the grey matter

[grinchfemmemoving-deactivated20]

I feel like when you find out you have autism or get diagnoses there should be like an "autism shower" where people gift you accomodations, stims, things to learn about autism, and things to help you get through the diagnosis process or the wait for disability. Like i genuinely believe this should be a thing.

[autistic-af]

"I Don't Have a Routine"

For those who are seeking diagnosis, think they might be autistic or are already diagnosed/self-diagnosed but just confused

Routines/rituals aren't just getting up at the same time every day.

What can routines look like for an autistic (just general examples, not an exhaustive list):

Getting dressed in the same order. A change of this feels very upsetting.

Eating your food in a particular way. This may be eating each food individually, combining food in certain ways, not letting foods touch etc .

Getting ready for the day in a very particular way, specifically the order and time given to each activity. Being forced to rush or skip an activity is very upsetting.

Only going to certain shops, even if they are out of your way, because you've been there before. The same shop in a different suburb is too distressing.

Driving the same route to places. Suggested short cuts, or lane changing without mental preparation etc is very distressing. You would rather stay in the slow lane you 100% know takes you home than go down a new street.

Showering/bathing in the same order.

Stacking dishes or cleaning in a very specific order such as sink first, then counters, then stove etc. This order feels important but you cannot state why.

Work plans or school plans are day specific. You struggle to do banking on a Thursday, because that's a Friday activity, even though Thursday is just fine. But it's a Friday activity...so can't do it today.

To outsiders these routines/rituals seem to have no purpose but they are sacrosanct to the autistic individual. Changes must be given time, with lots of notifications and check-ups to ensure we're accepting the changes.

[brainsarematter]

Recently diagnosed.

• sitting in the same seat at the table or same spot at the table even if you’re at a restaurant or someone else’s home

• using the same dishes (YOUR spoon), even bringing those dishes/utensils to restaurants with you

• routines can be spread far apart (not daily or weekly, they can be yearly), like doing the exact same things for holidays each year and if it gets disrupted in any way (ex. You didn’t get a single pair of socks for Christmas) it’s very distressing

• or, needing to see certain people or do an activity each month, it may not matter what day of the month but it has to happen each month or ELSE

• doing the same tasks at work and when a new task is added or a task doesn’t need to be done, getting distressed over that change

• putting items in the same spot and if anyone moves them or you can’t put them there it’s a big issue

A lot of alligator people experience these SOME of the time, it’s when there’s many of them, they’re very extreme and persistent, or they cause considerable disruption to one’s life if they aren’t adhered to that it is in the realm discussed here.

[brainsarematter]

This was supposed to say ALLISTIC not ALLIGATOR. I’m SO SORRY.

[autistic-af]

"I Don't Have a Routine"

For those who are seeking diagnosis, think they might be autistic or are already diagnosed/self-diagnosed but just confused

Routines/rituals aren't just getting up at the same time every day.

What can routines look like for an autistic (just general examples, not an exhaustive list):

Getting dressed in the same order. A change of this feels very upsetting.

Eating your food in a particular way. This may be eating each food individually, combining food in certain ways, not letting foods touch etc .

Getting ready for the day in a very particular way, specifically the order and time given to each activity. Being forced to rush or skip an activity is very upsetting.

Only going to certain shops, even if they are out of your way, because you've been there before. The same shop in a different suburb is too distressing.

Driving the same route to places. Suggested short cuts, or lane changing without mental preparation etc is very distressing. You would rather stay in the slow lane you 100% know takes you home than go down a new street.

Showering/bathing in the same order.

Stacking dishes or cleaning in a very specific order such as sink first, then counters, then stove etc. This order feels important but you cannot state why.

Work plans or school plans are day specific. You struggle to do banking on a Thursday, because that's a Friday activity, even though Thursday is just fine. But it's a Friday activity...so can't do it today.

To outsiders these routines/rituals seem to have no purpose but they are sacrosanct to the autistic individual. Changes must be given time, with lots of notifications and check-ups to ensure we're accepting the changes.

[brainsarematter]

Recently diagnosed.

