Edward M. Hallowell's Blog, page 8

10 ADHD Tips To Start 2020 Off Right

People with ADHD can spend a lifetime dodging the necessity of organizing themselves. They avoid getting organized the way some people avoid going to the dentist: repeatedly postponing it as the problem gets worse and worse. The task of getting organized, one that bedevils us all, particularly vexes the ADHD mind.

As the new year approaches, I thought I’d share my top ADHD tips on performance management to help you start 2020 on the right track.

10 ADHD Tips on Performance Management*
1. External structure
Structure is the hallmark of the non-pharmacological treatment of the ADHD child. It can be equally useful with adults. Tedious to set up, once in place structure works like the walls of the bobsled slide, keeping the speedball sled from careening off the track. Make frequent use of:

lists
color-coding
reminders
notes to self
rituals
files

2. Color coding.
Mentioned above, color-coding deserves emphasis. Many people with ADHD are visually oriented. Take advantage of this by making things memorable with color: files, memoranda, texts, schedules, etc. Virtually anything in the black and white of type can be made more memorable, arresting, and therefore attention-getting with color.
3. Use pizzazz.
In keeping with tip on color coding#2, try to make your environment as peppy as you want it to be without letting it boil over.
4. Set up your environment to reward rather than deflate.
To understand what a deflating environment is, all most adult ADD’ers need do is think back to school. Now that you have the freedom of adulthood, try to set things up so that you will not constantly be reminded of your limitations.
5. Embrace challenges.
ADHD people thrive with many challenges. As long as you know they won’t all pan out, as long as you don’t get too perfectionistic and fussy, you’ll get a lot done and stay out of trouble.
6. Make deadlines.
7. Break down large tasks into small ones.
Attach deadlines to the small parts. Then, like magic, the large task will get done. This is one of the simplest and most powerful of all structuring devices. Often a large task will feel overwhelming to the person with ADHD. The mere thought of trying to perform the task makes one turn away. On the other hand, if the large task is broken down into small parts, each component may feel quite manageable.
8. Prioritize. Avoid procrastination.
When things get busy, the adult ADHD person loses perspective: paying an unpaid parking ticket can feel as pressing as putting out the fire that just got started in the wastebasket. Prioritize. Take a deep breath. Put first things first. Procrastination is one of the hallmarks of adult ADHD. You have to really discipline yourself to watch out for it and avoid it.
9. Leave time between engagements to gather your thoughts.
Transitions are difficult for ADD’ers, and mini-breaks can help ease the transition.
10. Keep a notepad in your car, by your bed, and in your pocketbook or jacket.
You never know when a good idea will hit you, or you’ll want to remember something else, it’s a good idea to keep a notepad handy.

If you missed my Distraction episode on Taking Back Control, LISTEN HERE  to learn my easy-to-follow strategies for handling life and focusing on what matters most.

Learn more about ADHD.

*Adapted from Driven to Distraction.

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Festivity

Today I received in the snail mail a Christmas card from a family I hadn’t heard from in ages. I don’t believe they’d sent me Christmas cards in a while, but, with my ADHD, they may well have, only I didn’t manage to take note of them. I knew them pretty well when I knew them, well enough for them to take my sons and me skeet and pistol shooting, an exciting first for all three of us.

The family, which in addition to a mom and a dad, boasts no less than five of what were boys when I knew them, now all men. It—they—are one of the most wonderful families I’ve ever met. I lost touch with them in the way people inadvertently lose touch with people, by mistake, too much to keep up with, a relationship that receded, into memory as relationships not tended to, do.

But the Christmas card brought it all back as if we’d just put away the pistols and were piling into the car, all together. On the card there was a resplendent photo from the wedding of one of the boys, now a man. Gathered all together in one brilliant and jubilant shot were 17 people: mom, dad, the five sons, and the bride, four additional women, be they wives of the men or girlfriends I couldn’t tell. But they’d been prolific, as five children also populated the photo, ranging from what appeared to be about five years old to what seemed five months.

