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.

See attached flyer for info about Dynamy’s open house. They are a gap year program that I think sounds pretty good. Not cheap, but so is failing out of college because you’re not ready.

Hey everyone. I know there are at least a few of you who read the blog regularly. So I had my web guy add a subscription option. I generally try to post every Friday, but if you’d rather get an email to remind you to check in when I post a new entry, sign up now!

I’ve always felt that as ADHDers we often feel completely at the mercy of inertia. The ADHDer in motion tends to stay in motion. The ADHDer on the couch tends to stay on the couch. If you take this as given, and add in our difficulties with self regulation, initiation, and transitioning… Let’s just say that it’s not always as easy at is looks for us to get off the couch, and go work out. Bearing this in mind, there is some “psychological Kung-Fu” that you can use to get yourself moving. One of the best ways to insure that you won’t go work out is to get in a mindset that a certain amount of time, distance, reps, etc is the only way to have a successful workout. For example, if you frame success as only 40 minutes, or 5 miles, or so many suicide runs, you’ve set a high bar. That effort level might not feel worth it enough in the moment to get you moving.  Try encouraging yourself to exercise with no expectations of how long you will go for. (Of course, you should budget enough time for fit in your best case scenario.) Look at it as a victory if you just get into your workout clothes and get on the bike or to the gym. Because, believe it or not, that’s the hardest part. Once you are at the gym, or on the bike you are in motion and it’s not so hard to keep going. If your best case is a 5 mile run, a 4 mile run is great, a three mile run is more than enough, and a two mile run is a great “easy day.”  Simply by going you are establishing good habits and a routine. Consistency if far more important in…