11 ms·

The Effect of Physical Exercise on the Concentration of Individuals with ADHD

150 points by romefort 11y ago

netcraft 11y ago
Another recent study showing that fidgeting and moving helps concentration in ADD children: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.ht...
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  My personal experience [long term volunteer with kids groups, as a child and as a parent] has been that most younger kids (<11) can't sit still for long. I sat next to a lad in an informal setting recently (watching a martial arts class), his mother kept nagging him to sit still, not make a noise, etc.. I felt so sorry for him, he could easily have stood at the side and tried to mimic the older childrens movements, or just danced around for a bit, or played a game with his mum. When she told him off for raspberrying I really wanted to start just to show it wasn't inappropriate (it wasn't a quiet segment of the class); social inhibition prevented me. I find that my kids primary school teachers have a similar attitude, they're all female, they seem particularly bothered by some types of "unruly" behaviour which is primarily from the boys. Is there a biological divide between the sexes here too? [On the basis of the above linked study abstract, do more boys have ADHD than girls, is it a spectrum disorder?] When I pick up my youngest (5-6yo) from school the boys are almost all [always] playing chase around the playground whilst the girls are almost all [always] chatting quietly and standing with their parents (mainly mothers). Mothers of boys seem to tell the boys off for running around, whilst the [far fewer] dads do not.
  - smorrow 11y ago
    "do more boys have ADHD than girls" It's a fact that more boys than girls are diagnosed, but I've noticed that /r/adhd seems overwhelmingly female. I dunno, though, maybe it's just that people are more likely to be talking womanly on a mental disorder site. (They're more likely to be talking about their feelings, for one thing.) And a tendency to associate Facebooky spelling ("isnt",etc) with females might be unfair on my part. "teachers have a similar attitude, they're all female, they seem particularly bothered by some types of 'unruly' behaviour. Is there a biological divide between the sexes here too?" Don't get me started... I have ADD, so it's hard for me to write a short comment. In my life, pretty much all the women teachers have been big into rules for the sake of rules, and applying rules with no thought on the actual point of the rule. I can't really think of any reason for more women than men to be sensors rather than intuitives (most _people_ are sensors), but I suppose there could be a reason for more women teachers to be sensors than men teachers, or rather, for less men teachers to be sensors than the general population. I conjecture that that reason is: men who become teachers do it because they want to talk about equations and right-angle triangles all day, which is an intuitive trait. I want to be a teacher and that's the main reason. (And women don't need a special reason to want to be a teacher... not the way men do, anyway.)
kevinwang 11y ago
Is Prince of Persia a commonly used test for measuring concentration?
- cshimmin 11y ago
  They had potential volunteers play PoP for 5 min as part of a screening process, to select individuals that wouldn't have problems playing a similar videogame. The actual game they used was called "Raiders of the Lost Treasure", cited as: 11. Silva AP, Frère AF Virtual environment to quantify the influence of colour stimuli on the performance of tasks requiring attention. Biomed Eng Online. 2011; 10:74 doi: 10.1186/1475-925X-10-7421854630 With a link to the article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201025/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201025/
late2part 11y ago
I've found that kids with attention deficits (diagnosed or not) tend to be able to talk and focus better when they can move around. Try right now to describe something at the far side of the room without pushing your head or using your hands. Communication and interpretation is more than just verbal.
- jMyles 11y ago
  No doubt. I can't imagine why you're being downvoted?
- hgibbs 11y ago
  I have adhd and have noticed that some of my own behaviours fit this characterisation. 1) I typically pace when talking on the phone 2) In general, going for a walk is a really good way to clear my mind. 3) I will walk around a lot, and quickly, when I am anxious. 4) It is easier for me to sleep when there is rain or a fan on in my room. Any kind of white noise. 5) When I need to think about something particularly abstract, I will take a shower. Going through the routines of cleaning my hair, using soap etc, all while having the physical stimulation of water falling on my back, helps to get me in a very focused and 'zen' state.
  - late2part 11y ago
    Have you ever tried meditation? I wonder if it would influence how you handle yourself. I think your behaviors are fine, I'm not judging or suggesting you change, but I wonder how it would help.
    - hgibbs 11y ago
      Well my behaviours aren't obtrusive, if thats what you mean, and I am fine with them, considering that. I have tried meditation and yoga, but I could never get the motivation required to build a habit. One of the main problems with meditation is that it is all about stillness, which can be very hard for somebody with ADHD! I mean, relatively speaking, a shower is a bit like a form of meditation for me, so maybe people of ADHD do practice a form of meditation by engaging in these activities.
piratebroadcast 11y ago
TL:DR: "Conclusion: This study confirms the hypothesis of Medina et al. and Koehl et al.: intense physical exercise improves the attention of children and adolescents with ADHD symptoms. Physical exercise may be helpful for their learning because attention is essential to the school performance of any individual. Physical exercises help improve children's attention and provide greater impulse control; these additional effects appear almost immediately, as confirmed in this study, which helps the concentration of children with ADHD."
falcolas 11y ago
Unmedicated, regularly attending school, able to focus for at least five minutes on a videogame, and: > volunteers with notably good grades in all subjects, without reports about behavior problems and a good social life at school and at home. That seems like a relatively mild case of ADHD. [EDIT: Quote applies to control group, as pointed out by andreasvc. The first three points appear to still stand.] I'm also wondering how the resulting GC and GE values from "Performance of groups in the whole game" figure are so different, considering that part of the selection process was being able to complete the level in 600 seconds, ±5%. On a side note, this was very interesting: > These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance.
- andreasvc 11y ago
  The first passage you quote describes the control group, so they were specifically selected not to have ADHD.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- bitexploder 11y ago
