10 ms·

ADHD Is Fuel for Adventure

98 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

derefr 11y ago
Orthogonal. Having ADHD doesn't imply a desire to be outside playing. It's a disorder of motivation, not a disorder of focus—an inability to practice, and sometimes to concentrate; but not an inability to think, or to enjoy thinking. Personally, in my childhood, I liked math and science. I had (and still have) ADHD, which made that hard, but I struggled through, because that was my passion. Medication (which I didn't get until I was 22) makes it much less hard. Telling me my aptitude was in running around outdoors would have been the last thing I ever wanted to hear. I liked exploring, sure (people with ADHD are almost always Bartle Explorer-types[1]), but building up physical endurance was just one of the many things I couldn't motivate myself to do, and would have heavily resisted someone attempting to push that on me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test
- cylinder 11y ago
  You nailed it, this is me. When I have new stimuli I'm fully engaged to the point my head hurts at the end of the day from focusing so much. But then, the stimuli wear away and I'm back searching for new stimuli rather than powering through my work. I don't know what to do.
- spacedmountain 11y ago
  I would further polish your desription - and call it a disorder of mismatched motivation. People with ADHD can motivate just fine on things that stimulate them - and have even reported 'hyperfocus', a trance-like state of emersion in something. The problem is things that are not stimulating become very challanging or even impossible. This is why bills, appointment, rules, and chores can be so difficult for ADHD people to commit to. 'Normal Type' people may find misery in these sorts of tasks, but they are able to motivate themselves to complete them - and the tasks generally don't take that long for them. A good way I've heard ADHD described is that people with the condition have no percetiption of time. If stimulated, its easy for them to loose track of how much time has passed - even forgetting to eat or sleep. If unstimulated, the misery seems to be never-ending, even if it would only take a short time to complete if the person applied themselves. As an example: Michael Phelps (who has the condition) has been very able to motivate himself to practice swimming. Swimming at his level is a very tedious sport, requiring five or more hours a day in a pool staring at the black line on the bottom. I've personally found sport (swimming and extreme) to be helpful in managing ADHD, both while doing the activity and maybe for a day or two afterwards. Also as a motivator before hand to get through tasks I find miserable to give some time for the activity.
  - derefr 11y ago
    Maybe I was using "motivation" in a jargon sense. Motivation (some people call it "willpower", but that ascribes it a "choosability" it doesn't really have) is the resource you have that allows you to do things you don't want to do. To put it another way: some things in life are a hassle (or a "schlep", in pg's phrasing[1]). The more motivation you have, the less this matters. The less motivation you have, the more of a problem a thing being a "hassle" will be. When you have chronically-low motivation, you avoid "hassles" as a rule, to the point that you stop even being able to lead your mind down potential avenues of thought that involve "hassles." If you want a fictional example of what having ADHD really tends to look like, it's not Calvin of C&H, it's Shikamaru from Naruto[2]. This model, by the way, has all sorts of consequences outside of just ADHD. When people are "too hungry to decide what to eat"—that's because hunger depletes motivation, and decisions are fundamentally hassles. The hungrier you get, the less motivation you can tap to "just" decide. (You can force yourself to decide, or trick yourself into deciding, but you can't "just" decide.) --- [1] http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html [2] Yui from K-On is also a striking example. That show's entire theme, actually, is essentially "how to succeed in life despite having ADHD", which is a real surprise for something so fluffy.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I have ADD (I can't stand the H in ADHD - I'm not hyperactive) and I can spend hours and hours in front of a computer programming. I can also spend a hell of a lot of time doing laps of the pool for some reason. I always find it ironic that it is my intense concentration that undoes me, the attention is ripping my mind away from the task I'm doing. Everything else seems to be a distraction, and that is intensely irritating.
    - derefr 11y ago
      I've spent enough time with psychiatrists that I just rattle off "I have ADHD Inattentive Type" to avoid riling feathers.
      - crystalclaw 11y ago
- ap22213 11y ago
  Not to discount your experiences, but that's not at all how I've felt as a sufferer of ADHD (nor my parents or my son). I would describe the feeling of ADHD not as lack of motivation but severe, almost physical, discomfort at attempts to concentrate. If you've ever suffered from nerve pain, you may know what I'm talking about. It's not quite analogous, since the ADHD discomfort is more of a strong, distracting 'itch', but it's similar in its phantom nature. If one lives with that feeling since birth, it is really hard to understand that others just don't feel that way. We may try to push ourselves forward, through constant force of will, or because others tell us to 'tough-it-out', but it's exhausting. Whereas we see others reading a book a week or month even, we struggle to even read a paragraph - constantly starting over, re-reading, so distracted that we can barely even take in the information. It's not until we gets treatment that we suddenly and clearly feel the difference, and then we understand the suffering that we've been going through all that time. Feeling 'normal' is amazing! It's like being able to read several pages at a time or sit through an entire lecture without feeling like you're constantly wiping away some sticky, opaque film between you and the information.
  - derefr 11y ago
