ADHD… As An Adult?
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ADHD—not just for kids!
Consider the following:
- If a kid has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, ADHD!”
- If a young adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a disinterested ne’er-do-well!”
- If an older adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a senior moment!”
Yet, if we recognize that ADHD is fundamentally a brain difference in children (and we do; there are physiological characteristics that we can test), and we can recognize that as people get older our brains typically have less neuroplasticity (ability to change) than when we are younger rather than less, then… Surely, there are just as many adults with ADHD as kids!
After all, that rather goes with the linear nature of time and the progressive nature of getting older.
So why do kids get diagnoses so much more often than adults?
Parents—and schools—can find children’s ADHD challenging, and it’s their problem, so they look for an explanation, and ADHD isn’t too difficult to find as a diagnosis.
Meanwhile, adults with ADHD have usually developed coping mechanisms, have learned to mask and/or compensate for their symptoms, and we expect adults to manage their own problems, so nobody’s rushing to find an explanation on their behalf.
Additionally, the stigma of neurodivergence—especially something popularly associated with children—isn’t something that many adults will want for themselves.
But, if you have an ADHD brain, then recognizing that (even if just privately to yourself) can open the door to much better management of your symptoms… and your life.
So what does ADHD look like in adults?
ADHD involves a spread of symptoms, and not everyone will have them all, or have them in the same magnitude. However, very commonly most noticeable traits include:
- Lack of focus (ease of distraction)
- Conversely: high focus (on the wrong things)
- To illustrate: someone with ADHD might set out to quickly tidy the sock drawer, and end up Marie Kondo-ing their entire wardrobe… when they were supposed to doing something else
- Conversely: high focus (on the wrong things)
- Poor time management (especially: tendency to procrastinate)
- Forgetfulness (of various kinds—for example, forgetting information, and forgetting to do things)
Want To Take A Quick Test? Click Here ← this one is reputable, and free. No sign in required; the test is right there.
Wait, where’s the hyperactivity in this Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
It’s often not there. ADHD is simply badly-named. This stems from how a lot of mental health issues are considered by society in terms of how much they affect (and are observable by) other people. Since ADHD was originally noticed in children (in fact being originally called “Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood”), it ended up being something like:
“Oh, your brain has an inconvenient relationship with dopamine and you are driven to try to correct that by shifting attention from boring things to stimulating things? You might have trouble-sitting-still disorder”
Hmm, this sounds like me (or my loved one); what to do now at the age of __?
Some things to consider:
- If you don’t want medication (there are pros and cons, beyond the scope of today’s article), you might consider an official diagnosis not worth pursuing. That’s fine if so, because…
- More important than whether or not you meet certain diagnostic criteria, is whether or not the strategies recommended for it might help you.
- Whether or not you talk to other people about it is entirely up to you. Maybe it’s a stigma you’d rather avoid… Or maybe it’ll help those around you to better understand and support you.
- Either way, you might want to learn more about ADHD in adults. Today’s article was about recognizing it—we’ll write more about managing it another time!
In the meantime… We recommended a great book about this a couple of weeks ago; you might want to check it out:
Click here to see our review of “The Silent Struggle: Taking Charge of ADHD in Adults”!
Note: the review is at the bottom of that page. You’ll need to scroll past the video (which is also about ADHD) without getting distracted by it and forgetting you were there to see about the book. So:
- Click the above link
- Scroll straight to the review!
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Cows’ Milk, Bird Flu, & You
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
When it comes to dairy products, generally speaking, fermented ones (such as most cheeses and yogurts) are considered healthy in moderation, and unfermented ones have their pros and cons that can be argued and quibbled “until the cows come home”. We gave a broad overview, here:
Furthermore, you may recall that there’s some controversy/dissent about when human babies can have cows’ milk:
When can my baby drink cow’s milk? It’s sooner than you think
So, what about bird flu now?
Earlier this year, the information from the dairy industry was that it was nothing to be worried about for the time being:
Bird Flu Is Bad for Poultry and Dairy Cows. It’s Not a Dire Threat for Most of Us — Yet.
More recently, the latest science has found:
❝We found a first-order decay rate constant of −2.05 day–1 equivalent to a T99 of 2.3 days. Viral RNA remained detectable for at least 57 days with no degradation. Pasteurization (63 °C for 30 min) reduced infectious virus to undetectable levels and reduced viral RNA concentrations, but reduction was less than 1 log10.
The prolonged persistence of viral RNA in both raw and pasteurized milk has implications for food safety assessments and environmental surveillance❞
You can find the study here:
Infectivity and Persistence of Influenza A Virus in Raw Milk
In short: raw milk keeps the infectious virus; pasteurization appears to render it uninfectious, though viral RNA remains present.
