Choose a Specialist
When you are lost in the sea of ADHD information -- you may want to consider what your definition of expert is. Many ADHD coaches have little or no clinical training. Many experts have financial ties to industry. I spent 6 years getting a Ph.D., 2 years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California San Francisco and 4 years as tenure-track assistant professor. I specialize in ADHD.
Most psychologists don't specialize in any disorder. They often use one treatment approach to treat many disorders. Just as medical doctors specialize, I have chosen to specialize in ADHD and Depression. I also use tools from many treatment approaches to solve these specific problems in contrast to therapists who use one theory and limited set of tools to treat all or most disorders. Many therapists define themselves by their treatment approach rather than the disorder they specialize in. For example, you may find a psychodynamic therapist, or a cognitive-behavioral therapist who treats most disorders with their treatment approach.
ADHD in a Global and Digital World
"The Gift Of ADHD" is brilliant, soulful, and insightful. Thank you for writing it!"
- Benny Rietveld - Grammy-winning bass player and Musical Director for Santana
“Dr. Lara Honos-Webb shows us how the demands of a global and digital culture may make the signature traits of ADD – inventiveness, need for stimulation, and interpersonal intuition – in high demand.” Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind
Learn to Bounce Back
If you have ADHD you may fail more than others. An inhibited person is not going to experience disappointment as much as an impulsive person because inhibition is in the service of avoiding rejection or failure.
ASK YOURSELF
How did I show boldness or take a calculated risk, and how can that serve me in the future?
What skills or lessons did I learn from this failure?
If there is a better opportunity for me, what might it be?
ADHD - Gift and Special Needs
My books have been out for 10 years now and recently someone said to me “I was diagnosed with ADHD back when people thought it was only a disorder so I still believe that sometimes.” I was immensely gratified that the “adding insult to injury” model is viewed as outdated but heartbroken at the toll it continues to take. Many people mistake my approach as saying that ADHD is not an impairment which is not true. It is a real brain difference that creates problems in environments particularly current educational settings.
COMING SOON
Top 38 Zip Tips for Overcoming ADHD
by Dr. Lara Honos-Webb and Grant Guess
1. Increase Attention by Decreasing Stress
Stress is a natural phenomenon. We become stressed when our well-being is being threatened. It can be negative, but it can also be positive.
Think back to the days of the cavemen. If you’re a caveman hunting a lion with a spear and the lion snaps your spear when you lunge it at him, you might get a little stressed that you are now unarmed in the midst of a 500 pound beast with razor sharp teeth that could crush you before the blink of an eye.
This is good stress. Your body produces adrenaline to help you think, “fight or flight,” because one could save your life and one could lose it. You could choose to pick up a rock and fight, or you could see a tree out of the corner of your eye and climb it, “flight” from the situation.
This stress is good because it allows you to think quickly about what is threatening you. Now imagine this same amount of stress as you, the caveman, are attempting to make an intricate bone and seashell infused necklace to give to your future cavewife a week later.
What if you were still stressed about the lion attack that you escaped by climbing a tree?Your creativity would most likely be non-existent, your hands would probably be shaking, and you wouldn’t be able to think deeply about what your wife prefers - buffalo teeth or conch shell rings - to add to the necklace, because your mind would be stressed out about the lion attack still.
Now, let’s say that you picked up the rock and killed the lion last week, and that you were not stressed about the attack because your story was told amongst the other cavemen and you were hoorahed for your bravery.
Now, you’re not worried at all about the attack, and you’re able to remember that your future cavewife loves buffalo teeth, and that she’s actually a big fan of rabbit feet too. Your creativity is able to operate at maximum capacity, and your hands are able to perfectly carve a heart in a sheet of deer skin due to your hands not shaking.
Okay, so that story may not be directly applicable to your Joe Smoe who works as a data engineer at IBM who’s fighting server crashes instead of lions, but it definitely has its parallels.
If Joe Shmoe is constantly worrying about a server crashing, he will not be able to focus on other issues that come up, such as his current project of designing a Yoda voice for IBM’s Watson. BUT, if he is not stressed about a server crashing because he knows that he has help to fix it or that the proper structures have been put in place to eliminate this, he can increase his attention on the task at hand - designing a Yoda voice for Watson, and then maybe move on to Samuel L. Jackson.
Our goals are often limited by what we see around us or what the people who surround us believe we are capable of. The value of going to a rocket launch is that it blows the lid off small minded goals. The rocket launch looks like a miracle but has another name – it’s called science. Many space cadets, myself included get discouraged easily. Seeing the rocket go after a scrubbed attempt 24 hours earlier reminded me --- don’t walk away when it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
The Power of the Ultimate Hard Stop.
How do you get yourself to finish a project you start? If you have a rocket to launch your deadline is inelastic. The stakes are high. It is not an option to say to NASA and SpaceX control--
“Houston, F9N2 thrusters are a no go, Clash of Clans called me to duty unexpectedly”.
Space X plans to create settlement on Mars offering one avenue of alternative resources, and option for survival of humans. Approximately 20% of humans have a “nomadic gene” essentially programming them for exploration of the known and unknown world in the service of finding essential resources. There is evidence that the diagnosis of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is in part an effect of having the nomadic gene. This means that 20% of the population is likely to be enthusiastic about the agenda to colonize Mars due to their genetic inheritance to explore, make a contribution to human welfare by finding and cultivating necessary resources for the benefit of survival for human species.
Listen to The Psychology of Going to Mars: An Interview with George HatcherLOVING SOMEONE WITH ADD
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