Daily Habits That Make Your ADHD Worse

H: So, Alan, because we both have ADHD and work with people who do, we know that there are things that we can do that make our ADHD a little better or more manageable, and there are things that most of us do that make it a whole lot worse. We're going to talk about several of them today, and I want to start with the one that you know a great deal about and have a lot to share with us, and that is sugar.

G: Sugar and what goes along with sugar is. Well, first, thanks for having me great to be here with you. So what goes along with sugar is simple carbs. And you know, I kind of ironically, glucose is our brain's fuel right? But we need to deliver the glucose in the right way. And the right way to deliver sugar is not by snacking on sweets or cookies or for that matter, simple carbs, pretzels, all that stuff. Carbohydrates are sugars and so what happens when we're snacking on that stuff, let alone having a meal of that stuff with no significant protein, is that we get our brain gets fired up because the glucose goes straight to our brain and then we get this sort of, okay, yeah, and then we crash.

But the way to extend that delivery curve of the glucose is to always have protein snacks with fiber and maybe a little bit of sugar in that fiber. So, example, I've got a bag in my backpack right over here, I've got a bag of raw nuts, pure protein, bunch of other good stuff and, but also some dried fruit in there so I'm getting a little bit of glucose. And I always say that that sugar sucks, carbs kill, protein is power and omega is omega. And you get a lot of omegas with the nuts. So that's sort of the headline there long headline, but that's the headline on it.

H: But you and I both know that most people are aware that simple carbohydrates and especially sugars, that they wreak havoc with their body, mind and brain, but they're also super, super addictive. In your experience, are people with ADHD more prone to get legitimately addicted to sugar and simple carbs than other people? Or is that just one of the myths that gets thrown around?

G: You know, I don't know if there, if I've got any empirical sightings I could do, But I will say this think about the fact that, you know, our brains lack the available, the available dopamine to have our brains keep going and keep churning and keep running.

H: Yeah.

G: And a quick way to get a little burst of energy is a snack like pretzels or sugar or whatever. And so we are more likely to reach for that stuff more often because we're always looking for something to get our brains going. And if we've got crappy food in our house, we will consume it. The trick is, and this is another reason why we add years, tend to sort of rely on these kinds of snacks. Proteins are more expensive, they're generally less shelf stable right. Meats and eggs and stuff like that, which is why I love raw nuts but they're also more difficult to prepare. You have to actually do something with them a lot of times.

H: Yeah.

G: And so the difference between going to my fridge and making a roast beef sandwich or something, you know, protein full with some fiber, etc. versus just going to the pantry and grabbing something that's in there, big difference, one's easy, one's hard. One gives us an immediate little boost, but we then have the one gives us a longer boost. It extends the protein and the fiber, extend the delivery curve of the glucose, as I mentioned. So there are a lot of reasons why we may tend to be more vulnerable to the sugar monster and the simple carb monster.

H: It makes sense. I mean we're going to go for the immediate gratifications and not to think about the long term consequences. And once that becomes your habit, I mean you and I both help people with habits quite a bit. Once it's your habit, you might kind of know in the back of your mind, I could go get a couple of hard boiled eggs, I've already made them or I could have a Snickers bar. Most of the time we're going to go with a Snickers bar right?

G: Yeah. And you know, you just mentioned something great, which is hard boiled eggs. And because we know that protein can be more difficult to keep fresh and to have at the ready. What I advocate for folks to do is maintain a supply of portable proteins. So just a few quick examples. I've got these in the fridge, in the pantry, et cetera so protein bars obviously right. There are some crappy ones, look for the good quality ones.

But also hard boiled eggs is a great thing. If you just take the 15 minutes it takes a hard boiled eggs and keep those in the fridge. When you get hungry, don't go for the bag of chips, go for one hard boiled egg. That's like six grams of protein right. But I keep apples and bananas around because when I'm hungry, but not, it's not meal time, I slice up an apple or peel a banana and I just slather it with peanut butter, maybe sprinkle some hemp seeds or some pepitas, maybe a drizzle of honey. And that fills you up, it gives you the gut fill feel and there are a whole bunch of other portable proteins.

