In this episode, you will learn all about how to holistically care for ADHD with herbs, oils, nutrition, and supplements that nourish the whole body.

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7 Day Spark

Eating with Intention

Wellness Circle

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What is ADHD?

ADHD is an increasingly common diagnosis for both children and adults. Sometimes it is related to actual Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and sometimes it is a diagnosis given to related cognitive symptoms or complaints. Cognitive may be a bit of a clinical term but I’ll use it frequently today. Cognitive or cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses, so it's a cumulative word that meaning learning, understanding, comprehension, perception, and insight.  

At this point, over 6 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD. For most of these children, this diagnosis will continue into adulthood. Currently, ADHD is diagnosed in about 10 million adults. You can do the math, it's not just a childhood problem, although typically it is and it just is undiagnosed until adulthood, but there are some new diagnoses that happen for adults as well. For both, kids and adults, there are often additional mental health conditions that coexist. Some of the common ones are anxiety, depression, substance abuse, behavior, and/or conduct disorders.  (oppositional defiance disorder)

There is some trickiness to officially diagnosing ADHD, because almost all humans show some kind of inattention symptoms or hyperactivity at some point. In fact, there are some interesting studies showing that it is increasing and perhaps that is due to our disconnect with nature and outdoors and movement as well as our connection to our devices (for both the young and old).

In order to officially be diagnosed, this must occur by a mental health professional and it must interfere with basic function or meet a certain criteria of symptoms. Many people know this, but often times ADHD is “diagnosed” by a teacher, or coach, or even a family physician, and frankly, they aren’t really qualified to do so.

Symptoms of ADHD

There is a long list of symptom requirements that must be met in order to achieve an ADHD diagnosis. In kids, you must meet six or more symptoms and have them persist for at least 6 months and negatively impact developmental, social, academic, and/or occupational activities. In adults and adolescents, generally, 5 or more symptoms meet a diagnosis. Rather than take up your time with the entire list for inattention and inactivity, there are a few basics symptoms that are signs to be evaluated:

Severe inattentive or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms present prior to age 12.

Severe inattentive or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms in two or more settings (for example: home, school, work).

Clear evidence that symptoms interfere with or reduce the quality of social, academic, or work functioning.

Practitioners have ruled out oppositional and defiant behavior, psychiatric disorders (anxiety, personality disorder, schizophrenia...)

Practitioners have ruled out the inability to understand assigned tasks or instructions.

Although science is still learning a lot about ADHD, what we do know is that the brain is hardwired and functions a little differently in humans with ADHD. Particularly where executive function is involved. Executive function is the part of your brain that allows you to plan, organize,