They were all beautiful, in the best sense of that word, full of beauty, both inner as well as outer. I am not being polite when I say that mom and dad looked exactly as I remember them, not having aged a day. All their children and grandchildren and daughters-in-law, all their flowers, formal attire, and gorgeous gowns and dresses popped out of the card like an organ peal of love.

“Festivity”

When I looked at the card, the word that came to my mind was “festivity”. What a festive event that wedding must have been. What a festival of all-things-good that family has turned life into, not only for them, but for their friends, their businesses, their community, their schools, and just about everyone they touch.

I kicked myself for having lost touch with them, and as I noticed the return address on the card, I determined to write to them asap. Of course, I don’t know what’s been going on with them in the years since I knew them, what difficulties they may have faced, what losses endured, what sadness, what grief. But, knowing them, they have turned whatever hardship into connection, generosity, and growth.

“Silent Night”

As Christmas draws nigh, I thought of “Silent Night,” the venerable carol we all know and sing, at least those of us who celebrate Christmas, but I also thought of the literal silent night, the night that descends upon the people who have:

no family,
who have nary a friend,
who have no Christmas goose or plum pudding or
anything that matters much at all.

I thought of that silent night, what I could do to make it better for all of those people. I’m sure you who read this newsletter often have the same thought, how can we include in our share those who have little.

What Can We Do To Make It Better For All People

Short of grand gestures—like practicing the radical philanthropy prophets like Jesus prescribed—we can do, well, we can do what we can do. I don’t know about you, but I always fall pitifully short of that bar. There is so much more that I could do. I don’t want to beat myself up for not doing it—that won’t help anyone—but I want to prod myself this year maybe into doing a bit more.

For some reason seeing that family I’d lost touch with, seeing them on that card in full festivity, so to speak, gave me a shot of love, big hypodermic to get me off my butt and reaching out. Because that’s the least I can do, and when I do that, more follows, almost always.

My Wish For All Of You

My wish for all of you is that you find festivity in this season, that you reach out, that you all follow whatever spirit moves you to a place closer to love in the silent night that surrounds us all.

Edward (Ned) Hallowell, M.D.

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ADHD Holiday Survival Guide

Although people with ADHD love the intensity and excitement of the holidays, I know from experience that for someone with ADHD, stress this time of year can quickly multiply and create the perfect storm. When the ADHD brain is on overload, things can become overwhelming. Between juggling work, holiday parties, tons of lists, chaos with kids and unpredictable surprises along the way, it’s enough to send even the calmest person into a panic.

The holiday season is a never ending cycle of to-do lists that never get done, juggling acts that falter and expectations that fall short. So it’s easier to become angry, frustrated and say things you don’t mean. That’s why it’s especially important for someone with ADHD to have plenty of structure this time of the year so they can take control of the chaos around them.

So I’m offering the following tips to help cross out some of those items on your holiday to do list and ease the holiday headache for adults with ADHD and anyone else trying to remain sane in this crazybusy world:

SURVIVAL GUIDE TO MANAGING ADHD AND THE HOLIDAYS

1. Shop smart and shop early.  Last minute shopping is a big no.  There’s too much pressure.  So start as early as possible.

2. Make a list of people you need to buy for. Don’t buy too many gifts for each person.  That will keep the process from becoming too daunting.

3. Create a schedule of social events and don’t over schedule.  Leave time between engagements to gather your thoughts. Transitions are difficult for ADDers. Remember it’s okay to decline an invitation and you don’t need to offer any excuses. That will help you stay on task.

4. Prioritize rather than procrastinate. When things get busy, the adult ADHD person loses perspective and can become paralyzed.  Prioritize. Take a deep breath. Put first things first. Then go on to the second and the third task. Don’t stop. Procrastination is one of he hallmarks of adult ADHD. You have to really discipline yourself to watch out for it and avoid it.

5.  Make deadlines.

6. Get enough rest.  That will help you stay focused.

7. Recharge your batteries.  Take a nap, watch TV, meditate. Something calm, restful, at ease.

7. Carve out time to exercise or have some quiet time to yourself.  Exercise helps you work off excess energy and aggression in a positive way and calms the body.  The downtime; i.e., take a nap, watch TV, meditate, will help you recharge your batteries when you’re in crunch time.

