As I'm sure is the case with many of you, I have a problem with sometimes zoning out when I am talking with someone. It does not happen when I am talking casually with a friend, but when I go talk to someone like a professor about a question I was having, I listen just long enough so I can get a simple solution for my problem and I zone him out the rest of the time. I just stand and nod my head.

For example -- I went to my professor earlier today to ask him a question. I asked the question, heard the beginning of the response and zoned out for the rest of the explanation. Even worse, I kept asking questions about the topic! I was barely listening at best and I kept asking questions. Why would I do that??

Do any of you guys have any tips for widening attention spans? I'm currently taking Strattera -- and it has helped in some respects -- but I'm still having the zone out problem. What can I do to help alleviate this annoyance?

I have a feeling it has something to do with sleep. I don't sleep a lot, and it's often scattered between naps. I'm thinking the combination of ADD medicine + very little sleep is resulting in a zone out. Could I be on to something?

Thanks.

"zoning out" or commonly called "checking out" seems to get worse for me if I am tired or stressed.
If I am not very stressed it does not happen a lot. I have been very stressed lately and it has happened in every conversation I have had in the last 3 days.

Me :D

same here...ive been like this the past 2 weeks with a couple of good days in between..

Yeah, without meds I zone out a LOT, especially in conversations involving more than 2 people. I don't realize I'm zoning out until I fade back in and have no idea what is being discussed. Thankfully, no one has ever noticed to my knowledge. I just try to weed my way back into the conversation.

I zone all the time off meds. On meds I do if I'm stressed or tired. So yeah, you're probably on to something.

Scattered

i do it. people notice. but mostly they notice if i'm not looking at them when i'm listening (they think i'm not). my tutor teacher on prac,.... she would always be talking to me and i'd have trouble sustaining visual attention. i'd be looking elsewhere, but i would be listening. one day she was telling me something serious, and she got quite calmly concerned and asked me to just look at her not over there... hahaha. i never told her, but i think she knew.

james thinks i'm not listening tohim wheni'm not looking. then again i think the same when he's not looking at me. its such a wonder how two people so the same can still expect more from the other then one can do themself.

a lot of the time though, i'm not listening to him. i just tune out. but he just goes on and on and on!.... you woudlnt believe! and when i talk sometimes he doesnt listen either.

and sometimes he THINKS ive been listening then he says something and i just have to say i wasnt listening. its not on purpose. a lot of the time i forget that i'm supposed to be listening! i can hear him but it doenst seem important to me??

I do that.
I do it with professors and its so embarassing when they talk to me about things related to the answer they just gave me and I dont know what they said... eventhough Im the one that wanted to know..
I do it with friends too..if they are telling me a lenghty story I am not particularily interested in it is especially bad. Mostly when I do it with friends(my closest ones only) now I just say "im sorry I have no idea what you just said, can you say it again?" and they seem to be getting used to it cause they dont even react anymore, just repeat.
I really don't like small talk, I'd rather not talk at all if I have nothing more than "so how about this weather' to talk about..so with my lack of effort and zoning out troubles, I often seem probably very unsociable or rude to aquantances.
I do it with my family probably the most becuase I am not fighting my brain to listen cause I obviously know them the best and they wont be so offended..sometimes I have to ask them to repeat something up to 5 times. My mom quizzes me whenever she tells me something now becuase she knows theres at least a 50% chance I caught none of it.
Those poor people that have to attempt to talk to us
:p

I do that.
I do it with professors and its so embarassing when they talk to me about things related to the answer they just gave me and I dont know what they said... eventhough Im the one that wanted to know..
I do it with friends too..if they are telling me a lenghty story I am not particularily interested in it is especially bad. Mostly when I do it with friends(my closest ones only) now I just say "im sorry I have no idea what you just said, can you say it again?" and they seem to be getting used to it cause they dont even react anymore, just repeat.
I really don't like small talk, I'd rather not talk at all if I have nothing more than "so how about this weather' to talk about..so with my lack of effort and zoning out troubles, I often seem probably very unsociable or rude to aquantances.
I do it with my family probably the most becuase I am not fighting my brain to listen cause I obviously know them the best and they wont be so offended..sometimes I have to ask them to repeat something up to 5 times. My mom quizzes me whenever she tells me something now becuase she knows theres at least a 50% chance I caught none of it.
Those poor people that have to attempt to talk to us
:p LOL Keys, I still have a hard time believing that lots of other people have this problem too.

