The quickest explanation for so much ADD in the world that springs to mind is by far the most unlikely – that attention deficit disorder amongst the western worlds population has actually increased in the last 15 years. Has it really, do you think?

We can see through fields of evolutionary psychology and many other fields of science that human nature is notably constant and slow to change, while diagnostic changes and procedures happen with much more regularity. There are not more people with attention deficit than ever before… It is just that  more attentional problems are now being labelled as mental disorder.

Those at theart of this discussion, psychiatrists, psychologists, scientists and medical professionals would attribute this to one of the following explanations:

Firstly the wording changes in the diagnostic manual DSM4 since published in 1994.
Secondly, heavy drug company marketing to doctors and advertising to the general public. (Do you think there is any more Ritalin left in the worlds resources?)
Thridly, the extensive media coverage of ADD and related subjects.
Fourth, pressure from parents and schools to control unruly and very energetic children.
Finally, the use of stimulants for performance enhancement.

I wrote several weeks back about changes to the DSM book and the new one (DSM5) will become the official manual for psychiatric diagnosis when it is published in 2013. The recently posted first draft contains a number of suggestions that would make it even easier to get a diagnosis of ADD in the opinion of many of my professional peers.

It seems that problems with attention and hyperactivity are very common in the general population…. And no, I am not harping back to simple multitasking as per yesterdays blog entry ;-) …. But there is no clear boundary to determine what level of hyperactivity or attention loss can be considered just a quirky variation in an individual and when they are best labeled and treated as mental disorder. I am certain that if I was to relive my childhood in todays schools, I’d be considered to have ADD.

There are also many, many causes for becoming easily distracted other than diagnosing ADD. That of course includes mood and anxiety problems, substance use, sleep disorders, stress, very busy lifestyles, and many, many other possible contributory factors. If the requirements for diagnosing ADD are too stringent, true cases may get missed. If they are too loose, innocent bystanders may get diagnised and added to the massive party! I worry about what is going to happen if DSM5 makes them far looser… Everyone in the world is going to be diagnosed as having ADD!!!

Have a marvellous weekend, the sun is going to shine and I am not working… I think my garden is going to get some attention.

© Adam Eason Personal Development — visit Adam-Eason.com for great articles, interviews and more on hypnosis and personal development.

Additionally, there a a bunch of ex-spurts who tend to complain that people do too many things at the same time… I know a teenage client of mine tells me he has music on, his instant messenger buzzing away, while answering emails and doing his college work! What a busy bee he is while on his computer…

We are told to quit with all the unnecessary web-browsing, texting, twittering, music-listening, eating, and drinking. The key to productivity, competence, and even happiness is to focus on one thing and do it right according to many schools of thought.

Now, this is excellent advice if you’re performing brain surgery or driving a packed double decker bus in central London or conducting a hypnotherapy session with a client… At least, I’d feel safer in the knowledge my brain surgeon was not eating a pot noodle and playing Bejewelled on his iPhone while removing a tumour… Otherwise, I am of the opinion that this notion of having to be focused on one thing all the time is nonsense, there I said it.

Firstly, many activities really can be done on auto-pilot. In fact, it’s preferreable. I listen to music and audio books while on the treadmill and there’s nothing wrong with that… I often check my emails while on hold to the bank… And surely it makes a lot of sense to do your ironing while watching the telly, or at least while in a state of self-hypnosis delivering some valuable suggestions to yourself, no?  (You see… Men CAN multi-task!)

Secondly then… There are activities that are so goddam boring and aversive that if wasn’t for multi-tasking, they would never get done at all… My accounts meetings need to be done with cups of tea and spots of idle chit-chat.

Thirdly, I’d say that those attentional puritans are right that some activities are done better with total focus. There is considerable psychological and neurological evidence in support of this. But so what? Not everything needs to be perfect, and it’s often more efficient, and a lot more fun, to do two things at 80 percent capacity than one thing at 100 percent capacity. As they would say in the big budget TV shows – You do the math.

If you are reading this while messaging a friend, watching a youtube clip, and/or listening to music, good on you…

© Adam Eason Personal Development — visit Adam-Eason.com for great articles, interviews and more on hypnosis and personal development.

