The Interest-based nervous system

🤔What if ADHD isn’t a deficit of attention?

⭐There is an assumption that with this 'condition' comes an inability to maintain attention, but this is not the case. 

⭐When fully engaged in a task, those with ADHD can focus in such a way that they can produce what might be days’ worth of work in just hours. They can have excellent focus on something of great interest, almost to the exclusion of everything else. 

⭐However, with periods of efficiency, comes periods where motivation is extremely hard, where tasks can feel almost physically painful to do.

⭐Motivation can be impacted significantly by elements such as knowing how to activate, mood, energy levels and understanding why a certain task is necessary. From an outward perspective this can appear like a choice and to the individual cause great frustration at the unpredictability of their own experience.

🧠 Dr William Dobson (a psychiatrist with a career spent specialising in ADHD) ascribed these differences in attention to what he termed the ADHD ‘interest based’ nervous system in contrast to the neurotypical ‘importance based’ nervous system. Those with ADHD appeared to be regulating emotions and attention in a different way.

🧠For neurotypical people and the importance based nervous system, getting engaged in a task is based on the rewards, consequences, significance of the task and its outcomes. They can rank tasks in order of importance and prioritise. Whilst being engaged and passionate about something certainly helps, it isn’t necessary to maintain engagement up until task completion.

🧠For those with an ADHD-like, interest-based nervous system, importance is not the source of motivation and figuring out what to  prioritise is a challenge. 

🧠This can be why implementing certain strategies doesn’t work. If the strategy is based on a neurotypical importance-based system, the likelihood is that its impact will be short term - or none at all. 

🧠There are 3 key elements to the interest based nervous system that provide the source of motivation for people with ADHD. Novelty, challenge, and urgency. Tapping into these elements are the key to productivity. 

This approach helps explain why ADHDers may passionately pick up hobbies (novelty) then suddenly lose interest, can explain why a task that is not challenging or too challenging can lead to inaction and procrastination and why leaving things until the very last minute can be super motivating (urgency)!

🧠This however, does present further challenges as what may be considered ‘interesting’ is subjective so a ‘one size fits all approach’ isn’t effective, there is no one generic answer for how ADHDers can activate their motivation. Another consideration is that, effective strategies can become old and lack novelty so may need to be adapted at a later date. 

🚀So, whilst previously it may have been considered that the ADHD nervous system was deficient in some way, this was due to a lack of understanding of its needs. A better way to think of it is in terms of difference. Will strategies developed for neurotypical people work? No or sometimes.. 

🔑Instead, the key is learning the rules of their unique nervous system to develop strategies and adaptions that work for them.

How can I feel more motivated?

Start to understand what activates you. Try looking back at times when you have been really motivated and identify, was this something fun, new and novel, was it just the right level of challenge or was it a tight deadline that got you moving?

Equally, reflect on times where you knew what you needed to do but couldn't activate. What was it about the task? And what could you have done to make it feel more novel/challenging or fun?