This study is one more in a series that show ADHD stimulants are not only effective at treating the symptoms of ADHD, but they have powerful, positive health benefits.

For more read: http://budurl.com/gcfq (Reuters) or http://budurl.com/xt45 (US News and World Report)

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and by the Lilly Foundation.  When you see a drug company listed as a funder of a study like this are you skeptical that it’s totally true?  We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.   Please leave a comment!

Teen Drivers with ADD a Problem on the Road .

 Take these three steps to make you a safer driver:

1. Turn OFF your cell phone.  If it’s off you won’t be tempted to answer it or text while at a light.
2. Drive alone.  Your friends are fun, but they are distracting.
3. Don’t play with the music.  Turn on your station before you turn on the car.  Fidling with radio and climate controls takes your focus away from the road.

What do you do to keep your focus while on the road?  Leave a comment and enter to win our September ADHD Awareness Contest.

Self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” Neil Peterson founded five companies during his 40-plus year career, most notably Flexcar, the award-winning car-sharing company that recently merged with Zipcar.  Peterson’s resume is an impressive list of C-suite positions in both the public and private sectors that also includes heading public transportation agencies in Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles. Numerous awards, including Time magazine’s “100 Newsmakers of Tomorrow” in Seattle, attest to his success. 

But over the years, Peterson says, “no one suspected I suffered from Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder until my two children were diagnosed with ADD and ADHD in their mid teens. It was then that I learned of my own affliction when our doctor explained that ADHD, a complex mental health disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, is hereditary.”

 Embracing the Edge: Stories of Tenacity and Personal Power, Peterson’s newly published collection of personal inspirational stories, recounts how he overcame physical and learning disabilities, as well as life’s normal disappointments, to become a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive and public servant.

Included in this memoir is Peterson’s heart-stopping story about the five-person hiking party he led that survived being swept away by a rogue wave and trapped for many hours in a cave in June 2007 on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The story describes the ordeal with his two children, a nephew and a friend of fending off hypothermia and panic as they struggled to stay calm and focused while searching for an escape route.

In 2006, Peterson decided to do something to help the millions of students struggling with ADHD.  Having seen the benefits of personal coaching in his own life and those of his children as an effective intervention strategy and an important part of a multi-prong ADHD treatment approach, Peterson founded the Edge Foundation, an organization committed to providing professional coaches for students with ADHD to help them realize their potential and their passion, and to become tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.

All profits from the sale of Embracing the Edge will go toward carrying out the vision of The Edge Foundation.  To purchase a copy of the book visit the Edge Foundation store.

Leave a comment and win
A copy of Nancy Ratey’s new book, The Disorganized Mind, will be given away to one lucky reader this month.

It’s easy:
To enter to win, all you need to do is leave a comment on any of the Edge blogs during the month of September. Each comment will be treated as one entry. One comment per blog page.

About the book:
The Disorganized Mind provides expert guidance on what you can do to overcome the challenges of ADHD and make the most of your life. Nancy A. Ratey, EdM., MCC is a strategic life coach specializing in coaching professionals with ADHD and an internationally recognized expert on the subject of ADHD coaching. Her work has been featured in The NY Times, Newsday, Wired, and Vogue, and has appeared on ABC, CBS and NPR.

Can’t wait to find out if you won to read the book? You can buy Nancy’s book now and support the Edge Foundation at the same time.

Want to learn more about how coaching can help you keep your edge? Sign up today to learn more.

To much of the ADHD community, Michael Phelps’s phenomenal swimming at the Bejing Summer Olympics is a beacon of pride and hope.  For all the advances in diagnosing and treating ADHD, it remains greatly stigmatized.  In chat rooms and bulletin boards people post items like “ADHD is not a disability” as a way of giving support to those who are living with it.  Yet, after we watch Michael Phelps, his fierce determination and single-minded focus, it is clear that even the name Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder falls short in describing just what ADHD is.  Clearly Michael Phelps has no shortage of attention!

Many people have no idea that Michael Phelps has ADHD, yet he hasn’t kept it a secret.  In an August 13, 2008 TimesOnline article, his mother is quoted as saying, “In kindergarten I was told by his teacher, ‘Michael can’t sit still, Michael can’t be quiet, Michael can’t focus.’  I said, maybe he’s bored.  The teacher said that was impossible. “He’s not gifted,” came back the reply. “Your son will never be able to focus on anything.”

