I can’t remember if I posted on this already, but it is still on my list of things I want to blog about, so I guess not… I usually take the kids in the morning on Saturday and let my wife sleep. I take the kids food shopping to two or three different stores. It takes up to three hours, depending on everyone’s behavior and number of emergency trips to the bathroom. It is boring and tedious for all of us. The funny thing is that it goes better when I work out first. When I get up early enough to get 30 minutes on the spin bike before we go shopping, everything goes better. The kids have better behavior, it usually goes quicker, and I’m not as drained afterwards. This is not a small sample size either. My oldest is 6. This phenomenon has been shown to be true for years. When I’m centered and producing all the neurochemicals I need, when I’ve gotten exercise, and am able to “reset” by going to my meditative exercise place, my mood and attention are so demonstrably better that it effects those around me. Pretty powerful to know about one’s self. I bet I’m not alone.

One of my first experiences in learning the power of positive energy happened when I was a senior in high school. I played many sports as a kid, but settled on ultimate frisbee by my sophomore/junior year in high school. (Google it if you haven’t heard of it. It is a legitimate athletic endeavor.) I was a captain that year of a team that was one of the 3 or 4 best teams on the east coast.  In our last tournament of the season at Columbia HS in NJ, we were playing the host team. They were great kids, wonderful hosts, and good players. But they were not our equals. We had a real chance to win this tournament, which we couldn’t achieve if we lost to Columbia HS. (For the record, I may not get all the details exactly right. It has been almost 20 years. But I think you’ll get the gist of it.)  The game was to 15. We were playing horribly. As we feel further behind I got very frustrated at our lack of intensity, simple mistakes, and general poor play. I reacted with anger, outward frustration and negativity. Needless to say, that was not an effective motivational tactic for my teammates. Eventually we were down 10 – 5. It was not looking good. One of my coaches pulled me from the game at sat down with me away from the rest of the team. He calmed me down and pointed out that my attitude was affecting the team negatively and was perpetuating the poor play. I wasn’t sure I bought it, but I trusted my coach and was smart enough to know that what I was doing wasn’t working. So, I flipped a switch when I went back after Columbia scored again to make it 5 – 11. I was…

Some background on my Aunt Judy. She was a tough lady. She was a buyer, mostly paper goods, for super market chains and distribution companies. It was almost exclusively a men’s world, but that didn’t bother her. And, she always drove a sports car, just like the guys. I think this story comes through my Dad. But it illustrates a wonderful point, and a point that is particularly important to many of us ADHDers. My Aunt once applied for a job. As I recall it was a big position at a well known company. She felt she had a great interview, but then didn’t hear anything for several days. Based on the interview she was expecting to be contacted. But, still nothing. Being that she was a real go-getter, she didn’t wait too long. After a week she followed up with a phone call to the guy who had interviewed her. I honestly don’t remember if the job ended up working out or not. But that’s not the point. When she followed up, she learned that this company did not call applicants back after their interviews, no matter how well the interview went. They would only hire people who wanted the job bad enough to follow up.  Obviously, not every situation is quite the mind bleep that that one was. But it still illustrates a great point. Following up shows initiative, desire, interest, a positive outlook, and perseverance. It could be the thing that sets you apart from the field and get you the job. It can also be a valuable learning experience. If you find out that you finished second, at least you know you are barking of the right tree, and your follow up could lead to opportunities with that company in the future. If you didn’t fare so well, a brief…

My last client ends at 5:20 many days. That gives me 10 minutes to get out of the house and pick up my son. His baseball practices are at 6pm. My frisbee games are at 6:30. If I have to pick up both kids, it can be an hour round trip. All of this makes me crazy… and then I get used to being crazy. I had a chance last week to not have an evening commitment, not have to pick up my daughter, and I didn’t have a late client. I worked hard until about 5 and then I sat in a lawn chair in my garden, took some deep breaths, and relaxed. I found that I was a much more effective parent that night.  Obviously, we can’t always have that time. But, I suggest finding it where you can, even if it’s sitting in your car by yourself in silence before you go in to pick up the kids. I think it makes a difference.

