November 15, 2024 • 38 mins
Unlock the secrets of ADHD by understanding the concept of "stimulation thresholds" and how they fundamentally shape attention and motivation. As I, Zac Erickson, share personal anecdotes and insights, you'll gain a clearer picture of why tasks that seem simple to others can feel insurmountable for those with ADHD. We'll explore the fascinating interplay of attention and motivation in the ADHD brain, using relatable examples like driving to illuminate how these mental processes filter distractions and prioritize crucial information. This episode offers a promise: by the end, you'll have a deeper understanding of the daily difficulties faced by individuals with ADHD.
Say goodbye to mundane tasks and hello to strategies that enhance engagement and manage ADHD more effectively. From becoming the class clown to daydreaming, discover how ADHD symptoms often serve as coping mechanisms for understimulation. We'll discuss practical tips for effective communication in relationships, like making eye contact and using physical cues, which can capture the attention of loved ones. Learn how fidget tools, movement, and time challenges can transform procrastination into productivity. By creating structured environments and minimizing distractions, even the most boring tasks can become stimulating and rewarding. Tune in to turn your everyday struggles into stories of success.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zac (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode.
My name is Zac Erickson.
Thanks for joining me on ADHDReal Talk and, yeah, my
apologies, listeners, forskipping a week.
I completely lost my voice lastweek and you can kind of hear
it in the Halloween episode.
I actually recorded that oneafter episode three that you
(00:22):
just recently have heard, but myvoice is back.
I was starting to worry aboutmy voice and like how that was
going to.
You know, I was like, oh, isthis my voice forever?
Like I'm just going to soundkind of raspy?
And luckily, a couple of daysago I woke up and it was like
back to normal and I didn't feellike I had a frog in my throat.
(00:43):
So I'm super excited actuallytoday, because today I actually
want to talk about, I want toshare with you a way of thinking
about ADHD that I feel like Idon't hear a lot of people talk
about and I don't like.
Sometimes people will use thisin just sort of a like a casual
way of people will say, oh, likeI'm kind of understimulated.
(01:05):
But I think talkingspecifically about stimulation
thresholds and what the ADHDbrain needs compared to average
people or more neurotypicalpeople, how that can help us
understand a little bit moreabout the connection between
attention and motivation and why, like, some of the easy stuff
(01:27):
sometimes is the hardest to do.
Uh, and you know, likelogically, on the outside, we
can look at something and saythis is like not that hard, it
should not be this hard.
Um, and hopefully by the end ofthis, you'll begin to
understand why sometimes themost difficult things for us are
(01:49):
the things that are the easy,simple things and, I think to be
more accurate, they are themost under-stimulating, simple
and boring things, and thosebecome the most difficult things
because of the neuroscience,like the brain chemistry, of
ADHD.
So we're going to talk aboutthat today.
I'm really excited.
This is something.
(02:10):
There is a way to sort of likeshow this visually and this
being an audio program, it'sgoing to be a little bit.
I'm going to want you tovisualize something as we go
through this.
But, yeah, this is exciting,right?
So the first thing that we needto understand is that our brains
are equipped with very likeintricate systems in the brain.
I think I mentioned before myapologies, Apparently, my voice
(02:33):
is whatever.
Well, we'll try not to commenton it, right, but our brains are
equipped with these, thesethey're very intricate machines,
right, like if you think ofyour brain like a very
complicated meat computer.
That's a good way to thinkabout it.
It's a computer made out ofmeat in your head, right?
(02:53):
And one of the things thathappens is that let's talk a
little bit about attention andwhat attention is and why we
need it.
Because attention deficit,hyperactivity disorder right,
there's attention in there.
So if we don't actuallyunderstand attention in less, in
, in like a little bit more thanlike this, this broad vague
(03:14):
sort of way, then we, we don'treally understand everything
else on top of it.
Okay, so attention essentially.
So if you think, even just in,like you know, you're in your
room right now, you're, uh,you're listening to this, you're
in your room right now, you'relistening to this.
Either you're in your room ormaybe you're in your car or like
wherever you're at right, Iwant you to sort of like take a
step back and look around andnotice how many things in your
(03:38):
environment your brain has kindof just decided are not
important, right?
And, more importantly, imagineif your brain was constantly
paying attention to everything.
Now, already, people, somepeople with ADHD, like the
inattentive kind, some peopleare saying that's my life, all
the time We'll get back to you,okay, but a neurotypical brain
(04:02):
is essentially equipped withwhat we call attention and it is
automatically running most ofthe time.
Right, and essentially,attention's job is to help us
prioritize what are the thingsin my environment or the things
that I may be planning to do, orwhatever that are important,
right?
So, reading this definitionhere, attention is the mental
(04:24):
process of concentrating onspecific information while
filtering out distractions.
It allows us to prioritizetasks and respond appropriately
to our environment, right?
So a neurotypical person isable to adequately filter out
the non-important things and notdevote any attention to them,
(04:47):
right, I'm not going to focus onthem, I'm not going to look at
them, I'm not going to like.
It's not even a temptation,right?
And so that's how attention issupposed to work for most people
, right?
And on a good day, maybe, yourattention or your focus I'm
going to probably use thosewords interchangeably, but your
attention or your focus, I'mgoing to probably use those
(05:07):
words interchangeably, but yourattention or your focus is
that's what it's designed for.
It's like a net to keep you ontask and, more importantly, like
to keep you focusing on theimportant things.
So another example maybe wouldbe driving.
Right that you're payingattention to maybe a broad range
of things.
Right that you're you're payingattention to maybe a broad
range of things.
You're going to be lettingcertain information in.
Your attention is filteringthings out that are not
(05:36):
important and and allowing youto focus on the things that are
important.
And if there is a problem withthat attention, then that means
you can't focus on the importantthings.
Ok, we'll come back to that.
Similar to this, or related tothis, is motivation.
Okay, so motivation is theinternal drive that compels us
to initiate and persist ingoal-directed activities.
(05:57):
So it's related to our abilityto stay focused on something,
but it fuels our actions andsustains our efforts toward
achieving objectives.
Okay, so you can see how thesetwo things are related.
If your brain, for whateverreason, right, we'll get to the
ADHD brain in a second right,but you can see why.
(06:17):
If your brain is saying, oh,this is important, then you can
pay attention to it and it willautomatically do that.
Then you can pay attention toit and it will automatically do
that.
And also, if there is somethingto be done, then the motivation
.
When everything's running theway it should be running, then
you should feel motivated enoughto actually engage with that
information or that thing?
Does that make sense?
That's sort of where we're at,okay, so part of how our brain
(06:43):
determines what is important isthe way that I describe this is
by stimulation thresholds, inother words, the level of
stimulus intensity required forthe brain to engage fully.
In other words uh, there isanother word that that gets
thrown around.
It's a little more of apsychobabble type word, but it's
(07:05):
salience.
It is both in your face andimportant, right, and so every
brain comes with essentially, uh, predetermined, and even with
neuroplasticity.
You can change this over timewith like meditation and and
like that right, there are lotsof things to change stimulation
(07:28):
thresholds, but one of thethings that's important to know
is that essentially, everybodyhas a stimulation threshold.
So why do we need again, why dowe need attention and motivation
?
They're essential for learning,problem solving, performing
daily activities.
They help us adapt to newinformation, focus on important
tasks and achieve personal goals.
(07:49):
If you don't have attention andmotivation, we don't have that.
The brain's engagement inattention and motivation is
influenced by neurotransmitterslike dopamine and norepinephrine
.
These chemicals are releasedwhen stimuli meet or exceed
certain stimulation thresholds,prompting the brain to allocate
resources toward processing andaction.
Okay.
(08:09):
So, in other words, stimulationthreshold is met and then
dopamine and norepinephrine arereleased, right, and if that
stimulation threshold was met orcrossed, then then engage,
attention and motivation kick in, is that?