    Your and my descriptions feel so qualitatively different that I've got to wonder if fundamentally different things are going on between the two. A previous HN thread had a lot of people comparing ADHD to the effect of chronic sleep debt, with the suggestion that ADHD could be an effect of the inability to enter deep sleep. "Like never having slept enough" isn't an analogy I would make for my symptoms, but it would seem to fit yours much more closely. As a probing guess, are your symptoms helped more by NRI-class drugs? From what I know about norepinephrine, it governs whether moment-to-moment attention will tend to fixate or drift. The symptoms of both that, and the disorder of motivation, seem to get conflated as "ADHD" for some reason.
    - invalidOrTaken 11y ago
      I have what you have, and not what app22213 has, and I wonder the same.
    - ap22213 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ghostcake 11y ago
  Rather than a desire to be active, I think it's a need. I can manage without medication but only if I'm active physically. That's why we shake our legs or arms while learning or digesting information. We need the activity.
elfyhat 11y ago
But will the positive experience kids get with this kind of activity have a long-lasting impact in their life? Will they grow up to be adults without ADHD or lesser symptoms? I was in the scouts when I was a kid and teen, ultimately reaching the rank of Eagle scout. I did plenty of outdoor activities and sports, not necessarily extreme, however we did go portaging deep into the Boundary Waters quite a few times. Yet, my ADHD persisted throughout my teens and 20s and I still suffer from this disorder as an adult in my mid-30s. Of course this is anecdotal. I guess it's a positive thing that being active outdoors will help a child while he grows up. Hopefully it helps in the long-term. In my case, I only wish it had. Short rant: it's pretty common these days to talk about the over-medication and over-diagnosing of children with ADHD. We must remember that some of these cases are truly warranted. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30. Since I've been on meds my quality of life has improved dramatically. Quick edit for a warning: ADHD medications are very powerful and must be treated with respect. Do your research before and after starting them. Don't hesitate to visit even abuser forums or reddit so you can read about the negative effects of consuming too much, too often. You can easily jeopardize your mental future by taking the medications the wrong way.
- kale 11y ago
  Similar situation here. I was diagnosed in my late 20s. I was having marital problems before Ritalin. Inattentiveness can be fatal to a relationship, and my executive function was poor, which put a lot of strain on my wife. In school, with plenty of free time and few responsibilities, I did fine. A two hour homework assignment might take 6 hours, but I did OK. It was adult life that became unmanageable. Like the author mentioned in the article, I don't think of it as a disease necessarily, it's a personality type. But it's a personality type that can make it difficult to live in the modern world without help.
- yesco 11y ago
  Something to keep in mind is that adrenaline is something used in medication to treat ADHD in some cases. The desire for some to go out and do things like this (ie: Base Jumping) could be sourced to them craving that adrenaline that helps them focus. Maybe they are taking the wrong type of medication or maybe they aren't taking any at all. Additionally I found this part very frustrating >>Panksepp points out that while common stimulant medications for ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall may improve attention skills and academic performance in many kids, they do so at the cost of reducing the playfulness urge—at least temporarily. “We know these are anti-play drugs in animals,” he says. “That is clear and unambiguous.” This is strongly anecdotal but as someone who takes Adderall, I can't say this could be any further from the truth. The only thing that I can come up with that could lead to this thinking is that younger kids who have trouble with their hyperactivity might not be as hyper anymore after taking medication (which was the whole point in the first place for some). All this is doing is encouraging more adrenaline junkies to treat themselves outside of conventional means.
greys0ul 11y ago
I think this is an excellent way to help some kids cope with adhd, but I definitely don't think it'd work universally. Reading this made me think back on my own struggle with adhd. A few years ago I was diagnosed with adhd at the age of 23, and god damn do I wish it happened a decade sooner, but my parents were the type that didn't believe in that kind of stuff, so I was just lazy. It's stuck with me to this day even, it took me a while to come to terms with it and I at times I still think I'm lying to myself and I'm just lazy, and would never make this post on my main account. I first started seriously considering that it might be something other than just laziness in college when I was studying for finals with some friends and we decided to enhance that studying with some adderall. Everyone got super focused, churning out work and wide awake for hours, except me. I felt pretty much nothing different at first, and was kinda pissed it didn't work, but got to studying anyways. The next day I was complaining to my friend about my apparent immunity to amphetamines, and thinking back I realized it might've had an effect after all. Instead of jumping around and doing 50 things at once in no logical order I actually stayed more or less on one thing at a time. I didn't get the apparent super human focus and metal boost, and it didn't keep me awake for shit, but I got to pick what I focused on. My friend mentioned that having that kind of reaction to stimulants might be a possible symptom of add, but I didn't take that seriously, since everything is apparently a symptom of add. Later on I finally got a job with my own health insurance, and went to a therapist for an unrelated reason. Through multiple sessions I unloaded the story of my life, how I could never pay attention to just one thing when I was younger, but I saw it as an advantage because I could context switch between 10 things got damn good at it. How I loved driving so much because thinking about every other car on the road with me and predicting their actions all at once put my mind at ease. But as I got