Exercise as Essential ADHD Treatment: Building Movement Into Your Daily Routine

Exercise is a crucial component of ADHD treatment that helps improve attention, focus, and overall cognitive function. All coaching clients report feeling better with regular movement, yet it's often the first healthy habit abandoned when life gets disrupted.

• The best exercise is the one you'll actually do, for as long as you feel like doing it
• Any movement is better than no movement
• Walking and running are excellent no-cost, no-equipment options that can be done spontaneously
• Aerobic activity improves attention and focus for 60-90 minutes afterward
• Outdoor exercise provides additional mood-boosting benefits
• Morning sunshine combined with movement improves sleep quality
• Building exercise into your routine through small daily activities adds cumulative benefits
• Having accountability through pre-paid classes, leagues, or exercise buddies increases consistency
• Technical movements like martial arts, dancing, and sports engage more areas of the brain
• Regular physical activity reduces impulsivity, anxiety, and helps close the longevity gap between people with and without ADHD

Thank you for listening to Thoroughly ADHD. I hope you found this useful and that you'll like, follow, and come listen again next time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Exercise for ADHD Treatment
• 0:45 Best Types of Exercise
• 1:21 Building Exercise Into Your Routine
• 3:14 Brain Benefits of Regular Movement
• 4:41 Exercise for ADHD Symptom Management

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Exercise is a crucial aspect of ADHD treatment and the best practice is to build some kind of movement into your daily routine. All my coaching clients report feeling better when they exercise. But besides skimping on sleep, it is the first thing to be dropped as soon as they get busy or don't feel well or go on vacation or really have any kind of disruption at all. For this reason, I recommend writing exercise in the calendar along with your other important appointments. I'm Alex Delmar, a certified ADHD coach and person with ADHD. I'm here to help other people with ADHD enjoy better lives. Maybe you're listening today because you're wondering what type of exercise is best. The short answer is the one that you'll do, and if you're wondering how long you should do it for, the answer is for as long as you feel like it. Any action you take is better than nothing. I'm partial to walking and running because I can do it on the spur of the moment, any time of day, at no cost and without any special equipment. If you have a bicycle, that can also be good for spur of the moment. And oh my gosh, do you remember how much fun it was to be a kid on a bike ride, coasting along wind in your face, sense of freedom. And now, with technology, you can participate in a cycling club without ever leaving home. Anyway, if you're wondering why you should exercise, aerobic activity in particular has been shown to help with attention and focus, and that effect should last for about 60 to 90 minutes. If you're able to get outdoors, that will increase the mood-boosting effects, and if you can do it in the morning sunshine, the benefits that exercise will have on your sleep will be magnified. Whatever you can do to build exercise into your routine, the better. Take the stairs after lunch, keep some resistance bands under your desk for a mid-afternoon exercise snack and practice a little yoga in the evening to release the stress from the day. In addition to choosing activities you actually enjoy, you may be more likely to follow through if you pay for a series of classes in advance, if you join a league or even just have an exercise buddy who is counting on you to show up. This person might be a friend, a family member, even a neighbor.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Do whatever you can to up the fun factor. Wear an outfit that makes you smile, or add music, or increase the challenge if that's what's appealing to you. Every day you skip your exercise. You have to work the problem and ask yourself what got in the way. Come up with a potential solution and try again the next day and the next, and the next and the next, until you find something that works for you. If you had a successful routine but now you're struggling because you're bored with it, try something new and quick before you drop out entirely.

Speaker 1: 3:14

More areas of your brain will be engaged if you participate in activities that involve technical movements. This includes things like martial arts, swimming, choreographed dancing and basically every sport I find terrifying Rock climbing, mountain biking, whitewater rafting. Obviously, if you're going to indulge in one of these pulse-pounding activities, please wear a helmet. There's a ton of research that shows there are other reasons to make the effort to participate in regular physical activity, aka chronic exercise, including that it can help reduce impulsivity, reduce anxiety, promote a sense of well-being, improve memory, increase brain plasticity, promote a sense of control over your own treatment and may even blunt that hair trigger response and overreaction to new stimulus common to ADHD brains. Count me in for anything that helps me not jump out of my skin 15 times a day. As I've mentioned before, exercise is one of the cornerstones of ADHD symptom management, but it will also improve your general cognitive function and your general health. Remember, we're also working on closing that longevity gap between those of us with ADHD and those without, so get moving.

Speaker 1: 4:41

This has been Thoroughly ADHD. I'm Alex Delmar and I know your time is valuable, so I hope you found this useful and that you'll like follow and come listen again next time. Thank you.