![]() “I can’t really control it it just sort of happens. “ I was mid-manic episode when I was 15 and I counted all of the pine needles on a pine tree.” You’re not even aware of the mental energy you’re using to focus, so when your hyperfocus ends, you feel kind of exhausted and groggy and like you need a nap, but you don’t really know why.” Usually, focusing is really hard and just gets harder the longer you have to do it, but when you hyperfocus, it’s like you get into this head space where all of the distractions just go away and you just want to focus more and more because it feels good. “I’m a distance runner, and I have ADHD, and the best analogy I can think of to describe it is that it’s like a runner’s high. My friends had a lot to say on the subject. I decided to open up the conversation by asking people about their experiences with hyperfocus and what it felt like to them. I’m lucky enough to have several friends who understand the importance of mental health and actively work to end stigmas and normalize talking about mental illness, and my friends and I have openly discussed a wide variety of mental health topics, but for some reason, hyperfocus has never really been one of them. I wondered: If hyperfocus is so common, why is this the first time my friend and I are talking about our experiences with it? We aren’t exactly shy when it comes to talking about mental illness – my friend is even a graduate student in psychology. You might lose track of time, or forget about chores, deadlines, and other obligations because you are so focused on this one thing. It’s a state of intense, single-minded concentration on one particular thing, to the point that you might become oblivious to everything else around you. The phenomenon is called hyperfocus, and it’s pretty common among HSPs, people on the autism spectrum, and people with ADD/ADHD, OCD, and bipolar disorder. I had experienced it many times before but never really talked about it or put a name to it. ![]() She asked me if I’d ever experienced anything like that before.Īs an HSP with ADD and anxiety, I was no stranger to what my friend was describing. She was spending quite a bit of her free time watching videos of the current tour and reading up on the actors in the cast, and was finding it difficult to pull herself away from it when she had to divert her attention to something else. She’d recently become interested in the Broadway musical “Pippin,” and it was becoming something of an obsession to her. She described to me an interesting experience she was having and wondered if I might be able to relate to it. Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine who, like me, is a highly sensitive person (HSP).
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