5 ADHD Tips for Managing NATURALLY | How I Coped Before Meds
Summary
TLDRIn this video, a 52-year-old woman shares her journey of managing undiagnosed ADHD through natural methods. She reflects on her life before and after discovering her ADHD, emphasizing five key habits that transformed her life: regular exercise, prioritizing sleep, creating a calming environment, practicing yoga and meditation, and developing systems to stay organized. These strategies helped her manage her ADHD, improve her focus, reduce anxiety, and enhance her quality of life. The video encourages viewers to adopt these practices for better ADHD management, whether diagnosed or not.
Takeaways
- 😀 ADHD symptoms can change with age; in later life, they may focus more on managing daily tasks like medication, sleep, and organization.
- 🚶♀️ Regular physical movement, even if it’s not intense, can greatly improve ADHD symptoms by boosting brain function and executive decision-making.
- 🏋️♂️ Starting exercise in her 20s helped the speaker lose 80 pounds and improve her self-regulation, marking a major turning point in her ADHD management.
- 😴 Prioritizing sleep enhanced the speaker’s ability to stay consistent with exercise and manage her ADHD better, highlighting the link between rest and overall functioning.
- 🏡 Creating a stable, calm living environment was key for managing anxiety and ADHD, helping the speaker feel more organized and in control of her life.
- 🧘♀️ Yoga became a critical tool for managing anxiety and ADHD, particularly during times of emotional stress, such as dealing with the death of her mother.
- 🧠 Changing the speaker’s brain chemistry through fitness and mindfulness practices led to better focus, organization, and improved relationships and work performance.
- 📋 Implementing systems and routines, such as automating daily tasks, allowed the speaker to conserve cognitive energy and focus on her goals.
- 💡 Discovering ADHD at 52 through a podcast was a turning point for the speaker, leading her to pursue ADHD coaching and further understanding of her condition.
- 🔥 Focusing on personal strengths, values, and passions, such as sharing her ADHD journey on YouTube, helped the speaker find purpose and fulfillment.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video?
-The video focuses on managing ADHD naturally, particularly from the perspective of someone who was undiagnosed until the age of 50 and how they made lifestyle changes that improved their condition.
How did the speaker first start managing their ADHD without knowing they had it?
-The speaker started by incorporating regular physical movement into their routine, which eventually led to weight loss and improvements in their mental focus and overall life.
What was the speaker's first major lifestyle change that helped manage ADHD symptoms?
-The first major change was exercising regularly. Although the speaker disliked working out initially, the physical activity improved their brain function, which helped them manage ADHD symptoms more effectively.
How did the speaker’s physical health improve after starting regular exercise?
-The speaker lost 80 pounds, gained more focus, improved decision-making, and developed better self-regulation as a result of consistent exercise.
What role does sleep play in managing ADHD symptoms, according to the speaker?
-Sleep is crucial for managing ADHD, as it helps with energy, reduces irritability, and supports the motivation needed for exercise and overall productivity.
How did the speaker’s environment impact their ADHD management?
-Having a clean, organized, and peaceful living environment helped reduce the speaker’s anxiety and contributed to better focus and decision-making.
What additional tools did the speaker adopt in their late 30s to manage ADHD?
-In their late 30s, the speaker incorporated yoga and meditation, which helped manage their anxiety, regulate emotions, and improve their overall mental health.
What realization led to the speaker's formal ADHD diagnosis?
-The speaker realized they had ADHD after listening to a podcast episode where someone described symptoms and experiences that matched their own, leading them to seek a formal diagnosis.
What is the fifth method the speaker recommends for managing ADHD?
-The fifth method is creating systems and processes for daily tasks, which helps conserve cognitive energy and maintain focus on more important goals.
What additional advice does the speaker offer for those managing ADHD?
-The speaker suggests finding what 'lights you up' by discovering your strengths, interests, and values. Aligning your life with these factors can lead to more fulfillment and better ADHD management.
Outlines
🧑⚕️ The Realities of ADHD in Adulthood
The speaker shares her experience of living with undiagnosed ADHD until her 50s, discussing how her challenges have evolved with age. In her youth, her ADHD manifested in disorganization and impulsive behaviors, but now her focus is on managing daily responsibilities like taking medication, sleeping well, and remembering where she parked her car. Reflecting on her life, she notes how her undiagnosed ADHD affected her in various ways, such as struggling with organization, time management, and academics.
🏋️♀️ The Power of Moving Your Body
At 21, the speaker, who weighed 210 pounds, decided to start moving her body regularly, despite hating exercise at first. This became the foundation for improving her self-regulation and developing healthier habits. Over time, she saw physical and mental benefits, including weight loss and enhanced focus. She stresses the role of fitness in activating the brain's prefrontal cortex, which improves executive function. Although she doesn't enjoy working out, she does it daily because of the positive effects it has on her brain and life.
