Adhd Brain Quotes

For the most part, he'd accepted that some people were born to be Extraordinaries, and some people were born to be medicated so they didn't spin out of control. Fair? Not really, but Nick was learning that his brain could do things that others couldn't. In a way, he had his own superpower, even if it was called a disorder.

Sometimes I’ve got too many thoughts at once. It’s like there’s a four-way intersection in my brain where everyone’s trying to go at the same time.

If the rest of the world says you're obnoxious or stupid or just not braining right, loving yourself is an act of rebellion, which is beautiful but exhausting, especially if you're a little kid.

No brain is the same. No brain is the best. Each brain finds its own special way. —From a poem written by Edward Hallowell to his five-year-old daughter

An ADHD brain is like a ferrari with bicycle brakes - powerful but difficult to control.

Evеrуbоdу has the ѕуmрtоmѕ of ADD/ADHD, аnd аnуоnе with аdеԛuаtе intеlligеnсе can overcome these diffiсultiеѕ.

Just about anything is more interesting than keeping a regular schedule of sleeping and eating. However, almost nothing will make as big a difference in getting maximum performance from an AD/HD brain as healthy living habits.

Be yourself!…No, not like that! —SOCIETY

You can’t pick your friends. You can only pick who to do stuff with that you find meaningful. And then see what kind of relationship evolves over time.

Adrien sometimes talk and acts as if he has a hundred tabs open in his brain. Like he's giving a speech and watching a film and reading a book all at the same time. But then, when it's something really important, he focuses so hard and so fully. Gives it the most undivided attention I've ever seen.

ADHD is crazy, actually. My brain, how fast it moves at any given moment—that the hyperactivity, it’s not me bouncing off walls, it’s a thousand thoughts each minute bouncing off the walls in my head.

Probiotics and Prebiotics If you’re suffering from gut-induced depression, how do you reset your gut microbiome to steer you back to a healthy mental state? The key is to increase probiotics and prebiotics in your diet. Probiotics are live bacteria that convey health benefits when eaten. Probiotic-rich foods contain beneficial bacteria that help your body

The label neurodiverse includes everyone from people with ADHD, to Down Syndrome, to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, to Borderline Personality Disorder. It also includes people with brain injuries or strokes, people who have been labeled “low intelligence,” and people who lack any formal diagnosis, but have been pathologized as “crazy” or “incompetent” throughout their lives. As Singer rightly observed, neurodiversity isn’t actually about having a specific, catalogued “defect” that the psychiatric establishment has an explanation for. It’s about being different in a way others struggle to understand or refuse to accept.

But like so many neurodivergent women and girls (and people of color and, really, anyone but cis white men), I internalized the criticisms and carried around a lot of shame while I exhausted myself trying to fit into a world that was not built for my brain.

An imbalance of these neurotransmitters is why some people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) come across as stress junkies. They have to get stressed to focus. It’s one of the primary factors in procrastination. People learn to wait until the Sword of Damocles is ready to fall—it’s only then, when stress unleashes norepinephrine and dopamine, that they can sit down and do the work.

What you feed, Grows What you starve , Dies Stop feeding your brain with all sorts of information and a constant reminding conversation about your miserable or vulnerable lifestyle, how people wronged you, how all they did was hurting you! Let your brain starve and heal

It all boils down to stimulation. At its core, the ADHD brain is wired to seek stimulation. We must have it in order to feel “right,” so our brains are always scanning for the bigger, better offer. While the typical understanding of ADHD suggests that people who have it are overstimulated, the ADHD brain is actually chronically understimulated. It just needs more input than a neurotypical brain to keep it humming, so what appears to be a lack of attention or impulse control is really just a desire to get to a baseline level of stimulation that keeps our brains happy.

Caffeine has a calming effect on the ADHD brain. The theory is that the brain of people who suffer from the disorder has an overabundance of dopamine transporters, or re-uptake inhibitors. They carry away dopamine too fast, creating a shortage of it. In turn, that affects serotonin and norepinephrine. The combined effect is a reduced ability to focus, especially on tasks that the person doesn’t enjoy, a lesser ability to control impulsivity, and it even messes with the awareness of time. Caffeine stimulates dopamine production in the brain, temporarily filling up the gap created by the rapid

People who live with ADHD are at high risk of addiction, especially adolescents, because of their poorly functioning frontal lobes. Years ago, when the illness was less well understood, doctors and parents were reluctant to give these vulnerable children addictive drugs such as Ritalin and amphetamine. It sounded reasonable: don’t give addictive substances to people at risk for addiction. But rigorous testing showed unambiguously that adolescents who were treated with stimulant drugs were less likely to develop addictions. In fact, those who started the drug at the youngest age and took the highest doses were the least likely to develop problems with illicit drugs. Here’s why: if you strengthen the dopamine control circuit, it’s a lot easier to make wise decisions. On the other hand, if effective treatment is withheld, the weakness of the control circuit is not corrected. The desire circuit acts unopposed, increasing the likelihood of high-risk, pleasure-seeking behavior.

