attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Posts Tagged: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

ADHD Traits — No Comments
26
Apr 12

Overcorrecting ADD Behavior

My office is a nightmare. The shelves are crammed with what was originally placed on the shelf, plus all of the things that were stuffed on to of those things. There are file folders on top of books, there are books on top of files, the lesser used printer has stuff that can’t be chanced with getting lost on one of those full shelves. Behind me, the floor is piled high with papers, file boxes, laptop bags (I seem to collect them), and plenty more stuff. The irony is that while I have never been a neat person, my office never used to get this bad. It is truly terrible now, thanks to me being diagnosed with ADD, but not for the reason you think.

Correcting ADHD Behavior

Many have noted that being diagnosed with ADHD can actually be liberating at first. There is a great sense of relief at knowing the name for what has been going on for all these years. Frankly, Attention Deficit Disorder isn’t really all that scary sounding. To me, that sounds way better than something like depression or even Seasonal Affected Disorder, with its unfortunate acronym telling you exactly how to feel about that one.

However, after a while, ADD becomes like any other chronic condition. You start to try and fix it, or manage it in some ways. There are often two components of ADD treatment. One is often ADHD medication, the other is behavior modification or therapy, usually in conjunction with a health professional or ADD coach. Either way, the self-aware ADDer will eventually become aware of at least some of the things that his or her ADD seems to propagate within their personality.

For me, the biggest problem I have in the entire world is procrastination. I have no doubt that I could have had success a hundred-fold above and beyond everything I have ever achieved in any arena in life if I could just stop procrastinating and get things done at even a semi-reasonable pace. Many ADDers report being unable to adequately focus and get going until a deadline looms. For me, the deadline must often pass, and the consequence be severe before I can get going. It is the one thing that I would gladly change about myself.

Knowing this, shortly after being told I have ADD I noticed myself organizing my office ahead of a huge, important project, with a very looming deadline. Like many ADDers, I had a reasonable excuse for this ADD trait kicking in. After all, I would be much more productive if everything were organized neatly and I could find what I was looking for right away.

The catch, of course, is that a full office organization of this kind can take hours, precious hours that should be spent on the task at hand. Organizing would have been helpful last week. Doing some of the 20 hours of work that are left before the deadline 12 hours away, would be much, much, more helpful. And so, I stopped.

Unfortunately, that was years ago and I haven’t really organized since. Every time I even think about organizing a list of important things to do floods my mind and I feel guilty for moving around even one scrap of paper, believing that what I am doing is procrastinating. Frankly, that is what I’m doing sometimes, but doing that occasionally would likely be better than getting to where the current state of my office is.

This is a sneaky ADD issue to avoid successfully. Often, in our attempts to better ourselves and “make up” for the various character trait of ADHD that cause us distress, we overreact. Shifting too far is often no better than staying where you were on the behavior spectrum. It can be difficult to see when you have overreacted, but there are some signs to look for.

Signs You Have Overcorrected for ADD

You set a hard and fast rule – Life isn’t static. Things change. Organizing isn’t always procrastinating. Sometimes it is good, even necessary. If you have a “never” or “always” lurking in your mind, you may have overcompensated.
The new situation is just as bad – Never cleaning leads to a state just as bad or worse than cleaning too often, or at the wrong times.
You feel bad about doing something – Adjusting to ADD is about understanding how your mind works and making tweaks to the things that you want to in order to achieve your own goals, which should be primarily about happiness. If you’ve set up a structure that makes you feel bad about doing something, then chances are you’ve overcorrected. Stop and think about what you actually feel bad about. Should you really feel bad about that? Feeling bad about cleaning or organizing is not what I wanted. I wanted to be sure that I was doing it for the right reason at the right time, but it progressed to just feeling wrong about doing it at all. If you feel bad about overeating or not exercising or yelling at a spouse, that makes sense. I’m fine with feeling bad about those things. But if it doesn’t seem right that you feel negatively about something, then it probably isn’t.