So I just invite everyone to take a look in your pantry, in your fridge and see if there are some things that first of all are crap and then take them off your grocery list. Just take them off the list. But also just look for some simple things that you can have on hand. A jar of peanut butter is a miracle worker in this area. So think about making sure you have that on hand so when you do get hungry, you're not reaching for the crap and you're reaching for something that will sustain your mental energy.

H: Yep. And you know what the thing is being prepared ahead of time, which folks with ADHD are not always so good at. You know, we are the king and queens of good intentions, but we don't always follow through. So a couple things you said were have it prepared ahead of time. And you know, you can have some of the things that I like to rely on, the nuts, absolutely. An avocado, sliced and ready ahead of time, hard boiled eggs, string cheese, an apple. These are things that don't take really but a few seconds more than ripping open your heath bar or whatever, but they're going to give you more sustainable.

And the other thing is like if it's not in your house, if it's not in your desk drawer, not in your fridge, if it's not in your pantry, the time it would take for you to get in your car, drive down to 7/11 or Walmart or wherever, or worse, have Door Dash bring you some junk. You could have probably made a frickin omelette or you know, made that roast beef sandwich that you talked about so think ahead and plan. Just expect that you're gonna go for the immediate gratification. You're gonna go for the quick hit, you're gonna go for the thing that is easiest and don't make it so easy, right?

G: Yeah, that's something you said in there, just reiterates a rule of thumb that I have. If it's not in your house, you're not going to eat it so stop bringing into your house. This may be difficult with, for a family with kids, teens, etcetera, but you can also help them to reduce their consumption of sugar and simple carbs but yeah, just don't bring it into the house. Don't bring into the house if you can help it.

H: Yep. Now when we talk about sugar, we're talking about, you know, carbs and proteins and trying to help our ADHD not be worse by the things that we put in our body. Let's talk about other things we do with our body, like movement. Sometimes I have to be really careful not to use the word exercise because for some people that's triggering. But we can all move our body and there are a lot of benefits to our brain when we do. Can we talk about that for a minute?

G: Absolutely. And you know, this is the exercise is really, as I see it, there are three legs of the stool, of the healthy stool and that is diet, sleep and exercise. These three. And so yeah, indeed, I'm glad you want to talk about exercise because it goes hand in hand with a better diet and more protein, etc. And I'll just give you a few of the quick benefits of exercise. Not the people don't know these things, but exercise actually helps grow a part of our brain, the hippocampus, that is associated with memory and mental acuity. There's been a lot of research done on this actually. To quote Dr. John Ratey, co-author of Delivered from Distraction, or rather was it what was the first original Driven to Distraction.

H: Driven to Distraction.

G: And then he wrote a book called Spark and this is where he brought this forth. He says that this is a rough quote he says that exercise creates a brain chemical that acts like miracle grow for the brain. And it's called bdnf, Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor and that's what happens when you exercise. Ideally you're doing 20 minutes or so of something, some serious movement, three times a week or so. But any movement is better than none and the great thing about exercise is that it works both near term and long term. And what I mean by that is if you start to exercise, let's just say right now, you maybe take a walk a few times a week, maybe when you take the dogs out or whatever, but you know, you'd like to get more done. And I'm not talking about going to a gym, that's a whole other ball of wax right.

If you can do that or you're doing that, keep doing that. But let's just talk about upping your cardio a little bit if you want to maybe try to break a sweat a few times a week. You get a near term, you get the long term benefit if you're just going to be healthier and generally psychologically happier. But you'll also get a near term benefit which will, which means you will have more mental acuity, better focus and a better general mood or outlook by just doing these things. And I'm not going to bore you with all the research, but I think you can trust me when I say there is so much research that support this.

So if you're not getting out and moving on pretty regular basis, you know, consider getting your leveling up a little bit. I just want to share real quick the way to get started or restart on exercise. And this is something that I do a lot of group coaching, I have nine different coaching groups. And so everyone in these groups is including masterminds for coaches and they fight the same fights that, that we all do. But I talk often about making sure that when we're, when we're trying to get back on the pony of exercise, let's say, or we're trying, we haven't been doing anything for a number of years. One of my clients is just sort of realizing, my goodness, I'm 64, I haven't been doing anything.