🛏️ The Importance of Sleep for ADHD Management
The second change in managing her ADHD was prioritizing sleep. Initially motivated by the need to exercise, she realized that better sleep made her more productive and helped her control cravings. As she began working out regularly and sleeping better, her life improved in other areas, such as saving money and feeling more organized. She emphasizes how getting quality sleep contributed to her overall well-being and helped her navigate adult life more successfully.
🏡 Creating a Supportive Environment
After improving her sleep and exercise routines, the speaker's next major step was moving out of a chaotic living situation. In her mid-20s, she rented her own apartment, which provided stability and peace. Having a space that was clutter-free and organized helped reduce her anxiety and improved her mental clarity. She highlights the importance of having an environment that nurtures your mental health and how decluttering her space led to a clearer mind and more control over her life.
🧘♀️ Yoga and Emotional Resilience
In her late 30s, after moving to California and facing the death of her mother, the speaker leaned on her established habits of working out, sleeping well, and focusing on her health. She reconnected with yoga, which helped her process emotions and manage her anxiety. Yoga became a tool for releasing emotional stress and helped her maintain mental clarity during tough times, including her mother’s passing and a previous divorce. Eventually, she traveled to India to train as a yoga teacher, integrating it further into her life.
📅 Systems and Processes for ADHD
The fifth major tool the speaker adopted for managing ADHD was implementing systems and processes to automate as much of her life as possible. She uses these strategies to reduce the mental load of daily decisions, such as setting up routines for taking medication and organizing her space. She praises tools like weekly and monthly reviews and apps like Notion to streamline tasks and manage her time effectively. She encourages others to find systems that work for them and automate tasks to free up mental energy.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡ADHD
💡Exercise
💡Sleep
💡Environment
💡Self-regulation
💡Anxiety
💡Yoga
💡Systems and processes
💡Executive functions
💡Messy action
Highlights
Living with ADHD undiagnosed until age 50 and managing it naturally over the years.
Realizing that fitness helps manage ADHD by improving focus and executive function.
Starting a fitness routine at age 21, despite hating exercise, and losing 80 pounds.
Understanding that sleep is crucial for managing ADHD and overall well-being.
Improving life through better sleeping habits and fitness, leading to healthier choices.
Creating a stable living environment was key to managing ADHD and anxiety.
Learning that a clean, clutter-free environment improves mental clarity.
Adapting to significant life changes, like moving and losing her mother, with the help of exercise and yoga.
Discovering yoga's power in calming ADHD symptoms and improving emotional regulation.
Leaving corporate work and going to India to learn and teach yoga for self-management.
Using yoga and meditation as daily tools for mental hygiene and stress management.
Being diagnosed with ADHD after years of managing it without knowing, leading to further improvements.
Understanding the importance of systems and routines for managing ADHD effectively.
Automating everyday tasks to save cognitive energy for more important decisions.
Learning to focus on personal strengths and what lights you up, as a core part of ADHD management.
Transcripts
yo if you are in your 20s 30s or even
your 40s and you think your ADHD is no
joke now just wait till you get into
your 50s I gotta tell you I am living in
what I like to call old lady ADHD it's
no longer about binge spending and binge
drinking and partying all night long
it's about did I take my pills in the
morning did I get a good night's sleep
and where the hell did I park my car so
today I thought what I would do is share
from my perspective of living with ADHD
undiagnosed until two years ago and I'm
52 now guys so my whole life is a
reflection of what's possible when
you're not treated for your ADHD in any
way whatsoever because you don't know
you have it so for context I definitely
can see how my ADHD impacted my life
before the age of about 21 I was a hot
mess Express I couldn't understand why I
couldn't stay organized or neat or
remember things I couldn't understand
why I couldn't tell time until I was
like 14 or understand math or any of
these things that are very common for us
adhders I just thought it was stupid
but something happened at the age of 21
and I'm going to jump into that now
and give you the first of the five
things that I did to manage my ADHD
naturally because I didn't know I had it
and how it changed my life and each of
these five things build on each other
and I hope if anything from this video
you take away some ideas of how you can
better manage your ADHD whether or not
it's diagnosed or you're taking
medications or in therapy or anything
like that all of these tools will make
your life better on multiple of levels
I'm not blowing smoke here guys I'm
telling you the truth I am living proof
of it we're gonna get into it right now
the number one thing that I did to
manage my ADHD naturally and it
literally changed my life was to start
moving my body on a regular basis I want
to call it Fitness but it wasn't even
that what I first started out when I
first started exercising regularly I was
210 pounds I was the most non-athletic
person you could ever meet and I just
hated moving I hated moving but more
than that I hated being overweight at
the age of 21 it is hard to be
overweight I can't speak to what it
feels like today because I think the
body positivity movement has
