Coping with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
See also: Understanding ADHD
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects behaviour. It is a lifelong condition: you cannot ‘get over’ or ‘grow out of’ ADHD, although you can learn to manage it. Given that the global prevalence of ADHD is thought to be somewhere between 5% and 10% of the population, this means that there are a lot of adults out there with the condition.
People with ADHD tend to find it hard to sit still, or concentrate for long periods. This is particularly hard for children to manage, because schools tend to require children to sit and concentrate—and there are very few alternatives. Adults with ADHD have an advantage because they can find work that better fits their skills and traits. However, they still need to find ways to cope with areas of life that they find difficult.
Living with ADHD
Some of the areas that may be challenging for adults with ADHD include:
Organisation and time management skills;
Following instructions, especially a long list;
Focusing on and finishing tasks;
Getting bored, and feeling restless or impatient a lot of the time;
Finding it hard to cope with stress; and
Being more likely to take risks, or act on impulse.
Fortunately, there is plenty of advice available about how to cope with these challenges, and it is possible to develop the skills required to do so.
Coping with ADHD
Strategies for coping with ADHD include:
1. Improving your organisation and time management skills
If organisation and time management are a particular issue for you, it is worth finding strategies that help.
For example, if you regularly forget to do something or are often late for things, you might try using reminders on your phone. Set one for 10 minutes before you need to leave, or when you need to do the task.
Making lists is a traditional way to get and stay organised—and you can either make paper lists or use your phone.
Also consider strategies that might help with particular tasks. For example, if you are very bad at responding to messages, have a rule that you reply immediately, or set aside half an hour each week to go through your messages and respond to any that you have not already sorted.
You may also find it helpful to time-limit organisational tasks. For example, don’t try to tidy a whole room in one go. Instead, set aside 30 minutes, and concentrate on one corner, or your desk, or a particular cupboard. Additionally, take out the bags of rubbish or donations to charity as you go, rather than leaving them all to the end.
You may find it helpful to read our pages on Time Management and Organising Skills for more ideas about how to get (and stay) organised and manage your time effectively.
2. Taking regular exercise
Exercising regularly will help you to release pent-up energy in a productive way, and therefore to concentrate better.
One very good option is to take some exercise on your way to and from work. For example, you might commute via bike, walking or running instead of driving or taking public transport. Alternatively, you could leave home earlier and go to the gym or for a swim on the way, if there is a convenient location. This will all help to ensure that you arrive at work ready for the day, rather than hyped up already.
You may also find that a walk or gym visit at lunchtime improves your concentration for the afternoon. Getting outside is generally helpful for overall health, particularly mental health.
Taking regular exercise will also help you to sleep better, avoiding one of the potential vicious cycles of ADHD.
There is more about this in our pages on The Importance of Exercise and What is Sleep?.
3. Eating a healthy diet
It is hard to over-emphasise the importance of eating well for overall health.
Your mind and body are definitely not separate entities. What you eat affects your physical and mental health, including your ability to concentrate. There is growing evidence about the importance of seeing your body as an overall system—and that includes your gut microbiome, all the microbes that live inside your gut and help to digest the food that you eat.
Eating well simply means eating a healthy, balanced diet with a wide variety of plant-based foods. It also means avoiding ultra-processed food as much as possible. That usually means that you need to prepare your own meals—but they don’t have to be complicated.
For more about this, you may be interested in our pages on food, diet and nutrition.
4. Trying some relaxation techniques such as meditation
Some people with ADHD report that relaxation techniques such as listening to music or meditation help them to focus.
This can be both a short-term and a long-term solution. For example, you might find that regular yoga sessions help you to feel more relaxed generally. However, a short mindfulness meditation may be useful to bring you back into the present and help you concentrate if you find yourself struggling during the day.
There is more about this in our pages on Relaxation Techniques, including both formal and informal options for helping you to relax.
5. Asking for adjustments at work or college, if there is something that would particularly help
Generally, ADHD is a condition for which employers and educational establishments are willing and able to make ‘reasonable adjustments’.
If there is something that you think would significantly help you to manage your work or study better, it is worth asking if it is possible.
For example, if getting up and walking around for 5 minutes every hour would help, that should be possible even in a call centre or similar environment. You can also get extra time in exams to enable you to take brief pauses to recover your concentration.
WARNING! ADHD may affect your ability to do things like drive
If your ADHD is very severe, and strongly affects your ability to concentrate, it may affect your ability to drive. It is worth talking to your doctor about this to make sure that you are safe.
6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
You are not alone.
It is true that the general understanding about ADHD in the population is fairly limited. As with autism, people tend to say things like “Oh, we’re all a little bit ADHD, aren’t we?”, or “I’ve heard ADHD doesn’t really exist”, or “No, girls can’t have ADHD, so that can’t be your problem”.
However, there is a growing network of people and organisations there to provide support to adults with ADHD. In the UK, a good starting point for advice and help is AADD-UK. This is a support organisation for adults with ADHD, and provides useful advice and information about important issues such as being at university, issues in the workplace, and relationships. You can find the organisation at https://aadduk.org/.
A Final Thought
Living with ADHD is always going to be challenging, at least to some extent.
However, at least as an adult you have some capacity to choose where and how you work, and to advocate for yourself when you need accommodations. Generally speaking, the evidence suggests that taking control of your life will be better for you than choosing to see yourself as a ‘victim’ of your circumstances. This page provides some ideas about how you might start to do so.