Arrrgh! These loud, persistent, fragmented, chaotic thoughts speeding at me!

One way I found I can truly take a breather is to put on my headphones and crank up the music and sing out loud until it becomes my sole focus. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to take affect, sometimes longer. The volume doesn't necessarily have to be loud, just loud enough to keep everything else out.

As I look back over the years I realize I have consistently used music as a form of self-treatment as young as 3 yrs old, well, the singing part anyway...not so much the headphones. Long before I knew the answer to that question I've heard from so many different people, as well as myself "what's wrong with me?".

I really don't feel that there is anything 'wrong" with you in doing this,really.It sounds to me like a really great way to just block out all of your worries and pervasive thoughts that you really need to just get a break from.Keep up the good work,I think this is a great way to try and maintain your sanity in a crazy stress filled world.i think I am going to give this a try myself.Thanks for the suggestion.Marcia

I'm curious if there have been any studies on a possible correlation between ADD/ADHD and this "attraction/need" of music?

I'm curious if there have been any studies on a possible correlation between ADD/ADHD and this "attraction/need" of music?
Looks like there's been a lot. For instance:

THE EFFECTS OF AUDITORY STIMULATION ON THE ARITHMETIC PERFORMANCE OF CHILDREN WITH ADHD AND NONDISABLED CHILDREN , By: Abikoff, Howard, Courtney, Mary E., Journal of Learning Disabilities, 00222194, May96, Vol. 29, Issue 3

ABSTRACT:
This study evaluated the impact of extra-task stimulation on the academic task performance of children with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Twenty boys with ADHD and 20 nondisabled boys worked on an arithmetic task during high stimulation (music), low stimulation (speech), and no stimulation (silence). The music "distractors" were individualized for each child, and the arithmetic problems were at each child's ability level. A significant Group x Condition interaction was found for number of correct answers. Specifically, the nondisabled youngsters performed similarly under all three auditory conditions. In contrast, the children with ADHD did significantly better under the music condition than speech or silence conditions. However, a significant Group x Order interaction indicated that arithmetic performance was enhanced only for those children with ADHD who received music as the first condition. The facilitative effects of salient auditory stimulation on the arithmetic performance of the children with ADHD provide some support for the underarousal/optimal stimulation theory of ADHD.

Thanks for that--very interesting. This is something I want to look a little deeper into, just out of curosity. Seems like this is something that could be harnessed to help younger ADHD people with academics perhaps, but maybe science can tweak some specifics of how it might effectively be used.


In the early 80s, when I was a kid, my brother was identified as dyslexic. One of the new trials of the day for dyslexia in children was the use of tactile stimulation. I remember him having a "memory board" he would rub his fingertips over as he studied. I'd love for science to produce a whole book of these different senory stimuli that have been tried to reach various conditions, whether they actually ended up successful or not.

I thought I was the only one who's mind NEVER shut down. There's times when I can't sleep for hours because I can't get it to quiet down. I'll try reading, and I'll either read the entire book (only if it's interesting- if not, I'll leave that one, and search for another, or go on the internet). Music doesn't really help me either, although I love it.
The only thing that seems to work is excercise when I'm motivated to do it.