I know I’ve mentioned the documentary Race to Nowhere before. Well it had been difficult to see. It is now available on iTunes. SEE IT! 

Exercise is the best natural way to produce both dopamine and serotonin. Translation: vigorous exercise directly improves attention and mood. Developing and maintaining an exercise routine is a topic that comes up with my coaching clients very often. Recently it has come up even more often. Perhaps it is our reaction to the horrendous winter we had here in Boston? Maybe it is just a general spring thing. But, everyone wants to get back to exercising.  I am a person who doesn’t not do well without exercise. Even though my hyperactivity is not as prominent as it was when I was younger, I still need to move. I have a hard time articulating the substantial benefits I get from working out 5-6 times a week. It can be difficult to quantify them. But, I will say this: If I can work out before I take the kids food shopping on Saturday mornings, the whole day goes better. The kids actually behave better. Why? Probably because I’m more focused, more patient, more flexible, more fun, and more centered. All from 30 min on the spin bike. So, here are a few quick tips on how to establish a work out routine and maintain it. (Unedited and in no particular order…) 1. Don’t focus on the length of the work out at first. Just focus on doing it as often as you can. Once you take 2 days off… day 3 is really easy to skip. Even if it’s only 10 minutes a day, try to establish a routine of at least 5 days a week. 2. Recognize your progress. This might seem like I’m say the opposite as no. 1, but… If you aren’t working out now, even 2 days a week is a victory.  3. Really connect with why you are woking in. We tend not to do…

So, I’m a bit behind in my blog entries. I have a list on my phone of things that I want to post about. It’s about 30 items long. This particular one dates back to Mother’s Day of last year.  Better late than never. Actually the story starts on Christmas about 7 years ago. It was the first year I cooked Christmas dinner for the family. Bare in mind that I was a professional chef at the time. It was only five of us at that point. Then we were four. I think my mom was sick. I was making pollo al mattone. Chicken under a brick. It’s an Italian classic that I’d made, literally, thousands of times, but never at home and not in a few years. I screwed it up and boned out the chicken wrong. As a result it wasn’t cooking correctly or evenly. And it took me forever to realize why. I freaked out.  I will spare you the details of the freak out, but it was ugly. It was the freak out that ruined the day for me, not the cooking mistake… I know this now, as I look back. And, it probably ruined it for everyone else too.  Fast forward to Mother’s Day last year, our first with two children. I was cooking a special clams dish for my wife (and brother-in-law) who love shellfish. For the rest of us, I was cooking with a special kind of black risotto rice my parents brought back from Italy. I had only read about this kind of rice. And, I went against my own advice and cooked something I wasn’t familiar with for the first time on a special occasion. It was an absolute disaster. I’m not sure if the rice was old, or a joke…

I finally had the delivery system of Concerta fully explained to me. It is amazing! Hooray technology! Here’s how it works: What looks like a normal capsule isn’t. There is a layer on the outside that is essentially a powdered coating of immediate release Methylphenidate. That is absorbed immediately by the body and brings our blood level up to a therapeutic level. What remains is a membrane that allows gastric juices (a.k.a.) liquid to seep in to the pill at a specific rate. Inside the pill, a sophisticated polymer expands at a controlled rate when it is exposed to the controlled amount of liquid. It, in turn, pushes the active ingredient (more powdered Methylphenidate) out through a laser drilled hole at the end of the capsule. For many of us this provides an extremely gentle, long lasting effect.  It also makes it much harder to abuse. I was told that if you smashed it, it would just goo-up because of the polymer. I didn’t want to waste one, but accidentally dropped one in a puddle yesterday. So, I figured I’d hit is with a meat mallet and see what happened. Didn’t goo-up, but pretty cool picture. You can pretty much see all the parts. One other interesting thing is that not all the med has time to be pushed out before it goes through you. That is why Concerta is dosed in weird multiples of 9. Some of it goes right through you… along with the barrel shaped capsule. Here’s a link if you want more info: FDA Concerta Info