Whether you're starting or restarting, here's the trick. Forget about I should do this or I should be able to do that. Forget about I'm going to get a trainer and go to the gym. If you can get a trainer that helps with your accountability, that's great but don't get magical thinking on it. Just start with whatever is small and easy, there's a wonderful sort of matrix. It's not really a matrix, it's a, what do you call it, an X, Y axis. That BJ Fogg at Stanford, who's a behavioral researcher, he talks about on one axis we've got motivation. So that's, if we want to get into action, we can increase, try to increase or find our motivation right. But the other way at it is to make something easier, right?

H: Yeah.

G: So if you've got something for which you're highly motivated and it's really hard you might be able to get into action, you might be far enough up that way. But if you're not that motivated and you're not, and it's really hard, you're not going to get above what he calls the action curve. You're not going to get up there to that part of the matrix. But if you have little motivation, and you can figure out a way to make it easier now you can get out there into that section. Okay, so hopefully my little hands did the job and if you're not on video just imagine what I'm doing. Still, my language hopefully conveyed that.

But. So what's an easy way to start doing something again? Don't do the I should be able to thing. Do the what am I willing to do. What am I willing to do? Am I willing so, for instance, I'm not willing to go run another half marathon. I did it once, don't, I'm not willing to do it again. All right, God bless you folks that run marathons.

I've got a dear buddy who's a racing buddy of mine who is an ironman crazy. He's willing to do it, I'm not. But identify what you are willing to do and so I am willing to do what I do, which is, I won't get into that. But if you are willing to get out and walk around the block three times based on a starting point of really kind of doing nothing, if you're willing to do that, then get out and just do that. Don't worry about the gym. Don't worry about going and buying the gear or the machine or whatever. Just start with what you're willing to do. Anything small and easy, that's my little shtick on exercise.

H: I love that, Alan, because, you know, I think about the two axis, axes. For me, it's able and willing. What am I able to do? Some people have different physical limitations, and so what am I able to do, here's your list. What am I willing to do? And that is going to change probably from one day to the next. You just got off a plane like you did, you're not going to be either able or willing to do as much. You're well rested, you're going to be able to do more.

And so this idea that I have to do this, a particular activity three times a week for 30 minutes, or I have to go to the gym and take this class or lift these weights or whatever, it can vary, I think. You know, there's I like to think of an optimal amount of exercise that I'd like to get every day or every other day, and then what's the minimal amount? Because I have so many people who will say, well, that doesn't even count. So this notion that that's not enough to count, but I'm not willing to do the amount that does count. Don't put yourself in that double bind. It's like everything counts.

That's one of my slogan, everything counts. So if you're able and willing to, instead of taking the dog down the driveway and back, go for half a mile and pick up the pace a little bit, you're able to do that, you're willing to do that, it counts. Maybe next week you're willing and able to do more than that but we don't need to box ourselves in. And I love that you say, you know, just go with that one small thing and if it's enough, it's enough and if it adds up, it adds up. Sometimes when we get started, we don't feel like stopping. So we end up doing a lot more than we planned on.

G: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, talk about a limiting belief this, why bother, it's not gonna be enough. I'll tell you what's enough or what the minimum is. The minimum is just doing a little bit more of what you than what you're doing now. That's it and you just keep doing a little bit more. And over time you get to where, where I'm at now I'm working out six times a week. And the main reason is not because I'm trying to be sexy or grow big muscles or because I'm willing. And I do have a trick for being willing, we'll get into that maybe later. But what the result is that when I'm not exercising for two days, which is very, very rare, I can feel it in my brain. I need more Ritalin. I am not as focused, my mood can change. So just do a little bit more than what you're doing now and start tiny anywhere. Start tiny anywhere.

H: I also like that you call it start or restart because it acknowledges the fact that we get in our heads and we interfere with what we're even able and willing to do by thinking, oh, my God, I'm such a jerk, I haven't done this in so long, I'm probably going to hurt myself. Who am I kidding, this is only going to last for two weeks and then I'm just going to quit, like always. Like wherever you are, you're either starting or restarting. It doesn't matter how many times you've stopped. You didn't even ring stop into the equation so it's really, really practical, realistic, and solution focused.

So we're talking about sugar and all the nasty things it can do to your brain and really how much easier it is to do something better by not having it around and realizing that whatever benefit you think you're getting from sugar is very temporary and the consequences are more lasting. But I find that the biggest struggle for most of us with adhd, even if we've got what we're putting in our mouth a little bit under control, is sleep. Sleep is like one of the other S's that you talk about that I think probably messes people's ADHD up more than anything else.

