 years in and the first 10 years of my career as a SWE I had absolutely horrendous managers and daily checkins felt more like proving to someone that you had done any work the day prior, shaming you if you didn't produce enough. I have a hugely negative connotation to them even today, vs feeling that they're a positive team-collab sort of scenario.
At two companies the actual CEO and CTO were in every single one of our standups (startups of course).
It's funny how good (or shitty) experiences shape things. I like peer reviews and regular 1:1s with management. I've had good experiences with them, and have sorely missed them at jobs where they didn't happen.
But I know good engineers (who are also good communicators) that loathe them with a great passion.
Idk if that has to do with async working. People pull that kind of stuff in office too. "Hey I don't get this, can we schedule some time so we can /you just do this for me " then you sit at a conference table or at their desk for an hour lol
I'm a Staff SRE. I literally mentor an entire SRE team every single day.
I didn't say a single thing about paired programming. Christ. Did I say that the dev wanted to pair program? No, I didn't. I would have happily hopped in a huddle with him as OPPOSED to scheduling a meeting 3 days later.
I am sick of meetings and people who are incapable of working async, especially when we're in different timezones, which is exactly what this thread I'm responding to is about.
> I was trying to walk someone through adding a docker build process to their CI and.... he just couldn't communicate/understand it through slack and he wanted to schedule a meeting.
this sounds like pair programming imo.
> Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you.
this reads as a bad attitude towards mentorship. sorry for that assumption.
My frustration is not knocking this out over 10 slack messages right now and having to round back to it days later. I want it done and off my plate.
I'm ADHD. I don't want lingering tasks floating around giving me anxiety when they can be done quickly. I'm going to forget it exists until 10 minutes before when it pops up on my notifications, then I'll have to context switch over to that situation.
One of my biggest coping mechanisms is as soon as something pops into my mind I do it RIGHT NOW. If I walk by the laundry basket and think of doing laundry I grab it and do it RIGHT now. Or I'll just walk by it for a week completely oblivious to it.
I'd much rather just get an interruption out of the
blue than have someone schedule a meeting to talk to me
After 15+ years of exploring my own ADHD and learning about others' experiences, I'm still constantly wowed by how differently we all react to this stuff.
For me, out-of-the-blue interruptions are a worst case scenario for my ADHD. It's very hard for me to get into the "flow" if I know that I might be interrupted at any moment. I prefer scheduled meetings as a less-evil alternative.
In my experience scheduled meetings tend to be longer and involve more people than necessarily.
Also, somewhat contraintuitively, I often avoid starting some new work e. g. 30 minutes before a scheduled meeting, meanwhile without it I just start, and if interruption happens,... it just happens.
Also, somewhat contraintuitively, I often avoid
starting some new work e. g. 30 minutes before a
scheduled meeting
No, I think that makes sense and is pretty common.
It's hard for me to get into the zone if I know I've got a hard stop in 30 minutes.
Two workarounds for me. One is that I tell myself I'll spend the final 5 minutes jotting down todo's so I can pick back up relatively close to where I left off. I normally work in 20-30 min bursts anyway. This is actually not super successful for me but better than nothing.
Slightly more effective for me is using those 30 minutes to bang out some smaller tasks. Review a small pull request. Pay a bill or two. Apply some software updates. Gotta be done eventually so I get them out of the way now, in service of more focus time later.
That's a bummer. My team does standup at 3 PM (we're also bi-costal), but I let the teams chose their time, and this is what one particular team chose. Maybe talk to some of your teammates, and maybe you all decide you want an afternoon standup, so you can hit the ground running in the morning for a few hours, before the interruptions start.
This exact complaint is very common among juniors I’ve mentored: A single meeting can destroy their productivity for hours following the meeting.
The most successful advice I’ve found is to find a way to reset after meetings without using your computer. For whatever reason, they’re emotionally drained after meetings. They get back to their computer and reach for Reddit or Twitter or something for a low effort snack, which then spirals into an hour or more of doomscrolling or distractions. This then translates into self disappointment at their low productivity, which further drives them to seek more cheap online entertainment and the cycle repeats.
So try something else. After your standup, go for a walk. Don’t use your phone. Do some stretches if you WFH or have a quiet place. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the rut that destroys your productivity.
This is an under-rated comment. I had a similar revelation that eventually led to the conclusion that the computer is a crucial part of the distraction, and that many activities are best performed at least partly without it. Examples include:
I've tried all these tips and more. I've gone as far as taking a run after meetings. Nothing really works. I've come to conclude that the problem is the meeting itself, not the way you recuperate from it.
I don't have ADHD but I also get destroyed by meetings. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I was in a deep flow just before the meeting and it was near impossible to fully disconnect and actually be present or that I felt the meeting itself was a waste of time and the realisation I just clocked in 1hr of unproductive work. Often it's a combination of both and it can be quite distressing mentally.
Regardless I would never allow myself to browse anything not work related when I'm actually working (i.e. twitter, reddit) even when I'm "destroyed". I think cutting the unproductive crap out completely when working and trying to find more healthy coping mechanisms is far better.
I suspect the juniors are taking the meetings too seriously, and getting stressed during the meeting to the point that it's difficult to transition away after.
I've had this problem too. But now that I have more meetings, it's become much easier to transition back to focused work. It's only the occasional more-stressful-than-usual meeting that eats up my attention for hours afterwards.
I don't know what the solution is for most people. I guess this is why some people who transition manager --> IC can be so effective.
Depends on where you are, but you can often get by, ignoring directives from management, if you are an active communicator and you’re completing assigned tasks.
It’s still better to state your problem. I like to use the “non-violent communication” as a template. Something like, “When we have the standup, I have a hard time refocusing on work afterwards. I’m concerned about the impact this has on my productivity. Can I send status updates via Slack?”
I’m not gonna pretend that this is a solution to your problem; I just want to sympathize and have a conversation about some of the strategies that we can use to fix problems with management that interfere with technical work.
This is because your brain is like ChatGPT: it's in a loop generating the next symbol based on the prior context. You need to load the context up, then you're ready to generate symbols. If there's a BS meeting, all that context is paged out and now you need to re-load it. Plus there are motivational aspects that make "loading context some AH manager just blew out my brain" more difficult.
I'm the opposite. I have ADHD and I function much better with meetings, talking it out with other programmers, and the cacophony of noise from an open office. Everything distracts me anyway, so I'd rather it be work stuff than my own thoughts about some awkward moment I had in 1995.
It's probably because this is not an ADHD issue, but just a difference amongst individuals. I have ADHD and meetings do not really seem to impact my functions other than increasing urgency because I have Total Time - Meeting Time left to do whatever task..
I experience a flow state around that time as well. Mostly because everyone leaves the office. 0630-0730 and 1630-1730 have become my golden hours. Which is weird because body doubling is often an effective tool for me. My true “0430” like the parent comment is really at 2000, but I force myself into a normal sleep schedule and fail often.
Does the time change for you with season and light exposure? I sometimes experience this sort of thing too, where I will have a consistent window of productivity at an unusual time, but it never lasts for a more than a few months.
Yeah. My body/brain's natural "mental flow" time is really early mornings.
In reality, I generally have too much external distraction around me in the morning to capitalize on this.
So my actual productive hours are basically like, "whenever I am reasonably sure that everybody else will leave me the fuck alone for the next few hours." Which often means, "the end of the work day when everybody is signing off for the day."
I’m too old and arrogant to be litigious. I just try to clear the path for the next generation by equipping them with expectations that match reality closer than I got.
ADHD has little to no physiological markers. As the floor of expectations for attention and executive functioning continues to rise, the rate of diagnosis increases.
ADHD is diagnosed based on symptoms, not based on physiological signs. Like most diagnoses, it's a co-occurring set of traits we'de decided is outside of what's normal.
Diagnosis is not the same as underlying physiological cause. The Browns or Vanderbilt assessments are useful for identifying the disorder because the symptoms are stereotypical.
>In conclusion, a series of biomarkers in the literature are promising as objective parameters to more accurately diagnose ADHD, especially in those with comorbidities that prevent the use of DSM-5. However, more research is needed to confirm the reliability of the biomarkers in larger cohort studies.
But yeah, generally there are a lot of conditions where you go report symptoms to your doctor or perhaps a specialist and they prescribe a treatment based on that alone. Testing is mostly used to rule out the really nasty possibilities or figure out what's actually going on when first-line treatments don't work.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839459/#:~:tex....
Correct. fMRI studies show stark prefrontal activation differences between ADHD and neurotypical brains. I have run fMRI studies for air traffic controllers, who have the opposite experience from ADHD. Very high working memory and processing speed.
Are both of those really clinical markers for ADHD? as in, adhd would be expected to have low working memory and low processing speed? My understanding is its more about executive function I.E. deciding to start tasks.
admittedly my experience is coloured by my own clinical diagnosis of adhd plus anecdotally good working memory and processing speed
One imagines it's like a fast CPU with great L3 cache but nobody plugged the actual RAM in so you gotta use spinning rust as swap for bigger workloads.
Both my son and I have a GAI in the gifted range. Our psi and wmi pull us down out of contention. I'm talking 88 and below. Both are heavily executive function loaded; a halmark of ADHD. Same happened with algebra. He was forced to repeat in 9th grade and they tanked me right out of algebra in 8th. Both of us taught ourselves calculus in HS because we were bored to tears. Algebra is heavily executive function loaded. Imperative languages with good debuggers or scripted were easy for us. Declarative languages, like SQL, not so much. Functional programming depends heavily on where I am with respect to the cortisol curve.
Do you think IQ tests are as valid as psychologists claim? I took the WAIS-IV many moons ago, and I couldn't help but think how BS the whole test was. I even intentionally dodged some questions for the hell of it to see if my proctor would notice.
I even got in an argument with the psychologist/proctor at one point during the symbol matching section. I was supposed to write the corresponding number under a series of randomly ordered symbols on a page. The numbers were mapped to each symbol using a key at the top of the page. I thought it'd be easier to solve all of the same symbols one at a time e.g., if A = 1, B = 2, etc. then I would write "1" under every A symbol, then "2" under every B, etc..
The proctor told me, "Wait, you can't solve them like that. You have to do them in order."
I replied, "Why does it matter? It's my test and it's what is intuitive to me to solve them."
He replied with something like, "Time's ticking" (implying that that I'm only hurting my score by talking with him).
There were probably more words exchanged, but that's the gist of it.
Anyway, after all the BS, I received my scores, and I swear there were flaws in the calculations (despite using the proprietary software) though my score wasn't too bad -- my GAI was much higher than FSIQ. I also had to calculate my own GAI since the ass never put it on my report (I found a pirated copy of the manual with the proper tables in the back based on the section scores).
The psychologist (who was the proctor) basically told me that due to my large variance in some scores that my test could be considered a "testing error" and "you do not technically have an IQ score" but he "managed to manipulate the numbers a bit to give me a score." He couldn't provide me anything with a confidence interval greater than 90% (not the worst, I know), and there were odd statements in my report about having difficulty scoring my test due to my age (I was 22 at the time). So, who knows? I refuse to ever do one again though.
Anyway, I know my behavior didn't help lol, but I also just got a weirdly pseudoscientific feeling from the whole process. I've done plenty of my own research on the topic, and I am still not convinced it's the be-all and end-all of psychological testing. I think intelligence is too abstract for humans to quantify currently.
> Do you think IQ tests are as valid as psychologists claim?
As someone who is the spawn of two MENSAns, has friends in Neurosci and Psych, and who has brushed up a fair bit on the topic, I don't think any psychologists outside those in a tiny subset of the community believe in IQ Tests. The support for them is at best "well they measure something, but we're not sure what it is, and we have trouble labeling it as 'intelligence' due to the broad nature of that term". There are so, so many flaws with IQ testing that have been pointed out not only by yourself, but also by others in the field. The only actual practical, measurable use an IQ test to improve lives to date was an application in the 1980s on intake for fighter pilots, and it resulted in many less fighter pilots dying from crashes during training.
I fear your great comment is only feeding into my confirmation bias because your opinion is exactly what I was hoping to read lol.
I do believe the test are not useless, and I agree with Taleb that IQ might be more accurate at the lower extremes i.e. less than 70. In other words, the test cannot measure intelligence, but is pretty good at finding a lack thereof.
However, the further along the bell curve one traverses, the more the test falls apart.
The only reason I was administered a test was for ADHD diagnostic purposes. Sure, the conclusion was that I had ADHD, but the psychologist was confident in my diagnosis prior to the test, so the test was more of a formality.
> The only actual practical, measurable use an IQ test to improve lives to date was an application in the 1980s on intake for fighter pilots, and it resulted in many less fighter pilots dying from crashes during training.
This is so fascinating.
Tangent:
I was listening to a podcast about what it means to be a genius, how it's measured, what it means, etc.. There was a section about Lewis Terman's research on gifted children/adults. He followed and studied the lives over 1500 gifted children over the course of his entire life. Out of all the gifted children, none of them became anything noteworthy -- doctors, lawyers, etc..
However, two boys that were apart of the same school system that were not studied because they were not gifted eventually went on to each win a Nobel Peace prize -- separately and in different fields.
I will not claim that Terman's research proves anything, one way or another, but I did find it rather interesting.
One thing I noticed: Other people would get hyper from coffee, I would not. My brain would calm down a lot with the help of caffeine.
I would regularly down 3-4 red bulls (diet) in the evening if I knew I needed to fall asleep and sleep well. I'm not sure if it's been studied but anecdotal evidence from others seem to suggest I'm not alone and that some others have the same experience.
N=1, I sleep better on stimulants than off them. No problem falling asleep after drinking coffee (usually it makes me more sleepy), or even taking a prescribed stimulant before going to bed.
Paradoxical effects are not uncommon. My DNA is weird. I have lots of them.
One example, is opiates make me MOVE. Most people they zonk out, not me. I'm ready to move your house, one brick at a time, with my bare hands and feel like I could knock it out in about an hour.
Proton Pump inhibitors are common meds for acid reflux. About 10 years ago, I did a genetics study (I worked at the lab, and my data stayed mine) and learned that of the 7 classes of PPIs available, at that time, my body only works with 1. The others either have little/no effect or similar.
New research doesn't seem to support that stimulants have a paradoxical affect on those with ADHD (the sources cited were pretty interesting in my opinion). I'm not saying it's not possible for some, but it seems like people make it out to be far more common that perhaps it truly is.
ADHD is known to be highly hereditary and has genetic markets. I don't think it's normal, as it's fairly consistent globally (not all countries have the same access or culture around technology and yet ADHD occurs at around the same rates).
People can't see it. I've had someone chastise my son for missing an appointment due to his calendar app not working while standing right in front of a wheelchair bound person, then proceed to a discussion of accommodations with the latter :|
Thanks, also had this discussion with a colleague (obviously not having ADHD) who thought he understands what I’m (having ADHD diagnosed) talking about and I argue he does not.
I then almost started to doubt my own perception abilities InsertHugeFacepalmHere
If you ever forget or wonder if you have ADHD vs being inattentive, just look back at its affects on your romantic relationships and how much it damaged them or made them more difficult.
How often a partner probably told you that they felt neglected or forgotten, or how often you'd wind up in a rabbit hole and forget that you also have to nourish that relationship.
Oof. This hits close to home. I have ADHD and my partner recently ended a four-year relationship for several reasons but feeling neglected and like she had to fight to get my attention was one of them. We didn't consciously realize this was a major problem until it was too late. And now reading this thread I'm realizing wow yeah I really wasn't doing a good job of paying attention to her and her needs even though I cared a lot about her, now this is something to be aware of and put effort into changing in my next relationship.
It's something that I unfortunately didn't put 2+2 together until my 30s after ruining quite a few and always wondering why I would be so enamored with someone and they never felt like I was giving them enough.
And my most recent ex was anxious attached. That was rough. I'm far more on the avoidant side, not sure how much of that is upbringing vs adhd.
There's a bunch of books about marriage/relationships with ADHD people. I haven't read any but I should. The lady in this video has written a bunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyAfOPGKlI&t=1s
This!!!
ADHD is unfortunately named based on misunderstanding of the prefrontal cortex. It is executive function disorder. Similar behaviors occur from prefrontal cortex trauma. Barkley notes that ADHD stays so named because it is tied legally to entitlements.
Such a minor part of your comment, but I simply cannot focus on anything if my apps aren't all fullscreen. I have two monitors, and two applications visible at any time. Right now I have this on one screen and a non-work YouTube video on the other (Your Mom's House is a great podcast btw, especially if you already have YT premium).
I have trouble focusing, I don't think quite to the level of ADHD, but it would be so much worse if I had 4 or 5 apps on each screen.
Or you found coping mechanisms. We all figure out what works for us. Like drinking a ton of coffee or things with caffeine... you're self medicating with your stimulant of choice.
That's fairly common. Think back to old school paper workflows or studying for school. Some people can concentrate with 5 books open and papers strewn all over the place. Others can't stand to have but one book open and one sheet of notes.
You know, it's funny how different we are all when it comes to this.
I need all my apps visible in a tiled arrangement. Shuffling windows shatters my flow. I literally cannot have enough screen real estate. My dream is something like a curved 48" 8K monitor filling my entire field of view at 300dpi. (Vision Pro?)
I know a lot of people, ADHD and otherwise, like me in this regard.
I also know a guy like you, diagnosed with ADHD FWIW, who takes it a little further than you. He needs his apps fullscreened, and can't even do multiple monitors. One screen, one app.
I don't know how the f-- he works that way but I'm jealous. He's effective and has no trouble working on a 13" laptop in a coffee shop or whatever.
I had a coworker a few years ago who worked ONLY on his laptop. No monitors. No keyboard. No mouse. He programmed all day on a 13" Macbook Pro.
I will never understand it because I absolutely hate having full screen windows and I am almost worthless working off my laptop when traveling. Just lots of frustration juggling windows back and forth. I always have 2 or 3 apps side by side on my 48" and I have a 28" 16:18 DualUp monitor next to it for long text/dev.
I didn't work with him so I don't know how productive he actually was but I've always been curious if he kept up with the people who had 2-3 monitors and input devices. I have a hard time believing that he did but no actual idea.
Damn, that's crazy. Yeah, I don't see how that's physically or mentally possible. Completely alien to me.
The "laptop only, one app only" guy I knew actually was really verifiably productive. Which again is insane. We were working on a big Rails monolith. A task that inherently involves working with dozens of files simultaneously and looking at things up and down the stack while also looking at documentation and running code in the browser.
Not sure if you ever watch programmers on twitch, but check out ThePrimeagen, I think he's a perfect example of someone who really understands his tool of choice. One screen, one app, one window, and he navigates through code bases faster than anyone I've seen. It's a pretty entertaining stream too if his super high energy style isn't off-putting to you.
I've known a few of the "one monitor, minimal peripherals" types as well. When I think back to the "most productive" (whatever that means) half dozen or so people I've worked with, it's a mix of both. I don't think there's anything inherently better or worse about either approach, just a matter of finding what works best for your specific mix of discipline, interest, and brain chemistry.
