ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

by Edward M. Hallowell

A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes. It’s the mismatch of engine power to braking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.

“Creativity,” as we use the term in connection with ADHD, designates an innate ability, desire, and irrepressible urge to plunge one’s imagination regularly and deeply into life—into a project, an idea, a piece of music, a sandcastle. Indeed, people with ADHD feel an abiding need—an omnipresent itch—to create something. It’s with us all the time, this unnamed appetite, whether we understand what it is or not; the act of creation offers the magnet’s north pole to our south and clicks us together. It captivates us, plants us in the present, and sets us transfixed within the creative act, whatever it might happen to be.

it helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.

Still unproven, but being studied vis-à-vis neurological functioning, is another risk factor we might add to the list: magnetic field non-ionizing radiation (MFR), which comes in two forms, low frequency and high frequency. Low frequency MFR comes from, among other sources, power lines and kitchen appliances. High frequency MFR, the newer one, comes from wireless networks and cellphones. Stay tuned…

Central to both the gift of creativity and the curse of brooding lie two mindsets we like to call the Angel and the Demon. These are not at all religious references. We think of them more like the benevolent spirit that whispers encouragement from one shoulder and the imp on the other who gives terrible advice. The Angel bestows the gifts, and the Demon casts the curse. With practical tools, you can learn to activate the Angel while shutting down the Demon—often without medication.

In a neurotypical brain, when the TPN is turned on and you’re on task, the DMN is turned off. But in the ADHD brain, the fMRI shows that when the TPN is turned on, the DMN is turned on as well, trying to muscle its way in and pull you into its grasp, thereby distracting you. In ADHD, therefore, the DMN competes with the TPN, which in most people it does not do.

Trapped in the past or future in the DMN, you’re likely to abandon projects you once started with enthusiasm, make careless mistakes, or, worse, fall into a state of misery and despair, for no good reason whatsoever.

The point is: Focus on anything external to yourself. Activating the TPN will shut down the DMN.

not representations of dismal truth but artifacts of his prolific imagination,

But my teacher, Mrs. Eldredge, was wise. She didn’t skip me. She’d just come over and sit down next to me when it was my turn to read, and she’d put her arm around me and pull me in close to her. As I would stammer and stutter through “up, up, up,” none of the kids would laugh at me because I had the mafia sitting next to me. Mrs. Eldredge’s arm was my treatment plan. She gave me psychosocial integration. Every day.

We say to them, and maybe to you, Take heart. Hearts heal. Unlike the ship synonymous with sinking, the titanic power of connection rises up from the deep every time it sinks, as long as we are brave enough to board her again. Once she knows we are ready to jump on, she rises, ready to welcome us once more.

Associate with dream makers. Avoid dream breakers. Cynics may be funny and entertaining, but they tend to drain you of hope. As Oscar Wilde said, a cynic is one who “knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”

What three or four things are you best at doing? What three or four things do you like doing the most? What three or four activities or achievements have brought you the most praise in your life? What are your three or four most cherished goals? What three or four things would you most like to get better at? What do others praise you for but you take for granted? What, if anything, is easy for you but hard for others? What do you spend a lot of time doing that you are really bad at? What could your teacher or supervisor do so that your time could be spent more productively? If you weren’t afraid of getting in trouble, what would you tell your teacher or supervisor that he or she doesn’t understand about you?

That’s what Kathy wanted to investigate and assess, because after all, what are the strengths that matter most but the strengths that lead to action? Much more important than IQ, which is, from a practical standpoint, irrelevant, your conative style determines what you actually do in life. Borrowing again from the Latin, Kolbe calls this our MO, our modus operandi. And, for our purposes, that’s what a person who has ADHD most needs to learn about herself or himself and why we so strongly recommend taking this test.

Because it’s just not in the makeup of people with ADHD or VAST to give up. Sticking to something is a terrific quality if the something is productive and makes you happy or your life better. But sticking to something just for the sake of sticking to it is a Sisyphean undertaking—pushing that old boulder up the hill day after day only to have it roll back down the next. In some way, people like Jon seem almost to enjoy the process of perpetual failure, as if the real, hard truth of life is to be found in pain, suffering, and defeat. Their victory is to be found in carrying on no matter what.

And a note of encouragement: Rewards work much better for the ADHD mind than do consequences. So whether you’re an adult working on structure for yourself or a parent maintaining it for a child, build little rewards into the systems you contrive.

There is one supplement that we recommend specifically and take ourselves: OmegaBrite.*1 Developed more than twenty years ago by a Harvard-educated doctor named Carol Locke, OmegaBrite is an omega-3 fatty acid supplement that we feel confident is pharmaceutical-grade and free of contaminants like mercury.

While medications can help a person get to sleep, there is a relatively new device that is FDA-approved for insomnia, as well as depression and anxiety. We have also found it helpful in some patients—of all ages—with ADHD. It is called the Fisher Wallace Stimulator. It causes no side effects of note, nor is it in any way habit-forming. The device uses a mild form of alternating current to stimulate key neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, and beta-endorphin, and lower cortisol, the stress hormone.

Not to belabor the obvious, but this is a point most people overlook. It’s really a fundamental principle of a happy and successful life. We do better when we are involved with activities and people we want to be involved with. We do worse, far worse, when forced or coerced. Like doing the right thing for the wrong reason, even the best medication will not work as well as it could if you do not want to take it. So wait as long as it takes for you or your child not only to get comfortable but to want to take medication before you start it.

“Some drugs work in some people, at some dose, some of the time.”

Look at your style, your feel. Is it truly yours or are you imitating someone else’s? Most everything we do is part imitation, but what makes each of us unique is what we add in on our own to create our individuality, our special sauce, our style.

Okay, buddy, you say to yourself, do it again. How those words taunt through eternity. Do it again. To do it again, consistently, that’s the dream we all share but few of us achieve.