Or hopefully we're with me sofar.
So let's build on that.
(08:33):
So let's let's talk a little bitabout, like, what we would call
the neurotypical experience andwhat somebody's experience
might be, um, in different kindsof tasks, okay.
So let's just start with moreroutine tasks.
So, let's say, activities likechores or attending meetings.
Uh, these things aresufficiently stimulating for
(08:57):
neurotypical individuals, right?
People who do not have ADHD or,uh, who are not, you know,
autistic or things like that,right, they have, sorry,
activities like doing chores andattending meetings are
sufficiently stimulating.
Their brain recognizes thesetasks as important, as it's
(09:17):
supposed to releasing thenecessary neurotransmitters.
The person feels capable offocusing and motivated to
complete the task, right.
So, in other words, you thinkabout like, right, you think
about like the average person's.
The two examples that I alwaysuse when I'm explaining this to
clients are paying attention inclass, right.
(09:39):
Or doing a paper, like twoweeks before it's due, right.
Yeah, that's fine.
No worries, I this and it'salmost like your brain.
Once the stimulation thresholdhas been crossed, it's almost
like the brain goes like youknow what?
Hey, this seems important,let's, uh, let's, let's dedicate
some resources here.
Let's, uh, let's focus up.
No problem, we can do that.
(10:00):
And so that's what the person'sbrain naturally does.
Right, for people with ADHD,they're like, wow, that'd be
wonderful.
That's not necessarily what'sgoing on for me, but that is
what the neurotypical experienceis, and when.
You're.
You know, for some people whoare diagnosed with ADHD later in
(10:20):
life, this can be kind of a.
There's almost a grievingprocess that happens, realizing
that everybody else you can sayit one of two ways, right,
either everybody else wasworking on easy mode or you were
working on hard mode, wherethese routine tasks are not
sufficiently stimulating.
(10:41):
We'll get to that in a secondright, but that's the case is
routine tasks are able to crossthat stimulation threshold, it
is stimulating enough and we'reable to actually say, yep,
that's important enough.
Engaging tasks, right,something that's like high
stimulation, like sports, orsomething that's like complex,
(11:02):
or something that's maybe more.
You know, stimulating can meanall sorts of things, by the way,
right, it can mean likeinteresting, complex, engaging,
uh, stressful, right, like a,like a, uh, like a doing
something last minute is moreengaging than it is, uh, you
(11:23):
know, like then that paper twoweeks before it was due, the
night of it's more engaging, butit's entirely because it's
stressful.
But for neurotypical people,high stimulation activities like
playing sports or solvingcomplex problems naturally
exceed the threshold, leading toheightened attention and
motivation.
The individual may feelenergized and fully immersed,
(11:43):
right?
So in both cases theneurotypical person is, they're
able to engage.
Now let's talk about ADHD.
So for ADHD, our threshold, ourstimulation threshold, is
higher.
Often it is quite a bit higher.
And so for those routine tasksthat are more of that, like
(12:06):
doing the chores or doing yourpaperwork or you know, all those
things that like they're notreally all that interesting but
they are like things that you'resupposed to do, like pay your
taxes or you know, like whatever, anything else you can think of
.
Call your mom, not that like mymom's boring, like that's not
the case.
It's just that it's like it'snot new, right, and it's not
(12:28):
exciting in necessarily the sameway that doing something brand
new and exciting and likegroundbreaking is.
And it's not personal, it'sjust that it's it's just not the
same, right.
Doing a paper two weeks beforeit's due is like more of a grind
Right.
Like more of a grind right.
So tasks that often, uh, thatothers often find uh, manageable
, manageable, may not provideenough stimulation.
(12:50):
The person might feel bored,restless or unable to focus.
Their brain does not releasesufficient neurotransmitters,
making it hard to engage.
So, for example, sittingthrough a long, unengaging
lecture may lead to daydreamingor fidgeting, because the brain
is is not adequately stimulated,right?
So, in other words, the brainhas not reached the point right.
(13:14):
So you sort of think of like,when you're under stimulated,
it's more of I'm still looking.
This is not important enoughyet right, like this is this
task is not interesting enoughto deserve my attention.
Important enough, yet right,like this is this task is not
interesting enough to deserve myattention.
Uh, I'm going to keep looking,right.
And so many of the symptoms ofADHD is what we refer to as the
symptoms of ADHD are actuallythat individual's way of trying
(13:39):
to make their environment, theirsituation.
They're all ways of dealingwith being in the state of being
understimulated, right?
So if you think of somebody whois in class, right, and this is
a boring teacher at the frontof the class, well, let me think
I can be the class clown.
That's more interesting, right,that will make it more
(14:01):
stimulating.
I can fidget and I can squirmin my seat and maybe I'll get up
and I'll walk around.
Maybe that's what I'll do.
Maybe I'll just stare off intospace and think about this video
game that I've been playing.
Even my own thoughts, right,like this teacher, is so boring
at this point that I can come upwith a million ways in my own
head to entertain myself.
(14:22):
That is more engaging than thisperson, and this is also, by
the way, when workingparticularly with kids with ADHD
, but adults as well.
If you're a boring person,you're going to lose me, right,
you are going to lose me, andyou need to not be so damn
boring.
Does that make sense?
It has to, because you're notstimulating enough, and so you
(14:44):
have to turn it up a little bitand you have to be a little bit
more engaging, not rude, justkind of in your face a little
more, right.
And so, for example, anotherexample that I'll give you with
this is, um, that actually showsup in, like, my own
relationship with my wife One ofthe things, one of the issues
and we've been married for likeover 16 years at this point.
(15:04):
So we've gone through a lot ofthe back and forth of our
relationship, but one of thethings that we often have, uh,
like that we would end up havingfights about and we were
certainly not the only peoplewho have fought about this is
like, uh, in, you know, with,like adhd couples right, my wife
doesn't have adhd, but she'sgot me and four kids with it,
right, well, I mean possiblyfour.
(15:27):
Some of them are still up inthe air, they're too young to
know.
But anyway, one of the thingsthat happens is she would come
and say, hey, can you, uh, canyou take out the garbage, like
sometime tonight.
Like, yeah, yeah, sure, noworries.
Like, and I would respond, yep,yeah, no problem, I came out, I
came to find out later, I thinkthat I had learned at some
(15:48):
point in my life, like I, I hadalmost like a conditioned
response that I would say, yeah,sure, yeah, that's fine, I
could do that.
I don't even know that.
I heard her, if I'm beinghonest, right, like that, like,
hey, can you do this?
As, like, a side comment is sofar below my stimulation
threshold at that point that Idon't even think I heard her to
(16:09):
be genuinely honest.
And so then later, when Ididn't do it, of course she's
upset because justifiably so,right.
But one of the things that Ikept saying to her is, like you
know what?
Like, here's a few tips.
Number one did you?
You know?
Here's some questions to ask,and this is not me making
excuses, this is just like howto break through and actually be
(16:32):
stimulating enough.
Not because you're not like thiswonderful person, it's just my
brain sucks sometimes, right?
You're not like this wonderfulperson, it's just my brain sucks
sometimes, right?
So be engaging, right.
So, in other words, like, didyou have eye contact?
Maybe even like, come over andlike say my name and say hey,
like Zac, ach, and like I, youneed eye contact.
At least some people will saytwo points of contact.
(16:53):
So, whether that is, you know,like hearing and eye contact,
whether that is, you know, ahand on the shoulder and talking
, whatever it is right.
But like, have me.
And then maybe even like, haveme repeat it back to you, right?
Like, ask me a question, ormaybe even like encourage me to
like, can you, can you set areminder on your phone to do
(17:14):
that, because that would bereally important.
Like this is even even tosimply say, hey, this is really
important to me.
That, to me, is a signal thatit that it like gets through the
stimulation thresholds and itsends the message to my brain
Like, oh, this is important, youhave my attention now.
