ADHD: Do You Like to Read While You Walk?

I may have been kidding in the above video, but I do like to walk & read at the same time. I especially like to do it when I feel bored and antsy late at night. It's a trick I learned from an ADHD advisor in college. He had found he concentrated best when he was in motion (hence our mutual ADHD love for pacing while talking on the phone), so he would grab his text books and go out to the track and walk around it while studying. I've achieved the same result on treadmills—an activity usually so boring I'd rather have my ears pulled off with dental floss than do even five minutes of it. I found, though, that when equipped with a good book on my iPad (or with a very loaded Instapaper account), I could walk for 45-60 minutes on a treadmill without even noticing. When studying Japanese or other material, memorizing while also walking briskly was very effective. I found clarity and peace while doing both tasks. You can read more about it here. Hey, if it's on Wikipedia it must be true! I did find, however, that running while trying to read was not as useful. Not only was it hard to read the text of the stationary iPad as I bounced around the treadmill, it was hard to turn the pages. Now there's a great use for hands-free Google Glass.

But what do you do if the rec room is closed and you don't have access to a treadmill? How do you work off your nervous energy, study for an exam, or kill the two birds of exercise and novel reading at the same time? Alright, maybe not many of you have that particular urge. At any rate, I found that a stroll around my apartment complex's sidewalk did the trick. It was well lit, well constructed, and my peripheral vision kept me from tripping onto the lawn. Of course, walking with your head in a book is dangerous enough, never mind doing it at night while relying on peripheral vision to keep you on the path, so it's not an activity I do often unless I'm extremely antsy and have a death wish.

What do you think? Am I alone out here, or are there others of you who enjoy the clarity found in reading and studying while walking?

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Fighting Depression: Take a Walk

Monday - Entry 31:

Spring has finally arrived like a snail crossing the highway. There have been quite a few near misses, a casualty or two, some serious setbacks, and weeks where I never thought it would make the journey across at all. Fortunately, the snail persevered and I'm typing this on my balcony with comfortable 70°F weather and a cool breeze. Life is good.

Unfortunately, I have Depression and life is not always so good. The black mood settles in like a stain and can often require serious scrubbing to remove it. Depression can be treated without medications, but sometimes it requires a lot of work. Then there are days like last Thursday.

I woke up and could tell immediately that I was feeling far too down for the morning, so I thought through my set of coping skills and decided to take a walk. The sun was up, but not too hot. There was a breeze, but not too hard. I had things to do, but not at that moment. It was a perfect Goldilocks opportunity, so I took it.

I'll allow the photos I'm posting to tell the rest of the story. I am just relieved that I have good weather finally, and very glad that a brisk walk in the morning sun could lift my spirits so effectively. I realize that not all of my readers have access to sun dappled fields of desert greens and flora, but there is usually nature to be appreciated even in the most concrete of environments. I'll make it a goal next time to seek out urban beauty. I find the presence of green amidst the concrete usually very affirming. Nature struggles to fight the encroachment of development the way I want to struggle to fight the encroachment of Depression. And just like Spring pushing back Winter, I usually succeed in the end.

~Dˢ

 

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ADHD & Depression: Distraction As Therapy

I have the comorbid conditions of ADHD and Depression. And may I say that I despise the word "comorbid". What a gruesome, ghoulish word to hang around people's necks. Leave it to psychologists to come up with terminology that depresses depressives. Because "coinciding" and "overlapping" weren't descriptive enough.

But I digress…which is the point of this quick post after all.

I have often found my ADHD to be very helpful in treating my Depression. This is because sometimes I can forget I am depressed if the distraction is engrossing enough. In fact, when I discover that I am depressed, I will seek out distractions as the first coping strategy to get the depression under control. Sometimes, the depression is a wave that passes. What a perfect way to sidestep it by finding something else to think about for a short time until my mind & body regulate themselves.

I had originally stated here that ADHD and Depression were not common coinciding conditions (See? That sounds so much better), but a reader pointed out to me this study (Table 3) that showed a nearly one in five occurrence of either Major Depressive Disorder or Dysthymia (mild depression) with ADHD. That seems high compared to my experience where people search my blog for one or the other—not often both. Also, I have been told by psychologists that having both conditions was unusual, but then I've also had psychologists who believed in the healing power of crystals. So there you are. Regardless, I have both conditions, and I know I am not alone. That is why I wrote this article in the first place. I just never realized that I was in such good company.