When dopamine and norepinephrine are working together, it’s easier to know what to focus on and what tasks need to be carried out. If you have ADHD, your brain’s inability to access these neurotransmitters in adequate amounts is part of what leads to distractibility and an inability to focus, which are hallmarks of the condition.

is: I believe that at any given time, I’m just three bad decisions away from becoming a junkie on the street.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?

But celiac disease can be “silent,” causing damage with no obvious signs.

They’re not “bad,” or “broken,” and there are hundreds of thousands of successful people thriving in their lives thanks to, not despite, their ADHD.

We are here to learn. We make space for differences. And we allow all voices a chance to be heard.

The fact that I could sometimes exceed expectations made it even more frustrating for me—and everyone around me—when I failed to meet the basic ones.

We are acceptable humans as is, not once we stop having ADHD. You do not need to be fixed because you are not a broken version of normal.

8 executive processes of the brain: flexible thinking, working memory, self-monitoring, task initiation, planning, organization, impulse control, and emotional control.

You’re doing great. Keep going.

Not making it on time to an appointment because your brain has compromised time-management function is an actual limitation, not a character flaw.

The truth is, I felt different my entire life. Because I was always too much.

For many women with ADHD, we may be able to sit still but we can’t stop moving through our never-ending thoughts.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my mid fifties and I was given Ritalin and Dexedrine. These are stimulant medications. They elevate the level of a chemical called dopamine in the brain. And dopamine is the motivation chemical, so when you are more motivated you pay attention. Your mind won't be all over the place. So we elevate dopamine levels with stimulant drugs like Ritalin, Aderall, Dexedrine and so on. But what else elevates Dopamine levels? Well, all other stimulants do. What other stimulants? Cocaine, crystal meth, caffeine, nicotine, which is to say that a significant minority of people that use stimulants, illicit stimulants, you know what they are actually doing? They're self-medicating their ADHD or their depression or their anxiety. So on one level (and we have to go deeper that that), but on one level addictions are about self-medications. If you look at alcoholics in one study, 40% of male adult alcoholics met the diagnostic criteria for ADHD? Why? Because alcohol soothes the hyperactive brain. Cannabis does the same thing. And in studies of stimulant addicts, about 30% had ADHD prior to their drug use. What else do people self-medicate? Someone mentioned depression. So, if you have been treated for depression, as I have been, and you were given a SSRI medication, these medications elevate the level of another brain chemical called serotonin, which is implicated in mood regulation. What else elevates serotonin levels temporarily in the brain? Cocaine does. People use cocaine to self-medicate depression. People use alcohol, cannabis and opiates to self-medicate anxiety. Incidentally people also use gambling or shopping to self-medicate because these activities also elevate dopamine levels in the brain. There is no difference between one addiction and the other. They're just different targets, but the brain systems that are involved and the target chemicals are the same, no matter what the addiction. So people self-medicate anxiety, depression. People self-medicate bipolar disorder with alcohol. People self-medicate Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. So, one way to understand addictions is that they're self-medicating. And that's important to understand because if you are working with people who are addicted it is really important to know what's going on in their lives and why are they doing this. So apart from the level of comfort and pain relief, there's usually something diagnosible that's there at the same time. And you have to pay attention to that. At least you have to talk about it.

the kids who can’t adapt to school’s tedium are diagnosed with ADHD and are put on powerful psychoactive drugs, which have the immediate effect of reducing their spontaneity so they can attend to the teacher and complete the senseless busywork. Nobody knows the long-term effects of these drugs on the human brain, but research with animals suggests that one effect may be to interfere with the normal development of the brain connections that lead children generally to become more controlled, less impulsive, with age and maturity.13 Perhaps that helps to explain why today we see more and more cases of ADHD extending into adulthood. As with lots of psychoactive drugs, the drugs used to treat ADHD may be creating long-term dependency.

The results of the experiment suggest that, for those with ADHD, anticipation of a reward means nothing to their striatum. It takes the actual rewards or fun events to light up the striatum with excitement.3 But for people who don’t have ADHD, even before the actual rewards arrive, the striatum is buzzing with activity in response to signals that promise rewards will be coming.

Still others argue that the attention span of the American population has decreased across the board, likely due to increased time spent in front of screens, and this is being mistaken for ADHD.

ADHD impairments: in brain chemistry dynamics; chronic procrastination due to; in coordination of brain rhythms; delays in brain maturation; as developmental delay or ongoing impairment; executive function clusters affected by fig; frustrations in marriage; how they affect processing of emotions; impact on employment; impacting ability to sustain treatment; impaired brain connectivity; impaired cognitive functioning; James' story on identifying; for managing conflicting or unrecognized emotions; working memory and. See also People with ADHD; specific executive function cluster

For many ADHD brains, a broad request—“Take care of this,” “Be responsible for that,” “It’s your turn to x,” “Your job is y,” etc.—is hard to translate into action. The ADHD brain responds better to a series of smaller imperatives that get directly to the point. As Dr. King said7, ADHD behaviors happen when the expectations are greater than the skills, so make sure your expectations match your ADHDer’s skills.

