Hey - It’s Michael.
Spending the weekend dancing in Istanbul - it’s great fun! Enjoy the newsletter!
The Situation
You only slept for a few hours. This kept waking you up and that didn’t let you sleep again. The whole day you feel terrible - everyone’s hostile and all sorts of negative thoughts & feelings come up.
You take a long nap - suddenly the world is nice again.
You were in hyperfocus for a few hours and forgot to eat. Your brain’s foggy, your body’s agitated and you aimlessly do things you’d never do when everything’s alright.
Something or someone reminds you to eat - as soon as you have half your meal the heavy clouds lift and motivation and clarity come back.
Work & social activities kept you occupied, you didn’t do no sports for a few days. Your mood goes downhill fast, nothing is fine, everything is bad.
After some heavy exercise or sports game with your friends the world looks like a different place. You feel amazing!
Accept your ADHD Brain
Lack of sleep, lack of blood sugar & lack of exercise affect ADHD brains intensely. ¹²³
The System
To live a happy life, take special care of your basic needs.
It sounds almost too simple, yet it’s not easy for ADHDers to fulfill their basic needs:
Sleep
Food
Exercise
As usual, it pays off to design routines & your environment to ensure good sleep, sufficient exercise and a balanced diet.
I’ll expand essential systems for each of them in the upcoming 3 weeks.
In Practice
The simplest practice is to ask yourself those 3 questions whenever you feel down:
Have I slept enough?
Have I eaten enough & healthy?
Have I moved & sweated enough?
If the answer is No to even just one of those, chances are that you just need to fulfill this basic need to feel a lot better.
A quote to ponder on:
“If you are in a bad mood, go for a walk.” - Hippocrates
See you next week - Michael
Sleep and ADHD brain / attention:
Lee HK, Lee SD, Park SH, Yoon S, Kim JW, Park S, et al. Sleep and cognitive problems in patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2014 Sep 16;10:1755-61. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S67365. PMID: 25246800.
Low / unstable blood sugar and ADHD‑related symptoms (hypoglycemia & ADHD):
Gonder‑Frederick LA, Cox DJ, Kovatchev BP. Impact of hypoglycemia on cognitive functioning and symptoms in attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Attention Disord. 2011 Nov;15(8):661-7. doi: 10.1177/1087054710370770. Epub 2010 Jun 9. PMID: 20534726.
Exercise and ADHD brain function (aerobic exercise & executive function):
Pontifex MB, Saliba BJ, Raine LB, Picchietti DL, Hillman CH. Exercise improves behavioral, neurocognitive, and scholastic performance in children with attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Pediatr. 2013 Oct;163(4):1140-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2013.05.015. Epub 2013 Jun 21. PMID: 23790448.