

OCD and ADHD often follow a chronic course with persistent rates of at least 40–50 %. The high comorbidity of ADHD and OCD with each other, especially of ADHD in paediatric OCD, is well described.
#Ocd hyperfocus tv#
Limit time watching TV or playing video games.Set goals for a project, and take a break when you reach one.A change in position can help you get out of it. Once you realize you’re in hyperfocus, move around.Set timers and alarms to so you know how long it’s been since you started an activity.Use mindfulness exercises to stay in the here and now. You can’t stop doing it if you don’t know it’s happening. It’s easy to get hyperfocused without realizing it. Don’t start anything you can get hyperfocused on close to bedtime or before you start something you’re likely to try to put off.Figure out what kinds of things you hyperfocus on.They do better in school because their high IQs help them get past the issues with learning that usually go along with the disorder, and their ability to hyperfocus can make it even harder to spot. It also can make it harder to diagnose ADHD, especially in kids considered gifted. But hyperfocus can cause conflicts with other people and problems at school or work.

No one’s going to mind if you spend hours solving math problems or painting the house.

It’s clear that if you have a project that needs your all, that you’re really interested in, or both, you can dig in and work until it’s done. You forget to eat or miss an important meeting. In adults, someone who’s hyperfocused might get caught up in work or tasks around the home. Or they could lose themselves in homework for a subject that they really enjoy. What Hyperfocus Looks likeĬhildren who are hyperfocused could be so busy playing a video game or watching TV that they don’t hear someone calling their name repeatedly. You may have trouble controlling how much attention you pay to something. You may find a certain task so rewarding that it’s hard to move on to something else.Īnother cause could be related to behavior.

Hyperfocus CausesĬhanges in your frontal lobe, the part of your brain that controls your sense of reward, can lead to hyperfocus. Video games, television, or social media can take up hours. Screen time seems to be a particularly easy way for someone to slip into hyperfocus. People with ADHD have trouble breaking out of it and switching their attention to something else. You shut out the rest of the world and even lose track of time. It’s when you become fully engaged in a challenging activity you enjoy. Just about anyone can get lost in something that interests them.Ī psychologist in the early 1990s came up with a concept called flow. People with ADHD aren’t the only ones who have hyperfocus. It found differences that could mean hyperfocus comes more naturally to people who have ADHD. One study looked at brain activity in people who were concentrating very hard. There’s not a lot of research into hyperfocus. You concentrate on something so hard that you lose track of everything else going on around you.ĭoctors often see hyperfocus in people who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but it’s not an official symptom. Hyperfocus is highly focused attention that lasts a long time.
