Transcription
From Cycle and Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and presented by HCA Health Care. You Ask We Answer.
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My five top tips for getting the most out of life with ADHD are in descending order of importance.
Number five: Consider medication. You don't have to use it because it doesn't always work and it's sometimes not tolerable, but you should consider it because there is no immediate intervention we've got that is anywhere near as powerful as medication when it works. When it works, it is as much a game changer as eyeglasses for someone who's nearsighted. So at least consider it.
Number four: Physical exercise. We have studies that show physical exercise, if you do it regularly, even 20 minutes three times a week, can produce results on a par with medication. So physical exercise basically generates the same peptides, hormones, chemicals that the medications do. So regular physical exercise, and you don't have to become a gym rat to do that.
Number three: Education. Embrace ADHD. Learn about your ADHD. It's so wonderful when you make it your own. Learn about it, read about it, talk about it, investigate it. It's a fascinating way of being in the world. It's so much more than a list of symptoms in the diagnostic manual. It is, it is really a way of being. It's full of paradoxes. You can hyperfocus one minute, you're not focused at all the next minute. You can have a brilliant idea one minute, and the next minute you're talking nonsense. It's, it's just a fascinating condition, so full of paradoxes and unexpected turns. So the more you learn about it, the more you can own it and master it, so it doesn't master you.
Number two: Find a creative outlet. What I like to call your "right difficult." Find some way where you can engage your creative part of your mind. We need it as much as a cow needs to be milked. We need this creative outlet. And you know, you want it to be challenging and matter to you, and that's your right difficult. And once you find it, oh my gosh, it's yours forever. You'll be dancing with it forever, like I am with writing.
And then number one, at the top of the list: Connection. I call it the other Vitamin C. Connect. Connection is the driver of almost everything that's good in life. Disconnection is the driver of almost everything that's bad. So through COVID, we've all had to learn how to live with an epidemic of disconnection. We're finding other ways of connecting. But if you think about what gives your life meaning, satisfaction, it's connection. It's love. If not love, it's, you know, friendship, membership, dedication to a cause, feeling a part of something larger than yourself. That's, that's where life takes on its best. It's where you are at your best. So try to live a connected life. Pay more attention to that. And by that, I don't mean access to the internet. I mean connection to people, to a dog, to a cause, to a realm of beauty, you know, the old movies or paintings, whatever it might happen to be. But it is in connection that we are at our best, and in disconnection that we're at our worst. So take that other Vitamin C. And that's my number one tip for everyone, but particularly people who have ADHD, because ADHD can at times be so disconnected.
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