How many people with ADHD are told just that – you’ll never be able to focus on anything!  Obviously after Michael Phelps’s summer of 2008 performance, it’s clear that ADHD does not have to stop you from focusing on and reaching your dreams.

Today let’s take a page from Michael’s book and channel our passions.  If we do, imagine what we can accomplish.  As his coach, Bob Bowman, says, “One of the things I call Michael is the motivation machine.  Bad moods, good moods, he channels everything for gain. He’s motivated by success, he loves to swim fast and when he does that he goes back and trains better. He’s motivated by failure, by money, by people saying things about him … just anything that comes along he turns into a reason to train harder, swim better. Channelling his energy is one of his greatest attributes.”

Congratulations Michael on your gold bonanza.  And thank you for providing the ADHD community a role model that shatters all of our sterotypes!

Now it’s your turn, what motivates you to succeed?

Note from Edge:  September 5, 2008:

Take the Edge poll, leave a comment and enter for a chance to win.  Find out more on this month’s blog:  Take the ADHD Success Poll

In the July 7th issue of the Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz wrote about the formation of the Internet Overload Research Group (Unloading Information Overload).  Apparently the internet is so distracting to the average technology employee that Microsoft, Google, IBM and Intel have banded together to try to figure out how to use technology to help keep their workers focused!

Who knew?  It’s not only people with ADHD who get distracted!  In fact, Crovitz reports that once a person is distracted from a task by an email or a phone call, it can take almost a half an hour to refocus on a task!  Now add ADHD into the mix, and no wonder it can seem like time flies when you are on the computer.

People with ADHD are often experienced at using tricks to keep themselves focused.  Here’s some of the ideas these companies are exploring.  See if any of them sound familiar to you.

Prioritize:  Apparently Microsoft has been trying for years to develop a software tool to prioritize email.  A low tech solution is to group your email by topic.  Then, instead of opening all of your emails as they come in, you scan down your list, and just open the ones that pertain to the project or subject you are working on at that time.

Look away:  A Google engineer recently created a tool that will turn your email off for 15 minutes at a time.  (Keyword:   Google Email Addict).  The idea is you turn off email and instant messages for short periods of time and you get more done.  This is so easy to do, why is a software tool needed?  Many people turn off email and instant message services while they are working on something – especially when writing.  If you don’t have little alerts popping up in the corner of your screen all the time, you won’t be tempted to procrastinate when you get stuck by starting to surf one of them down.

Turn it off:  Intel and IBM have tried setting aside Fridays to limit emails and other interruptions.  The idea is to replace interruptions with focused time on thinking.  Wired Magazine’s founder, John Battelle, instructed his staff to stop sending emails during the weekend.  Basically, even major companies realize that we don’t have to instantly respond to every request.  The world keeps on spinning even if you take a half day away from text, email and cell to get a project done!

Choose wisely:   The University of Chicago Law School has had to block the Internet from the classroom.  Well, duh, if you are surfing the web, sending emails or texting, do you really think you are learning anything in class?  You may as well have skipped that day! If you are in a class or meeting with someone, it just makes good sense to focus on the person or task at hand.

Nice to know that the rest of the world gets distracted by technology, doesn’t it?  What have you done to keep your focus on school or work and not get distracted by texting, RSS, Twitter or phone calls?  Please leave a comment about what’s worked for you.

Getting your paperwork organized can be an overwhelming task if you’ve procrastinated too long.  The key is getting caught up, then having a system in place so you don’t fall behind again.  Here’s one way that can help you get through the piles quickly - in just three days.

Start by setting aside three days to focus on your paperwork.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday are great times for getting organized.

Day 1:  Paperwork central

• Pick a place that you will keep all of your paper work on. This is your “Paperwork Central.” It can be a section of your desk, an out of the way place on the floor, or the dining room table.
• Go around the house and round up all your papers and bring it to your Paperwork Central.
• Don’t forget your backpack, purse or front seat of the car.
• Get all your paper - newspapers, bills, junk mail, assignments, magazines, homework, notes, letters, everything. About the only paper you don’t want in this pile is your books.