I actually enjoy working on laptops directly but the keyboards always do me in. Just a little too cramped for my wrist/arms, and if I'm adding an external keyboard the monitor is just a bit too far away so I'm back to the normal docked setup.
during covid I was "overemployed" at first 2 jobs, then 3 (which I sustained for over 8 months). Some of it was luck, like not having conflicting meetings, having jobs in different timezones, and the leniency given due to the chaos of the times, but I actually did get work done. But during the average day, I was only there to respond to slack and participate in meetings. I wouldn't really "work" as in write code, until after the sun went down (and I was west-coast working a central time job). I was just a body in a seat until the day was over, then once I knew nobody was available to pester me or expect me to do something, I could crack open the editor and hyperfocus. I also found that getting up super early, I could hyperfocus for an hour or 2 in the AM, then about 9-10am once all the meetings and bs started, I was just an actor. The rest of the time was juggling tasks and procrastinating, and using that energy to drive me to get work done. I would work saturday and sunday mornings (often, not always), but once my focus was lost I would stop. It was a hell of a time, but I learned that (like you) certain times of the day just weren't compatible with getting anything done. I dont think it's correct to say its due to "overstimulation" or caffeine, I think it has to do with brain states, and somehow knowing that I had to be available on slack (or had to make sure my mouse jiggler kept my status green) seemed to be enough to break me away from writing code.
For me personally, yes. I had gone into debt from gambling and bad financial discipline. OE allowed me to pay off all my debt and put a down payment on a house. Watching "number go down" in rapid fashion was very rewarding, and I wasn't a very active person to begin with so I didn't miss out on as much as a regular person would, being holed up in an apartment for virtually the whole year. But towards the end it had an effect on me, it definitely wasn't sustainable.
This reflects exactly my day to day struggles.
Especially that productivity boost when every one starts leaving, and I _was not able_ to finished the smallest one of my tasks planned for the day 'til then most of the time.
I'm writing "was not able" on purpose here, because as someone (being blessed) with ADHD, your brain does not allow you to make progress on the smallest tasks due to all those fireworks being blown around you in your brain.
During my part-time studies (I had a 70-80% employment at that time) the time I really started studying productively was after 9-10pm when everyone around me went to finish their day and the world around me started to go silent and night is coming in.
Thinking of it today, I don't know how I would have survived that time without the huge support from my wife back then. So all the credits of me being able to complete my studies go to her!
Nowadays, I would not know how I would get through the day-to-day work without medication most days. That often worries me a little.
Yup, I think all the meds for this can succumb to tolerance. A real life Flowers for Algernon. Over the years I've upped the dose, switched meds, drug holidays but nothing has matched how well my brain worked the first couple of years on meds.
> nothing has matched how well my brain worked the first couple of years on meds
As someone who also has a bit more than 2 decades experience with ADHD medication and started with meds quite early in my teenage years when I went to school, I have very similar experience to yours.
One of my assumptions is that it also has a lot to do with the humans metabolism that changes over the years.
One of my assumptions is that it also has a lot
to do with the humans metabolism that changes
over the years.
That theory makes sense to me. However, my anecdotal experience is that I never tried any of these meds until my early 30's.
The first few weeks on Adderall were f'ing magical. I remember tearing up, I was so happy. Finally I was laser-focused. A bit emotional thinking of it now.
The magic faded fast. Adderall was still a large net positive for me for ~6-7 years. But never like those first few weeks. I guess I got somewhat close to that original experience a few times, after extended breaks from Adderall and restarting it.
Anyway, this is of course a sample size of 1. But since all the experiences described above took place in my 30s I don't think that metabolism change was a major factor. Certainly not within the first year. Again I know... n=1 =)
> Especially that productivity boost when every one starts leaving, and I _was not able_ to finished the smallest one of my tasks planned for the day 'til then most of the time.
This is super true for me as well, to the point where I structure my day around this. I'm lucky to have a workplace with flexible hours and enough seniority that nobody complains when I roll in at 10, which gives me a few "quiet hours" from 4-6 as others trickle out.
I hate having stand-up early am. If you get to work early, there's little motivation to start anything significant just because you'll be soon interrupted. Mid day before lunch is great, you get a sleep period in between two work sessions which often leads to better solutions. Everyone wants to go to lunch so the meeting moves at a quick pace, you have lunch time to decompress and absorb it. There's a morning block and afternoon block for uninterrupted deep work. It gives people a flexible arrive time in the morning, they aren't struggling to make it in for the meeting.
> I remember once I had to travel for family, to a different timezone, I was super productive. Only 1 14" screen and a different timezone. Pedal to the metal.
I think the pop-culture definition of ADHD has shifted a lot. In the past, being able to focus well (as you described in a different environment) would have been a sign that the issue was more environmental in nature, not a sign of clinical ADHD. Patients with ADHD struggled everywhere, even in distraction-free environments like a quiet library or quiet test taking environment.
Now, the pop-culture understanding of ADHD has shifted so far that we don’t bat an eye at declaring ADHD even when someone is operating under a constant barrage of environmental distractions. To be clear, someone with ADHD will have an even harder time resisting impulses to seek out distractions, but the fact that someone can focus just fine when their environment is minimally structured to keep distractions at a reasonable level would suggest that person doesn’t have classic ADHD.
> I think ADHD is the new norm.
I think this is my problem with the current pop-culture definition of ADHD: When the definition shifts so much that it becomes the “norm”, we’ve lost the plot. Something isn’t really a disorder if it’s “the norm”.
There’s a secondary problem I’ve been noticing in a subset of the young people I’ve worked with: Some of them self-diagnose with ADHD or get a doctor’s diagnosis, then mistakenly think that their ADHD diagnosis is an excuse for everything. I’ve had far too many conversations where I had to gently explain to juniors (via a volunteer mentor program, not as their boss) that having an ADHD diagnosis doesn’t mean that deadlines don’t apply them, or that they get a free pass for being late to meetings, or that they’re still obligated to perform at the level of their peers at work. Some of them have grown up in an environment where ADHD students get extra time to take tests, which some of them assume should translate to more forgiving expectations at work. It’s difficult to get some of them to accept that having ADHD means they need more accountability and oversight, not less.
I think we’re making a huge mistake by normalizing ADHD to the point that people think it’s the norm or that everyone has it because they surround themselves with distractions. Anecdotally, I’ve seen too many young people self-diagnose with ADHD and then actually spend less effort to curtail distractions, train their focus, and work on self-improvement. There’s something about becoming convinced that your behaviors are a medical condition that is out of your control (many erroneously declare they have a “dopamine deficiency” or similar misunderstandings of the science) that can give people a false sense that they either can’t improve their situation or that they shouldn’t be held responsible because it’s a labeled medical condition.
I don’t know where we go from here, but I can say it’s been an uphill battle to get recent mentoring cohorts to accept that attention is something they can improve with practice or even that they need to do things like silence phone notifications while they work.
I’m often stunned when I screen share with someone who has a non-stop stream of unimportant notifications in the top right corner, who later laments that they just can’t focus on anything for someone.
but the fact that someone can focus just fine
when their environment is minimally structured
to keep distractions at a reasonable level would
suggest that person doesn’t have classic ADHD
[...]
Patients with ADHD struggled everywhere, even in
distraction-free environments like a quiet library
or quiet test taking environment.
Imperfect analogy, but this is a bit like saying that somebody who is able to walk with reasonable assistive devices doesn't have a physical disability.
Like many or perhaps most things we classify as disorders, ADHD isn't a binary "you have it or you don't" condition.
Also, what constitutes "distractions at a reasonable level?" Very few jobs would meet my personal definition of that.
declaring ADHD even when someone is operating
under a constant barrage of environmental distractions
The definition of "disorder" in an individual is always going to be somewhat relative to the society in which that person lives and that person's life.
A person who lightly dabbles in illicit substances once in a blue moon would not generally be considered to have a drug problem. However, this is also going to be relative to that person's circumstances. Are you a 23 year old with no responsibilities? Are you a breastfeeding mother? Are you in a profession with frequent random drug tests? Are you a shaman in a culture where psychedelics have been a sacred part of your culture for thousands of years? The definition of problematic drug use is going to be very different for some than others.
As our society changes, and the number of assaults on our focus multiply, I think it is reasonable to expect more ADHD diagnoses.
Another way to think about it is that modern (and future) society will expose ADHD more aggressively. A farmer in 1923 lived a hard and demanding life, but he faced a very different set of cognitive challenges than a software engineer in 2023.
Think about how changing society exposed some humans' susceptibility to motion sickness. Motion sickness was not a thing until we learned to ride animals and build vehicles. Perhaps someday the DSM may contain some disorders specific to humans living in colonies on other planets.
I don’t know where we go from here, but I can say it’s
been an uphill battle to get recent mentoring cohorts
to accept that attention is something they can improve
with practice
A thousand times yes.
I love that we've made great strides toward destigmatizing mental health issues. But holy shit, it feels like younger people wear this shit as a badge of pride and it often feels like an excuse to avoid actual solutioning.
A loved one was recently diagnosed with ADHD. I told them I'll be their best friend and their toughest critic when it comes to ADHD. I told will love you and empathize with your struggles all day long because I have been fighting this shit for almost 50 years and it is soul-draining.
I also told them, watch the fuck out. I accept zero excuses. We can struggle together, we can cry together, but you better be looking at every single facet of your ADHD through the lens of figuring out a working solution.
"I have ADHD!" is not an acceptable excuse or thought-terminator. What I want to hear is, "I have ADHD so what works for me is doing it this way: ______" or perhaps even better yet just leave off the ADHD part and tell me your solution. Or that you are working on the solution. I will be by your side for that too. But overall that has got to be your mindset.
I also think it's true that many professions will aggressively surface ADHD.
Imagine a plumber making house calls all day. There's a fair bit of structure and variety baked into his day, he's moving around, gets to use his hands, etc. It's hard and skilled work but it also might be really compatible with ADHD.
Now think of a software engineer. 8-10 hours of monofocus on a single task every day. It's just you and the computer... which also has the largest array of distractions (the internet) just a click away. Fucking nightmare scenario for ADHD. If you've got even a hint of ADHD this career will expose it and expose it hard.
It's funny because I could see those going either way for ADHD individuals
either nightmare scenarios or dream scenarios
i've actually done some small amount of event planning, an annual event for about 125 people. (i realize that's tiny, obviously people are out there planning events for 100,000 people)
yeah, you're constantly switching your focus back and forth between the 20 things that need to get nailed down in the next 3 months for an upcoming event. and a professional event planner is probably juggling ten small events or several larger ones. it's a juggling act but it's kind of fun. also you have executive freedom to an extent.
engineering is kind of fucked because you are expected to do deep deep deep deep deep big-brain thinking for 2000 hours a year, and yet you are still often bombarded with distractions on a minute to minute basis. absolute MISMATCH.
event planning is chaotic by nature, and hard, and requires context switching, but generally no individual element requires hours of meditative thought and iteration while 3 different managers ping you on fucking Slack and you're also supposed to "keep an eye on production" and also mentor five kids who just graduated from a 6-week code camp like engineering does.
a lot of entrepreneurs are ADHD as hell. the context switching suits them, especially when they are calling the shots.
There may be a little bit of birds of a feather flocking together on this one. Similarly my closest circle have all got a diagnosis of something or other. Most are in the IT field too.
For me personally I mostly attribute this to how the circle initially formed - a bunch of outcasts to varying degrees new to college glomping on to any familiar faces from highschool (despite not really interacting during high school)
Any additions since college were adopted into the group through a mutual "we're the weirdos in this world, aren't we?" initial bond.
The groups were already split in my comment. How many emails in your inbox are in your inbox? All of 'em :P
I get the arguments for self-diagnosis but really it's self hypothesis. I only say diagnosed if they're medically diagnosed. Even doctors shouldn't be self diagnosing
ADHD is a spectrum sure but it has a low-end cap due to the second D, disorder. No disorder, no diagnosis, no ADHD. I'd love to have the same brain wiring without the disorder
> I find that, if time allows, I get a massive productivity boost after 4:30pm and everyone is either winding down or leaving.
The most important ADHD accommodation for me has been a private office (in my case working from home).
I'm insanely distractible—the slightest noise can throw me off, and even the threat of an impending interruption is enough to make me lose focus thinking about how I'll respond if it comes. In an open office, I had very little control over my environment, and so it was impossible for me to keep focused for any length of time. If it wasn't a coworker interrupting me personally, it was a conversation happening behind me, or even just someone walking by and me wondering if they're going to interrupt.
At home, I have a private office with a locked door, and I put on hearing protection over earbuds, which blocks essentially all sounds from the house. I can control my notifications, so if I'm in flow I'm completely uninterruptible.
The other big benefit from privacy is that I don't have to feel guilty when I do get distracted with something. There's no one to see me and judge me for not "looking like I'm working", so when I do lose focus for hours and then get the whole day's work done in a single hour of hyperfocus, no one knows or cares that I couldn't stay focused that day—all they see is that I finished what I said I would. Privacy allows me to use my strengths (working well under pressure) without fear of judgement.
Way too many distractions in an office, it’s not just trying to tune out sound, it’s visual, temperature, lighting, social, commuting etc…. They all increase your load.
I did, but that was never enough: even 37dB ear muffs aren't enough to completely suppress the noise of a conversation happening nearby, but the ear muffs plus the walls and the door are.
And, of course, as others point out, the auditory distractions are only part of the problem with an open floor plan.
I've got good results with white noise, not sure if that's something that would work for you. And of course I didn't suggest that this eliminates other distractions.
I've been in open office plans where wearing earbuds/headphones was seen as hostile/negative towards others. This was many years ago, but... not that many (in the mid 2000s).
I have migrated toward process and disaster recovery/avoidance over time. In the last ten years I have spent a lot of time thinking about the latter because everywhere I have ever worked, if an emergency goes on long enough I am one of the last three people still having a coherent thought at the end, and often the only person with enough brain cells to summarize what just happened and propose a 5 Why’s theory. Which sounds like bragging if you ignore the consequences of this, which is that I am also the last person to recover to 100% in the following days. Which is exactly why I’m thinking about it so much.
I have learned at least two things about myself and a few about other people from all of this. For myself, I know I am overly acclimated to blowing past my limits into my reserves. I am used to constantly monitoring my mental state and pushing for breaks.
For others, I know that adrenaline and cortisol reduce everyone’s cognitive abilities. It’s why we do fire drills. It’s why NASA launch facilities ritualize everything. Save your brain cells and improvisational skills for things we can’t predict, not for things we can.
In the first hours of an emergency, everyone else’s brain turns to mush while mine gets just a little squishy. What for them is their worst work day in months is to me just a bad Tuesday. And self monitoring is one of the first things to go. They’re operating at 80% while I’m at 95%, and they absolutely won’t call for breathers without prompting.
On projects where I am at the periphery, we all struggle together. On projects where I get to influence the agenda, or even father chunks of it, people often walk back out of that room feeling like they braced for a collision that never came, because I’ve routed around all of the foot guns and created low cognitive load ways to answer the important questions. If anyone has been complaining about me spending “too much time” on this, about half of them are convinced after one or two non-event events. If the majority of the people didn’t agree with my methods before, they do now.
I used to say I spend my A-game days protecting myself from my C-game days, but these days I’m more likely to cite Kernighan’s aphorism about not being smart enough to debug your own code. Write all of your code like you’re going to have to wrestle with it on an off day, because you certainly will at some point.
And putting high functioning ADHD people in charge of process and tooling is not a terrible idea. If you can figure out who those people are, that is. To be high functioning means constantly masking, because in this world it’s better to be rude and aloof than to be seen as broken.
On my current project our hot fix process is so bullet proof that I could do a hot fix in the middle of our sprint demo. And I have, three times. Once while I was the MC. All of that was me, and the automation tools I wrote for myself are the official process now. And instead of a bus number of 3 it’s somewhere north of 6. Important, especially this time of year.
I’m using chunk of my A-game days to improve the results of my B- and C-days. This means automating and simplifying things as much as possible. In work, hobbies and life in general. A-days are rare, and even though they are very productive, the output is mostly generated on B and C. Being able to progress even on the bad days shies away the meltdowns and burning out.
Of all the optimizations I've done, moving to one screen/monitor ~10 years ago has been the biggest positive impact on my work, anxiety, and overall focus.
When I was younger, I was way too naive in the memetic desire when seeing other more senior folks with multiple screens, or even seeing "hacker" representations in the media with many screens with different orientations (silly, I know...everyone is dumb when they're young.) When you're 22 and insecure about whether or not you're actually "good" or belong, then you try to mimic the "best."
One key identifier not mentioned in the article is that ADHD, as well as manically depressed, people typically produce extremely low levels of serotonin. It is common for ADHD people to compensate with stimulants like caffeine and sugar.
Many people crave minor stimulants in the afternoon or early morning when serotonin levels dip in the day. People chronically low on serotonin however will crave these all day long in extreme volumes in what looks like drug addiction seeking behavior. The result of such stimulant over consumption produces behaviors that appear like rapid bipolar disorders.
This does not apply to all people with ADHD, but when you see the behavior in people close to you it’s probably a good idea to have them tested.
My biggest learning about ADHD is that it’s not primarily about focus, but irregularities with task completion/transition deficiencies.
It's dopamine that ADHD lack and that you get from caffeine and sugar, not serotonin. People who are depressed do lack serotonin though yes. And you can have both. You can't get that from caffeine though.
I really dislike the neurotransmitter discussions because they do not differentiate between "free" or "in-transit" neurotransmitter levels vs. "stored" or "awaiting dispatch" neurotransmitter levels vs. "receptor sites" or "available destinations" for neurotransmitters vs. "receptor activation effect" or "destination's response on delivery." That doesn't even get into the complexity of different types of receptor sites or their roles in all the different bodily systems and organs. It leads for utterly confounding conversations without strictly delineating what everyone knows and/or assumes about the topic at hand.
So, here is my quick and slipshod armchair theorizing: serum serotonin levels may be a predictor of ADHD due serotonin's role in activating certain autoreceptors that mediate dopamine release.
As with many behavior impairing/enhancing substances, there are effects on multiple neurotransmitters:
>Caffeine activates noradrenaline neurons and seems to affect the local release of dopamine. Many of the alerting effects of caffeine may be related to the action of the methylxanthine on serotonin neurons. [1]
Or take alcohol, which people typically associate only with GABA:
>Among the neurotransmitter systems linked to the reinforcing effects of alcohol are dopamine, endogenous opiates (i.e., morphinelike neurotransmitters), GABA, serotonin, and glutamate acting at the NMDA receptor (Koob 1996).
Two other things, first the notion that depression can be reduced down to a deficiency of neurotransmitters is almost certainly an oversimplification (if not outright incorrect). What we have is correlation, not causation, where GABA, stress hormones, and other mechanisms also show up. Second, even if this characterization of "low on neurotransmitters => depression" is correct, it is not and has never been just about serotonin:
>The monoamine-deficiency theory posits that the underlying pathophysiological basis of depression is a depletion of the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine in the central nervous system. [2]
No. It over simplifies what is happening to the point of drawing false correlations. Low serotonin production is strongly linked with low dopamine production but the reverse is less clear. More direct to this conversation sugar and caffeine consumption addresses low dopamine directly, but this coping behavior seeks to address the results of low serotonin, not dopamine. People with low dopamine but regular serotonin also benefit equally from high sugar and caffeine intake, but are substantially less prone to seek sugar and caffeine for that purpose. In the end its about correcting for mood stimulus not task reward stimulus.
Oh I mean that makes perfect sense. You're agreeing with me. Caffeine and sugar give you dopamine. Of course those with low serotonin are likely to have low dopamine - being depressed makes you not want to do stuff. And I can also understand why being depressed would make you want comfort consumables more than being only low dopamine.
That last one mentioned coloring agents multiple times. Different research has show artificial colors, as derived from petro-chemical processing like reds and yellows, are strongly linked with neurotransmitter disruption in all people, but the effect is an order of magnitude more significant in high risk children.
Huh heard this before about caffeine but not sugar, that might explain why I'm an absolute sugar fiend. I'm just very lucky that my blood sugar isn't through the roof somehow.
Correspondence, keeping records and making appointments are attention destroying activities.
