I just read an article from ADDitude’s Research Digest: Teens less likely to recognize positive effects of ADHD medication. It relates the results of a small study of teens. They were given different amounts of medication, including placebo and asked to rate their effectiveness everyday. Even though their efficacy was clearly influenced by the medication, they reported not feeling a difference. The conclusion was that teens have difficulty telling if the medication works.  The first question that came to my mind was, “compared to whom?” I would argue that teens, kids, and adults all vary widely in their ability to be able to tell if the meds are working. As a coach, my impression is that self awareness is one key to treatment. Some of us are born with more of it than others. But it is important to cultivate self awareness in regards to any treatment plan. I’m just not sure it it is an age related thing.  I’ve know eight-year olds who can clearly articulate that the medication helps. I know that I could feel its effects very clearly at age 10 or 11 when I first started. In fact my doctor trusted me enough to allow me to decide how much I needed for a given activity at a very young age. School, baseball, and homework were 20 mg Ritalin tasks. Playing with friends or going to a birthday party might be 10 or 15 mg Ritalin activities. I knew what I needed.  On the flip side, I also have adult clients who have no idea that the meds are working. I had one client who started over the weekend and we talked on Monday. He said that he couldn’t tell if it was working. I asked him what his weekend was like. He told me that…

When I turned 10 (I think) it was the last time that my parents invited everyone in my class to a birthday party at my house. It ended up being 30 or so kids running around and going crazy. Apparently it was too much for me to handle and I went outside and hid in my dad’s car. And I don’t mean hiding in the sense that no one knew where I was. I mean that I was hiding from the chaos. As my Dad loves to tell this story, I have had a chance to reflect on its meaning many times over the years. I used to think of it as an anomaly. I never thought of myself as an introvert and am very much a social person. I spent my first career in commercial kitchens, which are, at best, controlled chaos. And, I thrived in that environment. So why the freak out at the birthday party all those years ago? Well, I’ve realized recently that as much as I am a people person, I can also be over stimulated by my environment. Don’t love going food shopping in the middle of the day on Saturday at Wegmans. I never liked taking our son to the children’s museum on a Saturday unless it was members only hours. Generally speaking, I don’t love crowds. I guess my point is that I’m a guy who handles busy situations pretty well and can thrive in them, but only if I have a way to make order out of the chaos. That was the case in the kitchens I working in. But, I can’t create structure in a supermarket on the Saturday before Christmas. So that I do find over stimulating. There are many ADHDers who are even more susceptible to being overwhelmed…

This one is short and to the point. If you are trying to develop a routine it is super important to be consistent. So yes, any working out is better than none. However, a workout routine that is more consistent is more likely to become a lasting habit. It has been my experience that once you miss two days in a row for any reason, it makes it really easy to not go on that third day… next thing you know you haven’t worked out for a week and your developing habit is disappearing before your eyes. That’s why I recommend getting exercise at least 4 days a week. And, don’t assume that this has to be during the week. I think it can be easier to handle the demand of the work week if you make the commitment to exercise on the weekends and then you only have to go 2-3 times during the week. It’s my feeling that going regularly is far more important that what you do or for how long. I think you are better off going 5x a week for 20 minutes than going than going twice a week for an hour each. It’s a better way to build good habits and probably better for your body and ADHD management. You can alway work up to longer workouts. Start with consistency. Standard Disclaimer:  In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts much… if at all. Please excuse and typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. An imperfect post completed is better than a perfect post that goes unposted.

I had a great meeting of my CHADD parents support group last night. It was only three moms but they were all new and really ran the gamut of who comes to the meetings. One mom was really struggling with her 5 year-old boy who’s recently diagnosed but long assumed to have had ADHD. One mom has a 16 year old girl who is working her tail off to hold it together in school despite having tremendous difficulty attending to just about anything. Interestingly, she did far better when she did 4 hours of gymnastics everyday. The last mom has a 14 year old who’s super inattentive and impulsive… and already well over six feet tall. Some really interesting things came up. I’m going to try to cover them in the next few posts before I circle back to finish my work out tips series. One thing that came up near the end of the meeting was the whether or not listening to music is helpful or hurtful for concentration. I can’t remember if I’ve done a post on this or not. But, even if I have, it couldn’t hurt to do another one. The short answer is, YES… for 95% or ADHDers. But there are some caveats to that… and of course exceptions. As with most aspects of ADHD, we ADHDers often respond in two different ways to the same issue The majority of us will will respond one way and a small percentage of us will respond in what is likely the exact opposite way. The vast majority of us focus far better when this is background sound of our choosing, ie. music. I have no idea why this is or what the brain-based mechanism is. The way way that I’ve always thought about it was that there…

I am 100% about generating my own content, but sometimes you come across something that says it so well that it stands on it’s own. Many people don’t really take me seriously when I say that videogames have been been shown to be neurologically addictive. I urge you to consider reading this Ask Amy with a contribution from Comic Paula Poundstone. 

My eight-year-old is a fantastic kid. But his attention is challenged, especially in the morning and evening when he’s not on his Focalin. I was getting frustrated with reminding him about everything he had to do as part of his routine. And, my nagging him wasn’t ideal for our relationship. So, we decided together that creating and posting checklists would be a good idea. We made a draft together (when he was medicated.) Then I typed them up on colorful paper and posted them in his room next to the door, on the wall in the bathroom, and downstairs on the corner of the TV. It’s a new system, but so far we’ve had pretty good progress on most days.

