One urban myth that has been successfully ruled out is that sugar doesn’t cause ADHD.

However, sugar does effect how your brain functions.  Since ADHD is neurological in nature, it’s interesting how to see how sugar affects our brain.

When you eat carbohydrates your body turns them into glucose (a type of sugar) and your organs (including your brain) and muscles use it for energy. Since, the neurons in the brain can’t store glucose they need a steady supply of it.  Spikes in the glucose supply to the brain are bad news as they result in hyperactivity and sugar crashes.

As with fats there is good and there is bad sugar.

The bad sugar is the refined sugar in cookies, candy and soda.  When you consume refined sugar, the affect is immediate your brain gets flooded with glucose and serotonin is released.  Serotonin makes you feel happy.  Because of large increase in blood sugar the pancreas produces large amounts of insulin, to absorb the sugar.  This is when you feel the ‘crash’.  You feel tired (more so than before you ate the sugar) and cannot focus.

When you eat too much sugar over time you can have problems with processing information, memory, depression and anxiety.  All of which many ADHD adults are prone to have problems with.

Good sugar comes from of fruit and complex carbohydrates.  Because fruit also has fiber its sugar is released at a steady speed while being digested.  Complex carbohydrates are also broken down into sugar. They take longer to progress and give energy for many hours.

For some reason we think of sugar as being harmless; yet there is nothing harmless about the ailments it causes.

As well the obvious ones such as Diabetes and obesity and tooth decay there are also things that ADHD adults are already susceptible to, such as:

• Hyperactivity
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
•  Mood swings
• Drug addictions
• Alcoholism

I have to admit I am a former sugar addict!  I would eat little pieces of chocolate all day.  It was a great way for me to have energy without the hassle of meal planning.  However, I noticed my brain was really foggy and thinking took lots of effort.  One month ago I stopped eating processed sugar.  No more chocolate, no more deserts.  The first few days were hard because I had to break the habit and the times I would normally enjoy a chunk of chocolate, I needed to remind myself I didn’t eat chocolate anymore.

After the first few days my energy became low and I felt very sad. A quick Google search told me this was normal sugar withdrawal symptoms.  Now those have passed I feel amazing, both mentally and physically very strong.

When you eat a healthy diet that gives your body the chance to have a stable blood sugar throughout the day you will have increased mental focus and attention, and balanced moods.

How to get the sugar out of your diet:

1) Start with the obvious culprits. Chocolate, cakes, sugar in your coffee etc.  Later on in your sugar elimination process you can cut out the hidden stuff.

2) Go Brown
Change all the white products in your cupboards to brown, for example bread, pasta, rice.

3) Eat regularly
Never go too long without food. This keeps your blood sugar in your brain stable.

4) Withdrawals
If you notice some withdrawal symptoms like me, try to stick it out. They aren’t pleasant, but the grass is greener on the other side! (also constant a doctor if you are worried)

5) Notice the benefits.
In fact, don’t just notice them, enjoy them!!

A staggering 75% of ADHD adults are unable to quiet their minds enough so they can fall asleep. Some say they become very creative and productive when most people are heading to bed. Some report to feeling so tired they have to drag themselves through the day, but then aren’t tired at bedtime. Their mind is racing as soon as their head hits the pillow and stops sleep from arriving.

Walking through life sleep deprived isn’t a pleasant experience; daily life is a struggle rather than joy. Sleep deprivation can result in symptoms that mirror your ADHD symptoms such as:

1. Anxiety

2. Difficulty concentrating

3. Forgetfulness

4. Hyperactivity

5. Increased distractibility

However, help is at hand and the solution is so easy every ADHD adult can try it. New research on insomnia (difficulty falling asleep or remaining asleep) has found that spending time in the sunlight every day aids sleep. This might sound very simplistic, but when you probe a little deeper, it makes sense.

The sun gives off a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (sunlight). The spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that hits the earth’s atmosphere can be divided into five groups. For example, Ultraviolet A, B and C, Visible range and Infrared range. The Visible range spectrum is visible to the human eye and blue light is part of this spectrum.

