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You might be surprised to learn this, but exercise is one of the most inexpensive, accessible, and effective natural treatments for ADHD.

On the surface level, the two seem completely unrelated. Exercise is an activity that keeps people physically fit, whereas ADHD is a disorder caused by a deficiency in dopamine and norepinephrine, the neurotransmitters responsible for controlling movement, impulses, and attention. But did you know that physical activity triggers the brain to release chemicals that diminish the symptoms of ADHD? When we perform aerobic activities like walking, physiological changes in the brain occur, resulting in an increased production of norepinephrine and dopamine. Increased levels of these neurotransmitters regulate the attention system, enabling the child to ignore irrelevant stimuli and increase attention when performing tasks. Exercise also produces endorphins – hormone-like compounds that reduce pain and induce a feeling of euphoria. Studies show that the symptoms of ADHD are aggravated by stress, but high endorphin levels counteract this because they protect the mind from the negative effects of stress hormones.

Aside from boosting neurotransmitter production and releasing endorphins, exercise also stretches the postural muscles. The postural muscles are the group of muscles that maintain our posture and support the spine. Since our postural muscles always interact with gravity, they are an excellent source of stimulation for the brain. This also means that any disorder that affects the function or development of the postural muscles, like musculoskeletal conditions, has a negative impact on brain activity. When this occurs, one of the brain’s hemispheres become weaker than the other – usually the right – and the child’s brain function and development gets affected. This is why a sedentary lifestyle can contribute to the onset of ADHD. The average child spends eight hours a day at school, and their free time playing video games or watching television. The same goes for adults – after 8 hours at work, they are often too tired to do anything but go home and rest.

If your child has ADHD, especially ADHD Hyperactive Type, daily exercise will do him or her a whole world of good. Your child doesn’t have to be in the school’s varsity sports team to benefit from regular exercise; in fact, 30 minutes of daily aerobic activity will bring noticeable improvements in weeks. Research on ADHD and exercise show that children are more likely to benefits more from unstructured activities – e.g. walking, biking, even skateboarding – than structured activities like team sports. Consider taking your child to the park and letting him or her run loose, or try to find more opportunities to walk instead of taking the car.

Children with ADHD can benefit from structured activities as well. The main advantage of letting your child join organized sports is the structure and discipline that will be instilled into his or her life. Studies show that gymnastics, swimming, martial arts, and other sports that focus on coordination and movement are best for ADHD children because these teach them how to control their attention span. Because they are not required to work together in a group, children with ADHD are able to socialize more effectively and naturally.

Remember, it only takes a few lifestyle changes for inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity to go away for good. Ask a holistic health care practitioner about other natural treatments that will help your child overcome ADHD.

Because of wrongly learned thinking, you sometimes behave as if you’re helpless in a certain situation, when in fact you’re not. Because of this, you often feel trapped and unable to work things out for yourself. You may then seek out a therapist, but only because of this erroneous pattern of thought.

Learned Helplessness in Everyday Life.

So let’s look at some practical examples from everyday life. Some people have the misfortune, often through no fault of their own, of entering into one bad relationship after another. One person leaves them. They meet another who is unfaithful to them. Yet another who swears undying love, but refuses to commit to marriage.

Not surprisingly, it reaches the stage where the poor individual thinks;

‘What’s the point? I’ll always lose someone to whom I become attached.’

Then again, there’s the person who’s parents undergo a bitter divorce. The person thinks;

‘There’s no way I’m committing myself to any sort of relationship. I’m certainly not risking the hurt that my parents went through.’

Perhaps a lady meets someone who seems fine on the surface. They marry, but within a few months, he’s beating her to a pulp. Once she finally rids herself of him, she swears she’ll never become involved again.

Now if you’re not a depressive type, you look on these episodes as applied to you as purely personal decisions.

There are even ladies I’ve heard about who’ve been married three times and every time their husband has died.

‘Good grief,’ they think. ‘I’m a black widow. Every man I touch, drops dead. No more marrying for me.’

Again, if they’re not depressed, then life can still be fun and enjoyable, but the people in all the examples I’ve mentioned will be very careful about future relationships. All these people have had bad experiences, from which they’ve developed ‘learned responses.’ Their lives are probably happy enough. They’re simply going to be very circumspect regarding relationships in future.

But then we come to the poor individual suffering from Depression. This condition does not simply appear. Somewhere way back, probably buried so deep in their minds that they have no idea it’s even there, is a reason for their condition. Furthermore, a reason so positive and telling that it’s become a ‘learned response.’

It’s here that we do find ‘learned helplessness,’ because the person with Depression is imprisoned by something they don’t understand, something that causes them physical pain and something that robs them of living an enjoyable, productive life.

But here’s something to be thinking about. Just as a behaviour was learned and caused distress, it can also be un-learned so that the person may be freed from their prison