How Can You Treat ADD Without Drugs?
Question by Wake7: How can you treat ADD without drugs?
Without having a psychiatrist/ologist tell me, what exercises can one do to have a better attention span? Is meditation one?
Thanks
I workout for 1.5 hrs three times a week. But I do not do cardiovascular stuff…
I eat very healthy. Low sugar, no packaged crap.
Best answer:
Answer by spongyfishy
Meditation is a possibility. One of the best ways to combat ADD is to exercise regularly and eat healthy. This is not a cure for it, but most cases of ADD can be easily treated with proper nutrition and exercise, and possibly meditation. If these don’t work, the next step is medication.
Answer by Trey M
The problem with meditation is that it is an extreme form of focus. Being able to shut out all external noise and all internal thought and just sit would be a very difficult task for someone with ADD.
ADD for me is having an ever running mind. Some thoughts will be interrupted half way through with a new one. Same thing for conversations. Because of this, I have always had a really hard time sleeping. I can run any day of my past, or a scenario of the future, over and over. This has always been an enjoyable thing for me, but being in the real world with a job and responsibilities brings me to a disadvantage. Plus, being tired only exacerbates ADD and can ruin a whole day for you (just like being hungover). So, I started to meditate at a young age to be able to go to sleep. I never followed instructions or someone’s advice. I would just breath in deep breaths and count when I exhaled. This usually works, but those damn thoughts creep in and keep me up all night.
Transcendental Meditation is a class you could take, and has been offered as an alternative to ADD medication. http://adhd-tm.org/questions.html. As far as diet, fish oil and ginko biloba are both recommended, and I believe I read that you should not eat food dye/coloring. Exercise is really good as well, and it sounds like you do plenty, but cardio, jogging for me, is like meditation. Putting on my iPod with upbeat music and getting out passed three miles is one of the best feelings in the world, and also the single best way for me to shut up my mind and actually be tired at the end of the night.
But I am curious, why are you against meds? Also, I would like to point out that there is no cure for ADD. It is genetically traceable and is a lot like being left handed, different then others but not a “disorder”. There are benefits and problems to having ADD. The biggest problem is that we are disorganized by our very nature, and in this modern world organization is everything. Since it is estimated that 10% of people have ADD, of course the other 90% who have a mind that works differently do not understand. People with ADD can be ridiculed for being so disorganized. A change in mindset, the realization that you have ADD and a positive effort to become more organized and have some back up systems and friends/family that will support you in this effort can make the difference. Your mindset can be changed that you do not notice your ADD anymore, but it will always be there.
Hope I helped
Best of luck
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