I think it needs to be mentioned that when ADHD minds wanders in thoughts while reading, the ADHD brains doesn't just stop reading, deviate on different thoughts, then pick up where it left off. It keeps reading, the eyes follow, but no information enters. It it's so frustrating reading a whole page on automatic mode to then realize: What the heck did I just read?! I don't remember a thing and where the heck did I lost track!? I've simply learned to hate books since they they were first introduced to be in elementary school .
That's a great point--no information going in while reading. Yeah, sometimes we have no choice but to read that paragraph over and over. So be it, I guess.
@@ADHDMastery Glad you understood what I wrote because I didn't even realize how confusing it was. Just like everything I do. Edited for better comprehensiveness. You're right bout that, so be it! 😅 By the way didnt mean to be patronizing. Your videos are very informative, detailed and helped a great deal understand ing the condition and what I've lived through. I just wanted to had important detail from my experience for those who can relate or those who wanted a clearer picture... Although you don't seem to have perceived it as such. That's how I felt when re-reading myself.🙃 Cheers!
It doesn't matter how you move your eyes of how much you pay attention you can't control your own mind to focus on what you wanted to focus on unfortunately
Don’t keep reading over and over. Actively read by taking notes “I’ve found pictures/mind maps are great”, writing in the margins, highlighting. It’s so hard sometimes. Something else that has helped me tremendously is getting a desk bike and a stationary bike. I read and peddle and that has helped me attain college education without medication. Struggle has true meaning in our cases. I wish you the best of luck!
1. Eliminate distractions 2. Get comfy (not hungry, use highlighters, etc.) 3. Read in chunks (summarize in bullet points 4. Meds can help 5. Practice staying in present a bit each day while reading/build momentum (meditation) [I watched this video on 1.25 X for the ADHD mind]
I have massive issues with comprehension. I can listen and "focus" but it takes forever for my brain to absorb information. This stresses me out and then it gets worse... Vicious cycle
For academic reading, I usually have to make myself uncomfortable to get it done. Being uncomfortable makes me want to finish the task faster, which makes me hyper focus.
What I started doing was reading really fast. Like as fast as I can. It helps because when I read fast there's no way of distracting myself with other things. I first realized this works when I noticed that when people speak fast and loud, it catches a glimpse of my attention and I can understand a full frase like that. So, reading fast and trying to do everything I can to scream for my attention on the book works for me, because it forces me to not pay so much attention at everything in the room or in my mind at once. You see, if you're talking to someone and all of a sudden a big explosion happens nearby, all of your attention goes to that on the moment. That's just an example, a metafor, i guess. I hope it makes sense and it helps somebody
Omg I actually don't know if I have ADHD but this for sure helped me. So thank you for that. I have no idea why I didn't think of this before. Thank you!
omg i could never understand why sometimes i read easily and sometimes i dont, and this is exactly the reason why! thank you for bringing it to my attention
Does anyone else struggle with falling asleep when they try to read? Even in the morning and sitting in a chair I often fall asleep. If I don't, then it's the focus issues. When I was a child though all I did was read. I miss it so much T.T
There's actually a thing with adhd where when you really don't want to do smtg or when you're incredibly bored with the thing you're doing, you will literally fall asleep.
I've struggled with reading my whole life. I can read small things, but past a certain length, readings become astronomically more difficult. I'd literally rather climb a mountain than read 30 pages. My parents never believed ADD was real. They called doctors med pushers, and implied I just wasn't trying. But I was trying. I ended up dropping out of college 3 times because I just couldn't keep up with the readings and long assignments. Thanks to videos like yours, I'm finally realizing that my problems stem from undiagnosed ADD. Thank you so much for your tips. 30 years late is better than never.
I really needed this , I love this channel😭 I'm Edo, I'm from Chile, I'm 23 and I'm learning English. I think I may have ADHD. My life is currently a mess, but I'm attending therapy for the first time in my life. At this point I'm struggling with my studies and crying everyday. I have been in three study programs, but I couldn't finish the first two. I'm in a critical moment of my life and I hope to receive a diagnosis soon. This is really helpful, you are great.
Daily exercise really helps me unwind later at night. I find that if i havent exercised that day, its a lot more difficult for me to focus on something.
I highly suggest reading out loud, even whispering really softly helps me soso much. Its like when you're reading in your mind, its easy to switch as if its just a passing thought but when you read out loud it becomes a physical task. It doesn't eliminate the problem but really helps.
Thank you!! This has been quite honestly my #1 problem with ADHD for my entire life. No one has ever understood my reading issues and I was diagnosed 20 years after I graduated university, so this has been a major problem for the many of the most significant parts of my life. I realize not all ADHDers have this issue, so that has made it even harder to get help. I barely even got help for ADHD as a middle aged adult!! I’m so grateful that others have had the same struggles I have. Thank you so very much for sharing this, and for taking the time to really analyze it. I think I have a chance at getting better at this now, as an adult. I’ve found many methods that are similar to the ones you described, but I had so much guilt and emotion about it that I always became depressed and overwhelmed on top of my distraction about reading. I felt like a failure. Your tips are RIGHT, and are very helpful!! By way of some constructive criticism, I don’t have much to add except that reading in bed helped, but I always had issues with HOLDING my book. I rest on my back and almost any book, especially large ones, had to be held aloft with both hands to be read! This is exhausting! I suggest that if you can find one, there are metal mechanical arms that can hold a lectern for you. Some of these have been around since Victorian times. They can clamp your book and allow you to just flip one page at a time. I think I need one, and if you can find one, it’s SOOO much easier to read comfortably if I have my book supported without my hands having to do all that work. Thanks for reading my long comment (if you did) and thank you for posting this very helpful video!!
