Part 1: Understanding and Combating the Symptoms
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD) can be a silent killer in marriage. Fortunately, there are many steps you can take, many not requiring any medication. Here are some simple steps you can take to ease ADHD-related issues in your marriage:
Make to-do lists of everything from daily responsibilities to items you need from the store. Also keep a calendar of important dates and deadlines.
Ask the partner with ADHD to repeat back any requests to make sure he or she understands what is being asked.
Simplify your life by cleaning up clutter around the house and only attempting to accomplish a small number of tasks each week.
Get into a routine. For example, go through your checkbook once a week to see how much money you’ve spent, or plan the entire week’s meals every Sunday night.
Dietary Changes to Combat ADHD Symptoms
Eat a high protein diet, including beans, cheese, eggs, meat and nuts. Add protein foods in the morning and for after-school snacks to improve concentration and possibly increase the time ADHD medications work.
Eat fewer simple carbohydrates such as candy, corn syrup, honey, sugar, products made from white flour, white rice and potatoes without the skins.
Eat more complex carbohydrates, such as vegetables and some fruits (including oranges, tangerines, pears, grapefruit, apples, and kiwi). Eating complex-carbs at night may aid sleep.
Eat more Omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in tuna, salmon, other cold-water white fish, walnuts, Brazil nuts and olive and canola oil. Omega-3 fatty acids are also available in supplement form.
Exercise Can Help Control ADHD!
Exercise stimulates the areas of the brain that control attention and thinking. Getting more vigorous play may help you succeed at love and other parts of life. Evidence continues to mount that exercise can be a natural medicine for adults—with ADHD.
“There are many, many studies showing exercise improves attention, improves cognitive function and improves executive function,” says John Ratey, MD, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Dr. Ratey has been exploring the connection between exercise and brain performance since the 1980s and is the author of, “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.”
“Executive function,” says Ratey, “is the ability to put the brakes on impulses and be able to sequence and plan, which is what children with ADHD have trouble with.”
Exercise wakes up the executive function of the brain’s frontal cortex, allowing the person to evaluate the consequences of behavior. This way, he or she can make the best choices and suppress unacceptable social responses. Exercise can help ADHD by elevating levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, brain chemicals that play key roles in attention and thinking.
You can’t treat ADHD without help! But you can help yourself or your spouse to control ADHD! Please note, we and many other physicians are not “anti-medicine” by any means—it’s just that exercise can be a major component of treatment for ADHD; it really helps modulate many of the symptoms of attention deficit disorders.
“Exercise is also a mood lifter, which makes people less tense and fidgety and more motivated and rejuvenated, which is exactly what people with ADHD need,” Ratey says. “It can make them more willing to learn and focus.”
You are not alone! “People with ADHD can be great,” she says. To prove it, here are some of the famous people who had or have ADHD. One of the best known is the great swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Others include Albert Einstein, Beethoven, Alfred Hitchcock and Robin Williams.
Dr. Joni Frater and Esther Lastique
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