What Drives Your ADHD Brain to Change the Subject?
Understanding the Urge to Shift Focus and How to Manage It
How often do you unintentionally ‘tab away’ from what you’re doing? Maybe you’re reading or working on something on your computer, and you literally switch to another tab. Maybe you’re in a conversation, and you pull out your phone while they’re talking.
At my worst, every time I try to re-engage with the first tab, I just keep opening new tabs. I have literally had a browser with alternating Reddit, Instagram, Imgur, Facebook, Instagram, Imgur, Imgur tabs all in a row, all still at the top of the scroll.
While these are bad habits, non-productive or downright rude, they’re the canary in the coal mine. Your ‘change the topic’ behavior is an obvious indicator of your engagement in the task you had intended to do.
The trick is noticing the behavior, followed by the trick of how to actually engage in the original task successfully.
Why do we “change the subject?”
Last weekend, I was visiting the in-laws to celebrate a birthday. As they were setting up the table, my in-laws were bickering about setting up the umbrella for the table. It was very low-key and passive-aggressive. Somehow I hit my limit, I wandered into the yard away from everyone and just scrolled on my phone. I couldn’t engage, so I disengaged.
There are several reasons you might be changing it up, but fundamentally it’s your brain looking for an easy hit of dopamine. You’re likely either bored or overwhelmed by the original task. You’re not getting any dopamine, so it loses you.
Doing things we’re told to do is devoid of intrinsic motivation, so you have no interest.
Responsibilities you’ve done before aren’t novel, leaving you disengaged.
Interacting with people that bore you, or talking about a topic that makes you feel uncomfortable, actually drains you.
Having a literal shortage of dopamine in your brain kills your ability to concentrate, so you have to find an alternative source of stimulation.
What can we do about it?
Obviously, you know one thing, change the channel. That isn’t really the right answer though, if we just keep disengaging then we’ll never do the task, we’ll annoy our friends and end up alone.
Your mission is to find stimulation sources that you can bring into the task. It’s why ADHD brains are leg bouncing, headphone wearing, fidget spinning maniacs.
As I write this post, one leg is bouncing, the other crossed in my lap. I have Google Music cranking ‘motivational music’ through noise-canceling headphones, along with a brown noise generator and a binaural beat generator. My wife would throw my headphones across the room if she put them on.
When you’re going to be in a social situation, bring something physical that you can fidget with. My favorites are either small cube fidget spinners or a brass ‘stoic’ coin, it’s got something to read, it has tons of texture, and it has a nice heft to it. I can keep my hands busy without it being too distracting.
When you’re trying to be doing things on the computer, crank music. Look into using a service like mynoise.net, brown noise fills in the blanks around my music and helps my tinnitus be less annoying.
Additionally, if you’re like me, it’s nice to have air movement, so I have a small USB powered fan that is blowing air ‘near’ me.
The key is to have things happening around you that aren’t distracting, just enough to let your brain get some sort of dopamine without you having to switch.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Sometimes we just shouldn’t be working on that thing. Be honest with yourself and ask, is doing this thing right now the best use of my time? Is my brain in a good place to do this?
Sometimes it’s just part of our natural ‘rhythm.’ Track when your energy level changes, or times when you just can’t stay focused. If you can figure out your patterns then you can adapt your schedule.
Think of it as a problem to solve, ADHD brains love that stuff. Figuring out what stimulation works for you for the different situations is all part of your journey.
Remember that having ADHD means learning about forgiveness, of yourself and others. It’s ok if sometimes you just can’t work on something.
This is one of the best descriptions of the interest-based nervous system I've ever heard - "Doing things we’re told to do is devoid of intrinsic motivation, so you have no interest. Responsibilities you’ve done before aren’t novel, leaving you disengaged."