G: You know, I think that is empirically true. If you think about this, when we are sleep deprived, we're not getting enough sleep, we're staying up late and we'll get into why we do that. Classic behaviors. We are the next day we're less likely to exercise. We are more likely to grab a sweet or crunchy snack because we don't have the, we have less willpower, less motivation for things. But when we get consistent 7, 8 hours of sleep every, every night, we're just in generally better shape, quote unquote, every day. And let's just, let's just acknowledge something that some of our listeners may know, and I'm sure you're aware of it, which is that ADHD and sleep deprivation are often confused in diagnosing each one because the symptoms look very, very similar.

Inability to focus, inability to plan and see linearly out into the future, all kinds of, it affects executive function. And I tell you with my, the folks that I coach, the biggest issue regarding sleep is the pre bedtime hygiene, the devices, the revenge procrastination, fomo and we're going to, I want to circle back to this. When we talk about the third thing we're all doing that that makes our ADHD worse. But you know, and there's another thing that's known as the ADHD second wind that a lot of 80 years get at like 10, 11pm they get this additional burst of energy and they're well, I got the energy I might as well start doing something. I gotta use it, I gotta use it. Yeah, that's dangerous.

H: Well, and I also know both you and I are, are fans of Andrew Huberman's podcast and his approach. And you know, he's a very well-known and well-respected guy. He's got some pretty interesting things to share about sleep which ones would you like to talk about.

G: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, you mentioned I just got back from a trip. I was in Japan and on the way in the entertainment, you know, they got every movie, of course, on the plane, but they had this series of videos by Andrew Huberman and he did this whole thing on sleep. All, most of this I already knew, but it was really neat to be able to sit on a plane and just watch Andrew Huberman talk about. And of course, everything he's talking about he's at MIT. He runs the Huberman lab and it's all evidence based, it's all based on research.

So he talks about the key sleep factors and he talks about light and dark, food and timing thereof. He talks about supplements and a bunch of other things, but I thought I would just touch on a few of the most important and immediately actionable ones. So for instance, light and dark, needless to say, our circadian rhythm follows light and dark, right? So when the sun is going down, our body, our circadian rhythm says, hey, let's stop producing cortisol and start producing melatonin, great. When the sun is coming up, that's when our brain is saying, hey, let's stop producing melatonin and let's start in with the cortisol. And so when we are not obeying that, which is hard, you know, these days, we're up until 10 o'clock.

We're no longer an agrarian society where we just had to get out and work at sunrise and we stopped working at sunset, etcetera, so understandable. But we can make it a lot worse when we're really messing with that, when we're sleeping in late, when we are staying up to all hours, etc. So a couple things that he offers to help you stick with is to honor your circadian rhythm, I guess is a way to say it is. He says within 30 to 60 minutes of waking, get some direct sunlight exposure outdoors, not through glass, which will signal your clock that daytime has begun. I think he goes further and he talks about ideally looking into the sky toward the sun when the sun is still lower in the sky and it's providing sunlight at an angle.

There's something about that that he doesn't get into, but I'll trust him on that. And then another great thing is just dimming your lights come 8:30. I used to have a reminder in my phone that just said lights down, 8:30 at night would pop up, lights down. Okay, let's stop. So now I don't have that anymore, I now have a thing that just says media over. So we watch maybe one hour tops, and TV every night that's another thing and we'll talk about screen sucking.

H: Yes, let's segue that then, because it's all of these things. I think what's so interesting about all of this is, and we want to make it easy for listeners with sugar, sleep, screen sucking because it makes it more memorable and what we remember, we're more likely to do something about. But all these things really go together, don't they? Like you've been saying, when you aren't getting enough sleep, you're more likely to reach for the sugar. When you're staying up late and you're not well rested, you're not going to be well focused, you're going to be more irritable, your executive functioning is going to be more impaired, you're going to…

G: Less likely to work out.

H: Less likely to work out. You're going to have more problems with regulating your emotions. But also, like one of the things that we're doing when we're staying up late, when we're not respecting our body, mind and brain's need for more rest and sleep, what are we usually doing at that time? That's a third S and just as damaging, if not more so. Screen sucking right?