8. Keep up with your regimen during the holidays and be vigilant about it.

The holidays are not the time to try something new.  They are the time to stick with what’s tried and true.  That will help ensure that you’re at your best this holiday season and you enjoy yourself.

Remember to take time and savor the joy of the moment.

Read more about ADHD.

Get tips on How to Take Back Control of Your Crazybusy life here.

Happy Holidays!!!

 

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Happy Thanksgiving

Between my Junior and Senior year in college, I took a year off. I wanted to see what being on my own would be like, and I wanted some time to make a career decision between the two options that I was weighing. Should I become a writer while teaching high school English to support myself vs. going to medical school. I thought that by trying to write for a year, I’d get a taste of that life.

I worked during the summer of 1971 as a waiter in the evenings at a steakhouse called Pate’s in my home town of Chatham on Cape Cod. During the day I tutored whomever wanted my services in Math and English. By October I’d made enough money to pay for the rest of the year. So I packed up and headed off to London.

My undergraduate tutor (at Harvard you get a professor to serve as your “tutor” in the field you major in: I was an English major, and my tutor was a legendary Professor by the name of William Alfred) had given me a letter of introduction to a poet in London by the name of Jonathan Griffin. He also introduced me to a young woman, Judith Thurman, another poet. She was living the life of a writer herself. Judith has gone on to fame and fortune, working as a staff writer at the New Yorker, as well as authoring several biographies, one of Isak Dinesen that was turned into the movie, Out of Africa.

She was also friends with a London playwright named David Pinner as well as an Irish writer/philosopher named Lawrence Pitkethly. That group, along with my college friend, Jon Galassi, who was studying at Cambridge University on a Fellowship, comprised a band of writer-friends who met regularly to eat, drink, and be merry. Jon has since gone on to be the head of the esteemed publishing house, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as a noted poet and novelist in his own right.

However, Thanksgiving of that year found me all alone in the apartment –or flat–I’d rented in Barnes, just over the Hammersmith Bridge in London. All of my friends were doing something else, and since American Thanksgiving is not celebrated in England, the city treated that Thursday like any other day. There were no special places for turkey and stuffing, and even if there had been, I don’t think I would have wanted to eat alone.

Feeling Isolated

I felt weirdly isolated, an American with no family on the most family-centered holiday of the year. Of course, I knew I had a family across the ocean, I knew this day was exceptional to me and that back home others would be gathering for the feast I always enjoyed so very much.

But that feeling of being disconnected from the people I wished I were with on a day that usually was such fun, that feeling in an odd way taught me about Thanksgiving. It taught me—showed me viscerally—what I had to give thanks for, by, for the moment, removing it.

I got through the day, I don’t remember exactly what I did, and the year wound its way along. I took a side trip to Greece, to the island of Mykonos and took the Orient Express back to London, all the while wondering what I was going to do with my life.

For reasons that escaped me then and escape me now I made what was and is incontrovertibly the correct decision. I decided to become a doctor. As it happened, I became a writer as well, so I was able to achieve both goals.

For that I am thankful. But I am also thankful for that lonely Thanksgiving in London that taught me, in a new and different way, the meaning of Thanksgiving.

I wish you all the very best on your Thanksgiving holiday.

Warm wishes,

Edward (Ned) Hallowell, M.D.

Interested in studying abroad? I invite you to listen to my podcast on: Tips for Studying Abroad with How To ADHD and Landmark College.

Why I call Connect: The Other Vitamin C

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ADHD & Dyslexia Non-Medication Treatment

In this episode of Distraction on ADHD & Dyslexia Non-Medication Treatment, I interview my friend, colleague and mentor Wynford Dore. He discusses his personal journey and why he created the Zing Performance program, the science behind it and what this means for you while I share details about my own son Jack going through the treatment when he was 12 years old and how it helped him.

New research has shown that the key to treating ADHD and dyslexia lies in the cerebellum, the area of the brain that controls coordination and balance, with exercise playing an integral part.