  I definitely had problems with ADHD, and still do to some extent. I was listening to a book, The Sports Gene, and the touched on exercise and attention deficit. A proposed theory is that in the attention deficit brain you don't have enough dopamine. Exercise produces the dopamine you need to get to "normal". Therefore, exercise for some people is very rewarding and helps them out a lot. In other individuals who already have normal levels of dopamine it is a very "meh" experience for them, maybe even counter productive. They don't get the boost of dopamine as strongly since they already had "enough" to function well. And, since they had to endure, potentially higher, cognitive load to do the exercise its a net negative for them. Anyway, I don't know if this mechanism explains all of it, but anecdotally this matches extremely well with my experience. Later in life I have come to rely on routine physical exercise as it keeps me on an even keel and productive. Caffeine and Ritalin both just made me go into the zone just the same way hard exercise does. I find that if I do not exercise hard and regular I have a hard time staying productive and I might seek towards other dopamine producing behaviors (Alcohol, junk foods). I have found a middle ground of moderate exercise, but it is never as fulfilling as being full tilt into a training cycle. edit: Found a quote from the author of The Sports Gene: "Here at Axon Sports, we talk a lot about the brain’s role in playing sports. From vision to perception to decision making to emotions, the brain plays a critical role in sports success. What have we learned about neurogenetics that can influence an athlete’s performance from a cognitive perspective? DE: One of the most surprising things I learned in my reporting was that scientists know quite well that not only does the dopamine system in the brain—which is involved in the sense of pleasure and reward—respond to physical activity, but it can also drive physical activity. One of the scientists I quote in the book suggests that this may be why very active children who take Ritalin, which alters dopamine levels, suddenly have less drive to move around. That’s precisely what he sees when he gives Ritalin to the rodents he breeds for high voluntary running, anyway. And it appears that different versions of genes involved in the dopamine system influence the drive to be active. (Interestingly, native populations that are nomadic and that migrate long distances tend to have a higher prevalence of a particular dopamine receptor gene; the same one that predisposes people to ADHD. I discuss in the book the possible link.) "
rlonstein 11y ago
Personal anecdote, I can thank a country doctor and my elementary school teachers for recognizing this back in the 70's: I was sent to school with a thermos of coffee and permission to go to the gym and run until I could compose myself.
- leoh 11y ago
  This is a wonderful story. I've also personally noticed I can focus an order of magnitude better with exercise.
- lloeki 11y ago
  Personal anecdote: people (incl. doctors) laugh at me when I say I may (within 3-sigma) have ADHD, either because "that's for kids only", or because "it's just a myth and I should get my act together and quit being lazy". I have no hope of getting any form of medication for my condition. I was lucky enough to discover a few sports (snowboarding, rollerskating, climbing) at the right time i my life that managed, unbeknownst to me, to get me through the parts of life where I needed the most focus (incl. my degree). Things went downhill when I started to work and got a car, which dramatically reduced my physical activity, up until I picked myself up and went running, then skateboarding. This changed my quality of life on so many levels: although I still get both periods of numbness and hyperfocus, the positive feedback loops are much more frequent and negative feedback loops much less so. I still have to take great conscious care about not exerting (physically or mentally) myself too much because there seems to be no warning telling me "hey this is too much" and I regularly wear myself out. Still, I now have control over my life, but the fact that all of this I had to find myself early in my 30s and still get scorned at to this day is terrible: how many are being cast away as either unruly or lazy and left to their own devices?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > Personal anecdote: people (incl. doctors) laugh at me when I say I may (within 3-sigma) have ADHD, either because "that's for kids only", or because "it's just a myth and I should get my act together and quit being lazy". I have no hope of getting any form of medication for my condition. If those are UK doctors I politely urge you to complain. Otherwise, try showing them this: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72/resources/cg72-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd-full-guideline-2 https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72/resources/cg72-attenti...
sandstrom 11y ago
Would be interesting to know how long the effect lasts, e.g. will 1h, 12h or 24h between the physical exercise and the test make a difference. If it's say ~8 hours, then scheduling gym classes in the beginning of school days may help these children. If it's 1h it won't matter much, as long as gym isn't at the end of a school day.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  In countries that do calisthenics at the start of the school day are there less problems with hyperactivity, and diagnosed disorders with that symptom?
hasenj 11y ago
Am I the only one who finds it difficult to mentally concentrate on a task after physical exercise? I feel like all my energy has been spent and there's not much (glucose?) left for my brain to function at higher levels of abstractions.
- UhUhUhUh 11y ago
  That's because you don't need movement to stabilize your thinking and that expense of glucose depletes your resources. My experience is that ADHD kids need some sensori-motor input to help them reach their cognitive baseline. However, I don't agree with the study's conclusion because it tested a sort of "carpet-bombing" approach to the problem (i.e. lots of movement, injection of endorphins). I think that a much more efficient way, and I believe, more durable also, would be rock-climbing because in addition to the physical expense (i.e. energy output), it also stimulates very powerfully concentration/focus and the zones of the brain associated with it (i.e somewhere in the pre-frontal cortex) and can actually teach concentration and focus. I even wonder whether the best rock-climbers are not self-medicated ADHDs rather than so-called "adrenaline-junkies". Jumping off a bridge gushes adrenaline system-wide, climbing a face does not.
- fferen 11y ago
  That's kinda what the study finds: the worst group was the non-ADHD group that exercised.
- bitexploder 11y ago
  Exercising, especially at your limits, drains mental energy from the same bucket as hard thought about say, math problems. In addition you are burning energy. Your bucket of cognitive energy is only so big. I think if you have already normal levels of dopamine and endorphins the rush of them after exercise doesn't do very much for you. For the ADHD brain, which lacks a normal level of dopamine the exercise intensity is offset by the production of dopamine. For me, hard exercise, a proper recovery period of about an hour (nutrition, relaxing) and I enter a period of high productivity for about 4-5 hours. I can intensely focus in this time. After that I have to move around some more (it's also later in the afternoon then when many people are getting a little tired anyway). I can usually settle in to deal with lower cognitive load tasks after that (easier coding, email, report writing, et.) for a few hours.
lloydde 11y ago
