5 EASY ways to manage AD/HD
Sleep
ADHD symptoms are often aggravated by poor sleep. Many of my clients with ADHD report getting 7 or less hours of sleep each night. This on its own isn’t ideal, but my clients also tend to report poor quality of sleep, often marked by frequent nightly awakenings. All isn’t lost though, there are a large number of ways to improve your sleep, and these are my picks for the best ones to try: establish a bedtime routine that cuts off screens an hour before bed. Try adding 15 minutes of sleep to your schedule. Stretch a few times a day to improve sleep quality. And if you wake up, get yourself back to sleep with a soothing podcast like Bedtime Stories for Adults. Before and after making these changes, try tracking your symptoms of ADHD and see if they improve.
Nutrition
ADHD symptoms can also be made worse by poor nutrition, and even sometimes food allergies. To get to the bottom of whether your ADHD symptoms are exacerbated by your eating habits, there are a few things you can try. A high protein diet, especially one rich in omega 3s, has been shown to help, so you can try this out for a couple weeks and track your symptoms to see whether they improve. If this doesn’t help much, or you’re concerned about allergies, try an elimination diet like Whole 30 for a few weeks. After a period of “eating clean,” start adding your favorite foods back into your diet and see how your body reacts. Tracking your symptoms will be helpful in determining this. I was personally surprised to find that milk, even the small amount I added to coffee, left me with allergy symptoms like watery eyes and a runny nose. You might be surprised that I have chosen to keep the cream and live with a runny nose!
Exercise
Exercise can help AD/HD because it calms the body and the brain. It improves alertness and balances emotion, a common component of AD/HD. CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) recommends 30-40 minutes of moderate intensity, aerobic style activity to improve symptoms of ADHD.
Rest & Play
Many people with ADHD, especially students and professionals, can easily feel overwhelmed and overscheduled. This can lead people to letting work get in the way of their rest and relaxation time, which can actually worsen ADHD symptoms. “Soft focus” refers to a type of restorative activity wherein you aren’t engaged in hyperstimulating activities, rather, gently noticing and interacting with the world around you. Examples of this are: taking a walk and looking at the trees, noticing the sounds of nature or the room you’re in or even some types of meditation. Using your free time wisely and not just engaging in hyperstimulating activities like watching TV can help improve ADHD symptoms by quite a bit. Of course, you don’t have to cut out activities like this entirely, but just be mindful of whether your relaxation time is actually helping you regain energy and feel more balanced, since this is extremely important for healthy brain functioning.
Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback has been studied in universities since the 1950s. But have you heard of it? Probably not! Nevertheless, it is a Tier 1 treatment for AD/HD that is as effective as medication for many people, or reduces the need for high doses of medication. It works by retraining brainwaves so they more closely match those of individuals unaffected by ADHD. It’s noninvasive and has been shown to produce few negative side effects. Of course, therapy is always specific to each person but it has helped a number of people manage their ADHD symptoms by improving focus, allowing people to feel more on task, and minimizing fidgeting. If you’re curious, check out my blog post for a more detailed look at neurofeedback therapy and its benefits: “Brainwaves, ADHD and Neurofeedback.”