As someone with mild ADHD, I find it hard to focus if there are any distractions around me. As soon as something catches my attention, even for a moment, I’m hooked. Between this sentence and the last, I spent a minute or two staring out the window at a deer walking through my yard.
It’s a trait that notoriously makes it hard to sit in long classes and perform mundane tasks. And, it’s a trait that many of us try to unlearn or suppress through medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness or other means.
But, why did humans evolve ADHD in the first place? If distractibility is such a disadvantage, wouldn’t natural selection have weeded us out long ago?
One theory posits that ADHD might have been a helpful adaptation to the lifestyles of prehistoric humans. An adaptation that is, unfortunately, maladapted to modern life.
