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I'm basing it solely on the amounts of caffeine he was taking. If he feels he needs that much caffeine to be productive it is a very large hint.

If you are concerned I suggest the book "Delivered from distraction." http://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Distraction-Getting-Attentio...

YES thank you, I am diagnosed with ADHD and I have this quirky behavior and many more. If you guys are selecting text over and over, it is very likely (but not always the case--I'm no psychiatrist!) that you have ADHD and should consider getting screened/diagnosed if you haven't done so already. It's nice to know as it is a part of your identity (at least for me it is) and you'll learn to live with the symptoms. I actually enjoy having ADHD and selecting text compulsively :) Consider reading "Delivered from Distraction" by Hallowell.

Cheers,
keb0b0

Past: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller,
Current: River of Gods by Ian McDonald,
Planned: Delivered from Distraction by Edward Hallowell

I would highly recommend people interested in learning more about ADHD itself to read Delivered from Distraction: http://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Distraction-Getting-Attentio...

It's a fantastic book that explains the condition extremely well and has tons of useful information on not only how to cope with the condition, but for how family members and relatives of somebody with ADHD to best support them.

I have read Driven to Distraction. I want to say I read it before I went to the therapist a decade ago, but I am not 100% sure.

This and other books (I recommend Delivered from Distraction, The checklist manifesto, The creative habit) helped form the core of my support structure, but I am not always good at using it. I keep revisiting my decision to get evaluated / take drugs but it comes down to this - I tend to use my weaknesses as crutches. It doesn't matter what the world labels my problems, they stem in my head and every non chemical way of dealing with them revolves around building habits that help address these. I am consciously eschewing drugs because I have a very addictive personality and I am just jumping ahead to working on my habits.

so, drinking nescafe gold decaffeinated is a safe choice of coffee, right?
because im drinking it for the taste only, without sugar but with milk...

coffee was definitely not helping with my ADD / ADHD...
im on ritalin / concerta 54mg for 2 weeks now, stopping for the weekend and it works great so far with a slight sleeplessness and a little loss of apetite which i perceive as normal apetite actually, since im over weight. i have more inclination for riding the bike too.

IF u have

- focus problems

- sleeping issues at home or at work

- lots of great projects which u haven't finished for months or years

- fluctuating work / sex performance

- alcoholic or drug abusing parents / grand parents

i would highly recommend to learn a bit about ADHD via Dr. Edward Hallowell's "Delivered from Distraction" book ( http://www.drhallowell.com/books/delivered-from-distraction-... ), because you have a high chance to seriously suppress these problems with some medications OR simply life style changes.

in my case i have pretty high sensitivity to sugar and certain carbs. i feel so sleepy after eating rice or drinking a liter of even no-added-sugar fruit juices, as if my head wants to fall off. my mother is diabetic, btw.

The book the OP mentioned, Delivered From Distraction, is a great resource. The author is a psychiatrist who does a good job of presenting med and non-med options in a balanced way. He has ADD himself and did not find that meds helped him (they work for 80-90% of folks), though they have helped his children and many other patients/friends he describes.

Basic things like regular exercise can help, but meds are still a mainstay for treatment. Although studies have shown therapy to be as effective as meds for depression, there isn't great evidence for therapy for ADD. Meds are effective for most folks, have practically no side effects (at least the stimulants, Strattera can have side effects though it has other advantages), and have been safely used for decades without safety issues. The effects of the stimulants also disappear within hours so if you don't like being on a med you can simply stop. It won't change who you are. And if one med doesn't work well, sometimes another works better.

In the book Deliver from Distraction the authors (at least one of whom has ADHD and is a psychologist) describe everyone else as having "Attention Surplus Disorder". They go into some detail describing how odd it is for someone to be able to sit still for 8 hours a day doing something really boring. It was an interesting counterpoint to the idea that ADHD is even a disorder... but rather a set of traits that have always been useful in some areas. Similar point to this article. I recommend the book btw, it was helpful to me in embracing the unique gifts that come with the challenges of ADHD.

