Living simply, with ADHD.

[u/Impermanentlyhere]

How does one shift towards a more simple life with dopamine seeking behaviours/habits caused by ADHD? Can anyone relate? I hyperfixate on the next expensive skin product or gym class or influencer or kitchen appliance that I think will make my life better and it all adds up to mental and physical clutter. I have too many possessions and it never feels like enough- I really want to minimise but then I’ll go through a low season and impulse buy more. My brain feels like it wasn’t built in way that’s conducive to a slow, grateful life. It’s always, “what’s next” can anyone relate?

[u/socialjusticecleric7]

Ahhh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I actually think some simple-living associated things can work great for people with ADHD (or some of them anyways) -- for instance, folding clothes is boring, right? But folding them in a very specific way, as with Maria Kondo's approach, can make it interesting because you have to pay attention to what you're doing and you're learning a skill. Similarly with people who get really into bullet journaling -- sometimes you need some extra color to actually use your planner. Embracing the idea that sometimes your hobbies are going to cycle and that that's OK; or on the flip side keeping some aspect of your hobbies visible so that you don't forget things you enjoy doing just because you haven't done it or seen anything about it for a few days. Gamifying habits you want to cultivate is not necessarily simple, but, if you're going to be doing some dopamine-seeking thing anyways might as well use that in service of cultivating the habits that you think will be good for you.

I don't personally have much trouble with impulse buying, but some ideas I've encountered:

* satisfy the desire for new with something free (library books, free boxes/buy nothing groups) that you aren't going to hold onto

* satisfy the desire for new with things that are small, cheap, or both (thrift store finds, DND dice, stickers/stationery)

* pay with cash as much as possible (cash feels more "real") and perhaps even concretize your budget with envelopes full of cash. Obviously this doesn't really work for online buying, but, well -- if you're prone to impulse buying, maybe you should avoid online shopping as much as possible.

* this has not gone over well for me, but you could try when you have the impulse to buy a thing, write down that you wanted to buy it and only buy it if some period of time later (three days, the next week, etc) it still seems like a good idea.

* people need rewards, it's human, if you are rewarding yourself in a sub-optimal way it may be constructive, not to try to force yourself to not seek rewards, but to actively seek different rewards instead.

If you get exposed to a lot of ads, or content that basically is a longform ad like influencer blogs or (sigh) women's magazines, it may be worth looking into how to minimize them -- adblockers, paying for susbscriptions in order to avoid ads (might be cheaper), changing how you consume media (eg books tend to only have ads for other books at most; watching a DVD you own means you are not going to see ads, etc.) I watch a ton of youtube, so I pay youtube a monthly fee to not see ads, that seems worth it to me -- I always have the option of just not watching youtube, after all, and they need to make money somehow.