Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

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The fair test for anything offered alongside medication is whether it adds something on top. In one small imaging study, cognitive training added to a stimulant left inhibition no better than the stimulant on its own.

Add on designs are unkind to hopeful ideas, which is exactly why they are worth running. About twenty children took part, so this is one small piece…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 22:78One line of research

Programmes built on tones through headphones and balance drills have not been shown to help ADHD. If a child does seem steadier during them, the likeliest reason is that something is occupying the part of them that goes looking for stimulation.

That effect is real enough, and it is cheap to get elsewhere. A walk, a job with the hands, background sound they choose themselves, all of it…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:153One line of research

If someone has genuine positional vertigo, get it treated, and do not expect the treatment to touch their ADHD. Both things can be true at the same time.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo often follows a sinus infection or a bang to the head, and it responds well to repositioning manoeuvres that…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:69One line of research

Several professional bodies came together to say that vision therapy is not a treatment for ADHD. A joint statement like that is unusual, and it is worth quoting to a family word for word.

Convergence problems, where the eyes struggle to work together on something close up, are a little more common in ADHD and deserve treating in their…

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.

Remembering to do it

Breaking the worry loop

When you use something to cope

What you are actually defending

Making it stick

Cool the body first

Growing empathy

The moment before you snap

Feelings and focus

Facing it a step at a time

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Choosing your response

Self-compassion

Anger, alcohol and the body

Use your strengths

When everything feels flat

Emotions as signals

Shame

Tolerate distress

Being seen and judged

Obsessions and compulsions

When anger turns to harm

Touch and bodywork

Practising under provocation

Question the thought

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Rest and pacing

Feeling from the inside

Five minutes

Exercise, food and other supports

Medical and treatment

Qur’an 10:67

One line of research

Saying that something does not work leaves a parent holding the same worry that sent them looking in the first place. Say what the time and money would buy instead, and put exercise at the top of the list.

The energy behind an unevidenced treatment is usually love with nowhere to go, and if it is not given somewhere to go it moves on to the next…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 67:15One line of research

Sensory processing difficulties are real and worth accommodating, and they are not a standalone diagnosis. The proposal for one was turned down for lack of evidence that it stands apart from the conditions it appears with.

In practice it usually shows up alongside ADHD or autism, so it is best written up as a feature of the person: what they cannot tolerate, what they…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:185One line of research

Ask which direction a person's sensory difficulty runs before offering anything. Someone who is under responsive needs more input and someone who is over responsive needs less, and the wrong one makes the day harder.

The under responsive child is the one climbing, chewing, pressing into things, hunting for sensation in order to feel settled. The over responsive…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 28:73One line of research

Turn the socks inside out so the seam sits away from the toes, cut the label out and print the size onto the fabric instead, and look at seamless clothing. These cost pennies against a course of therapy and they work by teatime.

A scratchy seam or a stiff tag is a small thing that keeps announcing itself all day, and every announcement takes a piece of attention with it.…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 7:31One line of research

Weight across the body settles a lot of people and sends some of them to sleep quickly. It is a preference though, not a remedy, and for others it feels like being closed in.

If you try it, watch what actually happens rather than what is supposed to happen. Some people have wanted pressure, small dark spaces and being…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 25:47One line of research

Since 1994, supplements have not had to satisfy a regulator before going on sale. Nobody checked the bottle in your hand the way they check a prescription.

The gap is wider than most people expect. Drug factories get unannounced inspections and can be shut down on the spot; supplement makers do not face…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 5:88One line of research

Natural is not a regulated word: anyone can print it next to a picture of a leaf, on anything at all. Organic in the USDA sense does have a legal definition sitting behind it.

The same goes for the reassuring line about following good manufacturing practices, which describes what a company aims at rather than what an…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:168One line of research

Kava, valerian, St John's wort, ginkgo, ginseng and the proprietary blends have not shown benefit for ADHD in trials that matched the amount in every capsule and kept both the person handing them out and the person rating behaviour unaware of who got what.

Those two design details are most of the story. Ordinary use has dose wobble and expectation running through it, and expectation is powerful,…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 17:27One line of research

Ask what someone takes that is not food, rather than asking what medications they are on. People do not file their supplements under drugs, so the usual question comes back empty.

There is a case worth carrying around for this. A liver transplant patient kept rejecting the organ, and it turned out he was quietly taking…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:69One line of research

If a stimulant that was working suddenly is not, ask what else the person has started taking before deciding the dose needs to go up.

One woman's Adderall went flat while she was on a herbal supplement and came back to its usual self once she stopped it. Herbs can shift stomach…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 80:24One line of research

If a little helps then a lot must help more is not really a supplement thought. It is an addiction shaped thought that has wandered into the vitamin aisle.

Moderation tends not to be a natural strength with ADHD, and this is one place where that costs something. Name it early, before a safe dose has…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 31:19One line of research

People with ADHD tend to have lower omega-3 in their blood, and bringing low levels up has been linked with some improvement in symptoms. No convincing difference has shown up between DHA and EPA for this.

Omega-3 comes mostly from oily fish and krill, and fish is exactly what many people with texture sensitivity will not eat. Whether the shortfall…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:114One line of research

If you are trying omega supplements, give them four to six weeks and then decide. Imaging work has picked up changes in how neurons communicate after around four weeks, which is fast as these things go.

Fixing the end point at the start protects you twice over. It takes the sting out of nothing happening by Thursday, and it stops an open ended habit…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 53:39One line of research

In one trial, children were given omegas with a multivitamin, omegas alone, or neither, and after fifteen weeks everybody got both. The omega groups gained on set shifting and attention, and the children who started with nothing caught up once they crossed over.

Two features of that design are worth understanding. Everyone receiving the treatment eventually shows that the improvement follows the treatment…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 6:141One line of research

Sixty two children took methylphenidate with either vitamin D or a placebo, and both groups improved. The two ADHD rating scales showed no difference between them, which leaves the positive headline resting on the clinician's judgement rather than on what parents reported.

That shape repeats all over this literature, so it is worth learning to spot. When a study reports an effect on one measure and not another, the…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 17:12One line of research

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.

The reflex to correct any number under the reference range is worth resisting. Levels can be tested where there is a reason to test them. Eating a…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 55:8One line of research