Boredom: An ADHDer's Worst Enemy

In my experience, boredom is an ADHDer's greatest enemy.  When we are bored, it can be difficult to muster up the energy and motivation to get anything accomplished.  To make matters worse, the bored ADHD mind desperately seeks out stimulation, which can lead to impulsive behavior or ruminating on the negative.  In short, the ADHD seeks out stimulation, and it doesn't differentiate between positive and negative.  This is why it is so important to avoid falling into the boredom rut.  While it's impossible to avoid boredom completely, there are a few things you can do to keep it to a minimum.

• Focus on your passion.  Spend some time each day doing what you love.  It will activate your mind, fight stress, and help you get boring tasks done.  If you don't know what you're passionate about, do some investigating. 
• Keep a busy (but not too busy!) schedule.  Find the balance between just busy enough and too busy to handle the unexpected.  This will help you avoid long periods of inactivity that often lead to boredom.
• Create a list of interesting activities.  ADHDers often struggle to access this basic information, especially when they are faced with boredom, overwhelm, or stress.  If you are not a list person, find some other way of reminding yourself of the things you enjoy doing. 
• Get active.  Take a walk, dance around, do laundry.  It doesn't matter what you do, just move! This will help activate your mind and your body.

Sticking with a healthy diet and exercise routine

A healthy diet and regular exercise is essential for controlling ADHD symptoms.  However, as many of us in the ADHD community know, sticking to a healthy diet and exercise routine can be a challenge.  Symptoms like impulsivity and reward seeking can lead ADHDers to overindulge in foods high in fat and sugar.  Meanwhile, exercise routines get boring and abandoned.   

 

I've seen a number of articles on ADHD-friendly tips to improve your diet, exercise, and lose weight.  While many of these articles contained valuable information, I found that applying these ideas to daily life can be difficult.  This got me thinking about different tricks that have helped my clients and me stay on track.

• Have a clear sense of purpose.  What are the reasons you want to make changes to your diet or exercise routine? Do you want to manage ADHD symptoms, improve your health, lose weight? What will happen if you do not make these changes? Once you have a clear idea of why you want to make these changes, find a way to remind yourself of this purpose on a daily basis.
• Eliminate temptation.  You can't be tempted by what's not there, so don't keep junk foods in the house. 
• Concentrate on adding not taking away.  Instead of focusing on the foods you are avoiding, focus on adding more whole grains, lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. 
• Make small changes.  Start by making small changes, like drinking more water or eliminating soda from your diet.  Sticking with these small changes will boost your self-confidence and minimize feelings of deprivation.  Plus, these changes will add up over time.
• Have fun with it.  Purchase a pedometer and challenge yourself to increase your steps a little bit each day, make yourself a reward chart,  walk with friends, or find some other way to make it more interesting and fun.
• Have an accountability partner.  Share your goals with a friend or family member.  When we are accountable to someone else, we are more likely to stick to our goals.
• Keep things interesting.  This is perhaps the most important advice for ADHDers who often drop healthy eating and exercise habits when they get boring.  You have to change things up on a regular basis.  Try a new sport or a new recipe.  Take a different route when you are walking.  Get creative! 

I Almost Gave Up!

There was a time, not too long ago, where I almost gave up.  The circumstances at the time made all of my hopes and dreams seem impossible, and I felt like I was destined for failure.  In short, I was in a funk.  It wasn’t until I received an email from another coach that I could finally break the cycle of rumination and hopelessness.  The email reminded me of how far I’ve come, and that if I could weather the storm in the past, I can make it through this too. 

So, why am I sharing this story? As many of us know, ADHD rarely travels alone.  Many ADHDers suffer from coexisting conditions, such as anxiety and depression.  The ADHD brain seeks stimulation, and let’s face it, doom and gloom fantasies and hypothetical situations are stimulating.  It’s a lot easier to get caught up in negative thinking patterns and worst-case scenarios than it is to remain positive.  To make matters worse, we quickly forget our successes and how we’ve managed to overcome obstacles in the past.  Mix in a little overwhelm, and ADHDers can become paralyzed. 

Breaking the Cycle

It is possible to break the cycle! I can’t say that it’s always easy, but we have to find ways to interrupt negative thought patterns.  We have to remind ourselves of successes, and how we’ve overcome obstacles in the past.  My favorite reminders are success journals and motivational playlists.  People who are more visual may prefer post-it note reminders or pictures and posters that stir up positive energy. 

Know Yourself

Before you can create successful strategies to keep you positive and moving forward, you have to know yourself.  What triggers your funks, rumination, and negative thought patterns? What does it look and feel like as these thoughts and emotions run their course? How have you dealt with things in the past? What works? What doesn’t? What is the best way to interrupt negative thought patterns?

To find out how coaching can help you get to know yourself, overcome obstacles, and interrupt negative thought patterns, click here to schedule a complimentary consultation.     

The Challenges of Raising A Neurotypical Child

Something occurred to me the other day... There is a lot of information out there about raising ADHD children.  From time to time I also see information about ADHD parents raising ADHD children.  What you don't see a lot of is information and stories about ADHD parents raising non-ADHD (neurotypical) children.

