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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dr. <a target="_blank" href="http://jeffkarp.com">Jeffery Karp</a> grew up with undiagnosed <keyword id="19972335" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ADHD" source="keywords">ADHD</keyword>, struggling to focus and answer questions in class.</li><li>Using two tactics to retrain his brain, Karp gained confidence and pursued a career in academia. </li></ul>As a professor at <keyword id="19988007" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Harvard-Medical-School" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Harvard Medical School" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Harvard Medical School">Harvard Medical School</keyword> and MIT, I am very lucky; I get to learn from and collaborate with some of the most innovative minds in the world of medicine, science, and technology. But I was not "supposed" to be here. No one would have predicted this for me. <h2>Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD</h2>When I was a kid in elementary school in rural Canada, I had the attention span of a fruit fly, and I struggled to keep up. Reading, writing, classroom discussion, and teachers' instruction — I couldn't make sense of any of it. It wasn't just that I was distractible and my brain didn't process things in a conventional way; my mind felt completely open to just existing in the world, in a constant mind meld with the universe. It took a ton of effort for me to narrow my focus so stuff could enter, stick, and stay. And I was an anxious kid. I couldn't relax and just be myself, feel okay as "the quirky kid" because I felt like something worse than that: an alien, a human anomaly. I realized early on that there were many things I was "supposed" to do, but none of them came naturally or seemed logical. More troubling still was that much of it didn't feel like the right thing to do; it felt actively wrong. When a teacher asked me a question, whether on a test or in class, I typically found the question confusing and often unanswerable. The "right" answer seemed like just one of many possibilities. So, most of my school years were an exercise in trying to figure out, interpret, and fit others' expectations. I was a puzzle for my teachers, a misfit in the conventional academic sense, and a total outcast socially. Today, with society's much greater understanding of ADHD, part of my eventual diagnosis, there are evidence-based approaches for building self-regulation skills designed for kids (and adults). But at that time and in that place, the only option was to wing it. <h2>Sea slugs were essential in helping me retrain my brain</h2>Over the years, I slowly gained motivation and became more persistent. I didn't know it at the time but my evolution as a learner mirrored the two fundamental concepts of how neurons change and grow — how they learn — that the neuroscientist Eric Kandel would someday identify as the basis that sea slugs and humans have in common for learning and memory: habituation and sensitization in response to repeated exposure to stimuli. Habituation means that we become less reactive to stimuli, as you might to traffic noise outside your window. Sensitization means that our reaction is stronger, as happens when, for instance, a sound or a smell or even the thought of something becomes a trigger. Living my own experiment, I learned to make use of both. I discovered some basic ways to work with my brain to habituate to some stimuli (ordinary things that distracted me) and sensitize (sharpen my attention) to others to be able to reel in my wandering mind and redirect the synaptic messaging with intention. At one point, in the room where I studied there was a pinball machine next to me and a TV behind me. I learned to ignore both and used playing the pinball machine as a reward for finishing my homework. Over time I became hyperaware of how to intentionally hijack processes in my brain this way to be less reactive or more sharply focused as needed. The result: I was able to focus on what seemed most purposeful, then follow through and maximize impact as opportunities opened up. I tinkered and fine-tuned until I learned how to use these powerful tools to tap into the heightened state of awareness and deep engagement that I call "lit." <h2>What is 'lit' focus</h2>I call it "lit" for two reasons. First, "lit" aptly describes how the flash of inspiration feels—as if a bright light flipped on in the dark. Or a spark has set your thinking ablaze. When you've had an epiphany, been awestruck, or simply been super