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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Sometimes there is something good in the notifications and usually there is not, and it is that uncertainty which keeps you checking. Willpower is the wrong tool against it. The workable move is to remove the unpredictability: notifications off, the phone in another room while you work, one set time to check instead of a constant low level watch.
I am near. I respond to those who call Me (Quran 2:186). Here is something that answers reliably, which is the opposite of the machine that keeps you checking.
البقرة
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌۖ أُجِيبُ دَعۡوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِۖ فَلۡيَسۡتَجِيبُواْ لِي وَلۡيُؤۡمِنُواْ بِي لَعَلَّهُمۡ يَرۡشُدُونَ
[Prophet], if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided
Qur’an 2:186read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised trial found that adding mindfulness based cognitive therapy to usual care produced modest reductions in core ADHD symptoms in adults. Noticing a pull without following it is trainable to some degree, then. Modest is the honest word, and it was tested as an addition to usual care rather than a replacement, so treat it as one support among several rather than an answer to a phone.
Janssen L, Kan CC, Carpentier PJ, Sizoo B, Hepark S, Schellekens MPJ, Donders ART, Buitelaar JK, Speckens AEM. (2019). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy v. treatment as usual in adults with ADHD: a multicentre, single-blind, randomised controlled trial.. Psychological medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Not knowing whether the next check will pay off is what makes checking so hard to stop.
Most autistic people also meet the criteria for ADHD. The other direction is much thinner: only a small minority of people with ADHD meet the criteria for autism.
Check the licensing before assuming you cannot afford a good instrument. Some come with permission to photocopy once you have bought the manual.
If someone was adopted, or simply does not know their family history, say early and plainly that this is not a problem. It helps to have and it is not needed.