Updated June 13, 2014.
Do you ever find that you seek a high level of stimulation? Do you feel that life sometimes seems just plain hum drum and dull without it? When you are involved in this excitement, life feels good -- you feel good. Later when you look back, you may wonder about this especially if you find that the stimulation you seek tends to be dangerous or self-destructive.
Edward Hallowell, MD and John Ratey, MD, bestselling authors and ADHD experts, address this issue in their book, Delivered From Distraction.
They explain that there are some types of ADD that create an “itch” deep inside an individual. The problem occurs when an individual attempts to relieve the itch by engaging in reckless, negative behaviors.
Sometimes individuals with ADD don’t like the way they feel inside. The feeling is hard to describe. It may feel like being off kilter or bored or unsatisfied. In order to change this feeling, they must act. All rational thought is tossed aside and impulsivity takes over. Why is this?
Hallowell and Ratey explain it may be that based on an inherited pattern of neurotransmitters, receptors, and carrier molecules, some individuals with ADD are not able to feel pleasure in the ordinary ways most people can. Instead they must find this feeling by extraordinary means.
Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters acting within the brain to help regulate movement and emotion, particularly pleasure. “Anything that gives you a squirt of dopamine tends to make you feel good,” write Hallowell and Ratey.
Activities that release dopamine within the brain include these high risk, maladaptive behaviors.
Luckily there are other ways of releasing dopamine –- activities that are more productive, less risky, and less dangerous. The trick is coming up with a plan to substitute these positive outlets for the negative ones when you begin to feel the itch.
While this is often easier said than done, setting up a plan and developing adaptive habits can help. Exercise and finding creative outlets are two great ways help scratch the inch. Stable, positive connections with others, a rewarding and stimulating job, ADD medications and for some, meditation and prayer also works.
All people vary in the ability to feel pleasure given a certain stimulus, but as Hallowell and Ratey note -- it is how you find pleasure in life that is one of the key determinants of health and success.
Source:
Edward Hallowell, MD and John Ratey, MD. Delivered from Distraction. Ballantine. 2006.
Do you ever find that you seek a high level of stimulation? Do you feel that life sometimes seems just plain hum drum and dull without it? When you are involved in this excitement, life feels good -- you feel good. Later when you look back, you may wonder about this especially if you find that the stimulation you seek tends to be dangerous or self-destructive.
Edward Hallowell, MD and John Ratey, MD, bestselling authors and ADHD experts, address this issue in their book, Delivered From Distraction.
They explain that there are some types of ADD that create an “itch” deep inside an individual. The problem occurs when an individual attempts to relieve the itch by engaging in reckless, negative behaviors.
Sometimes individuals with ADD don’t like the way they feel inside. The feeling is hard to describe. It may feel like being off kilter or bored or unsatisfied. In order to change this feeling, they must act. All rational thought is tossed aside and impulsivity takes over. Why is this?
Hallowell and Ratey explain it may be that based on an inherited pattern of neurotransmitters, receptors, and carrier molecules, some individuals with ADD are not able to feel pleasure in the ordinary ways most people can. Instead they must find this feeling by extraordinary means.
Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters acting within the brain to help regulate movement and emotion, particularly pleasure. “Anything that gives you a squirt of dopamine tends to make you feel good,” write Hallowell and Ratey.
Activities that release dopamine within the brain include these high risk, maladaptive behaviors.
Luckily there are other ways of releasing dopamine –- activities that are more productive, less risky, and less dangerous. The trick is coming up with a plan to substitute these positive outlets for the negative ones when you begin to feel the itch.
While this is often easier said than done, setting up a plan and developing adaptive habits can help. Exercise and finding creative outlets are two great ways help scratch the inch. Stable, positive connections with others, a rewarding and stimulating job, ADD medications and for some, meditation and prayer also works.
All people vary in the ability to feel pleasure given a certain stimulus, but as Hallowell and Ratey note -- it is how you find pleasure in life that is one of the key determinants of health and success.
Source:
Edward Hallowell, MD and John Ratey, MD. Delivered from Distraction. Ballantine. 2006.
Source...