What is it and why does the body do it? It seems like the mind is telling the person to do something but one cannot get themselves to actually do it.
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The correct term is “executive dysfunction”, but as for the “why”, I don’t know. The way I describe the sensation is that it’s almost akin to inertia: all normal matter has mass, and a physical property of mass is that it has inertia relative to its mass. When something has a lot of mass, it’s difficult to change its velocity, meaning it’s hard both to speed it up and to slow it down. Similarly, when someone has ADHD it can be harder for them to change what they are doing, both to begin a new thing they wish to start, or to quit the current thing they wish to stop. In this way executive dysfunction can be like having increased inertia. I have found that some medications help me with this, but as with most things in the ADHD world, your mileage may vary.
The correct term is “executive dysfunction”, but as for the “why”, I don’t know. The way I describe the sensation is that it’s almost akin to inertia: all normal matter has mass, and a physical property of mass is that it has inertia relative to its mass. When something has a lot of mass, it’s difficult to change its velocity, meaning it’s hard both to speed it up and to slow it down. Similarly, when someone has ADHD it can be harder for them to change what they are doing, both to begin a new thing they wish to start, or to quit the current thing they wish to stop. In this way executive dysfunction can be like having increased inertia. I have found that some medications help me with this, but as with most things in the ADHD world, your mileage may vary.
When everything you need to do feels like the same amount of effort as climbing a mountain, there are going to be a lot of days where there’s not enough motivation in the tank to do those tasks.
Pressure or fear (such as a looming deadline or giant consequences that are immediate and understandable) can force you up the mountain, but instead of the leisurely hike it should have been, it becomes a mad scramble. This causes a significant amount of unnecessary hardship and is very unpleasant.
Basically, you let a bear chase you up the mountain because without it you’ll sit at the bottom forever.
Medication flattens the mountains into nice little hills, which means the motivation you have in the tank is now sufficient to get you up the hills without having to be chased by a bear.
When everything you need to do feels like the same amount of effort as climbing a mountain, there are going to be a lot of days where there’s not enough motivation in the tank to do those tasks.
Pressure or fear (such as a looming deadline or giant consequences that are immediate and understandable) can force you up the mountain, but instead of the leisurely hike it should have been, it becomes a mad scramble. This causes a significant amount of unnecessary hardship and is very unpleasant.
Basically, you let a bear chase you up the mountain because without it you’ll sit at the bottom forever.
Medication flattens the mountains into nice little hills, which means the motivation you have in the tank is now sufficient to get you up the hills without having to be chased by a bear.
When everything you need to do feels like the same amount of effort as climbing a mountain, there are going to be a lot of days where there’s not enough motivation in the tank to do those tasks.
Pressure or fear (such as a looming deadline or giant consequences that are immediate and understandable) can force you up the mountain, but instead of the leisurely hike it should have been, it becomes a mad scramble. This causes a significant amount of unnecessary hardship and is very unpleasant.
Basically, you let a bear chase you up the mountain because without it you’ll sit at the bottom forever.
Medication flattens the mountains into nice little hills, which means the motivation you have in the tank is now sufficient to get you up the hills without having to be chased by a bear.
I can only explain what works for me and how I see it (trust me, I think like a 5yo)
Your brain is trying to preserve your energy. It’s telling you it’s hard and not worth doing – so usually you do something easy that makes you happier in the moment. You scroll Reddit for 3 hours and get the dopamine (happy fuel) and your brain wins. It’s a survival instinct to get you to invest your time on easy stuff that makes you happy in the short term.
A caveman version of you would look at a nice fat goat at the top of a mountain and decide it’s too much work so you eat the berrys in the bush beside you. And you spend less energy and still survive. It doesn’t work this way in modern life with all the other sources of quick gratification.
The key is realizing that your brain is tricking you into not doing things that will actually benefit you greatly in the long term. So there’s two things you need to do: 1) stop feeding it easy dopamine (social media, video games, whatever) 2) pick a small step towards climbing the mountain and do it. Don’t overthink, just count to 3 and start.
Ex: you have to write a 1000 page term paper. Sounds like a ton of work and you’ll never finish today. Brain says fuggit – open your phone. You say nope: I don’t open my phone because I’m not feeding you some weak ass dopamine. The only thing I need to do is write the title. You count to three: 1,2,3. Open your laptop and just write the title. Believe it or not: you’ll get a dopamine hit from this and you’ll likely dive in.