For the past 25 years Wynford Dore has pioneered research into the root cause of learning struggles, building on the ground-breaking discoveries from the HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL about the cerebellum.  The new treatment program he created to help his struggling daughter has shown remarkable success in the more than 50,000 people that have tried it, including my own son. This breakthrough is so new that most doctors don’t even realize the important role the cerebellum plays in unlocking a person’s potential.

I invite you to listen to our conversation and learn more about Zing Performance.  I’m excited to be teaming up with Wynford again and adding Zing to the treatment toolbox for ADHD and Dyslexia.

LISTEN NOW!

If you have a questions, please reach out to us! Just record your question or comment on your phone using the voice memo app and send it connect@distractionpodcast.com. I enjoy hearing from you. Thanks.

If you’ve missed my episode on How ADHD Affects Emotions, listen here.

You’ll learn how to manage these intense emotions and reactions. In addition, you’ll learn why people with ADHD are more likely to have trouble with emotional dysregulation.

Thank you for being a part of my podcast community.

If you would like more information on Treating ADHD and my strength-based approach, click here.

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Your Racing ADHD Brain

In his ADDitude Magazine article on “How to Slow Down Your Racing ADHD Brain,” Dr. Hallowell says, “Telling someone with ADHD to slow down is like telling the sun not to shine and the tide not to rise. The love of speed is built into our DNA. If our bodies are not moving a mile a minute, our minds are, ideas popping up like popcorn at the movies.”

Parenting Your ADHD Child

If you are the parents of an ADHD child, you may worry, and rightfully so, that the diagnosis can make your child feel labeled or set apart from other kids. It is important that your child not feel defined by ADHD. Having ADHD is like being left-handed; it’s only a part of who you are.

Try to answer any questions your child has about ADHD, but keep the answers simple and brief. Some older children may want to read a book about ADHD, but they don’t need to become experts on ADHD – just experts on living their lives as fully and well as they can.

How To Help

One of the most important things for the parents of a child with ADHD to do is help that child feel good about who he or she is. You’ll need to search out and promote the positives – both about life and about your child – even as you deal with the all-too-obvious negatives. If your child feels good about who he is and about what life has to offer, he will do far better than if he does not.

In his book Superparenting for ADD, Dr. Hallowell encourages parents to build up their child’s confidence and self-esteem by creating what he calls “the cycle of excellence.”

The Cycle of Excellence

The “cycle of excellence” consists of five key actions that work together synergistically to help “unwrap the gifts” of the ADHD mind.

Create a “connected” environment for your child, full of emotional connections to people, places, and activities they love. A “connected” child feels positively engaged in the world, and that feeling is like an inoculation against despair. The great beauty of a connected childhood is that it is free and available to everyone.
PLAY – any activity in which a child’s imagination gets involved and the mind lights up.
PRACTICE – Practice that emerges out of enthusiastic play lays down habits of discipline that endure.
ACHIEVE MASTERY – getting better at an activity that is both challenging and important. Achieving mastery does not mean becoming the best at a particular activity. What matters is making progress in that activity.
RECOGNITION – The fifth, and final, action in the “cycle of excellence” is to receive recognition, which naturally flows from achieving a certain level of mastery in a difficult activity. This doesn’t mean you have to win a prize or get your name in the newspaper. It just means that someone sees, values, and acknowledges the progress that has been made. Such recognition solidifies the confidence, self-esteem, and motivation that mastery engendered, thus completing the cycle.

The single most important treatment for ADHD – or for any child at any age – is to enter into this “cycle of excellence.”

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How Your ADHD Child Can Play and Live Better

In this special guest post by Caroline Maguire, ACCG, PCC, M.Ed. (author of Why Will No One Play with Me?) shares her advice for parents on how:

Your Child with ADHD Can Play Better and Live Better With Coaching: Learn How!

As a parent, you hear your child with ADHD revealing too much too soon to another child. You watch your teenager avoid reaching out to other teens. You notice your child seems immature and is laughing too long at jokes that are no longer funny. Or you notice your child can be irritable and appear rude. Children and teenagers with ADHD often struggle with self-awareness, self-regulation, and the ability to manage emotions that are crucial to social interactions.

