Research Recap with Skye: Hyperfocus in University Students

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Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host William Kerb and I have On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Watterson for our research recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called The Role of Executive Function in Mediating the Relationship Between Adult ADHD Symptoms and Hyperfocus in University Students. Now I think this is a really interesting subject and How about we just jump right into it? Can you tell me a little bit about this paper? Yeah, for sure. So this is a this is an interesting paper. They wanted to go a little bit deeper on the idea of hyper.

So for anybody who needs a little refresher, hyperfocus is a state of intense and narrow attention on a stimulus object or task. Along with diminishing awareness of the surroundings. And some relationship to potentially increasing cognitive performance. Otherwise known as when you're focusing and the world disappears and time disappears and suddenly you're in the zone. It could be on something fun, which we'll talk about in a minute. It could be on something

work related, but that is what they were looking at. And they really wanted to investigate in a you know survey of 380 university students. whether there was a relationship between ADHD, executive functioning and hyperfocus, which Seems obvious, but I think that's one of the things that research is about. It's about taking the stuff that we think we know and really diving into whether we truly whether it's truly the case that these things are connected.

Yeah. And I think that Hyper focus is a really interesting subject in itself because it's something that a lot of people go, Hey, this is my ADHD superpower but looking at this in terms of hey, this is also part of how uh we're having difficulties with executive function, it's like This is a interesting subject. And also I think it's really interesting with uh hyperfocus too,'cause people are like, This is I can get paper done in two hours that would take uh someone else to

And I'm like, Yeah, that's great. I can also get hyper focused on sorting my spices or figuring out. trying to find the best pair of socks online and that Less useful. Yeah, yeah. It's like one of those, you know, sitcoms where you have a you have an ability and everyone's like, That's amazing and you're like you you know, it gets you into all kinds of wild shenanigans. It's not actually always the the best. Yeah. So

Well what did they really find in about hyperfocus on Hyperlo? Yeah, so if we jump into it, uh the first thing I'd say is um They did self reporting. So self reports of ADHD, so important to note that w they weren't looking for like diagnosed ADHD necessarily. And they did a bunch of surveys. So they were surveying people who, you know, were struggling with um so sixty percent female

They measured the Barclay executive functioning scale, so did you have daily executive functioning struggles, that kind of thing. And what they found is that hyperfocus. First of all they found that there was they had tests of hyperfoam.

and it seemed to be measuring different bits of focus, which I thought was really interesting. That was maybe my favorite part of the whole paper, was the realization that actually these these surveys that people have been doing to measure hyper focus, this idea Isn't measuring the same thing. One of the things that I always come into trouble with thinking about is like what really is hyper focus versus just being very focused.

And in other stuff I've talked about stuff about hyperfocus versus flow, which are very similar concepts but I think ultimately slightly different, uh because uh they just don't quite sync up the way because You don't get into hyper or you don't get into flow about stuff you're not interested in. And so that's kind of like the big difference for me. I'm like That's kind of where they diverge there.

Um yeah, it is really something that we want to be like, hey, what is What are we actually measuring here? Yeah, yeah. And what they found was that there was a difference between hyperfocus, which is the idea of attention on stimulus, and reward related hyperfocus, which is doing something that you enjoy. So hyperfocusing on a game that you're playing or hyperfocusing on

food that you're eating or something that you enjoy. Which is obviously very a very different experience and it's that experience of like, well, you know, it's all very well to say he hyperfocuses but he only does it on XYZ, you know, the stories that people say Yeah. And they they did find that definitely the severity of your ADHD symptoms was correlated with both your hyperfocus and your executive function difficulties and that with in regards that reward late related thing, did not really

correlate with reward related hyper focus. So it was more of okay, yeah, we And so that might be one of the differences that we see of, hey, are we measuring hyperfocus or are we measuring flow? Yeah, exactly. Because flow is more of the reward potential. Reward related hyperfocal. And yeah, they found so executive functioning ADHD, like you said, associated with hyperfocus. There seemed to be, which is what they were trying to find, the idea that ADHD symptoms

was connected to hyperfocus mediated through executive functioning difficulties. So the more executive functioning difficulties you had, the more hyper focus you had. Which was really interesting and I just found the fact that more ADHD symptoms is more hyperfocus really interesting because it made me wonder a little bit about this idea of some people say that they struggle with hyperfocus a lot. Some people say that they don't.

And it made me wonder if there is a correlation between, yeah, the severity of your ADHD. Not everybody has and experiences ADHD in the same way. Some people are taking medication for ADHD, so maybe they're not experiencing it the same level all the time.

And the fact that that could be affecting how you are h how much you're hyper focus focusing and what you're hyper focusing on. Yeah, absolutely. Because Well and then it's makes you what I was getting when I was like stepping back and thinking about it was is this

So is this hyperfocus kind of a precursor symptoms to what else is going on? Mm-hmm. Is losing being bad at tracking my time because I'm too focused on something else and I can't control where my focus is going and Like that's like an easy Gimme there. The but the same could be go for, hey, I'm disorganized because I'm not my hyper focused on one thing. I'm not focused enough on where I'm putting things down and putting things away. So it's never going into the short term memory.

And that's that can be played for a lot of hey, if I'm focused on one thing, my memory encoding is not as good everywhere else. Yeah. Yeah, one hundred percent. It's interesting the connection, especially for people who feel like it's a h it's a strength, this idea, because it is may if it's a strength, it's a strength related to a weakness, according to this research. At least outside of reward related higher performance.