normalized different body types which I
think is great but when I was 21 years
old it was not in any way acceptable and
it wasn't the norm either so I was
completely ignored by men and the only
male attention I got was not the right
kind because I was just so desperate for
love
so I got to a point where I was just so
sick of being overweight and I remember
the day so clearly when I put on my
cheap pair of heads and I ran around the
block and gave myself hideous shin
splints but I got up the next day and I
did it again I had no idea what I was
doing I wasn't that consistent and I was
just making stuff up as I went along but
the more I started to see a little
glimmer of result the more excited I got
the more hyper focused I got and the
more hyper Focus I got the more
consistent I became my self-regulation
which is really usually one of my
weakest strengths became one of my top
strengths because I was motivated and I
kept taking messy action guys this is
long before the Advent of Google and
YouTube videos and any sort of Education
that you could get around working out or
eating right so I was just making things
up based on what I saw in magazines and
trial and error and the more I worked
out the more motivated I was to eat a
little bit better and a little bit
better and I want you to understand that
I never became like this
Fitness chick who was obsessed with the
gym I still don't like to work out to
this day but I do it every day because
I realized the magic that it provides my
brain so if you look at the Neuroscience
when you work out you send blood flow to
the brain when that happens you have
better access to your prefrontal cortex
which adhders don't always have that so
it's almost like it opens the door to
your executive functions where you make
better decisions you're less scattered
you're more organized and therefore you
do better in your relationships at work
in school so that's what started to
happen as I started working out as I
started losing weight yes I dropped 80
pounds and I started getting attention
from boys finally but that wasn't the
real win there that was the booby prize
the real win was that I changed my brain
chemistry and that changed my life all
of a sudden I went from somebody who was
wickedly in debt somebody who's a high
school dropout I was a bartender at the
time I would go out every night drinking
with my friends afterwards I lived in a
hideous like rental house with a bunch
of other bartenders and waiters and
waitresses it was a hot mess Express but
that one move to start moving my body
made the trajectory of improvements from
there so this gets to number two
and that is I started taking my sleep
seriously originally that motivation to
start taking my sleep more seriously was
really because I knew that when I slept
better I was able to convince myself to
work out because again guys this was not
easy for me but I knew when I was tired
on those days that I didn't sleep well I
was cranky I ate way too much sugar and
I didn't want to move my body so now I'm
working out regularly and I can see the
benefits both physically and mentally
even though I didn't know I had ADHD I
could just tell that I was doing better
at adulting and I saw that sleep
enhanced that so all of a sudden I'm now
working out on the regular and I'm
sleeping instead of going out partying
with my friends at night and I'm saving
money I'm eating better and I'm just
doing a better job at life in general
and sleeping better probably would never
have occurred to me had I not started
working out the third thing that
happened as a result of this now I'm
sleeping I'm working out and I'm doing
better at my job and I'm making more
money and I'm working more hours I'm not
spending a ton of money partying I have
a little bit more cash to burn what do I
do I get out of my hideous living
environment and I got myself my own
apartment this was huge again I have no
idea at this point that I have ADHD I'm
in my mid-20s and I'm just tired of
acting like a juvenile party animal and
I knew that I needed to have a place
where I could come home to that was a
Haven that I knew what to expect when I
was coming home rather than people
having their friends going through the
house at all hours of the night I also
grew up in a house with an alcoholic
father who was tyrannical and I never
knew what I was coming home to from one
day to the next so finally having a
space of my own set up in a way that
worked for me
completely changed my energy my sense of
security my sense of Peace I've always
been a highly anxious person but it
wasn't until I got my own apartment that
I was able to start managing it a little
bit better now I was still very
disorganized and was still taking messy
action along the way but I'm getting a
little bit better and I start to see the
benefits of having an environment that's
not full of papers and dirty dishes and
things like that because that added to
my anxiety so on the days when I took
the time to wash the dishes that were in
the sink or organize the papers and go
through them and decide what it is I
needed to do with them I started to
sense this real sense of relief I
started to have more agency over my life
so that was number three having an
environment that really nurtured me as
opposed to made my ADHD worse hey it's
future me coming in to make another
point on my new camera what do you think
I actually just wanted to share that my
environment didn't just help me in the
sense that I had my own place and I set
it up the way I wanted it to to this day
my environment is one of the things that
I lean on to feel calm and peaceful and
what that looks like today is a lot more
minimalistic and decluttered and I just
find that when my space is clear and
clutter free my brain also feels clear
and clutter free take that for what it's
worth I find for me that my external
environment is a reflection of my
