ADHD Symptom Spotlight: Spacing Out

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsSpacing Out With ADHDWhat Causes Spacing Out?How to Deal With Spacing Out

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Spacing Out With ADHD

What Causes Spacing Out?

How to Deal With Spacing Out

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Spacing out, zoning out, or blanking out are all ways to describe that experience of involuntarily losing your focus on a task. While attention fluctuates from moment to moment, even inneurotypicalbrains, people with ADHD are prone to spacing out often.

On some days, these episodes of inattention can last so long or happen so frequently that it is impossible to get work done. If they occur during class or in conversations with friends, they can also be seen as rude or lazy.

Spacing out refers to moments when your brain stops paying attention to external surroundings or tasks. It’s an involuntary process that happens even when you are actively trying to pay attention.

If you’ve ever started reading a book only to find yourself lost in thought or staring at the page without really seeing or comprehending the words, that was spacing out. Maybe you’ve experienced sitting in class and suddenly realizing that the teacher is talking about an entirely different topic, and you have no idea how they got there—because you spaced out for a few minutes without realizing it.

Sometimes, it takes the form of daydreaming, where your mind wanders off somewhere else without you really noticing that it’s happening. Other times, your brain goes blank.It simply tunes out without tuning into anything else.

Technically, spacing out like this is a form ofdissociation—acoping mechanismin which your brain checks out from the present moment. However, spacing out from ADHD is a milder case that’s not necessarily linked totrauma.

In people without ADHD, it can happen during periods ofsleep deprivation or stress. When you have ADHD, though, it happens frequently, even when you are well-rested and relaxed. In all cases, it’s completely involuntary. You don’t consciously decide to stop paying attention, and your brain switches off on its own.

Spacing out can become frustrating when you’re trying to study, finish a project for work, or even give your full, conscious attention to a friend as they tell you about their day. Any task that requires your attention becomes more challenging if you’re prone to spacing out often and without warning.

While it typically lasts for a few seconds or minutes before you realize you’ve stopped paying attention, it’s enough to make you miss your exit while driving, burn those cookies you were baking, or make your friend feel like you aren’t listening to them.

ADHD and Motivation Issues

The human brain has an interconnected threefold system for focusing its attention that involves the dorsal attention network, the ventral attention network, and the default mode network.

In a typical brain, the three networks interact but also maintain a respectful separation from each other. When activity levels in one network increase, they decrease in the others, and the quieter networks only interrupt when necessary. VAN won’t distract your attention from the book unless it detects a stimulus that might be relevant to you. DMN won’t kick into gear until it’s time to rest or internalize the information you’ve just read.

InADHD brains, however, these networks may not be as distinct as they should be,making it hard to switch gears as efficiently as in neurotypical brains. Specifically, the ADHD brain struggles to deactivate the DMN and switch exclusively to DAN or VAN.

So even when actively trying to focus on a task, DMN levels remain high in the ADHD brain, making it easy to slip back into that daydream or resting mode. That slippage could feel like the involuntary spacing out or zoning out that people with ADHD experience so often.

Taking better care of your overall health to keep your brain strong and well-rested is one of the best ways to help minimize how often you space out in the long run. You can also try these short-term strategies below to prevent or cope with it.

Make the Task More Active

Engaging more senses and muscles in a task can make it easier to stay focused without spacing out. When listening to someone talk, for example, summarize what they’re saying in your head rather than just passively listening to them. You can also practicenonverbal cueslike nodding in response to what they’re saying.

Fidgetingduring a task is a helpful coping strategy for those with ADHD who are completing tasks. It can minimize spacing out or disassociating.

If you keep spacing out while reading, try reading out loud. If that’s not enough, try reading aloud in an accent aside from your own. I sometimes read aloud in a horrible British or Australian accent, for example.

Take Notes

Taking notes goes hand in hand with making a task more active. When you take notes, you’re giving your hands something to do while engaging more of your brain to process and record what you’re hearing or reading.

For me, takinghandwritten notesworks best. I’ll even do it during casual conversations with friends—although only over the phone because, admittedly, I’d feel weird doing this in person. I also write notes in the margins of books, even when I am just reading them for fun.

For work, I take notes during every meeting and call. I take notes while interviewing sources, even when I’m already recording the interview. I take notes while researching articles (which might be the only area where extensive notetaking isn’t unusual).

Ask Clarifying Questions

With books, you can simply return to the last sentence you remember before your mind wanders. With people, on the other hand, it can get awkward if you’re constantly asking them to repeat what they just said. This is true even if the person knows you have ADHD and is aware that spacing out is part of that.

Instead, ask clarifying questions that probe for more details about what they’re telling you. Their responses will give you more context to work with if you space out again and need to reorient yourself. It might also trigger them to repeat some of the information you missed.

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Take Breaks

If you’re spacing out so often that you can’t even make progress on the task, take a break. Putting the task or conversation on hold is better than restarting every few minutes. During that break, do someself-care activitieslike:

Pick an activity that lets your brain rest while you do something to improve your health or well-being. That way, when you return to the task after the break, you’re coming to it in a better state than you were when you left.

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Be Upfront About Your Spacing Out

It’s easier for others to be patient and understanding when they know in advance that you aren’t just ignoring them or defiantly choosing not to listen. Supportive friends, partners, and family members will be understanding of your ADHD traits, including spacing out.

