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If you go online and look for advice on focusing, it almost always prescribes you the same advice. Get rid of the distractions, throw your phone away, and then you should be able to focus, right? Sure, it helps to like a certain point, but if you're like me who is chronically distracted and chronically procrastinating, you've already tried this. So, this is not really working. So, I actually realized that most generic advice doesn't really understand what distraction even is in the first place. Because your focus actually lives inside this like very narrow window. Like picture it like a curve. On the end, you've got little too going on, and on the other end, you've got too much
going on. And that actually like good flow of focus lives inside this like tiny sweet spot in the middle. And we always assume getting like distracted means there's too much coming at us. Whether that's a notification or social media or other stuff that is capturing your attention. But actually, most of the time when we call ourselves distracted, we're just really sitting on the wrong side of that curve. Sometimes, you can't focus because there's too little going on. Your brain is bored, under-stimulated. Your brain goes hunting for something more interesting. And if you're not paying attention, both sides can feel exactly the same. So, to become immune
to distractions, the real skill here is to learn to regulate your own stimulation so you can land in that optimal window on purpose anytime you want. And by the end of this video, you're going to know exactly which side you're on and what to do about it every single time. So, why is it so important to understand the state you're in, whether you are over-stimulated or under-stimulated? It's because this exact same tactic can be medicine or poison depending on which side you're on. Because think about it.
Add stimulation to an over-stimulated brain that's overwhelmed, it's just going to make you more overwhelmed and just make you want to more run away from the things that you're supposed to do. If you remove stimulation from an under-stimulated brain, you're just going to get so bored that you're going to procrastinate on the most random stuff. like maybe cleaning out your room before the deadline, like I do always. And there's actually a stupidly simple way to tell which state you're in. So, essentially low arousal under stimulation feels like boredom, foggy, sluggish, and slow energy, empty, unmotivated, you know? This is usually the time that you find yourself doom scrolling, doing the most random
stuff just to procrastinate and just to avoid the thing that you want to do. So, it's actually pretty easy to understand the state you're in. If you're overwhelmed, you're probably overstimulated. If you are bored, you're probably understimulated. So, let's start with the understimulated side because honestly this is the one people get wrong the most. This is usually the time that you reach out for your phone because it's so boring, so you need more dopamine, you need more quick hits. So, the move here is essentially adding stimulation, not removing one, but this stimulation has to be a controlled one. The reason why, like for example doom scrolling, is so bad is because it hijacks your brain and it is stimulation, yes, but it's an
uncontrolled one. So, what we want is that we want a stimulation that wakes up your brain and hits that optimal window instead of overshooting it. So, here's my actual toolkit. Whenever I wake up and I'm feeling like so bored and I don't want to do the thing and I just like start to doom scroll, I take my phone and I go for a walk or I go to the gym and I scroll while moving my body. Once I actually start to get a little bit of movement, my heart rate goes up and it raises my dopamine and norepinephrine, which are the exact chemicals that put you in that window. And once they actually raise my baseline, I suddenly don't really want
to even like look at social media or to my phone. So, I stop scrolling and I just like continue to move my body. And after like maybe 10 or even like 15 minutes later, I just feel so much better. I've raised my own stimulation levels naturally that stopping scrolling feels way easier. It is free and it works way faster than any pill. And you don't have to even like go to the gym, you can even like do exercises at your home while watching a YouTube video or something to get you into that window and then quit doom scrolling. So, if it doesn't help after my workout, what I do is I drink a coffee and I take 200 mg of L-theanine. The great thing about this is that the L-theanine takes the edge
off caffeine, so you get this like calm, smooth focus instead of that jittery, anxious buzz. And a lot of people ask me, "Why won't you drink just tea instead?" And it's because tea doesn't like hit me the same way. I feel like tea makes me more creative, whereas caffeine hits me like more immediately. So, for mornings, I usually prefer coffee over tea, which also has a lot of L-theanine combined like inside of it. So, if you're sensitive to coffee, maybe the tea can be better for you. Another option that I have to keep that simulation up is yerba mate. I don't know whether I pronounce it correctly. Essentially, yerba mate is like a traditional South American herbal drink that made by steeping the
dried leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, whatever that is. It has this like earthy flavor that might feel a little bit funny in the beginning, but you get used to it. And I found that it gives me actually really smooth boost of focus without the crash that I get from coffee. And it hits way faster than green tea as well. So, it's actually pretty good. And I also heard like Tim Ferriss drinking yerba mate throughout the whole day when he was writing his books. And the another supplement that I like to take is L-tyrosine, like 500 to 2,000 mg on an empty stomach, like 30 to 60 minutes before you need to focus. So, tyrosine is essentially the raw material your brain uses to make dopamine and
