Everyone — with or without ADHD — has both good and bad habits. You may not have stopped to think about your habits, but Mom is right: Good habits are important, especially if you have ADHD.
Habit, noun, an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. Ex. The habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.
Taking a minute to look at some of the symptoms of ADHD, they can also look like “bad habits.”
- Procrastination
- Losing track of time
- Disorganization
- Leaping before you look
Everyone with ADHD has strengths and weaknesses. Many people find the weaknesses associated with this disability to hold them back from their dreams. The Edge Foundation encourages you to focus on creating good (or healthy) habits and stop kicking yourself over your mistakes. When you work with a coach, your coach helps you identify your strengths and put together plans to help you compensate for your weaknesses. The goal is for you to create (and practice) good habits that support the successful qualities of ADHD and help you work around your ADHD weaknesses.
During the summer vacation you may be tempted to let your good habits go. Don’t! Some habits, like exercise, getting enough sleep and eating right, are hard to restart once you stop doing them.
August (and back to school) are just around the corner. If you’ve” let yourself go” when it comes to healthy habits, now is the time to start putting them back into place. You may not need to look at your calendar every day, set alarms for yourself, or carry your stack of post-it’s with you during the summer, but it’s a good idea to keep up with exercising, get enough sleep and eat right, every day!
Have you let yourself go this summer, or have you used your time to put good habits in place and practice them for the fall?