Have you overcorrected any of your ADD traits? What kinds of ADHD symptoms have you gone too far with?

ADHD News — No Comments
19
Feb 12

ADD ADHD What I Do Meme

For those of you who spend a lot of time on the internet (and let’s face it, a lot of us with ADD do), you may have seen something called the “What I Do” meme. It’s basically an image, usually two rows of three columns with pictures depicting things like, “What my mom thinks I do,” and “What society thinks I do,” finally ending with “What I really do.”

Here is an example of one I found for writers:

As you can see, the whole thing is a joke that pokes fun at both the perceptions of someone as well as actually poking fun at the person the meme is about. There are thousands of these things out there about just about any topic or profession you can think of. Ironically, a significant number of them show Moms thinking that the person in question hangs out getting drunk. I’m not sure what that says about many professions and hobbies, or what it says about mothers, but that is not our topic for the day.

Someone sent me a What I Do – ADD / ADHD one of these. Now, before anyone goes crazy about how attention deficit disorder and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is no laughing matter, let me remind you that

a) I have ADD

b) laughter is the best medicine

c) it’s a JOKE!

So without further ado, the What I Do ADD Joke Meme:

By the way, I think this could be funny without using the cliche of getting lost in the middle of doing something. ADD isn’t really always like that, of course. Still there is some comedy gold in ADD and ADHD if you are willing to remember that your life is not only as full and rich as everyone else’s, it can also be just as funny as well That being said, when I get some free time, I think I’ll punch out a few of these that are maybe just as funny, while being a bit more clever.

Do I “Wiki-Meet” Diagnostic Criteria for ADHD? (psychologytoday.com)

ADHD Traits — No Comments
6
Dec 11

ADD Blogging Writing with ADHD

I sat down nearly two hours ago to write a post for this oft neglected ADD blog. What happened? Well, not to put too fine a point on it: ADD.

Let me start by saying that I don’t “blame” my ADHD for things. That is neither productive, nor completely accurate. However, it is often the case that I look back and smile when I can see the ADD traits unfolding as I recall recent events.

Let’s start by clarifying what I mean by sitting down to write a post.

English: Symptoms of ADHD described by the lit... What I really mean is that I was looking at the analytics for my personal finance blog at FinanceGourmet when I noticed that the traffic had blipped back up here at Addessories. Curious, I got distracted (Hey, look! Something shiny) and started looking at what posts here were getting increased traffic. Eventually, I hit the big Addessories text at the top of the screen to get back to the home page where I noticed that is has been a very long time since I last wrote here. Doh!

Thus, I decided to write an ADD tips post for this ADHD blog.

To write the post, I entered the WordPress dashboard. So far, so good.

I noticed that a few of the plugins needed to be updated (Uh, oh.)

Of course, I don’t want out of date plugins, so I checked them all and clicked update. When they were finished updating, I should have gone right back to writing, but it seemed like one of my usual plugins was missing. Unable to determine which one, I went and logged into my freelance writing blog in order to look at what plugins where installed there.

If you don’t know how this ends, you must be new here.

Anyway, long story, short, I ended up installing a new plugin, writing a blog post about it (Zemanta WordPress Plugin for Online Writers) at the writing blog and then found about a dozen other things to do including checking Facebook, looking to see when the Broncos play this weekend and checking my Google AdSense earnings.

If it makes anyone feel better, that graphic came from the Zemanta plugin, so it was worth installing

At this point in time, it is well after 10:00 p.m. and I have numerous things I must do before going to bed, some of which have been urgent for an hour or more, including getting a drink, and ironically, going to the bathroom.

What is the point of all this?

Nothing, other than further proof that I am definitely one of us. Oh, and, now I don’t feel so bad about not actually writing that update even though this one isn’t really too much of an update.

