The Other “Executive Functions” (And What Happens When They Dysfunction)

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

No question/request too big or small 😎

❝About ‘executive functions’ – isn’t that just ‘making the decisions to do things and doing them’? Or is there something more to it than that?❞

In short: yes and yes

That is to say: yes it is “just” that, but much like a heart transplant is “just” transplanting the heart*, the full process is actually quite complex and in fact it comes in numerous parts:

1. Activation: organizing, prioritizing, and activating to work
2. Focus: focusing, sustaining, and shifting attention to tasks
3. Effort: regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing speed
4. Emotion: managing frustration and modulating emotions
5. Memory: using working memory and accessing recall
6. Action: monitoring and self-regulating action

You can add “effectively” to each of these, because if you’re not doing it effectively, then you arguably are still doing it, but badly.

This is why we say “executive dysfunction” and not “executive lack-of-function”!

Which you can read about in full here, including expanding a lot on the above list and associated details: Executive function deficits in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder

*Speaking of heart transplants: it’s interesting that when we do an article about mental health, we sometimes get reader feedback saying “I didn’t like it” and such things as “if anyone can’t do this, they have problems!”. Or rather, the contrast is interesting—we never get those sorts of comments on articles about, say, cardiovascular health. Nobody writes to tell us “if anyone can’t adequately pump blood around their body, they have problems!” because yes they do, cardiovascular problems, and we’re a health science publication, and half of what we write about is health problems and available solutions or, failing there being solutions, strategies to at least mitigate the harm.

The only difference is that neurological problems tend to be more stigmatized than cardiovascular problems, and it is more expected that people should be able to just “pull themselves together”. But a person with executive dysfunction can no more do that than a person with circulation issues can just will their blood to run more smoothly (and have it work).

So, does it affect you?

Take This Two-Minute Executive Dysfunction Test to find out!

How did you score? (8/16 here!)

Did you do it? (it honestly is really two minutes and is quite informative)

If not, here’s your cue to go back up and do it 😉

Ok, what to do about it?

First, the bad news: you cannot willpower your way out of executive dysfunction by sheer force of will.

Now, the good news: there are some things you can do to mitigate the problems!

For example:

• Get Past Executive Dysfunction
• Can’t Start Tasks? Try This Now!*

*Yes, now!

Want to learn more?

This can help a lot:

How Reading Changes Your Brain, Unnaturally

Enjoy!