For the purposes of this we're gonna call flow. So we remember what it is, but It reminded me as well of sometimes when people take medication, I know people who would not be on medication for some reason. They'll say, Okay, I don't want to take medication over the weekend or I don't wanna obviously

doctor's permission and all that kind of stuff. And they'll do something called like catching the butterfly or chasing the butterfly. And they'll just flip from one thing to another and so they might half organize parts of their house and do a project and that video of somebody being like going from project to project and project and then the person comes home and they're like, this is the day of my ADHD spouse.

It's almost like there's a a hyper focus that is involves like shifting attention and you're not even realizing that can happen as well. Yeah. One of the th and I don't want to completely dismiss the idea that people for people that are like, Hey, this is my strength. And it's like, yeah, this absolutely can be a strength if you can manage these other parts that come with it. And

leverage it correctly. And that's often a lot of weaknesses are just leveraging or strengths are leveraging weaknesses in a way that they can be used that way. But It's something that you need to be aware of this other side of things'cause if you're just completely ignoring it then it that they do become much more of a problem and makes it much harder to leverage as a string. Yeah, one hundred percent. And just as a note for some people, if you are listening to this and you're going

I'd really like to be able to focus. I have no idea how. You can DM me on Instagram at Unconventional Organization. You can just message me. Hyper focus and I will send you a focus flow framework that you can use because there i there are ways to slightly more intentionally support your focus. with support for dopamine, working memory, things like that. And a lot of times what we see is people will feel trapped because they can only get things done when they're leveraging their hyperfocus.

And that can be a really dangerous place because you're sort of waiting to the last minute or you're waiting for lightning to strike, which can be so frustrating. Yeah, especially when you're waiting for it and you're waiting for it and it it's not happening because for whatever reason you're lacking this happened every other time before, but I j I just not I'm not feeling it today. And it's

I've had that where when I used to write all of my episodes and it would be, Oh, I need to get something to happen. My brain can't get it going and What what do you do? Yeah. And sometimes it's that really weird I'm gonna explain this idea of Sometimes what will happen is we will be stressed about doing something'cause a lot of the hyper focus will tend to come for people right around the deadline'cause it's a dopamine thing.

And so we'll be like, Okay, last time I did this the day before and I was really stressed out about it, but it worked out really well. So this time I'm gonna know that that's coming. But your ADHD brain knows that you did it well last time. So now maybe you won't get the dopamine boost until the evening before the dip. So we can be very frustrating like that.

Yeah, and it's One yeah, r relying so much on that minute before can be Really stressful if especially if you're trying to break that habit where you're like, oh, I know I'm not going to be able to do it this time because you know something else is happening and you're Now I have to bail on these other plans I had because I couldn't get myself to do it beforehand and I was relying so much on this last second motivation and it's still not coming because It's just not there. Different this time.

Yeah, yeah. And it can really ruin your you know, I work with a lot of clients on this particular topic because it's a big way, you know, figuring out how to focus without having to wait for hyper focus is a lot of how we get time back. Because we can spend a lot of time hanging around waiting for this like hyper focus moment. And we can put off plans. Like you said, I've worked with people who say, like,

I wanna go out, I wanna go to dinner, but I'm stuck kind of like working on this thing, but really I'm not working on it. I'm just kind of waiting to get into the zone to be able to do it. And that can be very debilitating in many ways. It can be very frustrating. Yeah. So it's also making me think a bit about Brenda Mahan's Wallaha Hole methodology where we have these

things and so we're using this idea of hyperfocus to get us through that last hurdle. Yes. But one of its things is that Getting over that wall is often you can be this is making me think of the cleaning at the last minute, where you're like, Oh, I need to have the house cleaned because we're having parts. And then you're doing it like through this crazy last minute anxiety, anger, and you're yelling at your spouse or yelling at yourself and

D damaging to yourself in the long term. Yeah. Yeah, one hundred percent. So what can people take away from this paper? I think it is one of the big things is being like, hey, we can look at our executive function through this lens of hyperfocus and how hyperfocus is giving us the While we may be able to find some strengths in it, we should also be considering all these other aspects of that how it can be affecting us, even if we're not it's not like the direct effect.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also understanding I always talk about this idea of strong strengths, strong weaknesses. It's yeah, maybe you can hyperfocus and you've done some amazing things. Gosh, the things that I've pulled off in my twenties especially thanks to hyperfocus. It could be studied. But at the same time it is maybe almost in proportion to how much ADHD struggles you have. So it's that strong strengths, strong weaknesses. And Hyper focus can be so fun.

It could just be fun when you're doing it and you're not worried and you're just pitter pattering around, getting something organized, getting lost in time and space. But if you actually want to get things done, it's not a long term great strategy most for most people most of the time. And there are other ways. to do it. Like I said, you can just DM me and I'll show you what those are. But it's there are other ways to focus without hyper focus that are still

Yeah. And one thing I also like to make people consider with hyperfocus is that it's often we're b borrowing executive function from ourself from our future self. Oh my gosh. And so like everyone knows this like crash after hyperfocus. And it's yeah, you are borrowing from your future self and the further you dig into those resources, this is how you hit burnout.

Hello, so you were just listening to a research recap. Um, I'm Sky Waterson of Unconventional Organization. If you like that, there's lots more. Information about ADHD and support for you at unconventional organization.com, you can go ahead and check that out. Lots of free resources, lots of strategies, and if you want to join programs you can do that as well and with