![]() “The best way to deal with it is not to fight it, but to harness it.” Here’s how: “Hyperfocus can truly be a superpower when harnessed well but can also be a potential liability if left unchecked,” says O’Shea. Like anything, hyperfocus can be both an asset and a drawback. In fact, enough ADHDers experience hyperfocus that some experts believe it should be included as part of the criteria for a diagnosis. Saline and Ciardiello both say it’s pretty common. O’Shea notes that not all people with ADHD experience it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of research on hyperfocus in ADHD, so it’s unclear how prevalent it is. This difficulty tends to be extreme - you’re either easily distracted or you focus for excessively long periods of time. Hyperfocus makes it pretty clear that ADHD causes difficulty when it comes to adjusting and controlling attention. While that’s certainly a part of it, limited attention is only a part of the picture. Hyperfocus is an admittedly rather strange symptom of ADHD - because most people think ADHD is all about having a short attention span. How Common Is Hyperfocus in People With ADHD? But the researchers also found that the more ADHD symptoms a person had, the higher their hyperfocus score tended to be. “The more engrossed you are in an activity, the more dopamine that may get released into your brain and the easier it becomes to work on that task,” she explains.Ī study in the journal ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and republished in Frontiers for Young Minds found that ADHDers had higher hyperfocus scores than people without ADHD. It gives our brains the drive to do a task and rewards us with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure when we finish. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that contributes to motivation, arousal and executive functioning. What Causes Hyperfocus?Įxperts believe that hyperfocus happens because of lower levels of dopamine in the brain than normal, says O’Shea. When you’re in hyperfocus, “time falls away and the task at hand becomes the only point of attention,” she explains. With flow, you can work for an hour and then switch your focus to take a break. But it doesn’t cause you to lose time and there’s still an awareness there. Anyone, with or without ADHD, can experience flow. Saline calls this “flow” and she says it’s not the same as hyperfocus. Pretty much everyone can say that they have experienced being “in the zone” at one time or another. “In a way, hyperfocus is like sustained attention on steroids,” she says. This is what Saline calls “productive hyperfocus,” and it’s the opposite of scrolling for hours. But it can also happen when you’re trying to meet a deadline or work through a task you find boring, according to Susan Ciardiello, Ph.D., LCSW, an ADHD coach and psychotherapist. ![]() Usually, hyperfocus happens when you’re doing an activity that you find fun or interesting, explains Sharon Saline, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist, author and speaker. And if you get interrupted, you may be irritated or grumpy. “It’s when you are completely engrossed in a task to the point where everything else gets blocked out.” When you’re experiencing hyperfocus, it’s difficult to switch your attention to other tasks. ![]() “Hyperfocus is like tunnel vision,” says Lindsay O’Shea, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who helps people manage ADHD symptoms, anxiety, and improve their self-esteem. Until I was diagnosed with ADHD, I didn’t know that this phenomenon wasn’t “normal,” or that it actually has a name: hyperfocus. This happens with other activities too, such as doing taxes or scrolling through social media. Occasionally I forget to eat or even get out of my chair to move around. I can spend hours burrowing into site after site on my knowledge quests. Whenever I do online research, whether it’s for personal or work purposes, I lose track of time.
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