Well, I’m on the mend. I’m on Wellbutrin now. So far no side effects. Feeling better mood wise. Not doing much for the anxiety though. But there have been moments when I felt really happy and energetic. That’s cool. Can’t say it has affected my attention… I don’t think. Having never been on this before I’m happy to have the opportunity to share with everyone my personal experience with it. Stay tuned! (Plus non-depression based post coming soon!)

So, during my anxiety-ridden winter of stress, while fighting off a major depression and popping Ativan like it was my job, I realized something: My son’s behavior is greatly effected by my mood. When I’m on edge and nit picking everything, he is very sensitive to it. Ultimately, it puts him under pressure and his behavior is worse.  Not that his behavior is the end all be all. I’m more concerned about his well being. And, to realize that I’m bringing stress to him unnecessarily really crushed me. He’s a great kid, but has his own anxiety issues. I only make them worse by being on him all the time. After all he’s only 6. He is wonderful, compassionate, sensitive, smart, capable, and brave. Sure, he’s got stuff to work on, but I need to work on what to let go.  I so desperately want to be “consistent” and not let him “get away with” anything, that I sometimes don’t parent situationally. In a way, this brief depressive episode was a good thing because it taught me that letting some things go is as important as being consistent about other things. And, when I let up, we both win because I have the energy to wrestle in the back yard and have the fun with him that does us both good.

I pride myself on being a consistently inconsistent blogger. I am serious about not being the ADHD guy who starts a blog and doesn’t keep it up. But, knowing myself, my life, my schedule, etc., I know that I’m not the kind of guy who will religiously post every Thursday or something like that. I tend to post in bursts on my off weeks from coaching or other times that I have “free.”  But, it has been almost exactly a month since I posted. Here’s why: I recently recently got back together with my ex… depression. This isn’t the easiest thing to post on my website, especially since I use my website as a marketing tool. For the most part I like to portray me as the organized, efficient, together guy that I am most of the time. But if I’m totally honest with myself and the world, I think it is appropriate to point out that I don’t have it all figured out all the time. I hope that admitting my struggles and my vulnerabilities shows something as important as my strengths and accomplishments. So here goes… I am genetically predisposed to depression/anxiety from both sides of my family. I had my first major depressive episode in college at age 19. The psychiatrist that I was seeing at the time, who was an idiot, totally missed it. Long story short: he put me on a tricyclic antidepressant, but took me off my ritalin. So, it unintentionally moderated the depression… kinda’. But only kinda moderated the ADHD symptoms. That was a very difficult time in my life. I think it could have been much less shitty and shorter if I had been getting better care. (Ultimately, I went back to my pediatric psychopharmacologist and he got me back on track. I still see him at 36 yrs old.)…

I am far from anti-drugs. I made a personal choice when I was a teenager that drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol were not for me. I began using alcohol around age 20 and still have never smoked a cigarette, smoked weed, or done anything else. Having said that, most of my friends have smoked weed at one time or another in their lives. I actually think drugs should be legalized. I point this things out to give context to what this post is really about, to illustrate that I’m not a prude nor that I’m pro drugs. The objective scientific fact that is clearly emerging from current research is that weed is really bad for the brain. It is even worse for the young brain. And, there is some evidence that it is particular bad for the ADHD and anxiety prone brain.  Many of my younger clients “self medicate” with marijuana for anxiety, sleep issues, and to moderate “jitters.” In the short term that works. Weed mellows you out, makes you less anxious, and makes you sleepy. The problem is that in the long term it makes all of those things worse. It messes up your sleep cycle. It ultimately makes your mood worse as it is a depresant. And, the next day, you’re going to have to pump a lot of caffeine in to your system to get going. Hence the jitters.  Now there is evidence that moderate to heavy use of marijuana actually reshapes the brain negatively in teens and young adults. So, these detrimental effects may not be so short term. I really worry about my younger clients who can’t/won’t stop smoking. It doesn’t bode well for their future. Fact: Today’s weed is about 3.5x more potent than only 20 years ago. (I’m sorry I don’t have the source for this. My dad…

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