This is relevant, because of the bird flu virus being found in milk:
World Health Organization | H5N1 strain of bird flu found in milk
To this end, a moratorium has been placed on the sale of raw milk, first by the California Dept of Public Health (following an outbreak in California):
California halts sales of raw milk due to bird flu virus contamination
And then, functionally, by the USDA, though rather than an outright ban, it’s requiring testing for the virus:
USDA orders testing of milk supply for presence of bird flu virus
So, is pasteurized milk safe?
The official answer to this, per the FDA, is… Honestly, a lot of hand-wringing and shrugging. What we do know is:
- the bird flu virus has been found in pasteurized milk too
- the test for this is very sensitive, and has the extra strength/weakness that viral fragments will flag it as a positive
- it is assumed that the virus was inactivated by the pasteurization process
- it could, however, have been the entire virus, the test simply does not tell us which
In the FDA’s own words:
❝The pasteurization process has served public health well for more than 100 years. Even if the virus is detected in raw milk, pasteurization is generally expected to eliminate pathogens to a level that does not pose a risk to consumer health❞
So, there we have it: the FDA does not have a reassurance exactly, but it does have a general expectation.
Source: US Officials: Bird flu viral fragments found in pasteurized milk
Want to know more?
You might like this mythbusting edition we did a little while back:
Pasteurization: What It Does And Doesn’t Do ← this is about its effect on risks and nutrients
Take care!
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When “Normal” Health Is Not What You Want
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝When going to sleep, I try to breathe through my nose (since everyone says that’s best). But when I wake I often find that I am breathing through my mouth. Is that normal, or should I have my nose checked out?❞
It is quite normal, but when it comes to health, “normal” does not always mean “optimal”.
- Good news: it is correctable!
- Bad news: it is correctable by what may be considered rather an extreme practice that comes with its own inconveniences and health risks.
Some people correct this by using medical tape to keep their mouth closed at night, ensuring nose-breathing. Advocates of this say that after using it for a while, nose-breathing in sleep will become automatic.
We know of no hard science to confirm this, and cannot even offer a personal anecdote on this one. Here are some pop-sci articles that do link to the (very few) studies that have been conducted:
- Mouth taping may be a trending sleep hack, but the science behind it is slim
- Mouth Taping for Sleep: Does it Work? And What are the Side Effects?
This writer’s personal approach is simply to do breathing exercises when going to sleep and first thing upon awakening, and settle for imperfection in this regard while asleep.
Meanwhile, take care!
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Water Fluoridation, Atheroma, & More
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝I watched a documentary recently on Fluoride in our drinking water & the dangers of it. Why are we poisoning our water?❞
This is a great question, and it certainly is controversial. It sounds like the documentary you watched was predominantly or entirely negative, but there’s a lot of science to back both sides of this, and it’s not even that the science is contradictory (it’s not). It’s that what differs is people’s opinions about whether benefiting one thing is worth creating a risk to another, and that means looking at:
- What is the risk associated with taking no action (error of omission)?
- What is the risk associated with taking an action (error of commission)?
The whole topic is worth a main feature, but to summarize a few key points:
- Water fluoridation is considered good for the prevention of dental cavities
- Water fluoridation aims to deliver fluoride and doses far below dangerous levels
- This requires working on consumer averages, though
- ”Where do we put the safety margins?” is to some extent a subjective question, in terms of trading off one aspect of health for another
- Too much fluoride can also be bad for the teeth (at least cosmetically, creating little white* spots)
- Detractors of fluoride tend to mostly be worried about neurological harm
- However, the doses in public water supplies are almost certainly far below the levels required to cause this harm.
- That said, again this is working on consumer averages, though.
- However, the doses in public water supplies are almost certainly far below the levels required to cause this harm.
- A good guide is: watch your teeth! Those white* spots will be “the canary in the coal mine” of more serious harm that could potentially come from higher levels due to overconsumption of fluorine.
*Teeth are not supposed to be pure white. The “Hollywood smile” is a lie. Teeth are supposed to be a slightly off-white, ivory color. Anything whiter than that is adding something else that shouldn’t be there, or stripping something off that should be there.
❝How does your diet change clean out your arteries of the bad cholesterol?❞
There’s good news and bad news here, and they can both be delivered with a one-word reply:
Slowly.
Or rather: what’s being cleaned out is mostly not the LDL (bad) cholesterol, but rather, the result of that.
When our diet is bad for cardiovascular health, our arteries get fatty deposits on their walls. Cholesterol gets stuck here too, but that’s not the main physical problem.
Our body’s natural defenses come into action and try to clean it up, but they (for example macrophages, a kind of white blood cell that consumes invaders and then dies, before being recycled by the next part of the system) often get stuck and become part of the buildup (called atheroma), which can lead to atherosclerosis and (if calcium levels are high) hardening of the arteries, which is the worst end of this.