• sitting in the same seat at the table or same spot at the table even if you’re at a restaurant or someone else’s home

• using the same dishes (YOUR spoon), even bringing those dishes/utensils to restaurants with you

• routines can be spread far apart (not daily or weekly, they can be yearly), like doing the exact same things for holidays each year and if it gets disrupted in any way (ex. You didn’t get a single pair of socks for Christmas) it’s very distressing

• or, needing to see certain people or do an activity each month, it may not matter what day of the month but it has to happen each month or ELSE

• doing the same tasks at work and when a new task is added or a task doesn’t need to be done, getting distressed over that change

• putting items in the same spot and if anyone moves them or you can’t put them there it’s a big issue

A lot of alligator people experience these SOME of the time, it’s when there’s many of them, they’re very extreme and persistent, or they cause considerable disruption to one’s life if they aren’t adhered to that it is in the realm discussed here.

[neurosciencestuff]

Study shows how taking short breaks may help our brains learn new skills

In a study of healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers have mapped out the brain activity that flows when we learn a new skill, such as playing a new song on the piano, and discovered why taking short breaks from practice is a key to learning. The researchers found that during rest the volunteers’ brains rapidly and repeatedly replayed faster versions of the activity seen while they practiced typing a code. The more a volunteer replayed the activity the better they performed during subsequent practice sessions, suggesting rest strengthened memories.

“Our results support the idea that wakeful rest plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced,” said Leonardo G. Cohen, M.D., senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study published in Cell Reports. “Understanding this role of neural replay may not only help shape how we learn new skills but also how we help patients recover skills lost after neurological injury like stroke.”

The study was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Cohen’s team used a highly sensitive scanning technique, called magnetoencephalography, to record the brain waves of 33 healthy, right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a five-digit test code with their left hands. The subjects sat in a chair and under the scanner’s long, cone-shaped cap. An experiment began when a subject was shown the code “41234” on a screen and asked to type it out as many times as possible for 10 seconds and then take a 10 second break. Subjects were asked to repeat this cycle of alternating practice and rest sessions a total of 35 times.

During the first few trials, the speed at which subjects correctly typed the code improved dramatically and then leveled off around the 11th cycle. In a previous study, led by former NIH postdoctoral fellow Marlene Bönstrup, M.D., Dr. Cohen’s team showed that most of these gains happened during short rests, and not when the subjects were typing. Moreover, the gains were greater than those made after a night’s sleep and were correlated with a decrease in the size of brain waves, called beta rhythms. In this new report, the researchers searched for something different in the subjects’ brain waves.

“We wanted to explore the mechanisms behind memory strengthening seen during wakeful rest. Several forms of memory appear to rely on the replaying of neural activity, so we decided to test this idea out for procedural skill learning,” said Ethan R. Buch, Ph.D., a staff scientist on Dr. Cohen’s team and leader of the study.

To do this, Leonardo Claudino, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Cohen’s lab, helped Dr. Buch develop a computer program which allowed the team to decipher the brain wave activity associated with typing each number in the test code.

The program helped them discover that a much faster version – about 20 times faster - of the brain activity seen during typing was replayed during the rest periods. Over the course of the first eleven practice trials, these compressed versions of the activity were replayed many times - about 25 times - per rest period. This was two to three times more often than the activity seen during later rest periods or after the experiments had ended.

Interestingly, they found that the frequency of replay during rest predicted memory strengthening. In other words, the subjects whose brains replayed the typing activity more often showed greater jumps in performance after each trial than those who replayed it less often.

“During the early part of the learning curve we saw that wakeful rest replay was compressed in time, frequent, and a good predictor of variability in learning a new skill across individuals,” said Dr. Buch. “This suggests that during wakeful rest the brain binds together the memories required to learn a new skill.”

As expected, the team discovered that the replay activity often happened in the sensorimotor regions of the brain, which are responsible for controlling movements. However, they also saw activity in other brain regions, namely the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex.

“We were a bit surprised by these last results. Traditionally, it was thought that the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex may not play such a substantive role in procedural memory. In contrast, our results suggest that these regions are rapidly chattering with the sensorimotor cortex when learning these types of skills,” said Dr. Cohen. “Overall, our results support the idea that manipulating replay activity during waking rest may be a powerful tool that researchers can use to help individuals learn new skills faster and possibly facilitate rehabilitation from stroke.”