older, the 10 things I tried to focus on each needed a lot more focus than my rapid context switching could provide. It had gotten to the point that holding a conversation was a troubling task because I'd also be thinking about 10 other things and losing bits and pieces of it. The first time my therapist told me that I may have adhd, I was actually insulted. I didn't want to consider the possibility that something was actually wrong with me, I was just lazy and needed to get my shit together. I never outwardly acted out as a kid, I wasn't hyperactive, there was no way I could have adhd. I later realized that a lot of my outlet went into computers instead, where for me the adhd was actually helpful. I continued my sessions, and eventually she convinced me to see a psychiatrist. Over a few visits he also diagnosed me with adhd. I refused to take the prescription and ended up going to two other doctors that gave me the same diagnoses. I finally relented and worked with my therapist and the psychiatrist to set a plan of action. I was prescribed adderall, which I took daily for 3 months. At the same time I also started working on behaviors and methods to cope with it without medication. It was a night and day difference. I remember 2 weeks in sitting in my room almost in tears thinking "is this how normal people think all the time? They can choose? Why the fuck couldn't I have that". After the first 3 months I started skipping my meds for one week out of every month to gauge how well I could deal without. It took about 7 months until I was confident enough to go off of it, but it feels like I never did. As much as I hate pharmaceuticals, there's no way I could've gotten to where I am today without. I genuinely feel that I've managed to change something in my brain to a less chaotic process. I didn't even know there was another way to think, I thought that was normal. Sure, it's still a struggle, and I still have my moments, but I can actually manage my life. I can decide to clean my apartment and not end up starting 5 other projects after 20 minutes of cleaning. The amount of shit I could have accomplished had I been able to handle my mind a decade earlier. Sorry for the long winded rant, but damn it feels good to actually put that into words. I'm still ashamed in a way of it, it makes me feel "broken" I guess, so no one but my doctors and I know and writing that was a bit of a relief. I'm honestly not sure what my point of writing this was, other that to say that while giving kids heavy amphetamines is probably not a great idea, doing something to help from a young age could be massively life changing, and if nothing else is helping, waiting too long for medication probably isn't a great idea either.
bayesianhorse 11y ago
ADHD has severe consequences on children: less happiness, less self control, more aggressiveness, higher risk of substance abuse and in general much lower grades. Unless a new treatment can demonstrate that it can reduce these consequences as well as medication does in the majority of cases, let's stick with the treatment that works, shall we?
- papapra 11y ago
  In addition, I would like to see more articles about the dangers of misdiagnosis of adhd. There are a lot a conditions that can be mistaken for adhd( sleep disorders to overactive thyroid). The articles that try to glorify it really annoy me, I can't come up with a single benefit of adhd in my life.
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    I'd say hyperthyroidism is difficult to overlook. At least I hope nobody is started on long term stimulant treatment without routinely checking simple blood parameters.
- zepto 11y ago
  How can a new treatment demonstrate that it has good long term outcomes if we don't try it?
yesco 11y ago
This article is ignoring that fact that there is a variety of different types of ADHD[1]. For example I have ADHD-PI which is just ADHD without the hyperactivity. I can't say I ever had a strong desire to play outside when I was younger and if anything I resented it. ADHD is a very complicated neurological disorder which can be difficult to diagnose due to its similarities with other disorders like depression or social anxiety. In my case, the social anxiety was noticed long before my ADHD was when in reality ADHD was the root cause. For others this can actually be the opposite, their symptoms appeared to be ADHD but in reality they have a sleeping disorder. Articles like this seem to be pushing an agenda ( Website Title: Outsiders Online ) and are trying to find an easy generalized solution to a complicated problem. That being said, exercise mixed in with education is something that should be important anyway, for all kids. Exercise keeps you healthy and motivated, regardless of any mental disability they may have. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...
fasteo 11y ago
Slightly off-topic, but I have seem some great responses here I would like to add a somehow controversial comment. I have a 10 year old kid diagnosed with severe ADHD-Inattentive type. He is on meds and behavioral therapy, and I must agree with most of the posts that meds is a must for these kids. My very personal an unscientific explanation is that ADHD is not a disease in the traditional sense; instead, it is just a brain that does not fit in our current lifestyle. Would my kid have any problem living in a simpler society (hunter-gatherer group) ? Definitively not. From time to time I tell my wife - and she gets very angry - that our kid has a MS-DOS brain, while we are all running Windows 10. The analogy is no exact, but it is just to emphasize that my kid belongs to another time. I only wish he can find his place in this world.
- tokenadult 11y ago
  Would my kid have any problem living in a simpler society (hunter-gatherer group) ? Definitively not. I know some children like that. Children who cannot keep quiet while hunting would not fare well in a hunter-gatherer society. Indeed, young members of a hunting party who move around too much and make too much noise are in danger of being eaten themselves by larger predator animals. I'm not sure that there has ever been a selection advantage to having difficulty maintaining attention focus.
  - SpaceCadetJones 11y ago