This can then require medical attention, precisely because the body can’t remove it very well—especially if you are still maintaining a heart-unhealthy diet, thus continuing to add to the mess.
However, if it is not too bad yet, yes, a dietary change alone will reverse this process. Without new material being added to the arterial walls, the body’s continual process of rejuvenation will eventually fix it, given time (free from things making it worse) and resources.
In fact, your arteries can be one of the quickest places for your body to make something better or worse, because the blood is the means by which the body moves most things (good or bad) around the body.
All the more reason to take extra care of it, since everything else depends on it!
You might also like our previous main feature:
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Are Electrolyte Supplements Worth It?
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When To Take Electrolytes (And When We Shouldn’t!)
Any sports nutrition outlet will sell electrolyte supplements. Sometimes in the form of sports drinks that claim to be more hydrating than water, or tablets that can be dissolved in water to make the same. How do they work, and should we be drinking them?
What are electrolytes?
They’re called “electrolytes” because they are ionized particles (so, they have a positive or negative electrical charge, depending on which kind of ion they are) that are usually combined in the form of salts.
The “first halves” of the salts include:
- Sodium
- Potassium
- Calcium
- Magnesium
The “second halves” of the salts include:
- Chloride
- Phosphate
- Bicarbonate
- Nitrate
It doesn’t matter too much which way they’re combined, provided we get what we need. Specifically, the body needs them in a careful balance. Too much or too little, and bad things will start happening to us.
If we live in a temperate climate with a moderate lifestyle and a balanced diet, and have healthy working kidneys, usually our kidneys will keep them all in balance.
Why might we need to supplement?
Firstly, of course, you might have a dietary deficiency. Magnesium deficiency in particular is very common in North America, as people simply do not eat as much greenery as they ideally would.
But, also, you might sweat out your electrolytes, in which case, you will need to replace them.
In particular, endurance training and High Intensity Interval Training are likely to prompt this.
However… Are you in a rush? Because if not, you might just want to recover more slowly:
❝Vigorous exercise and warm/hot temperatures induce sweat production, which loses both water and electrolytes. Both water and sodium need to be replaced to re-establish “normal” total body water (euhydration).
This replacement can be by normal eating and drinking practices if there is no urgency for recovery.
But if rapid recovery (<24 h) is desired or severe hypohydration (>5% body mass) is encountered, aggressive drinking of fluids and consuming electrolytes should be encouraged to facilitate recovery❞
Source: Fluid and electrolyte needs for training, competition, and recovery
Should we just supplement anyway, as a “catch-all” to be sure?
Probably not. In particular, it is easy to get too much sodium in one’s diet, let alone by supplementation.And, oversupplementation of calcium is very common, and causes its own health problems. See:
To look directly to the science on this one, we see a general consensus amongst research reviews: “this is complicated and can go either way depending on what else people are doing”:
- Trace minerals intake: risks and benefits for cardiovascular health
- Electrolyte minerals intake and cardiovascular health
Well, that’s not helpful. Any clearer pointers?
Yes! Researchers Latzka and Mountain put together a very practical list of tips. Rather, they didn’t put it as a list, but the following bullet points are information extracted directly from their abstract, though we’ve also linked the full article below:
- It is recommended that individuals begin exercise when adequately hydrated.
- This can be facilitated by drinking 400 mL to 600 mL of fluid 2 hours before beginning exercise and drinking sufficient fluid during exercise to prevent dehydration from exceeding 2% body weight.
- A practical recommendation is to drink small amounts of fluid (150-300 mL) every 15 to 20 minutes of exercise, varying the volume depending on sweating rate.
- During exercise lasting less than 90 minutes, water alone is sufficient for fluid replacement
- During prolonged exercise lasting longer than 90 minutes, commercially available carbohydrate electrolyte beverages should be considered to provide an exogenous carbohydrate source to sustain carbohydrate oxidation and endurance performance.
- Electrolyte supplementation is generally not necessary because dietary intake is adequate to offset electrolytes lost in sweat and urine; however, during initial days of hot-weather training or when meals are not calorically adequate, supplemental salt intake may be indicated to sustain sodium balance.
Source: Water and electrolyte requirements for exercise
Bonus tip:
We’ve talked before about the specific age-related benefits of creatine supplementation, but if you’re doing endurance training or HIIT, you might also want to consider a creatine-electrolyte combination sports drink (even if you make it yourself):
Where can I get electrolyte supplements?
They’re easy to find in any sports nutrition store, or you can buy them online; here’s an example product on Amazon for your convenience
You can also opt for natural and/or homemade electrolyte drinks:
Healthline | 8 Healthy Drinks Rich in Electrolytes
Enjoy!
