Why K-Dramas Are So Addictive (Especially If You Have ADHD)
Korean drama (aka K-drama) shows combine novelty, a slow-burn emotional payoff, and an endless supply of next episodes, which is exactly the kind of mix an ADHD brain has the hardest time putting down.
In January of 2020, my mother-in-law and Netflix conspired to change my life. My amazing mother-in-law had been watching Korean dramas for years and I had grown curious about them, having watched a few scenes with her whenever we visited. And, dang Netflix, ever the enabler, had apparently decided I should also watch them. So one evening I gave in to its incessant Korean show suggestions and sat down to watch my first Korean drama, Because This Is My First Life, fully expecting to watch one episode and then move on.
Spoiler alert: I did not move on. Like, not at all.
At the end of the first episode, the female lead kisses a complete stranger at a bus stop, and I immediately needed to answer this question: what led her to do that? And while I was busy watching the next episode to find this out, I also started noticing cultural differences that were so intriguing to my brain: the workplace interactions, the drinking etiquette, the unspoken social rules that were so different from anything I'd grown up with in a tiny town in Massachusetts.
My husband is Korean-American, but he was born and raised in the United States and grew up more in American culture than Korean culture, so most of what I saw was new to me. I had wanted to learn more about his heritage so we could share it with our kids, and here was this surprisingly delightful and charmingly funny window into a world I hadn't known much about.
And then there was the romance. I am unapologetically a hopeless romantic. And Korean dramas are the absolute masters of slow burn romance. I’m talking about the accidental hand touch while picking up dropped papers, unexpectedly sharing an umbrella in a sudden rain shower, or the first love who got away but then coincidentally ends up being your new neighbor years later. Oh, and the classic hand or wrist grab/let’s run away together scene. Somehow it just works. If you know, you know. And if you don't know yet, I am so excited for you.
Halfway through that first episode, I was hooked, and as someone with ADHD, I was hooked in the specific and slightly overwhelming way that ADHD brains can get hooked on things. And, then a couple months later, the pandemic hit and I had a lot of time on my hands to devote to watching dramas! I wondered if other people who have ADHD also found K-dramas as addicting as I do. Drawing on everything I know about how ADHD brains and executive functioning work, it made complete sense - Korean dramas are perfectly designed for the ADHD brain. This is wonderful, and also, as I will get into shortly, occasionally a problem.
Three reasons K-dramas hook the ADHD brain
If you're reading this as a fellow K-drama fan who also has ADHD, is otherwise neurodivergent, or has simply lost more sleep than you'd like to admit to one more episode, this post is for you. I’ll share some tips and strategies for managing life with K-dramas and hopefully you will learn from some of my personal experiences, too. Let’s first look at why K-dramas are perfectly designed for the ADHD brain.
The novelty factor
If there is one thing the ADHD brain loves, it's new stuff, options, and stimulation. Korean dramas deliver on these in spades. There are thousands of dramas to choose from across every genre imaginable and they are produced at a pace that means there is literally always something new waiting for you. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Viki make them more accessible than ever, and if you start a show and it doesn't grab you, another one is right there in the queue. And available shows to watch go back to the early 2000s!
You can also find recommendations on Reddit K-drama subreddits, blog posts, Instagram accounts, podcasts, and more. You’re literally never going to say, “I have nothing to watch.” For a brain that craves novelty and gets bored easily, this is basically paradise. Or torture. Sometimes it's almost too much choice, so it helps to know what genres you enjoy the most.
I tend to gravitate toward rom-coms, slice of life, healing dramas, and the occasional lighthearted thriller. I love how K-dramas often delightfully mix genres which means you’ll often find a serial killer or some bad guys lurking around in your warm and funny rom-com. My Love from the Star, Suspicious Partner, and Healer are classics in this category if you're curious. It’s common for a drama’s genre to blend and shift in ways that keep things interesting…or downright perplexing. Just ask anyone who watched the last episode of When the Phone Rings!
