The Neuroanatomy of ADHD and thus how to treat ADHD - CADDAC - Dr Russel Barkley part 3ALL

Have you watched Dr. Russell Barkleys series? ▶ this video . I have actually done professional research into executive function and working memory--not a PhD but have one masters and nearly through another. His explanation lines up with the physiological psychology that I have learned.

I was diagnosed with somewhat severe ADHD, hyperactive and attention subtype. I have few tips to share: 1. Find your medication. After I found mine with the correct dosage, my life improved ten fold. Our dopamine system is wired differently and medication is the basis of treatment to cope with it. 2. Externalize everything: thoughts, events, planning, even your life’s values if you feel like it. Write it all down and build the discipline to keep those updated. Use todo-lists for everything. The poor executive functions we experience can be compensated by externalizing everything, so always organize your thoughts in a notepad. I use NotePlan mac/iOS app and highly recommend to check it out. 3. A lesser commonly known part of being ADHD is that it can also cause emotional unbalance. We can get overwhelmed, overexcited and overanxious easily. Keep awareness of your emotions. Again, write them down. 4. SLOW DOWN. Especially if you are also hyperactive. Try to think and react more slowly to the world around you. Give time for things to sink in your head before taking action. 5. Last but not least: be kind to yourself. You can’t always do everything perfectly. Mistakes are going to happen and that’s normal for everyone. Focus on improving yourself a little everyday and enjoy the present. If you haven’t seen this video yet, it explains better and in much more detail: ▶ this video

ADHD teens tend to be rather oppositional. Personally, I always had a really hard time accepting unsolicited advice from anybody and that includes loved ones. The best thing somebody with ADHD can do is externalize everything they want/need to remember. Preferably in something centralized and always accessible like a notebook or planner app. Then make it a routine to read through and take care of the stuff in it daily. ▶ this video Watching that video helped me put my behaviors in perspective and really understand how my brain works. He even says in the video that “chaining a notebook to yourself” is the best thing you can do if you have ADHD. If your son believes that he has ADHD that video, or others like it, might help him understand what that means and he’ll probably start to draw the correct conclusions. I wish you and your son nothing but the best. Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD was both the best and worst experience of my life. The highs are high and lows are so unfortunately low.

I have a hypothesis that this condition and ADHD are related. ADHD researcher Dr Russell Barkley links Vygotsky’s theories of childhood development to the mechanism by which ADHD interferes with executive function [0]. An ADHD brain would be less capable of imagining things and holding those images, which would lead to failure in development of self-directed action via those imagined images. Is this ”aphantasia”? I’m not sure, but I find it plausible. The prevalence for ADHD has been cited at 5% in children and half of that in adults. A commenter here says aphantasia has been guessed to be at 1-3% [1], which would be a rough match. Another commenter describes their ADHD and aphantasia [2], and I am under the impression this has been reported often. If there was a causal relation I would expect to see these kinds of overlaps in the data, but it’s really the researcher’s description of a failure of imagination that makes this hypothesis especially interesting to me. What do you think? Has anyone looked into this? [0]: ▶ this video [1]: link [2]: link