My experience with reading and ADHD has been a roller coaster, and in fact it's how I figured out I even had ADHD to begin with: When I was younger, and had much less pronounced symptoms, my parents instilled in me a love for reading, I had less access to distractions (smart phones, etc. came later on - I'm OLD) and also tended to be rewarded for it in school. I would read a long novel in the course of a week, and short books I could read in a day. When I got older, smart phones were more common, I had the agency to choose things like video games or endless youtube videos, and also just generally had an increase in difficulty "staying on the page," to the point where I couldn't even study my textbooks at all when I went back to college, relying entirely on lecture and internet courses (thank whatever for Kahn Academy). It was at that point I finally figured it out and went to a psychiatrist to end up diagnosed for the first time in my life. Now, as much as I love to read (and am attempting for the thousandth time to write a novel, no less), I have ENORMOUS difficulty doing so. I used to chew through a long book in a week, now it takes me months to finish one, a few pages at a time. :(
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been trying to get into reading more and struggle to finish one page without distractions or focus. This makes me feel understood
I always thought there was something wrong with me. I am exactly the same and it’s affected my work hugely. I’m not diagnosed but I am pretty sure I have inattentive type add
Thank you for these tips! It’s hard enough when you have something you NEED to read for school or work. When reading for pleasure it’s slightly different but I still find myself not wanting to read the same book I was reading yesterday.. what I found myself doing is I always have 5/6 books I’m in the progress of reading. Mostly cause unless I’m able to hyper focus on one book, I just want to read something with a different vibe. It might sound chaotic but I usually have a book that’s lighthearted, another about self help, and a couple of others about different subjects I’m interested in. Of course thanks to my brain I can’t always cope with reading one book at a time so I book hop. It might not be for everyone, but since I’ve started to book hop I’ve been reading a lot more cause that way there’s always a book that pulls my interest
1:08When I read a book, I feel my mind going into another world, or sometimes when I read a novel, my mind imagines what happened in this line for a few lines, but for a few seconds I do not focus on the words and read out loud.
I was wondering if you ever had trouble telling stories in a chronological way, or if you have an oral exam, if you have trouble catching the right information from your brain in the proper moment and making a discourse. I'm asking you because I have a lot of oral exams, probably most of them, and even if I have studied, when the professor asks me something it's like I can't remember and I can't make a well-structured discourse. Sorry for my english, I'm italian :)
Great topic! Yes absolutely. I often have to structure my video with a script because I go off on irrelevant tangents and have to peice sections of the video in the correct order for it to flow in a linear narrative.
I even jumble up wordings and many times I do branch out while story telling. It always made sense to me, but people used to say sometimes I’m confusing to understand or too slow while talking.
@@ChethanSrinivas I know right..? It’s so frustrating, the things seem so much better in my own head.. and that’s why I have grown to be mostly silent, like there’s no point in talking out stuff
Oh God, I have never been diagnosed with anything mental but I can relate to everything you say. I study history so I have massive amounts of readings and I keep wandering away everytime. I talked about this with a prof but she couldn't really help me. Thanks a lot for making these videos
hey, it's been a while since this has been posted but i just wanted to say: later towards the video when you were talking about the practice of staying present at some point you said something like "the mind is gonna wander and that's okay, that's just how your mind works" and i genuinely wanted to thank you for that. it's been a couple months since i have had my psychological therapy interrupted for a couple reasons and recently i've just been extremely frustrated with having ADHD and honestly angry at myself for not being able to neurologically exist like everyone else and it might be silly but hearing that made me feel a little better. so, thanks!
I feel like this guy really understands the frustration that I have been though time and time again. Because of that, his words are all the more influencial.
This is extremely helpful I can't thank you enough. Everything is well said and so true. Almost like having a free professional effective therapy since I can't open up about this issue to my parents and have the pressure of finals and admission into good college. I just want to reach my potential but this (ADHD) is very restricting since I can't focus no matter how hard I try and I know no one would believe me so I'm on my own to do best for myself.
Wow! Thank you this was so helpful. You talked about things I didn’t even know were bothering me like the comfortability. That alone broaden my perspective and gave me more clarity about why I get distracted so easily from a physiological aspect.
Thank you for posting this video. I struggle just to start a book that I must study. I just feel like it’s a pain and my body itches and I just want to run away from the book before I even read it. Like I just can’t even look at it. My forearms get itchy. My shoulders. My feet. So I usually have to do 45 minute meditations and then go for a long run before I even read anything. I’ll try these for the days I just wake up late and I need to get studying. I hate medications. You just shut yourself down.
Thanks a lot man, I never was diagnosed with ADHD, I’m not going to claim I have it, but I think I have it, all of the problems you listed off in the beginning were the exact problems I had in my early years.
Really helpful video! I find that, to get comfy, a good thing is to have a tall glass of water in reach so you don't have to get up and break your momentum (or get distracted by how thirsty you are).. (My main personal problem is that I really need music to focus but I somehow FORGET that I need music. It is very frustrating sometimes.)
This is really helpful. I also noticed you don’t have background music in this video and just talk. It is so much easier to absorb what you say this way! Other RUclips channels on adhd try to keep their videos “entertaining” and I have to say I can’t seem to learn anything from them. So this is very cool. Thank you!
I hope you're not too disappointed when you realise some of my later videos do have music that's complained about 😅. I've stopped using it recently though.
At certain points I literally assumed that I was illiterate but due the fact that I have ADHD I didn’t realize how much of an impact it had on my comprehension. When I’m summarizing my thoughts on essays or when I’m writing articles for my blogs I tend to be so elaborate and I’m able to articulate my words precisely how I want to. But when it comes to reading I’m easily distracted but sometimes I also am selectively reading the words knowing what they mean but my brain does not cooperate unfortunately. Having the right strategies can be really helpful and also really effective, especially when you’re really interested in the narrative of the story but you tend to be zoned out so quickly. Thank you for these essential tips! Will definitely take them into consideration.