The emotional payoff
Like many ADHDers, I feel emotions strongly and I am deeply empathetic, so the way Korean dramas handle emotion is one of my favorite things about them. The emotional arc over the course of the show has more of an impact than a lot of Western television where things tend to move faster and feel more surface level. I really enjoy the slow burn of a romance (they often don’t kiss till the show is halfway over!!) or the satisfaction of revenge that has been carefully and patiently earned over the course of twelve to sixteen episodes. There’s something I find deeply emotionally satisfying about them.
I also love that for the most part, dramas resolve. Even when a show’s ending is sad or not what I expected (Twenty Five, Twenty One, anyone??), there is usually a sense of closure that feels satisfying. This matters more than you might think for a brain that can get genuinely stressed out by unresolved emotional tension. Knowing that things will likely work out makes it easier to stay in the experience rather than protect yourself from it. And when a drama does break your heart anyway, well, that’s just what happens sometimes, and we keep going back for more (I’m lookin’ at you, Thirty-Nine and Mr. Plankton!).
Something else that’s great for neurodivergent brains is that you can choose your emotional intensity based on how you're feeling. Having a hard week? There is a healing drama for that (my fave is When the Weather is Fine). Want something fun and low stakes? Rom-com (Business Proposal, anyone?). Need to feel something big? There is always a melodrama waiting for you (Something in the Rain or Uncontrollably Fond might fit the bill). And, as I said before, the genre-mixing helps because you’re periodically given some respite from the main, intense emotion of the show.
The hyperfocus piece
Here's the part where I should mention that for ND brains, the novelty and the emotional investment can occasionally become a lot and create the perfect conditions for hyperfocus getting in the way of life. For me, this was a problem when I first started watching. Watching at night was especially problematic. I would tell myself one more episode, and then suddenly it was two in the morning and I had no one to blame but myself (and the trapped in the elevator/rooftop kiss ending of episode eight in Healer).
I was still functioning in my life. It wasn't a dramatic (har har) takeover. But it was taking up way more time and sleep than was good for me, and I felt it, big time. I was able to notice this and make observations about it thanks to a really important executive function skill called metacognition, which I will come back to shortly.
What helped me most was a simple change: I stopped keeping my phone in my bedroom. That one decision (which just might be the best decision I’ve ever made) helped even beyond my drama watching. I started getting more sleep, my mornings were less torturous, and I stopped feeling guilty about staying up too late. Full disclosure, I still binge-watch sometimes, but on the weekends, sitting on the couch, not in my bed.
Another change I made was to incorporate currently airing dramas into my selections. These weekly shows are released two episodes at a time, so this really limits how much you can watch. I also began taking breaks between dramas occasionally and not watching anything or switching to silly Korean reality shows or lighthearted American sitcoms. It feels more balanced and more enjoyable.
What do you think? Am I right about the reasons why K-dramas work so well with neurodivergent brains?? Keep reading to learn about some ways we can improve our K-drama life using strategies based on some of the executive function skills. If you’re struggling to find that balance I mentioned in the last paragraph, I’ll cover metacognition, which can help us expand our self-awareness. I’ll also look briefly at organization, time management, and prioritizing.
Executive function skills show up everywhere in our lives, even in the places we go just to relax and enjoy ourselves.
Metacognition (Self-awareness)
You might groan when you read the next sentence, but hear me out. It is important that we do not consistently prioritize dramas over activities that improve life outside of dramas. Who am I kidding? It can often feel like dramas are better than anything else. But, the rest of our lives (jobs, spouses, children, friends, exercise…) would disagree. This is where the skill of metacognition comes into play. Metacognitive thinking supports self-awareness and helps us reflect on what’s working and what’s not. It can help us identify the impact (good, bad, or neutral) that our dramas are having on our lives.
You might do some reflective journaling on how you feel about how much you're watching or use your flexible thinking to try some small experiments to see if you can find a way to manage it that works well for you. This awareness can help us resist that “Next Episode” button when we really should go to bed. If you’re really struggling to spend time in “real life”, you may want to work with a therapist to discover what’s driving that.
