Make The Most Of Your Brain: Sleep, Diet & Exercise

All right,

Let's talk about make the most of your brain,

Sleep,

Diet,

And exercise.

These are the three things I kind of pester clients a lot about.

So I kind of used this line before,

You know,

By the time you feel it,

It's too late.

I use this line in one of the first videos talking about ADHD makes it harder to feel the future.

And I kind of use it as,

You know,

This is a slogan of ADHD time management.

But,

You know,

Really,

It's kind of the slogan of bad habits or it's the problem with bad habits.

It's true for all people,

But it's especially more true for some people.

Are people who have ADHD.

You know,

It's sort of like,

I don't know,

If you're eating a bunch of French fries and they're pretty awesome,

You're like,

Oh man,

These are great.

By the time you're like,

Oh God,

I feel like barfing.

It's kind of too late,

Right?

Because they're already in you.

By the time you stayed up too late and then there's not enough time to get a good night of sleep and then tomorrow is like dragging through work.

Kind of too late,

Right?

Like in a lot of ways,

Especially with health habits,

Like feeling the consequence is too late,

Right?

We really kind of should have done something before now.

So let's talk then about how ADHD impacts sleep,

Diet,

And exercise.

And let's talk about more importantly,

Like what do you do about it?

So you sort of make the most of what you got in terms of how you feel and how you function.

So some sleep strategies then.

The first is,

I know this is boring.

Nobody actually wants to do this,

But like seriously,

It's good.

Make a commitment to value sleep.

Right,

To sort of recognize sleep is important.

I can get away with it.

I can sort of do okay.

I mean,

I guess it's not that bad.

It is that bad,

Right?

Really,

Really make a commitment and say,

Sleep is important,

Even though it's boring and annoying,

Have to stop doing the things that I want to do.

I got to make a point of getting more sleep,

Right?

And to really remind yourself of what are the benefits,

How are you going to feel tomorrow in terms of work and getting stuff done and being productive?

How are you going to feel in terms of like,

I don't know,

Interacting with people,

Whether it's coworkers during the day,

Whether it's your family or loved ones or your friends in the evening,

You know,

To really sort of remind yourself of what the benefits are for saying,

Okay,

Fine.

I guess I have to get into bed right now.

So create that bedtime and then actually honor it,

Right?

So to really think about what a good bedtime is for you based on when you have to wake up,

Based on how well you sleep,

Based on how many hours of sleep you need.

This is the advice everybody hates,

But,

You know,

Avoid shifting your sleep cycle on the weekend,

Right?

That if you sleep in two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six hours on the weekend,

You're basically like massively jet lagging yourself.

And maybe it's fine for Saturday and maybe it's fine for Sunday,

But it is not fine for Sunday night and Monday morning,

Right?

So like really avoid that temptation,

Even though it's really easy to give into it.

For folks with ADHD,

One of the reasons why they have trouble getting enough sleep is that they're doing at night things that ideally they could have done or should have done earlier in the day or earlier in the evening,

Right?

It's that like pressure of the deadline kind of kicks you into gear.

And sometimes the deadline is,

Oh my God,

It's midnight.

I really need to get this done before I go to sleep.

So whatever it is that's going to help you get stuff done earlier might benefit your sleep.

So all the other stuff we're going to talk about in the rest of the videos,

Hopefully one of the side benefits is that you're getting more sleep and better sleep.

Now,

Another benefit of getting into bed earlier is you might be getting into bed with your partner and who knows what other kind of fun things come from that.

But,

You know,

If you're someone who tends to sort of like lose track of time in the evening,

Especially when like things are quiet,

Nobody's coming at you and you can do the things that you want to do.

Getting into bed when your partner gets into bed,

If they're actually getting into bed at a reasonable time.

But if you get into bed together,

It's more likely to work out well.

If you have trouble quieting your mind,

Calming down,

Not thinking,

Just sort of like drifting into sleep,

Then,

You know,

Finding some sort of relaxation or mindfulness audio or,

You know,

Some sort of it could be like a guided meditation.

It could be like crashing waves.

It could be some relaxing music or some like calm,

Soothing story.

You know,

There's all sorts of apps like mindfulness apps out there,

All sorts of stuff that's free,

Whatever.

Whatever it is that's going to help you get enough sleep is probably worth the cost that you're paying for it.

And then finally,

I know everybody loves melatonin these days,

But here's the deal.

Melatonin really doesn't work that well,

And it will not help you atone for your sins in other ways.

In other words,

If you have a bunch of terrible sleep habits,

Throwing down melatonin at night is not going to be the solution to all of the problems that you've created.

Over rely on melatonin when it's really not going to do what you're hoping it's going to do there.

Let's talk about exercise for a minute.

The thing about exercise is it's good not just for your body in terms of the obvious ways of like cardiac health and whatever,

But it's good for our mood in terms of like anxiety and depression and how we feel.

It's also good for our cognition in terms of how we think and our memory and complex problem solving and attention.

So like there are so many good reasons to exercise regularly for every person.

But especially if you have ADHD,

All the more reason to get all those good benefits.

Of regular exercise.

The other thing about exercise is the worst reason to exercise is to get into better shape.

And the reason why it's the worst reason is it takes way too long to get into better shape.

And you got to exercise a whole bunch for a whole bunch of days to really begin to see like,

Oh,

There,

I'm getting into better shape.

The much more kind of convincing reason,

I think,

To exercise is that as soon as you do it,

You get those cognitive and emotional benefits,

Right?

You feel better after you've worked out.

Also,

If you exercise by day,

You're probably sleeping better by night.

So that's like a double benefit for you.

Now,

You know,

On the one hand,

When it comes to exercise,

Just getting up and like taking a walk around the block or I don't know,

Taking the stairs to the second floor instead of taking the elevator.

Like on the one hand,

Definitely anything is better than nothing.

But also,

If you really,

Really want to see some benefits,

You got to actually like really break a sweat.

You got to get your heart rate up.

You got to be kind of intentional about it.

But like,

That's fine.

In terms of what you do,

Again,

Doing whatever you do is better than not doing it.

Ideally,

You're doing some mix of cardio,

Whatever that might be,

And also some sort of weightlifting because they're both good,

But they're not exactly the same.

And frankly,

A bit of variety is probably good for most people.

But if you get bored of something,

Just keep mixing it up.

Just keep finding new and different things to do that keeps your body in motion.

And finally,

Let's talk about eating.

On the one hand,

Absolutely not.

No,

ADHD is not caused by any dietary issues.

If diet affects how you,

You know,

Your attention or memory or mood or whatever,

Then it's something you should get a look at,

But it's not ADHD.

But definitely if you have ADHD,

It makes it even easier to eat sort of unhealthy options.

Supermarket.

Isn't that healthy to begin with,

Right?

It's got too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things.

But especially if you have ADHD,

The problem is healthy eating to actually like eat the good,

Healthy stuff requires planning ahead.

It requires good time management,

You know,

To get to the supermarket,

To sort of get to work in the beginning of the day,

To get out of work at the end of the day,

To have the time to make a healthy dinner,

To have the time in the morning to make something for breakfast and something for lunch that you can take with you.

To buy something that's less healthy.

So,

You know,

ADHD itself makes it harder to eat healthy,

Harder than it is for everybody these days.

But there's also the other side that,

You know,

Sometimes folks with ADHD,

If you sort of hyper-focus on something,

By the time you pick your head up and realize like,

Oh my God,

I'm starving,

Right?

Starving is not the time to make healthy food choices.

So you're probably going to be,

You know,

Eating things that are more delicious,

But not as healthy for you at that moment,

Accessed,

But not as healthy for you.

And then finally,

If you're just barely getting through your day as it is,

The thought of like taking 20 minutes or half an hour or more to make dinner,

It's kind of like you just like.

You just don't have it in you.

Right.

So it just somehow it just doesn't come to be.

So then given that,

How do we make healthy eating easier?

You know,

Generally speaking,

A healthy diet kind of follows the basics,

Right?

So any of these sort of videos,

Anything,

Again,

I sort of ripped on TikTok.

I'll do it again.

Like,

You know,

Anything some influence on TikTok is sort of touting some new thing or if they have any financial stake in it.

Almost certainly,

It's not going to do very much for you,

And it's going to add complication you don't need.

Just stick to the basics of a healthy diet.

It's going to get you 95% of the way there.

In terms of the stuff that we want to eat less of,

In general,

The farther away a temptation is,

The easier it is to resist it,

Right?

So the place to resist potato chips is not in your kitchen.

It's in the supermarket.

And better yet,

It's by not even going down that aisle in the first place,

Right?

The farther away it is,

The easier it is to not like.

.

.

Grab a bag.

And if you live with other people,

Which most of us do,

I don't know,

It's not their job to make sure you eat a healthy diet,

But it is their job to not be jerks about the stuff that they have.

So,

You know,

If you're trying to eat healthier,

How can you sort of recruit them into it?

They can make their own choices for themselves.

But are there some kind of nice,

Generous deeds that they can do to help you kind of manage your diet a little bit more effectively?

In general,

When it comes to this stuff,

I always sort of prefer to focus on the process of what you're doing rather than on the outcome,

Right?

So the process of,

You know,

Creating and living whatever it is that's going to help you be more effective in this.

And the reason is kind of like I mentioned with getting in shape,

It takes too long,

Right?

Outcomes take too long.

So find something enjoyable about the process,

Right?

Fun you're more likely to do it something about you know healthier eating that you're going to enjoy it more you're more likely to do it or getting into bed with your partner you know like enjoying that time at the end of the evening to sort of connect and to talk about the day and de-stress And,

You know,

Basically don't over rely on willpower.

Willpower is nice.

It's great when it works,

But it rarely works as well as we hope it's gonna.

So like,

Don't rely on willpower to be the thing that kind of muscles you through these like New Year's resolution type changes.

And then finally,

Like really take some pride,

Right?

Notice and give yourself a pat on the back for every one of those better choices that you make,

Right?

Every time that you do something a little bit better,

Really like,

I don't know,

Make a thing and feel a bit good about it.

And when you slip,

Which you almost certainly will,

Just get back on the horse,

Right?

Here we go another day.

What can I do now?

What can I do today?

What am I going to do tomorrow?

Right.

So just kind of get back to it.

You just got to string together more good days.

Partial progress,

Still progress,

Right?

You know,

Again,

Don't have to be perfect,

Just got to be a bit better.

And as I've said before,

And as I will say again,

Make today a good day regardless of what happened yesterday.

So back to you.

Let's put it to work.

Number one,

Identify what gets in the way of getting a better night's sleep.

What is one thing that you can do differently today?

One thing that's going to help you get a better night of sleep tonight.

Number two,

Identify what gets in the way of better eating habits.

Again,

What's one thing that you can do today?

Not 10 things,

Not all the things.

What is one thing that you can do that's going to be helpful with your eating?

And then finally,

Number three,

Identify one way to add more exercise to your day.

I know it's complicated.

I know sometimes schedules just don't cooperate.

But what is one thing you can do to add at least a little bit more exercise to your life?

Amen.