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ADHD In team learning environment



Kirjoittanut: Veikko Airas - tiimistä FLIP Solutions.

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This is my realization and learnings to overcome my struggles with ADHD and I hope this helps you there at all whether you have ADHD or not.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

I have been really open about my ADHD because I want to encourage also others that might have ADHD and might not be that confident with it. ADHD is not a flaw. Usually, people tend to think that ADHD people are really energetic persons and that they struggle with that the most. äää WRONG! There are multiple different personality traits in ADHD you could be the calmest quietest person in your class and have ADHD. Having ADHD doesn´t necessarily mean that you are energetic but most of the time the opposite. Sometimes people with ADHD might seem lazy that might frustrate people in workplaces and especially team learning schools 🙂 Been there done that. Am I right Pitbull? 🙂

Sometimes things need to go to the absolute limit of set deadlines and rules to collect enough motivation to get an ADHD-having person to do their job. For example like I´m in this wery minute I´m writing this essay LATE on my essay points and now I´m doing this at midnight. Could have chosen a more easy way but my attention and dopamine just work in a different way. It’s hard I can tell you. But in that, it is important to avoid too harsh self-criticism that has been one of my favorite topics in my essays. Self-criticism has taken me pretty far but last year it started to be at a point it wasn´t healthy anymore. Why? I didn´t want to accept that I had ADHD and thought it was a flaw and didn´t want to deal with it. I even went to see a psychotherapist but ended up leaving because she brought up ADHD like it was defining me. I don´t like that. ADHD is generalized so much that even professionals are falling for it.

Common ADHD Personality traits.

  • having trouble focusing or concentrating on tasks
  • being forgetful about completing tasks
  • being easily distracted
  • having difficulty sitting still
  • interrupting people while they’re talking
  • find it difficult to sit still or remain seated, for example, in class
  • have trouble playing or carrying out tasks quietly
  • talk excessively
  • find it hard to wait their turn
  • interrupt others when they’re speaking, playing, or carrying out a task

And the list just goes on. What does it look like? A freaking nightmare at paja. I don´t take medication because I´m training myself to learn the right way to be around people I see meds in a way that really really doesn´t fix the problem (FOR ME) for other people it might work. Most of these traits apply for also me except the last 4 ones. The way I´ve handled this is I have had to grow an enormous amount of spine and discipline for myself. And that required 9 years of work with special teachers and with my parents but in the end, you are alone. I still have a bad habit when I run out of patience in a paja   I have to bathroom for example and breathe there for a while and go back to the paja. this way I can get a bit of clarity to my mind and then go back to the room. When I run out of patience it´s hard to stay still and listed nor especially understand and realize what’s happening in the situation.

One thing I´m also struggling with and need 10x extra work is things I don’t care or like about. I will push it to the absolute extreme before I will get it done if it doesn´t have some serious consequences. This is a hard task in a team environment because you will make people mad and untrust you. This you can make better by being open about it that you might have problems to get things done and don´t hesitate to ask help from others!

So what causes ADHD?

-Lack of blood flow in the brain.

Less blood flow in the brain causes the brain to have less oxygen and glucose in the brain which then causes problems with maintaining alertness and memory.

-The awarding system

we have an “awarding system” that works with the chemical we all know dopamine. Non-ADHD person’s awarding system gets more frequent even amount of dopamine into there and they have more dopamine normally in their awarding system automatically without really doing anything. With ADHD you have less dopamine coming into your brain which will make it hard to complete tasks, concentrate, focus on tasks, and remember things so quite a big thing.

-Regional brain function deficits

It has been noticed that when people with ADHD do work some parts of the brain won’t work in the same way as people that don’t have ADHD.

Personality traits that ADHD brings and how to deal with them.

Distraction.

Dealing with distractions is a team and a personal thing. In the team, you could set certain rules to make it easier to concentrate and find good locations for meetings,s, etc. For personal work, it varies a lot that might help you. For me, it is a cup of coffee and music and with reading books, I listen to every book I read. It is absolutely saved my school career. And in this, the same thing is open about it discuss with the team and come up with ways to improve it.

When it comes to leading with ADHD the thing you need to be most aware of is your temper. In my eyes leaders cannot lose their temper no matter what. In this, it is good to have a right hand. Someone you can talk about everything and is in the team. They can tell you when you fced up and when you did well. I have become a decent controller of my feelings and one big thing a have done is that I´ve started to be okay with my temper. It´s okay to get angry sometimes and say things out loud when people around you don´t.

Dealing with a bad memory.

I have become a cyborg because of my bad memory. Apple notes calendars and alarms help me to organize and remember all the things I have in my day-to-day life. It sounds pretty bad to rely this much on tech but that’s the reality of today. And my tech usage has been pretty successful and I believe it will help me a lot in the future. Apple apps have worked for me but there are plenty of different ways to use this as an ordinary book calendar.

Routines

Routines are really important to me because it is really hard for me to start something again once I´ve lost my first spark to it. The way I do this is I schedule time for certain days for the activities or tasks I need to accomplish with my calendar and alarm. Keeping the consistency will keep me interested more easily.

Using the side effects of ADHD for my benefit

One big side effect of ADHD is hyperfocus. Hyperfocus means we get so interested in one thing that we forget everything else. For me that is cars. So how can I use this for my benefit? For example, in school, I trick my brain in a way that I will make unpleasant things more pleasant when I link them to the subject I really love and take the aspect from there. This way the form, quality of the work and efficiency will be drastically better.

After all, we all are different no matter what and the problems are different for all of us ADHD is just a term, and is no shame to have it. Why it is good to have is that people who have ADHD and are not diagnosed with it might have a hard time realizing that the same way that other people do things might not work that well for them and feel bad about themselves. And I can tell you it is really easy to fall into that.

Here were my realizations from my journey with ADHD and team learning combined and tried to tighten it up into this essay as well as I could I hope you got at least something out of this and I thank you for reading this essay.

Sources:

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4784-attention-deficithyperactivity-disorder-adhd

http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/adhd-facts.pdf

Comments
  • Emilia Parikka

    I really liked this essay and I feel like you’re at your best writing about these kinds of topics that are close to you: cars, ADHD, etc. An idea about an essay: famous/successful people with ADHD, might give confidence to people with ADHD to read about different people who have made their success and could be a topic you might also be comfortable writing about. 🙂

    I think there is not enough talk about ADHD and how it affects working life. I also hate the negative stigma around it and hope that will keep changing and essays like this for sure help with that.

    22.2.2022
  • Kamil Wójcik

    Way to go Veikko! That essay was really good, I enjoyed it. Again, it’s great that you are open about it, not only the fact of having ADHD. Even more important is openly educating people on this matter.
    I have learned many new things from your essay and it helps me better to understand you.
    Well done! 😎

    23.2.2022
  • Luiza de Oliveira Vago

    Veikko, as time goes by your improvement is sooo clear and I am happy for you. This discussion is important to our team and also to other teams and it is really nice to know more about ADHD and your perspective. Keep doing a good job!

    24.2.2022
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