You may be baffled, but you can help your child with ADHD change her social approach. With direct instruction and support, your child can work with you to develop better social skills. Why Will No One Play With Me? is your road map to learn how to talk to your child, coach her, and help her to develop these key life skills. After all, how often does self-advocating and communicating with teachers and peers come up in academics? Being able to fit in, collaborate with others, manage emotions, and make conversation are not just social skills—they are life skills.

Check Out My Top 5 Tips to Help Your Child Play Better and Improve Social Skills:
1. Open the Lines of Communication

Start by using more open-ended questions to open the conversation and make it more collaborative. Open-ended questions use the words who, what, when, where, how, and why. They ask, rather than tell. You can ask your child, What makes friendship hard? Who are you hanging out with these days? I notice you had a big reaction, what made you have that reaction? You need intel, and your child has it.

This communication style will allow for more collaborative discussions and help you to understand your child’s social dilemmas through his eyes and his own experience. Don’t assume you know why things are happening. When we assume, we miss so much. Any time your child balks at doing something you’ve suggested, ask, How come? Maybe it’s because he’s afraid of the unknown, or he remembers an experience that wasn’t pleasant.

2. Teach Your Child to Read Between the Lines—Games make learning more fun.

Play a game with your child. Make it a game to ask your child to interpret not what people say, but what they mean based on body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. If need be, prompt your child and share with her some ways to guess what the person means, such as, What does the person’s body signals and tone of voice tell us they are trying to say? What do we know about this person? Ask her to pick out a sharp tone in one party guest, someone at the mall who is angry but does not say she is angry or someone who uses sarcasm and ask her how she knows this is the case.

3. Teach Your Child Learn to Read the Room

Help your child learn to clue into social cues by playing a game with your child. Prompt your child to pick out two people in her family to observe and then to report back what their facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice are when they are angry, frustrated, nervous, or frightened. When you and your child are at a party, at a mall, engaging with your family, ask her what she sees. Ask her, What does that person’s body language mean? What information can you gather just from the person’s tone of voice? In every environment, there are social guidelines, meaning typical behavior that the situation calls for—they are the unspoken rules.

4. Help Your Child Improve His Self-Regulation 

Help your child learn what makes him too excited, lose control of his body, or become flooded with emotions. In the moment, guide your child to pinpoint what is going on inside his body and mind. These are signals that show him his current emotional state. Ask your child, Is there a particular topic that makes you experience a reaction? What happened before you got excited, or felt big emotions? Arm your child with calming strategies that you design with him collaboratively, so he is prepared in the heat of the moment to head off any signs of losing control.

5. Teach your child to engage in a “polite pretend”

The ability to fake interest or happiness and to be polite even when your child is hungry, tired, or bored is what I call a polite pretend. Begin by asking him some open-ended questions, How do you think your friend felt about your behavior? How do other people feel about how you treated them? What behavior does the situation call for? This will help your child think about his actions and why performing a polite pretend may be necessary rather than hurting other people’s feelings.

Bio

Caroline Maguire, ACCG, PCC, M.Ed. is a personal coach who works with children who struggle socially and the families who support them. She is a former coach for the Hallowell Center in Sudbury, MA. While with the Hallowell Center, Caroline was the primary coach for children and teenagers. Her groundbreaking book, Why Will No One Play With Me? teaches parents how to coach their children to develop and improve their social skills.

Follow her parenting advice and purchase the book at carolinemaguireauthor.com.

Learn about Coaching at the Hallowell Centers: NYC and Boston MetroWest

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Taking Back Control of Your CrazyBusy Life

Do the words Crazy Busy sum up your life? Are you increasingly wrestling with the issue of what to do about what’s happening and how to cope in a distracted, disconnected world?  Then l invite you to listen to my mini podcast on “Taking Back Control of Your Crazy Busy Life” and learn how to focus on what matters most to you.