Don’t worry, I’ll be back tomorrow (or the next day). Procrastination is the enemy of all, but especially those of us with the inattentive form of ADD.

See you later.

ADHD Research Studies — 1 Comment
4
Oct 10

ADD Defective Genes?

A recent study (and you know how you should NEVER read too much into that) suggests that there MAY be a genetic basis for attention deficit disorder.

British researchers compared the genomes of 366 white British children with ADHD to 1,000 similar children without ADD. The idea is that if there are enough consistent differences among the children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder versus those who do not have ADD, then there is a chance that those genetic differences are either the cause of ADD or are indicators of a higher probability of developing ADHD.

Remember that genetic has proven to be incredibly complicated and even the simplest things like what color your eyes are turn out to be influenced by multiple genes in various locations. These genes often interact with other genes in order to actually affect the development of a human being.

In other words, you might not be able to have blond hair without a certain gene, but just because you have it, does not mean that you will get blond hair. It may depend on whether or not you have other genes and whether or not those genes are influenced by even more genes.

That being said, researchers determined that the “normal” population of children had “deleted or doubled chromosomes” 7 percent of the time, while in the children with ADD population, they detected the same thing 14 percent of the time. Additionally, researchers determined that children with learning disabilities had the same anomaly 36 percent of the time, although it does not say how many of those kids came from which set.

Obviously, this study in now way “proves” anything, although the numbers are certainly disparate enough that scientists will be looking at this line of thinking in future research studies.

Until then, this is just another of many possibilities, although it does make at least some sense considering that the prevailing wisdom current suggests that ADHD is inherited or at least influenced by heredity. In order for that to be the case, there would eventually need to be a biological or genetic determiner.

ADHD Traits — No Comments
27
Aug 10

Toughest Thing About ADD

The hardest part about ADHD in adults and ADD in kids is that no matter whether you take standard prescription drugs from a doctor, or work out your own drug-free alternative ADD treatment, nothing helps you focus on the RIGHT things.

That is, while Adderall may help you focus, there is nothing in it or Ritalin or Vyvanse that will make you focus on schoolwork or on that critical project due for work. They can help keep you focused and help you get distracted less often, but in the end, you have to make yourself focus on the right thing FIRST, and THEN the meds will help keep your focus in place. But, if you don’t get your focus on the subject you need to focus on, then all they do is help stop you from being distracted from something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

Who wants to guess what my top ADD issue is this morning?

Hope your day is more focused and productive than mine has been so far.

– ADDer

ADHD Traits — No Comments
1
Jul 10

What Is Attention Deficit Disorder Like

Understanding attention deficit disorder, or ADD, requires getting past the pop culture version of ADHD, also called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and looking at what attention deficit disorder is really like.

First off, you need a basic understanding of the symptoms of attention deficit disorder. Once you have a basic grasp on the generalized symptoms of ADHD, you need to be aware that there are actually three forms of ADD all of which can be present in both adults and in children. After that, you will want to understand both the conventional ADD treatments of therapy, coaching, and prescription medications, as well as the bombardment of new, maybe works, kind of sort-of backed up by scientific data, alternative treatments for ADHD.

Of course, all of that only gives you a basic concept of what the condition is like in some prototype population like attention deficit disorder child or adult adhd labeled groups. None of that gives anyone a real grasp of what it is actually like to have ADD as an adult or as a teen or child. That is why from time to time I like to profile here on Addessories real life events or stories of an adult with ADHD. (It’s me.)

Deadline Today’s life with ADD episode comes courtesy of my small home office where I conduct my freelance writing business as a work from home dad. For the past three or four hours there has been a small empty plate on my desk. It comes and goes from my consciousness as I fling my fingers across the keyboard generating text that will hopefully pay the mortgage and more this month. When it arrives in my consciousness, or what I like to call “my front brain,” it annoys me a little bit because I can’t remember how it got there or what was on it. Also, I have had a terrible headache for the past 90 minutes because I’ve been thinking, “I need to go get something to drink,” for somewhere around 70 minutes, but I keep remembering in the middle of writing something and I know that if I stop, it might take me a while to get started again, or more likely, I might not be able to quite remember where I was going with my thoughts and I’ll have to start over altogether.