Our eyes need to be exposed to blue light daily as it regulates our sleep pattern. Blue light suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin. However, if we go from one man made environment to  the next, house to car to office to car to house…our melatonin levels don’t change and our body doesn’t know when to sleep or when to be alert.

Conversely, you might be getting blue light when you don’t want it. TV and computers can give off blue light, which also keep you awake. So, it’s important not to do those activities near bedtime.

However, time during the day looking at the TV or computer doesn’t count towards your blue light time…nothing is as beneficial as the real thing…so get in the sunshine!

This week create a plan to be outdoors (without your shades) every day. Below are a few examples:

• Go for a walk during your lunch break
• Do your exercise outside rather than inside
• Run errands on foot rather than driving

Then you will start to notice its benefits on your sleeping patterns.
Happy Zzzzzzz’s

Recently, I heard that Jillian Michaels, former trainer for the TV show “Biggest Loser”… doesn’t like to exercise. That really surprised me; I thought TV’s toughest trainer would love exercising.

However, she likes the benefits of exercise, rather than actual exercise. This example, beautifully illustrates that sometimes we have to do actions that aren’t enjoyable, but they are essential to our well-being.

Psychologist, Dr. Ari Tuckman, identifies the difference between Product and Process activities. Process activities are actions that are done for pleasure, for example, spending time with people you love, listening to your favorite album or watching a movie. Product activities are the day to day actions that need to get done in order to function and live. Things like paying a bill on time, taking the trash out and cleaning the kitchen after supper.

Neither one is superior, both are essential to live a happy, healthy life. If your life is full of product activities you become emotional drained. If life is full of Process activities, then there are negative consequences, unpaid bills and dirty living environment etc. So balance is key.

Everyone has a different idea of if an action is a product or process activity. For example, someone who loves to cook thinks cooking an evening meal is a process activity. Yet for someone else cooking is definitely a product activity.

When you have ADHD product activities are more problematic carry out than process activities.

This is because ADHD is less issue of attention and more a motivational problem. Adults with ADHD find it hard to change from an activity they are enjoying to a different one. It is also hard for them to stay motivated and to follow through on uninteresting tasks.

What can you do to ensure you have a balance of Product and Process tasks in your life:

1) Acknowledge not all actions are fun, but they still need to be done. It sounds obvious, but it is a freeing idea. When you are next cleaning your bathroom with a sinking heart, remind yourself, this isn’t meant to be fun, but having a clean bathroom is a good thing.

2) Make product activities as enjoyable as possible. Use your timer; put music on while you are doing these activities.

3) Create habits around Product Activities so they get done as painlessly as possible.

4) Include Process activities in your life, at least one a day. Adults with ADHD tend to forget or feel they don’t deserve fun things in their life. However, when Process activities are in your life,
they give you energy so that the product activities become less hard.

Money management is very difficult for ADHD adults and this results in some rather depressing statics. For example, people with ADHD have more:

• Bankruptcies
• Foreclosures
• Credit card debit
• Periods of unemployment

and do more:

• Impulsive spending
• Arguing with spouse about money

more so, than the average person.

They are also less likely to:

• Have savings
• Have a retirement plan

than there non ADHD peersPeople with ADD also have lots of negative emotions connected to money. They feel guilty, ashamed, and embarrassed that they don’t earn as much as they would like, that they have debt, or overspend.

However, there are physical reasons why money management is hard for ADDer’s. The executive functioning of the brain is impaired when you have ADHD. Which means, detailed orientated work, emotional regulation, impulse control, organizing and time management are also impaired and don’t function like they do in non ADDers.  If we look how these executive functions effect money management, it’s clear why problems occur. For example, money management is detailed orientated, completing taxes requires organizing, and low impulse control results in over spending.

No matter what your financial situation is, don’t feel bad about it. Negative emotions, such as guilt and shame only make you feel worse. Change is possible and the best way to turn negative emotions around is to empower yourself with knowledge. The following steps will help you to that. Here are 5 tips to help you take control of you money right now, no matter what your age:

1) Take stock
Take an honest look at your financial situation right now.
It’s better to know exactly what you are dealing with rather than have general anxiety about the unknown. Dig out your bank statements, savings, credit card bills, pension statements, etc so you know exactly what your money situation is.