Keep in mind that it is a tendency of the ADHD brain and does not indicate that a person isn’t trying hard enough.

How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD

7 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Van den Driessche C, Bastian M, Peyre H, et al.Attentional lapses in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Blank rather than wandering thoughts.Psychol Sci. 2017;28(10):1375-1386. doi:10.1177/0956797617708234Daniels JK, McFarlane AC, Bluhm RL, et al.Switching between executive and default mode networks in posttraumatic stress disorder: Alterations in functional connectivity.Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2010;35(4):258-266. doi:10.1503/jpn.090175CHADD.ADHD, PTSD, or Both?Antshel KM, Kaul P, Biederman J, et al.Posttraumatic stress disorder in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Clinical features and familial transmission.J Clin Psychiatry. 2013;74(3):e197-204. doi:10.4088/JCP.12m07698Sidlauskaite J, Sonuga-Barke E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR.Altered intrinsic organisation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A resting-state study of attention, default mode and salience network connectivity.Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci.2016;266(4):349-357. doi:10.1007/s00406-015-0630-0Fan Y, Wang R, Lin P, Wu Y.Hierarchical integrated and segregated processing in the functional brain default mode network within attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.PLoS One. 2019;14(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222414Adamou M, Asherson P, Arif M, et al.Recommendations for occupational therapy interventions for adults with ADHD: A consensus statement from the UK adult ADHD network.BMC Psychiatry. 2021;21(1):72. doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03070-z

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Van den Driessche C, Bastian M, Peyre H, et al.Attentional lapses in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Blank rather than wandering thoughts.Psychol Sci. 2017;28(10):1375-1386. doi:10.1177/0956797617708234Daniels JK, McFarlane AC, Bluhm RL, et al.Switching between executive and default mode networks in posttraumatic stress disorder: Alterations in functional connectivity.Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2010;35(4):258-266. doi:10.1503/jpn.090175CHADD.ADHD, PTSD, or Both?Antshel KM, Kaul P, Biederman J, et al.Posttraumatic stress disorder in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Clinical features and familial transmission.J Clin Psychiatry. 2013;74(3):e197-204. doi:10.4088/JCP.12m07698Sidlauskaite J, Sonuga-Barke E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR.Altered intrinsic organisation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A resting-state study of attention, default mode and salience network connectivity.Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci.2016;266(4):349-357. doi:10.1007/s00406-015-0630-0Fan Y, Wang R, Lin P, Wu Y.Hierarchical integrated and segregated processing in the functional brain default mode network within attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.PLoS One. 2019;14(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222414Adamou M, Asherson P, Arif M, et al.Recommendations for occupational therapy interventions for adults with ADHD: A consensus statement from the UK adult ADHD network.BMC Psychiatry. 2021;21(1):72. doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03070-z

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Van den Driessche C, Bastian M, Peyre H, et al.Attentional lapses in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Blank rather than wandering thoughts.Psychol Sci. 2017;28(10):1375-1386. doi:10.1177/0956797617708234Daniels JK, McFarlane AC, Bluhm RL, et al.Switching between executive and default mode networks in posttraumatic stress disorder: Alterations in functional connectivity.Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2010;35(4):258-266. doi:10.1503/jpn.090175CHADD.ADHD, PTSD, or Both?Antshel KM, Kaul P, Biederman J, et al.Posttraumatic stress disorder in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Clinical features and familial transmission.J Clin Psychiatry. 2013;74(3):e197-204. doi:10.4088/JCP.12m07698Sidlauskaite J, Sonuga-Barke E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR.Altered intrinsic organisation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A resting-state study of attention, default mode and salience network connectivity.Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci.2016;266(4):349-357. doi:10.1007/s00406-015-0630-0Fan Y, Wang R, Lin P, Wu Y.Hierarchical integrated and segregated processing in the functional brain default mode network within attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.PLoS One. 2019;14(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222414Adamou M, Asherson P, Arif M, et al.Recommendations for occupational therapy interventions for adults with ADHD: A consensus statement from the UK adult ADHD network.BMC Psychiatry. 2021;21(1):72. doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03070-z

Van den Driessche C, Bastian M, Peyre H, et al.Attentional lapses in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Blank rather than wandering thoughts.Psychol Sci. 2017;28(10):1375-1386. doi:10.1177/0956797617708234

Daniels JK, McFarlane AC, Bluhm RL, et al.Switching between executive and default mode networks in posttraumatic stress disorder: Alterations in functional connectivity.Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2010;35(4):258-266. doi:10.1503/jpn.090175

Antshel KM, Kaul P, Biederman J, et al.Posttraumatic stress disorder in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Clinical features and familial transmission.J Clin Psychiatry. 2013;74(3):e197-204. doi:10.4088/JCP.12m07698

Sidlauskaite J, Sonuga-Barke E, Roeyers H, Wiersema JR.Altered intrinsic organisation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A resting-state study of attention, default mode and salience network connectivity.Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci.2016;266(4):349-357. doi:10.1007/s00406-015-0630-0

Fan Y, Wang R, Lin P, Wu Y.Hierarchical integrated and segregated processing in the functional brain default mode network within attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.PLoS One. 2019;14(9). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222414

Adamou M, Asherson P, Arif M, et al.Recommendations for occupational therapy interventions for adults with ADHD: A consensus statement from the UK adult ADHD network.BMC Psychiatry. 2021;21(1):72. doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03070-z

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