Interesting methodology. I've used John J. Ratey's 2008 book Spark: Revolutionary New Science of Exercise & the Brain to regularly remind myself, for my own health, of numerous ways exercise has been demonstrated to help mental health including its place in my anxiety and depression toolbox.
aswanson 11y ago
I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but im pretty sure im on the spectrum. Did some Insanity this morning with the wife and noticed how much it enabled me to focus afterward and how it mitigated my desire for a drink, which I use for the same effect. I highly recommend regular physical exercise.
- Ocerge 11y ago
  As I get older, I'm definitely beginning to notice some ADHD symptoms (inability to concentrate at work, can't fall asleep without some kind of white noise, don't know what to do with myself at home after work, etc). I'm also discovering that the only things that help to center me are exercise and coffee.
conradfr 11y ago
Anecdotal : I have diagnosed ADD and started lifting (starting strength) some month ago. At first I felt some benefits, I would say almost the same feeling as with Ritalin, but it's almost already gone by now. I should do more cardio to see if it's the same.
- smorrow 11y ago
  I take it you're predominantly inattentive (you omit the letter H). I see on the ADHD web sites they always advocate exercise, and I dismiss it out of hand every time as something I don't think would apply to me. I tend to think of the typical /r/ADHDer as being quite different from me, and not someone that I would even like, really. So you're saying that that stuff applies for inattentives too?
  - mtae 11y ago
    I was under the impression the majority of /r/ADHDer's are PI or combined type. I recall hearing that most people with ADHD fall in one of those categories.
  - aidenn0 11y ago
    Exercise has a huge benefit for me, and I am PI as well. Benefits to the point that my wife will bend over backwards to find time for me to exercise, completely out of selfish reasons.
chubot 11y ago
Exercise helps a ton with depression too. And probably anxiety, though I don't have any direct experience. I think it's no exaggeration to say that richer countries have been experiencing a rise in mental health issues, and that is in a large part, although not entirely, due to sedentary lifestyles.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > Exercise helps a ton with depression too. It probably doesn't. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > When only high-quality trials were included, exercise had only a small effect on mood that was not statistically significant. > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. > Exercise is no more effective than antidepressants for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on a small number of studies. > Exercise is no more effective than psychological therapies for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on small number of studies. > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > Attendance rates for exercise treatments ranged from 50% to 100%. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive. You say > I think it's no exaggeration to say that richer countries have been experiencing a rise in mental health issues, and that is in a large part, although not entirely, due to sedentary lifestyles. What makes you think this? Plenty of very active people suffer depression and anxiety. There are a couple of sports people who have talked about their depression. You may have the causal link reversed - depression lowers ability to do stuff, and so depression causes inactivity. That's at least plausible.
  - austinjp 11y ago
    The Cochrane report says the evidence for exercise as an intervention to improve depression is "inconclusive", whereas you say it "probably doesn't" help, which isn't the same thing. The various reviews of exercise-based interventions illustrate how complex it can be to implement trials and interpret their results. Frankly I'd encourage exercise in a depressed patient, rather than say it "probably doesn't help". There are numerous other benefits that could probably outweigh risks (although these should obviously be assessed on a case-by-case basis) and interventions should seek to minimise nocebo as well as maximise placebo -- ethically of course. It just might work for that patient, and actually that is a perfectly rational basis for treatment sometimes.
schalab 11y ago
Physical exercise is generally repetitive,boring and requires discipline to stick to. It could be that forcing someone to overrule their impulses for a period of time might be the solution, rather than the exercise itself. I would ask for a control group who are forced to do some boring, repetitive activity without physical exertion like meditation and see if the results are mirrored.
- mse11028 11y ago
  Wow it's like we're from different planets. I'd never describe exercise as "repetitive, boring and requires discipline". For me it's an urge and it's fun to do.
  - greggman 11y ago
    Lucky for you. For others of us I'd rather do almost anything else. I'd rather clean the house, do dishes, anything other than exercise. Yea, I force myself to do it but I'm massively bored and can't wait to get on to whatever I really want to be doing. I'd love to know some secret sauce other than luck to head into actually enjoying to exercise.
    - titanomachy 11y ago
      The secret sauce is intensity. The idea that I could be bored while exercising intensely is absurd to me because all my resources, mental and otherwise, are required just to maintain the pace that I set for myself. When I'm close to the edge of what I can tolerate, I take a rest interval, then ramp up the intensity again before I have a chance to get bored.
      - greggman 11y ago
        I don't like the pain of working out at all. So intensity doesn't make me not bored it just makes me want it stop as soon as possible. So no, that's not the secret sauce for me. Glad it works for you.
Strom 11y ago
The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance. This is the more interesting finding to me and conflicts with my personal experience. Maybe I just haven't been diagnosed for ADHD yet? However if it is true then this raises an interesting problem. Exercise is no longer a universal booster - you have to be damn sure that you're deep in ADHD, because if you're 40% ADHD and 60% normal, then exercise actually does more harm than good, according to the results of this study. In general, this study seems very limited in scope and participant count. A worthwhile study for sure, but I think it warrants additional research above anything else, and nothing conclusive should be taken from it.
- themartorana 11y ago
  I'd rather ignore this and just concentrate on the confirmation bias provided by the conclusion. In other news, I'm pretty sure I have ADHD. No seriously. Having been diagnosed with ADHD years ago, I found the conclusion fantastic and confirming, and then parent's point stress inducing. I'm hoping I'm at least 51% ADHD.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Having read hundreds of internet posts describing anecdotal symptoms of ADHD, I can confirm nothing about what ADHD actual is or whether or not I have it. ADHD is, as far as I can tell, a condition whereby a person exhibits habits of some kind and feels the need to either judge themselves or not. Granted, I am not a doctor, but I have yet to meet a person that I've felt has the apparently superhuman diagnostic abilities required to identify ADHD. So I wouldn't worry about it either way. Live your life and try not to die or be unhappy.