This is an ongoing thing for me. Even after reading something, I don't understand what I just read. It's like I'm just reading words and not reading information. I end up having to read something like 5-6 times over and cause I only really need to read in class, I miss alot of what is being taught to me. I'm hoping your tips help me out
How I managed my studies with ADHD and reading difficulties: I have had massive problems with reading and reading comprehension since elementary school. I got through school and university mainly by having the computer read the texts to me. My lifechanging experience was SPEEDREADING. Here I realized that reading very slowly is too boring for my ADHD brain and encouraged the wandering of my mind. Since I have increased my reading speed enormously, it is much easier for me to keep my focus. I can improve my reading comprehension because I no longer grasp individual words but blocks of words at once and can thus more easily place the information I read in the overall context.
Did you find the speed reading helped and with recall too? my anxiety is if I'm reading too fast, will I mis pronounce words. I have dyslexia too. It makes sense though what you said about reading too slow gets boaring. But also depends on what I'm reading.
Came here looking for tips and ended up scrolling through twitter at the same time... Though I think I got the jist of it from what I've heard (and went through each point at least before commenting). Not being on meds yet, I always struggle when reading because either I get so lost in the book that I forget what's around me, or I get so disctracted by my thoughts that I have to keep rereading the same paragraph or even page because I realize that my eyes were moving across the page but my brain wasn't there
The thing I’m doing is reading loud and rocking! Yes I bought a nursery chair and rocking on it when I’m reading. The problem I’m always feel sleepy no matter how much caffeine I take or hours I sleep. It is not the rocking motion by the way. I was doing the rocking thing my whole life and it was great before things start to worsen.
I like being able to see the words in the book and follow along to someone else reading it aloud because I can see what they are saying and it helps me to stay present. Even in school, I would write down whatever the teacher was saying because it helped me focus on what they were saying otherwise my mind would wander and I would forget the instructions. I've noticed this is also helpful when I am watching videos or films, if I can see the subtitles and follow along with the person, I am much more likely to pay attention.
When the book is very entertaining and fun I can read the damn thing even if there are people fighting around me but if the book is a bit dull or given to me as a task, I cannot for the life of me focus on it even if I'm in a silent room with zero distractions. I always thought I was stupid , messy and lazy before I understood how my brain works. It's fascinating how helpful the internet can be.
I find that it helps me if I shift from reading to questions to videos and back to reading every time I feel like my mind if floating around. A new source of information kind of brings me back on track yet I'm still working on the same thing, just from a different perspective.
Thank you soo much this will help me a lot in highschool. With adhd i have a dyslexia and dysgraphia and that is problem with reading and writing, because i mix letters and words when i speak or write and that sometimes comes with adhd. This tips will help me a lot 😊
I trained my adhd brain with brown noise/layered with rain, shower, and or blow dryer (NO LOOPS, that's too distracting to me) at 30 min chunks closing my eyes for a while before going again. After 30 mins I tend to get sleepy. I've been doing it for years and now I'm getting better at reading with distractions.
I happened upon site, and had never listened to or talked to anyone who had ADHD. His description of his daunting difficulties with reading is exactly like my own. It's truly amazing, I'm astonished, gobsmacked, if you will. I've struggled with that throughout my 73 years, or the 70 I've been reading. There was no such recognized condition when I was growing up. I was failing in school; my algebra teacher said I had low moral character and smugly predicted, in front of the class, that I would fail algebra and thus not graduate. This will sound too good to be true, but shortly after that dreadful scene the school got results on a battery of tests given to all seniors and lo and behold, that wild kid Bailey had an IQ of 172; later revised down to 157 when, in disbelief, they gave me more tests. Nationally I was in the top percentile in mathematical aptitude, physicals sciences, and intelligence. The icing on the cake for me was that I aced my algebra final without ever attending another class. The point is that nobody ever recognized any of that potential within me because, in part, they were distracted by my antics - I was a horror in the eyes of the staff; not violent or anything, just a pain in the ass. I apologize; is a penchant for extended harangues also a symptom? Thanks for this thoughtful and enlightening video.
Thank you so much, brother! These tips are so helpful! I’m about to start seminary and I’m freaking out because I know my brain. I just stumbled on your channel and I am a subscriber.
Thanks for this. I love to learn, but I have such a hard time focusing on the material. Even if I find the topic fascinating, I still struggle. It takes me such an extremely long time to get things done, and I am a perfectionist, too. It's rough. Thanks for the tips.
One thing that has really helped me, personally, is ebooks that provide a text-to-speech feature, that I use at a faster-than-normal speed, so I can read along while listening. If the ebook doesn't have this feature, or if it's a lot of text on one page, I use a tts service like ttsreader on my computer and just copy/paste.
This instantly worked for me thank you so much I always knew these tips subconsciously but couldn’t pin point it out to what it is that makes me me focus and what makes me get distracted so I only did these half way but hearing this has really helped
These are great tips! I never thought of earplugs, what a great idea! Highlighting (my own books) always worked for me when I read in the past. I haven't even tried to read a whole book in years because of the constant distraction from the words. I will keep trying, thank you for the encouragement. 😃❤
even when i get all other distractions out of the way, my thoughts itself are super distracting to me. it's like the harder i try to focus on reading the more i can't. like sometimes i'll read a sentence that reminds me of something else and end up in a spiral of thoughts that take me out of the book i'm reading and make me have to go back and read the page again, or i'll start daydreaming about the book and so on and it's so exhausting to try to prevent or stop it. and i also struggle with reading comprehension a lot, especially when there's like a lot of descriptions of the scenery, what characters are wearing, facial expessions and movements and so on i'll want to be able to vividly imagine it or otherwise it really frustrates me, but it can be so hard and it just makes me want to dnf the book. and for context i have both adhd and autism. i absolutely love books but it takes me so long and so much mental effort to get through one that it takes the fun out of the experience. i've tried audiobooks too and it's very hard to keep my focus on speech, i feel like i'm missing out on a lot of words and i don't have enough time to envision everything which also frustrates me a lot, and listening while reading stresses me out and seems to make it even harder
I figured out steps 1 and 2 decades ago but had I had step 3 (reading in chunks and summarizing that in notes) I may have done well in college. I didn't find out I had ADHD until I was 28 y.o. By then I had already flunked out of university twice.