internal environment and vice versa so
the more organized it is the better I
feel internally so just wanted to add
that little piece on with the rest this
is all happening in my mid-20s fast
forward to my late 30s I had just moved
to California from Toronto to start a
new job so I'm in a place where I know
nobody and everything's new and if you
have ADHD you know that transitions can
be really hard change can be really hard
so I'm in this new environment and that
in and of itself is a challenge
unfortunately I had these tools right
like I I was religious about my sleep I
worked out all the time I started
experimenting with different kinds of
movement I got into Triathlon at that
point and it was really helping me focus
on work focus on what was most important
in this new stage of life that I was in
and then life threw me another curveball
when my mom had been diagnosed with a
brain tumor before I left for California
went into remission the brain tumor came
back and about eight months later my
mother passed away
and that was a really tumultuous time
for me emotionally and then that moment
the worst of my ADHD could have showed
up but because I had these tools I was
able to really understand that I could
make better choices that could help me
cope with this stressful and just
painful time that I was going through so
instead of drinking more or eating more
or shopping my feelings away I picked up
yoga which I had done a little bit of it
and I knew enough to know that it made
me feel good because it was something
that I leaned into when I was going
through my divorce I was previously
married and when I was going through
that period when I was still in Toronto
and it was very stressful I just would
roll out my yoga mat in the living room
and I would do a little yoga routine and
by the end of the routine I would just
be bawling because I could see that it
was helping me release emotion so I
thought that was a really good thing at
the point in my life so my mom passed
away I leaned back into yoga okay and
that changed my life again some of you
may know if you've been around for a
while I ended up leaving my corporate
job and going to India to learn how to
teach yoga because I had just become
such a convert and how powerful yoga was
to help me manage my anxiety my nervous
system and my undiagnosed ADHD because
at this time I still didn't know I had
it so I went to India and I've continued
to practice yoga since that time right
now my practice is something that I look
at as part of my mental hygiene and it
helps me on the regular I meditate every
single day I use the insight timer app
it's free and it's brilliant and I do
yoga about two or three times a week so
now I've been working out regularly for
over 25 years and I dropped that 80
pounds and kept it off I've also
improved my diet I am sleeping like a
champ I'm now doing yoga and meditation
and at this point it's now 20 20 me and
we all know how that year went that was
the year where all of my good habits
went out the window because everything
went out the window that year right like
we all lost our habit and our structure
and our ability to cope because we
didn't know what was happening in the
world so at that point I really had a
meltdown and I knew something had to
change and I will thank chalene Johnson
shout out to her for sharing on her
podcast one day that she had recently
been diagnosed with ADHD and talking
about that experience and what it was
like and that was like a light bulb went
off for me because I was like holy cow
that is me and at that point I went
through the process of getting diagnosed
with ADHD I knew I had it so before I
even had the formal diagnosis in my hand
I had signed up for an ADHD coaching
course because I knew that was going to
be the next tool to put in my toolbox
and that is really where I learned the
power of the fifth way to manage your
ADHD naturally that is going to change
your life for the better and that is
creating systems and processes in your
life to automate crap out of everything
that you can this is why I do my weekly
monthly reviews this is why I'm obsessed
with notion this is why I love watching
planning videos and seeing how other
people do it this is why I love having
systems in my house for having my pills
by the coffee maker having all these
different systems and routines set up so
that I don't have to spend precious
cognitive energy figuring out how to do
those things myself in the moment having
systems customized systems that work for
you and your life and your preferences
is so important to running on Full Steam
towards your goals towards the life you
want towards a life that lights you up
and that if I were to give you a bonus
tip which is really something that I've
come into in the last year is finding
what lights you up learn what your
character's strengths are learn what
your interests and values are and really
dive into those and for me that's being
here on this channel talking about my
own personal experience with ADHD and
everything I've learned through my
coaching certification and just my
personal research and I continue to
learn because there is so much to learn
and that's why I'm so passionate about
showing up here and sharing my
experiences so on that note guys I hope
you found this helpful if you did please
drop a comment below hit like And
subscribe and all of those other
YouTubey things and thanks for being
here I love you guys I'll talk to you
soon take care
Ver Más Videos Relacionados
Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story | Jessica McCabe | TEDxBratislava
Co to jest ADHD? Najczęstsze mity!
Calm the Email Inbox Chaos: Digital Declutter Series Episode 5
ADHD: Clear Your Clouded Mind With This Mind Hack
Stubborn menopause weight? How I kickstarted my weight loss finally!
163cm/39kg|体型維持のためにしている5つのこと 🤚🏻🩵
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)