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The Osteoporosis Breakthrough – by Dr. Doug Lucas
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“Osteoporosis” and “break” often don’t go well together, but here they do. So, what’s the breakthrough here?
There isn’t one, honestly. But if we overlook the marketing choices and focus on the book itself, the content here is genuinely good:
The book offers a comprehensive multivector approach to combatting osteoporosis, e.g:
- Diet
- Exercise
- Other lifestyle considerations
- Supplements
- Hormones
- Drugs
The author considers drugs a good and important tool for some people with osteoporosis, but not most. The majority of people, he considers, will do better without drugs—by tackling things more holistically.
The advice here is sound and covers all reasonable angles without getting hung up on the idea of there being a single magical solution for all.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for a book that’s a one-stop-shop for strategies against osteoporosis, this is a good option.
Click here to check out The Osteoporosis Breakthrough, and keep your bones strong!
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Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
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Good Things Come In Small Packages
“Sprouting” grains and seeds—that is, allowing them to germinate and begin to grow—enhances their nutritional qualities, boosting their available vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and even antioxidants.
You may be thinking: surely whatever nutrients are in there, are in there already; how can it be increased?
Well, the grand sweeping miracle of life itself is beyond the scope of what we have room to cover today, but in few words: there are processes that allow plants to transform stuff into other stuff, and that is part of what is happening.
Additionally, in the cases of some nutrients, they were there already, but the sprouting process allows them to become more available to us. Think about the later example of how it’s easier to eat and digest a ripe fruit than an unripe one, and now scale that back to a seed and a sprouted seed.
A third way that sprouting benefits us is by reducing“antinutrients”, such as phytic acid.
Let’s drop a few examples of the “what”, before we press on to the “how”:
- Enhancement of attributes of cereals by germination and fermentation: a review
- Sprouting characteristics and associated changes in nutritional composition of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata)
- Phytic acid, in vitro protein digestibility, dietary fiber, and minerals of pulses as influenced by processing methods
- Effects of germination on the nutritional properties, phenolic profiles, and antioxidant activities of buckwheat
- Effect of several germination treatments on phosphatases activities and degradation of phytate in faba bean (Vicia faba L.) and azuki bean (Vigna angularis L.)
Sounds great! How do we do it?
First, take the seeds, grains, nuts, beans, etc that you’re going to sprout. Fine examples to try for a first sprouting session include:
- Grains: buckwheat, brown rice, quinoa
- Legumes: soy beans, black beans, kidney beans
- Greens: broccoli, mustard greens, radish
- Nuts/seeds: almonds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds
Note: whatever you use should be as unprocessed as possible to start with:
- On the one hand, you’d be surprised how often “life finds a way” when it comes to sprouting ridiculous choices
- On the other hand, it’s usually easier if you’re not trying to sprout blanched almonds, split lentils, rolled oats, or toasted hulled buckwheat.
Second, you will need clean water, a jar with a lid, muslin cloth or similar, and a rubber band.
Next, take an amount of the plants you’ll be sprouting. Let’s say beans of some kind. Try it with ¼ cup to start with; you can do bigger batches once you’re more confident of your setup and the process.
Rinse and soak them for at least 24 hours. Take care to add more water than it looks like you’ll need, because those beans are thirsty, and sprouting is thirsty work.
Drain, rinse, and put them in a clean glass jar, covering with just the muslin cloth in place of the lid, held in place by the rubber band. No extra water in it this time, and you’re going to be storing the jar upside down (with ventilation underneath, so for example on some sort of wire rack is ideal) in a dark moderately warm place (e.g. 80℉ / 25℃ is often ideal, but it doesn’t have to be exact, you have wiggle-room, and some things will enjoy a few degrees cooler or warmer than that)
Each day, rinse and replace until you see that they are sprouting. When they’re sprouting, they’re ready to eat!
Unless you want to grow a whole plant, in which case, go for it (we recommend looking for a gardening guide in that case).
But watch out!
That 80℉ / 25℃ temperature at which our sprouting seeds, beans, grains etc thrive? There are other things that thrive at that temperature too! Things like:
- E. coli
- Salmonella
- Listeria
…amongst others.
So, some things to keep you safe:
- If it looks or smells bad, throw it out
- If in doubt, throw it out
- Even if it looks perfect, blanch it (by boiling it in water for 30 seconds, before rinsing it in cold water to take it back to a colder temperature) before eating it or refrigerating it for later.
- When you come back to get it from the fridge, see once again points 1 and 2 above.
- Ideally you should enjoy sprouted things within 5 days.
Want to know more about sprouting?
You’ll love this book that we reviewed recently:
The Sprout Book – by Doug Evans
Enjoy!
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