Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
A man who could not get himself to bed kept his bedtime alarm upstairs, where his wife and baby were sleeping. Switching it off meant climbing the stairs, and leaving it meant waking them. The walk to the alarm was the thing he was trying to do anyway.
That is the part worth copying. Put the cue somewhere that costs something to answer, and make answering it land you where you meant to be. Anything that can be silenced from the sofa will be silenced from the sofa. Get the household's agreement first, though, because a design like this borrows their sleep as well as his.
Qur’an and Sunnah
'if you are told to rise up, do so' (Quran 58:11). The verse is about making room in a gathering, and it carries a plain habit worth borrowing: when the signal comes, stand up.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِذَا قِيلَ لَكُمۡ تَفَسَّحُواْ فِي ٱلۡمَجَٰلِسِ فَٱفۡسَحُواْ يَفۡسَحِ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمۡۖ وَإِذَا قِيلَ ٱنشُزُواْ فَٱنشُزُواْ يَرۡفَعِ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مِنكُمۡ وَٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡعِلۡمَ دَرَجَٰتࣲۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ خَبِيرࣱ
You who believe, if you are told to make room for one another in your assemblies, then do so, and God will make room for you, and if you are told to rise up, do so: God will raise up, by many degrees, those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge: He is fully aware of what you do
Qur’an 58:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Arranging your surroundings like this belongs to the behavioural side of treatment, which has real support. A meta-analysis of cognitive behavioural treatments for adult ADHD found meaningful reductions in ADHD symptoms and related difficulties compared with control conditions. Those trials tested whole programmes rather than single tricks, so this counts as an example of the approach rather than an evidenced technique on its own.
Knouse LE, Teller J, Brooks MA. (2017). Meta-analysis of cognitive-behavioral treatments for adult ADHD.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A cue you have to get up and walk to has already got you half of the way there.
When not to
Do not build a plan whose consequences fall on someone who did not agree to them, and never on a child.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
While you are taking the family history, ask about seizure disorders and psychosis too, not only about attention. A family carrying other neurological or psychiatric conditions is worth knowing about whatever you end up concluding.
Hypervigilance after trauma and ADHD scanning look much alike from outside. Often the honest answer is that both are present, and the real question is how much of each.
Home DNA tests turn up relatives nobody expected. If someone is thinking of taking one to fill in a blank family history, it is worth saying out loud that it may hand them more than they asked for.