Okay, right, so routine tasksif they are mundane, if they are
(17:35):
under stimulating, thelikelihood that they are going
to be able to be paid attentionto.
And, by the way, another thing Ihaven't I don't have in my
notes here, but is also relatedto this is memory.
So my brain is way more likelyto forget things that are boring
.
Like I think everybody's brainis kind of like that, right,
(17:56):
it's not important whatever.
But can you imagine if thereare things that your brain
should actually like aneurotypical brain would
recognize those things asimportant, but they weren't like
super exciting, and so thatbrain this is not a choice, by
the way, and so you can't justwill yourself out of this.
Right, like this is somethingwhere often people with ADHD,
(18:19):
when they're dropping the ballin different areas, it's
actually because their brain isnot treating it as important.
Does that make sense?
The importance mechanism doesnot work properly, the
determining how important it is.
Okay, let's talk about thesubjective experience, or, in
other words, the experience ofan ADHD person who actually does
(18:43):
have adequately stimulated, whois actually adequately
stimulated, right?
So when something's highlystimulating, like playing a
video game this is one of thethings, right, you hear all the
time.
Well, you can play a video gamefor five hours, so you should
be able to focus on your, yourenglish paper it's like yeah, no
, my english paper is boring asshit.
Are you kidding me?
No, it's not gonna work.
(19:04):
Right, my video game is overthe threshold, and so it's
almost like this is one of thethings.
That's interesting is that whenyou actually find something
that's really stimulating, whatwe actually might experience is
hyper focus, where it's almostlike your brain goes oh, finally
, something that I really enjoy,and you, like the person, can
(19:24):
even become like very deeplyimmersed and hyper-focused and
completely lose track of time,right, and so that can be a
beneficial thing and can behelpful, but it also can be
really kind of debilitating aswell, when, finally, you have
something you're excited aboutand I really need to be focusing
(19:44):
on this other thing over here,but I cannot even steer my brain
away from where I'm at, right,and so part of that is just I
think.
When I think about this, Ithink it's mostly because all
these other things are understimulating and our brain just
wants to focus on somethingthat's stimulating.
And we also have much moreexperience as people with adhd,
(20:06):
um, experiencing things that areboring to the point where it's
excruciating for us.
I think a lot of people withadhd or more neurotypical people
, sorry, who have notexperienced a lot of this maybe
are going to feel like oh yeah,can you imagine like if you had
to sit and listen to, like BenStein, you know, like the
(20:26):
Bueller guy, like just a supermundane, like monotone, boring,
slow kind of thing?
Like every once in a while wefind something that, like people
with ADHD and neurotypicalpeople, can all agree is boring.
But for the most part, peoplewith ADHD experience boredom way
(20:47):
more often at an excruciatinglypainful level.
So does that?
Hopefully that's making sensefor everybody here, right?
So as a way of sort of recappingfor ADHD brains, when they are
understimulated, the brain isbasically saying this thing is
not important.
And here's the thing is that itis not the part of our, the
(21:09):
part of our brain that engages.
Attention is a separate part ofthe brain than the part of your
brain that may logicallyanalyze if this thing is
important.
Okay, I'll say that again.
So, logically, understandingthat something is important may
not be enough to make that thingstimulating.
(21:32):
And therefore, even if you knowsomething is important, you may
not feel motivated or able tofocus on it for an extended
period of time, and this isinfuriating and very, very
discouraging for people withADHD.
So I want to validate that thatis a very real thing.
It is not enough to say, like Iknow this is important.
(21:54):
It's not a matter of not beingable to do it, it's not that I
don't know, right?
So, like when you're workingwith, like your partner or
yourself, or like kids orwhatever, and you say, well,
like, but this is reallyimportant.
I've told them a million times.
It's like, doesn't matter,literally does not matter at
this point, because the problemis not in their, their like
(22:17):
logical understanding of theimportance.
It's about how engaging andstimulating the actual activity
itself is Okay.
So, and then the adequatelystimulated one.
It's almost like the brain getssuper excited.
Finally, something engaging,I'm all in, right?
So let's talk about attentionand motivation, right?
(22:37):
So understimulated Another wayto think about this If we're
understimulated, there is a lackof drive to start or complete
tasks.
(23:05):
The person may procrastinate oravoid activities that seem
uninteresting.
I will even add to thatsometimes there is a feeling of
dread.
I know I need to do this, but Idon't want to right, or
something like that.
Or the person's doing somethingthat is actually engaged.
Maybe they're on their phone,maybe they're playing a game or
(23:25):
doing literally anything else toavoid Um, but in the back of
their head they know they shouldbe doing this other thing, but
it's not engaging enough, and soit's hard.
It's still hard to get thatmotivation and to switch gears
into the thing that you need todo, whereas if you are
adequately stimulated, you haveimproved focus, ability to
(23:47):
sustain attention for longerperiods and the brain is
prioritizing this task andenhancing cognitive processing
and for motivation, you feelmore motivated, eagerness to
engage.
The individual feels compelledto act and may persist despite
challenges.
Right, so that's, you can tellmaybe, like for those of you at
(24:08):
home with ADHD, how often youare understimulated, and so
there is a reason why peoplewith ADHD have a higher risk of
getting speeding tickets, forexample, and this is why
mindfulness and in futureepisodes we're going to have an
episode about mindfulness islike an introduction.
But you have to be aware ofright.
(24:29):
You have to sort of like checkin with yourself and get into
the habit of checking in withyourself, not as like an
obsessive sort of way, but justin like an alert and mindful
kind of way.
An obsessive sort of way, butjust in like an alert and
mindful kind of way.
How am I doing right now?
How am I feeling?
What do I need to be doing?
Like, what did I say I wasgoing to do today?
Do I even know what I was goingto do today?
And like, like, what's my mood?
(24:50):
Like, how do I get myself intothat more engaged mode, right,
so?
So here?
So I'm sure all of you at homeare sort of sitting here
listening and thinking, well,what am I supposed to do about
this, right?
So let's talk about strategies.
Number one strategy actually,there's two, right?
There are two ways.
If you think of the thresholdand how stimulating the thing is
(25:11):
, those are the two differentvariables that you can play with
, right?
The first thing that you can dois you can make something that
you need to do more stimulating.
That actually is a very realthing, right?
So the idea of like fidgetssitting in a meeting.
Perfectly reasonable thing.
It actually can help, right?
You're making this boringmeeting a little bit more
(25:33):
stimulating For me.
When I was in school, I found ifI sit on the front row with an
open notebook and a pen and Isit there and I take notes and I
actively listen and engage andmaybe doodle a little bit in the
margins, I am actively engagingwith this content in a way that
(25:55):
is more stimulating for me.
In a way that is morestimulating for me, I had a.
I had a professor once say I'mgoing to give you all the the
like PowerPoints.
I'm going to email them to youlater.
Don't worry about taking notes.
And I was like that's funny.
No, if I don't take notes, I'mgoing to be an outer space.
Right, I'm going to.
My brain is going to beentertaining itself with, like,
(26:16):
all my plans for my D&D campaignor something.
Right, like the last thing Iwill even be thinking about is
this lecture, and I actuallywant to sit here and listen and
learn.
So I am going to take notes,even if I don't need to.
It's what I do as a therapist aswell.
I take notes in session and ithelps me focus.
So that is part of that.
(26:37):
And so engage, enhancing howengaging it is right.
This is the same thing with, interms of like, if you were a
teacher or a therapist oranything like that right, if you
are not engaging, right, pullout a pad of paper right.
Draw a picture on the board.
Draw right, wave your handsaround in the air, do a funny
accent, it doesn't matter.
(26:58):
Be more engaging, right.
Actually, you know, be animated, right.
So, for example, turning studymaterial into a game,
incorporating movement intotasks, setting time challenges
right.