excited, you've felt that spark. Second, "lit" is how these moments appear to the scientists who study them. Inside the brain (and in the gut as well), engaged states activate neurons. In the brain, this triggers an increase in cerebral blood flow that neuroscientists can see when they use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). On a monitor, this oxygenated blood lights up an otherwise gray image of the brain with yellow-orange hot spots of activity. Emerging science shows that this neural activation is associated not only with particular cognitive activity or emotions such as fear and anger but also with love, awe, happiness, fun, and "peak states," or flow. In "lit" mode, we engage at the highest level of our abilities. We not only develop the mental muscles to stay focused, but we also build the confidence and the dexterity to riff off of new information on the fly. We're more likely to use our critical thinking skills, which can keep us from blindly accepting what we're told, or told to believe, especially when our intuition says otherwise. We find it easier to connect with people, are more alive to the possibilities all around us, and are better able to capitalize upon them. In a stream of ever-replenishing energy, we're constantly learning, growing, creating, and iterating. We're building our capacity while doing our best work. As I honed strategies that enabled me to activate my brain this way at will, I identified a dozen that were simple to use and never failed to open my thinking in just the way that was needed, whatever that was. Whether it was to direct my attention or disrupt it, sharpen my focus or broaden it, do something stimulating or quiet my mind, these Life Ignition Tools (LIT) worked for me, and then for others as I shared them. <h2>Practicing habits that let me access deep work has been integral to my success</h2>Once I learned how to work with my neuroatypical, voraciously curious, but chaotic brain, I discovered infinite opportunity to question, create, and innovate as a bioengineer and entrepreneur on a global scale and help others do the same. These LIT tools took me from being a confused and frustrated kid, sidelined in a special ed classroom in rural Canada, to becoming a bioengineer and medical innovator elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering's College of Fellows, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. As a professor, I've trained more than 200 people, many of whom are now professors at institutions around the world and innovators in industry; published 130 peer-reviewed papers with more than 30,000 citations; and obtained more than a hundred issued or pending national and international patents. The tools also helped me cofound 12 companies with products on the market or in development. And finally, they've been instrumental in creating a productive, supportive, and dynamic high-energy environment in my lab, which recently morphed from Karp Lab to the Center for Accelerated Medical Innovation. <h2>Having specific tools helped a struggling kid like me</h2>LIT worked for this kid who appeared to show no promise and the young man who remained frustrated and discouraged for many years. Though I still struggle every day in various ways, I'm grateful to be able to say that these LIT tools enabled me to meet and far exceed those dismal early expectations. If we want breakthroughs in science and medicine, if we want successful, disruptive innovations on all fronts to support healthier communities, and if we want to cut through the noise and focus on what is most important, we must learn how to use all of the tools in nature's playbook, our evolutionary arsenal. We must shake up our thinking — not just now and then but on a daily basis. In practice, LIT tools make it possible for us to take anything we're hardwired for — including undesirable or unhelpful behaviors and habits — and with intention, channel the energy in them to create a positive outcome. It's easier than you might think because the more you do it, the greater the rewards, the momentum, and your impact for good. You're never too old to charge your brain this way, and most definitely no one is ever too young. In fact, LIT tools can be lifesavers for kids, as they were for me. Adapted from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/lit-life-ignition-tools-jeff-karp?variant=41287961280546">LIT: Use Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action</a> by Jeff Karp, PhD, published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey Michael Karp. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers.