Thanks for writing a book. I haven't read your book, but I've found Delivered from Distraction to be a godsend. You can't help but read that book and either feel comfort for yourself or a better understanding of someone else who you just realized has ADD.

http://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Distraction-John-J-Ratey-ebo...

First off any medical advice from Huffpost is bullshit. Second the author here and the doc cited are pompous idiots. ADHD is real in children and adults and evidence of it can be seen with brain imaging (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170216105919.h...). Maybe they should conduct their work with some hard science/evidence instead of a checklist based on opinion? Ooooh.... and cry me a river, some big pharma company paid for a vacation for you and then took something you said and bent it to sell some drugs. Wake up! They sell drugs and so do you doc! I have ADHD and meds are the difference between total personal ruin and successfully running a company for me... and many other people. Every one of these clickbait bullshit articles that descend into moral arguments about ADHD do real harm to actual people with a quantifiable disability. Rule 1 of being kind that you teach a child is not to pick on people for things they can't change. I can't change that I have ADHD, other people with it cannot change that. We live in a world made by people with what the book "Delivered from Distraction" called "Attention Surplus Disorder." Supposedly the people who aren't sick are the ones who can sit still at a desk and then a cubicle their whole life doing what they are told. If that's being well I'm so glad I'm "sick."

I've seen coworkers that I'd describe as neuro-typical work in a similar way sometimes. But the tendency to alternate between periods of difficulty focusing and periods of hyperfocus is a recognized trait of ADHD. If you're interested in learning more I'd recommend Hallowell's book, the one I read was "Delivered from Distraction" but he might have a newer one. Just read the first couple chapters and if it resonates a lot then it might be worth getting tested.

Tests for AD(H)D focus on 2 different aspects: attention and hyperactivity/impulsiveness. Key to any diagnosis is not the occurrence of individual symptoms, but how many you have in each category, the degree to which you have them, whether they appear in different settings, for longer than 6 months and they are actually life impairing. Simply being forgetful/distracted/dyslexic/argumentative etc by itself isn't a clear cut sign that you have AD(H)D, as they may have entirely different causes.

Slightly unrelated, but if anyone is interested in reading more about the topic, Edward Hallowell's 1994 book Driven to Distraction is a seminal book on the topic and includes some of the classic signs used to analyze the condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driven_to_Distraction

His 2005 follow-up Delivered from Distraction, focuses on how to make the most out of it if you have it and harness your strengths (creativity, charisma, energy, intelligence).

I agree with you about people not changing, people seldom change and it is a very long process, not something you can just choose and do in one day. On the other hand, I believe there are some things you can do about it in this case and try to play to your strengths.

Anyway, I'm struggling with pretty much the same problems as the OP, a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADD and was given Ritalin. I didn't like taking Ritalin and it didn't help very much anyway. The thing is you create bad habits, so even if you are taking some meds, you still have those habits and repeat them.

I have now decided that I'm not flawed, but only lost. It seems there's not much place in the world for ADD people. But I'm not giving up, I don't want to change who I am, I want to find where can I fit in and use my strengths.

I just bought the book "Delivered from Distraction" and got it yesterday. Today I read the intro and seems like a good read. I hope it helps.

Oliver Sacks and V. S. Ramachandran have written several good books about the functional organization of the human brain. YouTube has several Ramachandran presentations, and those will have links to many other interesting videos. They are neurologists, so they excel at showing what happens when certain tiny regions of the brain are damaged.

Scott Adams (Mr. Dilbert) writes about losing his ability to speak, then regaining it using rhyming and singing. http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/17-08/ff_adams?...

The attention deficit disorder literation has a lot about attention and focus. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey's books are particulary readable; their Delivered From Distraction is a standard work.

Scientists have been mapping the connections between various "machines" in the brain using an MRI technique. It looks remarkably like a network of computers, with different modules for different functional tasks. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630200947.ht... http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21042/?a=f