The Overwhelm Saboteur: How ADT hijacks your potential!
“Overwhelm isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a signal that your brain is trying to do too much with too little space. Flow begins when you reclaim that space.”
- Jason Shreve
July, 2025
🧠 The Overwhelm Saboteur: How Attention Deficit Trait Blocks Flow and Hijacks Your Potential
You sit down to focus. But your mind is already sprinting—emails, deadlines, checking TikTok, that thing you forgot to do yesterday. You’re not lazy. You’re not unmotivated. You’re overwhelmed. And that overwhelm has a name: Attention Deficit Trait (ADT).
In high-performing environments, ADT is the silent saboteur of flow, clarity, and creativity. It mimics ADHD, but it’s not a clinical diagnosis—it’s a neurobiological response to chronic overload. And if you’re feeling scattered, reactive, or stuck in shallow work, ADT might be the invisible force holding you back.
Let’s unpack what it is, how it hijacks your brain, and what you can do to reclaim your focus—and your flow.
⚠️ What Is Attention Deficit Trait (ADT)?
Coined by Dr. Edward Hallowell, ADT is a condition of the modern workplace, not a disorder of the brain. It’s triggered by:
Constant interruptions
Information overload
Unrealistic urgency
Lack of recovery time
Today’s world, both personal and professional environments, are designed in a way that makes these inevitable - constant social media and e-mail/text alerts and pings coming at us from every angle. Our phones, computers, and apps are constantly begging for our attention!!!
Unlike ADHD, which is neurological and lifelong, ADT is acquired—and reversible. But left unchecked, it can erode your ability to think strategically, prioritize effectively, and enter flow states.
🧠 The Neuroscience of Overwhelm
When your brain is bombarded with inputs, your prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for executive function—goes into overdrive. You lose access to:
Working memory
Decision-making clarity
Emotional regulation
At the same time, your amygdala (your brain’s threat detector) lights up, interpreting the overload as danger. This triggers a fight-flight-freeze response, flooding your system with cortisol and narrowing your attention to short-term survival.
In this state, flow is neurologically impossible. Flow requires deep focus, low self-monitoring, and a sense of control—all of which are compromised by ADT.
Side Note: Cortisol is your body’s primary stress hormone.
Effects on the Brain:
Memory and Learning: chronic cortisol exposure impairs the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, leading to forgetfulness and difficulty learning new info
Emotional Regulation: It overstimulates the amygdala, heightening fear, anxiety, and emotional reactivity
Executive Function: It disrupts the prefrontal cortex, reducing quality decision-making, focus, and impulse control
Neuroplasticity: Long-term elevation can shrink brain volume and reduce neural connectivity, especially in areas tied to self-regulation and creativity
🚫 How ADT Blocks Flow
Flow is your brain’s optimal state for performance and creativity. But ADT creates the opposite conditions:
Flow Requires:
Deep Focus
Clear Goals
Sense of Control
Intrinsic Motivation
Low Cognitive Load
ADT Creates:
Constant Distraction
Mental Clutter
Perceived Chaos
Reactive Urgency
Overwhelm and Fatigue
When ADT is running the show, you’re stuck in shallow work loops—busy but not productive, active but not aligned.
🔄 Reclaiming Flow: 5 Strategies to Disarm the Overwhelm Saboteur
Name It to Tame It Recognize when you’re in an ADT spiral. Awareness is the first step to regaining agency. Give what your feeling and sensing a name.
Create Cognitive White Space Block time for deep work. Turn off notifications. Protect your brain’s bandwidth like it’s your most valuable asset—because it is.
Use Flow Triggers
Clear goals
Immediate feedback
Slightly stretched challenge These conditions help shift your brain from scattered to focused.
Practice Strategic Recovery Flow isn’t about grinding harder—it’s about oscillating between intensity and rest. Walks, breathwork, and even 90-second resets can recalibrate your nervous system.
Design for One Thing at a Time Multitasking is a myth. Design your day around single-tasking sprints. Your brain—and your results—will thank you.
🧭 Final Thought
If you’ve been feeling scattered, reactive, or stuck in the noise, you’re not broken—you’re overloaded. ADT is the brain’s natural response to unnatural demands. But with the right tools, you can shift from chaos to clarity, from reactivity to flow.
Because the real saboteur isn’t your ambition—it’s the overwhelm that keeps you from accessing it.
“The greatest threat to success is NOT failure but boredom, distraction, and the constant pull of the unimportant.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits -
