Stolen Focus

In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.

If we’re just frantically running around focusing on the external world exclusively, we miss the opportunity to let the brain digest what’s been going on

‘Creativity is not [where you create] some new thing that’s emerged from your brain,’ Nathan told me. ‘It’s a new association between two things that were already there.’ Mind-wandering allows ‘more extended trains of thought to unfold, which allows for more associations to be made.’

the more you let your mind wander, the better you are at having organised personal goals, being creative, and making patient, long-term decisions. You will be able to do these things better if you let your mind drift, and slowly, unconsciously, make sense of your life.

Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.”

Parenting takes place in an environment—and if that environment floods parents with stress, it will inevitably affect their children.

He explained that when you’re very young, if you get upset or angry, you need an adult to soothe you and calm you down. Over time, as you grow up, if you are soothed enough, you learn to soothe yourself. You internalize the reassurance and relaxation your family gave to you. But stressed-out parents, through no fault of their own, find it harder to soothe their children—because they are so amped-up themselves. That means that their children don’t learn how to calm and center themselves in the same way. Their kids are, as a result, more likely to respond to difficult situations by getting angry or distressed—feelings that wreck their focus.

Alan told me, and a crucial factor was “the amount of chaos in the environment.” If a child is raised in an environment where there is a lot of stress, they are significantly more likely to then develop attention problems and be diagnosed with ADHD. It turns out that the
elevated levels of stress in their parents’ lives usually came first. He told me: “You could see it unfolding.”

All you are saying, when a child has been diagnosed with ADHD, is that a child is struggling to focus. “It doesn’t tell you anything about the ‘why’ question.” It’s like being told that a child has a cough, listening to the cough, and then saying “yes, the child has a cough.” If a doctor identifies a child with attention problems, that should be the first step in the process—not the last.

“ADHD is not a diagnosis. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s just a description of certain behaviors that sometimes occur together. That’s all it is.”