Stimulation Seeking in ADHD: Boredom, Risk and Safe Outlets

What happens to me at the fortieth minute of a long meeting is hard to describe. Boredom stops being a feeling and settles somewhere in the body. My feet start to jiggle, I am restless in my seat and I feel an almost physical urge to get out of that room.

After I leave the meeting, one of two things usually happens: either I buy something I have no need for, or I start an argument that nobody needed. Both end that discomfort. I saw the link between the two very late.

In the glossary this is called stimulation seeking, and I think it is the least discussed side of ADHD.

Where it comes from

Sonuga-Barke's (2003) dual pathway model does not tie ADHD to a single mechanism. On one side executive function difficulties, on the other differences in tolerance of reward and delay together build the picture.

The decisive one here is the second pathway. The meta-analysis by Plichta and Scheres (2014) shows that the response of the reward circuits during reward anticipation is different in ADHD. In everyday terms: an ordinary stimulus is not enough, and the system wants more intense input.

On top of this comes the arousal level. Attention works best within a certain range of arousal. When you fall below that range, the mind starts to produce its own stimulation: swinging a foot, changing the subject, reaching for the phone, looking out of the window.

When I learned this, something fell into place. I had assumed my restlessness in meetings was a sign of disinterest. It turned out to be the opposite: while attention was trying to stay, the system was looking for fuel.

In ADHD, boredom can stop being ordinary boredom and become something unbearable. This is called intolerance of distress, and the mechanism behind it has nothing to do with laziness.

What it looks like

• Physical restlessness while waiting. Meetings, queues, traffic, a long meal.
• Keeping something always on in the background. Music, a podcast, an open video.
• Jumping into something new on a sudden enthusiasm. A new hobby, a new project, a new plan.
• Impulsive shopping. The moment of buying is itself a stimulus; the package that arrives is often a disappointment.
• Starting needless arguments. Conflict is also a form of stimulation, and one of the most expensive.
• Leaving things to the last moment. Panic productivity is another face of this need.

For me the sneakiest one is the fifth. In the middle of a calm day, bringing up a subject, objecting to something, poking at an issue. And then being surprised by the tension that appears. I covered the impulsivity behind this behavior separately in the article on impulsivity in ADHD.

The risky side

We have to be honest about this, otherwise the article turns into a piece on "the beauty of being energetic."

The World Federation consensus statement (Faraone et al., 2021) reports that in untreated ADHD the risk of accidents, substance use and risky behavior is higher.

Stimulation seeking is part of this picture. Driving fast, making sudden decisions, trying to adjust the arousal level with alcohol or other substances: all of them are expensive channels for the same need. I described the special place of alcohol in this picture in the article on why alcohol is risky in ADHD.

The risk of self-regulating. Trying to adjust arousal with alcohol, nicotine or other substances is common. It works in the short term, makes the picture worse in the long term and becomes hard to quit. If you recognize yourself in this description, it would be appropriate to talk to a specialist; in Turkey there is also the ALO 183 line for referral.

Channeling the seeking

Trying to eliminate this need never worked for me. What worked was keeping safe channels prepared in advance.

Keep a stimulation menu ready. Deciding in the moment what to do when you are bored ends with turning to whatever is easiest to reach, and the easiest thing to reach is usually the phone. A list written in advance changes that: a brisk walk, a cold shower, loud music, calling a friend, a heavy workout. In the glossary it appears as a dopamine menu. Mine hangs on the fridge and is five items long.

Keep movement regular. Positive effects of exercise on ADHD symptoms are reported, and it is the healthiest channel for meeting the need for stimulation. The details are in the article on ADHD and movement. For me, a walk markedly reduces the urge to shop on the same day.

Add stimulation to boring tasks. A podcast, music, a different place, racing a timer. What makes a boring task bearable is not the task itself but what you put next to it. I do not like doing dishes; the ten minutes I dislike become doable when I place them in the middle of an episode.

Allow fidgeting. Taking notes in a meeting, holding an object, standing. Suppressing fidgeting does not increase attention; it spends part of the attention capacity on suppressing the fidgeting.

Plan novelty. The need for something new is real and comes back impulsively when suppressed. Making room for it in the calendar works for me: a new recipe, a new route, a cafe I have never been to. Small and cheap novelties stand in for big and expensive ones.

Set a waiting rule for spending. Twenty-four hours for purchases above a certain amount. In the glossary it appears as a waiting rule. If I still want it after twenty-four hours, I buy it. Most of the time I do not, and seeing how high that ratio is was instructive in itself.

A common mistake: taking stimulation for a reward

For a while I did this: when I finished a hard task, I bought myself something. I thought I was building a reward system.

Then I noticed that what I bought did not matter at all. What mattered was the moment of buying. So what I had set up as a reward was really a source of stimulation, and I went to that source even when the task was not finished.

I now draw the line like this: a reward is something that comes after the work and reminds you of the work. Stimulation is an input I need independently of the work. When you mix the two, neither does the reward work nor does the budget hold.

Learning to tolerate boredom

It is also not possible to meet all of the boredom with a channel. Some meetings are boring, some jobs are boring and there is no escape.

The only thing that worked for me was to stop reading boredom as an emergency. When it comes I name it: "I am bored right now, this is not a danger." Then I give my hand something to do and count the minutes. Usually the peak passes within three minutes.

I do this not as an exercise in willpower but as an observation. The difference is this: when I try to suppress it with willpower it grows, when I watch it it shrinks.

I wrote about how fidgeting can support performance in some tasks in the article on sitting actively.

There is a good side to it too

It would be unfair to write about stimulation seeking only as a risk to be managed. The same need also gets things started.

In me the courage to enter a new project comes from here. Founding my own company, going into a field I did not know, starting to learn a subject I knew nothing about: none of these would have been the first choice of a cautious mind.

The point does not seem to me to be putting the seeking out. The point is to take it from the cheap channels and steer it toward places that are not expensive. That novelty fades fast and abandoned projects pile up is a separate subject; I covered it in the article on the hobby graveyard.