I know my dad has Hyperactive ADD even though he hasn't been diagnosed or cared to admit it. I am the innatentive type of ADD, so he can REALLY get on my nerves with his manic, loud, fast talking. I feel bad about it sometimes, but I just can't seem to help it: 70 percent of the time I won't listen to what my parent's have to say because 90 percent of the time they just ask me dull questions like "how was school today?" or something like that. For some reason I just get real annoyed with questions like that because it's almost always going to be a robotic response of "It went good" for the millionth time. Of course sometimes they mention something important like doing the dishes while their gone and I wonder why I don't remember hearing them say that. :p

This mainly happens with people I know pretty good. I don't seem to mind as much with people I don't know as well. I guess it's because after awhile I pick up on the patterns of things and it starts to get so predictable.

It's funny, I can remember numbers allot better than words. Like exact resolutions of monitors and stuff. You even seen the tv series "Numbers"? I feel just like the kid on that show, always searching for a pattern.

As a teacher Zoning can be a real problem. I sometimes zone on my students and special education students do NOT enjoy repeating themselves. A lot of the time if I''m concentration on something else, I just don't hear them. Sometimes I just start staring into space for no reason..Usually when I'm tired.

It's like my brain has to create it's own stimulation.

ZONE OUT queen here!!!

Today has been really badly...but it's due to some stress at the moment...and my goodness I kinda feel badly for people cause I talk to them on the phone and I get really quite and forget what I'm talking about...I sound like I don't know what I'm doing or talking about but I can't help it.....My mind sees empty on it but there are still like a billion thoughts going through it....

Kinda see it as a car crash in my mind...like a five car pile up and traffic is stopped up...everyone is confused and struggling to get their cell phones out to call work/family/friends.....it's a big mess....YUP thats my mind at the moment..

And I still zone out...just sit there not even daydreaming just doing nothing... my brain is trying to re-charge and get a move on.....

where is the energizer bunny when you need it eh?? :)

I know what you are going through. It is painful to me. I am 37 and have suffered my hole life.

I do have the answer. But it requires alot of hard work and disapline.

Do you have trouble remembering friends names or places that you know well. If the answer is yes

Its your brain is telling you that it is not getting enough stimulation- ie youre not thinking enough. The left side of your brain- which keeps order- which helps you to focus- and not zone out

what you need to do is exercize that left side of your brain- do crossword puzzles. math problems, study music, listen to conversations, etc

This will really help

Also taking fish oil helps allot, and stay away from coffee- it kills attention.

LOL well maybe somethings wrong with the right side of my brain too, because I'm a math teacher. just think how bad I'd be if I wasn't. With me, my internal thought voice is just louder than those around me.

I also have a tendancy to zone out, but I can feel my brain working. it's wierd, but it's kind of like sending a series of complex commands to the processor of a computer... you know it's working, but it makes the computer slow down and none of the commands you give it happen until it finishes the other commands...
If I just go with it and don't fight it, (like getting to bed early so I can lay there and purposefully zone) I put a lot of things together and come up with some incredible stuff...
It's basically taking all of the current recent events and giving them to the subconscious to categorize and connect and process. With me, the "processor" in this case has too high a priority, so my senses and body are almost in a state of trance so that my brain has access to all of my energy.

*edit: just thought of this:*
This is the same thing a "normal" brain does during the R.E.M. cycle of sleep... during normal sleep, all the the things in short term memory and connected things in long term memory from between the last sleep cycle and the current one are given to the subconscious to process, categorize, index, and cross-index. The body rests while the brain uses a store of physical energy specifically dedicated to this, and the body heals and replenishes it's own energy.
We seem to do this throughout the day, rather than just at night. It probably has something to do with the AD/HD brain having a much much smaller path from short term memory to long term memory (white matter) which is why we forget things that just happened, and it also means that since we don't put nearly as much into long term memory, our brain has to process short-term and real-time information much much faster and much more often to compensate. The key to placing things into long term memory is simply a matter of priority, being that because of the narrow path frmo short to long term memory, we sacrifice any information that seems to us to be irrelevant or low priority, and we place priority on the things in which we are *currently* interested and curious about.

*edit #2 - Thought of some more...*
This would also help to explain why people with AD/HD can function on less sleep, because other than replenishing physical energy, the brain uses sleep to process information... Which we do constantly, so our brain doesn't use as much resources for this during sleep because it's spread out throughout the day, if that makes sense.
It's also why we use stimulants and why they help us! because normally a much greater ammount of our physical energy is used by the brain for real-time information processing, we tend to have less available for our bodies. The stimulants then, such as dextroamphetamine, caffiene, etc. bring our energy level up to a point where our brain has what it needs but it doesn't have to deplete our body's energy to get it, so we can function "normally".

so in short:
Our brain has greatly reduced capacity for sending short-term data and memory into the long term memory, so it has to process information not only more often, but also at a seriously increased rate, which uses up energy that our bodies store for that purpose during the day, and begins to use the energy our body uses for itelf to function, which then effects our physical abilities and functionality, and the data that has the highest priority (i.e. the data we are most interested in currently) is the only data sent into long term memory.

-Mike