I’m also including more practical strategies below from my book: CrazyBusy. These tips can help you  take back control of your time, learn how to use electronic devices responsibly, and reestablish the human connection that is all too often missing.

Coping in a Distracted, Disconnected World: Taking Back Control of Your Crazy Busy Life

1.   Education. First, take an honest assessment of how the use of electronics and technology has taken control of your life.

Are you texting friends or colleagues while sitting next to them instead of having a face-to-face conversation?
Are you spending too much time interacting on Facebook instead of hanging out with friends?

Involve your family in the discussion. Point out how you grapple with the over use of technology and ask them to assess their use of electronics as well. To get the best outcome, it is essential that all family members be involved in managing screen time.

2.  Set a goal of how much total time should be spent each day on electronics.  Then break the total goal into time categories: how much time where, doing what, with whom.

3. Plan daily periods of abstinence.  These “brain breaks” provide intervals of time in which no electronic device may be turned on.  Yes, this will be difficult for you at first.  So try beginning with 10 minutes twice a day.  Then increase that time by 10 minutes a week until you reach 1 hour a day or whatever goal you all want to achieve.

To go one step further, plan a “de-tox” day over the weekend.

Reserve a Saturday or Sunday, during which you and/or your family has absolutely no electronic usage whatsoever, except lights and appliances.  No TV, no phone, no Internet, no video games, no iPad.

Get the family or your friends involved in planning the “de-tox” day. You can play a board game, go for a hike, visit a relative or family friend.  Other suggestions are to volunteer at a community event or any other ideas the family comes up with. The point is to plan something that doesn’t involve any electronics.  Then have fun reconnecting.

4.  Make it a goal to restore the healthy habits that over use of electronics often disrupts:  First of all, get more physical exercise, especially outdoors.  Try eating family dinner together. Figure out how to enough sleep.  Finally, have some uninterrupted face-to-face conversations; pray or meditate.

5.  Replenish daily your dose of the other Vitamin C, Vitamin Connect.  Overuse of electronics depletes one’s store of the human connection. Spend time having a face-to-face conversation with people, uninterrupted by anything. Likewise, try banning electronics when you’re out with friends or during dinner.  Having face-to-face conversations with others is an important step.

6.  Monitor progress together.  Set time aside each day or weekly to see how everyone is doing.  What difficulties are they having? What difficulties are you having?  How does everyone feel about this?

Conclusion

Setting goals to limit the use of electronics and helping each other achieve those goals can be a family and/or friend project. Of course, it won’t be easy, but don’t give up. Your success in addressing the overuse of electronics one strategy at a time will lead to your success, and a lot more joy for the entire family.

Adapted from CrazyBusy Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap!   Ballentine, NY, 2006

 

Let Dr. Hallowell help you manage your CrazyBusy life. Download for FREE his CrazyBusy Tips APP for iPhone.

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Making Meaningful Connections

Making meaningful connections at their best involve your whole soul. Of course, not every connection will draw upon all of you, but if you give yourself honestly in all your interactions, you’ll make meaningful connections and lead a connected life.

If, each day, you resolve to make contact, if you resolve to reach out, no matter what the response, in a genuine way; and if you resist the urge to pull back, then you will connect. In short, if you try to draw pleasure from connecting, you will.

Why not try starting your day with family breakfast? Or breakfast with a friend?

Click here for Tips on Making Meaningful Connections

If you’re a parent and would like to know how to help your child make meaningful connections, Dr. Hallowell’s session in The Parenting AUTISM Summit on “The Importance of Making Meaningful Connections” airs Wednesday, November 6th.

About The Parenting Autism Summit:

The Parenting AUTISM Summit offers strategies in autism and parenting from 28 experts; including Dr. Hallowell, that work to help your child navigate the social world; some of the available treatment options and how to focus on your child’s wellness, and more.

The summit is online and runs November 4 – 7, 2019.  You can’t afford to miss this! 

You’ll Learn the skills, strategies, and mindset necessary to understand:

how to help your child feel safe, loved, and appreciated;
to figure out what is behind your child’s behaviors; 
how some people experience their autism; and more…

Register for FREE here. 

 

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