Good morning and Happy Wednesday!
As I finish my morning coffee and head off for exercise (two of my ADHD helpers), I'm curious about what works for you all.
My best advice is GET GOOD SLEEP. Practice good sleep hygiene so your busy brain can rest. It makes all the difference.
What's your best ADHD hack? What advice would you give to someone newly diagnosed, to help manage their ADHD?
My best hack is a meta-hack it seems to me. That is my best hack for minimizing ADHD or thriving with ADHD is the mindset shift I've made that tells me that solving tough problems requires creative trial and error and some optimism that I am making progress.
I used to panic at every problem--if I couldn't solve it in a week. It took years for me to improve my teeth hygiene ... about three years to get using Waterpik to an automatic night habit ... And I knew it would take that long. I'm using teeth hygiene just as one example, but the scenario repeats in all kinds of areas of my life (like being able to arrive to places on time), scheduling appointments, keeping a planner, learning to check my planner, avoiding volunteering for tasks that tax my ADHD brain, going to bed earlier and on and on.
This hack, which allows me to make improvements in multiple areas of my life, requires that I NOT believe the feeling I often experience that I can't improve, that nothing works, that I've tried everything. It always turns out that I have NOT tried everything. Usually I don't know of what "everything" is.
The book, Mindset, by Carol Dweck was essential in developing this "hack." Basically the book is about accepting that lots of problems require patience and lots of trial and error to solve. And we don't need to shame ourselves. When we feel stuck, slow down ... imagine other approaches. Practice coming up with multiple ways to solve problems. Dweck identified and helped me root out the assumption that if I couldn't solve some problem or make progress on it quickly, then I was a failure, I was weak, my problems were hopeless and on and on. And btw: all of these negative feelings were sorta tucked away and hidden--I didn't share them with anyone.
Only after reading and re-reading Dweck's book did I see how typical my feelings were. I applied Dweck's book to my ADHD.
Gettingittogether , I love this so much! What a healthy, balanced and loving way to handle your ADHD - and make progress at the same time. I've been guilty of that negative self-talk and shaming when not successful in a certain timeframe. I'm definitely going to check out Carol Dweck's book. Thanks for the recommendation.
BTW: your hack is one of my top hacks as well ... and seriously, I've been working on getting more sleep for years ... decades ... and actually I'm seeing progress now ... I've been a night owl all my life, but come winters, that just killed my mood ... and I always felt out of sync with the world ... These days I have achieved what I thought was once impossible: I can get to sleep around midnight! ... Figured out I have to gradually dim the lighting as the evening goes on ... and lo and behold ... my body starts to feel sleepy ...
Sleep and exercise ... a spectacular ADHD combination. How hard was it for you to get those two hacks down? Seriously that's life a lifetime of work for a lot of peope with and without ADHD.
Both are like taking wonderful medications in terms of effectiveness in helping our mood and concentration and motivation and life energy. I weave in an out of meditation .... but one day, I want to combine all three (takes lots of planning and consistency) ...
It's funny, looking back before I was diagnosed, literally exercise was one of the things that I KNEW in my gut was not really optional for me as it was for most people. I knew in my 20s that something was up about me and exercise--I knew in the future, family life and all, I was going to have to find a way to get in steady exercise. I didn't know then that exercise was fantastic for managing ADHD. But I knew it was crucial to my survival.
Thanks for sharing your hacks Gettingittogether ! Im motivated to pick up Dweck’s book again! Since you have the exercise thing down, is there anything you would recommend to someone as a method of building up that habit? I think it could help me so much but I'm having trouble sticking to any regular exercise
Good morning! Regarding sleep and exercise... I've always needed good sleep, but it wasn't easy to be consistent. I, too, was always a night owl. As a kid, I was an avid reader and would stay up till wee hours reading "just one more chapter." I remember literally falling asleep at my desk in 6th grade! Anyway, I finally was able to flip to an "early morning" person when I started a 6am-2pm job. I also had kids soon after that, and both of them forced me into going to bed early. That was decades ago, and I now am in bed by 8:30pm and get up at 4:30am. I take 10mg of melatonin when I climb into bed, watch TV for half hour and read my Kindle Paperwhite (no blue lights) for 15 minutes, then it's lights out. When I start reading, I put in my earplugs, which blocks out sound stimulation. That is HUGE in terms of helping me sleep, and the quiet signals my brain that it's time to quiet down. BTW, one reason I was a night owl is to have that quiet time - undisturbed by the rest of the world. I get the same thing by getting up early, and I get a serious jumpstart on my day, doing what I want to do before having to work.
Regarding exercise, I'm still learning that habit and have only been consistent since last November. I did a few things that really helped: 1) Decided where I was going to exercise and prepared the space (my guest room); 2) decided when I was going to do it (6am weekdays, before the world needs me); and decided what I was going to do (I chose a Jen Widerstrom series on OpenFit.com so I didn't have to think about what to do each day). For me, the biggest help was having those decisions made in advance, so I can't use my typical excuses. I give myself permission to just stand there, but I HAVE to go into that room at 6am, put on my workout clothes and push play on the video. I had COVID a few weeks ago and I haven't had the stamina to exercise every weekday since then, but I'm getting back into my regular routine next week again.
