Advantage for the fidgety philipp

Larissa Melville completed her traineeship in the editorial team of . After studying biology at Ludwig Maximilians University and the Technical University of Munich, she first got to know digital media online at Focus and then decided to learn medical journalism from scratch.

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Having ADHD can also be beneficial. Because the restless body often goes hand in hand with a particularly agile mind. This is also the case with Sven O. Miksch.

In the distance, a flash of red flashes past. "Why don't squirrels get tooth decay?" Sven O. Miksch immediately shoots through his head. Such mind games are typical for the 44-year-old. The cogs keep rattling in his head. Miksch has ADHD "in its purest form", as the doctors attest to him. He processes and analyzes every stimulus, every visual perception in milliseconds. “It's exciting, but sometimes also incredibly exhausting,” says Miksch, who says he soaks up everything like a sponge.

Colorful world of thoughts

People like Miksch are often particularly agile mentally. Where others think in a fixed way, they approach problems experimentally. Connections are made where no one else sees them. Nothing is certain, everything is imaginable - that holds great creative potential. "The brain of ADHD people is full of thought clouds that are much more colorful than those of people without the disorder," explains Prof. Esther Sobanski, from the AHG Clinic for Psychosomatics in Bad Dürkheim. That could be the basis for special achievements if you learn to control them. In the meantime, Miksch is doing quite well. But that was not always so.

Late diagnosis

Whether as a child or as an adult - people with ADHD are often offensive. They are often forgetful and disorganized. They find it difficult to complete a task and maintain contacts. With their restless, chaotic and impulsive manner, they can really get on the nerves of their fellow human beings: family members and classmates, colleagues and partners.

Not everything went smoothly at Miksch either - in school and at work, but also in private life. Nobody came up with the idea that the reason for this could be ADHD - not even he himself: "ADHD sufferers - for me they were always just fidgety children who make noise." It was only a specialist who was affected by the disorder found two years ago.

Just like Miksch, it happens to many - experts estimate the number of adults with ADHD in Germany at around two million. As with Miksch, the diagnosis is often made late - and often never.

Liberating knowledge

Knowing about the disorder can be a relief - suddenly it becomes clear why life has often not gone really smoothly so far. "I used to feel like someone who drives a car that constantly pulls to the left," reports Miksch. The driver has to take countermeasures all the time, which costs energy. "But because you are not used to it any other way, you no longer question it." It was very much the same with his problems. "Thanks to the diagnosis, however, I know that something is wrong with my body - and I can now focus on that," explains Miksch.

With medication, for example: They make patients more structured and calmer. “I don't get upset so quickly about little things,” reports Miksch. The best-known active ingredient is methylphenidate, which is found in Ritalin, for example. It increases the level of certain messenger substances in the brain that ADHD patients lack: dopamine and norepinephrine. "This makes the patients more structured, their alertness improves and they are generally more productive," explains psychiatrist Sobanski.

Always on to new shores

Miksch copes best with tasks that challenge him and always offer something new. “Otherwise I'll strive for new shores - with the speedboat,” he says. He is very satisfied with his current job as an IT manager in a Munich advertising agency. Miksch particularly appreciates what overtaxes so many others - the constant hustle and bustle and the high pace of work. "If people with ADHD have found their niche, that is, what really excites them, then they can be very successful," says Sobanski. Whether as an artist, paramedic or firefighter. People with ADHD cannot bear boredom and routine.

How well a person copes with the disorder is often decided in childhood. "Parents and teachers should convey to the child that self-structuring is a goal worth striving for," says ADHD expert Sobanski. And the children's stamina must also be trained early on. It is particularly important to praise ADHD children for small progress, especially when something is more difficult for them than others. Otherwise they will give up at some point. Sobanski warns: "If you feel like a failure, it is not so easy to get up and scream hurray."

Miksch has also failed many times - today he takes it calmly: "If you want to learn to ride properly, you will sometimes be thrown off," he says. Mistakes are there to be made - "but preferably only once."

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