in my experience watching movies regulary can also ease imagining what you read when you are watching a movie you are also thinking by doing this regularly thinking the fiction will easier when reading and this will help you to focus on
One thing that I've done for years whenever I've read is doing so outloud. I find it's harder for my brain to transition from an active process to a passive one. Although....tbf.... it is still possible, if you do it enough. But, basically it translates to catching yourself within a paragraph of where you started to daydream, instead of a page. It also helps that I can hear myself, thus engaging another sense that helps me further process the information.
Thank you! This video was really useful to me, however, im still unproductive, do you know any thecnic to improve the speed reading when you are an ADHD? I always loose the "thread" of the words and the full meaning of the text and i read like 5 pages in one hour while my friends do read 30 (i would like to maximize my own productivity to be more efficient and i dont know how :c, im gettin frustrated), Thank you a lot!
Omg thank you for school i HAVE to read books and get a certain amount of points I've been stressing because i have to take a quiz on it and it will get me points but nothing will stick in my head so tysm!
yeah i’ve tried audio books too and they don’t work, but some of them do if i like the voice of the person saying it, the speed, idk it depends on the vibes
ADHD destroyed my life. I love knowledge, reading etc. But I just couldn't read a single book in my life in its entirety no matter how much I tried to focus nor could I pay attention in classrooms. It just didn't happen. I failed school. Although I managed to get jobs I have switched way too many jobs. Needless to say my personal life is f'ed up.
they're is a particular series I have always been interested in since I was in middle school and I have only completed the first book in the series throughout pretty much the entirety of middle school and barely got through just half of the second book in the first year in highschool and I eventually gave up from frustration and sadness that I can't retain anything without reading a single sentence multiple times. I as well love learning and am always interested in great stories but my adhd has always hindered me from book reading. I also don't want to use audible because I feel that the pureness of reading from the classic book itself gets extracted and artificial from listening to someone, idk that's just me.
I hate reading, but i have so many books i want to read. It's just so hard. Sometimes while reading, words stick in my head and they just keep repeating, then at times i'd read a whole page, my mind would wander off, then i'd realise i read a whole page without absorbing the knowledge and i'd have to start again. Other times, when i try to imagin the scenes while reading, my imagination becomes a broken record player and just glitches out while i'm reading. (can't really describe)
I don’t know if this is adhd, but I’m constantly jumping from reading styles, trying to find the best approach for me. Reading generally feels as if I’m doing push ups with my eyes and mind
I got my bachelors degree this year at 25 and I have to say I am shocked I was able to. I did not study ever. I looked up what I needed as I went, and excelled at writing (usually the night before) but reading for any length of time has really been a struggle. Now considering a graduate degree, I don't see how I can make it through with my brain.
I always feel distraught at myself, thinking that I "suck" at reading. However I never think of that, I will always keep reading a particular text until I understand it, in which it is very tedious for me but I always end up understanding the text in a way how I intend it.
Check out Part 2 for extra practical tips for staying on track while reading: ruclips.net/video/Ymgzvkpga1o/видео.html
I think it needs to be mentioned that when ADHD minds wanders in thoughts while reading, the ADHD brains doesn't just stop reading, deviate on different thoughts, then pick up where it left off.
It keeps reading, the eyes follow, but no information enters.
It it's so frustrating reading a whole page on automatic mode to then realize: What the heck did I just read?! I don't remember a thing and where the heck did I lost track!?
I've simply learned to hate books since they they were first introduced to be in elementary school
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That's a great point--no information going in while reading. Yeah, sometimes we have no choice but to read that paragraph over and over. So be it, I guess.
@@ADHDMastery Glad you understood what I wrote because I didn't even realize how confusing it was. Just like everything I do. Edited for better comprehensiveness.
You're right bout that, so be it! 😅
By the way didnt mean to be patronizing. Your videos are very informative, detailed and helped a great deal understand ing the condition and what I've lived through. I just wanted to had important detail from my experience for those who can relate or those who wanted a clearer picture... Although you don't seem to have perceived it as such. That's how I felt when re-reading myself.🙃
Cheers!
It doesn't matter how you move your eyes of how much you pay attention you can't control your own mind to focus on what you wanted to focus on unfortunately
It sucks. Going through this right now.
Don’t keep reading over and over. Actively read by taking notes “I’ve found pictures/mind maps are great”, writing in the margins, highlighting. It’s so hard sometimes. Something else that has helped me tremendously is getting a desk bike and a stationary bike. I read and peddle and that has helped me attain college education without medication. Struggle has true meaning in our cases. I wish you the best of luck!
1. Eliminate distractions
2. Get comfy (not hungry, use highlighters, etc.)
3. Read in chunks (summarize in bullet points
4. Meds can help
5. Practice staying in present a bit each day while reading/build momentum (meditation)
[I watched this video on 1.25 X for the ADHD mind]
you are a SAINT! thank you!! i had no idea that was a feature...so helpful!
YES! Watching videos on faster than normal speed is KEY for me
i always watch at 2x speed,,even before i knew i have adhd
Thank u, from a fellow ADHD brother
What Meds?
