trouble staying focused

[Thujone]

\I have difficulty concentrating while reading my text books (mainly scientific text.) I have prescribed medication for adult ADD, but I don't take it these days because of an interaction it causes with another drug that I take (Paxil), but I'll be honest, I did take one of my Vyvanse capsules the other day, and I was amazed at the amount of focus and concentration that I had. I could actually stay focused with out my mind wondering off to extremely random things for about 3-4 hours which is simply a miracle for me! I am going to talk to my doctor about weening off paxil, or asking him if there is something else I can take to help my concentration w/o any major drug interactions occurring.

Also, I wanted to know what strategies do you guys use to stay focused while reading your science text books? Do you have problems similar to mine, and if so what did you do to improve them?

[Lame]

I think it's normal for your mind to wander while reading a text book. I do it all the time. I try to take notes when I read, so that always helps. Also, if I already have lecture notes for the chapter, I will read the stuff that pertains to the topics covered in lecture & skim the rest. Textbooks are pretty boring. Instead of forcing yourself to read a bunch of pages, I would suggest that you should break them up. For example if you have to read pages 1-30 in your book, why not read 1-5, then take a little 5 break and/or some notes for 5 min, & then go on to read another 5 pages.