When you’re done: don’t binge on your phone. Sit in silence for a few minutes and think of one more small step you need for another task.
Dishes piled up? I’m just going to fill the sink- to hell with washing them. 1,2,3 fill the sink – try it…I bet you finish the dishes too.
I can only explain what works for me and how I see it (trust me, I think like a 5yo)
Your brain is trying to preserve your energy. It’s telling you it’s hard and not worth doing – so usually you do something easy that makes you happier in the moment. You scroll Reddit for 3 hours and get the dopamine (happy fuel) and your brain wins. It’s a survival instinct to get you to invest your time on easy stuff that makes you happy in the short term.
A caveman version of you would look at a nice fat goat at the top of a mountain and decide it’s too much work so you eat the berrys in the bush beside you. And you spend less energy and still survive. It doesn’t work this way in modern life with all the other sources of quick gratification.
The key is realizing that your brain is tricking you into not doing things that will actually benefit you greatly in the long term. So there’s two things you need to do: 1) stop feeding it easy dopamine (social media, video games, whatever) 2) pick a small step towards climbing the mountain and do it. Don’t overthink, just count to 3 and start.
Ex: you have to write a 1000 page term paper. Sounds like a ton of work and you’ll never finish today. Brain says fuggit – open your phone. You say nope: I don’t open my phone because I’m not feeding you some weak ass dopamine. The only thing I need to do is write the title. You count to three: 1,2,3. Open your laptop and just write the title. Believe it or not: you’ll get a dopamine hit from this and you’ll likely dive in.
When you’re done: don’t binge on your phone. Sit in silence for a few minutes and think of one more small step you need for another task.
Dishes piled up? I’m just going to fill the sink- to hell with washing them. 1,2,3 fill the sink – try it…I bet you finish the dishes too.
The correct term is “executive dysfunction”, but as for the “why”, I don’t know. The way I describe the sensation is that it’s almost akin to inertia: all normal matter has mass, and a physical property of mass is that it has inertia relative to its mass. When something has a lot of mass, it’s difficult to change its velocity, meaning it’s hard both to speed it up and to slow it down. Similarly, when someone has ADHD it can be harder for them to change what they are doing, both to begin a new thing they wish to start, or to quit the current thing they wish to stop. In this way executive dysfunction can be like having increased inertia. I have found that some medications help me with this, but as with most things in the ADHD world, your mileage may vary.
I can only explain what works for me and how I see it (trust me, I think like a 5yo)
Your brain is trying to preserve your energy. It’s telling you it’s hard and not worth doing – so usually you do something easy that makes you happier in the moment. You scroll Reddit for 3 hours and get the dopamine (happy fuel) and your brain wins. It’s a survival instinct to get you to invest your time on easy stuff that makes you happy in the short term.
A caveman version of you would look at a nice fat goat at the top of a mountain and decide it’s too much work so you eat the berrys in the bush beside you. And you spend less energy and still survive. It doesn’t work this way in modern life with all the other sources of quick gratification.
The key is realizing that your brain is tricking you into not doing things that will actually benefit you greatly in the long term. So there’s two things you need to do: 1) stop feeding it easy dopamine (social media, video games, whatever) 2) pick a small step towards climbing the mountain and do it. Don’t overthink, just count to 3 and start.
Ex: you have to write a 1000 page term paper. Sounds like a ton of work and you’ll never finish today. Brain says fuggit – open your phone. You say nope: I don’t open my phone because I’m not feeding you some weak ass dopamine. The only thing I need to do is write the title. You count to three: 1,2,3. Open your laptop and just write the title. Believe it or not: you’ll get a dopamine hit from this and you’ll likely dive in.
When you’re done: don’t binge on your phone. Sit in silence for a few minutes and think of one more small step you need for another task.
Dishes piled up? I’m just going to fill the sink- to hell with washing them. 1,2,3 fill the sink – try it…I bet you finish the dishes too.
I want to do the thing, but I won’t, couldn’t tell you why. But I sure can find something that feels much simpler to do to feed the little mind goblin that makes my brain happy, so that’s what I will do instead
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