This step should take you about 15-30 minutes.  When you are done, congratulate yourself, you are getting organized!  Does the pile look overwhelming?  Don’t worry, we’ll get through it quickly on Day 2.

Did you find anything important when rounding everything up?  Choose one thing, and do it now!

Day 2:  Quick Sort

1. Go through every piece of paper and sort it into one of these piles:
   a.  urgent
   b.  bills
   c.  to do
   d.  save (filing)
   e.  reading
   f.  recycle
2. Do not spend time reading or thinking about each piece. It’s easy to get distracted here by thinking about each thing. Don’t! Just keep thinking, “All I’m doing is sorting stuff into piles. I have time to take care of this later.”
3. Set a timer; see how fast you can do it. Your job is to stay focused on sorting and do this step quickly. This step is about getting organized, not doing any work.
4. Don’t get distracted by the urgent pile. Your job right now is getting things sorted.
5. Take the recycling out right now. Doesn’t it feel great to get rid of that huge pile!
6. Put your reading pile somewhere you’ll look at it… in the bathroom, on the coffee table, by your bed.

This step may have taken you as little as an hour, or much longer if you’ve really let things go.  (Hope not!)  Take a break if you are getting stressed.  It’s important that you feel like you control your piles - they aren’t controlling you.  So take a break when you need to and come back later to do more.

When you are done with your sort, pick one urgent matter that you uncovered when doing this step, and take care of it now. 

Day 3:  To Do List

• Go through your “to do” pile and make a list of what is in it. This is your To Do list. It’s easier to look at a list than having to shuffle through the pile every day.
• Prioritize your list and put the most important items at the top of your page, the less important ones go towards the bottom.
• Post your list on your fridge or somewhere else you’ll see it.
• Look it every morning and pick the things you want to get done that day.
• Having trouble getting started? Start with the easy stuff. Again, you are in charge of your list, it isn’t in charge of you!

This step should take no more than a half hour.  All you are doing is writing down your to do list.  When you are all done, pick at least one high priority or urgent item and take care of it.

Be sure to cross stuff off your list when you do them.  And reward yourself when you’ve accomplished 10 or 15 of your items.  You’ll never have a finished to do list.  So it’s important that you celebrate keeping on top of it.

Congratulations!  You’ve got your paperwork under control.  And along the way, you’ve started taking care of your “To Do’s.”  Now it’s time to keep it that way.

CREATING A SORTING SYSTEM THAT WORKS

Now that you are organized, stay that way.  Every time you bring paper into the house, whether it is mail, or school work, or something else, bring it to your Paperwork Central location and sort it right away. 

• Don’t drop it on the dining room table if your Paperwork Central is in your bedroom.
• Do open all envelopes - especially for your bills, and recycle what you don’t need to keep.
• Do add items to you “to do” list as necessary and look at it each day to stay on top of it.
• You don’t need to buy fancy organizers for Paperwork Central, but you can if you’d like. The key is staying on top of it as is comes in.

A QUICK WORD ON FILING:

Does anyone like filing?  NO!  The key for filing is only keeping things you really need.  Obviously financial stuff like tax records need to be filed.  And you’ll probably want to keep school work for the quarter.  But beyond that, try not to save very much stuff.  The less paper you save, the less filing you have.  Some people like to file things right away (like doing the dishes).  Other people like to let it pile up and do it all in a quick hour or so.  Figure out what works for you.  Just be sure to keep your long-tem files separate from your bills, urgent and “to do” piles!

Top Ideas for Staying Organized:

• Paperwork Central: set aside a place for all your paperwork
• Quick sort: sort things into piles as you get them
• To Do List: keep a to do list to make it easy to see what’s on your agenda
• Take care of the easy stuff first. You’ll feel less overwhelmed when you have less to do.
• Don’t get overwhelmed. With just a little work every day, you can stay in control.

What tricks do you use to keep on top of your paper piles?  If you’ve got a system that works, we’d love to hear from you.

Written by guest blogger: Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign

Aside from his medication and special accommodations, Wesselink makes use of an academic “coach”. Coaches are commonly used in ADHD treatment, and are the main focus of Neil Peterson’s EDGE Foundation.

Peterson founded the EDGE Foundation, so he could help other kids suffering from ADHD, in the same way he was able to help his own two children, who have ADHD and Dyslexia.