2) Work with Financial professionals
They are there to help you. An accountant and financial adviser are essentials, but you might benefit from a book keeper or other professionals depending on your lifestyle. Choose them carefully. Not only do they need to be good that their job, they also need to have kind, non-judgmental personalities.

3a) Online banking
Sign up for online banking. This allows you to check your balance very easily. I recommend once a day. When you monitor your account regularly you are in touch with your money and spend less without even trying.

3b)Pay your bills online.
ADDers find this is much easier than the multi-step task of opening mail, writing a cheque, finding a stamp and remembering to post the envelop in a timely fashion.

4) Create a budget
The word budget usually fills people with dread. However, rather than a bad constraining thing, a budget allows you to spend money on the things without feeling guilty; pay bills and save for the future.

The best budget tool for ADHDers”You Need a Budget” or YNAB. This is a budget tool with a difference. It will actually get you excited about budgeting. You feel empowered and it’s fun to use. Check it out. http://budurl.com/yg7z

5) Change your views about money
Money is an emotion loaded topic. Some people love it, others hate it, yet it’s merely a tool we use to exchange goods and services with. We could use cows or bread, but money is more convenient. When you take emotion out of the topic of money it is much easier to address.

Got questions? Send me an email and I will be happy to answer them!.

When we think of the New Year we automatically think about New Year Resolutions. However resolutions are usually a highly ineffective way to achieve what we would like in our life.

For example, if your new years resolution is to lose weight, or get fit, you will likely to do really well for the first few days or even a few weeks, eating an extreme diet or going to the gym every day. But then the resolution way of life becomes hard and boring and its more comfortable to revert back to old ways.  New Years Resolutions are based on pure will power, and without a compelling goal, or big enough why,  Resolutions will not be sustainable.

However the New Year IS a great time to set goals. I have just read an inspiring book called ‘Taming Tigers, Do things you never thought you could do’ . The author Jim Lawless tells of how he achieved his goal of riding his first televised horse-race in the space of one year.  Before he set this goal for himself he had only been pony trekking twice!  In order to achieve this ambitious goal he had to get up every day at 5am to train, continue his day job, lose 1/4 of his body weight (jockeys are very light), move houses to be near the training ground, and give up alcohol (which can’t have been easy for someone that hadn’t gone to bed sober for 17 years).

It would have be extremely hard to do these things if Jim hadn’t had a compelling goal. This year when you are thinking about what you would like to achieve think BIG. What would you move heaven and earth to achieve?

Start with your big goal and then work backwards. You are much more likely to stick to a diet, declutter your house, get fit, etc. when the big goal excites you.

The sense of exhilaration that Jim felt when he completed the race was ‘ Absolute Elation’. Not only did he achieve his goal but he now has the knowledge that he can do anything that he sets his mind and this will stay with him forever.

When inspired ADHD adults can achieve incredible feats in a very short space of time, so can you. So your first action for 2010 is to create a compelling and exciting goal. Don’t worry about how you will achieve your goal, your only job today is to think WHAT you would like to achieve!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Other articles you will enjoy

How to Realize Your Goals

10 Reasons To Set Goals When You Have ADHD

Dr. Russell Barkley says that ADHD is more about loss of interest and motivation than attention and concentration. This makes sense, as we know ADHDers can pay attention for hours  on tasks they love.

Motivation is a characteristic that makes us want to ‘do’ an activity. Unfortunately, there is lotsof moral judgement about motivation and people think lack of motivation is a sign of laziness or not caring. The good news is that in recent years studies have found evidence that motivation is more about brain chemistry, than will power. It has been found that motivation problems in people with ADHD are due to lower levels of dopamine in their brains. The larger the disruption of the dopamine pathway, the greater the ADHD symptoms and the lower the  levels of motivation.

Now that you are armed with this knowledge what can you do?