G: Yeah, yeah, let's dive into that one nan, this is a big one. This is the third and I'm glad you pointed out the alliteration, I didn't realize. Sugar sleep and screen sucking, I didn't. Thanks for you're an alliteration fan.

H: I am because I've got such a terrible memory, Alan. So if I put things into an acronym or some kind of alliteration, I've at least got a slim hope of remembering it later and having other people remember it later.

G: Yeah, I may use them too much, but it's fun to use them. All right, so, yeah, screen sucking takes us right back to the sleep issue, particularly as so many of our clients are abusing their screens at night right. That is what should be our bedtime and of course, Huberman talks about basic sleep, hygiene, etc. And he talks about things like timing your caffeine, not having late meals, watching out for alcohol, cutting off your liquids at a certain point so you're not but screen sucking is just massive and it really is. I would say that 70% of the folks that I work with have some issue of screen sucking in the evening.

There's also just general screen sucking there's also throughout the day. Someone once coined the phrase for television, the great preventer. And you think about the prevention, the things that are being prevented by all of our social media, etc. I know everybody knows this, I'm not going to get judgy on it. I just want to say real quick, I long ago I took all of the social media apps off my phone except for one, except for Instagram, because I do have a couple of professional accounts there.

But I started to abuse it, meaning I was now getting news through it. I was watching too much motorcycle racing stuff and yada yada and so a couple weeks ago, I just took it off my phone. Took it off my phone, it's not completely deleted, I can go search for it if I. But I took it off my phone and I just freed up probably 20 minutes a day. And I'm not an abuse, I never was an abuser of it but 20 minutes a day, man, I'll take 20 minutes a day.

But what happens is for most human beings probably is that we will go, okay. And I don't know if we're, if I'm on camera or not, but I'm holding up my phone here. And what we'll do is we'll take, we'll go, okay, I need a break and we'll just grab for a phone, right? Because we want to check to see if any text came over. But then, you know, we'll look at our apps available like, oh, you know what, I need a little break. So let me give myself a little break and then I'll get back to my work and here's why.

H: I just want to do this one little thing.

G: One little thing or I'm just gonna take a break and read some news.

H: Yes.

G: Or I'm gonna take a break and just do a little bit of Instagram or TikTok, these are not restful. They don't give us a break. They drain energy, they jack up and turn off the dopamine circuit and that, you know, so it reinforces our dopamine addiction, all this. And so we end up not getting any rest from this, and we are then less likely to return to the work we were doing. So, I know it's a big ask, but do consider being becoming aware of the fact that we tend to reach for our phones reflexively, right. Especially when we need a break from something, we need some quote, unquote relief. And consider instead something that's restorative, I call these restorative breaks right? Instead of a break that's actually not restoring anything, it's just burning more energy. Consider when you need a break from a work session, get up and walk around. Just walk around.

H: Yep.

G: Get up, walk around the block. Get up, I do this a few times a week. Get out and just go outside and pull three weeds, I'm not joking. Instead of getting just go, pull free weeds and wash your hands. Come back or go get up and stretch.

H: Because there are always people who don't pick up their own dog's poop.

G: I thought about putting a sign on my lawn next to the dump that somebody left and that said, you know, well, I'm from New Jersey, so I don't even want to say what I was going to say. But anyway, I'll catch that guy one of these days. All right and then there'll be a baseball bat involved okay. So, anyway, this is a great opportunity to extend your work sessions to get more done, and I'm not exaggerating to make your to do list smaller by not going to this device or to your browser windows when you need a break. If you need a break, you need a break. You want to drive more oxygen to your brain by getting up and moving. It could be just stretching, it could be walking around the block, could be whatever. It could be just lying down for 10 minutes. Set a time for 10 minutes, put a pillow over your face. You don't have to fall asleep, just stop your brain or stop putting stuff into your brain for this so that's really, really big.

H: I love that. Because we tell ourselves, oh, I just need a little break. But what you're breaking is your ability to get a little movement in, get outside, literally let your mind roam. All you're doing is shifting your focus from the thing that you don't feel like working on to something else, it's not actually a break, is it? And it's super addictive and it will also deprive us of having legitimate interaction with other people.