For a few year stretch I worked with a team project manager who wasn't technical at all. She'd setup the meetings that I needed to have, diligently take notes in those meetings and then we'd get together to recap everything figure out dates and all that. Then I'd get back to nerding out but with a ordered punch list that I knew Donna needed me to get done.
It was the best.
But the pmo wanted to do things a different way so their engagement model moved from embedded PMs focused on team deliverables to individual project focus.
Now instead of Donna there to assist with correspondence, keep records, make appointments, and carry out similar tasks I had an army of fragmented Donnas each focused on their one thing and each needing oversight to understand my involvement and external dependencies.
The move probably gave the pmo a more modern feel and better reporting but it killed productivity for ADDs like me since a large portion of my time each day became correspondence, keeping records and making appointments instead of cranking out nerd units.
A simple Hack that still works for me after years:
1. Place a tiny LED (red or yellow) by the side of your monitor or virtually on the screen corner. Basically anywhere almost bordering your field of view.
2. Make it blink like a fast heartbeat (120-150 bpm) and gradually slowdown to around 60 bpm (or your slow heartbeat base). Make the slope approx 20 to 60 minutes (you can adjust the best rate by testing in 10m increments after a few days in one setting).
Now...
3. Get to work regardless if distracted and agitated. Close all apps except what you need to work and BOOM!, let the magic happen. Without realising, your brain will try to sync with the light that you can barely see, calming you down and allowing you to go focus-mode with the task in had.
Works like hypnosis!
It is also a cheap hack... I build my unit with a cheap ESP32 and heart-rate sensor to sync deeper and dynamically adjust the slope...
Will explain better if any interest.
No science behind (only principles), I just hammered a solution like any Ape with the shakes would need!
- once the LED has slowed down to 60 bpm, do you keep it at that tempo for the rest of the day? for a few hours? do you ever go back to 120 bpm and then go back down?
- generally speaking, how did you come up with the idea?
- do you think that a software version (i.e. some blinking pixels in the top right corner of a monitor) would work, or is the intensity of the LED (i.e. the fact that it's not part of the monitor) part of the reason why it works?
- could you also talk about the heart-rate sensor - how do you use it / how does it affect the bpm algorithm?
- Once it reaches the lowest rate, the LED goes off after a 30min timer set, it fades the light over that time under the same blinking rate. So I won't notice.
- The Idea comes from desperation really, mostly curiosity on why sound beats from upbeat music had a effect to improve mood, i.e. work more at gym. Also the idea that your brain will take patterns and try to synch with. Check PubMed (few articles about)
- I started with a software version (v.1 and v2) and then a hardware one. No idea why, but hardware (as a side device) works really good. I 3D printed a tiny case and it is discreetly below my iMac screen powered by the USB. Look like an old modem but tiny.
Finally...
- I added the heart monitor (a cheap cable and wrist sensor) to see if I could shorten the time to achieve the lowest rate of blink based on my heart response instead of waiting the time or trying to read brainwave pattern (I try measuring voltage and electric wave form, from a headband I bought and returned after a rapid test) but the signal would mix with the work in front of me, so useless and expensive.
Using heart rate looks cheap, non-intrusive and effective to shorten the time, it goes 1/3 of time to get lowest, could use an apple watch vs cable and sensor but I'm cheap.
There was research some time ago (jeez, 10 years ago...) [0] [1] that used video and... computer vision algorithms to detect a person's heart rate without any devices. Wondering if it could be used here i.e. use your webcam instead of an external hardware sensor?
Other thing - would you be open to publishing/sharing your algorithm / esp32 code (on Github or as a blog article)?
We use this approach of video heartbeat detection on a real product (recruiting tool) but not for my hack ADHD device,
You can't really do video detection it in real time and properly, without overheating the cheap device. On the SaaS we did we use a recorded segment of video so we can analyse it afterwards, check the colour changes in the face of the subject and try estimate heartbeat with loose accuracy. More like high, Normal, Low after taking a few seconds as base.
The idea of the ADHD device was just a cheap hack done in a day for myself.
Not a product or commercial as I don't feel claiming it can do to others what I looks like does to me.
We use on video-applications when pre processing them, the idea is to sense stress levels when the applicant is introducing themselves at the start of the video and then not reducing their scores or points when the same person gets shy of being on video or forget something due to stress when talking about something else.
We try estimate a "confidence" level when saying something, but NOT able to guess if a lie. An actor can easily have full confidence in a script, but still be a lie.
We intended for roles that are client facing and where personal skills are key. Things like retail, costumer service, sales.... not technically or education based, temporary work and alike. Not that Orwellian yet ; )
Example: You need 40 people for an event to work a few hours as guides or hosts, from 100 applying the system can suggest a score and list them all in order so you can start watching or calling for interviews from somewhere.
I'm definitely NOT attending an interview where this kind of tech is used. My heart rate is irrelevant to whether someone should hire me - and I say that as someone who doesn't even get anxious or nervous during interviews.
Not for interviews, video-applications, is used to sense stress and give extra points (not deducting them) if a person is indeed just too shy of being on video vs talking about something ; )
I've developed an experimental ESP32 project that simulates a heartbeat pattern.
But I don't have a heart rate sensor, I used my normal resting heart rate as a basis for the simulation.
The project utilizes an ESP32 to create a LED blink pattern that represents a heartbeat, starting at a faster rate and gradually slowing down to a resting rate.
I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
Not my view for this one as it is a personal issue. I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like it does for me. Also I'm not basing it on anything scientific other than raw experimental data from 1.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE for everyone.
I run a tiny tiny tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
No, I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
For this personal issue, I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like what it does for me. Also I'm not based on anything other than experimental data.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE.
I run a tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
Thanks for the complement,
I guess you would be a client (few comments)
I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
Not my view for this one as it is a personal issue. I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like it does for me. Also I'm not basing it on anything scientific other than raw experimental data from 1.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE for everyone.
I run a tiny tiny tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
Seems likely to be a placebo. You have a vested interest in it working, admit its not based on any sort of science, and one of the setup steps is to overcome distraction (which is the problem that’s trying to be solved).
> Seems likely to be a placebo. You have a vested interest in it working, admit its not based on any sort of science, and one of the setup steps is to overcome distraction (which is the problem that’s trying to be solved).
Fundamentally, if it works for the OP, who the hell cares?
And how would you even double-blind test this anyway?
> And how would you even double-blind test this anyway?
Get lights that either start fast and slow down or blink at speeds that randomly change then use serial numbers to track which lights are which, but send them out at random to test subjects?
you would blind the participants to the effect you are looking to measure. If they don’t know what to expect or what conditions there are, they can still get a placebo effect from random patterns.
> you would blind the participants to the effect you are looking to measure. If they don’t know what to expect or what conditions there are, they can still get a placebo effect from random patterns.
Maybe. Generally you'd do a manipulation check at the end to ensure that people couldn't identify what condition they were in.
Additionally, that's single blind rather than double blind.
The researchers can be blinded by not experiencing the intervention and handing out identical looking devices. You’re right that you would need a manipulation check at the end but this experiment is totally design-able properly.
I still think that the manipulation check would reveal failures of blinding, but yeah it is doable (but we needed a while to come up with a reasonable design).
And more generally, my philosophy (as someone with a PhD in the placebo effect) is that harnessing any expectancy/placebo effects in one's personal life is totally reasonable, and if it works for people and there's low risk of harm then more power to them.
We shouldn't gatekeep potentially useful personal treatments based on the gold standard. It's kinda the medical equivalent of YAGNI, I suppose.
Not to be too confrontational, but why did you feel the need to point this out? When someone has a solution that works for them, why possibly ruin it for them by pointing out placebo?
Mind you, pointing out placebo could be useful if the OP made the claim that their solution could cure a disease or something (such claims could discourage someone from getting effective treatment).
> When someone has a solution that works for them, why possibly ruin it for them by pointing out placebo?
You are likely aware of this already, but for others readers, it's important to know that placebos are still effective even when you know they are placebo. The term is "open-label placebo".
the first time I tried antidepressants I had this effect. I even knew about the placebo effect, and I knew they take multiple weeks to do anything. but yet the day after I took the first pill I started wondering if things were getting better and I was trying to deny it, but it felt like a change. (spoiler: it had the opposite effect and once they took effect I could barely get out of bed lol). It was just incredible knowing that it was placebo but still feeling the effect.
I wouldn't be surprised if you felt better even before you took your first dose; I can imagine you started feeling better just having a prescription in hand.
Imagine what it must have been like for "primitive" civilizations: "Oh my son, your hurt back has gone on far too long. I'm taking you to the tribal elder who will prescribe a remedy and do a spell. Once he finishes, all your pain will be a distant memory". And it works (for some duration).
Because it's a discussion about science and their comment is totally valid.
One of the biggest parts of placebo is going through the motions, whether you believe it or not. The original commentor appears to be aware that their approach may not have any scientific basis so mentioning the potential of placebo is fine.
I find music distracting when I work because I listen to it too actively, but I can imagine that a subtle regular pulse or beat might help. It would beed to be quiet and plain enough that it would not dominate my attention.
Even music without lyrics is distracting to me, but lyrics (if in a language I understand) definitely make it much worse.
Oddly enough, non-musical sounds (like birds or cars) don't affect me at all. I think it's the complex pattern-matching in music that is a problem for me. Of course, that's also what makes it so delightful to listen to.
For me it's more that the language processing centre in my brain is strongly single-threaded. Some non-verbal sounds do engage it, but there's a complexity threshold. Magpies chattering to each other do. Some classical music does, but not all by any means.
Yes, it could be the placebo effect, but placebo works wonders ; )
I detailed better aspects on a question above,
Placebo need you to trust it works (or see a figure of authority to believe it does), in my case I expect nothing and got not much on v.1 (software) by v.3 (hardware) it is surprising.
YES, it can be the placebo effect, but still placebo can works wonders ; )
I detailed better aspects on questions above, also not doing it commercially or claiming it can be helpful for anyone other than me.
In placebo, one needs to trust it will work (or see a figure of authority to believe it does), in my case I wasn't expecting much and got not far from it on v.1 (software), but by v.3 (hardware) I was surprised and used to it.
I believe there is research into rapid eye blinking followed by slow blinking causing the brain to "calm", so perhaps an external source has a similar effect?
I didn't look too much into it but I too have seen something long time past about patterns with light from a TV on some of those documentaries from the 80's, basically about people trying advertising with subjective flashes to induce a certain mood.
Just use any blinking LED template code that your OEM offers for your particular board (ESP32 or alike) as it will be specific for the PIN the LED is wired and libraries available, etc.
Basically a function slope with a value from 150 to 60 that calls "blinks" over an hour, when at the end it turns off LED.
You can make it smoother, add the heartbeat sensor, make it pulse instead of blink, that stuff will be particular to whatever you have at hand.
GPT for such simple code after explaining the device and pointing to documentation should be a 3-4 shot process.
My one is horribly inefficient and shameful to share : )
I see, well in that case just search for ESP32 on Amazon and get one for a $5, then look for a few videos on Youtube who to program for a ESP32 board and you will probably learn as a first example something to control the board's LED. From that you will be half way, just modify and try things out ; )
I explained above on another question, did started as Software (v.1 and v.2) but I guess my brain tried to ignore and sabotage the work on the screen, so I placed as a tiny device underneath (gotcha F brains!).
Like tricking the brain to see as not part of the work.
Yeah, but this blinking light is still at another level. I'm glad it works for the OP, but to me this really stood out as pretty absurd.
Sounds a bit like: I have a hard time falling asleep, so I have this blinking light next to my bed. I take a sleeping pill and let the magic happen. My heart rate then syncs to the light and I fall asleep. This light works great!
No really what I was trying to say but get your point.
The idea is that you sit at your desk even if too agitated and remove the visual distractions that aren't work so your eyes will either look at work or the blinking led. I have an iPad by the side so I can't see the screen but will open from time to time to check emails.
So, stare at the screen even if you don't feel like it and try 1o-15min.... if you forget and realised an hour passed and the blink stoped it... then it worked!
oh sh*t. here we go again. another IoT that I would love to start and then abandon for some reason knowing full well how fix it but not find the "time" to do it.
OMG. I could not do this. I hope it's useful to others, but not for me...at all.
The biggest distraction for me, when working/focusing, is movement at the edge of my vision. You know, like most websites with their moving ads, or fly-out videos that no one asked for, etc.
I'm glad you found your silverbullet, but that specific approach would wreck my productivity.
Your description is close to what I experience at times, that blinking thing may help you ignore outside the monitor distractions as it is there forcing you to ignore?
Interesting,
Do one and tell me ; )
I cost me $25 or less.... all spares ESP32 (most of them has a LED pinned anyways) and don't bother the heart monitor initially, just set time and rate of descent for the blink.
What if instead of a blinking led, it were a warm incandescent bulb, shaded by a diffuser? Bulbs have some on and off ramp time naturally but maybe this could be purposefully exaggerated so it pulses instead of blinks. Wonder if it would be as effective though.
Nice tip. Thanks for sharing.
I'll probably try this by making a cheap one with one of my kids' microbits. This seems like the perfect board for doing this.
Yes, it could be the placebo effect, but placebo works wonders ; )
I detailed better aspects on a question above,
Mostly when I added the heart monitor, somehow I can measure that the time to lowest blink got shorter and I'm not paying attention to the device at all.
When I realise it us OFF I can see the logs and see how long it take vs the heartbeat to sync.
Also, I build myself so I like there was no marketing or product to trust, just test and adjust.
Inspired by this post I threw together a new open source desktop app that has an annoying always on top window that has a flashing timer, this seems to accomplish the same thing. https://github.com/timsayshey/cringe-clock
Anything you get aware that goes fast-to-slow in a smooth gradient is the idea.
I tried sound (beats) on a headphone with some tracks, then build a tiny app to show pixels on the screen (blink) and then settled on a LED on a prototyping board type of device (ESP32) as a quick project and that worked.
I only improved by adding the heart sensor months later, now I don't think about it much, Now even If I'm not aware of, every time I turn the iMac it powers the device via the USB and so it starts anyway at 150bpm when the heart sensor is not responding or not detecting anything. After an hour it gets to 60 and the light fades out....
I'm not aware when it goes off, so I guess it is working ; )
Few people here posted code, ideas and I added the device pic I used (similar) and the sensors... you can buil one with almost anything and try!
My daughter suffers from functional seizures due to FND and we do something similar with counting. When she is suffering from a complex motor tic we will ask her to count at a "comfortable speed" - which is always 100+ counts per minute. She will then slow down the counting until we reach 60 counts per minute at which point she has usually transitioned to a less intrusive tic or she has ceased ticcing altogether.
> I just hammered a solution like any Ape with the shakes would need!
This is an underrated approach. Following hunches and suspicions often leads to solutions that a pure evidence-based approach might miss or delay; especially if your suspicion goes against the prevaling wisdom.
Really interesting to learn about your solution for you daughter, great to see it works and appreciated the comment of my approach being an underrated one.
My case isn't anything as relevant as yours and maybe that's why I did not much of research, easy going for a crude trial.
I just listened to a podcast, Huberman, that discussed how to improve your ability to task switch. Apparently, there’s some connection to how your mind perceives time. He mentioned an exercise to improve your ability to task switch that manipulates how your mind perceives time, switching back-and-forth between slowing it down and speeding it up.
I think the inability to task switch is a big part of ADHD and this thing you’re describing really sounds similar to what Huberman was discussing.
Now, I’m not a doctor and I have no idea what I’m talking about here. Every time I start talking about this stuff I imagine my doctor friend sitting in the corner of the room shaking his head (maybe some of you saying it’s placebo should do the same).
My guess is that may be working more like a simple "maestro" telling your brain orchestra and heart drummer to reduce the speed from Heavy metal to Ballad and that somehow makes easy to focus in what's in front of you?
I make no claims here, I did it for me and looks like it works, not scientifically based or proven, not even tested on more than 1. So, no idea if can or will work for you ; )
That said, I'm now curious with so many comments to see how it will perform for those building versions to test. Its a 20min project, free for those already with prototyping board around.
The key for me was to remove to my marginal angle of vision, not on the screen (like an app), the moment I moved outside and wasn't in front of it it work best. If you see it directly it does distract you indeed.
thank you for the correction. i blame one or all of fever delirium, lack of coffee, and allergy to math for this mistake. thank god i'm using a shitposting account.
I didn't like the blinking at first, so I made it pulse instead (smoother) but was never to the point of headaches. that said, sound should work if you can keep a headset ; )
Thanks for this initial go at the blinking LED script! I went ahead and tried to add some quality-of-life features to this that I wanted. I've never used pyqt before, so I admit I had help from google and copilot figuring out methods. Anyways, here is an updated version that has a few more configurations for background color, circle color, slowdown period, graceful window resizing, and graceful shutdown.
Try doing one on a physical device too... My settings are just related to fade after reaching target or turn off immediately, Led colour (my ESP32 has a RGB onboard) and blink or pulse. Then there is a Start & Stop rate (150-60) as standard and IF sensor is connected or has data (heart) those values adjust too.
This got me so intrigued that I built https://github.com/vlameiras/tranquiled in order to have similar behaviour but in the screen itself. Nothing fancy, just curious to try it out!
Nice one! I will be curious to learn if that works for others too.
In my case v.1 and 2 were apps with a similar on screen red dot like yours. Much smaller and first placed at the status-bar (like the cock ":" blinking) then floating on screen lower left corner.
Things got interesting and worked best for me after I remove the light from the actual screen I must look at to work. Hence the device use, and then later the heart sensor.
The key (I guess) is to make you brain see it but not you (if that makes sense?). Something like you looking at your screen but can still see if an Ant moves nearby or your phone shows a notification. Near your screen but not on it ; )
In any case, great little test, and eager for any feedback you can get.
ChatGPT got me a similar HTML based solution with this prompt (F11 for full scren):
Create a simple web page with a red blinking LED in the top-left corner. The LED should start blinking at 150 BPM and gradually slow down to 60 BPM. The initial size of the LED should be 40px, and it should completely disappear during the "off" phase. Additionally, include a red box shadow during the "on" phase of the blink. Please use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the implementation. Adjust the code as needed for clarity and readability.
This is great! So many people in the ADHD community don't dig in enough into the 'superpower' side of it, so I'm super glad you covered that here. We can't get rid of the bad parts so I think it's extra important to lean into the good parts too.
I will also share this Historia Civilis video on the history of work, which really resonated with me as an ADHD person -- It's OK and even more 'natural' to have fast and slow days.
And I will say, for me, Obsidian was another red herring. When I see Gwern's blog I dream about my ordered note taking life and I tried for about a year to do that with obsidian. I took a lot of notes, but I don't read them and they do nothing for me.
I ended up after a lot of trial and error with a bookmarklet that lets me take notes right in a browser window paired with a real planning app like tick tick or Google keep or whatever.
The quick notes are good for when I'm trying to avoid my other Todo list because there's something I don't want to do on it but I still need to take other notes.
I think many people in the adhd community don’t think it’s a superpower, which is why we don’t dig into that. As someone who was diagnosed later in life the profundity of what adhd has cost me cannot be overstated. It is not a superpower, it is my worst enemy.
Same. My adhd has made me a decent developer despite very much not wanting to do that sort of work. However it has absolutely destroyed my life and relationships and my ability to even sit down and get dev work done. I’m currently on my third “sabbatical” of my life because I’m incapable of working right now. I’ve been jobless close to three years of my adult life now - not because I was ever fired, but because I’m incapable of managing my adhd well enough to work. I’m trying extremely hard
Instead of taking many notes I just only use the daily notes. Its basically one continuous stream that also represents the stream of time.
So I could very easily scroll down a few days to see what I did then and if I need to look something up (I have all the days in one continuous view).