    The thing with ADHD is that the difficulty to maintain attention is often highly situational. As someone diagnosed I personally have a lot of trouble focusing on a lot, but when it comes to something like juggling or playing counter-strike it's pretty remarkable how well I suddenly tune everything out and get extremely engaged. Probably more so than a "neurotypical" person and their preferred activities. I'm also generally hyperactive, but not impulsive. I move around constantly at home, but in other social settings I'm able to sit still if it's socially unacceptable for me to be walking around or fidgeting.
    - sathackr 11y ago
      Yep. Get me in front of KSP(or World of Warcraft in the past) and 14 hours will have passed without me even looking up. My older sister hates fidgeting. She punches me(somewhat playfully, on the arm/leg/etc...) every time I start 'bouncing'. I generally wind up with a few bruises when we have lunch. My leg will unconsciously bounce, or I'll start tapping, she'll give me a warning, I'll stop. Then in 30 seconds unconsciously start again. WHAP!. I might remember for a minute this time. Rinse repeat.
ap22213 11y ago
Unfortunately, while probably well-meaning, articles like this perpetrate ideas that make parents and individuals avoid proven, clinical treatments.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Is ADHD associated with heredity? How does one go about getting oneself tested - if I am (and I fit a lot of symptoms) I would want to ensure my kids get the right sort of help early.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  Yes, it appears to be hereditary, however no single gene has been implicated. There is also no subjective test, but if you see a psychiatrist they can usually diagnose you be asking questions about your symptoms. This can be problematic because some insururers won't pay for amphetamines to treat a condition that can be "faked".
panglott 11y ago
Isn't it normal to have difficulty focusing on things that are really boring? ADHD diagnosis rates are several times higher in the US than in other developed countries, and orders of scale higher than in low-diagnosis countries (such as France). The biggest risk factors for an ADHD diagnoses include things like "being male" and "being in the youngest quartile of your kindergarten class". That's an amazing thing to pathologize. In the US, the drive to perform well on standardized tests has gotten to such an extreme that kindergarteners are expected to have literacy performance that was expected of 1st-graders a generation ago, and children are expected to come to kindergarten with the alphabet knowledge that they would have learned in kindergarten a generation ago. Meanwhile, the amount of time young children have spent at recess has declined hugely in the last 30 years, with very many schools having no recess at all. Isn't there a margin where this is a disorder because of the interaction between an individual and their environment, where the environment is the problem? Some amount of ADHD-spectrum behavior might should be considered within the range of normal child development, which is being pathologized by a system that doesn't give young children (especially slightly younger boys) enough exercise. The main treatment for ADHD is lifelong amphetamine use, and nobody can say whether this treatment prevents children from developing coping mechanisms that they would otherwise normally develop before adulthood. If something as simple as more exercise can marginally reduce ADHD diagnosis or medication rates, that would be a huge advance.
- spacedmountain 11y ago
  This speaks to a common commment about ADHD. Where is the border between a 'personality trait' and a disorder? The condition is usually defined by having an impairment in at least two environments (ie school, home, work, sports teams). 'Impairment' is obviously subjective, but implies something more than simply being bored. Playing a game in a boring meeting probably isn't ADHD. Being unable to focus for more than a few minutes in _any_ meeting is a stronger sign, and could really make it harder. On diagnosis rates - in most countries its 2-5% (>10% of children in the USA..). That is about 2 standard deviations from an 'average' person, which can actually be quite a difference. For comparison, a 'genius' is someone who scores in the top 2% of an IQ test. Economic elite are '1%-ers'. I'd agree that there is a continiuous spectrum, and also that it is mis/over-diagnosed in a considerable number of cases. I think it is this over-treatment that you are questioning, but lets be cautious to not add to the stigma around legitmate cases of the condition. I'd agree often the challange is between individual and their environment - although often 'enviroment' includes people around them. Often the environment is hard to change - do the 95% change to accomodate 5%? There is advice for careers that people with ADHD tend to be better at - sales, entrepreneurship, and medicine for their fast-pace and energy, or jobs like the military where there is a lot of structure. I think its more complex than saying exercise would reduce diagnosis or medication rates. In particular, if exercise alone 'cures' ADHD, it is likely a mild or mis-diagnosed case. In my own experiance, exercise (as well as sleep and diet) do affect symptoms, but don't eliminate them.
sathackr 11y ago
It's unfortunate that this type of therapy is out of reach for the majority of kids. Not many parents have $50,000/yr of disposable income to send their child. I know of a child right now that something positive like this may be the deciding factor between a productive life or a life behind bars, but the cost is at least 50% of his parents combined income, so he will not have that option.
ghostcake 11y ago
I have ADHD. Rather than focus on what it is and whether it's real, I'd like to focus on what helps. Cardio and adrenaline help more than anything else for immediate relief. So much of dealing with ADHD is realizing your tendencies and building your life in a way that is conducive to your work flows. I know I need frequent breaks, privacy and hydration. If I'm about to have a panic attack because I can't concentrate and work is due, I go for a short bike ride and set the work aside momentarily. If I tried to work on at that moment, not only would I not make progress but I'll probably have an anxiety attack. Once I give my brain room to breath programming issues seem so much easier.

