Why ADHD Keeps Making Headlines

Today Helsingin Sanomat ran an article about ADHD (might be only available in Finnish). In it, psychologist Juulia Järvdike was interviewed in connection with her book, freely translated “The Ineffective Perfectionist and Five Other Paradoxes of ADHD (Saamaton perfektionisti ja ADHD:n viisi muuta paradoksia). The article resonated so strongly with my own experience that I couldn´t wait to jump out of work meetings, interrupt what I was doing, and read it. It described a familiar paradox: a person can be an exceptional performer at work, yet completely unproductive at home. The explanation, of course, was found in dopamine and the brain’s reward system.

Based on my own knowledge, I didn’t really disagree with anything, but it did leave me thinking about a couple of questions. Why does ADHD keep making headlines so often? Is there some logical explanation for why it keeps appearing in news coverage. Human behavior and functioning are influenced by a large set of biological regulatory systems—sleep, stress, hormones, neurotransmitters, and so on. Yet in public discussion one of them, dopamine, seems to receive a disproportionate amount of attention.

Could the prominence of the phenomenon itself be telling us something about contemporary society? Why is dopamine discussed so much, while other causes of mood changes, behavioral symptoms, and stress receive far less attention?

ADHD and the Ineffective Perfectionist – The Same Phenomenon at Work and At Home

Performance is not the same thing as functioning. A person can deliver strong results in one task and then become completely stuck in the next one shortly afterward. A good burst of inspiration rarely lasts very long if concentration begins to fade. An interesting task activates the brain’s reward system. A boring task does not. This is familiar and recognizable to many people who have been diagnosed, as well as to those who suspect they may have ADHD.

Work often provides structure, urgency, and external goals, and ultimately even prioritization comes from a supervisor. ADHD brains tend to function better under clear pressure and a sense of significance, driven, as I understand it, by adrenaline. Home and leisure time can require even more self-direction, unless the situation is such that the instructions always come ready-made from a partner and you don’t have to plan anything yourself. 🙂

Is modern working life built for ADHD brains—but everyday life is not? Well, in my view it depends somewhat on how demanding the set of responsibilities is in both environments. One would think that performance demands create an overall load that shows up both at work and at home.

Get a life!

So I would put it this way: if a person with ADHD symptoms is constantly overperforming at work in a dopamine-driven rush and things only start to fall apart at home, it might be worth seriously asking whether everything is in order in one’s leisure time and life choices. In practice, the situation may point to a calling—or at least to a strong effort to move toward one.

A far more likely explanation than some deep calling or universal human drive is the simple fact that something may be wrong at home and the resulting void is being filled with work. Work keeps providing motivation because the mind protects itself by shutting out the thought that leisure time does not. In my experience, procrastination usually strikes both work and free time. It probably depends on the overall balance of one’s life.

I may have been a bit dramatic. This may not be such a big issue after all. The point is not necessarily the difficulty of the task, a lack of skills, or even a concentration problem (from the perspective of a single task), but rather, in my view, first the absence of inspiration and then the absence of a source of motivation to carry on. If, for example, cleaning feels difficult and you cannot get yourself to start, you may not genuinely see its benefits for yourself or for others (such as staying healthy, the rewarding feeling later in the evening after a shower while sitting in the corner of the sofa, or the smile on your partner’s face).

Why Do ADHD Brains Work Differently?

Why does urgency help ADHD brains function?

Urgency and stress often help counter ADHD-style restlessness and trigger effective action. This is somewhat at odds with the general wellbeing narrative in which stress is seen as something negative. Why does a deadline save the work? Why does nothing seem to move without pressure? I believe I have read adrenaline is what properly activates the dopamine system.

Since I’m not an expert in the field, I might add a question like this: Do conscientiousness as a personality trait and ADHD symptoms correlate? Could there perhaps even be research evidence about this gathered through treatment relationships and the interviews that are part of them? Comment or get in touch if you know more about this… Or is conscientiousness actually a consequence or manifestation of trying to compensate for innate ADHD and performance difficulties through “overcompensation”?

ADHD and Other Biological Regulatory Systems

The serotonin system develops early in life. Apparently, variants of the SERT gene (5-HTTLPR) influence how efficiently serotonin is transported back into the neuron in the synapse (a nerve cell, for example in the brain). This can be affected by factors such as childhood trauma or early stress. Inborn or developed differences in this system influence mood and therefore behavior, but they are common biological variations rather than automatically diseases. Nor is this a matter of willpower or self-discipline.

Cortisol, as I understand it, is a hormone involved in regulating stress, energy levels, and metabolism throughout the body. The hormone melatonin regulates the sleep–wake cycle, and its balance can be disrupted by factors such as stress, aging, or shift work.

These other hormones apparently circulate in the bloodstream and affect the body broadly, regulating stress, relaxation, and levels of alertness. Dopamine, which is associated with ADHD, on the other hand, is a neurotransmitter in the synapses between neurons and regulates motivation, attention, and the control of actions in the brain.

The source for some of this biological information was ChatGPT. Take it with caution. Be that as it may, I cannot find anything in biology that clearly justifies singling out ADHD. These are all largely conditions independent of willpower that inevitably affect performance. This makes me somewhat skeptical. Are there attitudinal biases in how the general public approaches the issue, if ADHD reliably becomes a clickable headline every time?

ADHD and the Extremes of Performance

ADHD perfectionist

Järvdike: “Perfectionism is not always a bad thing, of course, but it often turns against itself. If the problem is excessive polishing, it helps to lower the bar. An 80 percent performance is sufficient. ‘Or try doing something badly. Then you can see whether the world collapses. You will probably notice that it does not.’”

