Hunter’s Brain, Music’s Soul: Why ADHD Minds Think in Rhythm, Not Rules

How music helps ADHD brains focus, thrive, and survive in a world of distractions.

I’m probably a poster boy for ADHD; it’s been, throughout my life, my biggest blessing and my biggest curse. Particularly when I need to focus on something boring.

My Hunter brain is easily distracted, subject to flights of fancy when I’m trying to concentrate, and constantly on alert for danger or new opportunities for stimulation. While this made my high school and college studies hell, it’s also led me all over the world through several lifetimes of learnings and adventures.

Sitting down in front of a computer — as I am as I write this — to produce a thoughtful article (or any other sort of “homework”) has always been a challenge. But somewhere in my twenties I discovered that if I’m listening to music it somehow keeps my brain in a focused groove.

Now science is catching up with my discovery from fifty years ago. A new study published by Northeastern University music professor Psyche Loui finds that music appears to “tune” the brain in ways that cause it to ignore external distractions.

Loui and her researchers took both EEG readings and MRI scans of around 40 study participants while they engaged in computer tasks that required sustained attention. They compared the readings and scans with music, pink noise, and silence, and found that music alone had the ability to enhance focus.

“The brain actually oscillates at certain frequencies,” Dr. Loui noted. “If you insert those frequencies into the music, that might influence your activity in those same frequencies in the brain — we saw that the brain was very clearly ‘phase locking,’ or [working] in time to these amplitude modulations that were inserted in the music.”

She added:

“People who experience ADHD symptoms are more sensitive to this.”

My experience has been that when I listen to music it must not have words; music and words are processed by different parts of the brain (Wernicke’s and Broca’s regions, near the left and right ears) and when I’m trying to organize words for the page the words in the songs get in the way.

As a result, I’ve developed a few instrumental playlists that correspond with the mood of my writing. When I’m writing something upbeat, I listen to upbeat easy listening music; when I’m writing about politics I listen to Carmina Burana type music; and for general stuff I mostly listen to George Winston’s piano or John Fahey’s guitar albums.

Dr. Loui notes that kids often want to listen to music when doing their homework, particularly ADHD kids, and parents tend to try to discourage it for fear it’ll cause a distraction. Instead, I’d suggest, parents should be encouraging music: it’s a lot cheaper and has fewer side effects than Ritalin!