A Harvard Medical School professor with ADHD shares how he retrained his brain for deep work and reached peak productivity

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Elin Doyle was diagnosed with ADHD months before she turned 50.</li><li>She said a lot of her life suddenly made sense after she got the diagnosis.</li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Elin Doyle. It has been edited for length and clarity.Many people think <a href="https://www.insider.com/guides/health/mental-health/adult-adhd-symptoms">ADHD</a> is boisterous boys running around and tearing up the classroom. But that perception is wrong. I would never have thought I had <a href="https://www.insider.com/adhd-diagnosis-took-25-years-despite-symptoms-now-feel-better-2022-2">ADHD</a> because I'm not a physically boisterous person, but it can be very internalized.<a href="https://www.insider.com/adhd-diagnosis-helped-me-understand-my-messy-house-2022-5">ADHD</a> is not always about <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hyperactivity</a>. It's a disorder of the ability to regulate attention, emotions, and activity. You can swing between overstimulated and unmotivated, or a lack of focus and hyperfocus, and you might behave impulsively. A <a href="https://psychcentral.com/adhd/what-to-know-about-adhd-and-dopamine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lack of dopamine</a> or ineffective dopamine usage can affect all sorts of areas of the brain.I was diagnosed two months before I turned 50. But I've always known I was a bit different.<h2>I left school to live in France, where I had my son</h2>I struggled with getting good school reports, but I was able to wing it until I was 16. I didn't get brilliant results, but I scraped by, despite doing practically no homework or revision.I hadn't paid any attention to where I was going for university and don't remember ever speaking to anybody about my university choices. As I got slightly better grades than predicted, I decided to take a year off and reapply somewhere else that I was more interested in.I went to the south of France to be an au pair for six months. I met someone and decided I wasn't going back to England: I was going to stay in France, have this really interesting life, and have his baby. I had been with him for six months, and my son was born nine months later. It was a conscious decision, but very much one made by a 19-year-old with ADHD.It was quite a hard time. We came back to England when my son was a little over 2. I went back to my parents with my tail between my legs, at 22, with no money.When I returned to England, I got a job. I ended up spending 15 years in financial services before I retrained as an actor.<h2>An accident made me look for a diagnosis</h2>I really struggle with learning lines, focusing on them, and absorbing their meaning. When I'm learning lines, I must be moving around to have something else going on; I learn best on public transport because part of my mind is taken up elsewhere, allowing me to focus on the lines.I can't tell you the number of times I went to workshops on how to self-produce my play. I would come away knowing what I needed to do, but the difficulty with ADHD is sifting out which step comes first and what's next. It becomes this big blob of everything that has to happen now. I got completely overwhelmed.I'm very accident-prone. In 2021, I broke one ankle and damaged the other, which meant I was trapped for a couple of months. I needed to keep myself busy, and getting an ADHD assessment was on my list. The psychiatrist said being accident-prone is one of the symptoms of ADHD.I mentioned I had bulimia as a teenager, and he said <a href="https://psychcentral.com/adhd/adhd-and-eating-disorders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bulimia could sometimes be a sign of ADHD</a>.My psychiatrist told me my brain had been like an orchestra missing a conductor — that's exactly how it feels.The most remarkable thing is how medication stabilized my mood so I wasn't experiencing these huge highs and lows I could cycle through several times within a day. I could get really excited, especially about a topic I'm passionate about — then other times I would feel so unmotivated and low that I couldn't get out of bed.It was a huge relief to find out I wasn't a flawed, bad human who was unable to achieve the things that other people could. It's really changed my life in that respect.

I was bulimic, a young mom, and a college dropout. Life finally made sense when I was diagnosed with ADHD at nearly 50.

Courtesy of Eliana LetzterEliana"If you hand me a big text and tell me to read it all, I most likely just flat-out won't do it," my sister said.It's not that she doesn't want to. Eliana's a sharp, hungry learner. But she also has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is sometimes called attention-deficit disorder (ADD) in people like my sister who don't exhibit many hyperactive symptoms.Eliana's is not the sometimes-loses-track-of-her-keys kind of ADD, and not the "oh, isn't that over-diagnosed?" kind either. My younger sister describes the condition as a "brain fog" that comes and goes over the course of a day.It's a disability that's shaped the course of her life.<h2>Defining ADHD</h2>ADHD isn't really one thing - there's no ADHD spot in the brain, and the disability doesn't look the same in every person.Lenard Adler, who directs the Adult ADHD Program at New York University's Langone Medical Center, describes ADHD as a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html">set of symptoms</a> that tend to travel together. These include struggles with organization, detail-oriented work, and focusing on a task. ADHD's hyperactive symptoms make it difficult for some people to stop moving or speaking - as if there were a motor running inside their skulls. People with strong hyperactive symptoms can talk and talk, or jump in when other people are speaking - unaware that they've cut someone else off or unable to help themselves. They might fidget, unable to control the urge to move their bodies. Kids with ADHD will often jump from one game to another when playing, unable to focus as long as their friends.Plenty of people experience distraction and hyperactivity at points in their lives, which is partially why there's a widespread assumption that the condition has been over-diagnosed. That critique <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/saving-normal/201605/adhd-is-overdiagnosed-heres-proof">has some merit</a>, but according to the <a href="http://www.adhd-institute.com/assessment-diagnosis/diagnosis/dsm-5tm/">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</a>, a person has to have six attention-deficit symptoms and six hyperactive symptoms for more than six months in order to be diagnosed with ADHD. And those symptoms can't be traced to another mental illness like depression or schizophrenia.That means a person with ADHD likely experiences their symptoms as overwhelming and consistent enough to disrupt their lives. Spacing out occasionally doesn't cut it.<h2>Engaging with the world when you can't focus</h2>The thing you have to know about Eliana is that she is smart as hell.Make an argument that she disagrees with and she'll peel it open, reach inside, and find the flaw at its center. Ask her for an opinion on the rare subject she hasn't studied, and she'll come back hours or days later with a fully-formed, deeply-sourced theory of the case.But her symptoms make it difficult for her to engage with the world in the way people expect."People will be talking to me, and I'll stop hearing what they're saying," she said. "And it's the same sort of thing [as with reading]. I'll go through the motions, nod my head, mirror their body language and stuff. But the information isn't coming through."Because of this, Eliana can sometimes come off as standoffish."Sometimes I'll take my phone out and read my text messages or something. It's not because I'm trying to be rude. I'm just not cognizant of what I'm doing."Like many kids with ADHD, Eliana spent her school years in a state of almost constant struggle - with homework, with teachers, and with our parents. In elementary school, she'd sit for hours with a book report or set of math problems, straining to focus her attention on the page. When she couldn't, she would cry, or fight with our parents. After these episodes she would go into her room and stab holes in the wall or beat herself around the head with her hands. Sometimes she hurt herself.By high school, Eliana had given up on the idea that she'd ever be a good student. She felt dumber than her classmates, she said."I could see my classmates finishing the assignments in 10 to 30 minutes," she said, "But they'd take me hours and hours and hours and sometimes I couldn't complete them."To describe the experience, she said to imagine someone putting a heavy weight in front of you, one you know you can't pick up. You grab and pull on it anyway, but it won't budge."The processes that needed to go on simultaneously to complete the tasks just wouldn't line up," she said.<h2>Variation between cases</h2>ADHD isn't always this debilitating. Nate Bartlett, a video producer in Chicago (who was, full disclosure, briefly my boss in 2015), says he's been able to successfully manage his case of ADHD case with coping strategies and medicine.When his focus slips, he said, he can get stuck in a loop performing some other, meaningless task - losing time and energy he hoped to devote to work. Nate was diagnosed in early high school, so he was allowed extra time on tests and the SATs - enough to account for the time he lost to his wandering mind."I remember thinking [after my diagnosis], 'Oh, I wish I'd done this a few years ago,'" he said.Nate managed his symptoms without medication until college, where he struggled to find places in which he could focus on his studies. Even the library was too distracting, he said - he'd find himself scanning book titles rather than preparing for a test. So, for the first time, he got a prescription for Adderall, an amphetamine and stimulant that can help people with ADHD regulate their