ADHD and school work

MrRecoil
Community Member

Hey I'm in year 12 and i got ADHD. What are some tips and ways to study with adhd?

3 Replies 3

white knight
Community Champion
Community Champion

Hi, welcome

 

I was incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD when it was actually bipolar, such is the closeness of some symptoms. But like many mental health illnesses you have to adjust to the illness as the illness wont adjust to you. This means specific actions just for you to be implemented by yourself in a trial and error approach.

 

Eg. With depression when it arrives there's not much point trying to fight it, better to wait until it subsides then rebound with some positive thinking and motivation techniques. 

 

With ADHD if you have mania thats obvious to friends and family then you might delay your study for a few hours and in the meantime do some serious exercise. Arrive home from that and have a shower to freshen up and you'll be in a better frame of mind to study. While in that good mood take advantage of it fully, no phone, no distractions, tell family you are committed to that study time. But there is a trap- study for too long and it will rob you of quality sleep time and seriously, lack of sleep is a quiet enemy of mental illness. Your extra study in the early hours will be counter productive. This means your evening and weekend time structure should be planned down to the minute but you'll benefit from it.

 

Please remember that those with ADHD like some other illnesses have a positive side and its often in extra creativity, adventure, art and so on. Mine is poetry and inventions. So in your spare time identify with this unique side to you and capitalise on it to explore your other potential. Google "famous people with ADHD"

 

I hope this helped. Do you have a hobby or special ability?

 

TonyWK

Caribou
Community Member

Hi MrRecoil,

 

I understand ADHD can make it really difficult to focus on things for long periods of time, especially if they are boring and not stimulating upfront! What helped for me during school was the chunked or 'pomodoro' method - basically you dedicate 25 minutes or so to doing the thing, then take a short break (about 5 minutes or so) and repeat. 

 

If your school has a library or other quiet area where you can study uninterrupted I would also recommend checking those out. Even little distractions can be very detrimental to our focus.

 

Like white knight said, ADHD has a positive side. I would also like to encourage you to learn more about your relationship with it and how you can use it to your advantage. 

TrueSeeker
Community Member

Hello Mr Recoil,

 

I don't have ADHD that I know of but I did find studying boring. To fix that, I tried to make it more challenging for myself to keep my mind focused and occupied. Things like fast reading, testing myself how much I remembered by writing summaries, using different coloured pens for different things when making notes, applying the topic to real situations, imagining scenarios when I would use the information etc. I kind of tried to make it a game and use things that I enjoy to make it more entertaining.

 

I hope that it helped a little bit, good luck and please feel free to let us know how you going whenever you feel like it