Works well for me although sometimes its hard to separate work from personal notes this way.
Being diagnosed at the age of two with pretty severe ADHD I do not consider my disabling disorder a superpower in the least. I could see it as something if I was more naive that could be exploited by my employer if I had one and if I let myself into a situation like that and that would be damaging to me if I let that happen. I'm sure I could be really productive if I don't take care of myself for an extended period of time to finish a project using all of The fuel in my tank multiple times a month but I really don't ever want to be in that situation because that's basically where danger lies.
> This is great! So many people in the ADHD community don't dig in enough into the 'superpower' side of it, so I'm super glad you covered that here. We can't get rid of the bad parts so I think it's extra important to lean into the good parts too.
Thanks for your comment, that's what I wanted to express. We can't run away from the bad parts, so let's try to deal with it and find some stuff to help us.
I read that whole thing and didn’t read one word about nutrition?
I’ve come along way to understanding the nutritional metabolic pathways that may increase the symptoms of ADHD.
Pyridoxine, or B6, is the most studied nutritional factor when it comes to reducing ADHD symptoms. I’m not saying this is the only cause of ADHD, but if this works other things might work as well. Zinc is a good possibility on the list also.
While it discusses multi-year treatment, the paper says "After several weeks of such treatment the pattern of behavior in ADHD patients is normalized." which feels like something that could be easily tried out. Since it was published in 2013 I'd expect some follow-up? (checking for citations now)
Edit: Sadly, "No Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine Abnormalities in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777504/ 2016, larger study. (although they measure the amounts rather than ratios, so not exactly the same idea)
Nutritional studies are hard to get funding for in the first place, never mind the follow-ups.
They found nothing in the study, because IMI they were measuring the wrong neurotransmitters. Dopamine is not the cause of the symptoms. It has to do with glutamate and GABA Balance. Since stimulants can control effect glutamate and GABA as well as Dopamine , that’s why there is all the confusion.
B6 also plays a role in glutamate GABA balance through stimulating the glutamate dehydrogenase enzyme.
May be a part of why so many people with psychiatric disorders (especially undiagnosed or untreated) often use nicotine and/or alcohol to cope. They both interact heavily with the GABAergic system. Alcohol also inhibits the activity of glutamate and reduces extracellular levels in certain brain regions. Too much glutamate in the brain can cause 'failure of different neurotransmission systems' and is neurotoxic.
It's too bad self-medicating with these substances comes with such awful downsides.
Ethanol is my go to medication. It’s the only calcium, sodium, and potassium ion channel blocker that can enter the brain. These are implicated in bipolar disorder which I have. The trick is to not abuse it just like any other medication.
I also have labile hypertension and it’s the only medication I can take that controls my blood pressure spikes.
I feel the same way about nicotine, although I can’t take it because it turns me to up. Nicotine is a stimulant and can be used as a medicine in lower doses. The problem is that people used to do and that sets up the addiction cycle.
I definitely have an issue with a very high glutamate/GABA ratio. My other go to medicine is Klonopin which I use only when I’m in a severe crisis. Like when I had a delusional psychosis when I had Covid.
Nutrition is very important indeed, but it has always been a problem for me. I wanted to focus on things I tried and worked on me. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the points I listed made the things better for me. Everybody's different, so it's not a silver bullet, just my personal journey.
Can you explain more about how nutrition is an issue for you?
Would you ever consider getting your serum B6 levels tested? It’s pretty cheap and you can do it without a doctors prescription if you’re in in the United States.
I think this and many research efforts seem like how blind men are describing an elephant. They partially capture the truth. It seems to me B6 is just one of many cofactors that affect the one-carbon metabolism (methylation) besides epigenetics that play a role in ADHD. Recently I have been reading/watching materials from Bill Wash. His findings on ADHD make more sense to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdI6rqORv8 If you look up further online, I think you can find the biochemical rationale for these findings.
I love how this community has such a disproportionate number of people who have ADHD. It's almost like programming is actually just incredibly difficult to pay attention to for any normal human being and the field is competitive enough that people basically have to find a way to get a prescription for stimulants.
(Honestly not trying to discredit anyone actually suffering from ADHD, just seem implausible to me that so many have it given that programming also just requires an unhealthy amount of attention to finish tasks in a "timely" manner).
To make it broader, neurodiverse conditions, autism spectrum being the other one; no surprise there's a lot of overlap between ADHD and ASD when it comes to some of the symptoms.
That honestly just isn't a stereotype I see play out in reality aside from the sort of "pop" coders like Carmack and Stallman. Like I've met neurodiverse coders, but in roughly the same proportion as I meet neurodiverse folks in other facets of life.
It may also be that many individuals who are on the autism spectrum also present with comorbid ADHD.
And that things like coding, solving logic puzzles, rationality etc is disproportionately more interesting to people somewhere on the autism spectrum.
But.. I don't know.
From someone that actually has ADHD and has finally got it under control:
1. Our genetics means that one gene producing double the dopamine uptake receptors and a combo of other genes messes with something else (50% of all ADHDers have an anxiety disorder either GABA or serotonin based). In fact that is why ADDERALL is not addictive for us but is addictive to a normal person with the normal count of dopamine uptake receptors as cocaine, meth, etc. work on the TAART stretch of the dopamine uptake receptor.
2. Dopamine analogs plus coffee troopics tend to work at getting leverage to put time org and note org on top. My stack is:
-30 mg caffeine taken one to 2 hours after waking when cortisol starts decreasing
-green tea extract
-maca extract
-vitamins through fenugreek
-dopamine analog via goji berries
-L-theanine to stretch the 2 hour caffeine effect to 6 hours
Note for non ADHD people your cortisol starts decreasing after you wake about 1 to 2 hours after waking as this is what made caffeine drinks a habit. It is not wrong to take caffeine an hour or two after waking or at 10 am. You just should follow it up with the weak EGCG found in green tea and L-theanine to make it stretch to 6 hours.
> In fact that is why ADDERALL is not addictive for us but is addictive to a normal person with the normal count of dopamine uptake receptors as cocaine, meth, etc. work on the TAART stretch of the dopamine uptake receptor.
What evidence do you have to support this claim? I have plenty of anecdotes of little value that would conflict with your claims. I find your claims hard to believe without evidence. Addictions are highly circumstantial and complex disorders.
I've gone through the process now of being reviewed for ADHD both in Australia and the US, and I can say Australia really makes the process nightmarish.
To start with: the meds are so restricted ordinary doctors / GPs can't prescribe them. And trying to bring up 'ADHD' may get you labeled as a 'drug seeker.' But let's say you get an appointment with a psychiatrist (the ordained ministers who can write stimulant prescriptions) - wait times can be anywhere from 3 - 6 months. Upon which you're not guaranteed to be taken seriously because psychiatry isn't an exact science and not every doctor even acknowledges everything in the DSM.
In the state that I'm in I had to be drug tested before and after getting on ADHD meds. Before to make sure that I wasn't a drug seeker. And after to confirm I was taking the meds and not selling them. My doctor then had to apply for a special license just to write my script. He did this by writing a letter full of supporting clinical information and applying for the license to issue the script. So after all that effort (easily 9+ months) you get the chance to be given meds by such a doctor. But currently there are supply chain shortages so many people aren't even able to get their meds.
My US experience (much shorter):
When I was in the US I used a telehealth app on my phone to speak to a amazing clinician who specialized in ADHD (google some or this looks like shilling.) I had my meds not long after that. I currently don't bother with medication though because although it works exceptionally well: I can't sleep on them. I'd say to US people - have a look at some of the apps out there. You'll want to go with people who can actually prescribe and not psychologists.
Keep in mind there are other reasons that can cause concentration issues (depression and insomnia are examples.) It would probably be better for most people not to have ADHD as other illnesses are potentially easier to treat with less side effects.
((I really liked the conciseness, typography, and artwork in the article, by the way.))
It's better to have a diagnosis either way to be honest. If you have it and were undiagnosed for decades, you will finally have an answer to why you're different, and as some that took medication for the first time, it can finally go quiet in your head.
And if you don't have it, then you can look at other causes for your problems. Because nobody (and/or their dog) will think they have ADHD unless they have identified a problem first.
100%. I’m glad Australia appears to be doing an actual diagnosis rather than just prescribing drugs.
All kids are different. Some kids can sit and read for hours. But some kids need to do physical stuff. Schools don’t cater for the latter. Gone are the days of learning wood work and metal work, cooking, sewing. Kids don’t do PE class like they used to. We try to ram all kids through the same meat grinder and when one resists we try to dumb them down with drugs and force them through. These kids are probably WORSE off being on drugs and shoved through the meat grinder than had they dropped out and done a trade skill instead. Nope it’s adhd and we got to drug them up and in most cases it’s a visit to the doctor and “do you have adhd” “I think so” “good enough for me here take this drug that I get paid to prescribe you”
Have you attended those classes or just citing something you googled? Because they aren’t the same now as they were in the 50s or 90s. And those classes are like once a week now as academic classes are the main focus. This type of schooling still does not cater for kids who often excel in these classes but do poorly in general academics. But hey. Keep pushing those kids through the meat grinder!!!
ADHD is medicalizing a set of mental habits that many smart people form early in life partly out of boredom, and partly because they can get away with it. The criteria for diagnosing it in adults are impossibly vague and ad-hoc, and I have yet to meet anyone who went through the evaluation process who wasn't diagnosed with it.
By all means have at it if you enjoy legal access to terrific stimulants (they really do help you focus!), but maybe take the idea that you've suffered under the burden of lifelong illness with a grain of salt. ADHD is our generation's neurasthenia.
Basically you have ADHD/ADD if your symptoms are maladaptive to the modern environment. The modern world is increasingly being able to focus and produce.
And yet it isn't. Schools over here are less sitting in rows facing the teacher and Pay Attention, and more sitting in groups, get a laptop out, "fun" project activities. Modern workplaces - in our industry - are all about a deluge of distractions, meetings, tickets, incoming or always-on calls, side activities, incoming merge requests, Slack messages in half a dozen spaces that all need to be read or you might miss out, on top of a lot of people being open for private communications and distractions like making appointments, chatting with the home front, etc.
So no, I don't know where you live or work, but I don't agree that the modern world wants you to focus and produce.
That's why we have universities, so that people can get legitimate claim to authority and familiarity with the subject and its nuances based on years of study and research.
Imperfect? Sure. But it sure beats the "trust me bro" university.
>ADHD is medicalizing a set of mental habits that many smart people form early in life partly out of boredom, and partly because they can get away with it.
Spoken like a bona fide "bro" with no professional qualifications on the matter, not familiar with the research (except perhaps cherry-picked outlier stuff to reincorce their preconceived notion), and no personal experience of the devastating effects it has on the individual on all aspects of life (the very opposite of "getting away with it": professional and academic failure, social isolation, and other such outcomes, from the kindergadern -e.g. the "weird" stimming kid everybody bullies- to the grave).
But they sure do know some people claim to have it on TikTok when they don't, so the condition surely must not exist.
Considering doctors hand out Ritalin like skittles then you have to be pretty stupid to truly believe 75% of the population magically developed adhd over the last 70 years.
>Considering doctors hand out Ritalin like skittles
That's the "kids these days" myth. The reality is that to get diagnosed with ADHD and get to get medication is for many a long process, for most neglected until too late despite obvious signs.
>you have to be pretty stupid to truly believe 75% of the population magically developed adhd over the last 70 years.
Or you know, aside from the fact of more awareness (so people who would just be left to sink or swim on their own in the last 70 years, or merely considered "weirdos" and "failures" are now diagnosed), the world has also severely changed over the last 70 years, and aspects of it (many more rigid time-sensitive responsibilities, many more desk jobs, muct more emphasis on information processing and retention, infinitely more distractions, much more sensory overloading environments, and so on) make it more evident when one has it, and make the impact more severe.
And there can also be environmental and genetic factors involved (autism for example, a common commorbidity, did grow among other factors because more educated people with background/tendency for autism inter-marrying with more of their kind - with university, information, and tech jobs, and so on, as selection mechanisms). Such factors are under active study.
It's also nowhere near "75% of the population". At best around 4-8%, if that.
I get tired of hearing everyone claim they have ADHD. Or are sensitive to gluten. Or get sick from msg. Not realising the people who do actually suffer from these things are so few. But now it’s mainstream and cool.
Thing is, everyone can self-diagnose as Something Is Up, but thanks to the health care system being broken, nobody actually gets checked out, nobody is told "there is nothing wrong with you", or "you keep chugging energy drinks so your bowels are fucked, you don't have gluten allergy", or "you get 300 notifications per day and respond to all of them, you don't have ADHD".
At the same time, when you let that influence you it may contribute to make the situation worse for those actually affected.
What you're describing is probably a net positive for those actually affected. More awareness and less stigma.
My therapist recently diagnosed me with ADHD. I strongly disagree with that diagnosis, and I realised I don't know what ADHD actually is and that the internet and this article haven't been of any help.
I can relate to everything that this article says, but I suspect this is true of every single person with a mentally challenging job.
HN is full of developers complaining about open offices and useless meetings; do all of them have ADHD? Otherwise, what's the difference between a ADHD developer and a regular developer?
I _do_ have specific body problems that make my work harder, such as a very strong noise sensitivity and a circadian rhythm that requires me to sleep longer than the average person. Dealing with those specific problems did much more than throwing my hands in the air and yelling "ADHD".
Instead of a 2000-word article that might have been generated by AI, I would just follow these three points.
> complaining about open offices and useless meetings; do all of them have ADHD?
There's a commonly used diagnosis survey you can check. It should give you a better idea than this.
> ADHD developer and a regular developer
To give you one example (but this won't cover all cases / everyone's experience), if you're in the bathroom and think you need to change the toilet roll, then proceed to forget and remember it again 6 times before leaving the room, then head for the toilet roll stash, forget about it and go make yourself a sandwich instead... and that applies to almost everything you do throughout the day, you're probably in category 1 not 2.
For medication, another example would be when you take stimulants and get relaxed, less nervous and feel like you could finally go for a nap...
What I'm saying is, some people may be experiencing smaller issues for the same reason, or they may just not be satisfied with their environment and are able to act on it, but there's some threshold where it's not even the same category. If you don't know what ADHD actually is, maybe check the experiences written by people who do struggle with basic things daily while seemingly highly functioning otherwise? There's a number of subreddits where you can find them.
> HN is full of developers complaining about open offices and useless meetings; do all of them have ADHD? Otherwise, what's the difference between a ADHD developer and a regular developer?
Diagnostically speaking? The number of symptoms and the severity of those symptoms is basically it. Everyone will likely experience some of the symptoms of ADHD during their life. The co-occurence of those symptoms and the amount they affect your ability to function day-to-day is what makes the difference.
Some people will debate over how "real" ADHD is, where real means people with ADHD are a disjoint group and not just people on the very low end of the "ability to focus" bell curve. From my research I do believe it is "real", but that whether ADHD is "real" like sickle cell anemia is real or its just part of a normal bell curve doesn't really matter because society isn't going to adapt around you. If medication is what make the difference to maintain a normal life for some then that's probably a good thing that its available. If people who don't "really" have ADHD can learn strategies for focus and time management that's also a good thing.
> Dealing with those specific problems did much more than throwing my hands in the air and yelling "ADHD".
For a lot of people, dealing with their specific problems starts with recognizing what those problems are and identifying strategies to help. Diagnosing it gives validation that its something concrete you can work on, gives access to mental health professionals who can help you develop solutions, and creates a community of people all trying to solve similar problems.
Noise generates a very physical feeling of pain that tires me down and makes it impossible to focus.
It's the equivalent to having somebody constantly punch me in the face: it's annoying and distracting at first, and it eventually turns into tiredness and lack of motivation to do anything other than leaving the room I'm currently in to breathe some fresh air.
I understand this is something that happens to everyone (which is why so many people dislike open offices), but I have good reason to believe my noise sensitivity is worse than average and that it has been so since I was a kid.
- Forgetting to look at the to-do list -> Make a different to-do list
- Have 10+ to-do lists
- Forgetting what the to-do even refers to
- Discover emacs org mode, it can link everything together -> constantly forget emacs key bindings
- Use logseq/obsidian instead -> forget which names/links refer to projects -> have 10+ aliases referring to different perspectives of the same project
I need static types, logic programming, graph search algorithms, and a bit of AI, to help save me.
Also, it'd be nice if modern software was easier to interface with. Needs more support for deep linking and syncing. The "walled garden" approach is anathema to solutions that can help ADHDers.
- "Forgetting" to look at the calendar, or to-do list, or your phone reminders, or a list written in large letters on a whiteboard behind your desk.
I seem to have a cognitive equivalent of an ad blocker, my mind will literally erase any task list from existence, the moment I start getting even slightly anxious about it. It's like a magic spell - I can put the list in front of my face, and my eyes will just keep glossing over it, like if it was a tear in reality.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 325 ms ] threadI'm curious of any other developers have found effective, non-medication based ways to manage this.
Have you tried meditation and breathing exercises?
The PTSD presents mostly in incredibly severe trust issues, periodic nightmares related to events, depersonalization, sleep problems, and paranoia. I also have an absurdly overblown startle response that looks more like a panic attack than someone being jump-startled. If I'm startled "badly enough", it triggers a panic attack. "Badly enough" can simply be someone tapping me on the shoulder when I didn't notice them coming up behind me.
I used to take medication and it helped me a lot. Now however I have come off of them completely. The side effects can be devastating. In my case, I developed strong insomnia as amphetamines are much stronger than caffeine. Sleeplessness over a longer period can be very mentally deteriorating.
The advice I can give is to actively seek interaction with others suffering from the same, actively accept and ask for all accommodations and help, give yourself enough time for what you need to do and don't compare your experience to the neurotypical one. It is different and it's a matter of coping and accepting oneself and ones disadvantages as a normal part of life.
Another thing I often say to people in my therapy group is that they should also be politically proactive about their condition. Things like healthcare covered medication, ensured accommodations etc and the fight against stigmatization are political by nature.
This has been my approach at this point. I've had to accept that I will likely never get medication, or even a proper diagnosis. My family actively fought every teacher who suggested I had ADHD, and there were several. Very honestly, the only reason I have sought diagnosis is to get accommodation which would let me work within the focus patterns ADHD causes.
My closest friend has ADHD, and my partner is in the process of getting an ASD diagnosis. The majority of my time is spent around neuroodivergent types.
Simply having people around you who share your experience is incredibly helpful, since you can talk to them freely and be understood. I've given up trying to discuss the experience with people who are NT simply because the understanding that the challenges I face are not just inconvenient just isn't there.
I don't see how the rest of your comment follows from this quote. Don't give up bud, its always worth trying. You can simply not take meds if you don't want to.
I can't help myself from doing this, but I am not sure if I truly should want to stop making such a comparison. I find it leaves me feeling like I am inferior or sub-human. I have ADHD, and so what? ADHD can make things more challenging, but not impossible (within the realms of reason).
Sports can be an important piece of the puzzle in the ADHD lifestyle. Especially high-intensity, game-like, engaging ones that you can identify with and be good at. I swear my executive self-control and discipline have improved since I started training tennis several years ago.
I ran out of meds once but thank God my lady forced me to go get them asap because she couldn't handle me off the meds anymore
I am also on the "Highly Likely", and currently on the waitlist for a clinic. The best thing I did was being open and honest with my partner, as my ADD behaviors would sometimes exasperate her. I did the same with my manager at work, and it can usually get you some degree of accommodation which can help you cope.
I suffer for the 3-for-1 Triple A special: Autism, Anxiety and ADD. Seems to be a fairly common combination. Physical exercise helps greatly with anxiety, and helps to some degree to ADD as it does generate a certain sense of "reward" in my brain.
