There’s no denying that the right ADHD medication can make a big impact in your quality of life. But do you know that exercise can also help you manage your ADHD symptoms?

We talked to Next Step Health Coach Pam Valdes to understand the benefits of exercise and how/why exercise should be a part of your holistic ADHD treatment plan.

Why Exercise is Important if You Have ADHD

Exercise isn’t just good for losing weight or building lean muscle mass — although it does help with those goals. Exercise can help keep your brain in  shape, too.

Here’s how exercise helps your brain work better:

Exercise releases neurotransmitters:

When exercising, the brain releases endorphins – hormone-like compounds that regulate mood, pleasure, and pain. Exercise also elevates dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which affect focus and attention – this is what stimulants do. People with ADHD often have less dopamine than usual in their brain, and dopamine helps with clear thinking and attention.

Exercise turns on the pre-frontal cortex:

Exercise also turns on the pre-frontal cortex of brain, which plays a major role in strengthening your executive function skills. Pam explains, “Neuropsychological effects of exercise are greatest with those individuals with baseline executive function deficits, as commonly seen in ADHD.

Exercise improves brain structure:

Yep, you read that correctly: exercise improves brain structure and functioning – one of the few things that can be done after age 25 to increase neurogenesis.

Physical activity is one of the most underutilized interventions to improve ADHD-related cognitive function. This doesn’t mean exercise is a replacement for medication. Pam explains, “It’s not a replacement for meds, but an important complement to it, and exercise can sometimes reduce amount of medication needed.”

10 Benefits of Exercise

Exercise can affect your physical health as well as your mental health whether you have ADHD or not. According to Pam, exercise can provide the following ten benefits:

1. Improved concentration, focus, and attention
2. Improved regulation of mood – it can help you feel more calm and less irritable, and even reduce the symptoms of depression
3. Improved quality and quantity of sleep
4. Increased productivity
5. Reduced stress
6. Improved working memory and clarity of thought
7. Increased motivation
8. Increased sense of control, less hyperactivity, more impulse control
9. Improved general health
10. Increased self-confidence and sense of self-efficacy – reduces learned helplessness

According to the CDC, these benefits extend to both adults and children.

How ADHD Can Impact Exercise

While exercise can reduce the severity of ADHD symptoms, the reverse is also true. Unmanaged ADHD can impact your exercise routines. In fact, Pam says, “Individuals with ADHD tend to be less physically active.” But why? Below are a few examples of how unmanaged ADHD can affect your ability to stay active:

• Struggling with motivation and impulse control can make it difficult to begin exercising
• Poor planning can create problems putting an exercise goal into action
• Overscheduling and over commitment can make it hard to make time for exercise
• Procrastination can make it easy to put off your exercise plan
• Poor organization skills can make it a challenge to make arrangements to exercise
• Problems with prioritization can make easy to put your needs last
• Feeling down or depressed can make it a challenge to take any action

Do you find yourself agreeing with the above statements? You’re not out of luck, though! With a multidisciplinary-treatment plan, coaching, therapy, and medication can help you reach your goals.

How Much Exercise Do You Need?

“Some physical activity every day is best, but that doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym everyday – ways to work small bursts exercise into your day,” Pam explains.

“A 2006 study by Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., used MRI scans to show that walking as few as three days a week for six months actually increased the volume of the prefrontal cortex in older adults,” she continues. This means that exercise can produce immediate results and can be used right before a test or important meeting to optimize brain function.

Don’t forget to follow the 5-minute rule: Even a little bit of exercise (just 5 minutes if that’s all you can find) is so much more than none!

What Kind of Exercise Is Best for ADHD?

“Any exercise is beneficial, but exercise that incorporates balance, strategy, focus, and sequencing can be especially helpful,” Pam explains.

Any of the martial arts, ballet, ice skating, gymnastics, rock climbing, mountain biking, whitewater paddling, and skateboarding are especially good for adults and children with ADHD. Why, exactly? The technical movement inherent in these types of sports activate a vast array of brain areas that control balance, timing, sequencing, evaluating consequences, switching, error correction, fine motor adjustments, inhibition, and, of course, intense focus and concentration.

That is not to say that activities such as lifting weights or going for a walk are not helpful – they are! Consider outdoor workouts for mood-enhancing benefits. Yoga and Pilates can be great for calming the mind, in addition helping with focus and concentration.

Bottom line: The best kind of exercise? The kind that you will stick with and enjoy!

Exercise As Self-Care

Exercise is a great form of self-care, and it’s something that you should incorporate into your daily schedule. You can learn more about the benefits of exercise and other forms of self-care in our free video series, “A Happier You Starts with Self-Care.”

Get the ADHD Treatment You Deserve

Here at Next Step, we’re proud to offer a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to you and your child’s mental health needs. Whether you’ve been diagnosed for years, or you’re just now starting your treatment journey, we can guide you with your next steps so you and your family can thrive. Call us at 502-907-5908 to get started.

About Pam Valdes

Pam Valdes is a certified Health Coach with a focus on ADHD coaching. She has a strong background in wellness and counseling. She has provided caring coaching services to adults and teens for over 10 years.