In a lot of ways this is nothing more than so much whining, except that none of this is uncommon.

When someone calls on the phone or a family member pops by my home office, they almost always have to wait for me to go to the restroom before they can talk to me. You see, while I am working my brain does scatter about distractedly from here to there, but one of the “theres” never seems to be my bodily functions. Rather, my mind wonders if I finished that article I started this morning, if there are better keywords than the ones I am using, and it can’t help but wonder what the plate is doing on my desk.

As it turns out, my wife brought me a sandwich and strawberries for lunch on that plate. Ah, that’s what it was.

Which brings us to today’s lesson in ADHD. People with ADHD are not forgetful, per se. While I struggled to come up with an idea of what the plate was doing on my desk that was less a function of being unable to remember and more a function of being unable to command some of the sections of my brain to stop doing whatever it was they are already doing and focus on the issue of the plate. Once the image of the strawberries popped back into my front brain (one of those brain centers apparently got around to processing some of the things in its queue, like what about the plate) I could remember everything about it.

I remember her appearing at my side with the plate. I remember that she had one too. I remember how good the strawberries were and what kind of sandwich it was. I also remember why I put the plate on my desk. (I wanted to remember to take it upstairs and not leave it on a shelf in my office.)

The point of all this noise is that the symptoms of ADD are not necessarily comical stereotypes of forgetful space cadets, but rather the manifestation of what happens when, in some cases (not all the time), one cannot calm the brain down enough to get it to do the front brain’s bidding and instead, the rest of the brain (the back brain, if you will) continues on with what it already had determined — often at the front brain’s command — what was currently important and that new requests would simply have to wait.

In other words, this isn’t the absent minded professor. ADHD is the command center switchboard with too many urgent requests coming in from the field. The good news is that if you can wait around a minute, your call will be answered in the order it was received.

ADD Organization Tips / ADD Tools / ADHD-ADD Tips — No Comments
2
Jun 10

ADHD Time Management Tips Microsoft Outlook

When it comes to managing the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD or ADD, nothing is quite as frustrating as doing everything right and putting the effort into using all of the organizational tools, electronic organizers, and ADHD planners available to you only to have them not work for your ADD mind for some reason.

One of the most useful computer tools for ADHD available in most office environments without having to go through the trouble of getting new software or utilities installed on your work computer is Microsoft Outlook. Using Outlook can be one of the good ADHD tips.

In some way, MS Outlook is an ADDer’s worst nightmare. There are so many buttons, icons, and features, not to mention tons of functionality from other programs just a few clicks away, that one can easily get distracted and end up spending 45 minutes configuring your Google Gmail email account to synchronize with your Microsoft Outlook email client when you should be working on that presentation that is due in two hours.

On the other hand, all of those planners, calendars, task managers, and to-do lists can be wonderful for the adult with ADHD when used properly. In order to make these computerized organization tools work for ADHD you have to know how to get the most out of each of the different settings and functions. For example, tasks are great, but if you never click the tasks section, you will never see the list. Furthermore, if you don’t always input your tasks on the task list, then important tasks will slip by unnoticed.

I’ll be covering some of the great ways to use Outlook to organize your schedule and tasks more efficiently for ADD people. However, for today, I just wanted to convey one very important ADHD trick for people who use Outlook to help them stay organized.

Use Outlook Pop-Up Reminders To Improve ADHD Scheduling

The number one problem with any planner, calendar, or organizer used by adults with ADHD, or teens or kids with ADD for that matter, is remembering to actually use it and look at it. Too many of us have written everything down somewhere only to forget to ever look at what we wrote down. The reminder feature of MS Outlook helps prevent this problem.