Because it gets this kind of a false sense of connection because we see what other people, we know what other people are doing, but it's not really connection. You'd be much better off just either going for a walk or sending a quick text to somebody and they give you a, you know, like emoji back. That's an actual connection, even if you're using the damn phone but better off put it down. More and more people are really realizing that having these phones always available, it is like the path of least resistance. When we're bored, when lonely, when we are maybe a little bit anxious or agitated or frustrated.

G: Absolutely.

H: So it's kind of like a freaking pacifier when you think about it. We're not actually taking a break. What we're doing is we are distracting ourselves from whatever discomfort that we are feeling. And that's usually boredom, loneliness, or just some level of frustration. And by shifting it over to the phone, we're creating a dependency that really, I mean, there you, I'm sure you know this, Alan. There are legitimate residential treatment programs for Internet and phone addiction.

Like they're literally treating it like a drug or alcohol problem because there are people that get so attached and dependent on that phone that it literally takes over their whole life. So we got a few other things that we want to talk about with respect to screen sucking. And I think one of them you talk about in your ebook is it's sort of like the intersection of sleep and screen sucking, which is this whole phenomenon of like bedtime fomo. And I love this term revenge bedtime procrastination. Wow, that sounds intense.

G: So I and this is an increasingly popular term. I want to just very quickly circle back to this daytime use of social media and something that I learned from a guy named Merlin man who used to work at Google and he's just kind of an influencer, he coined the phrase email inbox zero guy. And he says, how about if we did this, how about if with regard to social media? Because we're not going to, we're not going to walk away from social media right. How about giving yourself guilt free time to do the social media?

Just identify a time and so my guilt free time was at night after I did my Duolingo and before I started my reading, I would give myself 10, 15 minutes to just do Instagram. But again, I stopped doing it because I wasn't getting value and I was just really stealing 10, 15 minutes of sleep for myself. But just consider that, consider if instead of reaching for this thing and jumping on to different apps that you said, you know what I'm going to allow myself to do that without the guilt. Because we always feel guilty after we've done it right? So give yourself guilt free time. Maybe four in the afternoon or some mentally weak time. All right, so that's a neat little solution.

H: I''m glad you brought that up because that's something that I also recommend to clients as well. Position it as a reward rather than a distraction.

G: Yeah, yeah.

H: Keep it time limited and pay attention to whether or not you are feeling the value. Because I want to just touch on this real quickly before we move on. You said, you gave yourself that guilt free time on Instagram in the evening for 15 minutes. All of that is exactly what we've been talking about. It's, strategic, it's not, you know, random. You, decide which app, when you're going to do it, how long you're going to do it. But what interests me is that you recognized I'm not getting value from this. Tell me how you recognize that.

G: Well, first of all, as a former drug addict, I've long known that this behavior is hitting the same dopamine circuit as cocaine for the five or so years of my life that I lost. So, and by the way, I was undiagnosed and I was self medicating, of course, that explains that.

H: Yeah.

G: But so what I just started to realize is that at some point, the algorithm starts feeding you the same stuff of course. Because it wants you to stay in there and it just wants you to keep thumbing one more, you know, swipe to try to hit that jackpot again right. That's what you do when you're a drug addict. You just keep trying one more dose so you can try to get that first buzz and so that's what I sort of started to identify with. And I just realized this isn't rewarding me in the way that it used to and I've just got better things to do with my time, really. So that's where it really came from.

H: No, that totally makes sense. And something you mentioned earlier that I don't think we got to dig into too much, is that the number of people who say, yeah, but you don't understand. Like, you know, my spouse works nights or the kids are in bed and I need to be quiet. And what supposed to do with the fact that, like, I get this second wind or I feel like I've worked all day and I really haven't had any me time or fun time and I don't want to just like piss that away by going to bed like a good little boy. What would you say?

G: Well, yeah. So that brings us back to the revenge procrastination right? So I've been working all day or I've been especially for a busy mom or parent in the home. Or especially that, that works and then attends to the family as well. You know, I've been serving other people all day. Now it is 9pm or 10pm the kids are asleep or whatever and now it's my time. I get to have revenge and I'm going to procrastinate on, you know, going to sleep. Needless to say, what we are doing is we are depriving ourselves of sleep, etc.