“Medications do not work for everybody. They are not ‘the’ answer,” said Peterson. “Medications do not teach skills, but coaches do.”

Coaches like Wesselink’s and those from EDGE work by helping a person with ADHD to organize their life on their own, rather than telling them what to do. The coach meets with a student once or twice per week, and helps him or her with prioritizing, focusing, confidence, etc.

For example, Peterson’s daughter calls her coach for 30 minutes every Monday. She and her coach talk about how everything in her life is going.

“Then she’ll tell him she’s got a big paper due next week, and later she’ll tell him how her friends are coming to visit her that weekend,” Peterson said. “He’ll ask if that will affect her paper. Then she’ll say ‘I should probably write the first part of that paper this week before they visit.’”

What’s important about coaching, Peterson stresses, is that the person with ADHD is doing the thinking, coming to the conclusions on their own, and that’s how they learn the skills needed in life.

Treatment plans for ADHD that include medication, special accommodations and coaching, can be very beneficial to a student with ADHD, and can help the student function normally in and out of college.

Regardless, ADHD is a difficult disorder to deal with, especially in college, and certainly when a student with ADHD has not been diagnosed with the disorder. But, according to Wesselink, with the right treatment, being a college student with ADHD is manageable.

“Since I was diagnosed, I’m always learning more ways to deal with it,” said Wesselink. “I have no doubt that I’ll graduate and have a “normal” job afterwards as an engineer.”

Read more testimonials on how Edge ADHD Coaching changes lives.

[Note: This is part one of a two part story written by guest blogger, Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign — Editor]

Nolan Wesselink is an average college student. He’s an engineering major at the University of Illinois, lives in a dorm room, goes to class during the week and goes to parties on the weekend. But there’s one thing about Nolan’s college experience that sets it apart from most others. He has ADHD.

                Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADHD, is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder that can be especially debilitating to college students. College students who suffer from ADHD are more likely to drop out of college than students without the disorder.

According to Neil Peterson, the founder of the EDGE Foundation, and father of two kids with ADHD, “Students with ADHD are 33 percent less likely to graduate from college.”

ADHD is characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity. The disorder, also commonly called ADD, can be present in three different ways. According to the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone can either have the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD, the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type, or the combined type.

People with the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD often do not pay close attention to details, are very forgetful and have a noticeably short attention span. While many people can attest to exhibiting at least one if not all of these symptoms from time to time, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have ADHD.

Peterson has a favorite analogy that he uses to distinguish people with ADHD and those without.

“Sometimes people will walk up the stairs, and when they finally get there, they can’t remember why they walked up in the first place,” Peterson said. “Plenty of people have had this experience before, but the difference is this: people who have ADHD experience this in a chronic fashion, rather than every once in a while.”

The case of the stairs is a perfect example of predominantly inattentive ADHD, but not necessarily the other types. A person with predominantly hyperactive-impulsive ADHD is usually very fidgety, has trouble waiting for his or her turn, blurts out answers to questions that have not been finished, and finally, talks excessively.

“Sometimes I’ll just talk, and not shut up, for like 10 minutes straight, and I don’t even really notice it,” said Wesselink. “I just keep talking, and whoever I’m talking to obviously notices it, and probably gets offended, but I won’t even notice that I’ve been talking that long until after the fact.”

Wesselink has the combined type of ADHD. This means he experiences various symptoms from both categories, inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. However, like many people with ADHD, Wesselink was diagnosed late in life. He was diagnosed just a year ago, during his freshman year of college.

Since many of the symptoms are thought to be simply bad behavior, extra energy, or just a part of a personality, many of the people in the U.S. with ADHD do not even know that they have it. According to Peterson, 50 percent of people with ADHD have never been diagnosed.

“I had a friend who had it [ADHD], and he was telling me about the things he was going through, and I thought ‘Hey, that sounds exactly like me,’” said Wesselink. “So I went to McKinley to get screened. After what ended up being a three-month-long process of tests and doctor visits, I was diagnosed.”

Wesselink also said the biggest problem for college students probably isn’t the disorder itself, but the fact that so many people are unaware they have it. With all the academic demands, increased independence, and distracting environment, untreated ADHD students are likely to fail.

