_ADD ADHD - What Kind?
We are, as you are no doubt aware if you register regularly, busy using a series examining the impact of diet on the effects of ADD ADHD. We now have already looked at the desirability of a Low-GI diet; this was followed up with a discussion about nutrition and thinking processes. The last few articles inside the series dealt with the negative impact of ‘sugar rushes’ and what we can do to prevent them from occurring.
ADD ADHD
With the next few articles we're going to delve a bit deeper to the issue of how your diet can make a real difference in the operation of conquering ADD ADHD. Before we are able to do that, however, we're going to have to take a brief go through the issue at the heart of ADD ADHD: Attention.
We are sometimes so used with an acronym that we completely forget exactly what it stands for. I suspect that is often the case with ADD ADHD. This is a pity since the acronym accurately describes the situation that we are dealing with, an issue with paying attention, an ‘attention deficit’. The issues that people dealing with ADD ADHD experience when it comes to attention lies in two related but distinct areas:
• Some people see it very difficult to focus
• Other people discover it very difficult to handle distractions
So what is the real difference between these two kinds of ‘attention deficits’? With the first the principal problem is that someone still find it very difficult to ‘zone in’ on a particular topic, object or behavior no matter the physical environment. He/she would find focusing equally difficult inside a crowded room or even in a bare cubicle. While using second type the outside environment is the determining factor. People with a distraction problem end up watching it almost impossible to concentrate when they are placed in lively environments but may do better when they are used in more ‘neutral’ settings.
The excellence made above between your two basic varieties of inattention may seem trivial however it cuts to the heart of methods the brain pays attention and is also therefore a vital piece of the puzzle in terms of dealing with ADD ADHD. This means that different people will require different things to improve their attention:
• Some men and women have to learn how to ‘tune’ in'. This is often compared by placing magnifying glass over a thing. Everything will remain fuzzy unless you manage to place the glass at precisely the right distance and angle.
• Other men and women have to learn how to ‘tune out’. I am a frequent flyer and i also always take a pair of top quality noise cancelling headphones beside me when I fly. Their effect borders for the miraculous. One flick of an switch and it is as though the outside world ceases to exist. This is a great analogy of the form of ‘tuning out’ that some people must learn to, the filtering out of distractions to the extent that they become almost irrelevant.
There are several differing theories about ADD ADHD, only one thing that almost everybody is agreed on is at least some of its effects could be traced back to neurotransmitters within the brain not fulfilling their function properly. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals that are responsible for carrying ‘messages’ between thoughs and it does not please take a genius to work out that failures in this region could have serious consequences. Some of these consequences are perhaps all too familiar to you: inattention, impulsiveness, daydreaming and hyperactivity. Other great tales. The interesting thing is always that brain scientists start to discover that failures of neurotransmitters linked to the types of inattention mentioned above (lack of focus and distractedness) occur in different parts of the brain.
Mental performance pays attention by 50 % basic ways and you'll perhaps already you know what these two ways are. The very first is top down (or willful goal oriented) attention. This is how set out to concentrate on completing a certain task (like reading this article for example). This kind of attention is centered inside prefrontal cortex (the so-called ‘executive centre’) of the brain.
Another type of attention is due to the response of the brain to outside stimuli or distractions. It is sometimes called bottom up (reflexive stimulus responsive) attention. That's where the brain ‘snaps to attention’ as a result of influence of something inside the environment. This type is centered in the totally different part of the brain namely the parietal cortex for the back of the brain.
This insight, namely that several types of attention emanate from completely different parts of the brain, has interesting implications. It implies, at the very least, that we will have to pay much closer attention (!) to the kind of ‘attention deficit’ that we coping when discussing a particular case of ADD ADHD. I'll profile this issue in a bit more detail next article by discussing ways that we can identify different types of inattention. I am going to also begin to look in the role that nutrition can enjoy to combat them. View you then!
ADD ADHD