For the ADHD brain, boredom is the enemy.
The ADHD brain craves distractions from pain and has the profound ability to hyperfocus on something specific when it finds the right route with ample dopamine to help drive positive behaviors.
It has often been said that boredom leads to making trouble for kids with ADHD. “An idle mind does a man no good.” kind of thing.
Personally, I think we throw to blame and shame to the kiddos far too often, when we should rather draw our own attention towards their comprehensive needs and enable ourselves to be able to support them best.
The ADHD brain wants to fight boredom at all costs. An ADHD brain may even look for distractions in all the wrong places.
Even if it finds a negative stimulus or prompts a severely negative experience, it is still going to be a strong enough drive to drive the ADHD brain away from boredom.
Anything… anything can be better than boredom. The slightest sound, light, movement, interaction. Boredom is a grueling torture, and anything is better than this inner angst of boredom.
Imagine the stereotypical boy prodding and probing with an idle mind because he doesn’t know any better. Or the unnecessarily, overly aggressive playmate at 6yr old who decides to fight and wrestle for stimuli instead of understanding social normative boundaries with play.
The ADHD brain doesn’t care if receives a positive or negative distraction from the nuisance of boredom; all it cares about is getting stimulated and distracted at all costs.
As the ADHD brain struggles with cause-and-effect relationships, impulsivity, with thinking before acting, the ADHD brain ends up favoring paths of disrupting social norms for stimulation against boredom despite the depth of negative criticism that come with the disruptions.
Some people falsely assume this to be the “kid who will do anything for attention, including get themselves in trouble.” which may very well be a type of kiddo experience of performance-based reinforcement, I expect that more cases are related to a brain battling boredom, hungry for its attention to be distracted from the insufferable pains of nothingness.
If kids crave being physical, then let’s not blunt their physiological response, but rather help them heal, cope, and allow movement to be medicine instead the menacing curse for a kiddo’s history of misconduct.
Shall we hunt down the city graffiti artist and throw them in jail and tac them with hefty fines they cannot pay?
Or shall we give their gifts a chance and a safe place to play?
“Give the city graffiti artist a giant canvas to paint upon and watch their artful gifts come to life to revitalize the city streets, walking paths, alleys, and archways.”
Kids are not ready for higher level executive function, so we must give them grace, and that includes children with ADHD, likely even more so. But physical activity and play based learning could help change that by promoting a whole-person, lifestyle medicine approach to optimal health and happiness. Helping them learn from their decisions can be one of the greatest progressive learning skills you can help them practice every day.
The Case for Exercise and ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, and more
Exercise can drive us out of boredom, give us concrete structure and sufficient multi-sensory stimuli to keep us busy, attentive to our activity and focused on our fitness.
Often overlooked, exercise benefits are on par with the leading anti-depressants and SSRI medications that are commonly prescribed for ADHD or associated conditions of depression and anxiety. Exercise has the potential to push us out of boredom – yes, but also to help push us out of the mental fog found in depression or the exhausting instability that comes with anxiety.
Exercise enthusiasts know all about the euphoric boost that they get from their physical fitness routine, but far too many people never catch a glimpse of that mental health miracle. Some research even suggests that remission rates for depression exceed 30% for those who follow a regular exercise program for at least 12 weeks.
It's been said before that dark cloud of depression looms over our heads when we end up thinking too much about the past lose appreciation for our current circumstance. Exercise can bring us into full presence with the present moment while we’re pushing, pulling, lifting, or pressing weights or moving our bodies against resistance. With that level of physical training comes also the mental and emotional training, helping us recognize the power of our own unique potential and the confidence that can carry over into many other areas of life.
And since we know that people with ADHD commonly hold negative thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about themselves due to their struggle in neurotypical environments or environments with highly critical standard expectations they could not withstand or shine alongside in their uniquely gifted way, exercise could very well be the missing ingredient of a catalytic fuel to push someone out of depression, self-loathing, or poor self-esteem.
“Engaging in regular exercise is associated with a 25% lower risk of depression.”
– JAMA Psychiatry
We can also now consider the added benefits that come by positive reinforcement that comes through progressive overload training or a fitter physique, increased strength, endurance, and potentially aesthetics. Layer on a supportive wellness community cheering you along, brothers and sisters who want to see you succeed and continue striving in your personal health journey and you now have a whole new foundation to support the interconnected needs of someone better effectively with ADHD - or anyone for that matter.
The same could be said true about someone dealing with anxiety – often tied to worrying about the future, being overly concerned with ruminating negative thought patterns, and listening to a long list of whispered “what ifs” inside their head. Again, in this case, exercise can knock ourselves out of our own minds as we can so easily be our own worst critic and get in the way of our very own success.