As a long-time and fairly multifaceted perfectionist, I understand that it can be a barrier to getting started and is often seen as a more refined form of procrastination. Let me share my own experience here. That approach would never work for me ideologically. The fear that the issue will soon return to my desk, or the knowledge that an incorrect document would have to be passed forward, is difficult for me to ignore.

For people like me, here is a small adjustment to the advice: “Reduce the task enough, and then complete it at 100 percent.” In my case, perfectionism contains both internally generated striving for perfection and a fear of failure that comes from the surrounding environment.

Striver syndrome

ADHD symptoms in adults may appear, for example, as difficulty concentrating, difficulty getting started, or strong fluctuations in interest.

People today often have to constantly force themselves to concentrate, essentially straining to maintain focus, which can lead to concentration difficulties, restlessness, fatigue, and memory problems. These can look and feel like ADHD symptoms, even when the underlying cause is overload rather than a neurobiological disorder. Not all concentration difficulties should automatically be explained by ADHD.

Many people, especially during demanding phases of life and the busiest family years, live in a constant internal cycle of self-blame. Why can others manage this but I cannot? Do others simply have so much less to do than I do? Stretching oneself in every direction at work and in family life has become the norm.

For the individual, the norm has become that flexible overperformance is the permanent expectation. Honest acknowledgment of insufficiency and setbacks may be met with understanding, but in the end, does it become merely an explanation for falling short when the individual performance is evaluated?

The “Stop Your Heart With Willpower” Challenge

I don’t recommend trying it, because if you succeed you may no longer have time to feel inspired to start it again. The dopamine system cannot, as far as we know, be regulated by willpower alone. Many people still believe that the limitations of a neurobiological disorder can be reshaped simply by pulling oneself together, being more disciplined, or strictly following rules or agreements.

Why Does ADHD Trigger Reactions and Misunderstandings?

The Losers of the Headline Race

Do you often see headlines like these?

• “I couldn’t control my violence — my serotonin makes me lash out at my coworker!”
• “I’m bouncing off the walls during breaks and dozing off at my desk in the afternoon — the doctor’s report on my cortisol levels was devastating!”
  “I drove a taxi all day in a fog — after 30 hours without sleep” — even melatonin doesn’t help anymore

You do not see headlines like these. I tried to figure out how different the substances, disorders, or states above actually are compared with ADHD, and what other factors there may be that neurochemically influence behavior or performance against a person’s will.

Scatterbrained or night owls?

Unusual behavior and performance are therefore most readily explained through dopamine—even though many other systems in the body also influence them. The ADHD type is seen as a somewhat irritating scatterbrain who does not perform, demands attention, or requires patience and sometimes extra time from others. At other times, however, focus, persistence, and determination as strengths can overshadow aimlessness. Read also: My Shameful Superpower.

What does it ultimately matter whether you are scatterbrained or a night owl—or a parent of special-needs children struggling through a difficult marriage? Whether your best work performance fluctuates because of dopamine levels, stress, fatigue, depression, anxiety, worry, fear, or physical strain. For that reason, you might expect the coverage in the competition for headlines or on online health news pages to be more balanced. In my view it is a completely different matter if you undermine your own work performance because of self-inflicted reasons, such as unnecessary late nights or alcohol and other intoxicants.

ADHD is associated with performance in working life more often than many other biological regulatory systems. There are several reasons for this, related to diagnostic practices, research traditions, and culture—not biology alone. The diagnosis is not based on a laboratory test but on the assessment of behavior and functioning, which allows for a wide range of interpretative rounding.

In unclear cases, a diagnosis may also provide a person with an explanation for their own difficulties. The evaluator, too, may not entirely objectively find in the historical data all the elements that support the diagnosis and overlook those that contradict it.

Do I have ADHD?

I’m not going to list typical symptoms here, but instead offer a few questions that may help you reflect on why it is especially important for you to know. Is it that for years you have been fascinated by the idea that you must find out whether you experience life and the world in a fundamentally different way from others? Regardless of work or any single area of life? How, for example, might a medication trial change how your brain works or how things feel to you? If so, you are in the same situation as I am. Perhaps it is worth continuing to explore it. Note: this relates to the question in the heading.

It is a different process to ask whether ADHD is causing your problems at work, in your relationship, friendships, parenting, or managing your finances. You can attach it to almost everything you have ever done wrong. Be careful not to make the mistake of becoming blind to other contributing factors, even those completely beyond your control. In other words, do not assume that your performance difficulties are caused solely by ADHD or that they will be solved solely by ADHD medication.

Why is ADHD a clickbait headline in the media?

Has ADHD actually increased, or has it simply become more visible in an environment that demands constant concentration and self-management? The biological prevalence has probably not grown as quickly as the number of diagnoses, which suggests that recognition has improved.

Perhaps ADHD attracts attention because it combines capability, difficulties in regulating behavior, and a neurobiological explanation. Perhaps the issue is not only brain chemistry. Perhaps the issue is also about which phenomena we find interesting to explain through biology.

Or perhaps ADHD is simply a more compelling news topic because readers can always choose a side. Either from a position of superiority, feeling completely outside the issue, or from the other side, offering compassion or identifying with it and comparing it to their own experiences.

The biggest concern and the real provocation here is this: could it be that ADHD symptoms evoke irritation, contempt, or pity in the general population? Does the reader want to quickly distance themselves from the ADHD group in their own mind? Why? Because the topic is not well understood… Or perhaps because people without ADHD symptoms also carry their own uncertainties.

Hopefully I have overthought this and I am wrong.