I have massive issues with comprehension. I can listen and "focus" but it takes forever for my brain to absorb information. This stresses me out and then it gets worse... Vicious cycle
Fabian Peterkin me too :)
same!
Same with me
Me too, and my kids too, why is that? How can we get better, has anyone been able learn tricks or something that can help?
relate 1000
For academic reading, I usually have to make myself uncomfortable to get it done. Being uncomfortable makes me want to finish the task faster, which makes me hyper focus.
Worrying about the environment needing to be perfect or I'm not allowed to read is what has really held me back
What I started doing was reading really fast. Like as fast as I can. It helps because when I read fast there's no way of distracting myself with other things. I first realized this works when I noticed that when people speak fast and loud, it catches a glimpse of my attention and I can understand a full frase like that. So, reading fast and trying to do everything I can to scream for my attention on the book works for me, because it forces me to not pay so much attention at everything in the room or in my mind at once. You see, if you're talking to someone and all of a sudden a big explosion happens nearby, all of your attention goes to that on the moment. That's just an example, a metafor, i guess. I hope it makes sense and it helps somebody
Omg I actually don't know if I have ADHD but this for sure helped me. So thank you for that. I have no idea why I didn't think of this before. Thank you!
@@poms_beats Well, if it helps, it helps. Glad I can help!
THANK YOU
omg i could never understand why sometimes i read easily and sometimes i dont, and this is exactly the reason why! thank you for bringing it to my attention
How do you read fast for a complicated piece of text? I gotta say this works though if it's an easy read
It’s never distractions my mind just wonders and I don’t realize it till I forget that I was reading
Does anyone else struggle with falling asleep when they try to read? Even in the morning and sitting in a chair I often fall asleep. If I don't, then it's the focus issues. When I was a child though all I did was read. I miss it so much T.T
Have you tried pacing (walking back and forth not " pace yourself blah blah blah") I hear it helps (plan on trying soon) especially with a kindle
I recently learnt about 'intrusive sleep', completely changed my perspective of what focus means to me.
There's actually a thing with adhd where when you really don't want to do smtg or when you're incredibly bored with the thing you're doing, you will literally fall asleep.
Yes count me in bro i too fall asleep while reading!!
I've struggled with reading my whole life. I can read small things, but past a certain length, readings become astronomically more difficult. I'd literally rather climb a mountain than read 30 pages. My parents never believed ADD was real. They called doctors med pushers, and implied I just wasn't trying. But I was trying. I ended up dropping out of college 3 times because I just couldn't keep up with the readings and long assignments. Thanks to videos like yours, I'm finally realizing that my problems stem from undiagnosed ADD. Thank you so much for your tips. 30 years late is better than never.
Did you discover anything that helped?
When I was in university I would sometimes procrastinate reading to do a heavy deadlift workout instead
I really needed this , I love this channel😭 I'm Edo, I'm from Chile, I'm 23 and I'm learning English. I think I may have ADHD. My life is currently a mess, but I'm attending therapy for the first time in my life. At this point I'm struggling with my studies and crying everyday. I have been in three study programs, but I couldn't finish the first two. I'm in a critical moment of my life and I hope to receive a diagnosis soon. This is really helpful, you are great.
hope you're doing better bro
Stay strong brother. Shoulder to shoulder, never surrender!
Otro chileno, wena
Daily exercise really helps me unwind later at night. I find that if i havent exercised that day, its a lot more difficult for me to focus on something.
I highly suggest reading out loud, even whispering really softly helps me soso much. Its like when you're reading in your mind, its easy to switch as if its just a passing thought but when you read out loud it becomes a physical task. It doesn't eliminate the problem but really helps.
Thank you!! This has been quite honestly my #1 problem with ADHD for my entire life. No one has ever understood my reading issues and I was diagnosed 20 years after I graduated university, so this has been a major problem for the many of the most significant parts of my life. I realize not all ADHDers have this issue, so that has made it even harder to get help. I barely even got help for ADHD as a middle aged adult!! I’m so grateful that others have had the same struggles I have. Thank you so very much for sharing this, and for taking the time to really analyze it. I think I have a chance at getting better at this now, as an adult. I’ve found many methods that are similar to the ones you described, but I had so much guilt and emotion about it that I always became depressed and overwhelmed on top of my distraction about reading. I felt like a failure. Your tips are RIGHT, and are very helpful!!
By way of some constructive criticism, I don’t have much to add except that reading in bed helped, but I always had issues with HOLDING my book. I rest on my back and almost any book, especially large ones, had to be held aloft with both hands to be read! This is exhausting! I suggest that if you can find one, there are metal mechanical arms that can hold a lectern for you. Some of these have been around since Victorian times. They can clamp your book and allow you to just flip one page at a time. I think I need one, and if you can find one, it’s SOOO much easier to read comfortably if I have my book supported without my hands having to do all that work.
Thanks for reading my long comment (if you did) and thank you for posting this very helpful video!!
My experience with reading and ADHD has been a roller coaster, and in fact it's how I figured out I even had ADHD to begin with: When I was younger, and had much less pronounced symptoms, my parents instilled in me a love for reading, I had less access to distractions (smart phones, etc. came later on - I'm OLD) and also tended to be rewarded for it in school. I would read a long novel in the course of a week, and short books I could read in a day. When I got older, smart phones were more common, I had the agency to choose things like video games or endless youtube videos, and also just generally had an increase in difficulty "staying on the page," to the point where I couldn't even study my textbooks at all when I went back to college, relying entirely on lecture and internet courses (thank whatever for Kahn Academy).
It was at that point I finally figured it out and went to a psychiatrist to end up diagnosed for the first time in my life.
