Commentary: Now that I’ve got your attention, listen up

America has certainly got a long and, well, really quite appealing history of rambling around.

With “the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “On the Road,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Route 66,” “Star Trek,” it’s no wonder our attention wanders so much.

It’s a national tradition. But it’s starting to cost us.

Attention is one of those things that flies under our radar. We don’t notice it until we start having trouble with it. And we don’t much notice it in other people until they start having trouble with it.

But a lot of people are having trouble with it now. It’s virtually a national epidemic!

What happens with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) is some kind of mismanagement with the on-off switches in our brains. Computers, as complicated as they are, are really a conglomeration of on-off switches.

It’s the same in our minds. The basic thing we do in our minds is we initiate some kind of activity, or we inhibit some kind of activity.

Initiate. Inhibit. Go. Stop. Pay attention. Stop paying attention.

Pretty simple, right?

Well, the devil is in the details because we are so unaware of how we control attention; if we lose control of attention it’s not all that clear how to get it back.

What to do? Here are a few suggestions for coping if your attention, or that of someone you love, hitchhikes down Route 66, on impulse, a little more often than you’d like (say, around homework, tax or annual report time):

• Don’t panic.

• Recognize that there is an issue.

• Be confident. Half the solution to any problem is the presence of mind that you bring to it, so it helps to work on self-assurance.

• Breathe deeply several times and relax your muscles so that you aren’t distracted by tension.

• Clearly identify the “target” that you want to attend to.

• Consciously practice returning to the target. This is the core skill. People with ADHD find that their attention wanders over and over. So the most basic thing to do is to consciously bring that attention back over and over to the target. It’s a little tiresome, but it gets easier as you practice.

• Don’t criticize yourself. It’s natural to get mad at yourself for wandering attention once you realize it’s occurring. But, as with so many things, it’s better to do the reverse.

• When you come back to the target, praise yourself.

Attention control is a powerful tool once you master it, underlying success from flying an airplane to doing surgery.

Dr. STEVE DAVIDSON is a clinical psychologist in Newport Beach.