One of the things I saw onlinethat a lot of people do is
(27:19):
actually one of the things I doin general is I will I've been
doing this forever too is likemusic can be a huge thing, right
, so you're enhancing theengagement and a lot of people,
when they're like cleaning thehouse, for example, all right,
I'm going to see if I can cleanthis house by the end of this
song.
How messy is this room?
Well, it might be stairway toheaven instead of something else
, right, or whatever.
(27:39):
It is like a longer song, butit's.
I'm going to be doing thesethings.
I'm going to maybe focus ondoing a specific thing, right.
So, for example, back in the day, I used to hate doing the
dishes.
I hated it, I think I like.
In fact, when I was a kid Ihated it so much that I would
like I'd be like standing at the, at the, at the sink, for like
(28:00):
an hour and just hating everyminute of it.
And so I feel like I sort oflike learned to hate it back
then.
And so even when I was an adultand I was married, I hated
doing it.
And then eventually one day Iwas like you know what, I'm
going to see if I can do it in a15 minute spurt.
I'm going to just like rushthrough and see if I can do all
of it in 15 minutes and turnsout it was about 13 minutes.
You would have.
(28:20):
No, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't have believed you ifyou told me it was only going
to take that long.
So that is that's that pieceright, making it more engaging.
The other thing around taskplaying with the stimulation
stuff is uh, is building in somesort of like structured
environment and minimizingdistractions and making clear
(28:42):
goals so that your brain canrecognize how important this
task is Right and so that youcan.
And not only that, but thatit's concrete, right, and so,
even if it is a little bit understimulating, if you make it
clear what you need to do, youmake it a small enough chunk
that it's like, ok, this thingmight be a little bit boring,
(29:03):
maybe it's a little bit below mythreshold, but you know what,
like, I'm going to set a 10minute timer and I'm going to
see if I could beat it and I'mgoing to just like power through
this for 10 minutes and then ifI'm done after that, then
awesome.
But let me tell you, gettingstarted is the hardest part
anyways, and then my brain willstart to realize and engage with
this information and realizethat, oh, this actually is kind
of interesting or important orwhatever it is, and I'll feel
(29:24):
that momentum and I'll want tokeep going.
So that is the first part ofplaying with the task itself and
the environment that you're in,ok.
The other side of this isplaying with your own threshold,
and this is where this more oflike biohacking kind of stuff
maybe comes in, as well asmedication for ADHD.
(29:45):
So the best way to think abouthow ADHD affects the
neurotypical brain is that, inessence, what it does is it
lowers the threshold of theperson.
Uh, the stimulation thresholdfor a person with ADHD, back
down to a neurotypical person'slevel, is the goal, right?
And so things that otherwisewould not be under stim or that
(30:08):
would not be stimulating enough,become stimulating enough,
right?
And so the way that I describedthis in my own experience was
that when I started takingmedication, I know that nothing
changed about the genetics classthat I was taking.
The genetics, uh, instructorwas just kind of like a this,
(30:29):
like mousy lady and she was verylike.
She's like a very stereotypical, like biologist scientist, like
dry, sounds like she's speakingout of a textbook and uh, and
she'd lose me every time.
Right, like she was.
She was dry and she was like,frankly, she was one of the
better ones, but she was kind ofboring Right, kind of boring
(30:52):
right.
And I started taking medicationand all of a sudden I noticed
myself in her classes being like, wow, this is really
interesting.
I never realized genetics wasso cool.
This is like really awesome.
I really love this class, andall that was different was that
I had taken a medication thatallowed my brain to feel
(31:15):
stimulated enough by what it wasbeing presented with.
It's the only thing thatchanged.
And yet my experience of thatwas wow, I freaking love this
stuff.
This is actually interesting,right?
I guarantee you she did notchange her approach because I
took a medication, right, butthat absolutely was what it felt
like.
Right, but that absolutely waswhat it felt like.
And so medications lower thestimulation threshold, allowing
(31:42):
routine tasks to triggeradequate neurotransmitter
release, and the result isimproved attention and
motivation for tasks that werepreviously under stimulating.
Okay, so the couple of quickthings that are interesting to
this really is.
Again, I'm going to do a littlebit of a disclaimer.
It's been a while since Ibrushed up on all the
neuroscience of this, so if someof the things that I said you
know, if there areneuroscientists who know more
(32:03):
than I do in the crowd, feelfree to you know, reach out to
me at Recharge Psych onInstagram, you know, shoot me a
DM or something, but for themost part, part like.
This really does have a lot todo with, like, the
neurotransmitter function andwhat we know from brain imaging
studies and uh like.
While the term stimulationthreshold threshold is a
(32:24):
conceptual tool, more thananything, it's sort of
metaphorical.
It reflects the neurobiologicalneed that we have for adequate
stimulus to engage in attentionand motivation in ADHD.
So, uh, final sort of caveat aswe go through this um, adhd is a
real, like complex condition,right, everybody's a little bit
(32:46):
different.
One of the things we didn'tcover is that what one person
experiences as like reallyengaging or interesting and
enjoyable, another person maynot be all that interested in it
.
Right, and so it's not just assimple as how loud is the
professor, right, but, like,what do we like is very
(33:07):
subjective from person to person, and so these are some of the
things that are that areimportant to keep in mind
through all of this.
Right, and it's and there'sstill a lot of ongoing research,
and this, this example is, Imean, it's not a perfect
metaphor.
It's not going to explaineverything, right, it doesn't
explain, you know, it doesn'taccount for the deficits or the
difficulties in executivefunctioning as an example, right
(33:30):
, but it is one piece of thepuzzle that for me personally,
resonates a lot.
So, yeah, so that's about all Ihave prepared for today.
I think that there are, I thinkthere's a lot.
Hopefully, this has beenhelpful.
Feel free to go back and reviewthis if this has been helpful,
(33:52):
but I think again, for now, Ithink that really the takeaway
is.
This helps us understand alittle bit of why medication
again it helps lower thatthreshold.
Oh, I should mention mygoodness, right, it's not just
medication, right.
There are other things that alsocan impact your stimulation
threshold that you need, theamount of stimulation that you
need, for example, havingadequate physical exercise,
(34:17):
particularly cardio exercise.
There's some real good research.
The way to kind of think aboutthis is that cardiovascular
exercise in particular canessentially serve to lower your
stimulation threshold.
Your required stimulation needsfor about a couple hours after
doing it right, and so that'ssomething that we can keep in
our back pocket and then doingthat over time.
(34:38):
Staying healthy good diet andexercise and getting adequate
sleep is a huge one.
Managing our stress levelsthose are all things that also
impact how much stimulation weneed, and if you really feel
like you're in a fog one day, itmay be.
If you look at all of thesedifferent individual factors, it
might be that your stimulationthreshold has been like driven
(35:01):
super high, right.
Another thing that we're stilllearning about is the role of
things like social media andjust like electronic media in
general, and what that does toour brain and training our brain
to expect a certain level ofstimulation, and so there is
actually some evidence that youknow, continued, you know,
(35:24):
chronic use of social media andthings like that can actually
train your brain to expect it toexpect more stimulation, and
then it actually kind of gets alittle bit like the calibrations
off, right, so that those arethings that are also uh
important to know.
But, uh, yeah, so okay.
So this is, uh, this has beenADHD real talk.
(35:46):
My name is Zac Erickson and, uh, by the way, if you want to
check out, I have a uh, a freeresource online you can go to
recharge psychologycom slash AIguide and uh, I've got a free
PDF over there tool to help youuse uh AI and particularly
(36:07):
things like chat GPT to help youmanage your uh, your workload
and to kind of help you manageADHD a little bit more and wrap
your brain around some of thestuff that's going on.
Right, like interacting withsomething like an ai chatbot can
be a way to make some of thesethings more engaging, and that's
definitely been my experience.
Right, engaging with a robot ina conversation is way easier,
(36:31):
uh, to engage with for somepeople than simply like sitting
down with a pad of paper orwhatever.