The primary disadvantage of ADHD is that people around you are often inconvenienced, weirded out, or hurt by your behavior, so you're constantly getting judged and punished, which makes you feel like shit. Suicidal ideation is higher in people with ADHD. Self-loathing and self-medication are endemic. If the rest of the world says you're obnoxious or stupid or just not braining right, loving yourself is an act of rebellion, which is beautiful but exhausting, especially if you're a little kid. With that needy little kid always inside you, your life becomes an epic quest for love--or whatever feels like love in the moment.

the lesson I internalised was that the version of myself I was when I wasn’t actively trying to mask and fit in was unlikeable and egotistical, and that it was my job to shrink that person down and keep her hidden.

Some of my most remarkable case studies involve people changing their lives and health for the better through simple brain-making edits to their dietary choices. They cut carbs and add healthy fats, especially cholesterol—a key player in brain and psychological health. I’ve watched this fundamental dietary shift single-handedly extinguish depression and all of its kissing cousins, from chronic anxiety to poor memory and even ADHD.

But if something is important to you, you can keep going—even if you fail. Failing doesn’t make you a failure. It isn’t the opposite of succeeding, as I’d feared. It’s something that happens—and will happen—all along the way.

Reframing the discussion from mental health to brain health changes everything. People begin to see their problems as medical, not moral. It decreases shame and guilt and increases forgiveness and compassion from their families

High-GI carbs include potatoes, white bread, and white rice. Honey, orange juice, and whole-meal breads are medium-GI foods. Low-GI foods include green vegetables, most fruits, raw carrots, kidney beans, chickpeas, and lentils.

We’ve found the characteristics of what our ADHD brains crave. They are best summarized by Jessica McCabe, creator and host of the excellent YouTube series “How to ADHD,” who says ADHD brains are attracted to the following: Novelty. L.L.Bean catalog with its sensible fleece vests and parkas? No, thank you. SkyMall catalog with an eight-foot-tall gorilla statue and a cross-body bag that winks at passersby? Hell, yes. Challenges. We respond well to competition of all sorts, whether we’re racing against ourselves to make the world’s fastest fried egg or trying to get the most Ping-Pong balls in a jar. (Or participating in The Amazing Race.) Things of personal interest. If we are learning to use a chainsaw, the instructions might be deadly dull—but skipping them might just be deadly, so we will probably buckle down and learn what a two-stroke engine is because we’re interested in keeping our fingers.

A little brain science: ADHD primarily affects our prefrontal cortex, the seat of our executive functions. This part of the brain controls what we pay attention to, how we respond, and what thoughts have the floor at any given time.[2]

One universally common trait in ultra successful people (including the ones with ADHD!) is the ability to consistently take action in a specific direction. This has three components: 1)       Direction 2)     SMART goals 3)      Consistency

The main character in Done and Dusted is named Emmy. Emmy and I don’t have that much in common, but like me, Emmy, has ADHD. The differences in the way our brains work can be subtle, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist or make an impact on the way we live our lives. I know being diagnosed with ADHD looks different for all of us, but if you’ve ever had a hard time explaining why you leave literally everything until the last minute, why you feel out of control, why your tongue feels like it doesn’t belong in in your mouth when the music is too loud, or any of the countless other things we feel that are apart of ADHD, you might see yourself in Done and Dusted. Emmy and I are right there with you. Happy reading, Lyla

ADHD meds are amphetamines. They’re highly addictive and host a bevy of side effects that can lead to psychosis. We're giving these to young children without truly researching the full long-term impact this has on the human brain, much less an underdeveloped one.

When I was told to focus, what I actually heard was that I should stop hunting for my focus and pretend I’d found it. Like the riders in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I would perform all the gestures one does when riding a Focus Beast, without actually having one to ride.

I soon learned that there was an “inattentive presentation” of ADHD. I learned that hyperactivity can show up differently based on biological sex. I learned it can look like tearing voraciously through a book series, or interrupting in class, or SpeakingReallyQuicklywithNoSpacesBetweenYourWords!

Too many adults with ADHD are so focused on what they can’t do that they forget the positive aspects of who they are and what they’ve managed to achieve, their ADHD deficits notwithstanding. They think that if something comes easily to them, there’s only one of two reasons why: Either they’re doing it incorrectly, or it must come easily to everyone else, too. Having spent their whole lives listening to criticism, they don’t even have language for their own success. Many have practiced for so long covering up their weaknesses that they simply cannot acknowledge that they do anything well.

Berries and beans R: Rainbow colors of fruits and vegetables A: Antioxidants I: Include lean proteins and plant-based proteins N: Nuts (almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and cashews) F: Fiber-rich foods, fish, and fermented foods O: Oils O: Omega-3-rich foods D: Dairy (yogurt and kefir, certain cheeses)

NEUROFEEDBACK IS A SOPHISTICATED FORM of biofeedback and an extremely versatile treatment that is useful for many of the conditions described in this book. It has recently been recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics as a treatment for removing ADD and ADHD symptoms as effectively as medications.

