If you had an unlimited supply of executive functioning energy to manage bouncing from channel to channel, you could probably push through.

So you may be plugging away on that report, but an idea to look into that new speaker you wanted to buy for your sound system pops into your head, and poof- all focus is lost.īut if the struggle were just about having too many channels going or getting sidetracked, even that wouldn’t be so bad. So when a new channel on your brain’s TV turns on- it’s new and therefore instantly shiny and your brain is naturally drawing to it. This means that anything new, anything that’s shiny and exciting, will naturally draw attention. But, what makes it extra challenging for ADHD brains is that an ADHD brain is motivated by novelty. When each internal and external distraction is another channel on your TV’s lineup, trying to focus on the important channel is hard enough. Each and everything clamoring for your attention is like an additional channel being added to the mix. But today’s world includes so many external distractions it’s enough to make me dizzy just thinking about: email notifications, phone calls, text messages, push notifications (and that’s just from your phone!). Now, that 20 channel TV would be hard enough just with all the thoughts and feelings and impulses that pop up. It’s a lot going on and it makes it really hard to absorb any information on one particular channel. It's like a TV playing 20 channels at once, at various volumes and intensities. And unlike a neurotypical brain that has a mechanism to hone in on one thing and tune the rest out, the ADHD brain doesn’t have a way of filtering out all the information that’s not relevant to the task. This means it’s being constantly bombarded with stimulation from both outside (the environment) and inside (thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc.).

ADHD brains lack a filter for all the information that comes into them.

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