Anxiety, Focus and Video Games

This week I listened to two broadcasts by Suvrat Bhargave (drbhargave.com), a renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist. The first was about anxiety and the second was about ADHD. In the first, Bhargave talks about how people with anxiety feel the need to control the environment, and can often be overly concerned with "fair" and "unfair." He indicates that this "black and white thinking" can help things seem clearer for the person with anxiety. He says that anxious people can be "emotional sponges," and pick up on what everyone around them is feeling. Therefore, tone is an important thing to keep in mind when interacting with anxious people, especially children. The more calm your tone, Bhargave says, the less the child will feel increased anxiety.

In the second broadcast I listened to (Focus, Focus), Bhargave began by saying that while ADHD may be overdiagnosed, it most definitely is real. He noted the three main characteristics of ADHD:

1. Not surprisingly, the hallmark of ADHD is difficulty with attention. The person tends to be distracted. This may lead to behaviors such as a child forgetting to turn in his homework or recalling specific details.

2. Fidgetiness is often present. This may be characterized by tapping feet, playing with hair, biting a pencil, etc.

3. Impulsivity is present. This can be shown by a person interrupting others or blurting out answers in class. This can also be seen by how a child overreacts when his or her emotions are running high.

Bhargave mentions that the difficulty with memory often associated with ADHD is really about retention, i.e., the focus involved when the person is learning the material in the first place, and that people with ADHD are generally at average or above average intelligence. He believes that people do not really outgrow ADHD, but they can learn to compensate using a variety of tools (see my earlier post about this on August 25th): structure, routine, reward, consequence, motivation, organization and medication. Interestingly, Bhargave says that the computer games that so many children with ADHD are obsessed with provide all of these (excepting the medication), which is why they are so appealing to the child with ADHD.