Oh! I have another. I once drove with expired car tags for like 3 to 6 months. I already had them renewed and everything. In fact, my tag sticker was in the damn glove compartment the whole time. I just kept procrastinating on putting the sticker on because I didn't want to carve out the 1 minute it takes to unscrew the license plate cover, clean the plate, and apply the sticker.
"I'll do it <insert future time>."
It's shit like this that kills me.
Ironically, I had less issues with this kind of stuff prior to being medicated, but I also was younger and had less responsibility in my day-to-day life, so medication might not be a correlated much.
What finally helped me was (a) the advent of online services for nearly everything, so I can do it all in one session and not have to do multiple steps to accomplish something (or any back-and-forth phone/mail), and (b) a "just do it now" mindset. Like, when a bill comes I somehow finally have myself psyched to pay it online right away (don't ask me how I got here, I don't know. Maybe it's because I tied money handling to checking my bank balance when I get a paycheck - that's when I do most of my banking... seeing a higher balance and moving money around (and by extension, paying bills) feels exciting now to my lizard brain.) Otherwise, if I don't take care of it right away, I know it'll literally never happen.
I know that if I had been born 20 years earlier, I'd have a much worse credit score and probably be much poorer due to late fees. Online services and auto-bill-pay make such a difference.
- Put off paying a traffic citation until I got a late fine that doubled the amount
- Put off gathering paperwork for taxes until my accountant told me if I don't send it now he won't be able to file this year
- Drove around with expired plates for 6 months until the car got towed parked on the street
Looking back, it feels silly to procrastinate on these simple tasks for so long but I guess that's the ADHD brain at work.
I've never told a new pysch who my previous psych was so I'm sure they're not getting my medical records from them unless there's some sharing system I'm unaware of.
I wonder if I come off as strongly ADHD. I've been called "intense" before, whatever that means. I'm definitely fidgety and a horrible leg bouncer.
After 1h talk and some tests where I refilled everything so oft that it was a mess they didn’t have any doubt.
I missed 3 consultations, got lost, was late and then waited a year till acting upon the diagnosis :)
Sure, I'm using Agile Task Note (https://github.com/BoxThatBeat/obsidian-agile-task-notes) for the Jira sync and for Google Calendar, I'm using obsidian-google-lookup (https://github.com/ntawileh/obsidian-google-lookup) and obsidian-google-calendar (https://github.com/YukiGasai/obsidian-google-calendar)
0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
The problem is that Pomodoros are hard to count if you hit flow state and find it hard to stop when the timer rings.
Highlights
• We could not demonstrate a higher frequency of hyperfocus in adults with ADHD relative to healthy controls.
• Hyperfocus is experienced both by healthy and ADHD adults although it correlates positively with ADHD traits.
• Age and educational level are important determinants of hyperfocus.
• Motivational, situational and clinical aspects of hyperfocus need to be taken into account in future studies.
Stress in all its forms also turned out to be a critical factor in sleeping well, too. Simply taking on fewer responsibilities (which I attribute in part to my particular ADHD) helped a lot there.
Did your doctor suggest weekend breaks, or is this something you've tried yourself and found works for you?
Nicotine tolerance is real. So is caffeine, cocaine, meth, etc.. I do not see how our medications would be any different.
The medicine completely cured me though.
You're goddamn right I do
I certainly agree with calendars/alarms but todo lists for me are a place to put things instead of doing them and then they become a separate problem all of their own
The only kind of todo list that does is a piece of physical paper with the items that I want to finish that day
I keep my days on track by taking time in the early morning and reviewing the previous days accomplishment/misses/notes and then writing down an outline of today's goals and reminders. Notes throughout the day get jotted in the margins. Something like maybe 70% blogging, 30% to-do list?
Can't say I've ever used an app that felt 1/8th as helpful. It feels like there's some extra brain magic going on in the process of putting thoughts on actual paper that results in more retention and effort of thought put into writing.
Putting it in a todo list allows me to let go of the anxiety of forgetting, because I know I'll triage and prune my todo list soon enough.
Maybe that sounds like overkill, but I've found that having a system for writing down tasks, prioritizing them, and creating a daily schedule/habit are all equally important for people with ADHD.
If it's something I might forget (e.g. an admin task), then if I don't put it in a list and have either a habit to pluck it out of the list or a reminder prompting me then it is usually forgotten.
I also rely very much more heavily on checklists (especially templated checklists) than the average person. If I'm traveling and I don't set a reminder for 7pm the night before a trip with a packing checklist then I will either forget 4 critical items or I will be frantically packing at the last minute or both.
There are an infinite number of possible todo systems and different systems will work for different individuals at different times. But, I do feel there are two immutable truths w.r.t. successful todo list tasking.
1. You have to aggressively prioritize and prune them.
2. You should have separate daily/weekly/monthly/"someday" lists. Or some variation on this them. Maybe you do weekly/monthly/someday. Or today/tomorrow/someday. Whatever.
Point is it can't be a single infinitely expanding list or multiple infinitely expanding lists. Otherwise it's just a giant guilt pile that is 50% full of crap you don't even care about any more.
I still struggle but I think embracing those two principles is table stakes
For me: now, soon, eventually
And things might be in the "now" list for a long time. It's the hardest list to work on, for me.
I am now in a low, with no active strategy, and without the mental strength to start working on a new one. Hopefully though I will recover my mojo soon and organise myself again. And I'm sure this time it will stick...
[0] I still try to develop coping strategies, but I used to too.
For a calendar, my wife hung this acrylic calendar on the kitchen wall and we update it at the beginning of every month. I try to add things as they come up, and I often forget to add things if they are in future months, but it's helped for me to keep track of family arrangements. Any personal appointments I make on my own I try to put immediately into my google calendar, and then my work calendar is completely separate. As I'm typing this I realize I rely heavily on others to manage most of my time...
The cycle stopped bothering me so much when I realized that’s what it is: a cycle. It ebbs and flows with my energy levels. And frankly part of why I can’t keep it up is probably because I’m putting too much demand on myself. If I need to take a break, I guess that’s just what needs to happen. I’ll probably pick up a more productive routine again next week.
For a decade or two I've gone back and forth between paper and electronic note-taking and I think that's OK, I don't have to find one perfect forever system for everything.
P.S. Nice Mitch Hedberg reference
I don't think I've had an empty task list in my entire professional career outside of changing jobs and effectively declaring task bankruptcy. Todoist's end of day notification often says something like "review the 54 tasks remaining for the day".. One day someone will figure out a system that works for every ADHDer in the modern world and we'll have a new tech/space/etc renaissance, haha
Incidentally I saw this meme on Twitter while procrastinating something or other earlier, quite apt https://img.imgy.org/1xkR.jpg
Best of luck to you, me, everyone else struggling with this one!
Otherwise they work well at first but quickly become giant guilt piles, aka "54 tasks remaining for the day" syndrome.
(Also then you never get the satisfaction of clearing your daily list, because it is one neverending eternal infinite list)
Which of your 54 daily tasks should be put on a "tomorrow" or "next week" or "next year" list? Which of them truly need to be done in the next 24 hours?
In the meantime I'll give my task list a realistic "when does this really need doing, if at all" audit, nice one
Some people have great success with his system as described! I don't want to prejudice your thinking!
But I think perhaps 10x as many people found a lot of value from the principles he describes and adopting the bits of his system that work for them. (I am one of them) I'm just mentioning that in case you start reading and think "uhhhh this is overkill".
Above all else: good luck!!
Eat the fish, spit the bones! :)
Cheers!
Just an idea w.r.t. systems. Have you tried prioritizing "ease of use" over "completeness and awesomeness"?
I made some progress myself that way lately. I was always trying to organize things in some kind of... I don't know? perfect and aesthetically pleasing way? In hindsight, I think I was telling myself I had to get to some perfect system like these garages, where everything is perfectly organized and has a purpose and place.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/721209327810494107/
Instead what worked for me in the end was a bunch of clear plastic bins from Home Depot, with big labels on them. They are not literally childrens' bins but in spirit, the end solution for me was not too far away from this:
https://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&safe=active&nfpr=1&...
Point being, what finally worked for me was the system with the lowest possible friction, not the "best" system.
Holy objects. Can't survive with any of these things.
I have 2 calendars running (it's actually only one, but I have Outlook mobile installed, plus Apple Calendar- they sync to the same calendar , I get two separate notifications for everything so I can't just dismiss them as easily).
I would love to see an ADHD version of the horoscope/personality tests administered by Stagner and Forer. I predict the effect would be the same. This study seems to be on this track: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07067437221082...
The wisdom you're referencing is circa the 70's, it's been attempted many times since and has never replicated.
Also your framing ignores that the "prompting" can be circumstantial rather than targeted. The "rush" is frequently misattributed to sugar when it can actually be better explained by the food itself being a rare treat (and thus exciting) or the situation in which it is provided being special (e.g. a party). Or it can simply be the joy of eating something very tasty.
It's less Clever Hans and more "kids are more prone to sudden outbursts of strong emotions and adults blame it on food".
I have a son who has extreme anxiety, and kept getting referred by teachers for ADHD. Hyper-vigilance for danger can make it hard to focus on arithmetic, particularly in an elementary school classroom. The psychiatrist ended up putting a note in his file because this was happening.
Meanwhile, I also have a daughter who is so obviously ADHD: she forgets to turn in her homework; there were 6 of her jackets in the lost and found in October; she will go to school without her eyeglasses; &c. But, she doesn't disrupt the classroom and is otherwise seen as a "good kid" so she was never referred by a teacher.
I really suggest some sort of setup to maintain structure as she gets older - being aware of a diagnosis or having medication / therapy would've really saved a couple painful years in university for me
I don't think people want to hear this but I believe so many people think they have ADHD because of a lack of discipline. Even people with ADHD will understand what I'm talking about. Some days you can take your medication and still get nothing done with endless distractions.
We live in a world full of distractions and our attention spans are being whittled down with every new dopamine slot machine on our phones. What's rare today is someone stopping themselves from reaching for the digital crack and embracing the less stimulating but more rewarding long term goal slog. Treating every focus problem you have as a medical issue or a fleeting lack of motivation gives you an easier out. What you really need to accept is that sometimes you just avoid discomfort and the only thing missing is forcing yourself to get shit done and being content with it.
Just don't forget to be in the present.
How? I mean, one of my major symptoms is that I can't for life do either! "Training my body" doesn't feel like something natural or within range of possibility.
What do you mean by "natural or within range of possibility"?
One is consistent by doing, not by feeling (of course feelings have their own place in life). I don't enjoy going to the gym per se. I let go of that and go. I don't go because I feel happy and motivated before exercise. First, I went because people for thousands of years have saying so, and biologically it makes sense. Then, because I know how I feel in the short and long term after the exercise.
I do different sports for enjoyment and different for keeping in shape of course. I love hiking but going to a gym is more sustainable as a regular way of keeping in shape in all seasons and weather.
What are some of the "healthy coping mechanisms"? Other than "diet and exercise" panacea nonsense?
I go outside and stare at the sun every morning for like 5 mins (this is so key I can't even overstate it). I take a cold shower after that (proven to increase your baseline dopamine). I exercise almost every day. I try to never spend a whole day in my house unless I'm sick, preferably spending the majority of the day outside my house. I try to get 8 hours of sleep at least 5 out of 7 days a week, by which I mean 9 hours in bed with the lights off. Being in bed 8 hours isn't sufficient. All this makes me feel awake and sorta alive.
I keep a journal where I set myself goals for the day and I reflect on my performance and my state of mind at the end of the day. Sorta a bullet journal deal with a bit more feels but in a practical way. It's for monitoring and encouraging iterative improvement and for analysing and mitigating negative thought patterns. This allows me to keep myself accountable but also just cope when I'm literally crying in the evening for no reason. It's like my emotional support book.
I was having trouble with caring about anything I usually would. I just started trying to act like I cared. Like acting curious, being highly engaged. And it sort of leads to you naturally being more interested after a while.
I try to create social interaction for myself every week even if no-one invites me to do anything.
I have Freedom app on my phone blocking most stuff for the first 5 hours and last 1 hour of the day. I also don't listen to music or podcasts in the morning. This leaves my brain feeling less sluggish and helpless.
I sign up for really random stuff sometimes just to make my life interesting.
Lastly, I do a lot of deep breathing when I'm trying to get things done because I tend to get anxiety about literally any task.
Edit: I don't know why I need so much going on to make myself function like a normal person. But it works a lot better than not doing this because otherwise I literally curl up into a ball, give up on life and get fired from jobs.
I do think it’s a testament though to how brain-rotting the always-on socials/apps/notifications can be. They messed me up so bad I literally thought I had a medical condition! Yikes.
> My mother first helped diagnose me with NADD. It was the late 1980s and she was bringing me dinner in my bedroom (nerd). I was merrily typing away to my friends in some primitive chat room on my IBM XT (super nerd), listening to music (probably Flock of Seagulls—nerd++), and watching Back to the Future with the sound off (nerrrrrrrrrrd). She commented, “How can you focus on anything with all this stuff going on?” I responded, “Mom, I can’t focus without all this noise.”
I'm confused btw; the date on the page mentions it was written in 2003, but the article mentions Slack which didn't exist until 2013, unless the article's been kept updated over the years.
edit: It has been, that's a cute time box; the 2004 archived version https://web.archive.org/web/20140214120052/http://randsinrep... has the following:
> Me, I’ve got a terminal session open to a chat room, I’m listening to music, I’ve got Safari open with three tabs open where I’m watching Blogshares, tinkering with a web site, and looking at weekend movie returns. Not done yet. I’ve got iChat open, ESPN.COM is downloading sports new trailers in the background, and I’ve got two notepads open where I’m capturing random thoughts for later integration into various to do lists. Oh yeah, I’m writing this column, as well.
the current version:
> Me, I’ve got Slack opened and logged into four different teams, I’m listening to music in Spotify, I’ve got Chrome open with three tabs where I’m watching stocks on E*TRADE, I’m tinkering with WordPress, and I’m looking at weekend movie returns. Not done yet. I’ve got iMessage open, Tweetbot is merrily streaming the latest fortune cookies from friends, and I’ve got two Sublime windows open where I’m capturing random thoughts for later integration into various to-do lists. Oh yeah, I’m rewriting this article as well.
I’d encourage you to read more about adhd because a huge symptom of it is lack of long term perspective in decision making. It’s like one of the defining characteristics. Trying to dismiss that as someone being lazy or undisciplined is a damaging stereotype to spread. It’s the equivalent of telling someone with depression to snap out of it or get some sunshine
Almost everyone suffers from some lack of discipline and some mistake it for being neurodivergent. People with ADHD can also lack it. Your point of taking a holistic approach is correct and I wasn't trying to single out medication. People with ADHD don't get a free pass on building discipline. In fact, to your point they require more of it to overcome their struggles. Medication, mindfulness, exercise, diet, and structure all take a lot of effort and consistency. It requires you to be more disciplined.
A fundamental characteristic of my ADHD is lack of discipline. I cannot force myself to do something if ADHD is getting in the way. On the rare occasions it's not, and I have initiative (a truly precious resource), it doesn't matter how much or little I enjoy the task, or how uncomfortable the task is, it's getting done.
As I'm sure you know, ADHD diagnosis, like many other diagnoses, needs two things: 1. Have at least N of M symptoms on a list. 2. Have those things have a material negative impact on your life.
> the only thing missing is forcing yourself to get shit done
...yes? Obviously?
As far as I understand it, that's the whole point. People who don't have ADHD just don't struggle with that to the point that it shapes their life, it's just an occasional annoyance that doesn't require any special effort to deal with.
People don't want to hear this because it's incredibly biggoted.
I'm never going to get effective treatment, essentially due to doctors that wanted to bring a shitty attitude to the workplace.
In other words, I've literally never even been given the first line treatment.
As a child, I had nicknames related to "crazy." Today, the one thing I take pride in related to ADHD is my ability to think outside the box.
As someone who did get diagnosed: It took me _five_ attempts to get all the way to an appointment with a psychiatrist (inability to find a suitable psychiatrist, lost referrals, missed appointments etc). Navigating the medical establishment with untreated ADHD is hell. Now I've got treatment for it, I could do it easily, but it's really hard to overstate just how non-functional you can end up.
Because the symptoms are easily faked, I needed a significant range of retrospective evidence - quotes from school report cards, interviews with my parents - which I had to arrange prior to assessment. If I hadn't been able to produce those, I likely would not have been able to get treatment.
I do know that therapy and medication made it night and day for her. She immediately dropped all caffeine. Her sleep and general mood was so much better and she wad way less flakey. She doesn't dismiss therapy although I know she hasn't gone every week for a while not and mostly goes when she's feeling like she needs it. Medication was a trip and error, but she's much happier with this steady state.
It felt like a really strong coffee. It did not really help as I could just focus intensely on the wrong things for hours then crash. The comedown was not fun. The side effects were not fun. The benefits were questionable.
Above all, my lifestyle is built around ADHD. My work is structured to accomodate my quirks. I was happier riding the waves as there were almost no consequences for doing so.
Perhaps another type of medication would have worked better, but no medication at all is good enough.
One thing I appreciated is that they titrated the medication safely. I hear that American doctors start people with a much stronger dose. German doctors seem more moderate, and more willing to try therapy first.
Your mileage may vary.
In the UK, for me, diagnosis wasn't too hard via BUPA - my phsychiatrist seeing me for my other mental health problems recommended me and it was relatively quick to get an ADHD diagnosis; now, however, I am stuck - there's a UK shorage of medication so my psychiatrist is unwilling to proscribe for a new patient whilst existing ones aren't getting what they need. Until that gets unblocked I'm in limbo; additionally BUPA do not cover any ADHD costs (except the diagnosis) - after that you're on your own and you either need to self-fund or go via the NHS; the NHS won't "just" prescibe; for me they want that to come from the psychiatrist and they'll then pick up the medication part of it - but see above about BUPA not funding ADHD costs.
If you go NHS all the way then you'll be on long waiting lists and, presumably, some sort of post-code lottery as to your experience.
I'm willing to self-fund to get to the point where the NHS will take over (and apparently that's a dice-roll too; my GP says he will prescribe once the shrink gets me on a stable dose, but not before - apparently some GPs refuse and require that you go via the NHS for everything, so you're on long waiting lists again); but am currently unable to progress due to the shortage of medication, as mentioned. I am also expecting relatively large bills as I will need to self fund both the psychiatrist and the initial medication prior to the NHS picking it up.
Anecdotally (reading ADHD forums on reddit) experiences in the US sound much more random.
Expect to pay between £700 - £1500 (initial consultation, titration fees). Then the ongoing medication costs.
Honestly I am torn on this issue, I don't think we should have a nation filled with amphetamine users, but right now I'm a self funded founder and I can't justify this cost. So I have no choice but to self medicate with medication I have procured myself through alternative means...
The whole thing feels scammy in the UK
The NHS ADHD waiting list in my region was over 6 years but using RTC, I was diagnosed in around 6 months with no extra cost and prescriptions costing the NHS standard. Places like ADHD360 and PsychiatryUK focus on high throughput / low cost so the amount of time and qualifications of the practitioners won't match hand-picking a private psychologist but you can't argue with the cost.
https://psychiatry-uk.com/right-to-choose/
I think in America you should still be able to get access to meds fast. But trying to chase local doctors means all the slowness that comes from a local economy (you really want an ADHD specialist because of stigma.) I would be trying to find telehealth options if they're there. I do agree with you about the behavioral approaches. The best option IMO is pharmaceutical. Stimulants are ~70-80% effective for people with ADHD.