It is impossible to get what you want out of life through indiscriminate action.  This is where some honest self-assessment combined with SMART goals comes in, both of which will serve to inspire motivation upon demand, give you a direction to direct your energy towards, and translate impulsivity into creativity.

in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.

When the snow lifted and I was able to get my medication, I felt like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz in need of oil to begin moving again. Then as I began to write, my mind was much more fluid. I had the cognitive fuel to function. My brain was the same brain it was the day before, I had the same interest, motivation, ideas, and abilities, but without the medication, I just didn’t have the fuel to access those parts of me and use them. Even a luxury car like a Rolls Royce isn’t going anywhere without fuel. In the same way, medication for individuals with AD/HD is often the fuel that allows the brain to function smoothly and work to its potential.

Sometimes, we knock it out of the park. Other times, we can’t even get our jerseys on. This can be confounding for people observing ADHDers, because they see what we can do and then wonder why we don’t just, you know, do it. You didn’t forget to unload the dishes yesterday. How come you forgot today? But like people who have other types of neurodivergent brains—such as people with autism spectrum disorder or dyslexia—those of us with ADHD are not in control of how our brain differences manifest. It’s simply how we are wired. Unfortunately, much of the world doesn’t recognize that, and this lack of understanding can make people with ADHD feel . . . well, bad.

Today, when people say they “went down the rabbit hole,” they are usually referring to getting sucked into spending way too long reading about or researching something on the internet. For those of us with ADHD, though, rabbit holes are a description of our daily thought process as it takes twists and turns, tangents, and digressions.

Why might sugar cause depression? The brain relies on glucose, a type of sugar, from the food we eat in order to survive and to function. Over a twenty-four-hour period, the brain needs only 62 grams of glucose to do its job, an incredible display of energy efficiency considering the brain has at least 100 billion cells. You can easily meet this need through

allows the brain to replenish the very important neurotransmitters needed for focus and productivity. The break needs to be an actual break. Simply stopping working on your taxes to surf social media and e-mail doesn’t count. During the break, you should get up, walk, stretch, meditate briefly, hydrate, or do something else different from what you were doing.

Many people with ADHD feel like they’re “bad at relaxing” because while they’re TRYING to relax, they end up doing something else. What I have learned is that, for us, taking a break from self-regulating IS a break. Sometimes, letting your brain do what it wants—even if that’s starting a new project—is more restful than asking it to focus on a relaxing activity.

The researchers found that the more trans fats in a participant’s diet, the more likely they were to become depressed. On the other hand, the more MUFAs and PUFAs a participant consumed, the less depressed they were. In terms of individual culinary fats, the researchers concluded that olive oil—which consists largely of MUFA—significantly lowered depression risk.

So you aren’t still in love with her?” I ask, eyebrows up, curious. “You’re over it? Over her? Sayonara, Daisy—” “Well—” His brows bend in the middle. BJ gives me a gentle but firm smile. “Magnolia.” “Oh—” I look at my fiancé. “Too much?” He gives me a tight smile. “You could try not talking for twenty seconds. See what happens.” I don’t do that. Instead I give Tiller an apologetic smile. “See, I was recently diagnosed with ADHD—” “Oh.” Tiller nods, not knowing what to say. “It impairs my prefrontal cortex—something about a neurotransmitter in the brain and then also lower levels of dopamine—which is so rude—don’t you think that’s so rude? Dopamine’s pretty nice—my doctor said it’s probably why I love shopping so much. And sex—

Not only have I had friends give up on me for being unreliable, I’ve also had relationships go south because I can’t keep track of how I’m being treated. Is this friend saying something unkind for the first time or the fiftieth? What was that last fight about, anyway? Forgetful people—particularly those of us with low self-esteem (see above)—can be easy to manipulate.

ADHD is crazy, actually. My brain, how fast it moves at any given moment—that the hyperactivity, it’s not me bouncing off walls, it’s a thousand thoughts each minute bouncing off the walls in my head. And there are parts of it that are wonderful, I notice things other people don’t, I’m detail-oriented, I pick up patterns well, I think I’m quite clever, truthfully. I like how I think. I wasn’t sad when they diagnosed me with it, it made a lot of things about me make sense, and about us and how I am and how I can be and why—it answered a lot. It can be bad though. It can be a waterboarding of thoughts. Just—cloth over my brain’s face, and all the thoughts in the world being poured over my mouth and nose and you can’t breathe because if you do you’ll choke on them—

What’s more, an ever-increasing amount of clinical research correlates screen tech with psychiatric disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression and even psychosis. Perhaps most shocking of all, recent brain-imaging studies conclusively show that excessive screen exposure can neurologically damage a young person’s developing brain in the same way that cocaine addiction can. That’s

ADHD also manifests differently in everyone. And you don’t have to exhibit the stereotypical symptoms that many people, including doctors, associate with ADHD. Like fidgeting, misbehaving, or doing poorly in school. I was gobsmacked. How could I have made it through 4 decades of life and never considered that I might have ADHD? Pretty soon I learned I wasn’t alone. As many of 75% of girls and women with ADHD go undiagnosed.

