Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. That means summer is here, right? For most students, summer means a welcome change of routine. Summer vacation. Summer job. Summer fun! If you’ve been working hard on putting good habits in place to help you cope with your ADHD, don’t let summer fun push those good habits to the wayside.

Get organized. Use your summer down time to your advantage. Down time can be a great time to get organized. Get rid of the clutter in your life. Go through your desk, closet or dresser drawers and give away or toss those things you no longer need or use.

Stick to your sleep schedule. It’s easy to get swept away on long summer’s nights and go to bed later and later. But people with ADHD need to protect their sleep habits more than others. Feel free to move your bedtime a bit later if you can sleep in later as well. But pick a bedtime and stick to it. Your body will be better off and you’ll be less stressed because of it. Plus, it won’t be so hard to get BACK into a routine once school restarts in the fall.

Do you use a journal to learn about yourself and your ADHD? Many coaches have their students use journals to help them keep on top of their lives. If that works for you, don’t stop journaling in the summer. Keeping your writing muscle strong will mean that you don’t have to retrain yourself in this hard-earned self-discipline in the fall.

Exercise. Exercise. Exercise. When going away on vacation it can be hard to keep up your exercise routine. Be sure to pack your gear even if you think you won’t use it. Be open to trying new things. Perhaps you can start riding longer bike rides or swim down at the pond. Summer can be a good time to experiment with new ways to work out. But the key here is to do something!

Do you know other ways to not let your good habits slip away over the summer? Tell us in the comments.

School’s almost out. Everyone has summer on their minds. But have you spent any time thinking ahead to next year’s classes? How about the year after that?

The end of the school year is a good time to look ahead and think about how you want your year ahead to go. Taking a little time now to plan ahead can lead to less stress, better grades and more success in school.

Pause for reflection. Many people with ADHD tend to spend more time looking ahead than reflecting on the past. But taking a minute to think about what worked well, and what didn’t go so well, can help you build on successes and avoid repeating past mistakes. Pretend its January 1st. What are your resolutions for things to do differently next year? What are things you want to build on? Write yourself a note and send it to yourself to arrive on September 1. (43things.com is a great tool for sending yourself reminders about future goals.)

It’s all about balance. Think about what classes you need to take to graduate? Which subjects do you love? Which ones do you struggle with? Think about the type of work required for each class and balance the type of classes out over the year. For example, don’t take more than two classes each term that requires heavy memorization.

Optimize productivity. When selecting classes, think about when you are most productive. When do you listen best? When are you able to knuckle down and study? Now plan your class work and study time to fall during these high productivity periods. For example, if you are a morning person, consider allowing a block of time between two morning classes to get a quick burst of studying in at the start of your day.  Thinking about and planning for a “productivity window” can help and ADHD student move from struggling to success.

Establish good habits now. Do you have a regular exercise routine? If you don’t, start one now. Research has shown that regular exercise helps reduce ADHD symptoms. If you integrate exercise into your daily routine now, it will be easier to keep going in the fall.

Start researching your future teachers now. Talk to your friends and find out about the teaching style of different teachers and professors. Which ones are rigid and which ones may be more accommodating of your style. Consider talking to teachers before you sign up for their classes about their expectations. Better to know in advance that 50% of your grade will be dependent on completing daily homework assignments, don’t you think?

Lighten the load. Consider taking classes over a five year period instead of trying to push through college in 4. Take one or two classes during the summers so you can focus on the tough classes with fewer distractions during the school year. If you are in high school, talk to your guidance counselor and see if a home school option for summer study is available to you, too.

Find an ADHD coach. A coach works with you over time to develop better planning and self-management skills; skills that will help you manage your time and your things so you’re on top of your work and the rest of your life and not overwhelmed or behind. You can begin working with a coach over the summer, so you have good organizational systems in place when fall rolls around.

So as this school year draws to an end, take time to reflect and plan ahead. Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, think School Year’s Resolutions!

What are your School Year Resolutions? We hope you’ll share them in the comments.

We also hope you find these related ADHD coaching articles useful:

Treating ADHD with exercise

Getting the most out of 504 & IEP meetings

ADHD coach vs. academic tutor

Plan ahead so you don’t crash and burn in the fall

Last week we wrote a post about executive function and ADHD inspired by John Medina’s book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Each of Medina’s 12 Principals are based on scientifically-proven facts about how our brain works.

