Aa
Daydreaming a lot
I'm not too sure if what I have is ADD or not but I have been daydreaming uncontrollably for years. I am now a freshman in college and still keep daydreaming. Whenever I want to concentrate in my classes trying to listen to instructions no matter how hard I try I will start daydreaming and before I know it I miss out on the instructions figuring out I've been daydreaming to late. My daydreaming is mostly fantasies and it also keeps me up when I try to sleep. I didn't care enough in high school because I enjoyed daydreaming but now that I'm in college I feel like I need to stop but I just don't know how.
Read "Scattered Minds" by Dr Gabor Mate.
No.1 if you can read the book you don't have it. 2. Once you read what's in that book you can not not know if you have it or not. You will either think it sounds like your own life or you won't.
No.1 if you can read the book you don't have it. 2. Once you read what's in that book you can not not know if you have it or not. You will either think it sounds like your own life or you won't.
COMMUNITY LEADER
Ok, this is the article I was trying to send you on fidgeting strategies.
It is By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. and from a site that I am not allowed to mention.
We’re taught that we need to sit still and focus on one thing when we’re studying, writing, working or engaging in other activities.
But for people with ADHD those things usually don’t work. They’re especially ineffective when they need to focus on tedious or mundane tasks. People with ADHD often work best when they’re doing something else, too.
In their book Fidget to Focus: Outwit Your Boredom: Sensory Strategies for Living with ADHD authors Roland Rotz, Ph.D, and Sarah D. Wright, MS, ACT, share a variety of practical tools, which have helped their clients, support group members and others with ADHD.
According to the authors, “Fidgets are simultaneous sensory-motor stimulation strategies — the four S’s. If something we are engaged in is not interesting enough to sustain our focus, the additional sensory-motor input that is mildly stimulating, interesting, or entertaining allows our brains to become fully engaged and allows us to sustain focus on the primary activity in which we are participating.”
For instance, one college student with ADHD read while standing up or walking around. He also read aloud in the park. A wife with ADHD started taking morning walks with her husband because it helped her focus on their conversations. A man with ADHD started listening to a tape with white noise while he worked on washing and waxing cars. After a month, his income increased by 25 percent. An ER doctor with ADHD found that chewing gum improved his focus.
An effective fidget is both respectful to others — it’s not distracting to them — and arousing enough to activate the brain to sustain interest where it couldn’t before. Different tasks will require different fidgets. It’s important to pick fidgets that don’t compete with the task.
Rotz and Wright list the fidgets based on modality — everything from visual fidgets to auditory ones. Below are examples for each modality from their book Fidget to Focus.
Sight
Visual fidgets are all about noticing details in your surroundings or watching something while performing the task. These include:
Using colorful tools, such as bright folders, highlighters or pens
Watching a fish tank or water
Glancing out the window
Looking at the flame in a fireplace
Sound
These fidgets include listening to something while you’re performing tasks such as reading or talking.
Listening to music, such as classical music or jazz, or rhythmic beats
Whistling, humming or singing
Listening to a ticking clock
Hearing background noise, such as traffic
Movement
These tips involve moving your body while you’re trying to focus on tasks such as studying or listening.
Exercising, such as walking, jogging or bike riding
Swiveling in a chair
Rocking or fidgeting
Standing
Pacing
Wiggling your toes
Tapping a pen
Touch
These strategies involve holding, feeling or handling something while you’re talking or listening.
Using fidget toys, such as balls or a Slinky
Playing with your hair
Fiddling with your keys
Taking notes
Doodling
Knitting
Playing with paper
Mouth
These fidgets can help while reading and working.
Chewing gum
Sipping coffee or water
Biting your cheek or lips
Taste
These tips use textures, flavors and temperatures of foods and beverages to help you better focus on reading, listening and working.
Eating or licking different flavors, such as salty, sour or spicy foods (like hot peppers)
Drinking hot beverages, such as tea, or cold ones, such as ice water
Eating chewy snacks
Smell
Strategies that involve the sense of smell aren’t used as much as the ones above. But because it’s linked to the emotional center of the brain our sense of smell can trigger emotional reactions, “which are themselves stimulation strategies.”
Scented candles
Incense
Aromatherapy
Freshly baked foods like cinnamon rolls (yum!)
Rotz and Wright stress the importance of giving yourself permission to fidget without shame, and finding the unique strategies that work for you.
It is By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. and from a site that I am not allowed to mention.
We’re taught that we need to sit still and focus on one thing when we’re studying, writing, working or engaging in other activities.
But for people with ADHD those things usually don’t work. They’re especially ineffective when they need to focus on tedious or mundane tasks. People with ADHD often work best when they’re doing something else, too.