The space cadet: ADHD’s predominantly inattentive presentation Probably the most misunderstood and overlooked version of ADHD is the primarily inattentive presentation (ADHD-I). Someone presenting this way will have a much harder time staying focused and might be prone to making careless mistakes in their work. Unless they find a task super engaging, it might be difficult or even impossible for them to keep their attention homed

Servings: 6 Prep Time: 12 hours (vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free) This is another way to get your fix for a frozen, slightly sweet treat without going overboard on dairy and sugar. 8 extremely ripe bananas, peeled and diced 1 tablespoon honey ½ cup unsweetened almond, cashew, oat, or coconut milk, as needed to achieve desired consistency Place the banana pieces on a sheet pan and freeze overnight. Place the frozen banana pieces in a blender

As we’ve already touched on, food’s most profound effect on the brain is through its impact on your gut bacteria. Some foods promote the growth of helpful bacteria, while others inhibit this growth. Because of that effect, food is some of the most potent mental health medicine available, with dietary interventions sometimes achieving similar results to specifically engineered pharmaceuticals, at a fraction of the price and with few if any side effects.

Though not true in all cases, people with ADHD often have trouble planning ahead. Planning means organizing a number of different options into a workable game plan and anticipating what will happen in various scenarios. Executive function differences in the ADHD brain often don’t accommodate these common skills. One upside of not being natural planners is that people with ADHD can be really good at going with the flow, making things work in real time. It’s not unusual for a person with ADHD to be attracted to a partner who is a good planner. In courtship, her ability to organize and plan helps to make things happen, and his easygoing nature provides liveliness and spontaneity. They both benefit and thrive. After kids, though, the ADHD partner’s inability to plan becomes a real negative as the organizational demands imposed by taking care of children require that both pitch in to keep life from becoming overwhelming.

I first discovered this unusual combination in culinary school. The benefits of black pepper and the strawberries with their antioxidants, vitamin C, and folate make these a perfect snack. Juice of ½ lemon ½ teaspoon honey 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries Pinch of black pepper In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and honey. Stir. Add the strawberries and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the black pepper. Allow the strawberries to macerate for 10 minutes before serving.

It's very difficult for most people to understand how any individual can be very focused on certain tasks or can mobilize themselves to complete a task effectively under the last-minute pressure of an imminent deadline and yet be unable to force themselves to deploy these same abilities in an appropriate and timely way, especially for tasks that are obviously important. Most do not understand that when a person is faced with a task in which he has strong and immediate personal interest, either because he really enjoys it or because he fears that not doing the task will quickly bring some very unpleasant consequence, the chemistry of the brain is instantly altered to mobilize. And most don't know that this alteration of brain chemistry is not under voluntary control. ADHD clearly appears to be a problem of willpower failure, but it is actually a problem with the interacting dynamics of emotion, working memory, and the chemistry of the brain.

Yogurt with active cultures is one of the best sources of probiotics; just avoid fruited yogurts high in added sugars. Other probiotic-rich foods include tempeh, miso, and natto (fermented soybean products); sauerkraut; kefir (soured yogurt); kimchi (Korean pickle); kombucha (a fermented tea drink); buttermilk; and select cheeses such as cheddar, mozzarella, and Gouda. Examples of prebiotic-rich foods include beans and other legumes, oats, bananas, berries, garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, and leeks.

Social: Alizé grew up in an environment that was contributing to lower blood flow in the brain. When she came to live with me and my wife, however, we surrounded her with people who live brain-healthy lives. It has inspired her to start adopting healthier habits that are boosting blood flow to her brain. Spiritual: For many people, like my grandfather, taking care of others takes precedence over taking care of themselves. Making your own health a priority may feel selfish, but making sure you are happy, healthy, and energetic is the key to being there for your family and friends.

Far more than a quest for pleasure, chronic substance use is the addict’s attempt to escape distress. From a medical point of view, addicts are self-medicating conditions like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or even ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Addictions always originate in pain, whether felt openly or hidden in the unconscious. They are emotional anaesthetics. Heroin and cocaine, both powerful physical painkillers, also ease psychological discomfort. Infant animals separated from their mothers can be soothed readily by low doses of narcotics, just as if it was actual physical pain they were enduring. The pain pathways in humans are no different. The very same brain centres that interpret and “feel” physical pain also become activated during the experience of emotional rejection: on brain scans they “light up” in response to social ostracism just as they would when triggered by physically harmful stimuli. When people speak of feeling “hurt” or of having emotional “pain,” they are not being abstract or poetic but scientifically quite precise. The hard-drug addict’s life has been marked by a surfeit of pain. No wonder she desperately craves relief.