Take a look at the 12 rules and you’ll see that much of what he talks about are familiar Edge Foundation topics. Want to get a great preview of what his book covers? Visit Brainrules.net where Medina has free, on-line tutorials covering the important information from each chapter.

We agree that the principals outlined in the book are important insights into living to your full potential with ADHD.  When looking them over, we noticed a few common themes we’ve shared in the posts we have written over the last couple of years.  Here’s our take on each brain rule and how it plays out for ADHD:

Exercise – Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.

Treating ADHD with exercise
Spark: Reduce ADHD symptoms with exercise
ADHD and anxiety:  Non drug treatments everyone can try

Survival – Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.

Wiring – Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.

Executive function and ADHD success/
Succeeding despite learning disabilities/

Attention – Rule #4: We don’t pay attention to boring things.

Fidgeting helps ADHD people stay focused

Short-Term Memory – Rule #5: Repeat to remember.

Long-Term Memory – Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

Sleep – Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

ADHD students need to take their sleep seriously
ADHD and sleep
ADHD, anxiety and the sleep connection

Stress – Rule #8: Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.

Improve your focus with water

Sensory Integration – Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.

You can do more to manage ADHD
Fidgeting helps ADHD people stay focused

Vision – Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

Gender – Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.

Girls with ADHD face special challenges

Exploration – Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

Did you read the book or learn anything here you didn’t know about how the brain works?  Let us know in the comments.

Do you dread January’s New Year’s resolutions? Does it feel like just one more opportunity to let yourself down? This year try something a little different: think small, make only ONE resolution.

The Kaizen Approach to Self Improvement

Unless you work in a manufacturing business, you probably haven’t heard the term kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese quality management philosophy that directs continual improvement in all aspects of a business – from the CEO to the assembly line.

In his book, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, Robert Maurer takes the kaizen principal and applies it to everyday life. As the title suggests, Maurer recommends focusing your energy on taking small steps towards your goals instead of rushing and attempting to accomplish them in one big bite.

This might seem counterintuitive for the ADHD brain that can find it boring without going “all in” on a New Year’s resolution. But total immersion is hard to sustain and often leads to failure. We’ve all done it. Resolve to exercise 6 days a week. And we do, for the first week or so. But by the end of January, other parts of our lives have gotten in the way, and our “perfect record” is filled with holes. And by February we are discouraged and it’s easier to “forget” our goal than to keep failing at it.

Small Goals: Big Accomplishments

Maurer, a Kaizen expert, suggests setting small goals for yourself. Even large goals, like a doctoral thesis, can be broken down into a series of tiny steps that you take each and every day. Take piano, for example. Instead of trying to learn a whole piece of music on the first sitting, many musicians break down a new composition into a series of measures or bars. They work on these discrete units of music until they nail them. Only then do they move onto putting them all together. If you practice only one measure a day, you can still quickly learn an entire piece. But try to learn the whole thing in the first sitting and you’ll tire, your focus will lag, and discouragement can quickly follow.

Make Only One New Year’s Resolution

So instead of focusing on the big picture, try setting one or two small, achievable goals for yourself each day. Let yourself enjoy how great it feels to get those steps accomplished every day. How would the New Year look different to you if you just made one New Year’s resolution for yourself?

“I commit to doing one thing every day to achieving my intended purpose.”

Editor’s Note:
This is the third, and final, installment in a three part series on ADHD and depression. The first post revealed that people with ADHD have a higher incidence of depression than the general population and urged all teens and young adults to be screened for depression as part of their annual physicals. The second part looked at the various types of depression. This post, as promised, shares some things you can do about depression.

ADHD and Depression is Serious Business

It’s important to start this post by saying that depression can be a serious, life-threatening condition. If you are feeling hopeless, worthless, irritated, chronically exhausted or have lost interest in things you once loved, you should start by talking to your physician or a therapist. Look for someone who has experience in diagnosing ADHD and working with the co-occurring conditions that can come along with ADHD. (The last thing you need to do is see someone who doesn’t understand or even believe in ADHD!)

A professional can help you determine what the appropriate course of action  to help you break free of your depression. You don’t have to suffer depression alone. Get some help for yourself, right away.  Talk to your parents, friends or even a crisis hotline.  Don’t suffer alone!

What to Do About ADHD and Depression Starting NOW!