    - _bdog 11y ago
      It shows you're not a doctor, but you're right: it's complicated condition (maybe even "configuration") and on top of that it's hard to diagnose in adults, because they tend to have formed habits around this condition. There's a crude test though: Take (a small dose) of Ritalin, Adderall or other stimulant that increases activity in the striatum and see: * Do you mainly feel sweaty, agitated and super-alert: probably no ADHD. * Do you feel like you're able to think properly for the first time in your life or get sleepy even -> hints to ADHD.
jug5 11y ago
You guys love the most obvious studies. Did you know you need sleep for your brain to function? How about food? Wow exercise too? What planet are you people from.
bootload 11y ago
just back from pt, first article read - time to do some work.
ChrisNorstrom 11y ago
For 2 months now, an alarm clock program alerts me every hour to do 1-2 minutes of quick but high intensity exercises. That's every hour. The benefits are amazing. I'm amazed at how many of my problems went away. I now get to sleep on time, wake up feeling rested, do not toss and turn during sleep, have a healthy appetite, gained muscle, hair loss stopped, and I cut down on procrastinating and my focus has drastically increased. Who knows how many pills I would have been prescribed had I told my doctor about my problems. I saw most results within 24 hours, others after only 4 days.
- lucaspiller 11y ago
  What sort of stuff do you do, is it similar to steps in the '7 minute workout' type things? Do you have an app or just alarms set throughout the day?
- dasil003 11y ago
  Do you have ADHD?
kendallpark 11y ago
I have ADHD and I have always performed better in school during sports seasons. I was undiagnosed through college and used a variety of techniques including exercise to focus on school work. I prefer tactile sports such as football and rugby. Running is very boring, as are repetitive sports like throwing (I threw hammer and disc). Softball was always too slow paced for me. I'd be caught staring into space in the outfield. I think ADHD was not as big an issue when jobs/daily life involved more physical labor and tactile experiences. Nowadays most "important" jobs consist of sitting in front of a computer for eight hours. That doesn't do any favors for us ADHD folks. I know medication has made a world of difference for me. I don't think I'd be able to handle a 9-to-5 programming job without it.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  How long have you been on medication? I've considered going back on medication, but my understanding is that many people build up tolerance to it very quickly.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    My doctor has insisted that dextroamphetamine is not a resistance-inducing or habit-forming. I've found the later more true, though I've heard of folks who'll take "vacations" from it to try and reset what they feel like a tolerance. I moved to a different country a few months after I was diagnosed (and since it's rightly a highly controlled medication in the US, couldn't take a long-term supply with me), so I've been able to observe myself both with and without the medication. If I can find a doctor with good enough English, I'd like to reestablish the prescription. Having that support from the dextro was like night and day, eventual tolerance or not.
    - exDM69 11y ago
      > My doctor has insisted that dextroamphetamine is not a resistance-inducing or habit-forming. I find this very hard to believe, given that amphetamine is known to be quite addictive and tolerance builds quite quickly. Albeit medical doses are small compared to recreational use/abuse, so it may be a manageable issue.
stretchwithme 11y ago
I think this is because blood moving at higher speeds and pressure gets nutrients to cells that don't always get all the nutrients they need. And it also removes waste products better, like a power washer removes dirt from your car better than just pouring water over it.
rjshayes 11y ago
Interesting -- this study referenced another which focused on the effects of color on individuals with and without ADHD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/). The game was designed for and taken from study for use in this one -- the results were nearly the same. The other study came back with similar results due to the structure of the game favoring ADHD individuals for level 1 and favoring individuals without ADHD for level 2. The results in the original study were nearly the same proportionally and the game was found to favor the performance of an individual with ADHD. The linked study, in fact, goes on to misrepresent the study it references in stating it was conducted "to quantify the performance of people with ADHD characteristics," when in fact the study stated it was conducted to describe "the development and the testing of a virtual environment that is capable to quantify the influence of red-green versus blue-yellow colour stimuli on the performance of people." The referenced study concluded: "The game proved to be a user-friendly tool capable to detect and quantify the influence of color on the performance of people executing tasks that require attention and showed to be attractive for people with ADHD"
cel1ne 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit
_bdog 11y ago
For my ADHD a combination of ritalin, a LOT of sport (martial arts) and playing the piano did wonders. About a year of the sport and I've managed to lower my dose by about 50%.
- henryaj 11y ago
  What sort of martial arts did you do?
  - cel1ne 11y ago
    Silat. Seni Gayung Fatani to be exact. 3 times a week for an hour at least in the evening. Apart from the fact that exercise always help I think it's the structured, controlled breathing you have to do, that helps to focus.
xwintermutex 11y ago
But wait... how can the pharma industry profit from this?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > But wait... how can the pharma industry profit from this? By researching the mechanism that makes exercise work, understanding the biochemical basis, and developing a shortcut that triggers the same biochemical effect without actually requiring working out.
rkangel 11y ago
While this study agrees with everything I know from anecdotal evidence, it's not an enormous sample size. Two groups of 28 people each doesn't provide an enormous amount of statistical evidence.
RA_Fisher 11y ago
This graph feels a bit fishy and / or more interesting than the presented result: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone.0122119.g007.jpg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone... GE = w/ ADHD GE-EF = w/ ADHD and exercise GC = w/o ADHD GC-EF = w/o ADHD and exercise Look how poorly GC-EF performed relative to the other groups in absolute terms. There's visually a much larger difference in concentration for those without ADHD, but who exercised than those that didn't exercise. If we were to focus on the largest difference of effect shouldn't our conclusion be, 'Intense exercise can make the attention of people without ADHD worse than those with ADHD'? This is what the authors say, "The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance. However, this hypothesis requires further studies, which include the assessment of the duration of this effect." Hmmm ..., color me a skeptical statistician.