98 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

Orthogonal. Having ADHD doesn't imply a desire to be outside playing. It's a disorder of motivation, not a disorder of focus—an inability to practice, and sometimes to concentrate; but not an inability to think, or to enjoy thinking. Personally, in my childhood, I liked math and science. I had (and still have) ADHD, which made that hard, but I struggled through, because that was my passion. Medication (which I didn't get until I was 22) makes it much less hard. Telling me my aptitude was in running around outdoors would have been the last thing I ever wanted to hear. I liked exploring, sure (people with ADHD are almost always Bartle Explorer-types[1]), but building up physical endurance was just one of the many things I couldn't motivate myself to do, and would have heavily resisted someone attempting to push that on me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test

cylinder 11y ago
You nailed it, this is me. When I have new stimuli I'm fully engaged to the point my head hurts at the end of the day from focusing so much. But then, the stimuli wear away and I'm back searching for new stimuli rather than powering through my work. I don't know what to do.
spacedmountain 11y ago
I would further polish your desription - and call it a disorder of mismatched motivation. People with ADHD can motivate just fine on things that stimulate them - and have even reported 'hyperfocus', a trance-like state of emersion in something. The problem is things that are not stimulating become very challanging or even impossible. This is why bills, appointment, rules, and chores can be so difficult for ADHD people to commit to. 'Normal Type' people may find misery in these sorts of tasks, but they are able to motivate themselves to complete them - and the tasks generally don't take that long for them. A good way I've heard ADHD described is that people with the condition have no percetiption of time. If stimulated, its easy for them to loose track of how much time has passed - even forgetting to eat or sleep. If unstimulated, the misery seems to be never-ending, even if it would only take a short time to complete if the person applied themselves. As an example: Michael Phelps (who has the condition) has been very able to motivate himself to practice swimming. Swimming at his level is a very tedious sport, requiring five or more hours a day in a pool staring at the black line on the bottom. I've personally found sport (swimming and extreme) to be helpful in managing ADHD, both while doing the activity and maybe for a day or two afterwards. Also as a motivator before hand to get through tasks I find miserable to give some time for the activity.
- derefr 11y ago
  Maybe I was using "motivation" in a jargon sense. Motivation (some people call it "willpower", but that ascribes it a "choosability" it doesn't really have) is the resource you have that allows you to do things you don't want to do. To put it another way: some things in life are a hassle (or a "schlep", in pg's phrasing[1]). The more motivation you have, the less this matters. The less motivation you have, the more of a problem a thing being a "hassle" will be. When you have chronically-low motivation, you avoid "hassles" as a rule, to the point that you stop even being able to lead your mind down potential avenues of thought that involve "hassles." If you want a fictional example of what having ADHD really tends to look like, it's not Calvin of C&H, it's Shikamaru from Naruto[2]. This model, by the way, has all sorts of consequences outside of just ADHD. When people are "too hungry to decide what to eat"—that's because hunger depletes motivation, and decisions are fundamentally hassles. The hungrier you get, the less motivation you can tap to "just" decide. (You can force yourself to decide, or trick yourself into deciding, but you can't "just" decide.) --- [1] http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html [2] Yui from K-On is also a striking example. That show's entire theme, actually, is essentially "how to succeed in life despite having ADHD", which is a real surprise for something so fluffy.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I have ADD (I can't stand the H in ADHD - I'm not hyperactive) and I can spend hours and hours in front of a computer programming. I can also spend a hell of a lot of time doing laps of the pool for some reason. I always find it ironic that it is my intense concentration that undoes me, the attention is ripping my mind away from the task I'm doing. Everything else seems to be a distraction, and that is intensely irritating.
  - derefr 11y ago
    I've spent enough time with psychiatrists that I just rattle off "I have ADHD Inattentive Type" to avoid riling feathers.
    - crystalclaw 11y ago
ap22213 11y ago
Not to discount your experiences, but that's not at all how I've felt as a sufferer of ADHD (nor my parents or my son). I would describe the feeling of ADHD not as lack of motivation but severe, almost physical, discomfort at attempts to concentrate. If you've ever suffered from nerve pain, you may know what I'm talking about. It's not quite analogous, since the ADHD discomfort is more of a strong, distracting 'itch', but it's similar in its phantom nature. If one lives with that feeling since birth, it is really hard to understand that others just don't feel that way. We may try to push ourselves forward, through constant force of will, or because others tell us to 'tough-it-out', but it's exhausting. Whereas we see others reading a book a week or month even, we struggle to even read a paragraph - constantly starting over, re-reading, so distracted that we can barely even take in the information. It's not until we gets treatment that we suddenly and clearly feel the difference, and then we understand the suffering that we've been going through all that time. Feeling 'normal' is amazing! It's like being able to read several pages at a time or sit through an entire lecture without feeling like you're constantly wiping away some sticky, opaque film between you and the information.
- derefr 11y ago
  Your and my descriptions feel so qualitatively different that I've got to wonder if fundamentally different things are going on between the two. A previous HN thread had a lot of people comparing ADHD to the effect of chronic sleep debt, with the suggestion that ADHD could be an effect of the inability to enter deep sleep. "Like never having slept enough" isn't an analogy I would make for my symptoms, but it would seem to fit yours much more closely. As a probing guess, are your symptoms helped more by NRI-class drugs? From what I know about norepinephrine, it governs whether moment-to-moment attention will tend to fixate or drift. The symptoms of both that, and the disorder of motivation, seem to get conflated as "ADHD" for some reason.
  - invalidOrTaken 11y ago
    I have what you have, and not what app22213 has, and I wonder the same.
  - ap22213 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ghostcake 11y ago
Rather than a desire to be active, I think it's a need. I can manage without medication but only if I'm active physically. That's why we shake our legs or arms while learning or digesting information. We need the activity.

