Anger and Stress Control and ADHD Inattentive

Anger and Stress Control and ADHD Inattentive

School has started for all of us now and I wanted to post a quick reminder about anger control, B vitamins, exercise, stress reduction and ADHD Inattentive. We know from previous posts that stress, anger, B vitamin deficiencies and lack of exercise all play a number on the brain hormones and the brain's Hypopituitary Axis (HPA) and that these disruptions of the HPA worsen the symptoms of ADHD Inattentive and ADHD Combined type.

The reason for this disruption may all be related to the fact that stress and these other risk factors increase our levels of homocysteine. Homocysteine must remain low for our brains to properly make and use the all important neurotransmitters that are thought to be faulty in people with symptoms of ADHD Inattentive. Homocysteine levels are lowered with high protein diets and some people believe that this homocysteine lowering is why high protein diets can sometimes help ADHD.

I recently found an excellent post by a psychiatrist writes a blog called Evolutionary Psychiatry where she describes anger and the homocysteine problem in great detail. There are some very interesting posts on her blog and you should check it out.

I have been trying to make certain that my sons go out for at least an hour a day and run around and have been monitoring their stress levels with regards to their school work and their social endeavors. It is early in the year but so far both of them are, pretty much, holding steady.

My ADHD Inattentive son has just started Middle School and I am very proud of the way that he has buckled down and, without any prompting, completed his school work. My ADHD Combined type son has just started 5th grade and he is in a very demanding class this year. I am more worried about him as the stress in this class can be terrible. He totally lost it yesterday because he thought he had lost a piece of paper that I was supposed to sign that had something to do with his band instrument. I emailed the band director who told me that they page that he had lost was simply a piece of paper with a list of places where we could rent instruments. I am on high alert because I got a feeling that this year will be a doozy, I will keep you posted and please let me know how things are going for you.