You should _really_ consider therapy in addition to any medication. The meds will be amazing for a month and then useful for a year. After that you're going to have to make a decision about how you want to continue treatment. Keep bumping the dose and adjust to the side effects or 'typical therapy'. By then, that therapy is going to be much harder to apply to your life than it would have been in the first few months when you started the meds.
I think we need to really take a hard look at today's world of tech and how we communicate and collaborate.
I find that, if time allows, I get a massive productivity boost after 4:30pm and everyone is either winding down or leaving. All the sudden, the walls flatten, the horizon deepens and I enter a deep state of flow.
Around 10 AM, after an elongated "stand up", I should be ready to go... And yet it's absolutely impossible to not alt-tab 300 times per hour, and I can't seem to even remember the code I just typed or what the hell I'm even trying to do.
Even if I close Slack, Outlook and turn off all notifications, I've got a minute-by-minute cron job in the back of my head that ticks
I remember once I had to travel for family, to a different timezone, I was super productive. Only 1 14" screen and a different timezone. Pedal to the metal.Ah, the 90s. The CRT, the keyboard, the fullscreen applications, the lack of communication. 1 or 2 emails a day. Bliss.
Add to today: kids, imessages, facebook, twitter, mastodon, instagram, emails, slack, discord... How the fuck do I even survive the week?
I think ADHD is the new norm.
Being able to think about nothing is a skill/habit/muscle that needs to be learned and practiced. My mind still can churn but at least now I have the tools and some ability to tell it “not now” and quiet it some. It’s been pretty dramatic, especially in being able to fall asleep quicker.
And the stories of feeling like a zombie when off meds are very real and pretty freaky.
Two: Many/most people seem to avoid dosage creep by reducing or limiting their dose on weekends or on other days when it is feasible. If you take e.g. 20mg every day, 365 days a year, it's pretty much guaranteed to lose effectiveness. But if you can take that down to ~5-10mg on weekends that helps. Also weaning yourself off of it entirely from time to time seems to provide a reset. Doctors seem to never tell anybody this.
Well, let's call it what it is... it's withdrawal. However to put it in perspective, most people find it milder than or similar to caffeine withdrawal.If you do significant amounts of stimulants every day and then go cold turkey you're gonna have a real bad time for a day or three.
On the other hand if you steadily taper your dosage down to 0mg over ~3-7 days it's not bad at all.
Again, doctors seem to never tell anybody this.
BTW, while I am kind of "rebutting" your points I am not pushing Adderall. There are downsides to it. It made me more high-strung and prone to arguments and stress. The frequent shortages are a nightmare. And so on. I eventually moved on.
Of course, the same tolerance issues will creep up, perhaps even more so, but there is no red-tape, no doctor visits, no shortages, easy access, etc..
Is nicotine as effective as amphetamines or methylphenidate? I have no idea, but probably not, and that is mainly why I haven't experimented much with it. I will say that it's effective enough to plenty of people with ADHD self-medicate with nicotine, and seem to do fine enough.
If nicotine were half as effective, it still might be better, at least for my circumstances.
Having coping mechanisms and and understanding surrounding is way more important.
Without that and only meds I am only the person with the highest tension in the room.
And my adhd was measured. Low dopamine.
Btw I tried a adhd friendly diet and sports once . I don’t know if it was placebo or real but it felt like it helped much.
Mini meditative naps of 5 minutes also help if my brain is on the run.
Honestly in my opinion meds are the easy way out but the side effects make alternatives necessary. On the long run there need to be better solutions that imply that society has to go a step toward the mentally divergent or Ill and respect their behavior as good willing and maybe find a better way to incorporate those in the workplace and social life.
Sorry for edit:
For example. If I have one of those adhd moments, where I am bit to specific about something and talk too much because of it, my friends recognize this and tell me to „ wake up“. And everything is fine. But if someone like this is needed.. there I am ;)
One thing you didn't mention was night time sleep, which is actually maybe the biggest single thing for me. The rest matches my experiences exactly.
I love the part about respecting and embracing neurodiversity.
What does this even mean?
The higher dose was better for my emotional regulation and my focus, but it made my body feel wired all the time.
The dose I am on now does provide significant benefits compared to not taking it, especially when combined with daily vigorous exercise (likely at least partially due to improved sleep).
But I've never been on Adderall and I've never been on an IR med and I'm a woman diagnosed in childhood and again in adulthood, so I'm an ADHD unicorn really.
What does a neurologist do anyway. I have CP and ADHD, yet haven't been referred and think all. It's not clear what they'd even do.
I wonder though if I never discovered these two things, and simply absorbed everything I read online and convinced myself I had ADHD and got on meds. It's modern life, getting people down. There's simply no way to break through without recognizing that life is inherently distracting, and finding strategies around that.
This is not dismissing the reality of ADHD, however, only to note that medication is overprescribed and that many confuse biology with extremely targeted algorithms designed to capture attention.
And then there are the drug companies who capitalize on workers required to maintain long periods of focus; knowing they are vulnerable to performance pressure, they flood the industry with marketing. Next thing you know, an entirely healthy person's attention is destroyed, because the new baseline is oriented around a stimulant which they do not need, and which operate contrary to someone who actually has ADHD, which meds benefit. Like the opiate crisis, its all just an everyday American tragedy.
uh, perhaps by not using all of those things? sounds like you're uber distracted
Seriously, though, there might be external factors at play; different social circles might use these things and abandoning the apps could be the same as abandoning the groups.
The piece was a good read but its so personal to me that it doesn't really help sadly.
Don't worry about it. I think this is good advice for any software engineer. Eventually you'll be senior enough or on a different team and it won't be a problem.
For nearly all working relationships, I think it's reasonable to keep an emergency communication channel open.
Hopefully it doesn't sound too combative, but I wanted to express that it's a two way street and compromises have to be found. I dislike various things in my company on a personal level, but often make sense from company/team point of view.
Thanks.
Beyond that I refuse to do daily standups. I'll quit a company if they won't let me do async or communicate through slack. I'm not logging in and the start of my day being a meeting every single day. Absolutely not. I've been there before.
At two companies the actual CEO and CTO were in every single one of our standups (startups of course).
But I know good engineers (who are also good communicators) that loathe them with a great passion.
I didn't say a single thing about paired programming. Christ. Did I say that the dev wanted to pair program? No, I didn't. I would have happily hopped in a huddle with him as OPPOSED to scheduling a meeting 3 days later.
I am sick of meetings and people who are incapable of working async, especially when we're in different timezones, which is exactly what this thread I'm responding to is about.
this sounds like pair programming imo.
> Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you.
this reads as a bad attitude towards mentorship. sorry for that assumption.
My frustration is not knocking this out over 10 slack messages right now and having to round back to it days later. I want it done and off my plate.
I'm ADHD. I don't want lingering tasks floating around giving me anxiety when they can be done quickly. I'm going to forget it exists until 10 minutes before when it pops up on my notifications, then I'll have to context switch over to that situation.
One of my biggest coping mechanisms is as soon as something pops into my mind I do it RIGHT NOW. If I walk by the laundry basket and think of doing laundry I grab it and do it RIGHT now. Or I'll just walk by it for a week completely oblivious to it.
For me, out-of-the-blue interruptions are a worst case scenario for my ADHD. It's very hard for me to get into the "flow" if I know that I might be interrupted at any moment. I prefer scheduled meetings as a less-evil alternative.
But many many feel similarly to you.
Also, somewhat contraintuitively, I often avoid starting some new work e. g. 30 minutes before a scheduled meeting, meanwhile without it I just start, and if interruption happens,... it just happens.
It's hard for me to get into the zone if I know I've got a hard stop in 30 minutes.
Two workarounds for me. One is that I tell myself I'll spend the final 5 minutes jotting down todo's so I can pick back up relatively close to where I left off. I normally work in 20-30 min bursts anyway. This is actually not super successful for me but better than nothing.
Slightly more effective for me is using those 30 minutes to bang out some smaller tasks. Review a small pull request. Pay a bill or two. Apply some software updates. Gotta be done eventually so I get them out of the way now, in service of more focus time later.
The most successful advice I’ve found is to find a way to reset after meetings without using your computer. For whatever reason, they’re emotionally drained after meetings. They get back to their computer and reach for Reddit or Twitter or something for a low effort snack, which then spirals into an hour or more of doomscrolling or distractions. This then translates into self disappointment at their low productivity, which further drives them to seek more cheap online entertainment and the cycle repeats.
So try something else. After your standup, go for a walk. Don’t use your phone. Do some stretches if you WFH or have a quiet place. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the rut that destroys your productivity.
- taking breaks
- thinking through a problem
Regardless I would never allow myself to browse anything not work related when I'm actually working (i.e. twitter, reddit) even when I'm "destroyed". I think cutting the unproductive crap out completely when working and trying to find more healthy coping mechanisms is far better.
I've had this problem too. But now that I have more meetings, it's become much easier to transition back to focused work. It's only the occasional more-stressful-than-usual meeting that eats up my attention for hours afterwards.
I don't know what the solution is for most people. I guess this is why some people who transition manager --> IC can be so effective.
It’s still better to state your problem. I like to use the “non-violent communication” as a template. Something like, “When we have the standup, I have a hard time refocusing on work afterwards. I’m concerned about the impact this has on my productivity. Can I send status updates via Slack?”
I’m not gonna pretend that this is a solution to your problem; I just want to sympathize and have a conversation about some of the strategies that we can use to fix problems with management that interfere with technical work.
- Everything destroys my flow anyway. So $#&#$% fragile.
- Standups are 100x less destructive to my flow than random unscheduled synchronous communication.
- For management and collaboration purposes, I recognize the need for some kind of synchronous communication for most projects/jobs.
- When working remotely I've found video standups help keep me feeling connected to humanity.
- Most teams I've been on are quite understanding if you choose to miss standup and offer an update via Slack instead because you're "in the zone."
So.... they suck, but they have upsides for me, and I accept them as kind of a "least-bad compromise solution."
This sounds oddly specific. How consistent is this time? If you start working an hour earlier does it impact the timing of your productivity boost?
In reality, I generally have too much external distraction around me in the morning to capitalize on this.
So my actual productive hours are basically like, "whenever I am reasonably sure that everybody else will leave me the fuck alone for the next few hours." Which often means, "the end of the work day when everybody is signing off for the day."
You ask us to perform unreasonably tops, then hate us for inventing doordash and shit because: we were smart labor, not cheap.
Huh? ADHD is a debilitating and disabling disorder... I don't think you're talking about ADHD.
ADHD is a deficit in dopamine processing/production within the brain, it has physiological signs that we can look for:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11689-022-09440-2
ADHD is diagnosed based on symptoms, not based on physiological signs. Like most diagnoses, it's a co-occurring set of traits we'de decided is outside of what's normal.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1026...
>In conclusion, a series of biomarkers in the literature are promising as objective parameters to more accurately diagnose ADHD, especially in those with comorbidities that prevent the use of DSM-5. However, more research is needed to confirm the reliability of the biomarkers in larger cohort studies.
But yeah, generally there are a lot of conditions where you go report symptoms to your doctor or perhaps a specialist and they prescribe a treatment based on that alone. Testing is mostly used to rule out the really nasty possibilities or figure out what's actually going on when first-line treatments don't work.
Are both of those really clinical markers for ADHD? as in, adhd would be expected to have low working memory and low processing speed? My understanding is its more about executive function I.E. deciding to start tasks.
admittedly my experience is coloured by my own clinical diagnosis of adhd plus anecdotally good working memory and processing speed
I even got in an argument with the psychologist/proctor at one point during the symbol matching section. I was supposed to write the corresponding number under a series of randomly ordered symbols on a page. The numbers were mapped to each symbol using a key at the top of the page. I thought it'd be easier to solve all of the same symbols one at a time e.g., if A = 1, B = 2, etc. then I would write "1" under every A symbol, then "2" under every B, etc..
The proctor told me, "Wait, you can't solve them like that. You have to do them in order."
I replied, "Why does it matter? It's my test and it's what is intuitive to me to solve them."
He replied with something like, "Time's ticking" (implying that that I'm only hurting my score by talking with him).
There were probably more words exchanged, but that's the gist of it.
Anyway, after all the BS, I received my scores, and I swear there were flaws in the calculations (despite using the proprietary software) though my score wasn't too bad -- my GAI was much higher than FSIQ. I also had to calculate my own GAI since the ass never put it on my report (I found a pirated copy of the manual with the proper tables in the back based on the section scores).
The psychologist (who was the proctor) basically told me that due to my large variance in some scores that my test could be considered a "testing error" and "you do not technically have an IQ score" but he "managed to manipulate the numbers a bit to give me a score." He couldn't provide me anything with a confidence interval greater than 90% (not the worst, I know), and there were odd statements in my report about having difficulty scoring my test due to my age (I was 22 at the time). So, who knows? I refuse to ever do one again though.
Anyway, I know my behavior didn't help lol, but I also just got a weirdly pseudoscientific feeling from the whole process. I've done plenty of my own research on the topic, and I am still not convinced it's the be-all and end-all of psychological testing. I think intelligence is too abstract for humans to quantify currently.
As someone who is the spawn of two MENSAns, has friends in Neurosci and Psych, and who has brushed up a fair bit on the topic, I don't think any psychologists outside those in a tiny subset of the community believe in IQ Tests. The support for them is at best "well they measure something, but we're not sure what it is, and we have trouble labeling it as 'intelligence' due to the broad nature of that term". There are so, so many flaws with IQ testing that have been pointed out not only by yourself, but also by others in the field. The only actual practical, measurable use an IQ test to improve lives to date was an application in the 1980s on intake for fighter pilots, and it resulted in many less fighter pilots dying from crashes during training.
I do believe the test are not useless, and I agree with Taleb that IQ might be more accurate at the lower extremes i.e. less than 70. In other words, the test cannot measure intelligence, but is pretty good at finding a lack thereof.
However, the further along the bell curve one traverses, the more the test falls apart.
The only reason I was administered a test was for ADHD diagnostic purposes. Sure, the conclusion was that I had ADHD, but the psychologist was confident in my diagnosis prior to the test, so the test was more of a formality.
> The only actual practical, measurable use an IQ test to improve lives to date was an application in the 1980s on intake for fighter pilots, and it resulted in many less fighter pilots dying from crashes during training.
This is so fascinating.
Tangent:
I was listening to a podcast about what it means to be a genius, how it's measured, what it means, etc.. There was a section about Lewis Terman's research on gifted children/adults. He followed and studied the lives over 1500 gifted children over the course of his entire life. Out of all the gifted children, none of them became anything noteworthy -- doctors, lawyers, etc..
However, two boys that were apart of the same school system that were not studied because they were not gifted eventually went on to each win a Nobel Peace prize -- separately and in different fields.
I will not claim that Terman's research proves anything, one way or another, but I did find it rather interesting.
I would regularly down 3-4 red bulls (diet) in the evening if I knew I needed to fall asleep and sleep well. I'm not sure if it's been studied but anecdotal evidence from others seem to suggest I'm not alone and that some others have the same experience.
In my youth, I would pound a mountain dew before bed.
One example, is opiates make me MOVE. Most people they zonk out, not me. I'm ready to move your house, one brick at a time, with my bare hands and feel like I could knock it out in about an hour.
Proton Pump inhibitors are common meds for acid reflux. About 10 years ago, I did a genetics study (I worked at the lab, and my data stayed mine) and learned that of the 7 classes of PPIs available, at that time, my body only works with 1. The others either have little/no effect or similar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoxical_reaction
It may not be everyone's issue, but cases like mine do exist. It's not better or worse, it's just how it is.
How often a partner probably told you that they felt neglected or forgotten, or how often you'd wind up in a rabbit hole and forget that you also have to nourish that relationship.
And my most recent ex was anxious attached. That was rough. I'm far more on the avoidant side, not sure how much of that is upbringing vs adhd.
There's a bunch of books about marriage/relationships with ADHD people. I haven't read any but I should. The lady in this video has written a bunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyAfOPGKlI&t=1s
I have trouble focusing, I don't think quite to the level of ADHD, but it would be so much worse if I had 4 or 5 apps on each screen.
Or you found coping mechanisms. We all figure out what works for us. Like drinking a ton of coffee or things with caffeine... you're self medicating with your stimulant of choice.
I need all my apps visible in a tiled arrangement. Shuffling windows shatters my flow. I literally cannot have enough screen real estate. My dream is something like a curved 48" 8K monitor filling my entire field of view at 300dpi. (Vision Pro?)
I know a lot of people, ADHD and otherwise, like me in this regard.
I also know a guy like you, diagnosed with ADHD FWIW, who takes it a little further than you. He needs his apps fullscreened, and can't even do multiple monitors. One screen, one app.
I don't know how the f-- he works that way but I'm jealous. He's effective and has no trouble working on a 13" laptop in a coffee shop or whatever.
I will never understand it because I absolutely hate having full screen windows and I am almost worthless working off my laptop when traveling. Just lots of frustration juggling windows back and forth. I always have 2 or 3 apps side by side on my 48" and I have a 28" 16:18 DualUp monitor next to it for long text/dev.
I didn't work with him so I don't know how productive he actually was but I've always been curious if he kept up with the people who had 2-3 monitors and input devices. I have a hard time believing that he did but no actual idea.
The "laptop only, one app only" guy I knew actually was really verifiably productive. Which again is insane. We were working on a big Rails monolith. A task that inherently involves working with dozens of files simultaneously and looking at things up and down the stack while also looking at documentation and running code in the browser.
I actually enjoy working on laptops directly but the keyboards always do me in. Just a little too cramped for my wrist/arms, and if I'm adding an external keyboard the monitor is just a bit too far away so I'm back to the normal docked setup.
During my part-time studies (I had a 70-80% employment at that time) the time I really started studying productively was after 9-10pm when everyone around me went to finish their day and the world around me started to go silent and night is coming in. Thinking of it today, I don't know how I would have survived that time without the huge support from my wife back then. So all the credits of me being able to complete my studies go to her!
Nowadays, I would not know how I would get through the day-to-day work without medication most days. That often worries me a little.
As someone who also has a bit more than 2 decades experience with ADHD medication and started with meds quite early in my teenage years when I went to school, I have very similar experience to yours.
One of my assumptions is that it also has a lot to do with the humans metabolism that changes over the years.
The first few weeks on Adderall were f'ing magical. I remember tearing up, I was so happy. Finally I was laser-focused. A bit emotional thinking of it now.
The magic faded fast. Adderall was still a large net positive for me for ~6-7 years. But never like those first few weeks. I guess I got somewhat close to that original experience a few times, after extended breaks from Adderall and restarting it.
Anyway, this is of course a sample size of 1. But since all the experiences described above took place in my 30s I don't think that metabolism change was a major factor. Certainly not within the first year. Again I know... n=1 =)
I continued to benefit from it for ~6-7 years. But, never felt anything like those first few weeks.
This is super true for me as well, to the point where I structure my day around this. I'm lucky to have a workplace with flexible hours and enough seniority that nobody complains when I roll in at 10, which gives me a few "quiet hours" from 4-6 as others trickle out.
Just reading that made me feel the presence of 'bliss' :)
I think the pop-culture definition of ADHD has shifted a lot. In the past, being able to focus well (as you described in a different environment) would have been a sign that the issue was more environmental in nature, not a sign of clinical ADHD. Patients with ADHD struggled everywhere, even in distraction-free environments like a quiet library or quiet test taking environment.
Now, the pop-culture understanding of ADHD has shifted so far that we don’t bat an eye at declaring ADHD even when someone is operating under a constant barrage of environmental distractions. To be clear, someone with ADHD will have an even harder time resisting impulses to seek out distractions, but the fact that someone can focus just fine when their environment is minimally structured to keep distractions at a reasonable level would suggest that person doesn’t have classic ADHD.