So that's it.
That's all I have for today.
This has been a little bit of alonger episode.
Hopefully you found it helpful.
Rechargepsychologycom is thewebsite if you are looking for a
therapist in Alberta,particularly in the Edmonton
area, though I do online therapywith people from all across
(36:54):
Alberta, and if you have anyother questions or things like
that, feel free to email me, ZacZ-A-C at rechargepsychologycom
and otherwise.
Thank you so much for listeningand I will talk to you in the
next episode.
Bye, thank you.
Hello and welcome to another episode.
My name is Zac Erickson.
Thanks for joining me on ADHDReal Talk and, yeah, my
apologies, listeners, forskipping a week.
I completely lost my voice lastweek and you can kind of hear
it in the Halloween episode.
I actually recorded that oneafter episode three that you
(00:22):
just recently have heard, but myvoice is back.
I was starting to worry aboutmy voice and like how that was
going to.
You know, I was like, oh, isthis my voice forever?
Like I'm just going to soundkind of raspy?
And luckily, a couple of daysago I woke up and it was like
back to normal and I didn't feellike I had a frog in my throat.
(00:43):
So I'm super excited actuallytoday, because today I actually
want to talk about, I want toshare with you a way of thinking
about ADHD that I feel like Idon't hear a lot of people talk
about and I don't like.
Sometimes people will use thisin just sort of a like a casual
way of people will say, oh, likeI'm kind of understimulated.
(01:05):
But I think talkingspecifically about stimulation
thresholds and what the ADHDbrain needs compared to average
people or more neurotypicalpeople, how that can help us
understand a little bit moreabout the connection between
attention and motivation and why, like, some of the easy stuff
(01:27):
sometimes is the hardest to do.
Uh, and you know, likelogically, on the outside, we
can look at something and saythis is like not that hard, it
should not be this hard.
Um, and hopefully by the end ofthis, you'll begin to
understand why sometimes themost difficult things for us are
(01:49):
the things that are the easy,simple things and, I think to be
more accurate, they are themost under-stimulating, simple
and boring things, and thosebecome the most difficult things
because of the neuroscience,like the brain chemistry, of
ADHD.
So we're going to talk aboutthat today.
I'm really excited.
This is something.
(02:10):
There is a way to sort of likeshow this visually and this
being an audio program, it'sgoing to be a little bit.
I'm going to want you tovisualize something as we go
through this.
But, yeah, this is exciting,right?
So the first thing that we needto understand is that our brains
are equipped with very likeintricate systems in the brain.
I think I mentioned before myapologies, Apparently, my voice
(02:33):
is whatever.
Well, we'll try not to commenton it, right, but our brains are
equipped with these, thesethey're very intricate machines,
right, like if you think ofyour brain like a very
complicated meat computer.
That's a good way to thinkabout it.
It's a computer made out ofmeat in your head, right?
(02:53):
And one of the things thathappens is that let's talk a
little bit about attention andwhat attention is and why we
need it.
Because attention deficit,hyperactivity disorder right,
there's attention in there.
So if we don't actuallyunderstand attention in less, in
, in like a little bit more thanlike this, this broad vague
(03:14):
sort of way, then we, we don'treally understand everything
else on top of it.
Okay, so attention essentially.
So if you think, even just in,like you know, you're in your
room right now, you're, uh,you're listening to this, you're
in your room right now, you'relistening to this.
Either you're in your room ormaybe you're in your car or like
wherever you're at right, Iwant you to sort of like take a
step back and look around andnotice how many things in your
(03:38):
environment your brain has kindof just decided are not
important, right?
And, more importantly, imagineif your brain was constantly
paying attention to everything.
Now, already, people, somepeople with ADHD, like the
inattentive kind, some peopleare saying that's my life, all
the time We'll get back to you,okay, but a neurotypical brain
(04:02):
is essentially equipped withwhat we call attention and it is
automatically running most ofthe time.
Right, and essentially,attention's job is to help us
prioritize what are the thingsin my environment or the things
that I may be planning to do, orwhatever that are important,
right?
So, reading this definitionhere, attention is the mental
(04:24):
process of concentrating onspecific information while
filtering out distractions.
It allows us to prioritizetasks and respond appropriately
to our environment, right?
So a neurotypical person isable to adequately filter out
the non-important things and notdevote any attention to them,
(04:47):
right, I'm not going to focus onthem, I'm not going to look at
them, I'm not going to like.
It's not even a temptation,right?
And so that's how attention issupposed to work for most people
, right?
And on a good day, maybe, yourattention or your focus I'm
going to probably use thosewords interchangeably, but your
attention or your focus, I'mgoing to probably use those
(05:07):
words interchangeably, but yourattention or your focus is
that's what it's designed for.
It's like a net to keep you ontask and, more importantly, like
to keep you focusing on theimportant things.
So another example maybe wouldbe driving.
Right that you're payingattention to maybe a broad range
of things.
Right that you're you're payingattention to maybe a broad
range of things.
You're going to be lettingcertain information in.
Your attention is filteringthings out that are not
(05:36):
important and and allowing youto focus on the things that are
important.
And if there is a problem withthat attention, then that means
you can't focus on the importantthings.
Ok, we'll come back to that.
Similar to this, or related tothis, is motivation.
Okay, so motivation is theinternal drive that compels us
to initiate and persist ingoal-directed activities.
(05:57):
So it's related to our abilityto stay focused on something,
but it fuels our actions andsustains our efforts toward
achieving objectives.
Okay, so you can see how thesetwo things are related.
If your brain, for whateverreason, right, we'll get to the
ADHD brain in a second right,but you can see why.
(06:17):
If your brain is saying, oh,this is important, then you can
pay attention to it and it willautomatically do that.
Then you can pay attention toit and it will automatically do
that.
And also, if there is somethingto be done, then the motivation
.
When everything's running theway it should be running, then
you should feel motivated enoughto actually engage with that
information or that thing?
Does that make sense?
That's sort of where we're at,okay, so part of how our brain
(06:43):
determines what is important isthe way that I describe this is
by stimulation thresholds, inother words, the level of
stimulus intensity required forthe brain to engage fully.
In other words uh, there isanother word that that gets
thrown around.
It's a little more of apsychobabble type word, but it's
(07:05):
salience.
It is both in your face andimportant, right, and so every
brain comes with essentially, uh, predetermined, and even with
neuroplasticity.
You can change this over timewith like meditation and and
like that right, there are lotsof things to change stimulation
(07:28):
thresholds, but one of thethings that's important to know
is that essentially, everybodyhas a stimulation threshold.
So why do we need again, why dowe need attention and motivation
?
They're essential for learning,problem solving, performing
daily activities.
They help us adapt to newinformation, focus on important
tasks and achieve personal goals.
(07:49):
If you don't have attention andmotivation, we don't have that.
The brain's engagement inattention and motivation is
influenced by neurotransmitterslike dopamine and norepinephrine
.
These chemicals are releasedwhen stimuli meet or exceed
certain stimulation thresholds,prompting the brain to allocate
resources toward processing andaction.
Okay.
(08:09):
So, in other words, stimulationthreshold is met and then
dopamine and norepinephrine arereleased, right, and if that
stimulation threshold was met orcrossed, then then engage,
attention and motivation kick in, is that?
Or hopefully we're with me sofar.
So let's build on that.
(08:33):
So let's let's talk a little bitabout, like, what we would call
the neurotypical experience andwhat somebody's experience
might be, um, in different kindsof tasks, okay.
So let's just start with moreroutine tasks.
So, let's say, activities likechores or attending meetings.
Uh, these things aresufficiently stimulating for
(08:57):
neurotypical individuals, right?
People who do not have ADHD or,uh, who are not, you know,
autistic or things like that,right, they have, sorry,
activities like doing chores andattending meetings are
sufficiently stimulating.