And then all the other negative stuff we talk about up with regard to social media. But also there's a FOMO happening here, you sort of alluded to that. It's like, you know, I don't want to shut off my thing because I just want to see what I want to read more of the headlines or if I go to sleep. You know, somebody once said, it's fairly recently said sleeping is boring, sleep is boring, there's nothing in it for me, you know, kind of thing.

H: Or you could sleep when you're dead right?

G: You could sleep when you're dead and that brings us actually to that ADHD late night second wind too. So a lot of my clients have this thing happen and they have one. Of course they have a long to do list that with a bunch of undone things and so they justify. Well, I've got energy we talked about this before, right? I've got energy so let me do something. What you're doing is you're firing up all, you're, you're working in the, the internal house lights which is telling you that it's daytime and it's 10 o' clock at night and you're just doing the reverse of your circadian rhythm.

You're fighting your circadian rhythm and you're better off just letting that energy dissipate by picking up a book, getting in bed, lowering the lights and reading. And then if you are feeling so behind on stuff, here's an idea, and I'm not being a wise guy here, seriously here's an idea. Get to sleep and get up one hour earlier and just start banging stuff out earlier in the day.

H: That makes so much sense, right?

G: Yeah, that's part of my whole thing and it has been for, for some time. Just I know that first of all my mentally strongest time is in the morning.

H: Same.

G: I'm worthless in the afternoon. Most 62 or some percent of humans have their strongest time in the morning. So I know that if at 7am I can work like a, a monster right and I know that. So if I sleep till 8, I've just lost a work, an hour of precious strong time, work time so I don't want that for myself. So you know, to go back to that 8:30 alarm that used to say lights down now it says media off. We're in bed at 9, my wife and we're in bed at 9 and hopefully asleep by 10. So I can wake up at 6:37 and get some protein in me and then get up to the attic, which is where I do my focused work, my writing and just get to work. And then it's 9 o' clock and I feel like, oh my God, I got so much done, it's only 9 o'clock. How's that for an add or feeling like that? Well, that's just by going to bed earlier, recognizing that I'm not missing out on anything and recognizing the power of working in my strong time and it's life changing. It's life changing.

H: Well, it's really the ultimate hack because you paid attention to what your body needs and when your body works best. You figured out what's good for my brain and what isn't. You actually built some systems and strategies around that, a lot of which are in your award winning ADD Crusher program. And you've learned how to work with your ADHD brain and not make things harder for it. I know that a lot of people will say, well that sounds good for you. You've been at this for a while, you've built entire business around it and you walk your talk, that's obvious.

But for somebody who's like, ah, I'm not doing any of these, I know I should but ever since the pandemic, it's really been a lot of, you know I hear this from a lot of people. But in truth, nobody goes from the couch to elite athlete overnight. Nobody goes from a drug addict to crushing their ADD overnight. Everybody can start somewhere. And I know you have a system that you use to at like three things like diet, exercise and sleep. And ask yourself simple, simple question and literally take one simple step. Can you share that with us?

G: Yeah, I just want to reiterate what you just said, which, you know, look for the 1% gain, man, nothing big happens like we see on tv. Not, the greatest loser or whatever where they, I just lost 100 pounds in three that is just very, very rare. We make progress one percentage point at a time. So anyway, so here's a way to go and get 1% of a gain. So I got this just a little quiz that I invite folks to do with regard to sleep, diet, sleep, exercise, which really, they're the foundations of battling with our ADHD. It's the foundation.

Forget about meds, yes, I take meds, but if I weren't doing diet, exercise, sleep, I'd be having to take more meds or the meds wouldn't be of any help at all. So, diet, sleep so what, what I invite folks to do is rate yourself. And we talked about what some of the positive things, you know, positive ways to have maintain a diet, some simple things to do with your exercise, some simple sleep hygiene things. Just rate yourself based on those criteria and whatever other criteria you want to apply. Rate yourself 0 to 10. 0 sucks, 10 is amazing on diet. Just first number that comes in your head, dude, do this right now.

H: I'm going to do it too.

G: What's my number?

H: All right, all right.

G: Yeah, okay and just write that down. Write that number down and then exercise. Are you breaking a little bit of a sweat three times a week or are you getting on moving X times a week or whatever? Whatever you want to judge yourself, 0 to 10. First number that comes into your head, right? I mean, if you really suck at this, give yourself a three or whatever and then sleep. Are you getting seven, eight hours of sleep? You know, yes or no.