elfyhat 11y ago

But will the positive experience kids get with this kind of activity have a long-lasting impact in their life? Will they grow up to be adults without ADHD or lesser symptoms? I was in the scouts when I was a kid and teen, ultimately reaching the rank of Eagle scout. I did plenty of outdoor activities and sports, not necessarily extreme, however we did go portaging deep into the Boundary Waters quite a few times. Yet, my ADHD persisted throughout my teens and 20s and I still suffer from this disorder as an adult in my mid-30s. Of course this is anecdotal. I guess it's a positive thing that being active outdoors will help a child while he grows up. Hopefully it helps in the long-term. In my case, I only wish it had. Short rant: it's pretty common these days to talk about the over-medication and over-diagnosing of children with ADHD. We must remember that some of these cases are truly warranted. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30. Since I've been on meds my quality of life has improved dramatically. Quick edit for a warning: ADHD medications are very powerful and must be treated with respect. Do your research before and after starting them. Don't hesitate to visit even abuser forums or reddit so you can read about the negative effects of consuming too much, too often. You can easily jeopardize your mental future by taking the medications the wrong way.

kale 11y ago
Similar situation here. I was diagnosed in my late 20s. I was having marital problems before Ritalin. Inattentiveness can be fatal to a relationship, and my executive function was poor, which put a lot of strain on my wife. In school, with plenty of free time and few responsibilities, I did fine. A two hour homework assignment might take 6 hours, but I did OK. It was adult life that became unmanageable. Like the author mentioned in the article, I don't think of it as a disease necessarily, it's a personality type. But it's a personality type that can make it difficult to live in the modern world without help.
yesco 11y ago
Something to keep in mind is that adrenaline is something used in medication to treat ADHD in some cases. The desire for some to go out and do things like this (ie: Base Jumping) could be sourced to them craving that adrenaline that helps them focus. Maybe they are taking the wrong type of medication or maybe they aren't taking any at all. Additionally I found this part very frustrating >>Panksepp points out that while common stimulant medications for ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall may improve attention skills and academic performance in many kids, they do so at the cost of reducing the playfulness urge—at least temporarily. “We know these are anti-play drugs in animals,” he says. “That is clear and unambiguous.” This is strongly anecdotal but as someone who takes Adderall, I can't say this could be any further from the truth. The only thing that I can come up with that could lead to this thinking is that younger kids who have trouble with their hyperactivity might not be as hyper anymore after taking medication (which was the whole point in the first place for some). All this is doing is encouraging more adrenaline junkies to treat themselves outside of conventional means.

