Today, Maybe Everybody Has Attention Deficit... ADHD vs. VAST

One of the standout things I learned studying the neuroscience of attention deficit is that it's not only hereditary, like ADHD — it can also be acquired and wired into behavior. Take phones, for example: everyone's wired to theirs these days. You're scrolling, and next thing you know the pot's boiled over, the mail's piled up, and twenty minutes just... vanished. Sound familiar? That's basically everyone now.

There's actually a name for what's happening in an ADHD brain specifically: VAST — Variable Attention Stimulus Trait. It comes from Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who's spent decades studying ADHD (you can read more about it here). Basically, his idea is that ADHD attention isn't "missing" — it's variable. That means it doesn't hold steady all day. It spikes hard toward anything new, urgent, or exciting, and drops off a cliff the second something feels boring, repetitive, or slow. So an ADHD brain isn't broken — it just runs on a different kind of fuel. It needs stimulation to stay engaged, the same way a car needs gas.

And here's the part that really got my attention: ADHD/VAST brains are built this way from birth — it's genetic, one of the most heritable traits out there. But here's the twist — neurotypical brains can end up wiring in a version of the same thing, just later in life. Every time you check your phone and get a little hit of something new, your brain learns to crave that same spike of stimulation — and the algorithms behind those apps are built specifically to keep triggering it. Do that enough times a day, for years, and you're literally training a neurotypical brain to work more like a variable-attention brain. So if you've got ADHD, it's kind of a double whammy — the wiring you were born with, plus the same algorithm-driven tech everyone else is fighting. Neurotypical folks are wiring in that second layer themselves, one scroll at a time.

So whether you're carrying one layer of this or both, willpower isn't the fix. Strategy is. If you're ready to actually put the phone down and get back to your life, that's exactly what we work on together in coaching — insight, strategy, and momentum, built around your brain.