And just rate yourself 0 to 10 on that. And here's what you do that then look at the three numbers and circle the one that's lowest. And then all you want to do, talking about 1% gain, all you want to do is identify and maybe you can do that right now. All right, so my worst is the diet, let's just say I'm at a three on diet. What's one thing you can start doing that will maybe get that 3 up to a 5? By the way, a 3 to a 5 is a 67% increase. So you're getting more than 1%. Okay, but just see if you can get up from a 3 to a 5, from a 7 to an 8 or a 5 to a 7 or whatever based on one thing. Put that on a sticky, put that sticky on your forehead or wherever you'll see it and just, and work that for a couple weeks. That's where you begin.

H: I didn't expect you to slam that post it note on your forehead. I love that.

G: I use little stickies to remind myself of particular things I'm working on at the time. I'm a big fan of the sticky.

H: You know what I love about this, Alan, is that you're not saying, okay, your diet needs improvement, your exercise needs improvement, and your sleep needs improvement. So you're going to create this 10 step plan for each of them and you're going to track one of those. You're going to get one of those special rings that monitors all your bodily functions. It's like, no, you're not, you for sure are not going to do any of that you know you're not. So let's just do the one thing where improvement will make the biggest difference because it's on the low side. Pick that one thing and take one action and maybe practice that action for a couple of weeks because we always have that two week cliff. You know, we have the best of intentions, we start strong. There's something about the two week mark that we just fall right off the fricking cliff.

So if you can maintain it for a couple of weeks, then do something else but just keep going and it all adds up, it all counts. Alan, you and I are both self employed. We are both entrepreneurs, we both work with people with ADHD in different ways. And probably a lot of the people that you know and talk to and interact with also have adhd. But you gotta know some normies, you gotta know some neurotypicals. What would you like them to know? The neurotypical folks who are entrepreneurs, what don't they know about adhd? That can actually be a business advantage. I bet you have a lot of ideas about this.

G: I do. I'm going to try to keep it to one thing. I'm going to do one and a half.

H: All right, I might let you get away with three. Just go, just start. Go.

G: The first thing is risk taking. I know you entrepreneurs out there, ADHD or not, you have to be a risk taker. But I think ADHD gives, you know, we're impulsive, we're illogical. We don't think things through.

H: We're like gonna be, let's just do it.

G: You know, I've just done, I changed my career like four times or something every 10 years.

H: Yep.

G: And I dived into a startup with two partners years ago and ended up paying off handsomely. I dove into this. I left a very, very profitable career in advertising, etcetera, to do what I'm doing now so that's one thing. The other one is that we have, and I alluded to this before, we don't have the linear thinking brain. We have the synaptic brain, it goes here, there, everywhere. And that is a beautiful thing because, you know, we get ideas where we can be problem solvers.

The challenge, and this is directed to our ADHD friends, the challenge is to manage your life first and foremost, your health, exercise and other things, and use other solutions that you've learned to make sure that synaptic thinking can be channeled into something that is useful that you can actually follow up on and, and move forward on. So that's my shtick.

H: Brilliant. Now, we promised people the five things that you're doing that make your ADHD worse. But for those that are still with us, we really only talked about three. We talked about sugar, we talked about sleep, and we talked about screen sucking. You have written a lovely, very practical and tactical ebook about the five things. And I think people probably want to hear the other two. So how do they get a hold of that booklet?

H: Yeah, so you can find me @addcrusher.com this is a virtual coach program created, we got some awards for that. But on the page, at the very top of the page you'll see a little strip that invites you to grab that ebook. You can also scroll down to the bottom and it will just show you the little thing where you can enter your email. This is a like a five pager ebook covering all five of these things. Obviously some of what we've been talking about will be reiterated, but also two other things that we are all doing every day makes our ADHD worse, guaranteed. And so I think you will find it of interest and hopefully find it of some help, Addcrusher.com

H: Yeah, and you're a very modest guy. I mean, Alan's not only got this ebook and he's obviously a wonderful guest on the podcast, he's got Add Crusher, which is an award winning program, he's a TEDx speaker. Go to his website, check him out, he's got a lot of great resources. Thank you so much for joining us today, Alan.

G: Thanks for having me and thanks, everybody for listening.