> I think ADHD is the new norm.
I think this is my problem with the current pop-culture definition of ADHD: When the definition shifts so much that it becomes the “norm”, we’ve lost the plot. Something isn’t really a disorder if it’s “the norm”.
There’s a secondary problem I’ve been noticing in a subset of the young people I’ve worked with: Some of them self-diagnose with ADHD or get a doctor’s diagnosis, then mistakenly think that their ADHD diagnosis is an excuse for everything. I’ve had far too many conversations where I had to gently explain to juniors (via a volunteer mentor program, not as their boss) that having an ADHD diagnosis doesn’t mean that deadlines don’t apply them, or that they get a free pass for being late to meetings, or that they’re still obligated to perform at the level of their peers at work. Some of them have grown up in an environment where ADHD students get extra time to take tests, which some of them assume should translate to more forgiving expectations at work. It’s difficult to get some of them to accept that having ADHD means they need more accountability and oversight, not less.
I think we’re making a huge mistake by normalizing ADHD to the point that people think it’s the norm or that everyone has it because they surround themselves with distractions. Anecdotally, I’ve seen too many young people self-diagnose with ADHD and then actually spend less effort to curtail distractions, train their focus, and work on self-improvement. There’s something about becoming convinced that your behaviors are a medical condition that is out of your control (many erroneously declare they have a “dopamine deficiency” or similar misunderstandings of the science) that can give people a false sense that they either can’t improve their situation or that they shouldn’t be held responsible because it’s a labeled medical condition.
I don’t know where we go from here, but I can say it’s been an uphill battle to get recent mentoring cohorts to accept that attention is something they can improve with practice or even that they need to do things like silence phone notifications while they work.
I’m often stunned when I screen share with someone who has a non-stop stream of unimportant notifications in the top right corner, who later laments that they just can’t focus on anything for someone.
Like many or perhaps most things we classify as disorders, ADHD isn't a binary "you have it or you don't" condition.
Also, what constitutes "distractions at a reasonable level?" Very few jobs would meet my personal definition of that.
The definition of "disorder" in an individual is always going to be somewhat relative to the society in which that person lives and that person's life.A person who lightly dabbles in illicit substances once in a blue moon would not generally be considered to have a drug problem. However, this is also going to be relative to that person's circumstances. Are you a 23 year old with no responsibilities? Are you a breastfeeding mother? Are you in a profession with frequent random drug tests? Are you a shaman in a culture where psychedelics have been a sacred part of your culture for thousands of years? The definition of problematic drug use is going to be very different for some than others.
As our society changes, and the number of assaults on our focus multiply, I think it is reasonable to expect more ADHD diagnoses.
Another way to think about it is that modern (and future) society will expose ADHD more aggressively. A farmer in 1923 lived a hard and demanding life, but he faced a very different set of cognitive challenges than a software engineer in 2023.
Think about how changing society exposed some humans' susceptibility to motion sickness. Motion sickness was not a thing until we learned to ride animals and build vehicles. Perhaps someday the DSM may contain some disorders specific to humans living in colonies on other planets.
A thousand times yes.I love that we've made great strides toward destigmatizing mental health issues. But holy shit, it feels like younger people wear this shit as a badge of pride and it often feels like an excuse to avoid actual solutioning.
A loved one was recently diagnosed with ADHD. I told them I'll be their best friend and their toughest critic when it comes to ADHD. I told will love you and empathize with your struggles all day long because I have been fighting this shit for almost 50 years and it is soul-draining.
I also told them, watch the fuck out. I accept zero excuses. We can struggle together, we can cry together, but you better be looking at every single facet of your ADHD through the lens of figuring out a working solution.
"I have ADHD!" is not an acceptable excuse or thought-terminator. What I want to hear is, "I have ADHD so what works for me is doing it this way: ______" or perhaps even better yet just leave off the ADHD part and tell me your solution. Or that you are working on the solution. I will be by your side for that too. But overall that has got to be your mindset.
Maybe selection bias, but a significant number of my friends are diagnosed.
I also think it's true that many professions will aggressively surface ADHD.
Imagine a plumber making house calls all day. There's a fair bit of structure and variety baked into his day, he's moving around, gets to use his hands, etc. It's hard and skilled work but it also might be really compatible with ADHD.
Now think of a software engineer. 8-10 hours of monofocus on a single task every day. It's just you and the computer... which also has the largest array of distractions (the internet) just a click away. Fucking nightmare scenario for ADHD. If you've got even a hint of ADHD this career will expose it and expose it hard.
* PA * travel agent * event planner
either nightmare scenarios or dream scenarios
i've actually done some small amount of event planning, an annual event for about 125 people. (i realize that's tiny, obviously people are out there planning events for 100,000 people)
yeah, you're constantly switching your focus back and forth between the 20 things that need to get nailed down in the next 3 months for an upcoming event. and a professional event planner is probably juggling ten small events or several larger ones. it's a juggling act but it's kind of fun. also you have executive freedom to an extent.
engineering is kind of fucked because you are expected to do deep deep deep deep deep big-brain thinking for 2000 hours a year, and yet you are still often bombarded with distractions on a minute to minute basis. absolute MISMATCH.
event planning is chaotic by nature, and hard, and requires context switching, but generally no individual element requires hours of meditative thought and iteration while 3 different managers ping you on fucking Slack and you're also supposed to "keep an eye on production" and also mentor five kids who just graduated from a 6-week code camp like engineering does.
a lot of entrepreneurs are ADHD as hell. the context switching suits them, especially when they are calling the shots.
For me personally I mostly attribute this to how the circle initially formed - a bunch of outcasts to varying degrees new to college glomping on to any familiar faces from highschool (despite not really interacting during high school)
Any additions since college were adopted into the group through a mutual "we're the weirdos in this world, aren't we?" initial bond.
The better question is how many of the people in these groups have been medically diagnosed?
I get the arguments for self-diagnosis but really it's self hypothesis. I only say diagnosed if they're medically diagnosed. Even doctors shouldn't be self diagnosing
ADHD is a spectrum sure but it has a low-end cap due to the second D, disorder. No disorder, no diagnosis, no ADHD. I'd love to have the same brain wiring without the disorder
It sounds stupid, but I will forget to talk for months and people just drift off, not interested in reconnecting.
But other people with ADHD will reconnect after months as if we'd just been talking yesterday, no bad feelings of being ignored at all.
The most important ADHD accommodation for me has been a private office (in my case working from home).
I'm insanely distractible—the slightest noise can throw me off, and even the threat of an impending interruption is enough to make me lose focus thinking about how I'll respond if it comes. In an open office, I had very little control over my environment, and so it was impossible for me to keep focused for any length of time. If it wasn't a coworker interrupting me personally, it was a conversation happening behind me, or even just someone walking by and me wondering if they're going to interrupt.
At home, I have a private office with a locked door, and I put on hearing protection over earbuds, which blocks essentially all sounds from the house. I can control my notifications, so if I'm in flow I'm completely uninterruptible.
The other big benefit from privacy is that I don't have to feel guilty when I do get distracted with something. There's no one to see me and judge me for not "looking like I'm working", so when I do lose focus for hours and then get the whole day's work done in a single hour of hyperfocus, no one knows or cares that I couldn't stay focused that day—all they see is that I finished what I said I would. Privacy allows me to use my strengths (working well under pressure) without fear of judgement.
And, of course, as others point out, the auditory distractions are only part of the problem with an open floor plan.
I have learned at least two things about myself and a few about other people from all of this. For myself, I know I am overly acclimated to blowing past my limits into my reserves. I am used to constantly monitoring my mental state and pushing for breaks.
For others, I know that adrenaline and cortisol reduce everyone’s cognitive abilities. It’s why we do fire drills. It’s why NASA launch facilities ritualize everything. Save your brain cells and improvisational skills for things we can’t predict, not for things we can.
In the first hours of an emergency, everyone else’s brain turns to mush while mine gets just a little squishy. What for them is their worst work day in months is to me just a bad Tuesday. And self monitoring is one of the first things to go. They’re operating at 80% while I’m at 95%, and they absolutely won’t call for breathers without prompting.
On projects where I am at the periphery, we all struggle together. On projects where I get to influence the agenda, or even father chunks of it, people often walk back out of that room feeling like they braced for a collision that never came, because I’ve routed around all of the foot guns and created low cognitive load ways to answer the important questions. If anyone has been complaining about me spending “too much time” on this, about half of them are convinced after one or two non-event events. If the majority of the people didn’t agree with my methods before, they do now.
I used to say I spend my A-game days protecting myself from my C-game days, but these days I’m more likely to cite Kernighan’s aphorism about not being smart enough to debug your own code. Write all of your code like you’re going to have to wrestle with it on an off day, because you certainly will at some point.
And putting high functioning ADHD people in charge of process and tooling is not a terrible idea. If you can figure out who those people are, that is. To be high functioning means constantly masking, because in this world it’s better to be rude and aloof than to be seen as broken.
On my current project our hot fix process is so bullet proof that I could do a hot fix in the middle of our sprint demo. And I have, three times. Once while I was the MC. All of that was me, and the automation tools I wrote for myself are the official process now. And instead of a bus number of 3 it’s somewhere north of 6. Important, especially this time of year.
I suppose this is true of lots of people, I just have different categorizations for what constitutes a dragon.
Of all the optimizations I've done, moving to one screen/monitor ~10 years ago has been the biggest positive impact on my work, anxiety, and overall focus.
When I was younger, I was way too naive in the memetic desire when seeing other more senior folks with multiple screens, or even seeing "hacker" representations in the media with many screens with different orientations (silly, I know...everyone is dumb when they're young.) When you're 22 and insecure about whether or not you're actually "good" or belong, then you try to mimic the "best."
Many people crave minor stimulants in the afternoon or early morning when serotonin levels dip in the day. People chronically low on serotonin however will crave these all day long in extreme volumes in what looks like drug addiction seeking behavior. The result of such stimulant over consumption produces behaviors that appear like rapid bipolar disorders.
This does not apply to all people with ADHD, but when you see the behavior in people close to you it’s probably a good idea to have them tested.
My biggest learning about ADHD is that it’s not primarily about focus, but irregularities with task completion/transition deficiencies.
Do either of you have sources?
So, here is my quick and slipshod armchair theorizing: serum serotonin levels may be a predictor of ADHD due serotonin's role in activating certain autoreceptors that mediate dopamine release.
Does serotonin deficit mediate susceptibility to ADHD?: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01970...
Is there an Effect of Serotonin on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?: https://repository.unair.ac.id/106894/1/Is%20There%20an%20Ef...
>Caffeine activates noradrenaline neurons and seems to affect the local release of dopamine. Many of the alerting effects of caffeine may be related to the action of the methylxanthine on serotonin neurons. [1]
Or take alcohol, which people typically associate only with GABA:
>Among the neurotransmitter systems linked to the reinforcing effects of alcohol are dopamine, endogenous opiates (i.e., morphinelike neurotransmitters), GABA, serotonin, and glutamate acting at the NMDA receptor (Koob 1996).
Two other things, first the notion that depression can be reduced down to a deficiency of neurotransmitters is almost certainly an oversimplification (if not outright incorrect). What we have is correlation, not causation, where GABA, stress hormones, and other mechanisms also show up. Second, even if this characterization of "low on neurotransmitters => depression" is correct, it is not and has never been just about serotonin:
>The monoamine-deficiency theory posits that the underlying pathophysiological basis of depression is a depletion of the neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine in the central nervous system. [2]
[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1356551
[2] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950973
Not significantly enough to call it an antidepressant, but meta-analysis shows caffeine lowers risk of depression.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26518745/
2) Serotonin and ADHD - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25684070/
3) Dopamine cycle explained in context of ADHD - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626918/
4) ADHD and sugar explained - https://www.verywellmind.com/the-sugar-and-adhd-relationship...
5) ADHD and sugar study - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133757/
That last one mentioned coloring agents multiple times. Different research has show artificial colors, as derived from petro-chemical processing like reds and yellows, are strongly linked with neurotransmitter disruption in all people, but the effect is an order of magnitude more significant in high risk children.
For a few year stretch I worked with a team project manager who wasn't technical at all. She'd setup the meetings that I needed to have, diligently take notes in those meetings and then we'd get together to recap everything figure out dates and all that. Then I'd get back to nerding out but with a ordered punch list that I knew Donna needed me to get done. It was the best.
But the pmo wanted to do things a different way so their engagement model moved from embedded PMs focused on team deliverables to individual project focus. Now instead of Donna there to assist with correspondence, keep records, make appointments, and carry out similar tasks I had an army of fragmented Donnas each focused on their one thing and each needing oversight to understand my involvement and external dependencies. The move probably gave the pmo a more modern feel and better reporting but it killed productivity for ADDs like me since a large portion of my time each day became correspondence, keeping records and making appointments instead of cranking out nerd units.
A simple Hack that still works for me after years:
1. Place a tiny LED (red or yellow) by the side of your monitor or virtually on the screen corner. Basically anywhere almost bordering your field of view.
2. Make it blink like a fast heartbeat (120-150 bpm) and gradually slowdown to around 60 bpm (or your slow heartbeat base). Make the slope approx 20 to 60 minutes (you can adjust the best rate by testing in 10m increments after a few days in one setting).
Now...
3. Get to work regardless if distracted and agitated. Close all apps except what you need to work and BOOM!, let the magic happen. Without realising, your brain will try to sync with the light that you can barely see, calming you down and allowing you to go focus-mode with the task in had.
Works like hypnosis!
It is also a cheap hack... I build my unit with a cheap ESP32 and heart-rate sensor to sync deeper and dynamically adjust the slope...
Will explain better if any interest.
No science behind (only principles), I just hammered a solution like any Ape with the shakes would need!
- once the LED has slowed down to 60 bpm, do you keep it at that tempo for the rest of the day? for a few hours? do you ever go back to 120 bpm and then go back down?
- generally speaking, how did you come up with the idea?
- do you think that a software version (i.e. some blinking pixels in the top right corner of a monitor) would work, or is the intensity of the LED (i.e. the fact that it's not part of the monitor) part of the reason why it works?
- could you also talk about the heart-rate sensor - how do you use it / how does it affect the bpm algorithm?
Thanks!
Here is what I did to my current v.3+
- Once it reaches the lowest rate, the LED goes off after a 30min timer set, it fades the light over that time under the same blinking rate. So I won't notice. - The Idea comes from desperation really, mostly curiosity on why sound beats from upbeat music had a effect to improve mood, i.e. work more at gym. Also the idea that your brain will take patterns and try to synch with. Check PubMed (few articles about) - I started with a software version (v.1 and v2) and then a hardware one. No idea why, but hardware (as a side device) works really good. I 3D printed a tiny case and it is discreetly below my iMac screen powered by the USB. Look like an old modem but tiny.
Finally...
- I added the heart monitor (a cheap cable and wrist sensor) to see if I could shorten the time to achieve the lowest rate of blink based on my heart response instead of waiting the time or trying to read brainwave pattern (I try measuring voltage and electric wave form, from a headband I bought and returned after a rapid test) but the signal would mix with the work in front of me, so useless and expensive.
Using heart rate looks cheap, non-intrusive and effective to shorten the time, it goes 1/3 of time to get lowest, could use an apple watch vs cable and sensor but I'm cheap.
; )
There was research some time ago (jeez, 10 years ago...) [0] [1] that used video and... computer vision algorithms to detect a person's heart rate without any devices. Wondering if it could be used here i.e. use your webcam instead of an external hardware sensor?
Other thing - would you be open to publishing/sharing your algorithm / esp32 code (on Github or as a blog article)?
[0] https://news.mit.edu/2012/amplifying-invisible-video-0622
[1] https://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/
You can't really do video detection it in real time and properly, without overheating the cheap device. On the SaaS we did we use a recorded segment of video so we can analyse it afterwards, check the colour changes in the face of the subject and try estimate heartbeat with loose accuracy. More like high, Normal, Low after taking a few seconds as base.
The idea of the ADHD device was just a cheap hack done in a day for myself.
Not a product or commercial as I don't feel claiming it can do to others what I looks like does to me.
Happy to share here FREE ; )
Greedo shouldn’t have asked about Han’s mother!
We try estimate a "confidence" level when saying something, but NOT able to guess if a lie. An actor can easily have full confidence in a script, but still be a lie.
We intended for roles that are client facing and where personal skills are key. Things like retail, costumer service, sales.... not technically or education based, temporary work and alike. Not that Orwellian yet ; )
Example: You need 40 people for an event to work a few hours as guides or hosts, from 100 applying the system can suggest a score and list them all in order so you can start watching or calling for interviews from somewhere.
Here's the link to the project: https://github.com/Qiaogun/ADHD_Blink
I guess you would be a client (few comments)
I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
Not my view for this one as it is a personal issue. I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like it does for me. Also I'm not basing it on anything scientific other than raw experimental data from 1.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE for everyone.
I run a tiny tiny tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
I guess you would be a client ; )
No, I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
For this personal issue, I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like what it does for me. Also I'm not based on anything other than experimental data.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE.
I run a tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
...
Thanks for the complement, I guess you would be a client (few comments)
I have hundreds of things I do and very few go to product or build phase.
Not my view for this one as it is a personal issue. I would not be comfortable claiming it could do anything for others like it does for me. Also I'm not basing it on anything scientific other than raw experimental data from 1.
I'm happy to share it here and FREE for everyone.
I run a tiny tiny tech incubator in the UK, so hands full : )
Fundamentally, if it works for the OP, who the hell cares?
And how would you even double-blind test this anyway?
Get lights that either start fast and slow down or blink at speeds that randomly change then use serial numbers to track which lights are which, but send them out at random to test subjects?
I like the approach though, it would be a reasonable control condition (assuming that the 60bpm is a core part of the effect).
Maybe. Generally you'd do a manipulation check at the end to ensure that people couldn't identify what condition they were in.
Additionally, that's single blind rather than double blind.
And more generally, my philosophy (as someone with a PhD in the placebo effect) is that harnessing any expectancy/placebo effects in one's personal life is totally reasonable, and if it works for people and there's low risk of harm then more power to them.
We shouldn't gatekeep potentially useful personal treatments based on the gold standard. It's kinda the medical equivalent of YAGNI, I suppose.
He sees a correlation, correlations are amongst the easiest thing to test.
Causation is the difficult one
Mind you, pointing out placebo could be useful if the OP made the claim that their solution could cure a disease or something (such claims could discourage someone from getting effective treatment).
You are likely aware of this already, but for others readers, it's important to know that placebos are still effective even when you know they are placebo. The term is "open-label placebo".
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33594150/
I wouldn't be surprised if you felt better even before you took your first dose; I can imagine you started feeling better just having a prescription in hand.
One of the biggest parts of placebo is going through the motions, whether you believe it or not. The original commentor appears to be aware that their approach may not have any scientific basis so mentioning the potential of placebo is fine.
Oddly enough, non-musical sounds (like birds or cars) don't affect me at all. I think it's the complex pattern-matching in music that is a problem for me. Of course, that's also what makes it so delightful to listen to.
I detailed better aspects on a question above,
Placebo need you to trust it works (or see a figure of authority to believe it does), in my case I expect nothing and got not much on v.1 (software) by v.3 (hardware) it is surprising.
; )
YES, it can be the placebo effect, but still placebo can works wonders ; )
I detailed better aspects on questions above, also not doing it commercially or claiming it can be helpful for anyone other than me.
In placebo, one needs to trust it will work (or see a figure of authority to believe it does), in my case I wasn't expecting much and got not far from it on v.1 (software), but by v.3 (hardware) I was surprised and used to it.