150 points by romefort 11y ago

Another recent study showing that fidgeting and moving helps concentration in ADD children: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.ht...

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
My personal experience [long term volunteer with kids groups, as a child and as a parent] has been that most younger kids (<11) can't sit still for long. I sat next to a lad in an informal setting recently (watching a martial arts class), his mother kept nagging him to sit still, not make a noise, etc.. I felt so sorry for him, he could easily have stood at the side and tried to mimic the older childrens movements, or just danced around for a bit, or played a game with his mum. When she told him off for raspberrying I really wanted to start just to show it wasn't inappropriate (it wasn't a quiet segment of the class); social inhibition prevented me. I find that my kids primary school teachers have a similar attitude, they're all female, they seem particularly bothered by some types of "unruly" behaviour which is primarily from the boys. Is there a biological divide between the sexes here too? [On the basis of the above linked study abstract, do more boys have ADHD than girls, is it a spectrum disorder?] When I pick up my youngest (5-6yo) from school the boys are almost all [always] playing chase around the playground whilst the girls are almost all [always] chatting quietly and standing with their parents (mainly mothers). Mothers of boys seem to tell the boys off for running around, whilst the [far fewer] dads do not.
- smorrow 11y ago
  "do more boys have ADHD than girls" It's a fact that more boys than girls are diagnosed, but I've noticed that /r/adhd seems overwhelmingly female. I dunno, though, maybe it's just that people are more likely to be talking womanly on a mental disorder site. (They're more likely to be talking about their feelings, for one thing.) And a tendency to associate Facebooky spelling ("isnt",etc) with females might be unfair on my part. "teachers have a similar attitude, they're all female, they seem particularly bothered by some types of 'unruly' behaviour. Is there a biological divide between the sexes here too?" Don't get me started... I have ADD, so it's hard for me to write a short comment. In my life, pretty much all the women teachers have been big into rules for the sake of rules, and applying rules with no thought on the actual point of the rule. I can't really think of any reason for more women than men to be sensors rather than intuitives (most _people_ are sensors), but I suppose there could be a reason for more women teachers to be sensors than men teachers, or rather, for less men teachers to be sensors than the general population. I conjecture that that reason is: men who become teachers do it because they want to talk about equations and right-angle triangles all day, which is an intuitive trait. I want to be a teacher and that's the main reason. (And women don't need a special reason to want to be a teacher... not the way men do, anyway.)

kevinwang 11y ago

Is Prince of Persia a commonly used test for measuring concentration?

cshimmin 11y ago
They had potential volunteers play PoP for 5 min as part of a screening process, to select individuals that wouldn't have problems playing a similar videogame. The actual game they used was called "Raiders of the Lost Treasure", cited as: 11. Silva AP, Frère AF Virtual environment to quantify the influence of colour stimuli on the performance of tasks requiring attention. Biomed Eng Online. 2011; 10:74 doi: 10.1186/1475-925X-10-7421854630 With a link to the article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201025/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201025/

late2part 11y ago

I've found that kids with attention deficits (diagnosed or not) tend to be able to talk and focus better when they can move around. Try right now to describe something at the far side of the room without pushing your head or using your hands. Communication and interpretation is more than just verbal.

jMyles 11y ago
No doubt. I can't imagine why you're being downvoted?
hgibbs 11y ago
I have adhd and have noticed that some of my own behaviours fit this characterisation. 1) I typically pace when talking on the phone 2) In general, going for a walk is a really good way to clear my mind. 3) I will walk around a lot, and quickly, when I am anxious. 4) It is easier for me to sleep when there is rain or a fan on in my room. Any kind of white noise. 5) When I need to think about something particularly abstract, I will take a shower. Going through the routines of cleaning my hair, using soap etc, all while having the physical stimulation of water falling on my back, helps to get me in a very focused and 'zen' state.
- late2part 11y ago
  Have you ever tried meditation? I wonder if it would influence how you handle yourself. I think your behaviors are fine, I'm not judging or suggesting you change, but I wonder how it would help.
  - hgibbs 11y ago
    Well my behaviours aren't obtrusive, if thats what you mean, and I am fine with them, considering that. I have tried meditation and yoga, but I could never get the motivation required to build a habit. One of the main problems with meditation is that it is all about stillness, which can be very hard for somebody with ADHD! I mean, relatively speaking, a shower is a bit like a form of meditation for me, so maybe people of ADHD do practice a form of meditation by engaging in these activities.

piratebroadcast 11y ago

TL:DR: "Conclusion: This study confirms the hypothesis of Medina et al. and Koehl et al.: intense physical exercise improves the attention of children and adolescents with ADHD symptoms. Physical exercise may be helpful for their learning because attention is essential to the school performance of any individual. Physical exercises help improve children's attention and provide greater impulse control; these additional effects appear almost immediately, as confirmed in this study, which helps the concentration of children with ADHD."

falcolas 11y ago

Unmedicated, regularly attending school, able to focus for at least five minutes on a videogame, and: > volunteers with notably good grades in all subjects, without reports about behavior problems and a good social life at school and at home. That seems like a relatively mild case of ADHD. [EDIT: Quote applies to control group, as pointed out by andreasvc. The first three points appear to still stand.] I'm also wondering how the resulting GC and GE values from "Performance of groups in the whole game" figure are so different, considering that part of the selection process was being able to complete the level in 600 seconds, ±5%. On a side note, this was very interesting: > These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance.