1) Take good care of yourself the Untapped Brilliance way. This means, taking Omega 3 supplements, eating an ADHD friendly diet, getting enough sleep, exercising and meditating. All these activities increase the dopamine. If you need help incorporating these into your life check out Untapped Brilliance book.

2) What do you love to do? What are you highly motivated to do? When you know what those activities they are, make some changes in your life so you spend more time doing the activities you are motivated to do. Your life will become more productive and enjoyable.

3) Get creative with the activities you have to do, but don’t enjoy. Use your timer, as that creates a challenge and a sense of urgency. Set up a reward system that motivates you. For example, put one dollar in a jar every time you do X. Apply it to something that does interest you. Michael Phelps’ (Olympic Swimming Champion) Mom did this for her son. Michael hated math, but loved swimming. So she customized his math problems ‘If you swim one meter per second, how long would it take to swim 800 meters?’

When you make these changes in your life, you will definitely notice a new level of productivity and purpose in your life.

A friend and I meet regularly at a coffee shop that is a 5 minute walk from where I live. Because it is so close, I always leave it to the last minute to get ready. Then as I am speed walking/running to get there I say to myself ‘I will leave earlier next time’. I always arrive at the coffee shop on time, but a feeling bit hot and my mind is racing.

The interesting thing about this situation is my friend thinks I am very punctual. She often comments on it. Yet, because I have done all that rushing and don’t feel punctual, in this situation, I shrug that compliment away.

This is what adults with ADHD experience all the time. They accomplish wonderful things, degrees, promotion, awards, perform acts of kindness, receive compliments from their nearest and dearest, but because behind the scenes things were a struggle, you shrug those compliments and achievements away.

This results in a huge disconnection between reality and how you see yourself. This disconnect stops you from building up a strong self esteem, from reaching your full potential, allowing yourself to be happy, and even the quality of people you have relationships with.

What can you do to close that gap between your perception of yourself and reality?

1) Being aware of it is always the first step to change. So pay attention to how you feel about yourself and what you do and have done.

2) Write a list of 25 accomplishments
Everyone I give this assignment to always gasps because it sounds a lot, but it encourages you to dig deep and really think about what you have done in your life so far.

3) Create a Hall of Frame
Gather together all your certificates, photos of important events and other items that symbolism your achievements. Get them framed and hang them together on a wall in your home. This is powerful because every time you walk past the wall your achievements, they are there, loud and proud. It might take time for your subconscious to process them, but when it does a new you emerges.

4) Accept all compliments
When someone gives you a compliment, simply say thank you. Don’t explain it away. Afterwards, spend a few minutes processing it. For example, if someone says ‘you have an incredible general knowledge’ your immediate thought might be, well it’s because I sit and watch TV when I have 101 more productive things to do. BUT, rather than do that, begin to own the fact that you are very knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects.

5) Change the way you talk to yourself
You probably have a constant negative voice chatting away to you all day. Telling you mean put downs on how you look, what you said, and what you did.
‘When you catch one of those thoughts, flip it around. ‘I sounded stupid’ to ‘I did a good job’. ‘You look silly in that outfit’ to ‘this is my favorite jacket’. The more you do it, the more your positive voice over rides the negative and the better you will feel about yourself.

While I was at the CHADD conference, I interviewed Patrick McKenna.

Patrick stars in the famous “ADHD and Loving It” documentary. As well as being incredibly funny, he is also very smart! In this interview, he explains that doing what you are naturally good at, helps your self esteem and allows you to be successful in your chosen field.

Another one of Patrick’s secret to success is to embrace and love all of who you are, including your ADD. Don’t worry about wasted time in the past . . . today is the perfect day to step forward and start implementing these suggestions.

I was particularly excited to talk to Patrick as a growing number of my clients realized they had ADD after watching the “ADHD and Loving It” documentary. They had always realized they were different, but didn’t know exactly why until watching the documentary. This is a common experience of people across North America… Patrick and his co-star Rick are changing people’s lives.

Want to see more interviews from the CHADD conference? Head over to: http://budurl.com/w9yj where myself and business partner Marcia Hoeck interview more experts.