(Image credit: Courtesy of Cohen lab, NIH/NINDS)

[brainsarematter]

Really long, but basically resting is okay! And good actually! Wakeful rest (taking a break) helps you consolidate memories of things you were just learning/practicing and a short break may be just as important as the practice itself.

[brainsarematter]

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kat-pay-for-asd-eval?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp_guide_do&member=16406029

Help Kat pay for ASD Eval, organized by Kat S

Hi! I’m Kat! An adult non-binary ADHD person trying to get evaluated for ASD so I can receive the sup… Kat S needs your support for Help Ka

Any support is appreciated! Thank you all.

[kestrel-tree]

Ridiculous yet effective ways to deal with Executive Dysfunction

Dealing with executive dysfunction and ADHD becomes so much easier when you stop trying to do things the way you feel like you should be able to do them (like everyone else) and start finding ways that actually work for you, no matter how “silly” or “unnecessary” they seem.

For years my floor was constantly covered in laundry. Clean laundry got mixed in with dirty and I had to wash things twice, just making more work for myself. Now I just have 3 laundry bins: dirty (wash it later), clean (put it away later), and mystery (figure it out later). Sure, theoretically I could sort my clothes into dirty or clean as soon as I take them off and put them away straight out of the dryer, but realistically that’s never going to be a sustainable strategy for me.

How many garbage bins do you need in a bedroom? One? WRONG! The correct answer is one within arms reach at all times. Which for me is three. Because am I really going to get up to blow my nose when I’m hyperfocusing? NO. In allergy season I even have an empty kleenex box for “used tissues I can use again.” Kinda gross? Yeah. But less gross than a snowy winter landscape of dusty germs on my desk.

I used to be late all the time because I couldn’t find my house key. But it costs $2.50 and 3 minutes to copy a key, so now there’s one in my backpack, my purse, my gym bag, my wallet, my desk, and hanging on my door. Problem solved.

I’m like a ninja for getting pout the door past reminder notes without noticing. If I really don’t want to forget something, I make a physical barrier in front of my door. A sticky note is a lot easier to walk past than a two foot high cardboard box with my wallet on top of it.

Executive dysfunction is always going to cause challenges, but often half the struggle is trying to cope by pretending not to have executive dysfunction, instead of finding actual solutions.

[a-book-dragon]

You don't have a male or female brain – the more brains scientists study, the weaker the evidence for sex differences

Rather than distinctly male or female, the human brain is much more like the heart, kidneys and lungs – basically the same no matter the sex of the body it's in.

rb to make a biological essentialist mad <3

[frogmp3]

[adhd-chaos-queen]

Here lies adhd-chaos-queen, She was still a little lost in her thoughts…

Lol, probably accurate 😂

[killyouranxiety]

hobbies masterpost!

a really excellent way to reduce anxiety is to pick up a new hobby. find something you’re interested in, learn it, then use it as a healthy and productive way to cope.

learn to play guitar

learn how to make interactive stories with the free program Twine

learn how to make pixel art

learn another language

learn how to build a ship in a bottle

learn how to develop your own film

learn how to embroider

learn how to make chiptunes (8-bit music)

learn how to make origami (the art of paper folding)

learn how to make tumblr themes

learn how to make jewelry 

learn how to make candy

learn how to make terrariums

learn how to make your own perfume

learn how to make your own tea

learn how to build birdhouses

learn how to read tarot cards

learn how to make zines

learn how to code

learn how to whittle (wood carving)

learn how to make candles

learn how to make clay figurines

learn how to knit scarves

learn how to become an amateur astronomer

learn some yoyo tricks

learn how to start a collection

learn how to start body building

learn how to edit wikipedia articles

learn how to decorate iphone cases

learn how to do freelance writing

learn how to make your own cards and

learn how to make your own envelopes

learn how to play the ukulele 

learn how to make gifs

learn how to play chess

learn how to juggle

learn how to guerrilla garden

learn how to chart your family history

learn how to keep chickens

learn how to do yoga

learn how to do magic tricks

learn how to raise and breed butterflies

learn how to play dungeons & dragons

learn how to skateboard

learn how to do parkour

learn how to surf

learn how to arrange flowers

learn how to make stuffed animals

[brainsarematter]

Oh nooooo..... a list of past, present, and future hyperfixations 😓 this is so so cool and full support people starting new things ! but oml oh no what have you done, you’ve just given me a master list! A long master list that will take oh so long to run out! If I ever want to find something to do instead of sleeping (which I always do), I can find it right here... oh no here we go time to learn how to build a ship in a bottle

[peelingmandarins]

“After thirty years of intensive research, we can now answer many of the questions posed earlier. The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.”