Their brain recognizes thesetasks as important, as it's
(09:17):
supposed to releasing thenecessary neurotransmitters.
The person feels capable offocusing and motivated to
complete the task, right.
So, in other words, you thinkabout like, right, you think
about like the average person's.
The two examples that I alwaysuse when I'm explaining this to
clients are paying attention inclass, right.
(09:39):
Or doing a paper, like twoweeks before it's due, right.
Yeah, that's fine.
No worries, I this and it'salmost like your brain.
Once the stimulation thresholdhas been crossed, it's almost
like the brain goes like youknow what?
Hey, this seems important,let's, uh, let's, let's dedicate
some resources here.
Let's, uh, let's focus up.
No problem, we can do that.
(10:00):
And so that's what the person'sbrain naturally does.
Right, for people with ADHD,they're like, wow, that'd be
wonderful.
That's not necessarily what'sgoing on for me, but that is
what the neurotypical experienceis, and when.
You're.
You know, for some people whoare diagnosed with ADHD later in
(10:20):
life, this can be kind of a.
There's almost a grievingprocess that happens, realizing
that everybody else you can sayit one of two ways, right,
either everybody else wasworking on easy mode or you were
working on hard mode, wherethese routine tasks are not
sufficiently stimulating.
(10:41):
We'll get to that in a secondright, but that's the case is
routine tasks are able to crossthat stimulation threshold, it
is stimulating enough and we'reable to actually say, yep,
that's important enough.
Engaging tasks, right,something that's like high
stimulation, like sports, orsomething that's like complex,
(11:02):
or something that's maybe more.
You know, stimulating can meanall sorts of things, by the way,
right, it can mean likeinteresting, complex, engaging,
uh, stressful, right, like a,like a, uh, like a doing
something last minute is moreengaging than it is, uh, you
(11:23):
know, like then that paper twoweeks before it was due, the
night of it's more engaging, butit's entirely because it's
stressful.
But for neurotypical people,high stimulation activities like
playing sports or solvingcomplex problems naturally
exceed the threshold, leading toheightened attention and
motivation.
The individual may feelenergized and fully immersed,
(11:43):
right?
So in both cases theneurotypical person is, they're
able to engage.
Now let's talk about ADHD.
So for ADHD, our threshold, ourstimulation threshold, is
higher.
Often it is quite a bit higher.
And so for those routine tasksthat are more of that, like
(12:06):
doing the chores or doing yourpaperwork or you know, all those
things that like they're notreally all that interesting but
they are like things that you'resupposed to do, like pay your
taxes or you know, like whatever, anything else you can think of
.
Call your mom, not that like mymom's boring, like that's not
the case.
It's just that it's like it'snot new, right, and it's not
(12:28):
exciting in necessarily the sameway that doing something brand
new and exciting and likegroundbreaking is.
And it's not personal, it'sjust that it's it's just not the
same, right.
Doing a paper two weeks beforeit's due is like more of a grind
Right.
Like more of a grind right.
So tasks that often, uh, thatothers often find uh, manageable
, manageable, may not provideenough stimulation.
(12:50):
The person might feel bored,restless or unable to focus.
Their brain does not releasesufficient neurotransmitters,
making it hard to engage.
So, for example, sittingthrough a long, unengaging
lecture may lead to daydreamingor fidgeting, because the brain
is is not adequately stimulated,right?
So, in other words, the brainhas not reached the point right.
(13:14):
So you sort of think of like,when you're under stimulated,
it's more of I'm still looking.
This is not important enoughyet right, like this is this
task is not interesting enoughto deserve my attention.
Important enough, yet right,like this is this task is not
interesting enough to deserve myattention.
Uh, I'm going to keep looking,right.
And so many of the symptoms ofADHD is what we refer to as the
symptoms of ADHD are actuallythat individual's way of trying
(13:39):
to make their environment, theirsituation.
They're all ways of dealingwith being in the state of being
understimulated, right?
So if you think of somebody whois in class, right, and this is
a boring teacher at the frontof the class, well, let me think
I can be the class clown.
That's more interesting, right,that will make it more
(14:01):
stimulating.
I can fidget and I can squirmin my seat and maybe I'll get up
and I'll walk around.
Maybe that's what I'll do.
Maybe I'll just stare off intospace and think about this video
game that I've been playing.
Even my own thoughts, right,like this teacher, is so boring
at this point that I can come upwith a million ways in my own
head to entertain myself.
(14:22):
That is more engaging than thisperson, and this is also, by
the way, when workingparticularly with kids with ADHD
, but adults as well.
If you're a boring person,you're going to lose me, right,
you are going to lose me, andyou need to not be so damn
boring.
Does that make sense?
It has to, because you're notstimulating enough, and so you
(14:44):
have to turn it up a little bitand you have to be a little bit
more engaging, not rude, justkind of in your face a little
more, right.
And so, for example, anotherexample that I'll give you with
this is, um, that actually showsup in, like, my own
relationship with my wife One ofthe things, one of the issues
and we've been married for likeover 16 years at this point.
(15:04):
So we've gone through a lot ofthe back and forth of our
relationship, but one of thethings that we often have, uh,
like that we would end up havingfights about and we were
certainly not the only peoplewho have fought about this is
like, uh, in, you know, with,like adhd couples right, my wife
doesn't have adhd, but she'sgot me and four kids with it,
right, well, I mean possiblyfour.
(15:27):
Some of them are still up inthe air, they're too young to
know.
But anyway, one of the thingsthat happens is she would come
and say, hey, can you, uh, canyou take out the garbage, like
sometime tonight.
Like, yeah, yeah, sure, noworries.
Like, and I would respond, yep,yeah, no problem, I came out, I
came to find out later, I thinkthat I had learned at some
(15:48):
point in my life, like I, I hadalmost like a conditioned
response that I would say, yeah,sure, yeah, that's fine, I
could do that.
I don't even know that.
I heard her, if I'm beinghonest, right, like that, like,
hey, can you do this?
As, like, a side comment is sofar below my stimulation
threshold at that point that Idon't even think I heard her to
(16:09):
be genuinely honest.
And so then later, when Ididn't do it, of course she's
upset because justifiably so,right.
But one of the things that Ikept saying to her is, like you
know what?
Like, here's a few tips.
Number one did you?
You know?
Here's some questions to ask,and this is not me making
excuses, this is just like howto break through and actually be
(16:32):
stimulating enough.
Not because you're not like thiswonderful person, it's just my
brain sucks sometimes, right?
You're not like this wonderfulperson, it's just my brain sucks
sometimes, right?
So be engaging, right.
So, in other words, like, didyou have eye contact?
Maybe even like, come over andlike say my name and say hey,
like Zac, ach, and like I, youneed eye contact.
At least some people will saytwo points of contact.
(16:53):
So, whether that is, you know,like hearing and eye contact,
whether that is, you know, ahand on the shoulder and talking
, whatever it is right.
But like, have me.
And then maybe even like, haveme repeat it back to you, right?
Like, ask me a question, ormaybe even like encourage me to
like, can you, can you set areminder on your phone to do
(17:14):
that, because that would bereally important.
Like this is even even tosimply say, hey, this is really
important to me.
That, to me, is a signal thatit that it like gets through the
stimulation thresholds and itsends the message to my brain
Like, oh, this is important, youhave my attention now.
Okay, right, so routine tasksif they are mundane, if they are
(17:35):
under stimulating, thelikelihood that they are going
to be able to be paid attentionto.
And, by the way, another thing Ihaven't I don't have in my
notes here, but is also relatedto this is memory.
So my brain is way more likelyto forget things that are boring
.
Like I think everybody's brainis kind of like that, right,
(17:56):
it's not important whatever.
But can you imagine if thereare things that your brain
should actually like aneurotypical brain would
recognize those things asimportant, but they weren't like
super exciting, and so thatbrain this is not a choice, by
the way, and so you can't justwill yourself out of this.
