Hyperfocus - which I never talk about on this ADHD channel 🙈

Hyperfocus Hyperfocus Hyperfocus, but what is it and why haven't we talked about it on the channel before? Well then, let's talk about ADHD and hyperfocus now!

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[Infernoraptor]

I like to view ADHD as like driving a semi truck vs a sedan. It takes longer to get up to speed, takes more effort to stop, but can carry a lot.

[nrdadjacent]

Oh yes, the hyperfocus that makes you feel on top of the world… and the hyperfocus that you completely regret when you come up for air. Another great and super relatable video 😊

[Trassel]

To me, my hyperfocus is mostly annoying because I can’t choose when it’s happening and it tends to not help me do anything useful. If I could turn it on and off, I’d be happier, because it’s just annoying as-is. Just because I hyperfocus sometimes, people tend to assume I am able to do that continuously and consistently every day, which is not true.

[marcdoll]

Father with ADHD (who just spent hours on a project and came out dehydrated and near starved) with 2 daughters with ADHD who just had the worst day at school thanks you for this video. Not only helps to understand myself but empathize with why they had such a terrible day.

[DarinthMalacoy]

A friend of mine started referring to her ADHD as "Involuntarily Hyperfocus Disorder" and I definitely feel that...

[JamiePerkins]

This was a really relatable video. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and the diagnosis is helping me to make sense of things I’ve done and felt my whole life and I’ve always relied on hyper focus and could never understand why I struggle to motivate myself so much but when tight deadlines come along I thrive. As a YouTuber, I thrived the most when I was doing daily videos or a lot of videos a week. The pressure of constantly having to churn out videos made me the most productive I had been in my life. Now I’m only able to make one video a week ( long story ) and I really struggle to find the focus to make one good video. I feel like a normal person would be able to use that whole week to make something great but I just don’t work that way. I still wait until the end of the week to do it. It’s frustrating because I feel like the pressure helps. But on the flip side I don’t like always being under pressure. What’s with that? 😂

[kianap]

As a little kid I would devour books, and people wouldn’t bat an eye looking at the “smart” kid who loved reading. I definitely loved to read, but no one probed farther and asked if I could put the book down 😂
One thing I love about this channel is how you openly say how you work with your ADHD, along with taking meds. At first I thought they’d just make me exactly normal, but at the end of the day I still hyperfocus, I still have ADHD.

[CrimsonKas]

Hyper focus is actually why I began suspecting I have ADHD. When I was in college, a professor noted to me that I had “the opposite of ADHD.” He said it was great for studying, but would bite me in the butt later if I decided to have kids. It feels great at times, but as you noted, there are ways you pay for it. Desperate for help, I did an internet search for “what’s the opposite of ADHD” and that’s when I learned about hyper focus and that it’s not the opposite of ADHD, but part of it. So many things in my life began to make so much more sense. I was still lost on what to do, but at least I had an explanation for some of my struggles. Your channel has been a tremendous help.

[thanatoastiii]

Hyperfocus is the only time my brain feels calm (even in a crisis) without the constant bombardment of thoughts. Great video 👍

[JimPekarek]

Hyperfocus is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I get 2 months of work done in 2 weeks at work, other times I want to quit because someone DM'd me asking for help on something unrelated to what I was focusing on, and not only did I fail to help them, but the constant reminder that I hadn't replied (but couldn't switch gears) turned my brain into a chaotic mess for the rest of the day.

[sonyaswan]

Hyperfocus is the thing that made me realise I have ADHD. It's a huge part of my life and everyone thinks I'm amazing for getting things done. I do rely on hyperfocus a lot unfortunately.

[KnightsandPages]

This is one of the hardest things for me as a mom with ADHD, and having a young child who needs my attention in very frequent intervals. Most days, my whole goal is just to stay patient with her while constantly being pulled from whatever I was doing, be a good parent, and do my best to resume tasks and not forget them.

