Analysis paralysis is a term used to refer to overthinking choices that can lead to difficulty in making decisions.
Behavior
ADHD paralysis
Analysis paralysis is a term used to refer to overthinking choices that can lead to difficulty in making decisions.
This can frequently become a challenge, especially for those with ADHD. Decision-making commonly poses difficulty for those with ADHD as it demands skills that those with it may struggle with. Read on to find out more about analysis paralysis and how it can be a problem for those who have ADHD.
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Why is decision-making hard?
For a lot of people, making choices can prove to be difficult. This could be down to simple uncertainty, but could also be due to more complicated health-related issues such as anxiety over the outcome of their decisions which can escalate the fear of making the wrong choice. This can be referred to as analysis paralysis. This is especially troublesome for people who have ADHD.
You may not think about it when you make everyday choices, but there are a lot of steps to making decisions. This becomes much more noticeable when you have trouble with this skill set, something that those with ADHD know all too well. Decision-making can be a long process, and many of these steps are things that those with ADHD would have extra trouble with. When you make a choice, you need to understand both or all of your options and compare them to work out which to select. This means you will need to:
- Initiate the task, beginning the process
- Continue to devote your attention to the information
- Recall the details to make a comparison
- Consider different possibilities
- Understand what each choice involves
- Think about the potential outcomes of each option
All of these steps are part of the executive function. This is a selection of skills that those with ADHD commonly struggle with, meaning decision-making can be tough. Those with ADHD may lose focus or not have the attention span needed to compare a wide range of choices to pick the best. As well as this, anxiety is a common contributor to additional difficulty with decision-making. This is significant since ADHD and anxiety are fairly commonly found together.
Difficulty with executive function
Those who have ADHD tend to struggle particularly with executive function. These are a selection of skills that make up the management center of the brain. The goal of these skills is to control your memories and how you think and to give you self-control. As well as this, executive function involves your ability to focus, stay organized, and plan things. Having trouble with these can be a problem in daily life, especially when it comes to decision-making. If you cannot plan, stay focussed on the options you are deciding between or struggle with flexible thinking. You will have difficulty staying on task long enough to make a meaningful comparison and eventually settle on a choice.
While those with ADHD will likely struggle with these things, it has no bearing on how intelligent or smart a person is. These mental skills can be tough. However, struggling with them does not mean you are less intelligent than anyone else. While it may make other activities and areas harder, you can still excel in other areas.
ADHD and anxiety
As previously mentioned, ADHD and anxiety are two issues that are commonly found in the same people. This common link often raises further issues. Anxiety is a big contributor to the difficulty of making choices. Those who have trouble with being anxious will likely consider their options more carefully and consider the potential outcomes of a bad decision. This can make it especially tough to choose one option or the other.
People with ADHD often have trouble regulating their emotions, making it even harder for them to make choices. If you have both ADHD and anxiety, you may find it difficult to move on from your anxious thoughts, and you can’t just make a decision and move on due to this. This is sometimes referred to as getting stuck.
Finding solutions
There is a range of techniques and medications that can help you or your loved ones who are struggling with ADHD. If it is executive skills you are having difficulty with, you can find ways to improve these and continue to work on them. However, the best option is to take medication that can tackle the symptoms of your ADHD. This is crucial to making everyday life easier for you and can make it much simpler for you to focus, stop your memory from becoming a problem, and even offer some help with anxiety and making choices.
If anxiety is something that you struggle with and you are looking for a way to combat this, then you must get individual help for this. Anxiety can be just as big a problem independently of ADHD. Although having both can escalate issues, you must get treatment and support for both of these problems separately to ensure that you have the best help and can live free of your symptoms.
