How Do You Create? How Do You Play?

I held a session recently with someone who was preparing to be a passenger on a very long road trip. I asked them what they planned to feel during their extended time in the car and how they planned to cope with these feelings. People with ADHD can learn to employ a coping strategy called Create and Play.

They said that they were anticipating feeling very bored for a long time. Headphones and streaming devices were already packed for their entertainment, but they were concerned that they would need something else to help along the way.

Boredom is one of the most difficult things a person with ADHD faces while traveling, so I hear this concern often as people prepare for summer vacations. As a seasoned ADHD therapist, I had a trick or two up my sleeve.

I suggested that they get creative. We brainstormed ways they could use their particular creative outlet to fight off boredom on the trip. I reminded them that boredom is psychologically draining, like ADHD’s Kryptonite, and that we can even experience boredom as physical pain in our brains.

Using creativity while traveling might look like writing, solving puzzles on your phone, cross-stitching or crocheting, filming or photography, beat-making, or literally anything that you can do from the seat of your car.

But why is creating so important?

People with ADHD usually receive about 20,000 more negative messages about themselves from peers and authority figures before age 10. Our self esteem gets eroded over time and we can start to believe that we are failures, flawed, broken, or weird, just to name a few judgmental labels.

However, when we create, we reconnect with the parts of ourselves that we like most. Creating helps us to remember that we are capable and resilient people full of ideas and potential. Making something can activate problem-solving mode in our brains, allowing us to solve larger life problems while we are simultaneously solving all the smaller problems necessary to create the thing we are working on.

Creating also relaxes and preoccupies us, letting our brains “play”. When we play an instrument or a game or do a hobby just for the fun of it, then we are truly “playing”. The word “play” in Psychology means to do something simply for the sake of doing it. We play for the fun and enjoyment of playing.

According to the National Institute of Play, we learn to play as children, but we continue the trend throughout adulthood. When we play, we restore our sense of self by doing things that are enjoyable and rewarding.  In fact, play is commonly prescribed as the best treatment for burn-out. The solution isn’t to do less of the things that we are depleted from doing, it is to do more of the things that feed our souls.

Most adults play in art studios, pickleball courts, music studios, golf courses, and even shotgun ranges

…Shotgun, Really?

My son is a member of a 4-H competitive shotgun team. He’s a middle schooler and only in his second year of shooting, but he’s beginning to post some fairly impressive scores of around 70% accuracy in sporting clays.

His coaches have made themselves seasoned experts on things like visual perception, core body movements, and mindful relaxation, as most athletes have done. The coaches drill their team rigorously to shoot three kinds of target games: Skeet, Trap, and Sporting Clays. The team practices twice per week, 2 hours each time, shooting over 200 rounds per week.  (At $0.40 a shell, so my budget is shot!  …literally!)

Team members routinely go on to shoot for collegiate level teams after graduation from high school.

But when the practices are over and the victories are won, the team also celebrates the accomplishment. They certainly have some fun doing it!

As you can imagine, the group is rigidly serious about gun safety. They practice strict protocols to ensure that risks are greatly reduced around loaded guns. And, to their credit, they are rumored to be the only team in the county 4-H program without an injury, surpassing groups like cooking, equestrian, agriculture, and archery.  (Additional note: For concerned readers, no animals are harmed in this activity)

When a shooter achieves their first perfect competition round of Skeet or Trap (25 hits, 0 misses), a special…er, um… “ceremony” takes place called a “Hat-Shoot”.

The Hat-Shoot

First, the hat that the shooter was wearing during the round is collected by the coaches. The date and location of the accomplishment is recorded on the bill of the cap with a Sharpie. Then, the well-trained kids, about 15 shooters or so, line up shoulder-to-shoulder with guns facing safely down range. The hat is then loaded up as about 4 clay targets are rolled tightly inside.

Finally, the coach stands well behind the line of shooters, and on the count of 3, he hurls the hat high over the shooters and out into the line of fire — like a centerfielder throwing to home plate.

What happens next is a cacophony of blasting for about 1.5 seconds. It’s unreal.  …And hilarious.

The shooter who had the perfect score keeps the hat as a memento, forever commemorating the flawless victory.

Here’s an example of another team practicing this same ceremony: Link

And here’s the last hat my son’s team shot:  (Congratulations, Jackson!)

Bringing It All Together

Nothing is as rewarding the these young shotgunners as the simple Hat-Shoot ceremony. It is what they strive for, usually for years on end. Somewhere along the way, a creative genius devised this clever system of reward.

A Hat-Shoot ceremony is a creative way to celebrate a high accomplishment playfully. It mixes anticipation, effort, dedication, humor, and achievement into one 2-second event. It is also a dangled carrot to motivate shooters who are hoping to earn it one day.

Though brief, the Hat-Shoot is a rare capstone to the season, and maybe even the career of the shooter.

ADHDers almost always struggle with a lack of dopamine. Giving ourselves the freedom to celebrate accomplishments gives us the motivation to work toward difficult things, even perfect scores! Furthermore, allowing ourselves to dream up non-traditional and creative solutions – like shooting a hat – can empower us to devise wildly creative and effective answers to our problems.

So, how do you celebrate a momentous day? And how do you mix creativity and play to keep yourself motivated?  Managing ADHD is about finding new and creative ways to keep yourself supplied with dopamine in order to get up an get going.

I hope you’ll let yourself dream and create motivation in safe, inventive ways!

Your ADHD Therapist – Specializing in Creativity and Play

I work with creative professionals across Georgia who deal with Anxiety, ADHD, or Autism (Level 1). If you’d like help with these or related issues, give me a call at 770-615-6300.

You can also schedule a session here. We offer both telehealth and in-person sessions, and I’m in-network with Aetna and United Healthcare insurances and Lyra EAP. We provide paperwork if you want to file with your out-of-network insurance.

…And don’t worry, I won’t shoot your hat.