Now, that corporate taxes have all been filed (whaddaya mean you haven’t filed yet?), a great burden has been lifted.  Oh, sure, I still have a slew of personal taxes to compute and file for my clients, but about 2/3 of those needs are related to the corporate taxes we already filed.  So, the unknowns have been greatly attenuated.

And, as I wrote around the corporate D-day, I routinely have a few TV’s blaring away when I do all the computations.  All that noise (they are on different stations, so it would be difficult to focus on any given program) means I am absolutely devoted to the situation staring at me from my computer screen.

So, yeah, I’m sure I had/have/will always have some form of attention deficit disorder. (By the way, Jews whose families migrated shorter distances during our routine banishments from various countries are far less likely to manifest ADHD than those whose families traveled long distances.  Hmm. I can blame this on anti-Semitism?)   Even so, it doesn’t mean I can’t concentrate, nor does it mean I can’t be focused- it simply means that it’s easy for me to do a few things at once.  So, when I absolutely have to focus on one thing, I overload my senses with three or four extraneous inputs (my limit is somewhere between 2 and 3 things that I can simultaneously [at least to an outsider’s point of view] effect). 

And, as I have routinely said (here’s one blog post), I understand that I am not really multi-tasking, I’m time slicing.  In between the lull of speech, in between the time a computer screen changes, I can immediately switch to another item and back.

But, I grew up in an age when folks knew not of ADD or HD.  OK.  They knew that I was a busy kid, bored blankless in class, willing to do anything to get out of boredom.   But, labeling me as ADD or HD?  Nope.  (Now, my kids grew up in the era of labels; I helped them to develop their own coping methods to avoid the “pleasure” of being drugged to death.)

It also turns out that aerobic exercise may be better than drugs anyway.  As Drs. Patrick O’Connor and Kathryn Fritz (University of Georgia) reported in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise a few years ago, based on studying 32 young men (who manifested inattention or hyperactivity). 

On the first day, the subjects cycled for about 20 minutes and the second day they just sat on the cycle for 20 minutes.  Before and after each session, they were required to perform mental tasks that required their attention- and the researchers asked about their moods during the testing.

Now, the subjects all wore accelerometers on both ankles (lower leg movement was used to discern the level of hyperactivity).  And, the subjects reported they were more motivated to finish the 45 minute test after cycling. 

It turns out the 20 minute cycling session improved their moods for about 45 minutes.  But, the accelerometer indicated that they were still hyperkinetic.  Which may explain why other researchers found that longer exercise periods- and for longer durations- may afford longer, more sustained relief from ADHD symptoms.

Or, maybe it’s a sleep issue.  After all, data indicates that adults and children with ADHD have sleep disorders (apnea and/or difficulty falling or staying asleep).  Dr. Sandra Kooij  (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) reported  (European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Conference in Paris, 2017) found that melatonin levels took about 1.5 hours later to rise in those subjects manifesting ADHD.    That meshes with the findings of Dr. Karen Bonuck (and K. Freeman, RD Chervin, and L Xu of Albert Einstein, NY) who reported in Pediatrics that some 78% of those manifesting ADHD have delayed sleep phase (distorted circadian rhythms).   In the vernacular, it means these folks are often night owls, not falling asleep until 2 or 3 AM.  (You can see why I found this research.)  Oh, yeah- only 20% of regular folks, those who don’t manifest ADHD, have such sleep patterns.

But, let’s not forget.  A lot of ADHD folks do really well not only in school but in developing creative products.  (Yup, it’s not just me.)  This was the finding of Dr. Bonnie Cramond who studied kids with ADHD in Louisiana- and found that instead of falling behind in their studies, some 30+% qualified for an elite creative scholars program.

Given the hyperflash speed in which we seem to be living nowadays, maybe its time parents stop drugging the heck out of their kids and make the schools find ways to accommodate kids like me.  Who  can then probably turn out the best academic results.

Share this: