I missed this when it came out b/c I was at the Grand Canyon, but this is a topic that I've been looking at quite a lot lately. Interesting that there are no answers for what to do naturally for AD/HD, yet every time it gets mentioned on here, someone will chime in about how you should avoid meds, but not one of those chimers can tell you what you should do naturally.
Sorry being a grouch b/c I can't sleep right now, but I'll tell what I've discovered.
I just finished reading a book called
The Ultramind Solution, which talks about nutritional solutions for many of the problems that plague the brain, including ADHD. Much of what I say here is from his book, but I've been doing a lot of internet searching as well. One thing he recommends and that I haven't tried yet, but am getting geared up to do is to try the elimination diet. Basically you take out the two biggest culprits that cause people problems and that is gluten and dairy. A link to the diet:
ADHD Diet Plan : Eating Program for Your ADD ADHD Child | ADD ADHD Information Library
This is a commercial site but they offer natural solutions and it's worth a look at the rest of the site as well. The reason the diet is recommended is b/c most sufferers of ADHD have allergies and gut problems as well--that certainly is true of me and I suspect gluten is a problem though I hope it's not--I love good homemade bread. The good news is that if you stay off the offending food and heal your gut, you can add the offending foods back in slowly. Good nutrients for healing the gut are probiotics, inulin fiber, and glutamine taken on an empty stomach. Even if you don't do the elimination diet, it's very helpful to avoid sugary foods and artificial sweeteners. People with ADHD tend to crave sugary foods and that's true of me, but you have to resist if you want to have a brain.
The supplements that I've found most useful are tyrosine, taken first thing in the am on an empty stomach, vitamin B, fish oil, and green tea. Just don't drink that green tea too late in the day as I did today! Tyrosine will help build up the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is in short supply with ADHD. This will also help with depression issues. Keeping my vitamin D levels up has helped immensely with allergies and thus kept my brain clearer. Ca/Mg/Zinc is also a supplement that I take and those with ADHD tend to be low on Mg, and Ca and Zinc also help the brain. Oh, I tend towards anemia and have to take iron and when I get low I get stupid. Another thing you should know is that studies have not backed up the claims for gingko. Yet. I have noticed very good results with ginseng but don't really take it right now.
I have gotten aware of inflammation lately and that was also mentioned in the book. If you have inflammation then it can really affect your brain and your overall health in a very negative way. Turmeric is the spice that is most helpful for keeping it down and I read that even if you only consume it rarely it's still helpful. I love indian food and I've been trying to cook more Asian foods to prep for my elimination diet, since Asian foods are naturally low in gluten and dairy. This is supposed to also help to prevent cancer, heart disease, and alzheimer's.
As for the anxiety, I've found that alleviating the symptoms of ADHD can help with that quite a lot. I've noticed that much of my own anxiety is due to worrying about what I've left undone, worrying about the folks I've let down due to my procrastination, and not being able to find work that matches my education level.
I'm rambling so I'll boil it down:
1. Eat clean and green and lower carb, with sugar down as low as you can get it and still wish to live. Shoot for 35 gms of fiber per day and eat as many veggies as you can stuff in.
2. Get all your vitamins by taking a daily multi plus added B, D, Ca/Mg/Zinc, fish oil and probiotics plus some antioxidants. I switch these around and will take coQ10 for a few weeks and ALA for a few more. Too expensive to take them all, all the time.
3. When you get strong, try the elimination diet for 6 weeks and see how you do. I'm still getting psyched up for this and I'll check in later and let you all know how it went. If you have depression, autism, or alzheimer's it would also be worth a try.
4. While doing the elimination diet, heal the gut by taking glutamine first thing in the am and really high quality probiotics during the day whenever you get hungry. I like the Garden of Life ones with HSO's.
5. Coffee and green tea are fine and beneficial for those with ADHD but don't overdo them or the anxiety level will shoot up.
6. Try the tyrosine--it works almost as well as adderall for me, or in my case as a booster since I still take adderall.
7. Use turmeric to keep down inflammation--you can get it in pill form or you can learn to cook healthy foods with it.
Anyway, I've not completed my own program yet so can't say yet whether I'll be able to get off meds, but I know that I'm thinking more clearly already, even w/o the elimination phase completed. Everything else I've done and all seem to help. The clearest I ever got w/o meds was during the Atkins diet and I wonder if that's b/c I wasn't getting gluten. We'll see. This is all a distillation of all of the reading I've done for the past few weeks though so take it for what it's worth. The fact is that we just can't eat like everyone else does, but maybe that's a good thing.
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