adrenaline. So, it helps you to push up the curve. But, it only works when your levels are actually depleted. So, maybe like after a bad sleep or a really stressful day, that kind of thing. If you're well rested, it basically does nothing. So, it's not an everyday supplement, but here and there, if I'm like super tired, but I still need to get some work done, then L-tyrosine is the thing that I take. After you do get this like morning stack, then there are things that you can do throughout the day. And the first thing is the brown noise. I'm going to be honest, the research around this is a little bit nuanced and it doesn't work for some people and it's not like completely
proven. It's not like completely backed with science, but at least it works for me and I've heard it works for other ADHD friends as well. Brown noise is essentially like a combination of all the different frequencies we can hear, but the deeper and lower frequencies are played at a louder level and higher frequencies are much softer. So, brown noise sounds just like more balanced. So, essentially like examples of brown noise include like a crashing waves, running showers, heavy rainfall, or heavy window blowing trees, but you can also like go on YouTube and look for brown noise ADHD playlist or something that you can find. If you're already overstimulated, this is actually going to backfire. It helps whenever
you're understimulated. And the another one is body doubling. This is essentially like just working next to someone else, like even silently. It works because it borrows a little bit of accountability and urgency from another human. And it also helps you to remember the thing that you're supposed to do and it puts you in that like optimal window. I hate this whenever I'm like overstimulated or whenever I'm like overwhelmed, I hate like working with other people even if it's like a library, but whenever I'm understimulated, it works like magic.
You can do it in a cafe, library, or in a co-working space. Or sometimes if you like really don't want to leave the house, you can also do it online. There's a website called Focusmate, which I'm not sponsored by the way. I wish I was. But they're not getting back to my emails. Anyway, where you can get a stranger like for a 25 to 75 minutes session and you basically like type out your goal, what you're going to do during the session and you basically like just start. You both share your cameras and there's like a timer and you work together. At the end of the session, you just like share how it went
and that's it and you can book as many as you want. And actually like make some friends over there so you can like match with your friends again as well and become build friendships and build this like accountability thing online if you don't want to go outside and if you like don't want to maybe like pay for a cafe and maybe there aren't like many libraries around you. So, it's a really good one. I usually like get most of my boring admin tasks using the body doubling hack because otherwise it's just so boring that I never do them. So, it's a pretty good hack. And number one that I would give is intentional multitasking. And I know that sounds wrong, but I want you to hear me out,
okay? The trick is essentially like pairing your boring task with a second input that is really low effort but stimulating. So, like walking while you listen to something or doodling or using a fidget during a call or maybe chewing a gum. I wish to a gum by the way. I just I'm not really chewing it right now because that would be so annoying. Like imagine I'm chewing a gum and filming a video. The one rule is that the second thing has to be near zero brain power because if it really needs real focus, you just like over load yourself and now you're just like doing two things badly. Essentially that like caveat is the whole game. Like for example, I usually reply to my emails on a treadmill or by going on a walk using
this for flow to transcribe my voice. If the meeting allows like the other person allows it, I usually attend meetings while walking around my room or even sometimes like outside because otherwise it just gets too boring and I need some I need more stimulation. So, now let's talk about the over stimulated over arousal situation. Okay, this is essentially like whenever I feel like I'm about to cry because I don't know where to start. There's too much thing going on and it's difficult to make decisions. I just feel full and everything is suddenly too much, too loud and I can't even like filter my inputs. All my thoughts feel crowded or like chaotic. I just
want to escape. This is whenever I'm over stimulated. The protocol we have here is down shifting. Okay, so whenever you are in the state, the most important thing is to reduce the stimulation to land in that optimal window. So, we're going to start with brain dumping and getting all of our thoughts out because usually whenever you're overwhelmed, sure the amount of the things that you need to do is also adding a lot of load, but most of the time it's also your thoughts that is creating this chaos. So, what I usually do is I open my Kaizen system, which I designed specifically for people with ADHD and people who are struggling with this chronic distraction and procrastination. And what I do is that we have a spot called daily Kaizen,