“If I wasn’t getting treatment , I can basically guarantee that I would have failed out by now,” Wesselink said.

In fact, Wesselink almost dropped out of school as recently as last semester. After being diagnosed, different medications were tested on him, but many of them had unbearable side effects.

Aside from depression and a strong urge to give up on school, Wesselink said, “I had severe mood swings, one made me lose my appetite entirely, and one made me very angry and short-tempered. One even made me sweat.”

Even dorm life is greatly affected by Wesselink’s ADHD. Anthony Perez, his roommate and close friend, said Wesselink’s ADHD affects his life, too.

“A lot of times there will be tension in the room. He’ll have mood swings,” said Perez. “If he’s studying and I do something that distracts him, he’s completely screwed. He can’t just go right back to studying like most people. That leads to problems.”

Perez also said that the side effects from Wesselink’s medications would cause fights and uncomfortable living conditions, so he was glad when Wesselink eventually found the best one and stopped switching medications.

However, medicine is definitely not the only method Wesselink uses to treat his ADHD. He receives treatment and special accommodations from U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services, or DRES.

With DRES, he is able to take his class exams in an environment conducive to people with ADHD. He takes his exams in a plain cubical with minimal noise and distractions. In this space, Wesselink is able to concentrate, or “hyperfocus” as he calls it, on his exam, so he doesn’t make nervous mistakes that he would make in a normal classroom environment, filled with distractions and a time limit.

Next week:  How an ADHD Coach changed everything

It’s easy to come up with excuses for letting your impulses get in your way.  Everyone uses excuses to get out of a jam now and then.  But you can end up fooling yourself into believing your own story.  “I only did it once.” Doesn’t sound so bad does it?  But sometimes only one time is all it takes to make an irreparable mistake.  Consider drinking and driving.  You might get away with it once.  But on the other hand, you could end up killing someone.

 “He made me.”  It’s easy to fool ourselves into believing that someone else is responsible for our actions.  But, short of having someone holding a gun to your head, the only person who makes you do something is yourself.  Sure it might have been the first boy’s idea to throw the berries in the first place, but the second child threw that berry all by himself.  Does, “he made me,” stand up as a defense for shoplifting?

Which brings us to “I didn’t do it.”  Standing around and not acting when other people are doing the wrong thing, is doing the wrong thing.  Each of us has the responsibility to take a stand and say stop.  We call people heroes when they step in to help someone who is being victimized in a crime.  “I didn’t do it” stands hand-in-hand with “it’s not my fault.”  Taking personal responsibility is looking at ourselves honestly and owning our actions.  If you know that a crime is going to occur and you do nothing about it, you can be held accountable in a court of law.

Everyone makes mistakes.Sure it’s hard to stand up to an angry mother and say, “It was my idea,” or “I felt embarrassed to say ‘no’.”  It’s even harder to stand up to our friends and say, “I don’t want to do this; I’m outta here.”  Thankfully, most of life your mother won’t be there to make excuses to.  The only one you need to fess up to if yourself.  Some days with ADHD can feel like a series of impulsive disasters.  You don’t make them better by shoving mistakes under the carpet with lame excuses.  The key to successfully living with ADHD is facing your mistakes and working to avoid them in the future.

What kind of mistakes do you use white lies to cover up for?  Lateness?  Forgetting to pay a bill?  Missing appointments?  Getting homework in on time?  Most of the time the only person fooled by your excuses is yourself.  Consider your friend who is always late.  You know they just can’t get it together, regardless of their story.

If you’re in the habit of making excuses, it can be hard to change.  Be easy on yourself, and pick one thing to practice being honest about.  Next time you are late say, “I intended to be here on time, but I scheduled my appointments too close together.”  Or, “I cut it too close when I left home this morning and didn’t allow for traffic.”   When you start giving honest explanations for your behavior instead of excuses, you give yourself the information you need to avoid that problem in the future.  Who’s more likely to be on time?  The person who says, “I got stuck in traffic.”  Or the person who says, “I didn’t allow time for traffic.”

You don’t have to make excuses for ADHD.  You just need to be honest with yourself and work to keep on track.  When you make mistakes, fess up, forgive yourself and move on.  It’s what everyone else does, and you can too.