andreasvc 11y ago
The first passage you quote describes the control group, so they were specifically selected not to have ADHD.
deleted 11y ago
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bitexploder 11y ago
I definitely had problems with ADHD, and still do to some extent. I was listening to a book, The Sports Gene, and the touched on exercise and attention deficit. A proposed theory is that in the attention deficit brain you don't have enough dopamine. Exercise produces the dopamine you need to get to "normal". Therefore, exercise for some people is very rewarding and helps them out a lot. In other individuals who already have normal levels of dopamine it is a very "meh" experience for them, maybe even counter productive. They don't get the boost of dopamine as strongly since they already had "enough" to function well. And, since they had to endure, potentially higher, cognitive load to do the exercise its a net negative for them. Anyway, I don't know if this mechanism explains all of it, but anecdotally this matches extremely well with my experience. Later in life I have come to rely on routine physical exercise as it keeps me on an even keel and productive. Caffeine and Ritalin both just made me go into the zone just the same way hard exercise does. I find that if I do not exercise hard and regular I have a hard time staying productive and I might seek towards other dopamine producing behaviors (Alcohol, junk foods). I have found a middle ground of moderate exercise, but it is never as fulfilling as being full tilt into a training cycle. edit: Found a quote from the author of The Sports Gene: "Here at Axon Sports, we talk a lot about the brain’s role in playing sports. From vision to perception to decision making to emotions, the brain plays a critical role in sports success. What have we learned about neurogenetics that can influence an athlete’s performance from a cognitive perspective? DE: One of the most surprising things I learned in my reporting was that scientists know quite well that not only does the dopamine system in the brain—which is involved in the sense of pleasure and reward—respond to physical activity, but it can also drive physical activity. One of the scientists I quote in the book suggests that this may be why very active children who take Ritalin, which alters dopamine levels, suddenly have less drive to move around. That’s precisely what he sees when he gives Ritalin to the rodents he breeds for high voluntary running, anyway. And it appears that different versions of genes involved in the dopamine system influence the drive to be active. (Interestingly, native populations that are nomadic and that migrate long distances tend to have a higher prevalence of a particular dopamine receptor gene; the same one that predisposes people to ADHD. I discuss in the book the possible link.) "

rlonstein 11y ago

Personal anecdote, I can thank a country doctor and my elementary school teachers for recognizing this back in the 70's: I was sent to school with a thermos of coffee and permission to go to the gym and run until I could compose myself.

leoh 11y ago
This is a wonderful story. I've also personally noticed I can focus an order of magnitude better with exercise.
lloeki 11y ago
Personal anecdote: people (incl. doctors) laugh at me when I say I may (within 3-sigma) have ADHD, either because "that's for kids only", or because "it's just a myth and I should get my act together and quit being lazy". I have no hope of getting any form of medication for my condition. I was lucky enough to discover a few sports (snowboarding, rollerskating, climbing) at the right time i my life that managed, unbeknownst to me, to get me through the parts of life where I needed the most focus (incl. my degree). Things went downhill when I started to work and got a car, which dramatically reduced my physical activity, up until I picked myself up and went running, then skateboarding. This changed my quality of life on so many levels: although I still get both periods of numbness and hyperfocus, the positive feedback loops are much more frequent and negative feedback loops much less so. I still have to take great conscious care about not exerting (physically or mentally) myself too much because there seems to be no warning telling me "hey this is too much" and I regularly wear myself out. Still, I now have control over my life, but the fact that all of this I had to find myself early in my 30s and still get scorned at to this day is terrible: how many are being cast away as either unruly or lazy and left to their own devices?
- DanBC 11y ago
  > Personal anecdote: people (incl. doctors) laugh at me when I say I may (within 3-sigma) have ADHD, either because "that's for kids only", or because "it's just a myth and I should get my act together and quit being lazy". I have no hope of getting any form of medication for my condition. If those are UK doctors I politely urge you to complain. Otherwise, try showing them this: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72/resources/cg72-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd-full-guideline-2 https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg72/resources/cg72-attenti...

sandstrom 11y ago

Would be interesting to know how long the effect lasts, e.g. will 1h, 12h or 24h between the physical exercise and the test make a difference. If it's say ~8 hours, then scheduling gym classes in the beginning of school days may help these children. If it's 1h it won't matter much, as long as gym isn't at the end of a school day.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
In countries that do calisthenics at the start of the school day are there less problems with hyperactivity, and diagnosed disorders with that symptom?

hasenj 11y ago

Am I the only one who finds it difficult to mentally concentrate on a task after physical exercise? I feel like all my energy has been spent and there's not much (glucose?) left for my brain to function at higher levels of abstractions.

UhUhUhUh 11y ago
That's because you don't need movement to stabilize your thinking and that expense of glucose depletes your resources. My experience is that ADHD kids need some sensori-motor input to help them reach their cognitive baseline. However, I don't agree with the study's conclusion because it tested a sort of "carpet-bombing" approach to the problem (i.e. lots of movement, injection of endorphins). I think that a much more efficient way, and I believe, more durable also, would be rock-climbing because in addition to the physical expense (i.e. energy output), it also stimulates very powerfully concentration/focus and the zones of the brain associated with it (i.e somewhere in the pre-frontal cortex) and can actually teach concentration and focus. I even wonder whether the best rock-climbers are not self-medicated ADHDs rather than so-called "adrenaline-junkies". Jumping off a bridge gushes adrenaline system-wide, climbing a face does not.
fferen 11y ago
That's kinda what the study finds: the worst group was the non-ADHD group that exercised.
bitexploder 11y ago
Exercising, especially at your limits, drains mental energy from the same bucket as hard thought about say, math problems. In addition you are burning energy. Your bucket of cognitive energy is only so big. I think if you have already normal levels of dopamine and endorphins the rush of them after exercise doesn't do very much for you. For the ADHD brain, which lacks a normal level of dopamine the exercise intensity is offset by the production of dopamine. For me, hard exercise, a proper recovery period of about an hour (nutrition, relaxing) and I enter a period of high productivity for about 4-5 hours. I can intensely focus in this time. After that I have to move around some more (it's also later in the afternoon then when many people are getting a little tired anyway). I can usually settle in to deal with lower cognitive load tasks after that (easier coding, email, report writing, et.) for a few hours.

lloydde 11y ago

Interesting methodology. I've used John J. Ratey's 2008 book Spark: Revolutionary New Science of Exercise & the Brain to regularly remind myself, for my own health, of numerous ways exercise has been demonstrated to help mental health including its place in my anxiety and depression toolbox.

aswanson 11y ago

I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but im pretty sure im on the spectrum. Did some Insanity this morning with the wife and noticed how much it enabled me to focus afterward and how it mitigated my desire for a drink, which I use for the same effect. I highly recommend regular physical exercise.

