Taking Breaks, Avoiding Distractions, and Adults with ADHD

Taking breaks is an important coping skill for adults with ADHD but they can easily take you down a "rabbit hole."

Source: Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

A central issue in managing adult ADHD is navigating transitions. Throughout a day, most of us switch roles or steer between different sorts of tasks. In many cases, these switches occur within a single domain, such as different work duties or homework assignments. In other cases, there may be domain switches, such as shifting from work to household roles or finishing chores before gearing up to exercise.

Each such turn represents a pivot from the completion of one endeavor to the ramping up of another. These synapses between undertakings represent vulnerable gaps for adults with ADHD because there is a normal letdown when finishing one job–which can be a positive sense of “Ahhh, done with that.” At the same time, there is the need to rally energy and motivation for the next enterprise.

Identifying "Pivot Points"

Each instance of moving between tasks is a “pivot point,” a transition from one plan to another, often trading off between “modes” that challenge managing ADHD. Such switching is particularly difficult for adults with ADHD, in no small measure because it involves leaving a state where one is already engaged and productive, such as in the case of “work,” or that is enjoyable. One does not want to set aside–even though logic dictates that doing so will be better for one’s overall plan for the day–the longer-term benefit.

Planned Breaks During Your Day

Planned breaks are an essential coping strategy for adults with ADHD to manage the multi-faceted demands of adult life and its many roles. Think about the day as an endurance race that involves pacing oneself, including the need for breaks, time-outs, food and fluids, and pockets of undedicated downtime to get well-deserved rest to keep on track. However, these breaks, both stopping to take a break and, even more so, getting back on-task in the middle of a project or when switching to the next task, open up the proverbial “rabbit holes” for distraction and escape that can leave someone scratching their head hours later, asking themselves (with apologies to the Talking Heads), “Well, how did I get here?”

How to Have Good Breaks and Avoid Bad Breaks

More specific to managing, I will differentiate between “good” and “bad” breaks. A good break provides some rest and a respite from work without totally leaving work mode when one must get back on task. It is like a lock screen on your smartphone to easily reopen and pick up a job where it was left. A good break is generally “bounded.” That is, it is bordered by time, such as a timed break with a start- and end-time (i.e., 15 minutes, 10 am to 10:15 am); or it could be task-bound, such as the length of time to eat lunch, have a cup of coffee, or a walk around the block.

“Bad” breaks, on the other hand, are not necessarily bad activities; they are not illegal, immoral, or unethical. But they run the risk of being unbounded and knocking a person off track in the middle of their day. Some examples are reading news stories with links that unlock innumerable other news sites, playing games on one’s phone, online shopping, watching videos, or similar activities. There is always “just one more” seamless opportunity to extend the break. In fact, “bad” breaks can be repurposed as “good” incentives simply by being positioned at the end of the day when one has more time to enjoy them without the looming pressure to get back to work, reserving good breaks for the workday.

Interestingly, once done with the day’s commitments and presented with an opportunity to enjoy unbounded “bad” breaks, clients I’ve worked with are generally less inclined to partake in these options, instead gravitating to other interests and personally fulfilling activities. So, adults with ADHD certainly deserve their breaks today and every day but would do well to choose them mindfully.