Right, like this is somethingwhere often people with ADHD,
(18:19):
when they're dropping the ballin different areas, it's
actually because their brain isnot treating it as important.
Does that make sense?
The importance mechanism doesnot work properly, the
determining how important it is.
Okay, let's talk about thesubjective experience, or, in
other words, the experience ofan ADHD person who actually does
(18:43):
have adequately stimulated, whois actually adequately
stimulated, right?
So when something's highlystimulating, like playing a
video game this is one of thethings, right, you hear all the
time.
Well, you can play a video gamefor five hours, so you should
be able to focus on your, yourenglish paper it's like yeah, no
, my english paper is boring asshit.
Are you kidding me?
No, it's not gonna work.
(19:04):
Right, my video game is overthe threshold, and so it's
almost like this is one of thethings.
That's interesting is that whenyou actually find something
that's really stimulating, whatwe actually might experience is
hyper focus, where it's almostlike your brain goes oh, finally
, something that I really enjoy,and you, like the person, can
(19:24):
even become like very deeplyimmersed and hyper-focused and
completely lose track of time,right, and so that can be a
beneficial thing and can behelpful, but it also can be
really kind of debilitating aswell, when, finally, you have
something you're excited aboutand I really need to be focusing
(19:44):
on this other thing over here,but I cannot even steer my brain
away from where I'm at, right,and so part of that is just I
think.
When I think about this, Ithink it's mostly because all
these other things are understimulating and our brain just
wants to focus on somethingthat's stimulating.
And we also have much moreexperience as people with adhd,
(20:06):
um, experiencing things that areboring to the point where it's
excruciating for us.
I think a lot of people withadhd or more neurotypical people
, sorry, who have notexperienced a lot of this maybe
are going to feel like oh yeah,can you imagine like if you had
to sit and listen to, like BenStein, you know, like the
(20:26):
Bueller guy, like just a supermundane, like monotone, boring,
slow kind of thing?
Like every once in a while wefind something that, like people
with ADHD and neurotypicalpeople, can all agree is boring.
But for the most part, peoplewith ADHD experience boredom way
(20:47):
more often at an excruciatinglypainful level.
So does that?
Hopefully that's making sensefor everybody here, right?
So as a way of sort of recappingfor ADHD brains, when they are
understimulated, the brain isbasically saying this thing is
not important.
And here's the thing is that itis not the part of our, the
(21:09):
part of our brain that engages.
Attention is a separate part ofthe brain than the part of your
brain that may logicallyanalyze if this thing is
important.
Okay, I'll say that again.
So, logically, understandingthat something is important may
not be enough to make that thingstimulating.
(21:32):
And therefore, even if you knowsomething is important, you may
not feel motivated or able tofocus on it for an extended
period of time, and this isinfuriating and very, very
discouraging for people withADHD.
So I want to validate that thatis a very real thing.
It is not enough to say, like Iknow this is important.
(21:54):
It's not a matter of not beingable to do it, it's not that I
don't know, right?
So, like when you're workingwith, like your partner or
yourself, or like kids orwhatever, and you say, well,
like, but this is reallyimportant.
I've told them a million times.
It's like, doesn't matter,literally does not matter at
this point, because the problemis not in their, their like
(22:17):
logical understanding of theimportance.
It's about how engaging andstimulating the actual activity
itself is Okay.
So, and then the adequatelystimulated one.
It's almost like the brain getssuper excited.
Finally, something engaging,I'm all in, right?
So let's talk about attentionand motivation, right?
(22:37):
So understimulated Another wayto think about this If we're
understimulated, there is a lackof drive to start or complete
tasks.
(23:05):
The person may procrastinate oravoid activities that seem
uninteresting.
I will even add to thatsometimes there is a feeling of
dread.
I know I need to do this, but Idon't want to right, or
something like that.
Or the person's doing somethingthat is actually engaged.
Maybe they're on their phone,maybe they're playing a game or
(23:25):
doing literally anything else toavoid Um, but in the back of
their head they know they shouldbe doing this other thing, but
it's not engaging enough, and soit's hard.
It's still hard to get thatmotivation and to switch gears
into the thing that you need todo, whereas if you are
adequately stimulated, you haveimproved focus, ability to
(23:47):
sustain attention for longerperiods and the brain is
prioritizing this task andenhancing cognitive processing
and for motivation, you feelmore motivated, eagerness to
engage.
The individual feels compelledto act and may persist despite
challenges.
Right, so that's, you can tellmaybe, like for those of you at
(24:08):
home with ADHD, how often youare understimulated, and so
there is a reason why peoplewith ADHD have a higher risk of
getting speeding tickets, forexample, and this is why
mindfulness and in futureepisodes we're going to have an
episode about mindfulness islike an introduction.
But you have to be aware ofright.
(24:29):
You have to sort of like checkin with yourself and get into
the habit of checking in withyourself, not as like an
obsessive sort of way, but justin like an alert and mindful
kind of way.
An obsessive sort of way, butjust in like an alert and
mindful kind of way.
How am I doing right now?
How am I feeling?
What do I need to be doing?
Like, what did I say I wasgoing to do today?
Do I even know what I was goingto do today?
And like, like, what's my mood?
(24:50):
Like, how do I get myself intothat more engaged mode, right,
so?
So here?
So I'm sure all of you at homeare sort of sitting here
listening and thinking, well,what am I supposed to do about
this, right?
So let's talk about strategies.
Number one strategy actually,there's two, right?
There are two ways.
If you think of the thresholdand how stimulating the thing is
(25:11):
, those are the two differentvariables that you can play with
, right?
The first thing that you can dois you can make something that
you need to do more stimulating.
That actually is a very realthing, right?
So the idea of like fidgetssitting in a meeting.
Perfectly reasonable thing.
It actually can help, right?
You're making this boringmeeting a little bit more
(25:33):
stimulating For me.
When I was in school, I found ifI sit on the front row with an
open notebook and a pen and Isit there and I take notes and I
actively listen and engage andmaybe doodle a little bit in the
margins, I am actively engagingwith this content in a way that
(25:55):
is more stimulating for me.
In a way that is morestimulating for me, I had a.
I had a professor once say I'mgoing to give you all the the
like PowerPoints.
I'm going to email them to youlater.
Don't worry about taking notes.
And I was like that's funny.
No, if I don't take notes, I'mgoing to be an outer space.
Right, I'm going to.
My brain is going to beentertaining itself with, like,
(26:16):
all my plans for my D&D campaignor something.
Right, like the last thing Iwill even be thinking about is
this lecture, and I actuallywant to sit here and listen and
learn.
So I am going to take notes,even if I don't need to.
It's what I do as a therapist aswell.
I take notes in session and ithelps me focus.
So that is part of that.
(26:37):
And so engage, enhancing howengaging it is right.
This is the same thing with, interms of like, if you were a
teacher or a therapist oranything like that right, if you
are not engaging, right, pullout a pad of paper right.
Draw a picture on the board.
Draw right, wave your handsaround in the air, do a funny
accent, it doesn't matter.
(26:58):
Be more engaging, right.
Actually, you know, be animated, right.
So, for example, turning studymaterial into a game,
incorporating movement intotasks, setting time challenges
right.
One of the things I saw onlinethat a lot of people do is
(27:19):
actually one of the things I doin general is I will I've been
doing this forever too is likemusic can be a huge thing, right
, so you're enhancing theengagement and a lot of people,
when they're like cleaning thehouse, for example, all right,
I'm going to see if I can cleanthis house by the end of this
song.
How messy is this room?
Well, it might be stairway toheaven instead of something else
, right, or whatever.
(27:39):
It is like a longer song, butit's.
I'm going to be doing thesethings.
I'm going to maybe focus ondoing a specific thing, right.
So, for example, back in the day, I used to hate doing the
dishes.