In their book Fidget to Focus: Outwit Your Boredom: Sensory Strategies for Living with ADHD authors Roland Rotz, Ph.D, and Sarah D. Wright, MS, ACT, share a variety of practical tools, which have helped their clients, support group members and others with ADHD.
According to the authors, “Fidgets are simultaneous sensory-motor stimulation strategies — the four S’s. If something we are engaged in is not interesting enough to sustain our focus, the additional sensory-motor input that is mildly stimulating, interesting, or entertaining allows our brains to become fully engaged and allows us to sustain focus on the primary activity in which we are participating.”
For instance, one college student with ADHD read while standing up or walking around. He also read aloud in the park. A wife with ADHD started taking morning walks with her husband because it helped her focus on their conversations. A man with ADHD started listening to a tape with white noise while he worked on washing and waxing cars. After a month, his income increased by 25 percent. An ER doctor with ADHD found that chewing gum improved his focus.
An effective fidget is both respectful to others — it’s not distracting to them — and arousing enough to activate the brain to sustain interest where it couldn’t before. Different tasks will require different fidgets. It’s important to pick fidgets that don’t compete with the task.
Rotz and Wright list the fidgets based on modality — everything from visual fidgets to auditory ones. Below are examples for each modality from their book Fidget to Focus.
Sight
Visual fidgets are all about noticing details in your surroundings or watching something while performing the task. These include:
Using colorful tools, such as bright folders, highlighters or pens
Watching a fish tank or water
Glancing out the window
Looking at the flame in a fireplace
Sound
These fidgets include listening to something while you’re performing tasks such as reading or talking.
Listening to music, such as classical music or jazz, or rhythmic beats
Whistling, humming or singing
Listening to a ticking clock
Hearing background noise, such as traffic
Movement
These tips involve moving your body while you’re trying to focus on tasks such as studying or listening.
Exercising, such as walking, jogging or bike riding
Swiveling in a chair
Rocking or fidgeting
Standing
Pacing
Wiggling your toes
Tapping a pen
Touch
These strategies involve holding, feeling or handling something while you’re talking or listening.
Using fidget toys, such as balls or a Slinky
Playing with your hair
Fiddling with your keys
Taking notes
Doodling
Knitting
Playing with paper
Mouth
These fidgets can help while reading and working.
Chewing gum
Sipping coffee or water
Biting your cheek or lips
Taste
These tips use textures, flavors and temperatures of foods and beverages to help you better focus on reading, listening and working.
Eating or licking different flavors, such as salty, sour or spicy foods (like hot peppers)
Drinking hot beverages, such as tea, or cold ones, such as ice water
Eating chewy snacks
Smell
Strategies that involve the sense of smell aren’t used as much as the ones above. But because it’s linked to the emotional center of the brain our sense of smell can trigger emotional reactions, “which are themselves stimulation strategies.”
Scented candles
Incense
Aromatherapy
Freshly baked foods like cinnamon rolls (yum!)
Rotz and Wright stress the importance of giving yourself permission to fidget without shame, and finding the unique strategies that work for you.
COMMUNITY LEADER
Double opps. The second link should be - http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/8394.html
COMMUNITY LEADER
Well, daydreaming or inability to concentrate is certainly one sign of ADD or ADHD. It might be worth your time to check out the following link and if it seems possible that you have ADD, you talk with your own doctor or college counselor. It is very possible that a small amount of medication at the right time could make a big difference for you. Here is the link - http://www.help4adhd.org/en/treatment/guides/WWK9
Next, there are some things that you could try. Notetaking forces you to pay attention. But, just notetaking is boring. Do it with pictures, doodles, 4 letter words, anything that you can add to the process to make it more interesting or different. Of course, you could always tape the sessions and then listen to them as you move around later in the day.
Actually fidgeting is an important way to get your mind off of its daydreaming. Here is a very good link on ways to do so.
http://************.com/blog/archives/2014/03/29/fidgeting-strategies-that-help-people-with-adhd-focus/
And this also has some ideas that might help you - http://************.com/blog/archives/2014/03/29/fidgeting-strategies-that-help-people-with-adhd-focus/
Hope this helps. If you have questions, please post.
Next, there are some things that you could try. Notetaking forces you to pay attention. But, just notetaking is boring. Do it with pictures, doodles, 4 letter words, anything that you can add to the process to make it more interesting or different. Of course, you could always tape the sessions and then listen to them as you move around later in the day.
Actually fidgeting is an important way to get your mind off of its daydreaming. Here is a very good link on ways to do so.
http://************.com/blog/archives/2014/03/29/fidgeting-strategies-that-help-people-with-adhd-focus/
And this also has some ideas that might help you - http://************.com/blog/archives/2014/03/29/fidgeting-strategies-that-help-people-with-adhd-focus/
Hope this helps. If you have questions, please post.
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