By Jeff Copper, MBA, PCC, PCAC, CPCC, ACG – April 6, 2026
For many people with ADHD, visual distractions can be overwhelming, making it difficult to focus on conversations, lectures, or even personal thoughts. If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to concentrate in a visually chaotic environment, you’re not alone. Fortunately, a simple but effective strategy could help—closing your eyes.
During my interview with him on Attention Talk Radio, Steve Gundy shared his personal strategy for staying focused in church—taking notes. Writing things down helps him stay engaged with the message. However, an interesting counterpoint came from a YouTube subscriber who found that what worked for him was closing his eyes, that it actually improved his ability to listen and retain information.
While these approaches seem opposite, both work by minimizing distractions. Writing engages the brain actively, while closing the eyes reduces overwhelming visual input, allowing for better auditory focus.
Many of my ADHD coaching clients describe how difficult it is to stay engaged in environments where visual distractions are rampant, like sports bars with multiple TV screens or crowded social settings. One client I worked with experimented with closing his eyes in such situations, and he found it “very, very, very beneficial.”
This strategy isn’t just about physically closing your eyes; it’s about intentionally limiting the input that competes for your attention. While it might not be socially acceptable to close your eyes during a conversation, it can be highly effective in settings where listening is the priority, such as classrooms, religious services, or online meetings.
If you’re visually sensitive and struggle with distractions, here are some ways to experiment with this technique:
• Try closing your eyes during a lecture or a meeting and notice if you absorb information better.
• In a visually busy setting, briefly close your eyes to refocus before continuing a conversation.
• If you feel overwhelmed by TV screens or movement, shift your gaze downward or away from distractions.
Attention challenges are different for everyone, but small adjustments can make a big difference. Whether it’s taking notes, closing your eyes, or another method entirely, finding the right focus strategy can transform how you engage with the world. If you’re someone who is easily distracted by visual stimuli, try this approach and see how it works for you! Also, post a comment below and let me know how you handle distractions and whether any of these tips were helpful.
In the meantime, please check out my video on the subject: ADHD Tip: Close Your Eyes, No Squirrel!
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome, everybody, to this edition of Attention Talk Video. I’m your attention and ADHD coach Jeff Copper and I’m here with a tip to help you focus. And I’d like to thank one of our subscribers to Attention Talk Video for bringing this to our attention.
We had done a video a while ago about paying attention. I had interviewed Steve Gundy many years ago on Attention Talk Radio, and he found that, when he’s in church, it helps him focus if he takes notes or kind of writes out what’s going on. So, we shared that tip on Attention Talk Video.
One of our listeners watched that and chimed in and said what he found very helpful for him is actually to close his eyes and be able to listen to what’s going on helps him. It limits the visual distractions that are out there. This has been fascinating to me because it’s very common for many of those with ADHD to be very visually sensitive.
I’ve coached many people who describe how difficult it is to go to, like, a sports bar with all the TVs going. The visual distractions grab their attention and pull them away from the conversation. So, after this tip was given to me, I actually practiced it with somebody that I was working with and said, “What would it be like if you closed your eyes when you were in one of those sports bars, if you will, with all those visual distractions?”
And he came back and said it was “very, very, very beneficial.” Now, certainly that’s a little bit different and a little bit unique in the world out there probably to do in church. Maybe easier to do in a lecture hall if it helps you focus; maybe a little bit more difficult in public, but if you’re around a safe environment or are around people that are there and you ask for permission to do that.
For those of you out there who are very distracted by visual stimulation, closing your eyes as a means to help you focus on what’s being said might be a very beneficial and helpful structure for you.
We hope you’ve enjoyed it and hope you found this tip very interesting. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to Attention Talk Video at the bottom of the screen and that way you’ll be notified every time we release another tip. We hope you found this enjoyable and the other Attention Talk Videos. Take care.