Episode 039: REPLAY - Are we designed to procrastinate?
How do we separate a task from our emotions about it? Especially when it comes to our own battles with procrastination? Isabelle is struggling with this and Bobby, her husband, is curious to hear more. David breaks it down like this: let’s say the task is running 5 miles in 60 minutes, which sounds very hard to Bobby. Does it matter what you’re wearing? What time of day you go? If it’s raining or not? There’s lots of things we can get caught up in the ‘emotionality’: I don’t have the right clothes, I don’t like the weather, etc. The emotionality is the stuff that we get caught up in that doesn’t matter. Our view of how it needs to be done that gets in the way. Can you walk while watching a video, for example. Isabelle tries to break a sweat once a day. But it only counts if she goes to the exercise class she signed up for. Bobby asks: why does a brain with ADHD is likely to procrastinate in the first place and then why do we discount doing it differently? ADHD individual needs a specific amount of stimulation to do a task; not enough or too much, they need to self-medicate. The emotions we use to self-medicate include anger, anxiety or excitement, etc. Medication can give you the stimulation without the anger, anxiety, or excitement. We procrastinate because it boosts the stakes, gives us a threat, so every moment of working on the task is alleviating the stress so there’s no delay in gratification, we’re instantly rewarded (yay dopamine!) for working on it. If you had worked on it two weeks earlier, you wouldn’t feel any different because there was no stress/threat you were relieving, you wouldn’t get that feeling of reward. So let’s teach people how to procrastinate better, rather than trying to undo it. What if you knew you weren’t going to work on the report until Saturday—what could you prep for Saturday, instead of beating yourself up for not working on it until then, if that’s the sweet spot of stress/crunch time for you? Your brain needs to experience that threat to feel that relief. A person with ADHD can be an angry, anxious, etc. — I’m going to be a monster when I’m focusing on this, so what can we do to ask for what we need? Is it easier to find a quiet place to be a monster or not become a monster (let’s say you get angry when you work yourself up to focus on something)? Bobby and Isabelle share that they would set each other off and both need accommodations in their relationships, but realizing that the meta-awareness of knowing it connects to ADHD and what they need has helped them navigate situations and help get out of each other’s way rather than asking that person to magically change. David points out that we’re normalizing that folx with ADHD can all become monsters in this sense and that not all monsters are bad—you could be angry/anxious to the max and find ways to create room for that that minimize the hurt and ill effects on those around you. There’s lots of relational trauma for people with ADHD and other forms of learning differences. You see everyone sit down and do something one way and you do it differently, your brain tells you it’s because you’re stupid/not following the rules/not doing it right, etc. Right around between ages 7-11, kids' peers normalize their world rather than their parents. For example, how are relaxation and self care portrayed? As wine and spa time—what if you don’t like wine and baths/spas (for example, like Isabelle). David makes the point that everyone else is doing it right, we’re just not taking in the input right. Maybe no more boring baths. Something needs to move. What we can do with the optical illusion of snow falling or a shower rain falling. The ADHD brain is meant and designed to procrastinate, but people with ADHD are made to believe their thoughts are naturally wrong. Healing comes from acknowledging this.
Does cranberry juice prevent UTI’s? Yes (and no).
Side note, one thing Isabelle learned on this internet rabbit hole about cranberry juice and UTI’s was this: “Cranberry is a term derived from the contraction of “crane berry.” This name is derived from the nickname of the bilberry flower, which, when it withers, is similar in appearance to the head and neck of the sand crane, a bird that often feeds on the berries of this plant.” Who knew? For the full fascinating scientific article about cranberries and UTIs, click here.
DAVID’S DEFINITIONS
Task: what you’re trying to do - the ‘work’ of a group or a person.
for example: I am finishing my project this weekend.
Emotionality: what you do to prepare to do a task - beliefs/fears/assumptions about what you’re doing
for example: I’m doing it wrong/right, I always procrastinate, big fear you’ll never get it done, dream that someone will come and save you from having to do it, etc.
PROCRASTINATION: this is the behavior that occurs in between the assignment of a task, and working on the task. This is waiting to the last minute, or what we do when we don't want to start work.
Why do folx with ADHD procrastinate? Waiting for the last minute, or delaying starting can be self medication for someone with ADHD. Excitement, Anxiety, Anger are all feelings that trigger stimulate us (our heart rate increases). Once this happens we remove any delay in reinforcement, as all acts towards work completion reduce that feeling/stimulation. It can also really increase the feeling of winning, if deadlines are met.
What do you mean by 'monster'?
We all have a monster part. Our monster is the part of us that comes out when something changes in a way we don’t like or we don’t get our way; in other words, it is our extinction burst (see below). The trick is to not pretend it doesn’t happen or somehow shame it away, but instead make space for it—even plan on it showing up—and reduce the impact on innocent others.
Example: You really don’t want to write a paper, but you have to. As you work through the heightened stimulation you need to switch from prep work to actually working on it, your behavior is changing and you don’t like it (it’s so hard when you’re not getting the thrill of something novel, or that you enjoy, and really with procrastination you’re just getting the relief of a stressor being reduced). SO, you may turn into a ‘monster,’ — get irritated, annoyed, angry at anyone near you for getting in the way as you settle in to sit down to write it—which is ALSO giving you dopamine because emotions like anger, anxiety and excitement stimulate us (by way of building adrenaline, which ends up leading to more dopamine, among other things). Suddenly you have what you need to switch from prep to work, but—if you know this is how you work sometimes, you could let the people around you know/get out of dodge/have them be in other rooms, for example, so you’re not inadvertently getting angry/anxious AT them (it’ll happen regardless)—and that way you won’t get the double reinforcement that you’re some monster all the time ;).
Extinction burst: Connected to behavioral theory, when you’re no longer getting the reinforcement you want, your behavior dramatically increases in frequency, duration, and intensity as you seek to get that reinforcement. It’s only when your behavior is not reinforced that you change.
Example: You are normally reinforced in a way you enjoy by hitting the power button on your remote (behavior) and having your tv turn on (reinforcement). But one day you hit the power button and nothing happens. Most of us respond by an extinction burst: we hit the button again and again, we change the angle at which we hold the remote, we may hit the button harder (all of this is more frequent, lasts longer, and is more intense that what you usually do to turn on your tv)—and it isn’t until the tv persists in staying off that you get up and get new batteries for the remote (your behavior changes).
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Technical support by: Bobby Richards
Cover art by: Sol Vázquez