Sure calling a doctor or therapist is a great idea, but you may be wondering what you can do for depression right now. After all, depression is something that can be hard to overcome.   (And it doesn’t take holidays!)   You can use all the help you can get to breaking through to the other side of depression! Why not try what Gayle Wilson, ADHD coach, shares with her clients. She calls it her “Depression Busting Toolkit” or “12 Mental Lifesavers.”

ADHD Depression Busting Toolkit: 12 Mental Lifesavers

1. Talk about it.  Pour out your soul to a sympathetic ear.
2. Go to the dogs (play with your pets).
3. Run away (literally). Do something physical. (Yes, we keep saying this over and over. Exercise is critical to healthy living with ADHD!)
4. Laugh your head off. Watch a funny TV show, ask someone to tickle you, Google “funny” or “hilarious,” check out the comedy channel on hulu.com, or watch an old Road Runner cartoon, etc.
5. Get to work. Lose yourself in work.
6. Compartmentalize. Focus on what you can do right now. The old adage, one day at a time, has stood the test of time because it works! Sometimes getting off the couch and doing something, anything, can make a big difference to feeling better.
7. Write. Right now. Paying attention to what you are thinking. Write it down. Be sure to turn off the critical inner voice and just let your thoughts go.
8. Identify something you care about more than yourself.  Is that a friend? A charity? Your grandparents?  Now do something, anything about it.
9. Bring beauty into your life. Buy some flowers, take some pictures, make a painting, clean your room.
10. Learn the lesson. Explore what there is to learn in what you are experiencing.
11. Be well read. Let fiction carry you away.
12. Have faith. Turn to your spiritual practice
13. Curb self-defeating and negative thoughts with an ANT.

Daniel G. Amen, M.D., author of Healing ADD and Change Your Brain, Change Your life, coined the acronym A.N.T.’s — or automatic negative thoughts. Turns out there is a connection between what we say to ourselves and how we feel. If we control what we think, we can control how we feel.

Gayle Wilson gives each of her clients a little plastic ant and a poem. Print out the poem and put it on your desk. Read it when you need to turn your thoughts away from the dark side. Sure it’s a little dorky, and Gayle’s no poet, but these simple words have helped many other people. So there’s no harm in trying it, huh? You can control what you think and change how you feel about yourself.

A.N.T.s: AUTOMATIC NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Gayla Wilson 12/07

Place this little Ant on your desk, in your pocket or your purse.
Let it remind you, your thoughts can be adverse.
Listen to what your brain tells you
The next time you get into a jam
and you hear “I’m stupid”; “I always mess up”
“Why can’t I ever just push through?”
Write it down, tell it to scram.

Is this thought a fact?
Or, is it the same old you?
If it’s true…change it.
If it’s a lie, answer back.

These are your thoughts
You write the script
Be they pleasant and pleasing
Or harmful…
They’re your thoughts,
You can answer back

The damage CAN be reversed.
It is up to you
Their weight and importance
Are set by you. You take control.
Kill the ANT!

Do you have tricks that help you beat the blues? Please share them!

It’s August and school is just around the corner.  For lots of students this time of year is filled with anxiety.  You know the feeling – that nagging feeling that something’s just not right.  Or you are having dreams about showing up in class in your underwear and there’s a big test already underway that you’ve totally forgotten about. Going back to  is a big adjustment for anyone, but when you have ADHD there are a few extra steps you can take to make sure the year ahead is everything you hope it will be.

ADHD and college:  a challenge you can handle

There are lots of great articles out there about the skills you need to survive at college.  (We’ve listed a few of our favorites at the end of this post.)  Successful students usually have four main qualities that help them achieve their goals:

• Sticking with things even when the going gets tough (a.k.a. perseverance),
• Ability to delay gratification and focus on the big picture,
• Time management and organizational skills, and
• Striking the right balance between fun and work.

However, these particular skills don’t come easily to student with ADHD. Organizational problems, impulsivity and time management issues are actually the hallmarks of living with ADHD. You think, “If I just get this special planner, I’ll become efficient and never forget anything again.” Or you promise yourself, “Next time I’m going to start working on my class reading at the beginning of the term instead of cramming it in right before finals.”  It’s so easy to think, “If I just make myself do this…” it’ll be fine.” But what if we tell you’ve been going about this totally backwards?  What if making yourself be motivated or organized isn’t the solution, but figuring out how to master yourself is?

Self Mastery is the key to achieving your dreams

Self mastery:  identifying and using the tools and skills that work with your personal strengths to achieve your goals and be successful.

