Am I developing ADD?

August 1, 2006 2:00 PM

How should I spend my time on my upcoming 10 day vacation?

When I'm not jumping from one work task to another, I spend a lot of time online, jumping from one website to another, reading snippets of for the most part un-related information from a variety of sources - news sites, metafilter, stock message boards, sports articles, and various blogs.

Now I find that I have trouble staying focused on anything in particular, unless I'm really engrossed. I haven't finished reading a book (other than kids books) in years. Am I developing ADD, as I can no longer stay focused / immersed in a particular subject for any reasonable length of time?

posted by indigo4963 to health & fitness (8 comments total)

It's recently been suggested that attention deficit trait can be induced by environment, but it differs from ADD in that it goes away in a different environment.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 2:12 PM on August 1, 2006

I recommend going someplace calm, and don't bring a laptop or blackberry or anything. Go hiking, or go for a long bike ride, go snorkeling, just do something outdoors.
posted by Mister_A at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2006

Don't worry, you'll get over this, but it takes time. I'd been working a project management job for a few years, which is ADD as a profession. I left the company and went traveling in Europe for 6 months with my wife. It was about 3 weeks before I suddenly felt my mind clear up. You don't realize how tightly wound up you can get, and how unfocused you become. Try to take a big long vacation, away from all this stuff.
posted by fcain at 2:39 PM on August 1, 2006

Just get away from your computer/cell phone/blackberry and travel. That should fix the problem. I don't even think it has to be a calm place. Just a place where you're not around your computer and cell phone/blackberry all the time.
posted by einarorn at 2:52 PM on August 1, 2006

This is like the Human Condition 2.0, isn't it?

I feel ya.
posted by xmutex at 4:36 PM on August 1, 2006

The last time I truly felt I got away from the distractions was a holiday in Thailand. I bought a very long book I'd been putting off for ages, Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy", and sat on the beach every day at the same time under the same umbrella and just read.

I spend a lot of my day reading -- websites, emails, my Palm, messages on the mobile phone, but it's part of the problem that you read 300 very short unconnected passages of text every day.

Settling down to read one single uninterrupted 600-page text (which was a lot of fun, by the way) really helped calm my brain down.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:37 PM on August 1, 2006

Real, hot breakfast --> Physical exertion till slightly past comfortably tired (6 - 8 hours) --> Major perspiration --> Long bath or shower --> NSAIDS & Booze 'til comfortably buzzed --> First rate, but simple dinner --> Nightcap & light movement (dancing, short walk, swim, or hot tub, as you choose and have available) --> Bed (10 hours)

X3 or X4 repetitions as needed to unwind throughly. Day 2 and Day 3 may expose aches and pains, but push through steadily, take enough NSAIDS, and be careful not to strain anything seriously.

By end of Day 4 your central nervous system will have been getting all kinds of new sensory information for several quotidian cycles, have been operating your body extensively, and have been enjoying fatigued sleep for several nights. You will have a full systems reset. You'll know this has happened when a sense of diffuse well-being floods through you.

Days 5 -10 back down on the exertion and the booze, but have fun, and don't look at a computer.
posted by paulsc at 6:41 PM on August 1, 2006 [3 favorites]

thanks for all the responses. I'm happily surprised (and perhaps dismayed) to find so many in the same boat as me. Especially after when looking at other sites that link to that article on news.com (that I couldn't reach for some reason).

I hope to involve daily physical exertion on my trip, though not 6-8 hours. And I suppose I'll try doing a whole lotta nothing. Or perhaps just reading a book.
posted by indigo4963 at 8:32 AM on August 2, 2006