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September 7 - December 6, 2024
Engage in some kind of spiritual practice, whether as an individual or in a group. It doesn’t have to be organized religion, just some framework for entertaining and sharing the Big Questions, Ideas, Uncertainties, Possibilities, and Hopes. Finding the right group is key, but once you do find such a connection, it will reach into, enlighten, and warm many areas of your life.
Never worry alone. This one is key. Of course, choose with care the people you worry with. But when you worry with the right person, worry quickly turns into a chance to problem-solve and sometimes even a chance to laugh—releasing your worries—together.
Visit graveyards—whether someone you love is interred there or not. Strolling around a cemetery can cast a special spell, making us feel reverent and quiet, and often strangely rejuvenated.
Connect with your personal vision of greatness and try to hold it in your consciousness every day as a guide and inspiration. One way to do this is to identify one living person you admire, then allow that admiration to lift you up.
Along the same lines, talk to non-related old people about their lives, in detail. This is like reading a great novel.
Climb a tree and sit on a branch for at least ten minutes; it gives you a point of view on the world you rarely can achieve and, chances are, haven’t seen since you were ten years old.
Be on the lookout for any charismatic mentor. Many studies show that charismatic mentors—not grades, study habits, where they go to school, or IQ—make the biggest difference in kids with ADHD and VAST. If they can find a teacher, coach, family friend, or anyone else who understands and inspires them, then the sky truly is the limit.
Most people who have ADHD or VAST are naturally creative and original. They think along unusual lines and feel a persistent drive to build, develop, or create something, anything, from a business to a boat to a book to a balustrade. It’s like an omnipresent itch to make something. If that itch goes unscratched, we tend to feel listless or depressed, unmotivated and at sea.
We who have ADHD or VAST characteristics tend to fall in love in a hurry—with a person, with a subject, with a project, with a deal, with a plan. Sparks fly, and before you know it, we’ve forgotten how lost and forlorn we were because we’re immersed in whatever it was that caught our attention.
sit down with your spouse or some other adult (it’s best to do this with another person, as the interaction makes for more creative, spontaneous, playful, and thorough answers), and respond to the following questions. Have the person asking the questions write down your answers, because this is an important document to save: What three or four things are you best at doing? What three or four things do you like doing the most? What three or four activities or achievements have brought you the most praise in your life? What are your three or four most cherished goals? What three or four things
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As a guiding principle, you ought to spend the majority of your working hours at the intersection of three circles: the circle of all the things you really like to do, the circle of all the things you’re really good at doing, and the circle of things that someone will pay you to do.
the refusal to accept help is the single biggest reason for a person not to progress once an ADHD diagnosis has been made.
Environment matters a great deal. All kinds of research now makes clear that our environment—including our diet, exposure to toxins, chronic stress, and many other factors—can change the way our genes get “expressed.” In lay terms, that means how you live is a determinant of whether or not you get a disease to which you are genetically predisposed.
Recognizing your tendency to get sucked into the Internet vortex is the first step to controlling that impulse. But then do something about it: Adults should try to limit their screen time by turning the device off or putting it aside for several hours of every day (doing so as a family policy makes this easier), and definitely keep screens away from where you sleep. Charge your phone or tablet in another room overnight if your job doesn’t require you to be “on call.”
Avoid sugar. Sugar promotes the production and release of dopamine, and the ADHD brain loves a squirt of dopamine. Unfortunately, as good as that initial influx of dopamine might feel—you’re energized, cheery, satisfied—you have to keep ingesting sugar to keep up that feeling.
It used to be that people had to be urged to wake up; now we have to urge people to go to bed. Especially us stimulation seekers who have ADHD or VAST. We don’t like to leave the party, or to turn off our devices, and so we stay up way too late. But your brain will not function at 100 percent—or even close to it—if you do not get enough sleep.
A specific sleep disorder called sleep apnea can actually cause a syndrome that looks just like ADHD. Sleep apnea is in what’s called the “differential diagnosis” of ADHD, the list of conditions that can mimic ADHD.
Turn off electronics at least one hour before you hit the hay to give your brain the needed time to slow down and become less stimulated. Charge electronic devices overnight outside your bedroom. Make your bedroom as dark as possible. The absence of light is the key signal to your circadian rhythm that it’s time to wind down. Turn down the heat. Or open a window a bit to get some fresh, cool air, or turn on a fan or an air conditioner.
The idea of asking for and finding the right kind of help is a cousin to one of our overarching rules: Never worry alone. When the demands upon you exceed your ability to meet them, get help in the right places from the right people.
This early result matches what we now see in other studies of adding martial arts training to ADHD treatment: real and sustained improvement in both children and adults. Finding the right instructor is important, of course, but fortunately, recognizing how much martial arts can benefit those with ADHD has not been lost on those who teach and own facilities.
Over the long haul, skill building; finding the right school or job; finding the right teacher, mentor, or mate; and developing what we call a life rife with positive connections to people, activities, and purpose matter the most, but in the short term nothing gives you the bang for your buck that medication can.
stimulants stimulate the brain’s brakes, thus giving you more control. An increase in dopamine helps our nerve cells pass on information more “cleanly” from one to another. It helps to reduce the noise, quiet the chatterbox, and tune your brain to the right channel. If the signals aren’t clear, it’s easy to fall into confusion and anxiety.
There are non-pharmaceutical ways to increase dopamine—some healthy, like exercise and engaging your creativity and being connected to others or to a higher goal, and some counterproductive, like bingeing on carbs; using drugs like alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and Xanax; or engaging in compulsive activities like gambling, shopping, sex, or workaholism. Failing to master the adaptive pursuit of dopamine leads to addictions of all kinds, but mastering it leads to success and joy.
When it comes to the two types of stimulants, the difference is this: methylphenidate type drugs (like Ritalin) raise dopamine levels a little higher than NEP. In the amphetamine type drugs (like Adderall), it’s the reverse. Amphetamine drugs have a greater effect on NEP than on dopamine, though also only by a small amount.
Researchers have also found a small divide in the efficacy of these classifications of drugs based on a person’s age. For kids and teens, methylphenidates were found to be slightly more effective; when it comes to adults, amphetamines got the best results by a hair.
teens who have ADHD and are not treated are five to ten times more likely to become addicted to substances.
the science is proving that we aren’t just trying to be difficult; we’re really having a difficult time inside.
what a liberating message it is for us all to know that no brain is the best, and each of us has the magnificent, lifelong chance to find our own brain’s special way.