College is often the time where you need a new set of skills – or maybe just a tune up – to cope with ADHD.  Why now?  In your life before college, high school and your parents together gave you built-in structure and accountability.  But in college you have a lot of unstructured time and you are totally in charge of making all of your decisions.  Want to stay up late partying?  No problem. It’s a beautiful day and you want to skip classes to go play. No problem. You are head of your sorority’s social committee and in the marching band and have a job so you can keep your financial aid. No problem, that is, until you are just too tired or simply run out of time to finish the big paper that’s due. There’s no one, except yourself, to tell you where your responsibilities lie.  Without self-mastery, it’s easy to let poor time management and organizational skills drag you down; it’s easy to miss that right balance between fun and work; and it’s easy find yourself living out your nightmare of showing up to an important test totally unprepared.

For most college students with ADHD the problem is not so much in knowing what to do, but in getting it done.  As one student said, “I know how to plan. My problem is very simple; I just don’t follow my plans. I need help making sure that I do what I say I am going to do instead of getting sidetracked.”

An ADHD Coach helps you get into your groove and keeps you on track

One thing you can always rely on with ADHD is that it is consistently inconsistent.  That means there are days when everything goes great, and other days you can’t seem to get out of your own way.

Your friends or family probably get frustrated and say things like, “If you’re so smart, why can’t you just handle it?”  And when for whatever reason you don’t, they say you are lazy, or unmotivated, or not living up to your potential.  And maybe you begin to believe them.

But what if it’s not because you aren’t trying the right things?  After all you are probably already trying pretty hard – or at least thought you were.  What if the problem is having a brain that just works differently, and so you need a different approach, a different groove, to managing these every day responsibilities?

This is where an ADHD coach can help.  ADHD coaches know that the same approach doesn’t work for everyone.  As the old saying goes, if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t blame the foot!  ADHD coaches work with people just like you, every day, and help them find solutions that work for them – not for their parents or friends.  They’ll help you:

• Work with your urge to procrastinate
• Be accountable
• Study smarter not harder
• Assess your time
• Prioritize
• Stick to your plan!

Find a ADHD coach now, so you are ready to go in the fall

ADHD coaches bring amazing life experience to their coaching.  They have a passion for working with young people who might have ADHD. Many coaches have ADHD themselves, or love someone who does, or both,  so they really get it.  They know what works, and what doesn’t.  And they won’t try to make you fit into an organizational system that isn’t right for you!

One of the nice things about an ADHD coach is they all work on the phone.  This takes transportation right out of the equation.  You can start working with your coach right now, and because you don’t meet in an office, you can “take your coach with you” when you go off to college.  You get to your appointments just by picking up the phone.  Because there’s no commute, you can easily fit your appointments into your schedule.  And, by virtue of a phone/email relationship, you stay in much closer touch with your coach than you would if you had to go to an office.  This extra contact can make all the difference in being able to stay on top of things.

Think about getting started even before you leave for college.  Those first few weeks are guaranteed to be overwhelming, and your coach can help you stay on track.  The numbers show that in college it’s surprisingly easy for students with ADHD to fall behind.  Getting your first term grades and finding you’ve tanked is a Christmas present no one wants to get.  So, start thinking now about getting ready for the fall.  If we’ve convinced you to look into getting an ADHD coach to help you keep it all together, we hope you’ll consider one trained by the Edge Foundation.  All of our coaches have met the rigorous standards set by the Edge Foundation and completed training for working with students and young adults with ADHD

So, are you ready to learn more?  Sign-up today and take the first step to getting your life under your control, and finding your edge!

Making the transition to college easier

• Learning Disabilities: Stepping Up to the Challenge
• 18 Critical Factors For Successful Post-Secondary Transition

ADHD self-mastery tips and skills

• Managing hyperfocus
• ADHD and sleep
• Fidgeting can help you focus
• ADHD and anxiety
• Treating ADHD and exercise

Parents know that helping their children learn to sleep through the night is more challenging when a child has ADHD.  Why?  Children with ADHD have twice the rate of insomnia and sleep disturbances as people who don’t have ADHD.

ADHD students need to take their sleep seriously

So falling or staying asleep is already hard if you have ADHD.  Add to that the natural sleep cycle for teens (2 a.m. – 10 a.m.) doesn’t mesh with the time that the world expects them to start their days.  Students with ADHD are often even more sleep deprived than their peers.  Sleep deprivation both mimics and makes ADHD symptoms worse.  So if you have ADHD taking charge of your sleep habits is even more important.