Sorry for the long response! Hope this helps!
Nothing "long" about this response. It was extremely helpful ... your sleep ritual is amazing, so helpful to read the steps ... On exercise, I'm with you. The hardest part of the workout, as the joke says, is getting to the gymn (home or outside or whatever). For years, even in my best exercise times ... I would get on a treadmill and set the time for a really low number ... that was the ony way I could start ... and then when I got to ten or 15 minutes, I would increase the time ...
Sorry to hear about Covid--here's cheers to you for taking up that exercise routine ... and the more we get things to habit, the less hard our ADHD brains have to work ... Brushing my teeth morning and night is now a habit. I can do it when tired, can do it even when I go to shower at night, saying "I'm too tired to brush my teeth."
Way to go on the teeth brushing thing! Mine was a habit until I started working from home, and now my morning "getting ready" routine (shower/grooming, etc) is gone. This is so dumb, but I find brushing my teeth incredibly tedious and procrastinate more often than I want to admit. (Like right now.) Any pointers on how to change this?
I'm so so So happy I'm not the only one who finds brushing my teeth to be tedious and puts it off more than is socially acceptable to admit. Pre-pandemic, I'd keep a travel tooth brush and tooth paste in my bag so that if I was running late, I could at least brush my teeth at some point during the day while at work. Then I'd brush my teeth immediately once I got home so I could get it out of the way and not worry about being too tired to do it later. Now I have two alarm reminders set for morning and night time, my SO doesn't let me lay down at night until I brush my teeth (though he often falls asleep before me), and I tell myself to shoot for at least once a day b/c it doesn't take that long and it's better than nothing. I'm still not doing great but it's better than I was doing 2 months ago. Hope that helps!
As for exercising, I have the Workout Women app. Even though it's called that, men and NBs can use it too. I like that it has so many different types of workouts and programs (including face, dance, yoga, & desk workouts), for different times, skill levels, body area concentrations, etc. It has a reminder notification that you can set to go off at the same time every day & like you said, I don't have to think about what I'm going to do. I just have to turn it on and pick any workout so that I can move my body for at least 7 minutes. The part I like best about it though, is that every workout shows you the list & images of what exercises it includes (you don't have to keep fast forwarding through a video) and you can click on each individual exercise for both a written & video explanation so you know exactly what you need to do. Also, the free version still has a lot of content and little to no ads which is something I can't say for most other Apple apps. Also also, it keeps track of all your progress 👍🏼
HackingYourADHD.com is a great Podcast.
Actually, my best ADHD "hack" was simply getting a diagnosis. Then, my thought pattern changed from "what's wrong with me" to "what can I do about this." (Diagnosed at 45. I turn 47 soon.)
Changing my mindset about ADHD from "incurable disorder" to "a neurodiversity (with some positive traits)" has made a huge difference.
I now recognize my habitual coffee consumption as self-treatment. I first tried coffee at 11, and I've been drinking it regularly since I was 12. Now that I'm on ADHD meds, I probably don't need the caffeine as much, but coffee drinking is now a habit for about 3/4 of my life... And I do like the taste of it. (I did notice another benefit almost 20 years ago... caffeine keeps my asthma well under control. If I drink coffee every day, I only get a few asthma attacks each year, versus a few every month.)
I've tried numerous times to get into an exercise habit, a writing &/or journaling habit, and also to implement a time management system. I haven't been successful yet, but I'm going to try again soon. My life will be a lot less complicated for almost 5 months. (My wife just divorced me and is moving with the kids to another state. I'll be following when my lease is up and I've gotten a new job over there or working online.)
-I'll be living alone, only myself to care for until the end of June. What better opportunity to build new habits. I'm planning to finally start a bullet journal, which could be a "keystone habit" to help me with developing other habits. I want to get into a daily exercise routine, meal planning (I want to learn to cook Mediterranean cuisine), writing (I want to be an author and blogger), and establish a weekly cleaning routine.
STEM_Dad , I resonate so much with this. The ADHD diagnosis explains a lot of struggles over seemingly simple things, and I'm sorry today that I didn't take it more seriously in 2009. I realize now that a ND support community is invaluable in moving forward. It's wonderful to find this place. I'm sorry about your divorce and everything that goes with it - been there, done that! I wish you every good thing in putting the pieces back in a way that's meaningful and healthy for you and your kids. And oh - I'm a writer/blogger, too! Just getting started (again!) on a couple of projects and planning to be more productive with them this time. Good luck to you!
A good sleep is the best but better is going to bed and waking up at the same time every day! Not kidding.
Then, get an hour of FRESH AIR and do anything to just move outside like walk, run, meet someone outside for a chat (dress warm if it’s cold), anything! Just get it.
Running, eating cleanly and getting good sleep - all good for optimising the brain’s functionality!
Also find a good planner or system that works for you to keep organised.
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