[threecatsdancing]

Just five minutes ago I was talking about this to my husband. I have been watching a YT channel with ferrets and for some reason over the last couple weeks I became obsessed with wanting to figure out the floor plan of the home the ferrets and their owners live in. I couldn't stop thinking about it. So last night I spent a few minutes watching one of their live streams and rewinding and skipping forward and tracing what I saw into a notepad once I figured out the shape of their apartment I was done. No more obsession, no more hyperfocus, nothing. Sometimes ADHD can be so weird. LOL

[anawieder]

Hyper focus is probably my biggest strength as someone with adhd. I’m an artist and hyper focus allows me to enjoy marathon painting sessions in the studio. I love the creative flow that can come with hyper focus. But-and this is a huge caveat, I do forget to eat (and binge later) and forget appointments and ADLs to the point where I really struggle to transition into a different activity. Because my adhd symptoms are very mixed with symptoms of depression and anxiety I still value hyper focus over days of depressed lethargy or panic attack symptoms

[noahsimmons]

As an ADHD addict in long-term recovery, hyper-focus can be devastating to me. There are times when an alcohol craving hits me, and my brain decides that is what it wants to spend its attention on for the next 12 hours. Even three years sober, it's a horrible experience. Back before I knew I had ADHD, I used to think hyper-focus was proof I didn't have it. I used to describe to my drug and alcohol counselor that I thought I was addicted to general dopamine. Anytime I was into a book, a show, a scientific principle, or anything my brain enjoyed thinking about, I would spend hours or days on it. I nearly got fired from my job for not answering my phone or showing up because I was nose deep in a book. Or I would stay up for 48 hours learning how to knit and be exhausted from it. My counselor was the one who informed me that hyper-focus was a thing in ADHD and got me to seek a diagnosis.

[celinefloresrob]

I'd love a more in-depth step-by-step on how you deal with not relying on hyperfocus, I have relied on hyperfocus in my life and always wondered why I got burned out so easily! Just diagnosed with ADHD at 28, so a lot of things are falling into place, but sometimes I hyperfocus so much and I have nothing else to work on so I end up using that to shop and surf the web for things I "need, " doesn't help my impulsive spending at all and it's so hard to stop myself. I just find myself hyper-focusing way more than I need to. As a mom, as well, I always get interrupted at home, so I can't hyperfocus to get tasks done anymore, I have to learn to how to stop in the middle of things and it's so hard. Thanks for all you do on this channel!

[Albinojackrussel]

In comparison to my ADHD friends I have an unusual amount of control over my hyperfocus. Not so much on how to drag it away, but to turn it on for "boring" tasks, so that's how I coped with my ADHD was fairly constant hyperfocus. I didn't know I had ADHD or what hyperfocus was, I just thought it was normal.

And as you said, that's not sustainable.

So I crashed and burned and didn't know why. And now I'm left with this gnawing feeling that any time I'm not in hyperfocus mode Im not doing enough.

[Katiedora]

I never realized how much I relied on hyperfocus to get things done when I was in school, till I grew up and realized how impossible it was to do that with my work/life schedule. I still get caught in it (usually with the less productive things), and the best way I can think to describe trying to get out of it is like when you get a gift card and you try to pull it off the paper backing. That glue might not leave a residue, but it is TOUGH and doesn't like to let go.

[toyube]

Some tips that work for me are:
1. Allow your hyperfocus....BUT prepare for it.
2. Set a timer. It's on you if you feel like using a snooze or not. (It's about that awareness that makes your attention move away for a bit, which allows you to set yourself back to reality.)
3. Allow yourself to use that four steps ahead thinking which ADHD is known for...
Example: If my timer goes off at 18:00 to make dinner and i am playing a videogame or reading a book, i will set myself small goals of what i want to do in that remaining time while playing that videogame. Or on how many pages i still want to read in that book before the timer goes off by 18:00. (aka four steps ahead)
4. If you feel anxious about the said timer going off while finishing that match or page. Allow yourself to finish it but immediately quit after.
5. BE KIND TO YOURSELF.

[hamhouke]

I’m 46 years old and have never been diagnosed. I didn’t really even know what ADHD was until recently. I am now realizing that I may have hyper-focused my way into divorce after 13 years of marriage to a woman I loved dearly. I’ve always referred to it as my “mad-scientist” mode and considered it a super-power. But now I am asking myself, “At what cost?”