As I'm sure you know by now, I have ADHD.  My youngest daughter, however, does not.  This can be both comical and frustrating at times.  For example, I always found it funny that by the age of 8 my daughter was telling me when it was time to leave for appointments and events, and she took over keeping the family calendar updated.  If the pantry needs to be organized, she'll be the one to do it.

At the same time, I know it can be frustrating for her.  She doesn't understand why I don't always hear her when I'm hyperfocused on something else, or why I forget things, or why I have a difficult time transitioning from one task to the next.  It can also be frustrating for me, because there have been times when having ADHD made it difficult to provide structure and accountability for my children.

What Has Helped

There are two keys to parenting when you have ADHD, whether your child has ADHD or not.  First, you have to understand your ADHD.  When you understand how ADHD affects you, you can find age appropriate ways of explaining some of the symptoms and obstacles.  Understanding your ADHD also helps you determine what systems and strategies you need to put in place to minimize its impact on you and your family.

Second, you have to treat your ADHD.  Explore treatment options, such as medication and coaching.  Make sure you get enough sleep, exercise, and eat a healthy diet to avoid aggravating symptoms, and create systems and strategies for time management, accountability, organization, etc.

A Little Less Clutter and A Lot More Action

My theme for 2015 is to eliminate clutter in my life, both physically and mentally.  Note that I said theme not resolution.  This is more than a simple resolution, it’s more of a mantra.  I’m getting rid of old clothes, papers, and miscellaneous junk.  I am also clarifying my goals and working to change old beliefs that aren’t working for me.  I know by eliminating clutter, I will be more focused and more effective. 

Uncluttering my life is a huge undertaking, and I now it will be an ongoing battle.  Let’s face it, keeping clutter under control is difficult when you have kids, and it’s even harder when you have an ADHD child and you have ADHD yourself.  However, I know my new “eliminate clutter” mantra will be well worth it.

As I’ve set out on my mission to eliminate clutter, I’ve found a few tricks that help me stay motivated and moving in the right direction.

Visualize the End Result

ADHDers need a clear picture of what they want the end result to look like.  It’s important to consider both the benefits of eliminating clutter and the disadvantages of leaving things the way they are.  For me those benefits include having less to clean and having an uncluttered, calm place to live and work.   If I don’t try to reduce the clutter, it will continue to affect my ability to focus, and I will continue to feel frustrated and stressed.

Every Little Bit Counts

Even if you don’t have an entire weekend to dedicate to cleaning out your closet, you can still make progress.  Keep a box handy where you can put items to give away as you come across them.  Also, keep a trash can handy for those things that need to be thrown out. 

Make an Ongoing Commitment

On a similar note, keeping your life clutter free is an ongoing process. The clutter didn’t develop overnight, and it won’t disappear that quickly either.  It requires an ongoing commitment.  To maintain a clutter free lifestyle, it requires changing old behaviors, habits, and thought patterns. 

For example, I have a lot of clothes, and I mean A LOT! It’s obscene.  A few months ago, the hanger rods in my closet collapsed from all the weight.  Therefore, I’ve committed to getting rid of at least one article of clothing each day.  That commitment has encouraged me to challenge the thinking patterns that led to me keeping clothes that I don’t need and don’t wear.  Do I really need 50 t-shirts? I can’t possibly wear them all.  

What I wish my mother knew about my ADHD while I was growing up

I didn't find out about my own ADHD until I was in early adulthood, and it wasn't until years later (after a tremendous amount of research, academic training, and ADHD coach training) that I truly understood my own ADHD.  Knowing what I know now, I can look back at how much my ADHD affected me in childhood.  I can also understand why I struggled in certain areas and why my poor mother would get so frustrated with me.  Here are a few things I wish my mother knew about my ADHD while I was growing up:

It wasn't intentional.  I did not intentionally leave my dishes in the sink or leave my chores half done.  I wasn't trying to make extra work for her.  I just got sidetracked by something more interesting.

It's not that I didn't want to clean my room, I couldn't.  Seriously, cleaning my room was impossible for me as a child.  I would walk in, maybe pick up a few things, and then get so overwhelmed that I shut down.  Either that or I would get distracted by a toy that I found and forget what I was doing.

I honestly didn’t remember.  Yes, my mother may have told me something 5 times, but I honestly didn’t remember her ever saying anything about it.  If my mind was wandering or focused on something else when she was talking to me, I didn’t even hear what she was saying.

One Step at a Time

Children with ADHD have a multitude of struggles, which can translate into disorganization, interrupting conversations, unfinished chores, lower grades, and behavioral problems.  As parents, we may be tempted to address all of these issues at once, but this approach often fails us.  It leads to increased frustration and a sense of failure, for parents and children alike. 

It is important to work on one specific behavior at a time.  This will reduce the stress on you and your child, and minimize feelings of overwhelm.  Be patient.  There is plenty of time to work on other behaviors and obstacles.