By setting a reminder on your scheduled events, you get a right in your face, can’t ignore it, pop-up when your event is coming up. The default reminder goes off 15 minutes before the event starts. You ADDers already know where this is going. You read the reminder, and that is good. Then you click the Dismiss button and go back to what you were doing for “just a few more minutes.” Next thing you know, you are twenty minutes late for that meeting that you just got the reminder for.

To avoid this problem, don’t click dismiss. Click Snooze. That way, the reminder will come up again in five minutes. Do this even if you are planning to start the new even right away. There is no harm in a reminder window popping up and staying open on your computer screen while you are away working on your new task. You can just click Dismiss when you return. On the other hand, there can be a lot of harm if what you meant to happen when you clicked the Dismiss button didn’t actually end up happening as is so often the case.

Try it. Spend a week clicking Snooze and not clicking Dismiss until it pops back up and interrupts you working on your new task. You’ll be surprised at just how much this improves your time organization.

ADD Organization Tips / ADHD-ADD Tips — No Comments
27
May 10

ADHD Organization Tips From Freelancers

MC900434929[1] I’m not really sure if I have ever mentioned it here or not, but I’m a freelance writer. I specialize in several different areas (sort of a oxymoron, I know) including being a freelance financial writer and freelance technology writer. One of the websites I read from time to time is called Freelance Switch. Originally, I believe, it was conceived as a website to help people make the switch from regular day jobs to becoming full-time freelancers. Over time, it has morphed into more of a generalized resource for various freelance entrepreneurs, especially those work at home small business owners. It isn’t focused on freelance writers, per se. In fact, I feel like its focus is more on designers and developers, but much of what is good for freelance design work is also good for freelance writing business, so I try and drop by the site or catch up on the latest freelancing tips via the RSS Feed. Incidentally, if anyone is interested, you can “follow” my shared Google Reader items if you like. Be aware that they are both very self-serving (I share all of my own posts) and not at all targeted to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADD in any way.

I bring the subject up because time management and organization skills for ADHD are often just more intense or specialized advice that comes from standard organization tips and best practices. In particular, the crazy, hectic, self-managed, be-your-own-boss, lifestyle that is being a freelancer requires high-power time management techniques and organizational tricks to keep up on the many tasks that a small business owner must do to be successful.

A recent posting brought up the concept of a not-do list. The not-do list is a powerful companion to the more ubiquitous to-do list.

Not-Do List ADHD Trick Advice

Here’s how it works.

In addition to your usual ADHD trick of maintaining a calendar, adhd planner or organizer with your important to-do list, you also keep a list of things to not be doing.

Now, this isn’t what you might think. A Not-Do list is not for those abstract ADHD traits that you want to manage by avoiding them. For example, do not procrastinate, might be a worthwhile goal, but it is not what goes on the organizing Not-Do list. Rather, the not do list is for items that have been deliberately and rationally dropped from your to-do list for whatever reason.

Generally, the end result of prioritizing your tasks is that some lower-priority items, or tasks with future due dates, are either dropped from your to-do list, or moved to the bottom of the list. One really good organizational tip when it comes to time management is to keep shorter-term to-do lists because they are more manageable. For example, if it is May and you need to register for classes in July, but the schedule isn’t released until June, that to-do item is just cluttering up your list for a month or more. If there is one thing people who are easily distracted do not need, it is extra clutter to focus on.

Which leads back to the not-do list. Unlike the to-do list, which you should look at to help determine what you should work on next, the not-do list is a reminder of the tasks that might draw your attention away from the more important tasks and pressing needs currently at hand, like writing posts for your ADHD blog. (Ahem!)

It’s an age old story among the world of ADDers about people with ADD going off and suddenly doing long-standing projects with laser focus for a period of hours when what they should really be doing is filling out those forms that have to be delivered in one hour. In other words, the not-do list is used to remind yourself of those important, but not pressing needs that might be particularly distracting for that day or week.