If you’re a client or have heard me speak you that I’ve never paid a bill and filed it right away in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever used a recipe and then put it back in the appropriate recipe folder right away. I don’t put packing slips, my kids cards, medical paperwork, or take out menus away in the folders where they belong. But that doesn’t mean my office/desk is a mess. On the contrary. It is always clean. How?  I have what I call “transitional areas.” I have an “in box” that is my “to be filed” place. I usually go through it every month or two, or when it threatens to fall over. So, I eliminate the tedious, every day, grind of following through with the boring task of filing stuff away “in the moment.” Instead it is a 20 minutes project that seems more efficient and can be undertaken at the time of my choosing when I feel like handling it.  I guess I should have done a post just on that strategy. But, I’m posting today to both extoll the virtues of this strategy and talk about how it can be a trap is not followed up on. The attached picture is what my “in box” looked like until last Thursday. Turns out it had been about 5 months since I went through it. Yikes! It has been a brutal winter with all the snow, my wife working a lot, all of us getting sick multiple times, a now six-year-old, a just-turned-one-year-old, and major renovation project where the contractor really let me down. In other words… LIFE happened. The best thing I can say about this transitional space system is that we want all of our systems to continue to work even when the worst case scenario…

So… every two years I go to an ADHD conference through MGH. I’m currently waiting for the evening session to begin. “Assessment and Management of ADHD in College Students.” I can’t wait to share everything I’m learning. I’m sure there will be a series of entries on a variety of topics. Since I only have 5 minutes right now, I will share my strategies for surviving the conference itself as an ADHD adult.  If I’m not interested in a particular presentation, I don’t guilt myself into staying for it.  I spend all day sitting against the back wall, pacing, moving around, leaning against the wall etc. Today I was actually in the back with two moms, one of a 3 month old and one 10 month old. I guess it’s me and the infants who can’t be contained by a chair. But I’m okay with that. I always find a gym near by and scam a trial membership. I got an amazing shoulder/core workout in before dinner tonight. Bottom line: these are the things I need to do to survive 12 hours of sitting still… even for a subject that interests me.

After just one meeting with Dad, one meeting with the whole family, and one meeting with a new high school sophomore I got this email from Dad: “Thank you very much. I have this very strong feeling that you are going to make a difference for [name] when no else has been able to.” That is why I do this.  Usually it takes a little longer to get such a positive response in writing. (See the “success stories” page.) But the truth is that for many kids (and adults) I can make a difference. I LOVE that! 

My children had, at one point, had 7 out of 12 days off from school due to snow. And… next week is February vacation. Hoooray! Funny how your perspective changes when you are a parent. Anyway, I’ll give you one short post for now, but hopefully March will settle down and I’ll get back to posting regularly.

I finally started the other blog that I’ve been planning for almost a year. If you are interested in gardening and/or cooking, check it out.

Please check out The “BSP” Extra on Cognitive Dissonance. I had trouble finding a link to it. It isn’t a numbered episode but is available on iTunes.  I think it will teach you tons about how we view the world.

I don’t think I’ve posted about this before… A client hipped me to a podcast a few years ago called “The Brain Science Podcast.” It is pretty intense and is often at a pretty high scientific level. I will admit that not all episodes are up my alley. Some are over my head. Some are boring. But the episodes that are in my “wheelhouse” are exceptional.  The newest 20 episodes are free. The older ones will cost you a buck. I’m working through some older episodes right now, so I may recommend ones that not free anymore. Sorry I’m behind. Not all of my Brain Science Podcast recommendations will be strictly about ADHD. But, they may be about topics that I think will effect everyone of us for one reason or another. I encourage you to give them a try. Even if you aren’t into the first one, please try a few. I think you’ll find at least one that has information that could change how you look at your life and your brain.  I suggest starting with Exercise and the Brain (BSP 33) I think it might change your thinking!

As part of my involvement with the New England Chapter of the National Assoc. of Professional Organizers. I’ll be a featured speaker at our Go Month organizational expo this Saturday.  Click here for details!