Back to that webinar for a second. Why does it matter that this book came from my webinar? Well, unlike “regular people,” I didn’t think about the pros and cons of doing a webinar, or spend even one second worrying about what would happen if it failed. I didn’t test my theory. I didn’t even come up with the presentation for it beforehand. I simply said, “You know, I think that people can benefit from what I’ve learned about how I use my ADHD to my advantage, and I think it’d be fun to see if I can help people.” An hour later, I’d reserved a webinar time, and posted on Facebook that people should save

Many doctors and educators have not yet reached this understanding. They assume that a high level of intelligence confers protection against attention problems, and they do not recognize that a student can be very bright and focus very well for a few specific activities, including standardized tests, and still have significant difficulty in deploying his impressive intelligence for most activities of daily life, including some that the student himself considers quite important. Often these difficulties are taken as problems resulting from boredom or lack of willpower, when they are actually problems with chemical dynamics of the brain.

truth be told, a lot of the time I wasn’t interrupting because I didn’t care what others had to say, but because I’d already worked out the end of their sentence and if I waited rather than blurting out my reply, my thoughts might disappear back into the buzz of noise in my head. Often it was talk now or lose the ability to follow the conversation altogether. And I wasn’t relating everything back to my own experiences because I only wanted to talk about myself; it’s just that’s how I thought you showed someone that you understood and could empathise with what they were going through. I never noticed that it wasn’t something everyone did.

There's a psychologist called Mary & Diamond who at Brooklyn in California, in the 80s studied rats. And they took rats at different ages. Newborns, some of whom they deliberately brain damaged, adult, middle-aged, elderly rats. And they exposed these rats to different levels of environmental stimulation, better food, more playmates, toys to play with and so on. They found out a couple of months later that the rats, at any age, including the brain-damaged rats, who had the better stimulation, they were smarter. But in the autopsy then they also found that in the front part of their brain they had larger nerve-cells with more connections with other nerve-cells and richer blood supply. In other words that environmental stimulation actually caused a change in the state of the brain, even in the older rats. And that's called neuroplasticity. The capacity of the brain to develop new circuits. So whether it comes to ADHD, addiction, depression or other childhood disorders or any other issue with adults as well, if we recognize them not as ingrained, genetically-determined diseases, but as problems of development, then the question becomes very different. Then the question becomes not just "how do we treat the symptoms?" (and addiction itself is a symptom, depression is a symptom), but "how do we help people develop out of these conditions?" In other words, it is not a medical question, purely, but a developmental question. And development always requires the right environment. Now, if you're a gardener you know that. If you are growing plants in your backyard and you want them to grow into healthy, functioning beings, botanical beings, you want to provide them with the right nurturing, the right nutrition, minerals, water, sunlight and so on. So the real question is how do we provide the conditions for further development for people whose development was impaired in the first place? Now we know how to do that. We are just not doing it.

While your gut and brain are housed in different parts of your body, they maintain more than just a historical connection. They remain physically connected too. The vagus nerve, also known as the “wanderer nerve,” originates in the brain stem and travels all the way to the gut, connecting the gut to the central nervous system. When it reaches the gut, it untangles itself to form little threads that wrap the entire gut in an unruly covering that looks like an intricately knitted sweater. Because the vagus nerve penetrates the gut wall, it plays an essential role in the digestion of food, but its key function is to ensure that nerve signals can travel back

I have been investigating this modern problem of decline in readership and my conclusion is that it has little to do with bad readership and a whole lot with a difference in information speed. Frankly, the modern brain is much faster than the classical brain was in how it absorbs information and novels do not reflect this development. They are simply not dense enough. Too slow, not the right tempo - bores the shit out of a modern brain! There's the real problem: our brains have developed into different speed levels that authors cant adjust to. It has nothing whatsoever to do with quality: it has rather a whole lot to do with people claiming to be authors who are incapable of concentrating their ideas in the right sort of space, and rather smear out a few already halfbaked ideas over 30 plus pages. Hello! Do you think its weird a facebooktrained mind, capable of digesting enormous amounts of information at quick speeds, is bored shitless with that? The problem is not bad readership but rather bad authorship: authors that cannot adjust to the times. And since there are a zillion books published every day of authors that just cant keep up with the speed of the times, and criticism hardly exists anymore in modern society, it becomes simply very unattractive to read books, unless one keeps to the classics, which are books that are much more dense at essence.

food processor with the honey. Blend while slowly adding milk to thin the mixture. Watch carefully, as you may need more or less than the ½ cup of milk. You are looking for the texture of soft-serve ice cream. Once this texture is achieved, transfer to a bowl and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours or overnight. Before serving, add mix-ins, if desired, like chopped nuts, dark chocolate chips, or peanut butter. Top with fresh berries. Chef Tips: • For chocolate ice cream, add 2 tablespoons of natural (non-alkalized) cocoa powder at the end before you chill the “ice cream.” As you blend the mixture, make sure there are no lumps. You may have to first pass the cocoa powder through a sieve

In my work as a therapist I have seen hundreds of clients who struggle with these issues, and I am convinced now more than ever of one simple truth: they are not lazy. In fact, I do not think laziness exists. You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities. ADHD, autism, depression, traumatic brain injury, and bipolar and anxiety disorders are just some of the conditions that affect executive function, making planning, time management, working memory, and organization more difficult, and tasks with multiple steps intimidating or boring.