Ocerge 11y ago
As I get older, I'm definitely beginning to notice some ADHD symptoms (inability to concentrate at work, can't fall asleep without some kind of white noise, don't know what to do with myself at home after work, etc). I'm also discovering that the only things that help to center me are exercise and coffee.

conradfr 11y ago

Anecdotal : I have diagnosed ADD and started lifting (starting strength) some month ago. At first I felt some benefits, I would say almost the same feeling as with Ritalin, but it's almost already gone by now. I should do more cardio to see if it's the same.

smorrow 11y ago
I take it you're predominantly inattentive (you omit the letter H). I see on the ADHD web sites they always advocate exercise, and I dismiss it out of hand every time as something I don't think would apply to me. I tend to think of the typical /r/ADHDer as being quite different from me, and not someone that I would even like, really. So you're saying that that stuff applies for inattentives too?
- mtae 11y ago
  I was under the impression the majority of /r/ADHDer's are PI or combined type. I recall hearing that most people with ADHD fall in one of those categories.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  Exercise has a huge benefit for me, and I am PI as well. Benefits to the point that my wife will bend over backwards to find time for me to exercise, completely out of selfish reasons.

chubot 11y ago

Exercise helps a ton with depression too. And probably anxiety, though I don't have any direct experience. I think it's no exaggeration to say that richer countries have been experiencing a rise in mental health issues, and that is in a large part, although not entirely, due to sedentary lifestyles.

DanBC 11y ago
> Exercise helps a ton with depression too. It probably doesn't. http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre... > When only high-quality trials were included, exercise had only a small effect on mood that was not statistically significant. > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. > Exercise is no more effective than antidepressants for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on a small number of studies. > Exercise is no more effective than psychological therapies for reducing symptoms of depression, although this conclusion is based on small number of studies. > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. > Attendance rates for exercise treatments ranged from 50% to 100%. > The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive. You say > I think it's no exaggeration to say that richer countries have been experiencing a rise in mental health issues, and that is in a large part, although not entirely, due to sedentary lifestyles. What makes you think this? Plenty of very active people suffer depression and anxiety. There are a couple of sports people who have talked about their depression. You may have the causal link reversed - depression lowers ability to do stuff, and so depression causes inactivity. That's at least plausible.
- austinjp 11y ago
  The Cochrane report says the evidence for exercise as an intervention to improve depression is "inconclusive", whereas you say it "probably doesn't" help, which isn't the same thing. The various reviews of exercise-based interventions illustrate how complex it can be to implement trials and interpret their results. Frankly I'd encourage exercise in a depressed patient, rather than say it "probably doesn't help". There are numerous other benefits that could probably outweigh risks (although these should obviously be assessed on a case-by-case basis) and interventions should seek to minimise nocebo as well as maximise placebo -- ethically of course. It just might work for that patient, and actually that is a perfectly rational basis for treatment sometimes.

schalab 11y ago

Physical exercise is generally repetitive,boring and requires discipline to stick to. It could be that forcing someone to overrule their impulses for a period of time might be the solution, rather than the exercise itself. I would ask for a control group who are forced to do some boring, repetitive activity without physical exertion like meditation and see if the results are mirrored.

mse11028 11y ago
Wow it's like we're from different planets. I'd never describe exercise as "repetitive, boring and requires discipline". For me it's an urge and it's fun to do.
- greggman 11y ago
  Lucky for you. For others of us I'd rather do almost anything else. I'd rather clean the house, do dishes, anything other than exercise. Yea, I force myself to do it but I'm massively bored and can't wait to get on to whatever I really want to be doing. I'd love to know some secret sauce other than luck to head into actually enjoying to exercise.
  - titanomachy 11y ago
    The secret sauce is intensity. The idea that I could be bored while exercising intensely is absurd to me because all my resources, mental and otherwise, are required just to maintain the pace that I set for myself. When I'm close to the edge of what I can tolerate, I take a rest interval, then ramp up the intensity again before I have a chance to get bored.
    - greggman 11y ago
      I don't like the pain of working out at all. So intensity doesn't make me not bored it just makes me want it stop as soon as possible. So no, that's not the secret sauce for me. Glad it works for you.

Strom 11y ago

The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance. This is the more interesting finding to me and conflicts with my personal experience. Maybe I just haven't been diagnosed for ADHD yet? However if it is true then this raises an interesting problem. Exercise is no longer a universal booster - you have to be damn sure that you're deep in ADHD, because if you're 40% ADHD and 60% normal, then exercise actually does more harm than good, according to the results of this study. In general, this study seems very limited in scope and participant count. A worthwhile study for sure, but I think it warrants additional research above anything else, and nothing conclusive should be taken from it.

themartorana 11y ago
I'd rather ignore this and just concentrate on the confirmation bias provided by the conclusion. In other news, I'm pretty sure I have ADHD. No seriously. Having been diagnosed with ADHD years ago, I found the conclusion fantastic and confirming, and then parent's point stress inducing. I'm hoping I'm at least 51% ADHD.
- Retra 11y ago
  Having read hundreds of internet posts describing anecdotal symptoms of ADHD, I can confirm nothing about what ADHD actual is or whether or not I have it. ADHD is, as far as I can tell, a condition whereby a person exhibits habits of some kind and feels the need to either judge themselves or not. Granted, I am not a doctor, but I have yet to meet a person that I've felt has the apparently superhuman diagnostic abilities required to identify ADHD. So I wouldn't worry about it either way. Live your life and try not to die or be unhappy.
  - _bdog 11y ago
    It shows you're not a doctor, but you're right: it's complicated condition (maybe even "configuration") and on top of that it's hard to diagnose in adults, because they tend to have formed habits around this condition. There's a crude test though: Take (a small dose) of Ritalin, Adderall or other stimulant that increases activity in the striatum and see: * Do you mainly feel sweaty, agitated and super-alert: probably no ADHD. * Do you feel like you're able to think properly for the first time in your life or get sleepy even -> hints to ADHD.

jug5 11y ago

You guys love the most obvious studies. Did you know you need sleep for your brain to function? How about food? Wow exercise too? What planet are you people from.

bootload 11y ago

just back from pt, first article read - time to do some work.