greys0ul 11y ago

I think this is an excellent way to help some kids cope with adhd, but I definitely don't think it'd work universally. Reading this made me think back on my own struggle with adhd. A few years ago I was diagnosed with adhd at the age of 23, and god damn do I wish it happened a decade sooner, but my parents were the type that didn't believe in that kind of stuff, so I was just lazy. It's stuck with me to this day even, it took me a while to come to terms with it and I at times I still think I'm lying to myself and I'm just lazy, and would never make this post on my main account. I first started seriously considering that it might be something other than just laziness in college when I was studying for finals with some friends and we decided to enhance that studying with some adderall. Everyone got super focused, churning out work and wide awake for hours, except me. I felt pretty much nothing different at first, and was kinda pissed it didn't work, but got to studying anyways. The next day I was complaining to my friend about my apparent immunity to amphetamines, and thinking back I realized it might've had an effect after all. Instead of jumping around and doing 50 things at once in no logical order I actually stayed more or less on one thing at a time. I didn't get the apparent super human focus and metal boost, and it didn't keep me awake for shit, but I got to pick what I focused on. My friend mentioned that having that kind of reaction to stimulants might be a possible symptom of add, but I didn't take that seriously, since everything is apparently a symptom of add. Later on I finally got a job with my own health insurance, and went to a therapist for an unrelated reason. Through multiple sessions I unloaded the story of my life, how I could never pay attention to just one thing when I was younger, but I saw it as an advantage because I could context switch between 10 things got damn good at it. How I loved driving so much because thinking about every other car on the road with me and predicting their actions all at once put my mind at ease. But as I got older, the 10 things I tried to focus on each needed a lot more focus than my rapid context switching could provide. It had gotten to the point that holding a conversation was a troubling task because I'd also be thinking about 10 other things and losing bits and pieces of it. The first time my therapist told me that I may have adhd, I was actually insulted. I didn't want to consider the possibility that something was actually wrong with me, I was just lazy and needed to get my shit together. I never outwardly acted out as a kid, I wasn't hyperactive, there was no way I could have adhd. I later realized that a lot of my outlet went into computers instead, where for me the adhd was actually helpful. I continued my sessions, and eventually she convinced me to see a psychiatrist. Over a few visits he also diagnosed me with adhd. I refused to take the prescription and ended up going to two other doctors that gave me the same diagnoses. I finally relented and worked with my therapist and the psychiatrist to set a plan of action. I was prescribed adderall, which I took daily for 3 months. At the same time I also started working on behaviors and methods to cope with it without medication. It was a night and day difference. I remember 2 weeks in sitting in my room almost in tears thinking "is this how normal people think all the time? They can choose? Why the fuck couldn't I have that". After the first 3 months I started skipping my meds for one week out of every month to gauge how well I could deal without. It took about 7 months until I was confident enough to go off of it, but it feels like I never did. As much as I hate pharmaceuticals, there's no way I could've gotten to where I am today without. I genuinely feel that I've managed to change something in my brain to a less chaotic process. I didn't even know there was another way to think, I thought that was normal. Sure, it's still a struggle, and I still have my moments, but I can actually manage my life. I can decide to clean my apartment and not end up starting 5 other projects after 20 minutes of cleaning. The amount of shit I could have accomplished had I been able to handle my mind a decade earlier. Sorry for the long winded rant, but damn it feels good to actually put that into words. I'm still ashamed in a way of it, it makes me feel "broken" I guess, so no one but my doctors and I know and writing that was a bit of a relief. I'm honestly not sure what my point of writing this was, other that to say that while giving kids heavy amphetamines is probably not a great idea, doing something to help from a young age could be massively life changing, and if nothing else is helping, waiting too long for medication probably isn't a great idea either.

bayesianhorse 11y ago

ADHD has severe consequences on children: less happiness, less self control, more aggressiveness, higher risk of substance abuse and in general much lower grades. Unless a new treatment can demonstrate that it can reduce these consequences as well as medication does in the majority of cases, let's stick with the treatment that works, shall we?

papapra 11y ago
In addition, I would like to see more articles about the dangers of misdiagnosis of adhd. There are a lot a conditions that can be mistaken for adhd( sleep disorders to overactive thyroid). The articles that try to glorify it really annoy me, I can't come up with a single benefit of adhd in my life.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  I'd say hyperthyroidism is difficult to overlook. At least I hope nobody is started on long term stimulant treatment without routinely checking simple blood parameters.
zepto 11y ago
How can a new treatment demonstrate that it has good long term outcomes if we don't try it?

yesco 11y ago

This article is ignoring that fact that there is a variety of different types of ADHD[1]. For example I have ADHD-PI which is just ADHD without the hyperactivity. I can't say I ever had a strong desire to play outside when I was younger and if anything I resented it. ADHD is a very complicated neurological disorder which can be difficult to diagnose due to its similarities with other disorders like depression or social anxiety. In my case, the social anxiety was noticed long before my ADHD was when in reality ADHD was the root cause. For others this can actually be the opposite, their symptoms appeared to be ADHD but in reality they have a sleeping disorder. Articles like this seem to be pushing an agenda ( Website Title: Outsiders Online ) and are trying to find an easy generalized solution to a complicated problem. That being said, exercise mixed in with education is something that should be important anyway, for all kids. Exercise keeps you healthy and motivated, regardless of any mental disability they may have. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder#Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...

fasteo 11y ago

Slightly off-topic, but I have seem some great responses here I would like to add a somehow controversial comment. I have a 10 year old kid diagnosed with severe ADHD-Inattentive type. He is on meds and behavioral therapy, and I must agree with most of the posts that meds is a must for these kids. My very personal an unscientific explanation is that ADHD is not a disease in the traditional sense; instead, it is just a brain that does not fit in our current lifestyle. Would my kid have any problem living in a simpler society (hunter-gatherer group) ? Definitively not. From time to time I tell my wife - and she gets very angry - that our kid has a MS-DOS brain, while we are all running Windows 10. The analogy is no exact, but it is just to emphasize that my kid belongs to another time. I only wish he can find his place in this world.

