Sometimes it can be very difficult to discern ADHD from pure boredom. It can also be caused by lack of sleep.

I have Bipolar I, Tourette's Syndrome, and ADHD and I can tell you a few things that you may or may not find happening to you:

Here are a few of the signs of ADHD in my eyes:

1. While listening to a teacher or even a friend, whether the subject is interesting or not, though more prevalent when the topic sucks, you will catch yourself staring at their direction and find that a few minutes has passed since your thought had anything to do with their interaction. You will be lost and it is very difficult to deal with in a big lecture class because the professor usually only goes over the subject once.

2. This happens when reading books too, interesting or not interesting... and often

3. You feel VERY mentally exhausted after a few hours of lecture, even if you have gotten enough rest. This is because you have to use much or your mental energy to filter out (through your frontal lobes) irrelevant information, such as the person behind you whispering. Most people do not have to use as much of their mental energy directed towards filtering out that irrelevant information, b/c their frontal lobes work properly and filter it out much more easily. In people with ADD/ADHD their frontal lobes do not work properly and their brain actually has to process everything that is going on around them instead of filtering out the uneeded info. So...a large amount of your brain's power is directed to your frontal lobes, when it should be directed to the short-term/long-term memory and processing in the other parts of your brain.

4. You have a hard time remembering things, for example, the names of people you meet. This is because in order for something to be stored in your long term memory it must be kept in short-term memory for approx. 2 minutes. ADD/ADHD people will have all of that information coming through their frontal lobes processed through their brain so you may hear their name when they introduce themselves but immediately after the name passes through your frontal lobe, it is just as relevant as the statue in the background behind them and is desmissed.

5. People tell you that what they say goes into one of your ears and out the other.....constantly, and you have no control over it.

6. a lot more I just can't think of them right now

Hope this helps. Once again it is difficult to determine this and a Speech / Language Pathologist can diagnose you and can explain how the frontal lobes in a ADD/ADHD person differ from a normal person.