The lighter side of ADHD
They made us stand for hours on end during national service. I consider it a form of adhd torture.
oo I have an answer of sorts! Humans are endurance predators, not ambush ones. We're meant to be moving often for hunts, standing still for long periods of time isn't what our body's good at.
I feel like a lot of modern society does whatever it can to ignore the fact that we're animals too
Dear everyone,
Fuck standing. Standing sucks, It'd rather walk or aimlessly pace around as well
Kind regards,
Neurotypical able-bodied person that stumbled into this thread from the frontpage.
How did you just describe my life. A guy brought greyhounds during one of my inpatient hospital stays as therapy animals and called them "60mph couch potatoes." Now as a nurse I love night shift because I'll go 500mph for four hours... then sit on my ass for 8 (god willing). Sometimes I have to go 500mph the whole shift which sucks, but is doable on an infrequent basis, and waaaaay better than standing or sitting upright in some kiosk all day! Also sometimes I hiss when I see the sun...
Also fun fact standing still for extended periods is bad for you in a similar way to sitting for extended periods in a cramped space (like a plane), as a lot of the blood return from your legs while upright happens because the pressure increases from flexing your calves and thighs pushing blood up past the one-way valves in your veins. No movement = no alternating squeezing / relaxing = less blood return = blood pooling = varicose veins and clots that you hope stay in the leg until they dissolve.
Funner fact, the only animal that has veins in its arteries (usually the pressure is high enough to not need them) is the giraffe because the valves help keep the pressure high enough for blood to make it up the neck arteries!
Ask me about the desert animal's kidneys, I dare you.
I'm gonna regret this, but tell me about the desert animal's kidneys
Kidneys are made up of these microscopic loopy tube thingies called nephrons that make sure you have the right amount of salt and water in your blood. They start by dumping out literally everything into the start of the tube except like, the actual blood cells (and some other stuff but I don't remember that part). Then as the fluid moves through the tube they just pull the right amounts of everything back into the blood and let you pee out the rest.
Most water reclamation is done in a longer tube that's not as squiggly called the loop of henle. This is because most of your blood is water so you need a bunch of that back. In humans it's pretty long but in desert animals it's super extra long because they need a looooot of that water back.
My anatomy and physiology teacher was really good and he used to say there's basically only two ways we know how or why anything in the body works:
a) it breaks often enough to figure out the differences between functional and nonfunctional parts / systems
b) there's an animal or plant that can do that thing better, worse, or just generally differently for comparison.
I just tricked you into reading about kidneys, sucker! Now you know how pee is made (and why)!
Kidneys rock! As long as they don't stone, that is.
ROCK AND STONE, BROTHER!
Sandy rocking!
Not specifically ADHD things but very few people I encounter understand how hard it is to do things that require lifting your hands above your head. That's literally how crucifixion kills. 😬
I swear I wanna just have the next person telling me it would be easier to clean the ceiling tiles by just wiping them in place instead of taking them down and doing it in the sink to do it themselves and see how hard it actually is.
My job requires me to have my hands above my head for 8 hours a day. My shoulders are strong af now.
Atlas? That you?
Lmao. Nah I just put up Vapor barrier in houses. So I wear stilts and use a staple hammer and put the plastic on all your walls and ceiling.
I tried to explain this to my wife. I can walk for long periods with no issue. But shopping? Amusement Parks? That shit is not walking, its trudging and it plays completely different with my energy levels.
100% agree! Walking slow in a crowded place is the worst, the word trudging describes it so well.
Not from ADHD but my knees will allow me 10-15 minutes of standing still until righty decides it's sit or move time or you get the knife treatment. I can walk and move around for hours with no issues. There was a push for standing desks at work and that just sounds like torture for me.
Standing desks are often accompanied by little stepping platforms or a 
Oh for real? I just got one and I never thought to get these types of things. I've heard of anti-fatigue mats, but what are these things called (just so I can look them up)?
I never "stand" at my standing desk, I'm always moving. Ngl, I thought the whole point of these desks was that standing for too long is uncomfortable, so you naturally move around more, take more breaks, and go for stretches.