I hated it, I think I like.
In fact, when I was a kid Ihated it so much that I would
like I'd be like standing at the, at the, at the sink, for like
(28:00):
an hour and just hating everyminute of it.
And so I feel like I sort oflike learned to hate it back
then.
And so even when I was an adultand I was married, I hated
doing it.
And then eventually one day Iwas like you know what, I'm
going to see if I can do it in a15 minute spurt.
I'm going to just like rushthrough and see if I can do all
of it in 15 minutes and turnsout it was about 13 minutes.
You would have.
(28:20):
No, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't have believed you ifyou told me it was only going
to take that long.
So that is that's that pieceright, making it more engaging.
The other thing around taskplaying with the stimulation
stuff is uh, is building in somesort of like structured
environment and minimizingdistractions and making clear
(28:42):
goals so that your brain canrecognize how important this
task is Right and so that youcan.
And not only that, but thatit's concrete, right, and so,
even if it is a little bit understimulating, if you make it
clear what you need to do, youmake it a small enough chunk
that it's like, ok, this thingmight be a little bit boring,
(29:03):
maybe it's a little bit below mythreshold, but you know what,
like, I'm going to set a 10minute timer and I'm going to
see if I could beat it and I'mgoing to just like power through
this for 10 minutes and then ifI'm done after that, then
awesome.
But let me tell you, gettingstarted is the hardest part
anyways, and then my brain willstart to realize and engage with
this information and realizethat, oh, this actually is kind
of interesting or important orwhatever it is, and I'll feel
(29:24):
that momentum and I'll want tokeep going.
So that is the first part ofplaying with the task itself and
the environment that you're in,ok.
The other side of this isplaying with your own threshold,
and this is where this more oflike biohacking kind of stuff
maybe comes in, as well asmedication for ADHD.
(29:45):
So the best way to think abouthow ADHD affects the
neurotypical brain is that, inessence, what it does is it
lowers the threshold of theperson.
Uh, the stimulation thresholdfor a person with ADHD, back
down to a neurotypical person'slevel, is the goal, right?
And so things that otherwisewould not be under stim or that
(30:08):
would not be stimulating enough,become stimulating enough,
right?
And so the way that I describedthis in my own experience was
that when I started takingmedication, I know that nothing
changed about the genetics classthat I was taking.
The genetics, uh, instructorwas just kind of like a this,
(30:29):
like mousy lady and she was verylike.
She's like a very stereotypical, like biologist scientist, like
dry, sounds like she's speakingout of a textbook and uh, and
she'd lose me every time.
Right, like she was.
She was dry and she was like,frankly, she was one of the
better ones, but she was kind ofboring Right, kind of boring
(30:52):
right.
And I started taking medicationand all of a sudden I noticed
myself in her classes being like, wow, this is really
interesting.
I never realized genetics wasso cool.
This is like really awesome.
I really love this class, andall that was different was that
I had taken a medication thatallowed my brain to feel
(31:15):
stimulated enough by what it wasbeing presented with.
It's the only thing thatchanged.
And yet my experience of thatwas wow, I freaking love this
stuff.
This is actually interesting,right?
I guarantee you she did notchange her approach because I
took a medication, right, butthat absolutely was what it felt
like.
Right, but that absolutely waswhat it felt like.
And so medications lower thestimulation threshold, allowing
(31:42):
routine tasks to triggeradequate neurotransmitter
release, and the result isimproved attention and
motivation for tasks that werepreviously under stimulating.
Okay, so the couple of quickthings that are interesting to
this really is.
Again, I'm going to do a littlebit of a disclaimer.
It's been a while since Ibrushed up on all the
neuroscience of this, so if someof the things that I said you
know, if there areneuroscientists who know more
(32:03):
than I do in the crowd, feelfree to you know, reach out to
me at Recharge Psych onInstagram, you know, shoot me a
DM or something, but for themost part, part like.
This really does have a lot todo with, like, the
neurotransmitter function andwhat we know from brain imaging
studies and uh like.
While the term stimulationthreshold threshold is a
(32:24):
conceptual tool, more thananything, it's sort of
metaphorical.
It reflects the neurobiologicalneed that we have for adequate
stimulus to engage in attentionand motivation in ADHD.
So, uh, final sort of caveat aswe go through this um, adhd is a
real, like complex condition,right, everybody's a little bit
(32:46):
different.
One of the things we didn'tcover is that what one person
experiences as like reallyengaging or interesting and
enjoyable, another person maynot be all that interested in it
.
Right, and so it's not just assimple as how loud is the
professor, right, but, like,what do we like is very
(33:07):
subjective from person to person, and so these are some of the
things that are that areimportant to keep in mind
through all of this.
Right, and it's and there'sstill a lot of ongoing research,
and this, this example is, Imean, it's not a perfect
metaphor.
It's not going to explaineverything, right, it doesn't
explain, you know, it doesn'taccount for the deficits or the
difficulties in executivefunctioning as an example, right
(33:30):
, but it is one piece of thepuzzle that for me personally,
resonates a lot.
So, yeah, so that's about all Ihave prepared for today.
I think that there are, I thinkthere's a lot.
Hopefully, this has beenhelpful.
Feel free to go back and reviewthis if this has been helpful,
(33:52):
but I think again, for now, Ithink that really the takeaway
is.
This helps us understand alittle bit of why medication
again it helps lower thatthreshold.
Oh, I should mention mygoodness, right, it's not just
medication, right.
There are other things that alsocan impact your stimulation
threshold that you need, theamount of stimulation that you
need, for example, havingadequate physical exercise,
(34:17):
particularly cardio exercise.
There's some real good research.
The way to kind of think aboutthis is that cardiovascular
exercise in particular canessentially serve to lower your
stimulation threshold.
Your required stimulation needsfor about a couple hours after
doing it right, and so that'ssomething that we can keep in
our back pocket and then doingthat over time.
(34:38):
Staying healthy good diet andexercise and getting adequate
sleep is a huge one.
Managing our stress levelsthose are all things that also
impact how much stimulation weneed, and if you really feel
like you're in a fog one day, itmay be.
If you look at all of thesedifferent individual factors, it
might be that your stimulationthreshold has been like driven
(35:01):
super high, right.
Another thing that we're stilllearning about is the role of
things like social media andjust like electronic media in
general, and what that does toour brain and training our brain
to expect a certain level ofstimulation, and so there is
actually some evidence that youknow, continued, you know,
(35:24):
chronic use of social media andthings like that can actually
train your brain to expect it toexpect more stimulation, and
then it actually kind of gets alittle bit like the calibrations
off, right, so that those arethings that are also uh
important to know.
But, uh, yeah, so okay.
So this is, uh, this has beenADHD real talk.
(35:46):
My name is Zac Erickson and, uh, by the way, if you want to
check out, I have a uh, a freeresource online you can go to
recharge psychologycom slash AIguide and uh, I've got a free
PDF over there tool to help youuse uh AI and particularly
(36:07):
things like chat GPT to help youmanage your uh, your workload
and to kind of help you manageADHD a little bit more and wrap
your brain around some of thestuff that's going on.
Right, like interacting withsomething like an ai chatbot can
be a way to make some of thesethings more engaging, and that's
definitely been my experience.
Right, engaging with a robot ina conversation is way easier,
(36:31):
uh, to engage with for somepeople than simply like sitting
down with a pad of paper orwhatever.
So that's it.
That's all I have for today.
This has been a little bit of alonger episode.
Hopefully you found it helpful.
Rechargepsychologycom is thewebsite if you are looking for a
therapist in Alberta,particularly in the Edmonton
area, though I do online therapywith people from all across
(36:54):
Alberta, and if you have anyother questions or things like
that, feel free to email me, ZacZ-A-C at rechargepsychologycom
and otherwise.
Thank you so much for listeningand I will talk to you in the
next episode.
Bye, thank you.
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