Sleep hygiene, what’s that?

We usually think about keeping clean when we see the term hygiene.  But did you know it also refers to the science that deals with the preservation of health?  Sleep hygiene is the habits you put in place to keep yourself healthy with adequate sleep.  An ADHD coach can help you figure out what you are doing to mess with your own sleep cycles.  Here are a few ideas to try.

• Don’t nap during the day.
• Avoid caffeine, nicotine and alcohol before bed.
• Exercise regularly, but earlier in the day.
• Don’t eat a lot before bedtime.
• Establish a relaxing bedtime routine. Turn off the DS, TV, internet or Wii at least an hour before your bedtime.
• Associate your bed with sleep. Don’t do other things like read, check email, text or watch TV in bed.
• Make sure your room is not too hot, or too bright.
• Make sure that the sleep environment is pleasant and relaxing. The bed should be comfortable, the room should not be too hot or cold, or too bright.
• Don’t sleep with your pet. They can wake you up at night making it hard to fall back asleep.
• Here’s a really fun way to look at your sleep environment and make it easier to sleep:   http://www.shuteye.com/sleep-tools/snooze-improver.aspx

For other ideas on sleep hygiene visit:  Sleep Foundation

Other ADHD and sleep links:

Other steps to try for insomnia treatment

Sleep facts and stats

A good overview of signs of sleep deprivation in children compared to ADHD symptoms

Diagnosing sleep disorder when you have ADHD

Have you figured out how to get your sleep on track?  Share your stories with us.

Dear Coach,
When spring is in the air, It’s impossible to concentrate. Help I’m falling behind!
Signed,
Sunny

Dear Sunny,
There’s no denying it. Everyone feels like goofing off on a warm, sunny day. Unfortunately responsibilities of school, work and home don’t stop when the weather gets nice. Here are some ideas you can use to keep yourself on track:

Work with your urge to procrastinate

• Work at night when the call to be outdoors and playing isn’t so compelling.
• Do a moderate amount of vigorous outdoor exercise, then study.
• Take your studying outdoors – some of the time. It’s not as efficient, but at least you’re working rather than looking out the window.
• And next year, plan for spring fever by taking a heavy load in the winter and a lighter load in the spring.

Be accountable

• Get a study buddy and make an agreement that you’ll each get so much done in the next few hours. Knowing you’ve made a commitment to someone else really helps. It’s the power of accountability.

• Whatever you do not take a incomplete. Do whatever you have to do to finish a course. Or you may never finish it at all.

Schedule your study time

• Apply the principal of exercise intervals to studying. Instead of alternating sprinting and walking, alternate study and play. Set a timer and work hard for 30 or 60 minutes then play for the next interval of minutes. Then do it again. Just be sure you quit playing as readily as you quit working!

• Plan to procrastinate. Know when your deadlines are and how much time the tasks will take, and then do them when nothing else on the list is more important to get done because the deadline is NOW.

Study smarter not harder

• Know which classes will cut you slack so you can put energy into the ones that won’t.
• Know when you’ve hit the point of diminishing returns. If you’ve worked for 5 hours and know that’s enough to get an A- on the paper and it will take 5 more hours to get an A but there’s other work that needs to be done, move on!

If you have a question you’d like our resident ADHD coach to answer, feel free to add it to the comments and we’ll try to answer it in a future post.

Over the past several months, we’ve been focusing on anxiety and ADHD.

In January we introduced the topic of ADHD and anxiety with a report of how common forms of anxiety are much more common in people who have ADHD than the general population.  We also gave you a list of physical and psychological symptoms associated with anxiety.    Last month, we outlined the 4 most common axiety disorders associated with ADHD.  Remember half (52%) of adults with ADHD will experience general anxiety disorder during their lifetimes.

This month we’ll teach you a few things you can do to control anxiety.  Of course we need to start by saying that if your anxiety feels overwhelming or gets worse over time, you should begin by seeking the help of a professional, who might possibly prescribe therapy and/or medication.  There are, however,  easy, everyday things you can do to help control anxiety without taking another pill – that you can start right now!

1. Exercise
2. Eat right
3. Get enough sleep
4. Practice relaxation

Exercise Exercise Exercise

If you’re a regular Edge Foundation subscriber, you’ll have seen our review of John Ratey’s book, Spark: the revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain.

