ADHD, Hyperactivity, and Injury
Hyperactivity, impulsivity, and risk-taking are well-known symptoms for people with ADHD.
We all remember that kid in elementary school that just couldn't sit still. Always bouncing out of her chair, shouting, or running around uncontrollably.
We adults with ADHD have hyperactivity, too.
Although you might not be bouncing out of your chair in the office, hyperactivity doesn't just go away as we age.
For me, hyperactivity shows up in the form of an over-active mind, impulsive urges to move quickly - often for long periods without rest, and risky behaviors.
Sometimes, this energy and endurance has benefited me, but it's also posed some serious, and sometimes dangerous, challenges.
For example - take my relationship with exercise.
Exercise is known as one of the most effective non-pharmaceutical treatments for ADHD, depression, anxiety and a whole lot more (If you know, you know).
All those benefits aside, for many of us with ADHD exercise can be a risky endeavor.
Overtraining, injury, and burnout are all risk factors when you are unable to manage your energy day to day.
For many years, this was my battle:
In your 20’s you bounce back quickly.
As you approach 30s and beyond - you have to tread with caution.
I've learned this the hard way - often repeating the same mistakes, unfortunately.
So what's going on here?
Two Things:
Combined, these two elements can dramatically increase your risk for injury, or worse.
When you’re applying this kind of pressure (and stress) on yourself pushing it at work, pushing in the gym, pushing your lifestyle and habits at home without proper recovery, the system is pushed to the limit and often breaks down.
This is what led to my ACL blowing out during an otherwise harmless game of pickup basketball during lunch one day.
You see, leading up to that Thursday, I had been:
All of this stress on the system was too much.
The problem was that I couldn’t manage my energy or behavior. I was addicted to the feeling of pushing myself day in and day out.
I didn't have the strategies to cope with it all.
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What’s strange to many is that I never got sick, I was in great shape and looked like it.
But my nervous system, mind, and body were constantly throwing signals at me telling me to slow down. I just wouldn’t listen. It felt like I COULDN'T listen.
At least until that signal was too loud to ignore. Literally.
After months of pushing myself, I had one particularly stress week at work and was trying to burn it off with my training.
After a week of heavy training and a long Saturday on the trails I told myself this would be a rest week.
Then, you know how it goes...
A few hard days at the office and I HAD to move and push my body again. It’s like I couldn’t control it.
So I went to the rec center and hopped in a basketball game.
My legs were so tired from the weeks prior but I thought I’d be fine.
About 30 minutes in to the game, my feet heavy and legs tired, I’m guarding another player and shuffling to my right. His teammate sets a bad pick on me and I step awkwardly on his foot. My knee buckles out to the side and I feel and hear a LOUD pop.
I go down like a ton of bricks and immediately knew my ACL was toast. What’s worse, I knew exactly why it had happened.
My impulsivity and uncontrollable need to intense exercise had finally caught up to me.
That was 8 years ago, 7 years before my ADHD diagnosis, and a turning point in how I saw my relationship with stress and exercise.
Now, I won’t tell you that everything changed in that moment forever. This was a Harajuku Moment, no doubt about it.
My mental approach to training, fitness, health, and longevity changed but learning how to manage my energy day to day, week to week, month to month would take another few years of work - and finally getting properly diagnosed...
If I feel I had to have that all-out effort session, I quickly label that urge, explore why it's there and if it's helpful, and then calculate the risk of the desired activity and adjust.
For Example:
The lesson here is this - we can't get rid of our ADHD.
Honestly, I don’t want to. I like who I am and the unique strengths of ADHD.
Rather than playing victim, succumbing to the symptoms or defaulting to medication without any effort to learn the skills, I prefer to continue pushing myself toward ADHD skill acquisition while observing and learning how I respond in certain situations.
Most of this wisdom has come with age. I didn’t have any mentors or resources to understand this growing up.
Now that I do, it’s my mission to help other men like me better understand their relationship with their ADHD and how it impacts their behavior, for better and for worse.
One thing remains crystal clear - exercise is an extremely potent form of treatment for ADHD. The key is to find what works for you, build the routine and habit, constantly iterate based on how you’re responding, and never, ever stop.
If you're someone that's curious about improving your health as a means of managing your ADHD, this is for you.