Now, as much as I love to read (and am attempting for the thousandth time to write a novel, no less), I have ENORMOUS difficulty doing so. I used to chew through a long book in a week, now it takes me months to finish one, a few pages at a time. :(
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been trying to get into reading more and struggle to finish one page without distractions or focus. This makes me feel understood
Love the intonation in your voice and how you articulate your ideas. Concise and to the point....
Thanks!
Very well explained !
💞💞
I always thought there was something wrong with me. I am exactly the same and it’s affected my work hugely. I’m not diagnosed but I am pretty sure I have inattentive type add
Thank you for these tips! It’s hard enough when you have something you NEED to read for school or work.
When reading for pleasure it’s slightly different but I still find myself not wanting to read the same book I was reading yesterday.. what I found myself doing is I always have 5/6 books I’m in the progress of reading. Mostly cause unless I’m able to hyper focus on one book, I just want to read something with a different vibe. It might sound chaotic but I usually have a book that’s lighthearted, another about self help, and a couple of others about different subjects I’m interested in. Of course thanks to my brain I can’t always cope with reading one book at a time so I book hop. It might not be for everyone, but since I’ve started to book hop I’ve been reading a lot more cause that way there’s always a book that pulls my interest
1:08When I read a book, I feel my mind going into another world, or sometimes when I read a novel, my mind imagines what happened in this line for a few lines, but for a few seconds I do not focus on the words and read out loud.
I was wondering if you ever had trouble telling stories in a chronological way, or if you have an oral exam, if you have trouble catching the right information from your brain in the proper moment and making a discourse. I'm asking you because I have a lot of oral exams, probably most of them, and even if I have studied, when the professor asks me something it's like I can't remember and I can't make a well-structured discourse. Sorry for my english, I'm italian :)
Great topic! Yes absolutely. I often have to structure my video with a script because I go off on irrelevant tangents and have to peice sections of the video in the correct order for it to flow in a linear narrative.
I even jumble up wordings and many times I do branch out while story telling. It always made sense to me, but people used to say sometimes I’m confusing to understand or too slow while talking.
@@ChethanSrinivas I know right..? It’s so frustrating, the things seem so much better in my own head.. and that’s why I have grown to be mostly silent, like there’s no point in talking out stuff
Oh God, I have never been diagnosed with anything mental but I can relate to everything you say. I study history so I have massive amounts of readings and I keep wandering away everytime. I talked about this with a prof but she couldn't really help me. Thanks a lot for making these videos
Oh my god thank you so much for keeping this short and sweet !!!!! 😭💕
hey, it's been a while since this has been posted but i just wanted to say: later towards the video when you were talking about the practice of staying present at some point you said something like "the mind is gonna wander and that's okay, that's just how your mind works" and i genuinely wanted to thank you for that. it's been a couple months since i have had my psychological therapy interrupted for a couple reasons and recently i've just been extremely frustrated with having ADHD and honestly angry at myself for not being able to neurologically exist like everyone else and it might be silly but hearing that made me feel a little better. so, thanks!
Reading while listening to the audiobook is really helpful for me.
I feel like this guy really understands the frustration that I have been though time and time again. Because of that, his words are all the more influencial.
I love this content. I myself have a learning disability, and I would fail many reading assignments because of it.
The way you explain it is what I feel every time. I daydream while I read.
I listen to lofi music on RUclips. It puts me in a state of hyper focus. It literally saved my life in college.
This is extremely helpful I can't thank you enough. Everything is well said and so true. Almost like having a free professional effective therapy since I can't open up about this issue to my parents and have the pressure of finals and admission into good college. I just want to reach my potential but this (ADHD) is very restricting since I can't focus no matter how hard I try and I know no one would believe me so I'm on my own to do best for myself.
Wow! Thank you this was so helpful. You talked about things I didn’t even know were bothering me like the comfortability. That alone broaden my perspective and gave me more clarity about why I get distracted so easily from a physiological aspect.
l havent watched the full video yet- but l have to point this out, he has such a calming voice
True! I often saw the words that I did thought were there when they're not.
Thank you for posting this video. I struggle just to start a book that I must study. I just feel like it’s a pain and my body itches and I just want to run away from the book before I even read it. Like I just can’t even look at it. My forearms get itchy. My shoulders. My feet. So I usually have to do 45 minute meditations and then go for a long run before I even read anything. I’ll try these for the days I just wake up late and I need to get studying. I hate medications. You just shut yourself down.
Thanks a lot man, I never was diagnosed with ADHD, I’m not going to claim I have it, but I think I have it, all of the problems you listed off in the beginning were the exact problems I had in my early years.
Really helpful video! I find that, to get comfy, a good thing is to have a tall glass of water in reach so you don't have to get up and break your momentum (or get distracted by how thirsty you are)..
(My main personal problem is that I really need music to focus but I somehow FORGET that I need music. It is very frustrating sometimes.)
Yeah, anything that keeps you psychologically comfortable and keeps the ball rolling!
This is really helpful. I also noticed you don’t have background music in this video and just talk. It is so much easier to absorb what you say this way! Other RUclips channels on adhd try to keep their videos “entertaining” and I have to say I can’t seem to learn anything from them. So this is very cool. Thank you!
I hope you're not too disappointed when you realise some of my later videos do have music that's complained about 😅. I've stopped using it recently though.
At certain points I literally assumed that I was illiterate but due the fact that I have ADHD I didn’t realize how much of an impact it had on my comprehension.
When I’m summarizing my thoughts on essays or when I’m writing articles for my blogs I tend to be so elaborate and I’m able to articulate my words precisely how I want to.
But when it comes to reading I’m easily distracted but sometimes I also am selectively reading the words knowing what they mean but my brain does not cooperate unfortunately.
Having the right strategies can be really helpful and also really effective, especially when you’re really interested in the narrative of the story but you tend to be zoned out so quickly.
Thank you for these essential tips! Will definitely take them into consideration.
