
Effects of Exercise on Cognitive Performance with ADHD - nocoder
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617109/
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jkhdigital
Found a link to another article in the sidebar: Attention-deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder: A Category or a Continuum? Genetic Analysis of a
Large-Scale Twin Study
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9183127/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9183127/)

Their conclusion: "These findings suggest that ADHD is best viewed as the
extreme of a behavior that varies genetically throughout the entire population
rather than as a disorder with discrete determinants."

As someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD, this seems like a more natural
explanation. If 5-10% of the population allegedly have a disorder, then maybe
the "disorder" is in fact just the tail end of a normal genetic distribution.
Doesn't mean that the condition is "made up" or that those people don't
deserve some kind of treatment, of course.

~~~
derefr
I always come back to the analogy of nearsightedness. You can be a little bit
nearsighted, or a lot nearsighted. It’s a continuum. It isn’t even precisely a
problem to be nearsighted, in theory. It’s just a problem _in our society_
which is designed around being able to see things that are far away (e.g. road
signs.) Glasses aren’t technically a treatment for an illness; they’re an
optional prosthesis—a “body mod” in the cyberpunk sense. But there’s no stigma
to getting them (nor should there be); and anyone who has any degree of
nearsightedness has no reason _not_ to get them.

~~~
Zaak
But there used to be a stigma around wearing glasses.

~~~
karatestomp
Still is to some extent, and a lot of people just _cannot_ pull them off, so
stigma or no they do look worse just like if they were wearing crappier
clothes (I'm this way, a bit—hard to find glasses that look at least OK on me
rather than _awful_ ).

~~~
derefr
Perhaps better to say that there's no stigma to finding out that someone wears
contacts or has had LASIK surgery. Those match the intuition of ADHD as
something that's a personal/"invisible" problem, with a personal/"invisible"
treatment.

~~~
karatestomp
Ah, yes, that's true. The social benefit to having 20/20 vision naturally
instead of through surgery or wearing contacts is very low, even if people
know about the contacts or surgery.

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xerox13ster
As someone with ADHD, I've noticed that I can stick to a schedule and control
my symptoms throughout the day by exercising first thing in the morning. I'll
run to work and for the first portion of the day, I can focus effortlessly,
and after a short workout or bit of cardio at lunch I can extend that a little
bit into the afternoon. It's vastly helped my mood and my ability to maintain
an even keel.

I'm happy to see this posted, it's always been told to me that exercise is as
or more important than my medication or organizational skills when it comes to
managing my disorder, and when I can get myself to stick to it, it's a pretty
amazing difference

~~~
james_s_tayler
I've found periods where I've gone to the gym have been characterized by
improvements elsewhere too. But then either the novelty of going to the gym
wore off or life circumstances changed (move house / workplace etc) and gym
stopped. That's gotten me like 3 times now.

Come to think of it in uni when I first started going to the gym coincides
with the semester I actually got a D+ and a D- because I got distracted by
going to the gym and chasing girls.

Mixed bag. Keen to start up again though, I do think it's helped when I can
manage.

~~~
gaustin
Before I make a change in residence or work, I have a plan for continuity of
good habits.

Sign up for the new gym. Figure out where going will fit into my likely future
schedule. Set an explicit period of lapse due to the effort of moving (or
whatever life change is disrupting the norm).

Of course that is in an ideal situation. Sometimes you don't have enough
notice for this (COVID stay-at-home threw me off).

~~~
james_s_tayler
>Of course that is in an ideal situation. Sometimes you don't have enough
notice for this (COVID stay-at-home threw me off).

Sometimes the impulsive behavior gets the better of you too.

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xnx
If exercise was a drug, no one would believe it could have so many positive
effects.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
abuse of exercise can be pretty detrimental though.

~~~
sirtaj
I consider it similar to drinking water. You have to try pretty hard to get to
the point where you're doing too much of it.

~~~
xerox13ster
And like with water and dehydration, if you get too much too quickly when
you've gone without it for too long, it can be detrimental

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XOPJ
As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD(Inattentive) I've worked through years
of misdiagnosis directed towards depression. I adopted the sport of Ultra-
running years ago and with that extreme amount of exercise I've seen benefits
and unlocked potential others have without difficulty.

There's obvious connections to exercise levels and my overall health, but with
the depression it never resolved it. Only recently we found the ADHD diagnosis
through reduced running, then tracking all symptoms and doing a deeper
analysis on how I interact and think. When you live your entire life
struggling to focus you build patterns and tricks to fit in. Turns out these
are super bizarre when you speak them out-loud for someone to hear for the
first time. I recently explained this break through as similar to how we all
do some specific behavior such as sanitary cleaning after a bowel movement,
but no one actually talks about their process in detail to know how different
we all are. Thinking and focus are sort of like that for me.