tokenadult 11y ago
Would my kid have any problem living in a simpler society (hunter-gatherer group) ? Definitively not. I know some children like that. Children who cannot keep quiet while hunting would not fare well in a hunter-gatherer society. Indeed, young members of a hunting party who move around too much and make too much noise are in danger of being eaten themselves by larger predator animals. I'm not sure that there has ever been a selection advantage to having difficulty maintaining attention focus.
- SpaceCadetJones 11y ago
  The thing with ADHD is that the difficulty to maintain attention is often highly situational. As someone diagnosed I personally have a lot of trouble focusing on a lot, but when it comes to something like juggling or playing counter-strike it's pretty remarkable how well I suddenly tune everything out and get extremely engaged. Probably more so than a "neurotypical" person and their preferred activities. I'm also generally hyperactive, but not impulsive. I move around constantly at home, but in other social settings I'm able to sit still if it's socially unacceptable for me to be walking around or fidgeting.
  - sathackr 11y ago
    Yep. Get me in front of KSP(or World of Warcraft in the past) and 14 hours will have passed without me even looking up. My older sister hates fidgeting. She punches me(somewhat playfully, on the arm/leg/etc...) every time I start 'bouncing'. I generally wind up with a few bruises when we have lunch. My leg will unconsciously bounce, or I'll start tapping, she'll give me a warning, I'll stop. Then in 30 seconds unconsciously start again. WHAP!. I might remember for a minute this time. Rinse repeat.

ap22213 11y ago

Unfortunately, while probably well-meaning, articles like this perpetrate ideas that make parents and individuals avoid proven, clinical treatments.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

Is ADHD associated with heredity? How does one go about getting oneself tested - if I am (and I fit a lot of symptoms) I would want to ensure my kids get the right sort of help early.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago
Yes, it appears to be hereditary, however no single gene has been implicated. There is also no subjective test, but if you see a psychiatrist they can usually diagnose you be asking questions about your symptoms. This can be problematic because some insururers won't pay for amphetamines to treat a condition that can be "faked".

panglott 11y ago

Isn't it normal to have difficulty focusing on things that are really boring? ADHD diagnosis rates are several times higher in the US than in other developed countries, and orders of scale higher than in low-diagnosis countries (such as France). The biggest risk factors for an ADHD diagnoses include things like "being male" and "being in the youngest quartile of your kindergarten class". That's an amazing thing to pathologize. In the US, the drive to perform well on standardized tests has gotten to such an extreme that kindergarteners are expected to have literacy performance that was expected of 1st-graders a generation ago, and children are expected to come to kindergarten with the alphabet knowledge that they would have learned in kindergarten a generation ago. Meanwhile, the amount of time young children have spent at recess has declined hugely in the last 30 years, with very many schools having no recess at all. Isn't there a margin where this is a disorder because of the interaction between an individual and their environment, where the environment is the problem? Some amount of ADHD-spectrum behavior might should be considered within the range of normal child development, which is being pathologized by a system that doesn't give young children (especially slightly younger boys) enough exercise. The main treatment for ADHD is lifelong amphetamine use, and nobody can say whether this treatment prevents children from developing coping mechanisms that they would otherwise normally develop before adulthood. If something as simple as more exercise can marginally reduce ADHD diagnosis or medication rates, that would be a huge advance.

spacedmountain 11y ago
This speaks to a common commment about ADHD. Where is the border between a 'personality trait' and a disorder? The condition is usually defined by having an impairment in at least two environments (ie school, home, work, sports teams). 'Impairment' is obviously subjective, but implies something more than simply being bored. Playing a game in a boring meeting probably isn't ADHD. Being unable to focus for more than a few minutes in _any_ meeting is a stronger sign, and could really make it harder. On diagnosis rates - in most countries its 2-5% (>10% of children in the USA..). That is about 2 standard deviations from an 'average' person, which can actually be quite a difference. For comparison, a 'genius' is someone who scores in the top 2% of an IQ test. Economic elite are '1%-ers'. I'd agree that there is a continiuous spectrum, and also that it is mis/over-diagnosed in a considerable number of cases. I think it is this over-treatment that you are questioning, but lets be cautious to not add to the stigma around legitmate cases of the condition. I'd agree often the challange is between individual and their environment - although often 'enviroment' includes people around them. Often the environment is hard to change - do the 95% change to accomodate 5%? There is advice for careers that people with ADHD tend to be better at - sales, entrepreneurship, and medicine for their fast-pace and energy, or jobs like the military where there is a lot of structure. I think its more complex than saying exercise would reduce diagnosis or medication rates. In particular, if exercise alone 'cures' ADHD, it is likely a mild or mis-diagnosed case. In my own experiance, exercise (as well as sleep and diet) do affect symptoms, but don't eliminate them.

sathackr 11y ago

It's unfortunate that this type of therapy is out of reach for the majority of kids. Not many parents have $50,000/yr of disposable income to send their child. I know of a child right now that something positive like this may be the deciding factor between a productive life or a life behind bars, but the cost is at least 50% of his parents combined income, so he will not have that option.

ghostcake 11y ago

I have ADHD. Rather than focus on what it is and whether it's real, I'd like to focus on what helps. Cardio and adrenaline help more than anything else for immediate relief. So much of dealing with ADHD is realizing your tendencies and building your life in a way that is conducive to your work flows. I know I need frequent breaks, privacy and hydration. If I'm about to have a panic attack because I can't concentrate and work is due, I go for a short bike ride and set the work aside momentarily. If I tried to work on at that moment, not only would I not make progress but I'll probably have an anxiety attack. Once I give my brain room to breath programming issues seem so much easier.