So, I'm happy to share it here FREE ; )
Also it is not really a blink but a quick fade in/out effect not a flash.
Basically a function slope with a value from 150 to 60 that calls "blinks" over an hour, when at the end it turns off LED.
You can make it smoother, add the heartbeat sensor, make it pulse instead of blink, that stuff will be particular to whatever you have at hand.
GPT for such simple code after explaining the device and pointing to documentation should be a 3-4 shot process.
My one is horribly inefficient and shameful to share : )
[1] https://paste.sr.ht/~tsegers/53adaecd734e7159352f152ac1dcc85...
You could hook up some physiological monitors and try all kinds of light patterns.
I used to do beats high to low, instrumental music basically.
; )
Like tricking the brain to see as not part of the work.
; )
Isn't this the part that actually does the heavy lifting to get stuff done?
Sounds a bit like: I have a hard time falling asleep, so I have this blinking light next to my bed. I take a sleeping pill and let the magic happen. My heart rate then syncs to the light and I fall asleep. This light works great!
The idea is that you sit at your desk even if too agitated and remove the visual distractions that aren't work so your eyes will either look at work or the blinking led. I have an iPad by the side so I can't see the screen but will open from time to time to check emails.
So, stare at the screen even if you don't feel like it and try 1o-15min.... if you forget and realised an hour passed and the blink stoped it... then it worked!
; )
It is not broken, it works, I just don't feel it should be a commercial product as I'm not comfortable in claiming it can do what it does for me.
Happy to share FREE here,
; )
IOW, set the frequency to a known external stimulus, and see if the effect still holds.
The biggest distraction for me, when working/focusing, is movement at the edge of my vision. You know, like most websites with their moving ads, or fly-out videos that no one asked for, etc.
I'm glad you found your silverbullet, but that specific approach would wreck my productivity.
Your description is close to what I experience at times, that blinking thing may help you ignore outside the monitor distractions as it is there forcing you to ignore?
Interesting,
Do one and tell me ; )
I cost me $25 or less.... all spares ESP32 (most of them has a LED pinned anyways) and don't bother the heart monitor initially, just set time and rate of descent for the blink.
Cheap test...
I may try this, as an experiment, but going into it, I'm expecting a fail. If I do try it, I'll follow up.
Good luck!
Started out with this one and hacked a bit on it, never published my version though: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.binauralbeat...
Now i'm pretty content with this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.project.rb...
And this tune, it now is on my phone and every PC thanks to NewPipe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6WNB9JN_2o
I detailed better aspects on a question above,
Mostly when I added the heart monitor, somehow I can measure that the time to lowest blink got shorter and I'm not paying attention to the device at all.
When I realise it us OFF I can see the logs and see how long it take vs the heartbeat to sync.
Also, I build myself so I like there was no marketing or product to trust, just test and adjust.
Jokes aside, whatever works...
For me a side device with a pulsating red light with a heart sync for the lope do the gig!
Deadlines comes free.
Nice one!
Anything you get aware that goes fast-to-slow in a smooth gradient is the idea.
I tried sound (beats) on a headphone with some tracks, then build a tiny app to show pixels on the screen (blink) and then settled on a LED on a prototyping board type of device (ESP32) as a quick project and that worked.
I only improved by adding the heart sensor months later, now I don't think about it much, Now even If I'm not aware of, every time I turn the iMac it powers the device via the USB and so it starts anyway at 150bpm when the heart sensor is not responding or not detecting anything. After an hour it gets to 60 and the light fades out....
I'm not aware when it goes off, so I guess it is working ; )
Few people here posted code, ideas and I added the device pic I used (similar) and the sensors... you can buil one with almost anything and try!
Good luck!
Do share for the benefit of the masses.
May do a pic later when back home, meanwhile... I used this ESP32 board, it has RGB LED right in the middle, here is a web picture of one: https://dfimg.dfrobot.com/nobody/wiki/8a1de42ec21a99f36f69da...
Its a Fire Beetle ESP32 E V.1.0, I bought cheap <$15 don't remember when or from who anymore... The heart monitor is from a study kit (Chinese brand)
My whole set is similar (not the same, not my picture) to this: https://pic-microcontroller.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/B...
Enjoy !
; )
> I just hammered a solution like any Ape with the shakes would need!
This is an underrated approach. Following hunches and suspicions often leads to solutions that a pure evidence-based approach might miss or delay; especially if your suspicion goes against the prevaling wisdom.
My case isn't anything as relevant as yours and maybe that's why I did not much of research, easy going for a crude trial.
I think the inability to task switch is a big part of ADHD and this thing you’re describing really sounds similar to what Huberman was discussing.
Now, I’m not a doctor and I have no idea what I’m talking about here. Every time I start talking about this stuff I imagine my doctor friend sitting in the corner of the room shaking his head (maybe some of you saying it’s placebo should do the same).
I find minor irritations like this very distracting so I'm not really sure what the theory is
I make no claims here, I did it for me and looks like it works, not scientifically based or proven, not even tested on more than 1. So, no idea if can or will work for you ; )
That said, I'm now curious with so many comments to see how it will perform for those building versions to test. Its a 20min project, free for those already with prototyping board around.
The key for me was to remove to my marginal angle of vision, not on the screen (like an app), the moment I moved outside and wasn't in front of it it work best. If you see it directly it does distract you indeed.
But I used to reproduce a similar behaviour with music (repetitive)
i am trying this now with a chrome-shortcut, window size 50x50, stay on top, js with blinking background on the bottom rigth corner of the screen.
If it helps, i will use a esp32. thanks.
Here's the script: https://gist.github.com/dpinney/a3c0b1f333ef89748fa12d057a55...
https://gist.github.com/rzwiefel/4527d40de25a7fd5a723016fbd4...
Try doing one on a physical device too... My settings are just related to fade after reaching target or turn off immediately, Led colour (my ESP32 has a RGB onboard) and blink or pulse. Then there is a Start & Stop rate (150-60) as standard and IF sensor is connected or has data (heart) those values adjust too.
Nice one!
In my case v.1 and 2 were apps with a similar on screen red dot like yours. Much smaller and first placed at the status-bar (like the cock ":" blinking) then floating on screen lower left corner.
Things got interesting and worked best for me after I remove the light from the actual screen I must look at to work. Hence the device use, and then later the heart sensor.
The key (I guess) is to make you brain see it but not you (if that makes sense?). Something like you looking at your screen but can still see if an Ant moves nearby or your phone shows a notification. Near your screen but not on it ; )
In any case, great little test, and eager for any feedback you can get.
Create a simple web page with a red blinking LED in the top-left corner. The LED should start blinking at 150 BPM and gradually slow down to 60 BPM. The initial size of the LED should be 40px, and it should completely disappear during the "off" phase. Additionally, include a red box shadow during the "on" phase of the blink. Please use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the implementation. Adjust the code as needed for clarity and readability.
I will also share this Historia Civilis video on the history of work, which really resonated with me as an ADHD person -- It's OK and even more 'natural' to have fast and slow days.
And I will say, for me, Obsidian was another red herring. When I see Gwern's blog I dream about my ordered note taking life and I tried for about a year to do that with obsidian. I took a lot of notes, but I don't read them and they do nothing for me.
I ended up after a lot of trial and error with a bookmarklet that lets me take notes right in a browser window paired with a real planning app like tick tick or Google keep or whatever.
The quick notes are good for when I'm trying to avoid my other Todo list because there's something I don't want to do on it but I still need to take other notes.
Here's the bookmarklet I started with: https://gist.github.com/clisamurai/1f355b6028c8b9d1836b4ca01...
> This is great! So many people in the ADHD community don't dig in enough into the 'superpower' side of it, so I'm super glad you covered that here. We can't get rid of the bad parts so I think it's extra important to lean into the good parts too.
Thanks for your comment, that's what I wanted to express. We can't run away from the bad parts, so let's try to deal with it and find some stuff to help us.
I’ve come along way to understanding the nutritional metabolic pathways that may increase the symptoms of ADHD.
Pyridoxine, or B6, is the most studied nutritional factor when it comes to reducing ADHD symptoms. I’m not saying this is the only cause of ADHD, but if this works other things might work as well. Zinc is a good possibility on the list also.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24321736/
According to our data, multi-year pyridoxine treatment normalizes completely the pattern of ADHD behavior, without causing any serious side effects.
While it discusses multi-year treatment, the paper says "After several weeks of such treatment the pattern of behavior in ADHD patients is normalized." which feels like something that could be easily tried out. Since it was published in 2013 I'd expect some follow-up? (checking for citations now)
Edit: Sadly, "No Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine Abnormalities in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777504/ 2016, larger study. (although they measure the amounts rather than ratios, so not exactly the same idea)
They found nothing in the study, because IMI they were measuring the wrong neurotransmitters. Dopamine is not the cause of the symptoms. It has to do with glutamate and GABA Balance. Since stimulants can control effect glutamate and GABA as well as Dopamine , that’s why there is all the confusion.
B6 also plays a role in glutamate GABA balance through stimulating the glutamate dehydrogenase enzyme.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5545734/
As far as ADHD goes, I just suggest searching both PubMed and Google scholar for ADHD, glutamate and GABA.
I think glutamate and GABA play a larger, or fundenental role, in most psychiatric disorders.
It's too bad self-medicating with these substances comes with such awful downsides.
I also have labile hypertension and it’s the only medication I can take that controls my blood pressure spikes.
I feel the same way about nicotine, although I can’t take it because it turns me to up. Nicotine is a stimulant and can be used as a medicine in lower doses. The problem is that people used to do and that sets up the addiction cycle.
I definitely have an issue with a very high glutamate/GABA ratio. My other go to medicine is Klonopin which I use only when I’m in a severe crisis. Like when I had a delusional psychosis when I had Covid.
Nutrition is very important indeed, but it has always been a problem for me. I wanted to focus on things I tried and worked on me. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the points I listed made the things better for me. Everybody's different, so it's not a silver bullet, just my personal journey.
Would you ever consider getting your serum B6 levels tested? It’s pretty cheap and you can do it without a doctors prescription if you’re in in the United States.
(Honestly not trying to discredit anyone actually suffering from ADHD, just seem implausible to me that so many have it given that programming also just requires an unhealthy amount of attention to finish tasks in a "timely" manner).
1. Our genetics means that one gene producing double the dopamine uptake receptors and a combo of other genes messes with something else (50% of all ADHDers have an anxiety disorder either GABA or serotonin based). In fact that is why ADDERALL is not addictive for us but is addictive to a normal person with the normal count of dopamine uptake receptors as cocaine, meth, etc. work on the TAART stretch of the dopamine uptake receptor. 2. Dopamine analogs plus coffee troopics tend to work at getting leverage to put time org and note org on top. My stack is: -30 mg caffeine taken one to 2 hours after waking when cortisol starts decreasing -green tea extract -maca extract -vitamins through fenugreek -dopamine analog via goji berries -L-theanine to stretch the 2 hour caffeine effect to 6 hours
Note for non ADHD people your cortisol starts decreasing after you wake about 1 to 2 hours after waking as this is what made caffeine drinks a habit. It is not wrong to take caffeine an hour or two after waking or at 10 am. You just should follow it up with the weak EGCG found in green tea and L-theanine to make it stretch to 6 hours.
What evidence do you have to support this claim? I have plenty of anecdotes of little value that would conflict with your claims. I find your claims hard to believe without evidence. Addictions are highly circumstantial and complex disorders.
To start with: the meds are so restricted ordinary doctors / GPs can't prescribe them. And trying to bring up 'ADHD' may get you labeled as a 'drug seeker.' But let's say you get an appointment with a psychiatrist (the ordained ministers who can write stimulant prescriptions) - wait times can be anywhere from 3 - 6 months. Upon which you're not guaranteed to be taken seriously because psychiatry isn't an exact science and not every doctor even acknowledges everything in the DSM.
In the state that I'm in I had to be drug tested before and after getting on ADHD meds. Before to make sure that I wasn't a drug seeker. And after to confirm I was taking the meds and not selling them. My doctor then had to apply for a special license just to write my script. He did this by writing a letter full of supporting clinical information and applying for the license to issue the script. So after all that effort (easily 9+ months) you get the chance to be given meds by such a doctor. But currently there are supply chain shortages so many people aren't even able to get their meds.
My US experience (much shorter):
When I was in the US I used a telehealth app on my phone to speak to a amazing clinician who specialized in ADHD (google some or this looks like shilling.) I had my meds not long after that. I currently don't bother with medication though because although it works exceptionally well: I can't sleep on them. I'd say to US people - have a look at some of the apps out there. You'll want to go with people who can actually prescribe and not psychologists.
Keep in mind there are other reasons that can cause concentration issues (depression and insomnia are examples.) It would probably be better for most people not to have ADHD as other illnesses are potentially easier to treat with less side effects.
((I really liked the conciseness, typography, and artwork in the article, by the way.))
And if you don't have it, then you can look at other causes for your problems. Because nobody (and/or their dog) will think they have ADHD unless they have identified a problem first.
All kids are different. Some kids can sit and read for hours. But some kids need to do physical stuff. Schools don’t cater for the latter. Gone are the days of learning wood work and metal work, cooking, sewing. Kids don’t do PE class like they used to. We try to ram all kids through the same meat grinder and when one resists we try to dumb them down with drugs and force them through. These kids are probably WORSE off being on drugs and shoved through the meat grinder than had they dropped out and done a trade skill instead. Nope it’s adhd and we got to drug them up and in most cases it’s a visit to the doctor and “do you have adhd” “I think so” “good enough for me here take this drug that I get paid to prescribe you”
* Dance * Drama * Food Technology * Industrial Technology Timber * Industrial Technology Metal * Music * Physical Activity & Sports Studies * Visual Arts
PE is twice a week.
In year 11 and 12 you can fill your classes with electives if you want, you might not get an ATAR for university if you don’t do English and maths.
By all means have at it if you enjoy legal access to terrific stimulants (they really do help you focus!), but maybe take the idea that you've suffered under the burden of lifelong illness with a grain of salt. ADHD is our generation's neurasthenia.
So no, I don't know where you live or work, but I don't agree that the modern world wants you to focus and produce.
Imperfect? Sure. But it sure beats the "trust me bro" university.
Spoken like a bona fide "bro" with no professional qualifications on the matter, not familiar with the research (except perhaps cherry-picked outlier stuff to reincorce their preconceived notion), and no personal experience of the devastating effects it has on the individual on all aspects of life (the very opposite of "getting away with it": professional and academic failure, social isolation, and other such outcomes, from the kindergadern -e.g. the "weird" stimming kid everybody bullies- to the grave).
But they sure do know some people claim to have it on TikTok when they don't, so the condition surely must not exist.
That's the "kids these days" myth. The reality is that to get diagnosed with ADHD and get to get medication is for many a long process, for most neglected until too late despite obvious signs.
>you have to be pretty stupid to truly believe 75% of the population magically developed adhd over the last 70 years.
Or you know, aside from the fact of more awareness (so people who would just be left to sink or swim on their own in the last 70 years, or merely considered "weirdos" and "failures" are now diagnosed), the world has also severely changed over the last 70 years, and aspects of it (many more rigid time-sensitive responsibilities, many more desk jobs, muct more emphasis on information processing and retention, infinitely more distractions, much more sensory overloading environments, and so on) make it more evident when one has it, and make the impact more severe.
And there can also be environmental and genetic factors involved (autism for example, a common commorbidity, did grow among other factors because more educated people with background/tendency for autism inter-marrying with more of their kind - with university, information, and tech jobs, and so on, as selection mechanisms). Such factors are under active study.
It's also nowhere near "75% of the population". At best around 4-8%, if that.
But I do agree with the "pretty stupid" part.
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_c...
ADHD: Essential Ideas for Parents - Dr. Russell Barkley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY
I can relate to everything that this article says, but I suspect this is true of every single person with a mentally challenging job.
HN is full of developers complaining about open offices and useless meetings; do all of them have ADHD? Otherwise, what's the difference between a ADHD developer and a regular developer?
I _do_ have specific body problems that make my work harder, such as a very strong noise sensitivity and a circadian rhythm that requires me to sleep longer than the average person. Dealing with those specific problems did much more than throwing my hands in the air and yelling "ADHD".
Instead of a 2000-word article that might have been generated by AI, I would just follow these three points.
1. Sleep 9–10 hours every night.
2. Strong exercise regularly.
3. Work somewhere quiet and pleasant.
There's a commonly used diagnosis survey you can check. It should give you a better idea than this.
> ADHD developer and a regular developer
To give you one example (but this won't cover all cases / everyone's experience), if you're in the bathroom and think you need to change the toilet roll, then proceed to forget and remember it again 6 times before leaving the room, then head for the toilet roll stash, forget about it and go make yourself a sandwich instead... and that applies to almost everything you do throughout the day, you're probably in category 1 not 2.
For medication, another example would be when you take stimulants and get relaxed, less nervous and feel like you could finally go for a nap...
What I'm saying is, some people may be experiencing smaller issues for the same reason, or they may just not be satisfied with their environment and are able to act on it, but there's some threshold where it's not even the same category. If you don't know what ADHD actually is, maybe check the experiences written by people who do struggle with basic things daily while seemingly highly functioning otherwise? There's a number of subreddits where you can find them.
Diagnostically speaking? The number of symptoms and the severity of those symptoms is basically it. Everyone will likely experience some of the symptoms of ADHD during their life. The co-occurence of those symptoms and the amount they affect your ability to function day-to-day is what makes the difference.
Some people will debate over how "real" ADHD is, where real means people with ADHD are a disjoint group and not just people on the very low end of the "ability to focus" bell curve. From my research I do believe it is "real", but that whether ADHD is "real" like sickle cell anemia is real or its just part of a normal bell curve doesn't really matter because society isn't going to adapt around you. If medication is what make the difference to maintain a normal life for some then that's probably a good thing that its available. If people who don't "really" have ADHD can learn strategies for focus and time management that's also a good thing.
> Dealing with those specific problems did much more than throwing my hands in the air and yelling "ADHD".
For a lot of people, dealing with their specific problems starts with recognizing what those problems are and identifying strategies to help. Diagnosing it gives validation that its something concrete you can work on, gives access to mental health professionals who can help you develop solutions, and creates a community of people all trying to solve similar problems.
It's the equivalent to having somebody constantly punch me in the face: it's annoying and distracting at first, and it eventually turns into tiredness and lack of motivation to do anything other than leaving the room I'm currently in to breathe some fresh air.
I understand this is something that happens to everyone (which is why so many people dislike open offices), but I have good reason to believe my noise sensitivity is worse than average and that it has been so since I was a kid.
It said that calendars and to-do lists help cope with ADHD, not that everyone who uses them has ADHD.
- Forgetting to look at the calendar
- Forgetting to look at the to-do list -> Make a different to-do list
- Have 10+ to-do lists
- Forgetting what the to-do even refers to
- Discover emacs org mode, it can link everything together -> constantly forget emacs key bindings
- Use logseq/obsidian instead -> forget which names/links refer to projects -> have 10+ aliases referring to different perspectives of the same project
I need static types, logic programming, graph search algorithms, and a bit of AI, to help save me.
Also, it'd be nice if modern software was easier to interface with. Needs more support for deep linking and syncing. The "walled garden" approach is anathema to solutions that can help ADHDers.
- "Forgetting" to look at the calendar, or to-do list, or your phone reminders, or a list written in large letters on a whiteboard behind your desk.
I seem to have a cognitive equivalent of an ad blocker, my mind will literally erase any task list from existence, the moment I start getting even slightly anxious about it. It's like a magic spell - I can put the list in front of my face, and my eyes will just keep glossing over it, like if it was a tear in reality.