Thanks for this help man! I really appreciate this video. Subscribed 👊
This is an ongoing thing for me. Even after reading something, I don't understand what I just read. It's like I'm just reading words and not reading information. I end up having to read something like 5-6 times over and cause I only really need to read in class, I miss alot of what is being taught to me. I'm hoping your tips help me out
I have problems seeing text as well, as if they are spaghetti 🍝 if you now what I mean.
How I managed my studies with ADHD and reading difficulties:
I have had massive problems with reading and reading comprehension since elementary school. I got through school and university mainly by having the computer read the texts to me.
My lifechanging experience was SPEEDREADING. Here I realized that reading very slowly is too boring for my ADHD brain and encouraged the wandering of my mind. Since I have increased my reading speed enormously, it is much easier for me to keep my focus. I can improve my reading comprehension because I no longer grasp individual words but blocks of words at once and can thus more easily place the information I read in the overall context.
Did you find the speed reading helped and with recall too?
my anxiety is if I'm reading too fast, will I mis pronounce words.
I have dyslexia too.
It makes sense though what you said about reading too slow gets boaring. But also depends on what I'm reading.
Great advice with summary note taking and clear environment thank you so much!
Came here looking for tips and ended up scrolling through twitter at the same time... Though I think I got the jist of it from what I've heard (and went through each point at least before commenting). Not being on meds yet, I always struggle when reading because either I get so lost in the book that I forget what's around me, or I get so disctracted by my thoughts that I have to keep rereading the same paragraph or even page because I realize that my eyes were moving across the page but my brain wasn't there
Thank you. This is so helpful and encouraging to realize this IS linked to my ADHD. (I was only recently diagnosed and learning)
For me listening to white noise or brown noise while I read helps a lot.
The thing I’m doing is reading loud and rocking! Yes I bought a nursery chair and rocking on it when I’m reading. The problem I’m always feel sleepy no matter how much caffeine I take or hours I sleep. It is not the rocking motion by the way. I was doing the rocking thing my whole life and it was great before things start to worsen.
I like being able to see the words in the book and follow along to someone else reading it aloud because I can see what they are saying and it helps me to stay present. Even in school, I would write down whatever the teacher was saying because it helped me focus on what they were saying otherwise my mind would wander and I would forget the instructions. I've noticed this is also helpful when I am watching videos or films, if I can see the subtitles and follow along with the person, I am much more likely to pay attention.
Exactly what my therapist recommended me! Sounds like some good tips
When the book is very entertaining and fun I can read the damn thing even if there are people fighting around me but if the book is a bit dull or given to me as a task, I cannot for the life of me focus on it even if I'm in a silent room with zero distractions. I always thought I was stupid , messy and lazy before I understood how my brain works. It's fascinating how helpful the internet can be.
I find that it helps me if I shift from reading to questions to videos and back to reading every time I feel like my mind if floating around. A new source of information kind of brings me back on track yet I'm still working on the same thing, just from a different perspective.
This video was extremely soothing
Thank you soo much this will help me a lot in highschool. With adhd i have a dyslexia and dysgraphia and that is problem with reading and writing, because i mix letters and words when i speak or write and that sometimes comes with adhd. This tips will help me a lot 😊
I trained my adhd brain with brown noise/layered with rain, shower, and or blow dryer (NO LOOPS, that's too distracting to me) at 30 min chunks closing my eyes for a while before going again. After 30 mins I tend to get sleepy. I've been doing it for years and now I'm getting better at reading with distractions.
This helps so much. People without adhd are so lucky 😭
I happened upon site, and had never listened to or talked to anyone who had ADHD. His description of his daunting difficulties with reading is exactly like my own. It's truly amazing, I'm astonished, gobsmacked, if you will. I've struggled with that throughout my 73 years, or the 70 I've been reading. There was no such recognized condition when I was growing up. I was failing in school; my algebra teacher said I had low moral character and smugly predicted, in front of the class, that I would fail algebra and thus not graduate. This will sound too good to be true, but shortly after that dreadful scene the school got results on a battery of tests given to all seniors and lo and behold, that wild kid Bailey had an IQ of 172; later revised down to 157 when, in disbelief, they gave me more tests. Nationally I was in the top percentile in mathematical aptitude, physicals sciences, and intelligence. The icing on the cake for me was that I aced my algebra final without ever attending another class. The point is that nobody ever recognized any of that potential within me because, in part, they were distracted by my antics - I was a horror in the eyes of the staff; not violent or anything, just a pain in the ass. I apologize; is a penchant for extended harangues also a symptom? Thanks for this thoughtful and enlightening video.
I relate so much with these symptoms 😔😔😔
Thank you for making this video. I needed this so, so much.
Keep up the good work with this content!!
I keep getting distracted while doing homework and keep watching videos of how to stay focused😂 I hate having ADHD
Hello Stuart,
That was extremely helpful.
Thank you.
1. Remove distractions
2. Get comfy
3. Read in chunks
4. Meds can help
5. Practice being present
Thanks
Thank you so much, brother! These tips are so helpful! I’m about to start seminary and I’m freaking out because I know my brain. I just stumbled on your channel and I am a subscriber.
40 seconds in and you've already described my life.
Thanks for this. I love to learn, but I have such a hard time focusing on the material. Even if I find the topic fascinating, I still struggle. It takes me such an extremely long time to get things done, and I am a perfectionist, too. It's rough. Thanks for the tips.
This is what happens with me too, did you manage to overcome it or find ways to work through.
One thing that has really helped me, personally, is ebooks that provide a text-to-speech feature, that I use at a faster-than-normal speed, so I can read along while listening. If the ebook doesn't have this feature, or if it's a lot of text on one page, I use a tts service like ttsreader on my computer and just copy/paste.