Considering how challenging and even life-debilitating severe depression or extreme anxiety can be for some people, it becomes even more important that we give exercise a chance. What do we have to lose? What are the pros and cons when we weight the potential outcomes that come with maintaining a regular exercise routine?
Exercise Just as Good as Antidepressants for Moderate Depression
“Since the majority of people prescribed antidepressants have mild-to-moderate symptoms, and antidepressants have significant adverse effects, the researchers suggest that patients should be informed that exercise is a legitimate alternative that could provide just as much relief, with far fewer harmful effects.” [story here]
Among individuals with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), exercise therapy is feasible and is associated with significant therapeutic benefit, especially if exercise is continued over time.
I’m telling you right now, it’s an extremely underutilized approach to optimal health and happiness despite how cheap, safe, and effective it can really be.
The general guidelines for using exercise in treatment for ADHD are to do moderate-intensity cardiovascular activity (65-75 % of maximal oxygen consumption—VO2 max) for 30-40 minutes day at least 4-5 times a week.
If we truly care like we say that we do about neurodivergent care strategies or just simply actually helping people take care of themselves, wouldn’t you think that diet and exercise, meditation and mindfulness would be first-line treatment protocols presented to adults with ADHD? Do you think it would make sense to also include these determining factors into the effective care plans for kiddos with ADHD as well?
I would think so.
“Exercise can be anything kids enjoy. Running track, swimming, playing tag, rock climbing — you name it, ss long as it gets their heartrate up. Letting kids take the lead is key. The goal is to help them find something they’re happy to do every day. The more control they have over what that activity is, the more likely they are to keep doing it.” – Child Mind Institute
Not only does exercise help with increasing blood flow to the brain, detoxification, protein synthesis, but it also helps stimulate important hormone and neurotransmitter communication that tends to be misfiring in the standard case of ADHD. I’m talking about norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine.
With regular exercise we can increase baseline activity for these important transmitters, while also promoting neural function in certain areas of the brain. Exercise can decrease the impulsivity response that is common with signs of hyperactivity and hypervigilance in ADHD.
Any kind of activity will do, but certain more complex exercises may prove to be even more beneficial. Think about sports and activities that require intense focus and intense motor function coordination, like rock climbing, roller blading, martial arts, dance and ballet, gymnastics, skateboarding, cycling, and swimming.
In these activities the brain is required to be on high alert, prompting dopamine and norepinephrine to increase to help improve survival – but to also improve the chance of survival, avoiding the threat of injury or taking the wrong turn and ending up on the ground. Hence, you can imagine why some people with ADHD tend to enjoy engaging in high contact, high risk activities. It’s because in this pursuit for survival, there is an intense drive promoted by routinely deficient neurotransmitters that are then increased during these activities, leading to increased risk-taking behaviors for the return of full focus and attention.
In addition, the limbic system receives benefits from exercise. This is important for regulating emotions, behaviors, long-term memory and more. Exercise can help decrease the eruption of emotions and behaviors by supporting a healthy recognition and response to environmental stimuli, which is primarily managed by the amygdala, the fear center of the brain and promotor of the fight-or-flight response.
For instance, supporting the flow of these neurotransmitters via engaging in regular exercise helps to expanding one’s ability to focus and resolving the challenge of what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to, essentially improving accuracy and removing distractions. Imagine wearing noise canceling over-the-ear headphones while looking through binoculars. Exercise effectively acts as a tool for precision in our everyday experiences of recognition and response.
I’m talking about peace, calm, motivation, and a purposeful drive towards a worthy goal. Exercise can be the antidote to stagnation and inertia, procrastination and utter paralysis that prevents us from sprinting toward our roles and responsibilities and the goals we have for our lives and careers.
In fact, the NICE guidelines used in the UK for example, recommend individuals try cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exercise before considering the use of anti-depressants due the high risk for adverse side effects. Also included after exercise and before anti-depressants are mindfulness, meditation, and other interpersonal psychotherapy. Clearly, they believe that SSRIs for depression should not be the first-line treatment. But what do you think?
Exercise is as effective as anti-depressants for many cases of depression - Slate.com
I could go on and on, but I won’t belabor my point much further. Just know this, exercise has many more exponential benefits that go beyond what I’ve highlighted for you here today.
Exercise directly impacts the makeup of the gut microbiome and whole-body microbiota; how the gut biota communicates chemical messengers to the brain and vice versa; adaptive responses to exercise
Regular exercise improves our adaptive stress response and can help reduce symptoms of overthinking, impulsivity and calm the mind post exercise
Reduced risks for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure
Improved sleep and cognition – both critically important for the ADHD brain
Engaging is associated with a 25% lower risk of depression
Can improve executive function: attention, time-management, organization, planning, recall
Much Love Fam, stay well out there! 💙
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