Metacognitive thinking is not just for helping us when we think we might be watching too much. It can also deepen your drama-watching experience and help you see how dramas can have a positive impact on your life. As we know, dramas cover a seemingly infinite amount of topics, and many of them may resonate deeply with you. I have learned so much about life from some of my favorite characters and gotten some insight on interesting topics such as the publishing business, potato farming, North Korea, and more.
I have also found that watching 15 minutes of a familiar and comforting drama is a helpful self-regulation strategy for me. If I’m about to do some potentially challenging work, I’m feeling anxious, or if I’ve had a hard day, I’ll often just watch a little bit of a show to help me regulate. It doesn’t work for everyone, but you never know till you try!
Getting and Staying Organized
You definitely don’t need to keep track of your shows; lots of people just dive in and watch with abandon. But, there are some benefits to getting a little organized: you can keep track of what you’ve seen, what actors and genres you like, and what to recommend to others. You never know - you might find yourself writing a blog post about it one day! There are myriad approaches to keeping your K-drama lists in order, but here are two fairly simple methods. One is DIY and one is a free app.
DIY simple tracking system
Grab your preferred list-making tool, such as iPhone Notes, Google Keep, a notebook, your bullet journal, or a spreadsheet. You’re in charge of how much detail you want to track. Some people just include the title, others might add when they watched the show, still others may support their memory by adding details like genre, actors, basic plot, and/or a review. Don’t worry about getting too detailed at first. Starting simple is usually the easiest and you’re more likely to stick with it if it’s not too complicated.
My Drama List (MDL)
The MDL website (and app) is designed for exactly this purpose and is what I use. It allows you to easily rate shows, track which episode you’re on (or what episode you dropped the show on), separate by status (completed, plan to watch, etc.), make notes, read synopses, count rewatches, and more! For people who are more visual, there are thumbnails for each drama. I also use it to find new shows to watch.
But wait, I haven’t been tracking my dramas!
If you haven’t done any tracking until now but would like to start, it can be a little harder to get an accurate list of what you’ve seen. You could try doing a brain dump of shows you remember watching. You can also dig deep into the settings of your Netflix and Amazon Prime accounts for your watch history. A quick Google search can help you find instructions on how to do this. Viki, Kocowa, and other sites also offer some form of watch history, but I find them clunky and not helpful at all. You may have better luck just scrolling through the streaming platforms or MDL and see what you recognize.
Prioritizing and Time Management
Okay, so now that you’ve gotten organized, it’s time to use those prioritizing and time management skills to help make drama-watching life easier. Choosing what to watch next, figuring out if we have the time to binge-watch a show, or planning a watch party with friends all require forward-thinking. And, we somehow need to fit all this drama-watching into our regularly scheduled life. We may need to put our real jobs ahead of watching or, the opposite - perhaps the final episode of a drama is coming out this upcoming weekend, so we want to prioritize watching that over other things that are going on.
Some people find some relief by scheduling down-time in addition to work and other commitments on their calendar. Choosing when to watch dramas and adding it to your calendar is a perfect example of this. It’s okay to give ourselves permission to do it! I don’t schedule it myself, but as I said before, I now limit myself to watching only in the evenings and weekends. What do you think would work for you?
If you've made it to the end of this long post, congratulations! Your goal-directed persistence is clearly thriving. I hope it was a fun reminder that executive function skills show up everywhere in our lives, even in the places we go just to relax and enjoy ourselves. Our neurodivergent brains are wired in ways that can make daily life challenging sometimes, but they also lead us to find so much joy in unexpected places, to hyperfocus on something beautiful, to feel things fully, and to never run out of things to be curious about. Korean dramas, for many of us, are one of those places.
And if you'd like more of this kind of thing, including executive function tips, resources, and the occasional K-drama aside, I'd love for you to join my newsletter, In Progress with Hannah Choi. You can sign up with your email address in the footer below!
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