This instantly worked for me thank you so much I always knew these tips subconsciously but couldn’t pin point it out to what it is that makes me me focus and what makes me get distracted so I only did these half way but hearing this has really helped
Great!
That’s fantastic advice! Thanks mate!😊👍
Nice one. 😎
These are great tips! I never thought of earplugs, what a great idea! Highlighting (my own books) always worked for me when I read in the past. I haven't even tried to read a whole book in years because of the constant distraction from the words. I will keep trying, thank you for the encouragement. 😃❤
even when i get all other distractions out of the way, my thoughts itself are super distracting to me. it's like the harder i try to focus on reading the more i can't. like sometimes i'll read a sentence that reminds me of something else and end up in a spiral of thoughts that take me out of the book i'm reading and make me have to go back and read the page again, or i'll start daydreaming about the book and so on and it's so exhausting to try to prevent or stop it. and i also struggle with reading comprehension a lot, especially when there's like a lot of descriptions of the scenery, what characters are wearing, facial expessions and movements and so on i'll want to be able to vividly imagine it or otherwise it really frustrates me, but it can be so hard and it just makes me want to dnf the book. and for context i have both adhd and autism. i absolutely love books but it takes me so long and so much mental effort to get through one that it takes the fun out of the experience. i've tried audiobooks too and it's very hard to keep my focus on speech, i feel like i'm missing out on a lot of words and i don't have enough time to envision everything which also frustrates me a lot, and listening while reading stresses me out and seems to make it even harder
Subscribed, thank you for taking the time to make this video it really helped. Have a blessed day
Thanks for subscribing!
Thank You For This Video!
I figured out steps 1 and 2 decades ago but had I had step 3 (reading in chunks and summarizing that in notes) I may have done well in college. I didn't find out I had ADHD until I was 28 y.o. By then I had already flunked out of university twice.
Thank you for sharing.
I start reading and my mind wanders, I lose my place, I hear a dog bark. So I end up repeating paragraphs. I like your tips
in my experience watching movies regulary can also ease imagining what you read when you are watching a movie you are also thinking
by doing this regularly thinking the fiction will easier when reading and this will help you to focus on
i have adhd and humanities is hard because i have to read alot so this WILL help
One thing that I've done for years whenever I've read is doing so outloud. I find it's harder for my brain to transition from an active process to a passive one. Although....tbf.... it is still possible, if you do it enough.
But, basically it translates to catching yourself within a paragraph of where you started to daydream, instead of a page.
It also helps that I can hear myself, thus engaging another sense that helps me further process the information.
Thank you! This video was really useful to me, however, im still unproductive, do you know any thecnic to improve the speed reading when you are an ADHD? I always loose the "thread" of the words and the full meaning of the text and i read like 5 pages in one hour while my friends do read 30 (i would like to maximize my own productivity to be more efficient and i dont know how :c, im gettin frustrated), Thank you a lot!
Thank you sir!
Omg thank you for school i HAVE to read books and get a certain amount of points I've been stressing because i have to take a quiz on it and it will get me points but nothing will stick in my head so tysm!
Ooohhh mmaaaan... This is so true. I struggle so much with big chunks of text.
Him: you need piece and quiet
Me:tell that to the 5 people I live with
Do you find it hard to listen to audio books too? I thought they would be better but in actuality my mind just wanders off every 2 sentences
Yes
yeah i’ve tried audio books too and they don’t work, but some of them do if i like the voice of the person saying it, the speed, idk it depends on the vibes
Good stuff, I was recently diagnosed
ADHD destroyed my life. I love knowledge, reading etc. But I just couldn't read a single book in my life in its entirety no matter how much I tried to focus nor could I pay attention in classrooms. It just didn't happen. I failed school. Although I managed to get jobs I have switched way too many jobs. Needless to say my personal life is f'ed up.
I've read 2 books. Both fascinating autobiographies.
Couldn't even focus on the video 🤣😔
Thank u so much for this.
they're is a particular series I have always been interested in since I was in middle school and I have only completed the first book in the series throughout pretty much the entirety of middle school and barely got through just half of the second book in the first year in highschool and I eventually gave up from frustration and sadness that I can't retain anything without reading a single sentence multiple times. I as well love learning and am always interested in great stories but my adhd has always hindered me from book reading. I also don't want to use audible because I feel that the pureness of reading from the classic book itself gets extracted and artificial from listening to someone, idk that's just me.
Thank you for this video.
Thank you great idea
sad that i cant take my meds anymore because i had a seizure and they apparently heighten the risks of having them :/
I hate reading, but i have so many books i want to read.
It's just so hard. Sometimes while reading, words stick in my head and they just keep repeating, then at times i'd read a whole page, my mind would wander off, then i'd realise i read a whole page without absorbing the knowledge and i'd have to start again.
Other times, when i try to imagin the scenes while reading, my imagination becomes a broken record player and just glitches out while i'm reading. (can't really describe)
I don’t know if this is adhd, but I’m constantly jumping from reading styles, trying to find the best approach for me. Reading generally feels as if I’m doing push ups with my eyes and mind
I got my bachelors degree this year at 25 and I have to say I am shocked I was able to. I did not study ever. I looked up what I needed as I went, and excelled at writing (usually the night before) but reading for any length of time has really been a struggle. Now considering a graduate degree, I don't see how I can make it through with my brain.
this belongs to you 👑
This guy knows what's he talking about, we match 1 to 1
I always feel distraught at myself, thinking that I "suck" at reading. However I never think of that, I will always keep reading a particular text until I understand it, in which it is very tedious for me but I always end up understanding the text in a way how I intend it.
Is this also for add? Also great video!
Applicable to ADD as well!
ADD is part of ADHD, like, doctors etc seem to be calling it ADHD, then distinguishing the different types.