Try putting that necessary, but long-term project on your not-do list for this week as a way of maintain focus on those things that must be accomplished this week instead.

Let me know how it works out for you. I’ll be trying it myself.

ADHD Research Studies — No Comments
11
May 10

Latest ADHD Research News Updates

A couple of interesting updates in the world of attention deficit disorder research. Of course, ADD is technically known by its formal medical name of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but people like to use both terms.

The first ADHD study comes from Spanish researchers who scanned the brains of 42 children with ADHD and 42 children without ADHD (the control group). Their results were that kids with ADHD had a smaller ventral striatum, particularly on the right side. If you are wondering, the ventral striatum includes the nucleus accumbens. That still isn’t helping, I’m sure. As it turns out the nucleus accumbens maintain a person’s level of motivation when they start a task and continues to maintain that motivation until the task is completed.

That seems to be a pretty precise understanding of brain function and anatomy, but if accurate, makes some sense. This study also gives additional weight to a hypothesis about the cause of ADHD and origin of ADD symptoms that says that attention deficit disorders are primarily caused by different brain structures or functions that impede the usual motivation and reward pathways.

This is obviously a very small study. No major conclusions can be drawn from the data presented as to ADHD’s cause or treatment of ADD symptoms. However, these small initial research studies like this one are an important step in both gaining enough scientific and medical credibility for the hypothesis that further research will be green-lighted by both government agencies and educational institutions and research facilities. They also play an important role in obtaining funding for larger research studies.

ADHD research like this recent study build the groundwork for the case that this isn’t just some wild guess about how ADD works and where ADHD comes from, but rather a sound hypothesis grounded in hard data that requires further testing. Put together with other ADD research recently that have come to similar preliminary conclusions, and this may just be the next major research path into the cause of ADHD in children and adults.

As always, great ADHD tips are available here, as well as ADD organizational tools and the elusive ADHD planner.

ADD Medication / ADHD-ADD Tips — No Comments
3
May 10

How To Take St. John's Wort For Depression With ADHD and ADD

Taking St. John’s Wort to treat mild depression that occurs with ADHD might be a helpful way to control symptoms that don’t respond as well as you would like to traditional attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medicines and therapies. As always, discuss all of your symptoms with your doctor or medical professional whether they are symptoms of attention deficit disorder or otherwise.

This posting is continued from Use St. Johns Worth For Depression with ADHD ADD

It should go without saying, but here it is anyway.

I am not a doctor. Nothing in this article or on this website should be considered medical advice. All information including dosages, medications, timing, and recommendations and warnings are for general knowledge only and is not medical advice. Consult with a physician before starting any treatment. Drug interactions can be dangerous or unpleasant. Consult a pharmacist or physician about taking any medicine, herbal remedy, or supplement.

Before anyone jumps on the, Let’s Try St John Wort to treat possible depression with attention deficit disorder Bandwagon, here are some facts you need to know.

