This is so backwards and only makes sense if still trying to fit into neurotypical boxes. Imagine telling someone to "practice" eating when they are not hungry so they can develop the "skill" of eating on command. It makes no sense. Stopping is not a "skill". It's a natural byproduct of being done. A clock has no knowledge of when I am done, satisfied, complete. The only way to know that it to learn to sense your internal signals—that is the actual skill, which this article would train you *out* of.
Dopamine only "keeps you hooked" if you are running a massive dopamine deficit. I don't ever feel that way anymore. I'm not hooked on dopamine because I keep my dopamine at healthy levels all day by following my intrinsic motivation and listening to my internal signals and meeting my actual needs. Stopping doesn't "feel wrong"—and it doesn't feel arbitrary either. I stop when I naturally feel like stopping. This is the real skill everyone needs to learn, and stop handing authority over to fucking clocks.
This is really good, practical advice. The "bounded work" frame is particularly useful — I use similar language with patients who describe feeling "trapped" in tasks.
One clinical distinction worth adding: what you're describing here is primarily an inhibitory control deficit (the brake pedal), but it often gets confused with hyperfocus, which is different. Hyperfocus involves reduced awareness of external cues AND time distortion. What you're targeting with the stop signal is earlier in the chain — the ability to disengage from a rewarding stimulus even when you're aware you should stop. That's frontostriatal circuit stuff, and external timers work precisely because they bypass the faulty internal signal. The reason "stopping mid-task on purpose" feels so uncomfortable is that you're essentially doing reps against your brain's dopamine-seeking default. It's exposure therapy for task closure. The discomfort is the point — you're building the neural pathway that ADHD didn't give you for free.
it's just torturing people for no reason honestly. arbitrarily stopping is not a skill anyone needs (any more than we need to be able to arbitrarily stop peeing mid-stream), and not being able to disengage naturally at a point of enoughness is actually a very important sign that the person is living in a way that is unhealthy for their neurotype, probably from listening to advice like this rather than their own body. i.e they are dopamine deprived, and so literally starving, that is the only reason this is ever a problem—the solution is a more stimulating environment, doing a hell of a lot more things you enjoy and ditching bullshit advice like this! external timers disconnect people even further from their natural signals. you are literally damaging ADHDers with this advice.
than you for the added info and background knowledge, it's really useful to make the difference between the concepts of hyperfocus and inhibitory control.
Oh boy! this article resonated with me and unchecked can carry over to the next morning! ~like today! I enjoy cleaning my home as well as cooking, and trying to keep up on the yard and garden too (especially when I am avoiding opening up my laptop and getting that kind of work done!) I get into a flow state and forget what time it is and start to panic or get cranky when I realize I still need to put things away, eat, and try to unwind and get to bed by 10pm.. there just isn't enough of a buffer.
Thank you for these helpful visuals and reminders 💕
Hi Suzy, great to hear that it helps you on your way. It's all about trying to manage time blindness, getting out of hyper focus and externalising. Not an easy task when you have ADHD.
That’s honestly something I have found challenging my whole life. I tell myself I’ll stop doing this in a second, then four hours go by, and I am still still doing the thing
This is so backwards and only makes sense if still trying to fit into neurotypical boxes. Imagine telling someone to "practice" eating when they are not hungry so they can develop the "skill" of eating on command. It makes no sense. Stopping is not a "skill". It's a natural byproduct of being done. A clock has no knowledge of when I am done, satisfied, complete. The only way to know that it to learn to sense your internal signals—that is the actual skill, which this article would train you *out* of.
Dopamine only "keeps you hooked" if you are running a massive dopamine deficit. I don't ever feel that way anymore. I'm not hooked on dopamine because I keep my dopamine at healthy levels all day by following my intrinsic motivation and listening to my internal signals and meeting my actual needs. Stopping doesn't "feel wrong"—and it doesn't feel arbitrary either. I stop when I naturally feel like stopping. This is the real skill everyone needs to learn, and stop handing authority over to fucking clocks.
This is really good, practical advice. The "bounded work" frame is particularly useful — I use similar language with patients who describe feeling "trapped" in tasks.
One clinical distinction worth adding: what you're describing here is primarily an inhibitory control deficit (the brake pedal), but it often gets confused with hyperfocus, which is different. Hyperfocus involves reduced awareness of external cues AND time distortion. What you're targeting with the stop signal is earlier in the chain — the ability to disengage from a rewarding stimulus even when you're aware you should stop. That's frontostriatal circuit stuff, and external timers work precisely because they bypass the faulty internal signal. The reason "stopping mid-task on purpose" feels so uncomfortable is that you're essentially doing reps against your brain's dopamine-seeking default. It's exposure therapy for task closure. The discomfort is the point — you're building the neural pathway that ADHD didn't give you for free.
it's just torturing people for no reason honestly. arbitrarily stopping is not a skill anyone needs (any more than we need to be able to arbitrarily stop peeing mid-stream), and not being able to disengage naturally at a point of enoughness is actually a very important sign that the person is living in a way that is unhealthy for their neurotype, probably from listening to advice like this rather than their own body. i.e they are dopamine deprived, and so literally starving, that is the only reason this is ever a problem—the solution is a more stimulating environment, doing a hell of a lot more things you enjoy and ditching bullshit advice like this! external timers disconnect people even further from their natural signals. you are literally damaging ADHDers with this advice.
than you for the added info and background knowledge, it's really useful to make the difference between the concepts of hyperfocus and inhibitory control.
Thx for that!
Reall useful!
You sure packed a lot of value into this short post!
Would you like me to go deeper in some of it's parts, in another article, you might be interested in?
Let me know :-)
Ooh yes please! Always up for going deeper 👍 LOL
Ok, cool Coleigh,, what part would you be interested in? :-)
Oh boy! this article resonated with me and unchecked can carry over to the next morning! ~like today! I enjoy cleaning my home as well as cooking, and trying to keep up on the yard and garden too (especially when I am avoiding opening up my laptop and getting that kind of work done!) I get into a flow state and forget what time it is and start to panic or get cranky when I realize I still need to put things away, eat, and try to unwind and get to bed by 10pm.. there just isn't enough of a buffer.
Thank you for these helpful visuals and reminders 💕
Hi Suzy, great to hear that it helps you on your way. It's all about trying to manage time blindness, getting out of hyper focus and externalising. Not an easy task when you have ADHD.
That’s honestly something I have found challenging my whole life. I tell myself I’ll stop doing this in a second, then four hours go by, and I am still still doing the thing