hyper-mindfulness and hyper-awareness is one of the best tools I've found to overcome them.
I think it's laughable, preposterous to call focus and flow a "disorder."
Whoever wants to call me being able to focus on a task at hand a disorder can stuff it up their butt.
by whose perspective?
But honestly, at least for me, the hyperfocus is not really that debilitating, it's the lack of being able to focus on anything mundane or boring, your mind will literally just not latch on and it's like pulling your hair out to continue to force yourself to try to mentally latch on.
This is where medicine comes in, specifically amphetamine based stimulants, which honestly are one of the real true success stories of modern mental health science. There are few other drugs in the mental health sector that have the efficacy of amphetamines and its ability to regulate the issues associated with ADD/ADHD.
So the problem with those of us that have attention disorders is our minds latch on hard to what we are interested in and just fog on the uninteresting parts. This leads to a few issues, one can be sloppiness, one just flubs over the details that they don't like, no follow thru is another big issue, so one starts a project does all the details they are interested in and then loses interest in the project. Avoidance of task until it becomes a big problem is another. As a note on the latter, for some tasks that one cannot focus on are almost physically painful and extremely stressful to even think about. Before I sought treatment a big one for me was just doing the dishes, I don't know what it is about dishes but I find it to be one of the most boring and mundane tasks you can do. So I would avoid it, until the sink hit critical mass, and then I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the sink and in the processes I would get distracted by every single little thing. What should have been a 30 minute job would stretch out 2 to 3 hours while I found every other thing I could to distract myself in the kitchen. The whole time, I knew the dishes needed to be done, I knew as they where stacking up it would be easier to just deal with them now, and it would be worse later, it caused me a lot of stress knowing it was building, but yet I was locked in this pattern each and every week yet my pathological behavior never changed.
Now back to the medicine, ADD/ADHD medicine provides those of us that suffer from it, with the ability to turn on and off focus as well as allows us to remain focused on more mundane tasks. When I am on my medicine it is like I have the ability to turn hyperfocus on and off, on whatever subject I want to, it becomes like a superpower as well I am able to break that focus as it is not so compulsive. As a contrast, now I can be extremely focused on a task, realize that I am getting eye or wrist strain remind myself that I need a break, get up walk over to the sink and wash a few dishes as an activity to do while I take a breather. Where off the medicine, I am extremely single task focused, and have to drive that task to completion, any distractions from that single task are almost physically painful and stressful to even think about.
The way I always explained it, is it's like taking a road trip where all you focus on is the destination, you dream about the destination, you speed to get to the destination, you don't get off any exits until you are so low on gas that you can't ignore it, but in the end the destination was far less interesting than the trip to get there but you missed all that, because all you could do is focus on getting to the destination. With medicine you can still be extremely focused on the destination but realize that the sign of the roadside oddities and emporium at the next exit actually looks pretty cool and might be worth a slight detour. It allows you to see opportunities along the trip and view the trip as an experience in and of itself.
Thanks for the write-up!
PSA: Look before you flush, it's actually not a bad way to gauge general health.
It's the closest you can get non-invasively to looking inside yourself.
Honest question: why? Are there studies that point to coloured urine as the cause of disease?
It's clear to me that coloured urine is associated with disease (since the body excretes waste products via urine), but not that it can be the cause of it.
Though I don't think that we should just blindly recreate our ancient habits.
I've been told by a few wise people to wait to drink until I'm done trekking, by the way.
I don't think we should blindly do anything, and abandonining millions of years of evolution and wisdom especially.
I'm not sure what distance we are talking about but doing any kind of sport (even light exercise) you should start to drink after at most 1 hour.
If drinking wasn't necessary, long distance runners or athletes of other endurance sports wouldn't drink. You need to stay hydrated or you'll face fatigue, muscle problems and generally perform worse.
Trained athletes will be able to drink much less but that is because their bodies are more efficient, they still need to hydrate for maximum performance. The 1 hour rule isn't set in stone and you can go 3-4 hours without drinking but it has many drawbacks.
I've tried out several different approaches many times, and the best I've learned is to wait to drink when resting, no sipping in between.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. YMMV.
Apparently, "drink when you're thirsty" does not work for me.
I drink some when I first wake up just so I don't forget to drink some, and if I'm exercising I drink a lot
On the subject of peeing, I've come to the conclusion that it's unhealthy to hold it in more than on the rare occasion, and I aim to pee within a few seconds of having the urge.
Actually, I believe it should be a human right to pee within 30 seconds of wanting to, and I'll do it, too.
I didn't claim anything to be bulletproof, just saying that your body tells you when it needs water and drinking in excess of that is probably unnecessary
Yes, and it's important to listen to it, and hear it. Some body signals are subtle, and you won't hear them unless you pay attention.
Headaches, migraines, and other unignorable signals are the body screaming for help after many other more subtle signals have been ignored.