I’ve noticed something when I work out of my office in Chinatown: I get fidgety. Around 3 o’clock I’m sick of sitting and my ADD flares up like a teenage boy’s acne before a dance. No amount of walking around or trips to the kitchen for more coffee or water helps subdue the wandering beast that is my ADD brain.
I realized that I don’t have that in Mokena (where I now work 4/5 days) and I started to wonder why (no doubt when I was supposed to be doing something important). I discerned that my Mokena setup offers all sorts of positive avenues for my ADD to take without derailing my productivity.
When I started here in 2011 I was given the standard Herman Miller chair that’s all throughout corporate America. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great chair. There’s a reason it’s the staple in both startups and giant corporations alike. But it didn’t help me transition from the active college student to the corporate desk jockey as well as I liked. I was constantly sore and stiff throughout the day and my back and joints felt like I was 52, not 22. It turns out sitting for 9+ hours plus commuting in the car for another hour or two isn’t great for you. So I swapped out the expensive Herman-Miller chair for a $30 exercise ball.
Unbeknown to me at the time, exercise balls have a well-documented history of helping with ADD (especially in schools) and I can definitely feel the difference. The bouncing, rolling (and when over-caffeinated, occasionally falling off) serves my ADD as a positive distraction, giving my mind some leash to play with but not enough for it to run free. And no more aches in my back and joints!
And speaking of over-caffeinated, caffeine has a similar history of helping both adults and children with ADD maintain focus, thus explaining my caffeine addiction (although there’s something to be said about my sleep habits, but hey I’ll take what I can get).
In my quest to eliminate sitting and feeding my ADD brain, a couple years ago I bought some cheap monitor risers, forcing me to stand or sit on my ball and crane my neck. When my team moved about a year ago, we all got IKEA standing desks and those have been extremely helpful. When I start getting fidgety I can stand up, (or depending on the music and caffeine levels, possibly dance) which burns more calories and give my brain another positive distraction.
Music has always been a huge help in keeping my ADD under control. I remember trying to do my homework in 6th grade and arguing with my parents that my Discman helped me, it wasn’t the distraction they thought it was. Music has always been a big part of my life and it’s a constant aid in keeping me focused. Like the ball and standing desk, Music is another positive distraction. When my brain gets bored, it can think about the music playing for a little bit and come back to the task at hand, instead of going down an ADD spiral that ends up with me buying Gaffers tape on Amazon or on the Wikipedia page for John Wilkes Booth.
Since I’ve stopped medicating my ADD, controlling it has been a combination of self-medicating with caffeine and giving it positive distractions that allow my brain to run wild for a couple brief seconds before reigning it back in. And perhaps next time my ADD takes me to Amazon I should buy an exercise ball for my Chinatown office too.
Bryan Van Kampen 