which is a protocol that you're supposed to follow every day. And you open that part, and the first step is essentially getting all of your thoughts out. We call this a brain dump. And what I do this is I use an app called WhisperFlow, and I dictate all of my thoughts. So, I basically press the FN key and space, and I just get out everything verbally, right? Like I say out everything that is occupying my mind. Whether that's a worry that I have or a task that I remembered or the things that I'm supposed to be doing or how I'm feeling, I just get everything out. So that I clear out my brain and I can see it externally, and so that I can evaluate more objectively. Because whenever the thoughts and tasks,
everything like worries are in our head, we make things like seem bigger, right? Everything is just like gets expanded in your brain, especially for an overthinker like me. But once you do this and once you externalize it, things actually are not that bad as it seems. Or even if they're all bad, now you see them in front of you and you're able to react way more logically. So, that's what I like to do. Because offloading open loops basically kills the background scanning, which is the Zeigarnik effect. Unfinished tasks keep pinging for its attention. If you just allocate for 5 minutes just to do this, and if you get every loop out of your head onto a paper, you just feel like suddenly way calmer. And out of the things that I have written, I
don't like sort out and organize things immediately if I'm overwhelmed. What I do is that I look at the page, like genuinely, right? And I pick the most important thing that deserves my immediate attention. I don't even create a list, I don't even like number them or whatever. I just look at the list and ask myself, "What is the most important thing right now that I get done that is going to move the needle, that's going to put me in the momentum and that's just going to make me feel more relieved. That could be either by the importance, right? Maybe there's a deadline pushing or if I'm genuinely feeling overwhelmed, maybe I don't have like enough headspace to work on the most important thing, then I pick
the thing that is going to put me in a momentum. So, I just pick one thing and that is the key, which we call a daily highlight in my Kaizen practice. And I only focus on that thing and forget the rest at least like for now to just like get rid of that overwhelm. And once I finish that thing, I feel way better, way calmer and now I have I'm in a way better position to make decisions. And the rest of the day, I usually use my Kaizen system to map out my day and plan my tasks. If you want to learn more about my Kaizen system and how it can specifically help you with procrastination and ADHD, check out this video or you can learn more on my website and get the exact system from my website rohinahanda.com. If brain dump
and daily highlight are still not enough, then the supplement stack that I take is GABA plus St. John's Wort. But I need to warn you because St. John's Wort, even though it's very powerful, it can interact with a lot of medications. So, if you're taking any medication, any supplement or have any health issues, you should always consult with your doctor because you're not supposed to take it with so many medications. So, be careful about that, okay? So, St. John's Wort is herbal remedy for mild to moderate depression, anxiety and sleep issues. And many studies actually suggest that it can be as effective as standard prescription antidepressants for mild to moderate depression. It's like that powerful. It
literally like calms you down and it get rid of that like thoughts. Other supplement is GABA, which is essentially an oral form of a naturally occurring amino acid that functions as a primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. It basically acts like brain's brake pedal, slowing down nerve cell activity and blocking chemical impulses to induce calming and relaxing effect. And usually when I like take those two, I get rid of that like anxiety and overwhelm. It really helps me to calm down and get back into this like optimal zone to focus. So, if you don't want to use supplements, maybe you're against it, or maybe you're taking medications, the one underrated way is
something that I've been seeing a lot on social media like on my feed that I give a try, which is literally staring at a wall like for 5 to 10 minutes. It's extremely boring, but it actually helps a lot to calm down your thoughts. It's It's actually like just meditation. Looking at a wall and not even trying to silence your thoughts, but getting rid of everything external that is coming at you and sitting in there like for 5 to 10 minutes. It can actually work magically, but I understand why a lot of people don't want to do it, including myself. So, I usually rely on supplements. So, simply put, what you need to do whenever you're in this overstimulated zone is that you need to cut out all the stimulations, including caffeine, which might sound crazy, but a
lot of the times when people are distracted, including my past self, I would just like drink more coffee to get me into that focus zone because coffee is supposed to help with focus, right? But the thing is, whenever you are overstimulated, the coffee I just more stimulation and it makes you more jittery, more anxious, and more overwhelmed, which makes you actually further move away from this optimal window that you're supposed to be in. So, remove all the distractions, all the input whenever you are overstimulated until you get into that optimal zone. And now I have to be honest with you about something because I don't want you walking away thinking arousal explains everything. Sometimes actually distractions has nothing to do with
being over or understimulated. Sometimes the task scares you. Maybe it's tied up with fear of failure, or maybe fear of unknown. Maybe it's something that you've never done before, and you procrastinate on other things just to avoid doing the thing because you don't like the feeling of doing it, or you don't want to face the consequences, which is a completely different type of distraction, which actually talk about this video right here.