Whether you are the one in five or the other four, you have likely encountered a side-effect of ADHD usually referred to as Depression After Success. That is the state of mind that we can find ourselves in when we come out of hyperfocus mode. We flounder as our minds lose their laser focus after the task is done and the bombardment of emotions, thoughts, and impulses begins.

Some of us with ADHD also deal with Depression as a constant and tone-deaf companion who sings over ADHD in the arena of our mind. Together, they make quite a racket. Fortunately, long bouts of Depression are hard to have because the ADHD side gets bored and demands action, but it can be a seesaw effect that takes up considerable amounts of energy to overcome. That is why when ADHD and Depression overlap, I let the ADHD side free.

One distraction that is a favorite of mine is to take photographs with filter-effect apps on my camera. I've been doing this since the first iPhone camera filter apps were released in late 2007. Often, I will take a selfie and either heighten the feeling of sadness I'm feeling with filters, or force myself to take a cheerful photograph then filter it until it looks convincing. These tiny projects don't take a lot of time and often are very effective at funneling my attention away from being depressed and into doing something creative—my number one coping strategy for fighting Depression.

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When Were You Diagnosed with ADHD?

Last week Rock Center with Brian Williams had a segment on a mother who was only diagnosed with ADHD after her daughter was discovered to have ADHD. The mother was 42. You can see a clip of the segment here. I'm wondering how common this is with others. I was diagnosed very early. At 3 weeks old my doctor decided I had "hyperkinesis". That could be because I rarely slept and would stand when people held my fingers. My head was too heavy to support, and I flopped it around, but I was standing. The year was 1967. Fifteen years later the term was Attention Deficit Disorder, but I was lucky. I was diagnosed very early. There was a label for my symptoms.

When were you diagnosed? Did you learn you had ADHD early or late in life? If you were late to the game, do you think an earlier diagnosis would have helped you score better?

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Pitching In for a Good Cause. David Farland Needs Your Help.

I have decided that April is the month I finish my Depression book. I've been working on it long enough, and now that my health is returning to me I would like to make a big push to make up for lost time. I'll still post here throughout the month, but the articles will be shorter than usual. I ask for your patience and support. You can follow my progress on Twitter or Path.

Today's post is a departure for me. Somebody I know needs your help, but it's help that might benefit you. An associate of mine, author David Farland, has suffered a family tragedy lately. His son, Ben, had a very severe sports accident that nearly cost him his life. In fact, he is still struggling in the hospital today. Ben's bout with death has generated a hospital bill estimated to be in the millions. As a writer, Dave doesn't have health insurance, so he is turning to his readers for help. He needs them to buy one of two books today. Read on for the details.

I've known Dave for over twenty years. I can't say we're good friends, but I knew him when he was still Dave Wolverton. I remember fondly a conversation with him I once had. I don't recall how I came upon his phone number, but I had both it and ADHD, so I called him up on impulse. I discussed, of all things, a story by Orson Scott Card. I wanted to know what Dave thought of it. We talked about a lot of things, including his time as a security guard at the prison at the point of the mountain here in Utah. He had to wear a beard by order of the warden, but the beard didn't go over well with some of the folks at church. This was the late 80s and beards were taboo in the LDS church then, despite the one on Jesus' face.

I don't know what Dave made of our odd conversation, but it impressed upon me deeply how real and grounded he was as a person. I've kept in touch with him over the years, and when I had a chance to chat with him at a writers conference three years ago, he was just as pleasant and patient—just as grounded. My heart really goes out to him at this time.

To help generate funds, Dave is having a book bomb today. Everyone supporting the book bomb agrees to purchase one of two books by Dave today. This will hopefully launch the books into the top sales rankings where they'll be noticed by other readers, thus generating even more sales.

Please consider pitching in and treating yourself to either Nightingale, a work of contemporary fantasy, or Million Dollar Outlines, a book on the writing craft. You can read more about the books and the book bomb here, or click on the individual links and just buy them. I'll be buying the enhanced iPad edition with soundtrack and animations, along with the book on writing. I've been meaning to get them for some time, so this is a great day to do it. Hopefully, you'll end up with a book you enjoy as well, and help Dave and his family out during this trying time. Thank you for your generosity.

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