In it Ratey explains that regular exercise alone can dramatically reduce symptoms of anxiety:

• Exercise releases neurochemicals that help you feel better (serotonin, the “feel good” neurochemical, and GABA, an important inhibitory neurochemical that basically gives the command to “stand down”. )
• Exercise helps relax your body, reducing the resting tension of your muscles and thus interrupting the anxiety feedback loop to your brain.
• Exercise teaches you that you have control over the symptoms of racing heart, sweating, and elevated breathing. That feeling this way physically is not the same thing as a panic attack.
• Exercise even helps you unlearn the habit of anxiety.

Diet

We are going to sound like your mother, but she was right.  Be sure to remember to eat regular meals.  You may be able to get by and skip a meal with a little help from caffeine or sugar, but did you know that both of these foods can mimic the sensation of an anxiety attack – and actually trigger one!

Sleep

Irregular sleep habits can actually increase your anxiety symptoms!  Stress and anxiety may cause the body to produce a “no sleep” signal in the brain that heightens arousal and makes sleep difficult. This alerting effect is a cause of more anxiety and may set in motion a cycle of sleeplessness and stress.

Sleep is such a big issue for many people with ADHD that we are planning a future post on the topic.  In the meantime, there is a lot of information on the web about sleep, sleep problems, and how to develop better sleep patterns. Here are a few places to start.

• http://www.sleepfoundation.org
• http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm
• http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm

Relax Your Mind

Take a time out and pause to let your mind and body relax. When you are stressing, do something distracting and fun. Take a deep breath.  Or fill your mind with a challenging task like a Sudoku or crossword puzzle and you won’t have room to think about your anxiety

Relax Your Body

Relax your body and your mind will follow – we call this the relaxation response.   Relax your body and your

• heart rate decreases
• breathing becomes slower and deeper
• blood pressure drops or stabilizes
• muscles relax
• and your anxiety level decreases

Did we mention exercise?

Exercise can be a great way to release tension in your body.  There are non-strenuous ways to invite your body to relax as well.

• yoga
• medication
• relaxation excecises
• biofeedback
• and don’t forget to breathe.

Anxiety is a real and serious problem, but you don’t have to let it put you on the sidelines or eat you up inside.  It just takes self-awareness that your anxiety is getting the best of you and self-discipline to take steps every day to keep your anxiety at bay.  An ADHD coach can help you figure out which techniques are best for you and put a plan in place to help you stay on top of your anxiety.

Have you found any of these everyday habits have helped your anxiety levels?  Please share your experience in the comments.  We’d love to hear from you.

John Ratey’s book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain is a book everyone should read – whether you have ADHD or not.  And we mean everyone:  you, your spouse, your parents, your kids, their teachers, your doctors. EVERYONE!

You might have seen this book and put off opening it figuring it would be dry and technical, but it’s not at all. Sarah Wright, Edge Foundation Executive Director, reports “It so compelling and easy to read I could hardly put it down.” The evidence in Spark is incontrovertible: aerobic exercise physically transforms our brains for peak performance.

John Ratey is no newcomer to the ADHD community.  He co-authored (with Edward Hallowell) the best selling, Driven To Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood, and is the spouse of ADHD expert and founding Edge Foundation board member, Nancy Ratey.

The book highlights the best findings of hundreds of papers Ratey read in researching this book – most published in the last decade – giving you insight into the latest understanding of how the brain works.

A sampling of John Ratey’s brain research findings

• Exercise is truly the best defense against everything from mood disorders [depressions] to ADD/ADHD to addiction to menopause to Alzheimer’s.
• Getting your heart and lungs pumping can mean the difference between a calm, focused mind and a harried, inattentive self.
• Aerobic exercise has been shown to be as effective as antidepressants in treating anxiety
• The Brain works much as muscles do-growing with use, withering with inactivity.
• Exercise even sparks new brain cell growth!

How to buy Spark!

Of course you know how to order a book on-line, but did you know if you click on the link embedded in this article below, Edge Foundation will receive a small fee for every book you purchase on Amazon.com during that visit?

Click here to buy Spark and support the Edge Foundation today!

And here are a couple of other great books on ADHD:

Fidget to Focus:  Outwit Your Boredom:  Sensory Strategies for Living with ADD — written by Edge Foundation’s Executive Director, Sarah Wright.

Driven To Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood

We’d love to hear what books you’ve found helpful for discovering how to live with ADHD.  Post them in the comments and we will review more books in future months.