How To Use St. John’s Wort

Not all herbal medicines, natural remedies, vitamins, supplements, and pills are created equal. Time and time again, studies or investigative journalism has shown that LOTS of over the counter medicines don’t have what they say they have in them. Just because it says it on the label doesn’t make it true. My ADHD trick for getting real alternative ADD treatments in a bottle is to always buy from a company that has something to lose. That is, buy your St. John’s Wort from a respected brand that has more to lose from the bad publicity about selling a crappy product than they have to gain from cutting corners. The easiest way to use this ADHD tip is to buy your stuff at Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage or the like. These companies build their entire business model around being “better” and “more trustworthy.” That means the suppliers know that they are out, if bad publicity threatens to drag down their brand name. If you don’t want to go that route, then buy from a well-known and respected supplement brand.
St John’s Wort can be what my gal once termed, “buzzy.” That means that it can make your mind seem a little buzzed. Not in an intoxicated way, and not in a racing way, but in a crackling, seems like I can feel the electricity firing in my neurons, sort of way. What that all means is that it can make it very hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. So, start by taking your St Johns Wort in the mornings, not in the evenings until you have an idea of how it affects you.
Like all depression medications, and unlike most ADHD drugs, St. John’s Wort is not an instant effect medicine. It must build up in your body, or more specifically in your brain, before it has any effect. That means you need to take it for six weeks or so before deciding if it does or does not work. It may start working sooner. However, if if seems to be working on Day 2, that just be a good day or a placebo effect. More importantly, it might be that something else is working, so don’t just attribute it to the St. Johns Wort. Instead, look around and evaluate what you are doing that is different, maybe there is something else going on that helps with your inattention or other ADD symptoms and you need to know what that is. (I have one ADD friend who is always more focused after a night of drinking, but after the hangover ends. There isn’t much you can do with that alternative ADD treatment-wise, but at least you know not to judge the effectiveness of other things on that kind of day.)
Finally, get the dosage right. Remember how I said not all pills are created equal? That goes double in the supplement world of alternative herbal therapies, because there is no regulations telling manufacturers or customers what SHOULD be in the bottle. Contrast this to multivitamins where the label has to say what percentage a vitamin is of the government established recommended daily allowance. That way you know if your vitamin has the right amount of Vitamin B, for example.
The right dosage for adults using St. John’s Wort for the treatment of minor depression is 300mg with 0.3% hypericins taken three times a day. Note that to get a full dosage like this without encroaching on bedtime, you’ll need to use a schedule like first thing in the morning, after breakfast, and after lunch, or something similar. Furthermore, note that you need BOTH of those numbers to be on the label. A cheapo way of making St. John’s Wort is to just throw a bunch of it in a vat regardless of quality and then make 300mg pills. The 0.3% hypercins means that the right amount of actual medicinal quality stuff is in there.
Don’t just get Hypercin extract or hyperphorin, or whatever. All the best studies test the WHOLE St. John’s Wort herb, not just extracts of it. Some research suggests that while the compound called hyperforin within St. Johns Wort might be the main cause of improvement for mild depression treatment, there is also research suggesting that some of the other components inside of the herb might be important as well. If you are getting 0.3% hypercins, then you are getting all of the hyperforin already, so you might as well get the other stuff.
Lastly, St. John’s Wort can interfere with other prescription drugs and medications so research the heck out of what you are taking before you start up. If you are already taking anti-depressants the DO NOT start taking St John Wort too. That is a recipe for big trouble. Also, it seems that almost everything in the world interferes with heart medications, so specifically check with your doctor first if you are taking any heart medicine. I don’t have to tell you which is more important of the two if you want to stay alive.

That should about do it. If you want to verify (PLEASE DO) the research and medical information I have jotted down here quickly, and without any editing, start with the U.S. Nation Library of Medicine from the National Institutes of Health at PubMed.gov. Here is a link to get you started. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12543057

Yes, there is a lot of medical and scientific terminology in there, but don’t wimp out. Keep reading and you will get the gist of what is going on even if you don’t know what molarity is. The last sentence or two of the abstract is usually a conclusion, so at the very least read that. Also, always note the date of the research. It is often the case that the first study has very positive results because the first research is usually don’t as a proof of concept that more research is worthwhile. Even though the results are often reported in a splashy manner, these experiments are done on the cheap with limited controls and small groups of test subjects. Later research is typically more reliable, and when it comes to the brain, stuff from before 1980 is the mental equivalent of using leaches, so forget about research from the 1970s and before that has not been followed up significantly.

Have you tried using St. John’s Wort or other herbal medicines as alternative therapy for your ADHD or co-morbid conditions like depression? What has your experience (good or bad) been?

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Posts Tagged: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Overcorrecting ADD Behavior