So, I don’t often do something as trite as posting lyrics as a blog post. But, I’m a bit behind in posting and a song by my new favorite band, The Interrupters, really hit me the other day. I think it’s pretty self explanatory, so here it is… They always told you you were never good enoughBut why oh why are you making itAre you making it so hard?Be easy on yourselfBe easy on yourselfBe easy on yourselfCuz nobody’s been easy on you

Know Thy Self! Where to work out? I think that knowing where to workout is also super important. Are you a gym person? Do you like to exercise at home? Do you prefer to be outside? Does the weather or time of year make a difference to you? I’d be willing to bet that all these things make a difference. But the answers are different for everybody. And, here’s the strangest part: the answer for you may change over time. Maybe you have a busy work schedule and feel like it’s too much of a pain to get out to the gym. Putting some exercise equipment in your basement might be the right answer. But, if you need to have a social aspect to your workout, maybe taking classes at the gym is the right answer. If you love the outdoors, it’s likely that you won’t want to be shut up in the basement or the gym in nice weather. Then you’ll need to find options that get you outside. And sometimes the same situation may lead to different conclusions over time. That has certainly been my experience. I work from home and am pretty self motivated. So, I build a gym in my house. I’ve got a bench, weights, bands, a balance ball and a few other misc. pieces. For several years I worked out at home because it was convenient and time efficient. But I came to a point where my business was thriving to the extent that it became healthy for me to get out of the house for an hour or an hour and a half every day to get my workout in at the gym. I’m lucky that I have a great, reasonably priced gym that is a 6 minute drive from my house. Maybe…

Got an awesome (sarcasm) email last week. Decided to send a response. For your edification and amusement, check out a copy of my response below. Hey William. Sorry it has taken a few days to get back to you. But, I feel that it’s really important to do so. I invite you to thoroughly digest my (inline) response to your initial email below. I was browsing Google for content related to ADHD and came across your page here: Let’s be honest. You weren’t browsing. This is an email generated by a marketing firm or an algorithm. God bless anyone who falls for your personal touch. Looks great!  Thanks for the smoke blowing. But, if you’d actually read my site, you’d know that you wouldn’t like it so much. Adderall and prescription ADHD medications can be highly dangerous if abused. These stimulants have many adverse side effects and are known to be quite harmful to children despite being FDA approved.  Your ignorance on this topic is mind-blowing in 2017. As a matter of fact I would go so far as to call these two sentences patently false, dangerous, fear mongering. There have been literally hundreds of studies showing the safety an efficacy of stimulant therapy. The vast, vast majority of those studies have been conducted on children. As a matter of fact, I have participated in more than one of those longitudinal studies at MGH I was diagnosed at age ten and have been medicated for 29 years. So, in addition to finding your assertion professionally unconscionable, I find it personally offensive. Since Adderall abuse has grown to epidemic levels, our research team has compiled an article about the best all-natural alternatives to Adderall. Actually, that’s not true at all. Opioid abuse it at an epidemic level. Not so much for Adderall. You want to actually read…

When to work out? Knowing what is likely to work for you, your brain, your body, and your life is so important. I’ve always wanted to be that guy in the shoe commercial who gets up and goes for a run first thing in the morning. For years I beat myself up for not doing it. Then I finally realized…. I’m not that guy. My body doesn’t feel great in the morning. My brain is pretty focused, so I don’t really need the benefits of my workout yet. And, it doesn’t necessarily work with my schedule. Eventually, I realized that I work best if I have a break mid day to get my workout in. I need the opportunity to reset myself after a morning or work or parenting. It gives me a chance to be mindful, get my brain chemistry sorted, and refocus for my afternoon. I’ve learned that I have a sweet spot in my day between 10:30 and 3:30. Occasionally, when my schedule mandates, I can get a workout in the a.m. But it’s never a great workout. And, if I wait too long, I end up feeling antsy but lack the energy to want to really workout. The point is that it took me a very long time to recognize these things about me. I’m hoping that sharing my journey can help some of you get there faster than I did. Standard Disclaimer:  In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts much… if at all. Please excuse and typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. An imperfect post completed is better than a perfect post that goes unposted.

Don’t push yourself until your workout is torture. It is really important to leave yourself feeling good or you won’t want to go back. For example, if you go to the gym with the goal of doing a 30 minute lifting routine and find that you don’t feel great and really feel like you only have 2 sets of 10 in you instead of 3 sets, that’s okay. If you have done all of the workout except one exercise that you hate and you’re want to be done, that’s okay. If you have done 25 minutes and feel like you’ve had a good workout and are ready to be done, that’s okay. 20 – 25 minutes of good exercise and a good feeling is far better than 30 minutes and leaving with a bad taste in your mouth. Slowly but surely you will start to change your thinking about your workouts. They will go from sucking your will to live to not so bad. Then they might actually be a thing you can learn to enjoy. Of course we do need to push ourselves enough that we are really getting enough of a benefit out of our exercise. I’m an athlete and a competitive son of a gun. So, pushing myself isn’t so hard. But, my wife, for example sometimes struggles with that. If you do struggle with pushing yourself, don’t think about pushing yourself for longer, just think about increasing your intensity. Think about hiring a good trainer to get you jump started. Or find a workout buddy who is self motivated. You can feed on their intensity as you learn to create your own. Also consider doing intervals. That really worked for my wife. She does interval sprinting on the spin bike (and watches tv while she does…

Dr. McDonnell is one of my favorite people in the ADHD community here in Greater Boston. Please consider checking this out.