Alertness Deficit Disorder
And the miracle cure discovered by the ancients!
A funny thing happened while I was trying to do more research on ADD, ADHD, AD/HD or whatever. I got distracted. I discovered a new disorder. Alertness Deficit Disorder. Not a new problem. People have wanted to control their level of alertness since (I suppose) the dawn of civilization. But only in recent years have people realized that not-getting-what-you-want is a disorder.
I suppose that the need to be alert on demand arose with the dawn of civilization. Back before then you had lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my! Those were probably adequate to keep you alert.
But with the dawn of civilization, I suppose, people invented meetings. That was probably the origin of Alertness Deficit. Not a disorder yet. Converting it into a disorder required ages of technological development. In the meantime, the ancients discovered the cure. Coffee!
This was an accomplishment even more admirable because they didn’t know the name.
The discovery of coffee made it possible to hold meetings without people going to sleep. We enjoy (or suffer from) the results of that discovery even to this day.
What called my attention to coffee was all this talk about how people “suffering from” ADD had difficulty staying focused on a task. It was a classic case of the dog that didn’t bark. Or the elephant in the living room. How could people go on about treatments for lapsing attention without mentioning coffee?
I did a Google search on
coffee caffeine
and found about 600K items. So somebody noticed the connection. Just not the people who view the condition as a treatable disorder and want to investigate treatments. According to the BBC, a common over-the-counter treatment for ADD is coffee or caffeine.
As an aside, John Grohol, of Psych Central, offers a list of Common Behavioral Techniques for ADHD Treatment. Sorry about that. My attention just wandered. Is that ADD or do I just need more coffee?
Critics will say that Alertness Deficit Disorder is really just another example of ethnogenic disorders. We have a cultural demand to focus on topic and on schedule. Topic and schedule to be specified by the culture. Failure to comply is a disorder. Fortunately, caffeine seems to be an effective treatment. That will spare us all the reports about Alertness Deficit Disorder. You can’t make money on a problem people already know how to solve.
Even without their coffee, people are alert enough to figure that out.
A funny thing happened while I was trying to do more research on ADD, ADHD, AD/HD or whatever. I got distracted. I discovered a new disorder. Alertness Deficit Disorder. Not a new problem. People have wanted to control their level of alertness since (I suppose) the dawn of civilization. But only in recent years have people realized that not-getting-what-you-want is a disorder.
I suppose that the need to be alert on demand arose with the dawn of civilization. Back before then you had lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my! Those were probably adequate to keep you alert.
But with the dawn of civilization, I suppose, people invented meetings. That was probably the origin of Alertness Deficit. Not a disorder yet. Converting it into a disorder required ages of technological development. In the meantime, the ancients discovered the cure. Coffee!
This was an accomplishment even more admirable because they didn’t know the name.
The discovery of coffee made it possible to hold meetings without people going to sleep. We enjoy (or suffer from) the results of that discovery even to this day.
What called my attention to coffee was all this talk about how people “suffering from” ADD had difficulty staying focused on a task. It was a classic case of the dog that didn’t bark. Or the elephant in the living room. How could people go on about treatments for lapsing attention without mentioning coffee?
I did a Google search on
coffee caffeine
and found about 600K items. So somebody noticed the connection. Just not the people who view the condition as a treatable disorder and want to investigate treatments. According to the BBC, a common over-the-counter treatment for ADD is coffee or caffeine.
As an aside, John Grohol, of Psych Central, offers a list of Common Behavioral Techniques for ADHD Treatment. Sorry about that. My attention just wandered. Is that ADD or do I just need more coffee?
Critics will say that Alertness Deficit Disorder is really just another example of ethnogenic disorders. We have a cultural demand to focus on topic and on schedule. Topic and schedule to be specified by the culture. Failure to comply is a disorder. Fortunately, caffeine seems to be an effective treatment. That will spare us all the reports about Alertness Deficit Disorder. You can’t make money on a problem people already know how to solve.
Even without their coffee, people are alert enough to figure that out.
posted by Selby Evans at 1:30 PM
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