Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Many people complain about not being able to focus on or forgetting to do tasks, losing things, being disorganized, or restless or fidgety. Some report being impulsive, having difficulty delaying gratification, interrupting others, or being too talkative. The easiest way to explain this is brain dysfunction. In other words, your brain just has something wrong with it. And the only answer to a broken brain is medical in nature. In other words, stimulant medications.

But have you ever considered other possible causes? If you are distracted by anxiety, are you going to be able to pay attention to a task that you really don’t want to be doing in the first place? Are you going to be able to pay attention to a task that you can’t stand, even if you’re not anxious?

What if you view organization as a burden? Or you don’t have the skills do organize your belongings? Or your thoughts? Are you going to be organized?

What if you are really excited about something else than what you are doing? Dr. Young in our practice is a song writer. He is constantly going over new melodies and word combinations in his head. He will be humming a new melody in his head (or thinking about quantum mechanics) while he’s driving, and he’ll drive 20 miles in the wrong direction. That’s what happens when you are really excited about something. You focus all of your attention on it, and there is no room in your brain for anything else. That is a mindfulness problem. Not brain dysfunction.

How about delaying gratification? If you really want something, and you need to wait for it, you have to tolerate the bad feelings that come along with waiting. If you can’t tolerate those bad feelings, and you don’t learn to not build those bad feelings up through self-talk, you will have a very difficult time delaying gratification. Or what if someone is saying something that you don’t like? Maybe what they are saying makes you feel bad. Maybe what they are saying is just incorrect. Maybe there are serious consequences for the incorrect that thing they are saying. That feels really bad. If you can’t tolerate that bad feeling, you are probably going to interrupt. Communication is going to break down. And you are not going to get what you want. That is not brain dysfunction. That is an intolerance of discomfort.

People who can tolerate emotional discomfort are better at standing up for themselves in ways that actually get them what they want. They are better at waiting for rewards so that they can work toward fulfillment, without getting a quick fix that makes their life harder.

Mindfulness, organization skills, and toleration of discomfort

We help our clients overcome anxiety so that it is not a constant distraction. We help them learn to be mindful of particular tasks and we teach them how to organize their daily life so that they can focus one what task at a time. And we help them process what is important to them so that they choose to eliminate certain unimportant distractions from their daily life. Or at least compartmentalize them.

We help our clients problem-solve in order to develop more effective and efficient organization of things that they own. And to overcome barriers to organization, like the fear of regret associated with getting rid of things, disagreements with significant others about where things should go, or the belief that organizing is a burden, among many others.

And we we use Cognitive (thought) reframing and gentle exposure therapy to help people learn to tolerate emotional discomfort so that they are better able to 1) delay gratification, 2) more effective solve problems, and 3) resist impulses to do things that either feel good, but that all cause problems, or to escape bad feelings in ways that make things worse.

If you are having a hard time focusing because of anxiety, stress, depression, OCD, trauma, or sleep deprivation, we have specialized education and training in all of these.

Can medication do any of those things? The answer is yes. It can make you more mindful. And it can dull your emotions. But it cannot do any of the other things that we can do. And we can teach you mindfulness, without the cost of life-long medication, the side effects, or the dependence on medication.