We Can’t Remember What We Don’t Understand The process of encoding information into long-term storage requires our brains to compare new information with what we already know and then figure out where to file it. For this to happen, we need to rely on our working memory to hold all of this information long enough for it to happen. If the new information is easy for us to understand and related to a familiar subject, the encoding process can be quick and easy. If, on the other hand, we have no clue what someone is talking about—possibly because we missed or didn’t encode the foundational knowledge well enough—we may not have enough time for this process to take place. Before our brains are able to encode it, new information comes in and bumps it out of our working memory.

All this to say, ADHD isn’t your fault. You aren’t selfish, reckless, or irresponsible by nature. Most people seem to have a double standard for chemical imbalances in the brain, as opposed to elsewhere in the body. One would not — we hope! — tell a person with Type I Diabetes to try harder because everyone’s blood sugar gets out of whack sometimes. We’d expect this person to maintain their condition with insulin and a healthy diet so they could live a normal life. Why would we expect someone with a chemical imbalance in the brain to correct it by sheer force of will when we don’t expect them to do it with their pancreas? The sooner you accept your ADHD as a part of your unique biology, not as a personal failing, the sooner you can begin to build a better life for yourself

In 2005, Dr. Ronald Kessler and colleagues reported the results of the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a household survey that included a diagnostic interview of more than nine thousand representative people across the United States.16 Overall, 26 percent of people surveyed met criteria for a mental disorder in the last twelve months—that’s one in four Americans! Of those disorders, 22 percent were serious, 37 percent were moderate, and 40 percent were mild. Anxiety disorders were most common, followed by mood disorders, then impulse control disorders, which include diagnoses like ADHD. Of note, 55 percent of people had only one diagnosis, 22 percent had two diagnoses, and the rest had three or more psychiatric diagnoses. That means almost half the people met criteria for more than one disorder.

The way we define their problems, our diagnosis, will determine how we approach their care. Such patients typically receive five or six different unrelated diagnoses in the course of their psychiatric treatment. If their doctors focus on their mood swings, they will be defined as bipolar and prescribed lithium or valproate. If the professionals are most impressed with their despair, they will be told they are suffering from major depression and given antidepressants. If the doctors focus on their restlessness and lack of attention, they may be categorized as ADHD and treated with Ritalin or other stimulants. And if the clinic staff happens to take a trauma history, and the patient actually volunteers the relevant information, he or she might receive the diagnosis of PTSD. None of the diagnoses will be completely off the mark, and none of them will begin to meaningfully describe who these patients are and what they suffer from.

In addition to work, ADHD can significantly impact family life and relationships. The effects of ADHD on relationships are not necessarily negative; in fact, they can bring out many positive attributes. Loved ones may feel energized around you and recognize that your sense of spontaneity and creative expression brings a lot of joy into their lives. On the flip side, friends and family may complain about imbalanced relationships, issues with intimacy, and/or fraught dynamics. If you get easily sidetracked, you may be late to dates with friends and family (or completely forget to meet). You may forget to respond to emails, calls, and test. Family and friends may take these behaviors personally. This can feel hurtful to you when you are trying your best with a brain that works differently than theirs. Of course, this does not have anything to do with how much you care for your loved ones, so communicating what you're going through and strengthening your organizational skills to respect important commitments can keep your treasured relationships humming along smoothly.

We can all be "sad" or "blue" at times in our lives. We have all seen movies about the madman and his crime spree, with the underlying cause of mental illness. We sometimes even make jokes about people being crazy or nuts, even though we know that we shouldn't. We have all had some exposure to mental illness, but do we really understand it or know what it is? Many of our preconceptions are incorrect. A mental illness can be defined as a health condition that changes a person's thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning. As with many diseases, mental illness is severe in some cases and mild in others. Individuals who have a mental illness don't necessarily look like they are sick, especially if their illness is mild. Other individuals may show more explicit symptoms such as confusion, agitation, or withdrawal. There are many different mental illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each illness alters a person's thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors in distinct ways. But in all this struggles, Consummo Plus has proven to be the most effective herbal way of treating mental illness no matter the root cause. The treatment will be in three stages. First is activating detoxification, which includes flushing any insoluble toxins from the body. The medicine and the supplement then proceed to activate all cells in the body, it receives signals from the brain and goes to repair very damaged cells, tissues, or organs of the body wherever such is found. The second treatment comes in liquid form, tackles the psychological aspect including hallucination, paranoia, hearing voices, depression, fear, persecutory delusion, or religious delusion. The supplement also tackles the Behavioral, Mood, and Cognitive aspects including aggression or anger, thought disorder, self-harm, or lack of restraint, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, feeling detached, false belief of superiority or inferiority, and amnesia. The third treatment is called mental restorer, and this consists of the spiritual brain restorer, a system of healing which “assumes the presence of a supernatural power to restore the natural brain order. With this approach, you will get back your loving boyfriend and he will live a better and fulfilled life, like realize his full potential, work productively, make a meaningful contribution to his community, and handle all the stress that comes with life. It will give him a new lease of life, a new strength, and new vigor. The Healing & Recovery process is Gradual, Comprehensive, Holistic, and very Effective. www . curetoschizophrenia . blogspot . com E-mail: rodwenhill@gmail. com

