I’ve also found Dr Amen’s “types” of ADHD the most helpful way of understanding how ADHD affects people differently.
When I had my brain scanned, it was explained to me that ADHD isn’t a matter of lack of willpower or distraction - when you intentionally try to concentrate or focus (rather than when focus just “appears” naturally like it does for some tasks you’re interested in), blood actually flows away from your prefrontal cortex so you really do become worse at regulating decision making and have worse performance at whatever task you’re trying to accomplish. Whereas for people who don’t have this problem, intentionally concentrating forces blood into the prefrontal cortex, improving your performance.
It was also explained that even though we usually think of ADHD as a “hardware” issue with our brains, that’s rare. It’s normally a conditioned response related to how we learned to process stress and anxiety. The idea is that if you can improve your ability to handle your underlying stress and anxiety (through trauma therapy, healthier lifestyle and habits), your mind becomes much better at handling choice and focus. Although I haven’t been able to therapy my way out of it yet.
When I had my brain scanned, it was explained to me that ADHD isn’t a matter of lack of willpower or distraction - when you intentionally try to concentrate or focus (rather than when focus just “appears” naturally like it does for some tasks you’re interested in), blood actually flows away from your prefrontal cortex so you really do become worse at regulating decision making and have worse performance at whatever task you’re trying to accomplish. Whereas for people who don’t have this problem, intentionally concentrating forces blood into the prefrontal cortex, improving your performance.
It was also explained that even though we usually think of ADHD as a “hardware” issue with our brains, that’s rare. It’s normally a conditioned response related to how we learned to process stress and anxiety. The idea is that if you can improve your ability to handle your underlying stress and anxiety (through trauma therapy, healthier lifestyle and habits), your mind becomes much better at handling choice and focus. Although I haven’t been able to therapy my way out of it yet.