Perspectives on Life and ADHD

I am, like so many, celebrating Michael Phelps and his extraordinary accomplishments at the Olympics. Even Google is in on the act!

Michael is being rightfully celebrated for his stunning personal and athletic accomplishments. He is also being celebrated by our ADD/ADHD community as an outstanding ambassador for what life with ADHD can be like when we are supported and encouraged to develop what we are good at (rather than fix what we’re not). He stands now at the pinnacle of the sporting world. He is also a world class champion when he and his mom stand up and let the world know he is ADHD and proud of it!

In 2007 ADDitude magazine published this article on How to Raise an ADHD Superstar. Michael’s mother, Debbie Phelps was interviewed for this article, along with Dr. Yvonne Pennington (mother of Ty Pennington, star of the hit TV series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), and Karen Fisher (mother of Danielle Fisher, the youngest person to scale all seven of the world’s tallest mountains).

You can also watch the wonderful interview with Bob Costas. The first half of the interview is with Michael and his coaches. The interview with his mother starts at the 14:58 mark. Their mutual love, respect, admiration, and support are a joy to watch. They also talk about his ADHD and how swimming plus ADHD became such a winning combination.

Go Michael!

If you haven’t had a chance to attend an ADHD conference, whether because they were too far away or too expensive, here’s your chance to hear all the latest and greatest from the best know people in the profession without leaving home.

September 22-24, you can participate in the world’s first international Virtual ADHD Conference. The top ADHD experts in the world will all be gathered “virtually” for you to access the latest information on research, treatment, strategies and more…all via telephone in the comfort of your home or office. You will be able to participate at your own pace and enjoy numerous “perks” as a registered attendee.

Speakers include: Ned Hallowell, Sari Solden, Dan Amen, John Ratey, Pat Quinn, Michele Novotni, Wilma Fellman, Kate Kelly, Linda Anderson, Wendy Richardson, and many more (including me!)

Topics include: Finding the Buried Treasure in ADHD (Hallowell), Successfully Navigating the Journey of Adult ADHD (Solden), Healing ADHD Using Brain SPECT Imaging (Amen), Eating Disorders in Women and Girls with ADHD (Quinn), Living with ADHD: ‘A’ is for Anxiety (Wright) and much more.

There will be a virtual conference site also set up where people can chat with one another, download material/handouts before each session, and even have access to the experts. There will be virtual goodie bags given to all attendees, and there’s lots more surprises we’ll be sharing in the near future.

Read more and sign up here.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

Thanks, and hope to “see” you there!

I just finished the conference book handouts for my presentation at the ADHD Coaches Conference in May. It’s 5:00 pm the day before they are due. I’ve known about this deadline for four months already. So why did I just now finish them? Because somehow I just couldn’t get to them before. Up until this last week, they just weren’t the most important thing on my to do list. But in spite of putting them off until the last minute, I’m not going to loose any sleep or stress over them. They are actually done by the close of work the day before they are due and they are done well.

How did I pull off this trick? Well, it’s because I planned to procrastinate.

I had a pretty good idea of how much time I would need to accomplish this, and so I blocked out the time I would need to finish my research and do the write ups. I scheduled that time in the week before they were due so that the pressure of the deadline would keep me at my desk.

I find this is the way I deal with many things: taxes, my monthly contributions to the ADHD Coaches Newsletter, etc. As long as I have everything ready to go when I sit down to the task at that moment when nothing else is more important, it works perfectly. So, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with procrastinating. The trick to making procrastination work for you is to plan it. Try it, and see how it works for you.

My friend, Gina Pera, just told me about this game. She’d heard about it on NPR. It’s called Mind Habits Self Esteem Booster. The following is an explanation from the website of what it’s all about:

Psychological research has shown that daily stress and feelings of insecurity are in large part due to the anxiety of wanting to be liked, accepted and respected by one’s peers and significant others.

Fear of rejection can make us overlook positive signals from others and only see signs of disapproval. This inclination, or MindHabit, to zero in on the negative, heightens our feelings of insecurity and anxiety - making daily interactions increasingly and more frequently stressful. MindHabits Booster teaches individuals to ignore hostile information by finding the friendly face in a crowd of frowning people. The game allows players to practice downplaying rejection in and non-threatening environment. This software demonstrates the game, for entertainment and educational purposes.

Although the research conducted on this topic thus far is promising, we can make absolutely no claims about the effectiveness of these games for helping any particular individual deal with any particular issue or problem. For treatment of psychological problems, please consult a qualified mental health professional.

To read some of the published research, click here.

There is a free online version of the game available here.

If you want to buy and download the fully featured version for $20, you can get that here.

I’m looking forward to playing more of it. Hope my scores improve! Hope you enjoy it too. Let me know if it makes a difference for you.

Being a restless type myself, I’m a big fan of movement and exercise as a means of self-regulation. If you’ve read my book, Fidget to Focus, you’ll know many of the techniques I use in my own life to stay focused.

Being an evangelist for the Body/Brain connection (how what we do with our bodies affects our brains), I was really excited to learn last year that Dr. John Ratey of Driven to Distraction fame was writing a new book entitled Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

Well, it has just come out and everyone should read this book! And I do mean everyone: you, your spouse, your parents, your kids, their teachers, your doctors. EVERYONE!

I originally put off opening it as I was afraid it would be dry and technical, but it’s not at all. I found it so compelling and easy to read I could hardly put it down. So go read it. And then come tell me how it’s changed your life!