So for the fancy version of stepping, I like this one, but a standard exercise board can also work. For the balance boards, I never purchased one but I remember someone recommending this brand. ymmv
Exactly how I feel about sitting up straight. If I can't lean back or sit fully cross-legged (or lay down ... 🤤), I would rather stand. To be clear, sitting straight hurts with more consistency than any other position. I'll take it, versus all the things I can do relatively without pain that would cripple my father and most other men I know.
that's ruptured disc pain, for me, from a lifetime of back abuse.
I can walk all day long and stand just fine but stadium style seating? After about 5 minutes it's agony.
I'm fully able-bodied, but I can understand that.
When I first started to work in a factory, standing for 8 hours and not being used to it, it was painful. Walking was a lot easier.
I work at a standing desk and I love it... I almost never stand still, though. I dance and pace as I'm thinking and get to bounce around and be a lot more active than when I was in an office chair.
When I need to stand for a thing I will inevitably fidget. I don't frequently need to stand stoicly (I don't have a job that requires me to be the silent background or anything) so it's not really an issue for me. Pace and enjoy it.. if you're in a museum it's actually kind of awesome once you realize you can pace and get different angles to view things from and, every once in a while, you'll hyperfocus on something and just dead stare it... but it's perfectly acceptable to pace and fidget as an adult.
I'd also mention that I think the constant need to fidget is actually a long term health super power - it's unhealthy to maintain monolithic postures for extended periods of time - moving is healthy and micromovements keep your body on constant motion.
Yes exactly, that's how I think of my standing desk too (and I thought that was the whole point of them). You're not actually standing at them, you're supposed to move around. Standing for too long is uncomfy, so a standing desk makes you move around more as you start to feel less comfortable standing in one position.
The worst thing of all is walking too slow.
On a pain scale:
Similiar, however I absolutely love walking fast. Hell, I am always trying to top my speed.
Except at work. Cuz then things get done too fast and I land at 10 on the scale. :(
Standing? What is this? (Writing as I'm currently pacing around the house with my phone). Pacing helps me relax or think about stuff. Also whenever I'm waiting the bus, almost all the times I'll be pacing around (I kinda wonder how others can simply stay still), 1-2k of my daily steps might happen around bus stops and 2-5k might happen inside the house, lol (a week ago I did ~13k steps according to my phone without leaving the house that day). I feel so oppressed when people tell me not to pace around (or not to move my legs) :/
PS. Without leaving the house and being around the middle of my day, my phone has recorded around 3k steps today.
Shout-out to all those retail/service employees that are demanded to stand in a 4x6 chairless box like some 90's RPG NPC, and then are yelled at for "leaning."
I swear that experience compressed my height by more than a few inches...And you better believe I practiced my martial arts kicks on the sales floor when the manager was out. Lol
The major destination outdoors chain I worked at had stools we could bring out for cashiers, but only if there was a documented medical necessity. They were actively hostile towards employee comfort.
My favorite though was when they turned off the AC (it was controlled from corporate) when it was 100 degrees outside to save on the electric bill. Customers stopped shopping because it was miserable, and without the AC running the whole place got super humid and over a million dollar's worth of guns rusted.
But the facilities team at corporate was able to say they saved a few thousand in electric bills.
Whenever I'm hiking I despise when the person in front of me forces me to stop because then I can feel all my aches and tiredness. I can only imagine what it would feel like to actually be disabled.
My mother always used to tell me to sit the hell down because pacing made her uneasy, like there was something that needed to be done that she wasn't doing, lmao.
Motion is lotion?
Everyone gets arthritic enough to figure it out eventually. Anyone who doesn't understand is still young enough that getting a decent night's sleep fixes all aches and pains.
I swear to god, I need to get myself checked. Every now again I see a meme so specific that I question myself.
I saw so many that I went and got checked and I was initiated into the club lmao
Is that also related to ADHD? Mind blown, because that is one of my defining weaknesses, and always has been!
Mine arent at all sporty.
They do it for shit & giggles.
I always thought it was my clubbed feet.
lol I pace around my house so much working from home that I gave myself plantar fasciitis
Oh no! Last time I got that it was because I was wearing crappy work boots. I hope your feet feel better ASAP!