Learn more about the FAB work Patrick is doing at Totally ADD!

Quick question!

Do you:

a) Want to be famous in your industry?

b) You don’t care about Fame; you just want to help as many people as possible?

c) Neither, just want to generate enough income pay my bills.

Whether you answered a, b or c…I have the perfect solution!

There is an amazing program being launched called ’Creating Fame‘ by Laura Roeder.

In this fun and fast paced program you will learn what actions you need to do to become the 1st person people think of in your industry. Which means never have to worry about getting new clients ever again. And not only do you have steady stream of clients who love working with you and rave about your products. You get to do what you love to do and pay your bills.

As an Entrepreneur with ADHD you are almost certainly brilliant at what you do. Yet your self esteem and confidence in your abilities is low and doesn’t match your talent. You often feel like a fraud and scared people will find ‘out’. This keeps you in hiding and stops you from taking the actions that will lead to success.

I believe one of the most useful aspects of Creating Frame is how the mindset is addressed. Very simply and quickly, Laura is able to change how you feel about yourself and your talents which allows you to mentally step up and embrace who you really are. When you do this, success is a given.

But this is just one area Laura covers…there are lots more!

I very rarely promote products simply because there aren’t many I feel passionate about. However, this program rocks! I took it in 2010 and I am excited to take it again this year.

Check it out here!

Wait though! Before you head to Laura’s site, if you sign up using this link, email me your receipt and I will give you some extra special bonuses.

Bonus 1

2 hours of 1 on 1 ADHD coaching with me!
Coaching with me usually costs $160 per hour, (but the benefits are priceless)!

We can schedule the appointments right away, or you can keep them in your back pocket until you really need them.

Bonus 2

Untapped Brilliance for Entrepreneurs, How to Reach your Full Potential as Entrepreneur with ADHD: Workshop in a Box (Value $197)

In this 4 hour workshop, you will learn exactly how to tame your ADHD traits that get in the way of a successful business.

Bonus 3

Your every own down-loadable copy of Untapped Brilliance (Value $17)

In this critically acclaimed book you will learn exactly how to manage the negative aspects of ADHD (Lack of focus and concentration, procrastination, time management, clutter etc), so you can reach your potential in all areas of your life.

So go check out Laura’s site and send me your receipt and we can get started!!!

See you in class

A common complaint or worry people with ADHD is that they feel ‘behind’ in life. Their peers seem to be racing ahead and they don’t feel they are where they should be as they pass age milestones. The truth is everyone feels they are ‘behind’ in life to some degree, but people with ADHD seem to feel it more keenly. Perhaps because some things do take them longer (e.g. graduating from University because they take fewer classes each semester) or because their self esteem and confidence is lower.

In a world where the media portrayal of what normal is has us all graduating from University at 21 years old, advancing up the corporate ladder in our mid 20′s and happily married with children at 30. It’s good to know to that the world is changing and there is a new type of normal.

Working life
People no longer work Monday to Friday, 9-5 in the same job until they retire at 65 years old. Today we have more career changes than past generations. There is flex time, satellite offices and stay-at-home-dads. You can be a self made multi-millionaire in your early 20′s (for example Facebook’s Mark Zucherberg) and keep working because you love it into your 90′s.

Parenting
Traditionally, parents were of the opposite sex and had children in the ‘peak birth rate years’ of 20- 24. Now there is an increasing number of first time parents in their 40′s and it is no longer taboo to be a single parent. Elton John is the perfect example that you can be a new parent whatever our age or sexuality.

Marriage
The average age for first marriages is getting higher and higher. At the moment, it is 28 years old for men and 26 years for women.

What does this have to do with ADHD? I wanted to illustrate that the old linear way of living isn’t the norm any more. We have more freedom to make choices based on what suits us than ever before. You are never behind; there is no rule that you are a certain age when you should get married, or buy a house, or have a particular position at work.

When you free yourself from these norms you give yourself permission to live your life at a pace that works for you will thrive. When you have ADHD it’s important to do what makes you tick, to listen to your internal messages rather than any external messages. If you do this, you will experience more happiness and success than ever before.