ADHD: Six Ways to Stop Boredom
Is it possible to halt a dopamine deprived brain from bouncing out of its skull the moment boredom sets in? I believe it is and I'll be covering six ways I've found that work for me all this week.Contrary to popular belief, as evidenced by some of my more vitriolic commenters, I have AD/HD, and until recent years it made my life a living hell. That's not to say that I suddenly found a cure. No, instead I grew tired of being beat up by consequences and decided to make some changes in my life.
Ever heard of consequences? You know, show up late to work and get fired. Forget to lock up the store after you leave and get fired. Paste a newspaper article upside down and get fired... Those kind of consequences? (I still maintain that I didn't paste that newspaper article upside down, but instead was framed...and poorly. So I didn't lose my job there, but quit it because the work environment was far too hostile. I would get bored and wander into other departments to see what was going on. My supervisor didn't like that much. He yelled and screamed and got red in the face and I would watch him with a puzzled look. Ah, to be young and blissfully stupid again.)
I've covered boredom before. AD/HD people can't really help being bored. It's part of the diagnosis. The second our mind becomes bored our thoughts strike out into any direction possible to find something that will engage our interest. Some of those directions are constructive, many are destructive. You can thank a lack of dopamine in our brains for that. We may not even realize that we've stopped flipping the pancakes and become busy reading about the history of pancakes on Wikipedia until after the fire alarm goes off. I personally have melted several pans "cooking" ramen because I drifted off while the water boringly boiled.
In worse cases, we seek out thrills to engage our interest, usually involving a chain saw, a unicycle, and a gaping chasm - metaphorically or literally. Reason does not usually rule until those pesky consequences start rolling in. A lack of control in our impulse center really complicates matters. We are often off to the races betting all our salary before we realize rent is due just because we were going out of our minds sitting still during class, or commuting home in gridlock traffic.
So, what to do? For a person with AD/HD, boredom is a physically and mentally painful experience. To force our minds to stay on task when our minds want to be free is most difficult. I can attest that it can be done, but it requires lots of training and effort. The problem is that the moment of distraction is instantaneous and seemingly beyond our ability to avert. In the past, I recommended my Boredom Survival Kit™ as a means of keeping boredom at bay. This week, I will focus on six specific boring events this week that drive Adults with AD/HD mad. The first article will appear Monday night. Get your comments in now to vote for boring scenarios in your workday or day-to-day that jeopardize your job or relationships. I can only cover six because I'll be driving my daughter deep into Utah for a gig later this week.
Remember: Not beating yourself up and maintaining a cheerful attitude are the first steps towards conquering this problem. All my advice will hinge on these two points. Please keep them in mind. In addition, I do not favor medication as a solution, but some of you may.
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Comments
Fortunately, I'm blessed with a job that's pretty well suited to ADD, with mostly short-term tasks and a lot of variety and flexibility. Still, sometimes I blow through entire days surfing the web as an avoidance tactic just because I can't figure out which task needs to be handled first.
That said, the times when boredom can settle in and become a hindrance is usually when I'm writing. I have to do it in small chunks and never really achieve that trance-like stage of hyperfocus, and some days it's hard to make my thousand-word quota because my mind just won't stay focused on the part of the story that I'm actually writing. It wants to skip ahead to the good parts, usually, but then some days it doesn't want to deal with the story at all. So any tips you have on beating boredom and staying focused as a writer would be helpful.
Claire
I vote for waiting for the bus/subway/elevator. Last night I had to wait half an hour for a bus and I had nothing to read or eat or DO. I kept on feeling like I was going to shout and bang my fists on the bus shelter but I held it in because there were people around. That was REALLY tough.
Boredom actually led me to your blog. Lol