Business Women with Deadline
Business Women with Deadline
ADHD Symptoms
The ADHD brain has problems doing all sorts of things and we’ve really only just starting to find this out. The ability of scientists such as neurologists and neuroscientists to take photos of the human brain and then analyze what is happening, means we are better able to discuss, define and treat people with ADHD.
The brain is divided into sections and one of these is known as the pre-frontal cortex. Photo imaging or a kind of x-ray of the brain shows that there are differences in the structure of parts of the brain between someone with ADHD and someone who does not have the disorder. Knowing these differences is a major step towards better understanding and thus the treatment of the patient be they a child or an adult.
Referring back to that part of the brain known as the pre-frontal cortex, we know that this part of the brain is linked with executive functioning which manages the following activities – problem solving, attention, reasoning and planning. Now with imaging you can see that the brain of a person with ADHD is likely to have problems with the above activities and will need help.
If the ADHD brain has problems when it comes to planning, then the life of that person will have potential difficulties and hardships. Planning takes the ability to prioritize, forward think, manage time, and factor in consequences. If you can’t prioritize or you get times confused by thinking that five minutes is really an hour or two, then planning successfully is difficult to impossible. You simply don’t consider how to successfully judge the real time it takes to complete a task.
Likewise with paying attention, reasoning and solving problems. With the ADHD brain these tasks can be difficult when a person is not interested.
Because ADHD with children tends to get more publicity than the disorder experienced by adults, we need to understand that the brain of a small growing child can be shown to be different when you consider an ADHD child or a child without ADHD.
ADHD symptoms don’t disappear as children grow into adults, the symptoms tend to change from being seen externally to being experienced internally. It is important to understand that distractibility can be an on-going problem for ADHD sufferers.
Distractibility is the primary reason and clear illustration as to why ADHD brains cannot fixate or think logically when it comes to time. When the brain is not functioning normally, when the chemical balance inside the brain may be an imbalance, then the ADHD child or adult gets their timing skills out of line. They think they have been working on a task for a few minutes when in fact they have been absorbed for much longer.
Medication and cognitive behavior therapy have long been a part of helping those with ADHD. Both these methods of treatment can be prescribed to assist the sufferer to better manage their time-keeping.
Rewarding positive behavior is one typical form of treatment. Setting simple tasks, staying with the ADHD sufferer to keep them on track and then rewarding them for using time-keeping successfully is another way to improve the performances of a person with ADHD.
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This article is a relief to me. I think I’m lucky that with my ADHD, one of the things that I get hyperfocused on is planning and organization – I spend lots of time thinking about and planning the next few hours, next few days, the next _____. Guessing how much time these tasks take is quite another story. There always seems to be something that I don’t account for, and sometimes it is distraction – who knows when I get on the computer if I will get an email that requires attention, or I’ll mosey on over to Facebook, or I’ll have a light bulb go off and it’s off to another realm.
The reason this article hits a nerve with me is it might be one of the big reasons I lost my last job. Some feedback for me was “He takes too long. He doesn’t allow enough time to finish a project. He’s over-budget.” This now explains that my struggles with time weren’t entirely my fault, or my laziness, or JUST discontent with the job – they could have been external.
My current tactic, since I am even MORE busy now than I ever was with my job with getting ready to move, finding the right job, finishing a thesis, and working as-needed for my current employer (and they need me alot) – is to break my to-do list into categories based on contexts (where and what is required for it to get done, such as – computer focus, computer short or fun, physical, relaxation, while traveling, etc.). I set a time for a reasonable amount of time (say 50 minutes), and then focus on those types of tasks. I mix them up – first some focused computer time, then some exercise, then some fun time, back to focus time. I get as much done during the time period that I can and when the timer goes off, that’s it! I know that I did what I could in the time allotted and if I got off track, I stop what I’m doing and know that I’m back on track. I’m getting SO much more done knowing that I won’t get “lost” on a tangent.
I wish others, including my partner, could understand what this is like… why ADDers even get off track in the first place. I can only describe it as standing under a tree that has low-hanging fruit or candy on it and I grab a piece. After enjoying a little bit of it, I look up and see a better piece, so I drop the one I have and grab that one. I keep doing that since I don’t have the impulse control to stick with one and finish.
Another tactic is taking good notes. My iPhone is an appendage to me, a lifesaver. I use AwesomeNotes – organized very well into descriptive folders, to write down those things that distract me, especially ideas. I have a task (I use Toodledo as my task keeper), that tells me to look at these things I’ve written down and either do, defer, delegate, or throw away as a bad idea. This way, I don’t forget the good ideas (sometimes they’re brilliant), and keep the bad ones from ruining my focus at a time when I need it most.