— Matthew Walker PhD, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (via themedicalstate)

[goodbye-friends36294]

ADHD tips from my school counselors:

“You need to create a study routine!”

“You need to stop fidgeting…you’re distracting yourself!”

“Get more exercise and take your meds!”

“Stop procrastinating!”

ADHD tips from my friends with ADHD:

“I eat one chocolate chip for every page I read.”

“I can only study by playing the gravity game on the Quizlet website. I need to beat my friend’s high score.”

“Every ten minutes I get up, put on one song by Taylor Swift, and wiggle around until I feel better.”

“Instead of checkboxes, I draw little flowers next to each task, and after I finished the task, I color in the flower in a fun color.”

[themedicalstate]

The Art Of The Brain

1. Cajal’s labyrinth of the inner ear, which contains the sensory structures for hearing and balance.

2. Cajal summarizes many of the properties of astrocytes in this drawing of the hippocampus of a man three hours after death.

3. Here we see damaged Purkinje neurons of the cerebellum. Cajal has chosen to focus on the cell bodies, which have a bloated, empty appearance. The most swollen of these cells (G) has the appearance of a penguin, swimming among the other neurons. Did Cajal actually see a penguin as he gazed into his microscope? Hard to tell, as Cajal typically drew from memory.

Source: Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC. Drawn by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, father of modern neuroscience.

[choccymlk]

The school system continues to fail neurodiverse students

Neurodivergence in academic settings is highly misunderstood & under discussed. Below is a master list of information on the reality of being a neurodivergent student in an education system built for neurotypicals; as well as resources and tools to aid students with autism, adhd, dyslexia and more in higher education. Please share this post so it can reach, educate and assist and many people as possible.

**this will be continuously updated. if you have any additions please feel free to message me or send me an ask and i’ll add it to the list!

✰ EDUCATE YOURSELF

NEURODIVERSITY: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

VALUING DIFFERENCES: NEURODIVERSITY IN THE CLASSROOM

ADHD EDUCATION CARRD

AUTISM EDUCATION CARRD

MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT AUTISM

DEALING WITH DYSLEXIA CARRD

TONE INDICATORS CARRD

✰ HELPFUL READS/SELF HELP

NEURODIVERSE SELF-CARE: MANAGING ANXIETY THROUGH CONNECTION

NEURODIVERSITY WELLNESS: LINKS TO SOME GREAT COVID-19 RESOURCES

PREPARING FOR COLLEGE WITH DYSLEXIA

AT UNIVERSITY: THE ART OF SHARING INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DISABILITY

HACKING YOUR ADHD - where you can learn techniques for helping your adhd brain

SURVIVING COLLEGE WITH ADHD

GOING TO COLLEGE WITH AUTISM

5 TIPS FOR AUTISTIC STUDENTS STARTING UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE

✰ TOOLS

FOCUS@WILL: an ios & android app designed to increase your focus and attention, Focus@Will uses specially engineered audio in which frequencies similar to the human voice are removed. Why? We are wired to pay attention to them, and they distract us.

FINISH: an app that lets you add tasks and divide them into “short term,” “mid term,” or “long term,” as defined by you.

CLAROSPEAK: ClaroSpeak offers the option of visual highlighting in-sync with the spoken words, a great range of colour and font settings to allow for optimum reading and word prediction to help with writing.

C PEN: The C-Pen Reader is a totally portable, pocket-sized device that reads text aloud with an English, Spanish or French human-like digital voice.

[themedicalstate]

Colored lithograph by Batelli after Ottavio Muzzi, c. 1843.

[lifeofthegrind]

this is mostly a joke

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.

[abcsofadhd]

(Source: Me)