ChrisNorstrom 11y ago

For 2 months now, an alarm clock program alerts me every hour to do 1-2 minutes of quick but high intensity exercises. That's every hour. The benefits are amazing. I'm amazed at how many of my problems went away. I now get to sleep on time, wake up feeling rested, do not toss and turn during sleep, have a healthy appetite, gained muscle, hair loss stopped, and I cut down on procrastinating and my focus has drastically increased. Who knows how many pills I would have been prescribed had I told my doctor about my problems. I saw most results within 24 hours, others after only 4 days.

lucaspiller 11y ago
What sort of stuff do you do, is it similar to steps in the '7 minute workout' type things? Do you have an app or just alarms set throughout the day?
dasil003 11y ago
Do you have ADHD?

kendallpark 11y ago

I have ADHD and I have always performed better in school during sports seasons. I was undiagnosed through college and used a variety of techniques including exercise to focus on school work. I prefer tactile sports such as football and rugby. Running is very boring, as are repetitive sports like throwing (I threw hammer and disc). Softball was always too slow paced for me. I'd be caught staring into space in the outfield. I think ADHD was not as big an issue when jobs/daily life involved more physical labor and tactile experiences. Nowadays most "important" jobs consist of sitting in front of a computer for eight hours. That doesn't do any favors for us ADHD folks. I know medication has made a world of difference for me. I don't think I'd be able to handle a 9-to-5 programming job without it.

aidenn0 11y ago
How long have you been on medication? I've considered going back on medication, but my understanding is that many people build up tolerance to it very quickly.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  My doctor has insisted that dextroamphetamine is not a resistance-inducing or habit-forming. I've found the later more true, though I've heard of folks who'll take "vacations" from it to try and reset what they feel like a tolerance. I moved to a different country a few months after I was diagnosed (and since it's rightly a highly controlled medication in the US, couldn't take a long-term supply with me), so I've been able to observe myself both with and without the medication. If I can find a doctor with good enough English, I'd like to reestablish the prescription. Having that support from the dextro was like night and day, eventual tolerance or not.
  - exDM69 11y ago
    > My doctor has insisted that dextroamphetamine is not a resistance-inducing or habit-forming. I find this very hard to believe, given that amphetamine is known to be quite addictive and tolerance builds quite quickly. Albeit medical doses are small compared to recreational use/abuse, so it may be a manageable issue.

stretchwithme 11y ago

I think this is because blood moving at higher speeds and pressure gets nutrients to cells that don't always get all the nutrients they need. And it also removes waste products better, like a power washer removes dirt from your car better than just pouring water over it.

rjshayes 11y ago

Interesting -- this study referenced another which focused on the effects of color on individuals with and without ADHD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/). The game was designed for and taken from study for use in this one -- the results were nearly the same. The other study came back with similar results due to the structure of the game favoring ADHD individuals for level 1 and favoring individuals without ADHD for level 2. The results in the original study were nearly the same proportionally and the game was found to favor the performance of an individual with ADHD. The linked study, in fact, goes on to misrepresent the study it references in stating it was conducted "to quantify the performance of people with ADHD characteristics," when in fact the study stated it was conducted to describe "the development and the testing of a virtual environment that is capable to quantify the influence of red-green versus blue-yellow colour stimuli on the performance of people." The referenced study concluded: "The game proved to be a user-friendly tool capable to detect and quantify the influence of color on the performance of people executing tasks that require attention and showed to be attractive for people with ADHD"

cel1ne 11y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontostriatal_circuit

_bdog 11y ago

For my ADHD a combination of ritalin, a LOT of sport (martial arts) and playing the piano did wonders. About a year of the sport and I've managed to lower my dose by about 50%.

henryaj 11y ago
What sort of martial arts did you do?
- cel1ne 11y ago
  Silat. Seni Gayung Fatani to be exact. 3 times a week for an hour at least in the evening. Apart from the fact that exercise always help I think it's the structured, controlled breathing you have to do, that helps to focus.

xwintermutex 11y ago

But wait... how can the pharma industry profit from this?

dragonwriter 11y ago
> But wait... how can the pharma industry profit from this? By researching the mechanism that makes exercise work, understanding the biochemical basis, and developing a shortcut that triggers the same biochemical effect without actually requiring working out.

rkangel 11y ago

While this study agrees with everything I know from anecdotal evidence, it's not an enormous sample size. Two groups of 28 people each doesn't provide an enormous amount of statistical evidence.

RA_Fisher 11y ago

This graph feels a bit fishy and / or more interesting than the presented result: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone.0122119.g007.jpg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone... GE = w/ ADHD GE-EF = w/ ADHD and exercise GC = w/o ADHD GC-EF = w/o ADHD and exercise Look how poorly GC-EF performed relative to the other groups in absolute terms. There's visually a much larger difference in concentration for those without ADHD, but who exercised than those that didn't exercise. If we were to focus on the largest difference of effect shouldn't our conclusion be, 'Intense exercise can make the attention of people without ADHD worse than those with ADHD'? This is what the authors say, "The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance. However, this hypothesis requires further studies, which include the assessment of the duration of this effect." Hmmm ..., color me a skeptical statistician.