ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer's World

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Ewen Callaway (June 10, 2008). "Did hyperactivity evolve as a survival aid for nomads?". New Scientist. Growing up, I always identified with warrior type women. The fierce nurturing, protectors who fought for what they loved and believed in. The Hunter vs. Farmer hypothesis— in essence — makes the case that people diagnosed with ADHD are modern-day genetic descendants of hunters.

Karen grabbed Shannon’s wrists and flipped her over on the bed, face down, and essentially fell on top of her, both of them facedown, holding her so she couldn’t hurt either herself or Karen, as Shannon continued to sputter and shriek and scream. (Her yells were so loud that Louise and I came over to find out what was going on.) Karen was talking Shannon down, saying, “It’s ok, you’re safe here, everything is going to be fine.” And after about four or five minutes (which is an incredibly long time for such behavior to persist), Shannon eventually depressurized and lay quietly on the bed, panting to catch her breath. That’s why when a friend in highschool informed me that my name, Kelly, in Gaelic meant “ Warrior Princess”, I just about died! And then it occurred to me, the women who predominantly have inattentive ADHD, married the men with predominantly hyperactive ADHD. The women were content to wait around for the men to return from hunting while they daydreamed the day away. Even today we often find men and women with ADHD marrying one another. We are compatible in so many ways! My speculation even has an explanation for the minority of women with hyperactivity and high energy. They were hunters, probably of the smaller creatures, and they married men with inattentive ADHD who waited for them to return, adding interest and excitement to their lives. And the ADHD-as-diabetes story is one without hope. Juvenile-onset diabetics face a profoundly difficult life, filled with danger of early death. Quite literally, every day is a life-and-death struggle. If they have hope, it’s hope that a pancreatic transplant or cell transplant cure may be discovered, but mostly the hope is simply that they’ll remember to give themselves the right dose of insulin at the right time and stave off gangrene, blindness, and aphasia.If you want an inside view of how people with ADHD think and function in society, you should buy this book.”

You see, what happens is that as we go through life – particularly childhood – we collect stories about who we are. They come from our parents, siblings, peers, and teachers. We find them in our culture and our media. The stories fall into two basic categories: I am/I can and I’m not/I can’t . As the human race moved from its earliest ancestors, two basic types of cultures evolved. In the areas that were lush with plant and animal life and had a low human population density, hunters and gatherers predominated. In other parts of the world (particularly Asia), farming or agricultural societies evolved. Some people actually reach out physically with their hands and “grab ahold” of their timeline, then pull or move it into place. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cns-spectrums/article/impairment-associated-with-adult-adhd/77FABE27007F922CDF4478CF520F609C Farmers are not easily bored. They pace themselves when living, the same way they pace themselves when farming. During the summer when things are growing, or during the winter when not much can be done, farmers find constructive tasks to occupy their time such as building furniture, chopping firewood, or weeding the garden. They don’t mind repetitive tasks or things that take a long time to accomplish (the way Hunters generally do) because that’s the nature of farming. Given Aesop’s model, a farmer would describe him or herself as the tortoise who ultimately wins the race through slow and steady effort.Arcos-Burgos, M.; Acosta, M. T. (2007). "Tuning major gene variants conditioning human behavior: The anachronism of ADHD". Current Opinion in Genetics & Development. 17 (3): 234–238. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2007.04.011. PMID 17467976. ADHD also appears to be a condition that’s relatively rare among Japanese whose ancestors have lived in a purely agricultural society for at least 6,000 years. Impulsivity is the process of jumping into action before thinking through the consequences of a behavior. When it’s acted out verbally, it’s the old “mouth engaged but brain not yet in gear” problem: blurting out inappropriate things, interrupting others, or generally talking too much. When impulsivity moves into the arena of physical behaviors, it can be particularly destructive, ranging from leaping into fights or line-jumping to impulsively deciding to try a cigarette or leap into a risky situation. Although ADHD is often described by the problems it presents, several recent studies (see here, here, and here) have reaffirmed other potential advantages linked to the ADHD diagnosis, namely — the ability to think more creatively, and entrepreneurial orientation (EO).

Then, when considering tasks that need to be done, place them on the timeline in their appropriate location. You’ll discover your internal, unconscious systems will help you accomplish them. The March 25, 1996, issue of Time featured a cover story on the functions of the brain and the latest research into why our brains behave the way the way they do. Evolutionary notions of behavior played an important part in that article, including the recent discovery by researchers that those people most likely to have the gene that causes the brain to crave fatty foods and thus produce obesity are also those people whose ancestors over the past ten thousand years came from parts of the world where famines were common. What was an adaptive behavior for primitive peoples has become maladaptive in a world where most “hunting” is done at the supermarket. When new concepts occur, they often become prone to dualistic thinking. The ADD/ADHD criteria seems too rigid to me and I propose that it may be the regulatory mechanism that requires further examination. So far, I've spent nearly an hour thinking about how to respond... In his Ishmael books, author Dan Quinn describes these early hunter-gatherer societies as “living in the hand of god.” They lived in food-rich environments and their food-acquiring efforts were limited to a few hours a day or a few days a week. No need to think of time in long cycles. This is because, in the days of our ancestors, the success of the hunters meant life ordeath for the tribe.I'm disappointed that there have been no previous posts. Perhaps it is because, like me, those who would respond just hate taking the boring ass time to post a comment. I'm an adrenaline junkie type who's grown a little too old to practice old follies of youth. Yet I can share some insight along with a comment I've perhaps too often said, "Ya never feel more alive than when you're flirting with death". But wait a minute, I thought – I learned that distractibility was a pathology, and the proof of that is that when distractible kids are put in an even more boring environment, their distractibility increases. But, I continued with the thought, what would a hunter have to do in the forest if he didn’t see anything to eat? He’d have to look harder, to scan more fully, to become even more vigilant. Since ADHD is a collection of skills and predilections necessary for the success and survival of a good Hunter, we’re left with the question, “What about non-ADHD people?” Where did their skills evolve from, and why do they represent the majority of the people in our culture? Accepting the notion that ADHD is an inherited trait, consider the types of people who would risk life and limb for a journey across the Atlantic in the seventeenth century — they’d have to be either desperate Farmers or normal Hunters.