I think the song went like that anyway. ;-)

Last weekend on my hypnotherapy training diploma, when the students had broken out into pairs to practice their skills and get a hypnosis exercise dones, I noticed one of my students wiggled his feet each time he went into hypnosis… I caught those hypnosis feet on camera on my phone and thought I’d share it with you here…

I often suggest to people experiencing hypnosis that it is best to experience stillness whilst in hypnosis, mainly because when you are really still, you have less spatial awareness and it helps create a deeper hypnosis experience. When people fidget and shuffle around, they get reminded where their fingers and legs are (if scratching their legs that is) and so they get more grounded and less inclined to drift inside their minds.

That said, if someone develops a kind of rhythm to their relaxed state, or their hypnosis, then I think that is lovely and can even be used to develop more depth and even reproduce the hypnosis state at will. Interesting stuff…

© Adam Eason Personal Development — visit Adam-Eason.com for great articles, interviews and more on hypnosis and personal development.

Being based in the UK, of course, my opportunity to watch the Oscars was limited… But I have seen clips… The clips I wanted to see were not of speeches or awards though… I wanted to watch Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

From the clips I have watched, they were hilarious, at least, they made me laugh…  They had that sense of humour of two good pals ripping on each other… Having spent most of my life in football teams, as well as with my closest school, college and university male friends, always having groups of us whereby we often teased each other in the pub and sometimes pushed the limits with each other, this kind of humour resonates with me…. There was good natured teasing from the opening in the Oscars…

Baldwin: “Welcome to Steve Martin – movie star, musician, author, comedian, playwright.”

Martin: “Welcome to Alec Baldwin.”

I just cracked up… They talked and played on the subject of the good looks of George Clooney who they both longed to be like; then they also joked about sharing a bed and rolling around in their sleep on top of each other; then there were more put-downs, I found them really very funny indeed.

I have always found it easier to tease and rip on the people closest to me, or people I am comfortable with… Male friends do tend to make fun of each other, tease each other, and compete with each other about appearance… My ginger hair was the focal point of much fun within my circles of friends… But so was another friends nose, the bags under another friends eyes (his nickname was/is Panda, hahaha) and much more besides… Some outsiders of a close group may see it as cruel, but for those engaged in it, they know that no real malice is underlying it… In fact, the intention of the meaning is always felt underneath it… I am not referring to cruel teasing or picking on people which surmounts to bullying, but a kind of teasing that forms a part of many male friendships…

Martin and Baldwin fulfilled the basic definitions of friendship – loyalty, dependability, trust, and understanding of the other… Plus, they had each other’s back… They were not necessarily understanding of each other but that is why they were so funny. Martin and Baldwin were together in their jealousy of Clooney…. A real moment of funny male bonding.

For me, and importantly so… They provided more than humour. They also provided permission for other men to poke fun at themselves and at their jealousy for one of the most attractive men on the planet (Clooney).

This was not poking fun at others and rarely at themselves as so very many comedians and award show hosts do.  This was self-deprecating humor as well as teasing of a pal. What can be learned from this is that men, do not always have to be tough, serious, and macho. And they can be attractive while pursuing a wider range of behaviours.

There is much research that shows men often tease each other as a way of showing affection and being close to another man.  Showing affection without teasing can be difficult for some men so good natured teasing becomes a sign of affection. I can remember being top goalscorer for my college football team and my best friend asking during one game if I was “ever going to put the ball nearer the goal than the corner flag!?” as he laughed off me missing a couple of shots that day.

There are of course times when teasing can go below the belt, perhaps when it is angry behaviour, but on Oscar night’s case, it was all for laughs…. That kind of humour resonated well with me, and had a real hypnotic effect as I recalled so much that I love about that sense of male, bonding, self-deprecating humour…

© Adam Eason Personal Development — visit Adam-Eason.com for great articles, interviews and more on hypnosis and personal development.

Well, not just one, an entire bag of them, here is a picture I took of them:

It says on the packet, that they are biscuits, but they aren’t… They are like roll-shaped melba toasts… Traditionally made from leftover dough which the bakers left in the cooling kiln overnight.

One of my current hypnotherapy diploma students, moved to Bournemouth when she began her studies and found herself asking me for advice on the good areas to live as she had stumbled across a pub on the outskirts of town called The Dorset Knob.

It was a running joke between us and yesterday she awarded me this bag of them, as a fond memento and a lovely joke… Though it was all I could do to stop other students from eating them yesterday!

So no… It is not something I get called and neither it is my nickname… I knew you were going to ask.   ;-)

Well you can shove your Oscars… I got a bag of Dorset Knobs…

© Adam Eason Personal Development — visit Adam-Eason.com for great articles, interviews and more on hypnosis and personal development.