Foods to Embrace: Probiotics: Yogurt with active cultures, tempeh, miso, natto, sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, kombucha, buttermilk, and certain cheeses. Prebiotics: Beans, oats, bananas, berries, garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, and leeks. Low-GI carbohydrates: Brown rice, quinoa, steel-cut oatmeal, and chia seeds. Medium-GI foods, in moderation: Honey, orange juice, and whole-grain bread. Healthy fats: Monounsaturated fats like olive oil, nuts, nut butters, and avocados. Omega-3 fatty acids: Fish, especially fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines. Vitamins B9, B12, B1, B6, A, and C. Minerals and micronutrients: Iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and selenium. Spices: Saffron and turmeric. Herbs: Oregano, lavender, passionflower, and chamomile. Foods to Avoid: Sugar: Baked goods, candy, soda, or anything sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. High-GI carbs: White bread, white rice, potatoes, pasta, and anything else made from refined flour. Artificial sweeteners: Aspartame is particularly harmful, but also saccharin, sucralose, and stevia in moderation and with caution. Fried foods: French fries, fried chicken, fried seafood, or anything else deep-fried in oil. Bad fats: Trans fats such as margarine, shortening, and hydrogenated oils are to be avoided totally; omega-6 fats such as vegetable, corn, sunflower, and safflower oil should only be consumed in moderation. Nitrates: An additive used in bacon, salami, sausage, and other cured meats.

What is ADHD, anyway? For those still wondering what ADHD is, here’s the briefest summary I can muster: ADHD shows up in two areas of our brain function: working memory and executive functioning.[7] Working memory allows us to hold more than one thing in our brains at once. If you’ve ever run up the stairs, only to find yourself standing in your bedroom wondering what you came for, you’ve experienced a failure of working memory. Again, everyone experiences this from time to time. People with ADHD experience it nonstop, to the point where it impairs our ability to function normally. Working memory holds onto information until we’re able to use it.[8] In addition to forgetting why we opened the refrigerator, having a leaky working memory means we lose information before our brains can move it to long-term storage. We forget a lot of things before we have a chance to act on them or write them down. Our executive functions, on the other hand, give us the power to delay gratification, strategize, plan ahead, and identify and respond to others’ feelings.[9] That’s some list, isn’t it? In the same way a diabetic’s body cannot effectively regulate insulin, imagine your brain being unable to control these behaviors. This explains why ADHDers’ behavior so often defies norms and expectations for their age group — and this persists throughout their lifespan, not just grade school. ADHD isn’t a gift. It isn’t a sign of creativity or intelligence, nor is it a simple character flaw. And it’s more than eccentric distractibility, forgetfulness, and impulsivity. ADHD is a far-reaching disorder that touches every aspect of our lives. If we leave it unchecked, it will generate chaos at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

If you find yourself not following through on one of your strategies, for example, slow yourself down and list the actions you actually took instead of the actions detailed in your strategy. Use your notes to question yourself the way I questioned David when he wasn’t paying his bills once a week as he had planned. Your answer to “What did I do instead?” might reveal that you need to change your strategy and devise a plan that will work with your strengths and interests, not against them.

There is no known blood test or brain scan that provides definitive diagnosis at the time of this writing.

The notebook will also be demanding, especially of the attention it deserves. No matter how difficult the notion of writing in it might seem now, you’ll need to commit to it if you’re going to succeed, which means developing a new habit, or ritual, of record keeping. Make it easy on yourself by eliminating potential problems before they begin: Keep the notebook visible, keep it in the same place, keep a pen right next to it, set a specific time to update it, post reminders to yourself that it’s waiting for you! Treat your notebook like a friend or trusted ally who wants only the best for you, and it will reward you in ways you can actually document. On the other hand, in this era of technology,

Babies who are born via Cesarean section have a higher risk of developing ADHD, but why? Understanding the links in the chain give credence to the importance of healthy gut bacteria to sustain intestinal health and overall wellness. When a baby passes through the birth canal naturally, billions of healthy bacteria wash over the child, thereby inoculating the newborn with appropriate probiotics whose pro-health effects remain for life. If a child is born via C-section, however, he or she misses out on this shower of sorts, and this sets the stage for bowel inflammation and, therefore, an increased risk of sensitivity to gluten and ADHD later in life.12

The whole notion that ADHD is a specific disease easily remedied by a pill is convenient but alarming. In several schools throughout the United States as many as 25 percent of students are routinely receiving powerful, mind-altering medications, the long-term consequences of which have never been studied!

Warning: Drugs used to treat ADHD have resulted in cases of permanent Tourette’s syndrome. Science has been documenting this since the early 1980s.10 Now that we have the research to prove the powerful effect of going gluten-free, it’s time we change—no, make—history.

Dr. John Ratey, an expert on how the brain functions, suggests that ADHD is the result of dysregulation of the reward system (primarily dopamine) in the brain. In short, the brain of a person with ADHD does not move dopamine and other chemicals in the attention areas of the brain in the same way that the brain of someone without ADHD does.