Welcome to a special episode of the ADHD experts podcast from Attitude. Today we are pleased to bring you a feature article from the fall 2025 issue of Attitude magazine. To listen to the full issue and receive our winter 2025 issue hot off the presses, subscribe now at

attitude mag.com backslash subscribe. And now for today's story, why ADHD brains go overboard

by Nicole C. Carr. Restlessness, agitation, paralysis, misery. When a boring situation,

like a mind-numbing lecture or an interminable grade school jazz band performance, is inescapable,

it can feel like an intolerable burden for ADHD brains.

Or, as YouTube celebrity, Pen Holderness, co-author of ADHD is Awesome,

succinctly put it, boredom is torture. It's borture.

It comes as no surprise that kids and adults with ADHD who crave stimulation get bored more easily and more frequently than do their neurotypical counterparts.

And the lengths to which some people will go in order to feel something, anything, is shocking, literally.

Researchers at the University of Virginia and Harvard University Something, anything, is shocking, literally.

Researchers at the University of Virginia and Harvard University conducted a series of experiments that asked participants to sit alone in a laboratory and then fill out surveys about the experience.

In one such study, researchers wanted to see if the study subjects would rather do an unpleasant

activity than nothing at all. They left adult participants alone in a room with a button

that would give them a mild electrical shock if pressed. More than half opted to press the

button rather than do nothing for 15 minutes.

What is striking, the study authors wrote, is that simply being alone with their own thoughts

for 15 minutes was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer

an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid.

Your Brain on Boredom. The association between boredom and risk-taking, from substance use to

thrill-seeking activities, is not exclusive to those with ADHD. But because people with ADHD tend to experience ennui more frequently,

risky exploits, born of boredom, are a common phenomenon among them.

People with ADHD are used to feeling emotions at a nine or a ten,

...