A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.?

At the very least, if exercise does indeed work as well as medication, then the medication can provide the catalyst to get on a regular exercise schedule!

Before I was medicated for inattentive ADD, sitting down to study was essentially impossible. I would sit down to read, and within a minute my mind would start to wander and it took an enormous amount of effort and mental energy to get my mind back to focusing. But once again I would lose my train of thought unintentionally and start day dreaming. I used to lock myself away from any distractions, but my mind was just not equipped to learn the way my high school and college required me to. I needed to learn and I wanted to learn but I didn't have the ability to.

After taking Adderall, my mind doesn't wander aimlessly and it doesn't take an enormous amount of effort sit still and study. I still need to take mental breaks every hour and use will power to get myself to sit down and learn, but the effort was just much less, making it a much easier process. I am naturally motivated and curious. But this is hindered by the fact that I can't naturally sit and learn. On Adderall all of a sudden I can focus, and my motivation and curiosity can let me successfully get things done.

As far as tasks that would feel good even without medication, video games for example, I had even more focus and could play for longer periods of time if I wanted to. But now all of a sudden playing video games didn't seem as attractive to me anymore, because there were other things I needed to get done (like study) which I always wanted to do but were too hard. When the threshold of effort required to do work successfully is lowered, it becomes much easier to stop myself from playing video games and actually get motivated and excited about learning and getting work done.

i come from a generation where adhd is vocalised using a cash register chime, so i aggressively avoid acknowledging the diagnosis stead the syndromes

> My patient “treated” his [distraction'boredom'frustration'creative depletion] simply by changing the conditions of his work environment from one that was highly routine to one that was varied and unpredictable. All of a sudden, his greatest liabilities — his impatience, short attention span and restlessness — became assets.

i developed a similar work environment.. i called it distracting my distractions

i often have multiple projects i want to work on with varied goals and requirements and if i start to lull while working i just shift to another project

i used to do this when i was a younger when reading

i would have many books open and scattered on my floor, all open to different pages

my friends might start reading a book at the same time as me and finish the book in one week what took me a four weeks to finish, but after that four weeks was over i would have finished reading three other books as well, each finishing at the end of that four weeks

books are really easy to build productive workflows around: you can immediately determine speed and pace based on time it takes to read the second page and how long the book is; with projects it is more difficult, i may get stuck on one function for hours and another will come out of me effortlessly, it is a now a matter of correctly recognising when i've begun to sludge signalling i should move to another project

most recently i have been taking breaks from work every thirty minutes or so, unless i am whistling through something, and get up and stretch, while giving my back and butt the rest i try to analyse my progress since the last stretch and determine if a project shift would do me good

For the past few years I've taken both Adderall and Vyvanse, with the past 2 years being Vyvanse. I thought I would be taking these drugs for the rest of my life if I wanted to be successful, because when I didn't take them, I could not focus on work tasks at all. However, the "cost" of these drugs for me was that I couldn't turn off. I was driven from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. My social life definitely suffered.

So, as I started a new job this year in January, I decided to make a clean break. I quit Vyvanse cold turkey and started a new job. I've been doing exceptionally. I never thought this could happen. Thinking back on the issue just yesterday I was telling a colleague that I thought this was likely because I must have been bored with the tasks at my previous job, and I've found all the new tasks to be interesting enough to bring out what I consider great performance from myself, though not the insane amount of performance I was doing on Vyvanse.

Anecdotal at best, but I independently came to the same conclusions as this article, for whatever it's worth.

I need to second this. It isn't just being bored, it is being totally unable to function. There are things that I am interested in and REALLY want to learn/do/practice/build/enjoy but sometimes I am just totally incapable. I know what I want and I know what I need but I can't do it. Dr. Russell Barkley refers to ADHD as a performance disorder that was misnamed as an attention disorder and I tend to agree.