Your body needs regular exercise so you can lead a healthy and fulfilling life. But what about maintaining the health of your mind? The (metaphorical) muscles of your ADHD brain must be flexed so you can enhance your brain’s executive functions. Here’s a quick glimpse of how mental exercises can make a massive difference in your everyday life and how you can squeeze them into your schedule.
Why Flexing your Mental Muscles is So Important for your ADHD Brain?
Have you ever tried drawing a circle with your right hand and a triangle with your left? It might seem impossible to perform on the first attempt. But over time, you’ll find yourself performing this activity almost effortlessly.
The human brain is incredible. It has the ability to rewire (for better or worse) as per the experiences we feed it. This ability of the brain is called “neuroplasticity.” It forms the basis for mental exercises or brain training. When you exercise your mind, you stand to:
Improve your attention
Reinforce your organizational abilities
Strengthen your focus
Adapt to learning new skills
Get better at decision-making and enhance impulse control
Improve your attention and memory
Everyday Mental Exercises your Mind Can Benefit Form
Dr. Hallowell, a leading authority on ADHD and a best-selling author, lays out several mental exercises to sharpen your ADHD brain. According to him, “if you try these exercises once a day, you should soon find that your attention span is strengthening and your ability to stay on task is growing stronger. Also, the quality of your focus should sharpen.”
All you need for these exercises are a few sheets of paper, two pencils, and the will to strengthen your executive functions. You can hop right here to find a comprehensive list of exercises for your ADHD brain.
How The Mental Fitness Bootcamp Can Help
There is a distinction between cognitive exercises like the ones proposed by Dr. Hallowell or Cogmed and the PQ Gym (mini mindful moments using our physical senses), which are easy to do and, when practiced, frequently help us move away from Saboteur mode (negative self-talk and negative emotions) and eventual saboteur hijacks.
The PQ gym creates a pause interrupting that negative emotion caused by the inner critics. It's like a way to calm down your nervous system. And the more you practice, the better you get at re-centering and bringing yourself to the Sage perspective, where every challenge can be turned into a gift and opportunity. When "working our self-command muscle" through the PQ Gym, we use our executive functions. Throwing the ADHD lenses into this scenario, the ADHD brain has glitchy executive functions and is wired for strong emotions, which translates into stronger saboteurs and saboteurs hijacks.
Another great way to foster long-lasting mental fitness is through deep diving into The Mental Fitness Bootcamp. Here, you not only master mental exercises but also break limiting beliefs associated with ADHD. Sign up for the course to journey through a solid, research-based method of overcoming negative emotions and fostering positive habits.