attention.Adderall stimulates cells in the brain to produce more chemicals called neurotransmitters - chemical messengers that help nerves pass information around in the brain. Psychiatrists think those extra neurotransmitters can help people with ADHD focus, though the exact mechanisms aren't entirely understood.There are also several classes of non-stimulant medications for ADHD, the most common of which is known by its brand name Strattera. Rather than stimulate more neurotransmitter production, Strattera prevents a patient's brain from clearing out neurotransmitters it has already produced. Clonidine is also a fairly common non-stimulant treatment that has been found to help patients.According to Adler, doctors don't prescribe Adderall and other stimulants lightly, since they can have harmful side effects and come with the risk of patients abusing them as recreational drugs.Nate said that aside from a somewhat unpleasant rapid heartbeat (a common side-effect), Adderall was a positive force in his life. He learned to use it as a tool to get through his work, rather than as a crutch. Now that he's working full time, he doesn't take the drug anymore - instead, he relies on coping mechanisms like playing loud music in his headphones while he works and isolating himself in a private office.Eliana's experience with medication wasn't as smooth. Throughout middle school, doctors prescribed her a range of pills - Strattera, Adderal, and others - with limited success. "I'd given up." she said. "Just the idea of being competent in school was, like, so far-fetched."<h2>When treatments don't work</h2>Eliana stopped taking medication by the time she got to high school, and sought out other ways to cope."I turned to marijuana, really heavy marijuana use. Obviously it doesn't treat the symptoms but it sort of mutes them and dampens them," she said.After high school, she went on a gap year program where a few other people also had ADHD. She began getting a prescribed medication, Vyvanse (another amphetamine), from a roommate in exchange for doing his homework."He would give me a Vyvanse, and I would write his essay for him," she said.It was enough to suck her in - uncontrolled by a doctor or limited by a prescription, Eliana started to overuse the drug. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexdoddphotography/3196151008">Alex Dodd/flickr</a>"I would spend the entirety of the 'high' writing the essay, but I still sought it out," she said. "Really all I was doing was writing his essay for him with the medication he was supposed to take to write his essays, but it was so satisfying and gratifying that I did it."She became addicted. Although we spoke all the time back then, I didn't notice anything wrong. She sounded better, happier, and more sure of herself than she had in high school. "To a large extent what I became addicted to was the ability to write, she said. "I would take [pills] in order to be able to write for extended periods, or read things. But because I wasn't in a healthy environment and I wasn't in a healthy mental state, it got real bad."Eventually, she got her own amphetamine prescription, but continued abusing the pills. Eliana experienced multiple bouts of stimulant psychosis - a condition marked by disordered thoughts and delusions. The same medicines that cleared her brain fog could act as poisons, mixing her head up in a different way.<h2>Navigating a world that doesn't accommodate your symptoms</h2>Eliana has since kicked the pill habit and made a few stabs at community college, but none of them have stuck. Her disability and lack of college degree make it hard for her to get regular work. Instead, she devotes a lot of time to volunteering, organizing, and protesting with activist groups. Not being able to read still frustrates her constantly."I'll find myself reading something, then not knowing what I read. My eyes will scan the words, and some part of my brain is playing them in my head, but the information isn't actually penetrating," she said.Her current doctor won't prescribe her stimulants, fearing her history of addiction. According to Adler, that's one of the biggest concerns for doctors treating ADHD. Nonetheless, Eliana wishes there were a doctor willing to work with her to find a safe medication regimen.Right now, her doctor is pushing her toward a common treatment for severe ADHD that doesn't involve medication: cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. The goal is to get patients to confront situations that trigger their symptoms, and slowly retrain their brains to respond more productively. Psychiatrists also use CBT to manage other mental illnesses, including depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. But Eliana doesn't want to try it. To her, CBT feels more like an effort to make her into a productive member of the workforce than to alleviate the symptoms she finds most painful.For now, she's given up on treatment. <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-magic-mushrooms-brain-state-of-mind-2017-1">What magic mushrooms do to your brain and state of mind</a></h3> Please enable Javascript to watch this video

You Searched For "retrain brain adhd" and got 3 results

A Harvard Medical School professor with ADHD shares how he retrained his brain for deep work and reached peak productivity

Dr. Jeffery Karp

I was bulimic, a young mom, and a college dropout. Life finally made sense when I was diagnosed with ADHD at nearly 50.

Laura Cooke

What it's like to live with ADHD so severe it feels like 'brain fog'

Rafi Letzter

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