I'm seeing a lot of comments here that didn't maybe read the article and see
how small an impact exercise has, especially compared to medication. After now
taking medication for the I've been on a strong emotional ride realizing this
correct diagnosis and prescription years ago would have greatly changed my
life. With exercise back up to normal levels again I'm seeing 90% improvement
by medication is in no way replaceable with running 120 miles a week for a
10-20% improvement.

As I'm now working on finding a plan to reduce and then quit the medication
these studies are fascinating for me to potentially know the upper limits each
coping mechanism provides. This might make me consider quitting my sport and
only contributing enough effort to maximize the return so I can then pick up
other habits for a greater duration.

To anyone else suffering through inattentive ADHD I wish you the best.

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hprotagonist
ADHD or not, “if your brain is tired make your body tired, too” is a good
idea.

It’s not for ecology that I prefer to be a bicycle commuter; my reasons are
much more selfish.

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Hickfang
[https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-
adhd/epidemiology/gende...](https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-
adhd/epidemiology/gender/)

“Evidence suggests that the prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), or hyperkinetic disorder (HKD), is greater in males than
females.”

A more plausible explanation is that those doing the diagnosing are female
teachers who perceive the more naturally boisterous play of young males as
symptomatic of a mental disorder.

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namelosw
I'm not sure about the long term, but it's working pretty well immediately
after exercise.

I'm WFH these days, and follow a relatively flexible schedule, so basically
every day whenever I find it is hard to concentrate as usual I would go
downstairs and have a 15mins running. Then I can focus for quite a while. I
usually do this two to three times a day.

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cycomanic
It's actually amazing for how many conditions exercise helps, depression is
another one.

~~~
meiraleal
And it is even more amazing to think that these conditions would not even be
conditions if we didn't become more sedentary each generation.

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JoeAltmaier
Aren't their conclusions small and inconclusive? The 'effect of exercise' in
this case is, indeterminate.

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tudorw
I'm a layperson with an interest so welcome input, my takeaway was this bit
'preliminary evidence suggests that exercise can improve cognitive performance
intimately linked to ADHD presentations in children with and without an ADHD
diagnosis' which seems to suggest you are incorrect? Given that essentially no
harm would come from all children taking a good amount of exercise it would
seem following the recommendations would give a good outcome, there are many
other benefits to exercise, obviously the odd broken leg, but injuries aside
am I missing something?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
To quote

    
    
       Paucity of studies probing the effect of different exercise parameters impedes finite conclusions in this regard.
    

I took that to mean, no idea what works or why.

And there's a cost to getting an ADHD child to consistently exercise. Its can
be challenging to do anything for any duration, regularly. Lets not discount
the parental effort for this to succeed. Lets not throw this at parents as
another thing they should all be doing, without more than very-qualified
evidence. There's enough things to make ADHD parents feel guilty about
already.

~~~
ekanes
Parenting an ADHD kiddo is hard enough, for sure. But I read that sentence
with emphasis on the word, "different" rather than "exercise" \-- so they
would be saying that there's such variety in exercise, it's hard to say with
enough certainty WHICH exercise. (But I'm also just an interested layperson.)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And the return was almost unmeasurable.

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koolhead17
Spark [1], the book talks about same in details. I enjoyed reading it.

[1]: Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain Paperback
– 1 January 2013 by John J. Ratey MD (Author), Eric Hagerman

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mylons
For those with ADHD; exercise is good for you.

~~~
taneq
Works even without the first bit!

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atemerev
If only there would be a way to stick regularly to exercise schedule! :)

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3131s
You have to find something that you genuinely enjoy doing, there's no other
way.

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atemerev
I tried many things (found out I really hate running with passion). I really
liked skateboarding, but I have broken my leg and a wrist bone short
afterwards. So I didn’t continue.

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danielfoster
Anyone have a TLDR? Tried reading but the formatting on mobile didn’t work out
for me.

Or maybe it’s my ADHD.

~~~
serpix
TLDR Aerobic exercise improves the cognitive function of humans. A tremendous
breakthrough.

~~~
catawbasam
And yet our schools require kids to sit still in the morning before classes
start when a few minutes of running around would do them a world of good.
Madness.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Run them around before they get to school?

~~~
catawbasam
Yup

