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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Intake forms catch some of it and a photo of the shelf catches the rest, including the two things nobody mentions because they seem too minor to count. Note the amounts and how often they are taken. Then put the whole lot in the summary letter, because the prescriber is the person who can actually act on an interaction and is usually the last to hear about one.
Crops of diverse flavours, the olive, the pomegranate, alike yet different (Quran 6:141). Things that look interchangeable are not, and naming each one is how you notice.
الأنعام
۞وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنشَأَ جَنَّٰتࣲ مَّعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَغَيۡرَ مَعۡرُوشَٰتࣲ وَٱلنَّخۡلَ وَٱلزَّرۡعَ مُخۡتَلِفًا أُكُلُهُۥ وَٱلزَّيۡتُونَ وَٱلرُّمَّانَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣰ ا وَغَيۡرَ مُتَشَٰبِهࣲۚ كُلُواْ مِن ثَمَرِهِۦٓ إِذَآ أَثۡمَرَ وَءَاتُواْ حَقَّهُۥ يَوۡمَ حَصَادِهِۦۖ وَلَا تُسۡرِفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُسۡرِفِينَ
It is He who produces both trellised and untrellised gardens, date palms, crops of diverse flavours, the olive, the pomegranate, alike yet different. So when they bear fruit, eat some of it, paying what is due on the day of harvest, but do not be wasteful: God does not like wasteful people
Qur’an 6:141read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Research is increasingly treating a person's whole daily intake as one picture. A randomised trial of a lifestyle intervention in children with mental illness, ADHD among them, worked on diet, activity, gaming and sleep together and followed symptoms and physical health over the short and long term. Whether that combined approach pays off is what such trials are testing, but the habit of looking at everything at once is worth borrowing.
van Tetering EMA, Muskens JB, Deenik J, Pillen S, Cahn W, von Rosenstiel I, Oomen M, Rommelse NN, Staal WG, Klip H. (2023). The short and long-term effects of a lifestyle intervention in children with mental illnesses: a randomized controlled trial (Movementss study).. BMC psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A record of what someone really takes only helps if it reaches the person who can do something with it.
Megavitamins, antioxidant products such as pycnogenol and assorted trace minerals have not beaten placebo for ADHD. They stay popular on the strength of a good story about how they ought to work.
A weighted vest seems to do its work in roughly the first quarter of an hour. Twenty minutes did not beat fifteen, so longer is not more help.
People with ADHD are reported to run low on both tryptophan and homocysteine. Low homocysteine is a good thing to have, since it is the high version that damages hearts.