Personal anecdote, I can thank a country doctor and my elementary school teachers for recognizing this back in the 70's: I was sent to school with a thermos of coffee and permission to go to the gym and run until I could compose myself.
I have ADHD and I have always performed better in school during sports seasons. I was undiagnosed through college and used a variety of techniques including exercise to focus on school work.<p>I prefer tactile sports such as football and rugby. Running is very boring, as are repetitive sports like throwing (I threw hammer and disc). Softball was always too slow paced for me. I'd be caught staring into space in the outfield.<p>I think ADHD was not as big an issue when jobs/daily life involved more physical labor and tactile experiences. Nowadays most "important" jobs consist of sitting in front of a computer for eight hours. That doesn't do any favors for us ADHD folks. I know medication has made a world of difference for me. I don't think I'd be able to handle a 9-to-5 programming job without it.
I've found that kids with attention deficits (diagnosed or not) tend to be able to talk and focus better when they can move around. Try right now to describe something at the far side of the room without pushing your head or using your hands. Communication and interpretation is more than just verbal.
<i>The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance.</i><p>This is the more interesting finding to me and conflicts with my personal experience. Maybe I just haven't been diagnosed for ADHD yet? However if it is true then this raises an interesting problem. Exercise is no longer a universal booster - you have to be damn sure that you're deep in ADHD, because if you're 40% ADHD and 60% normal, then exercise actually does more harm than good, according to the results of this study.<p>In general, this study seems very limited in scope and participant count. A worthwhile study for sure, but I think it warrants additional research above anything else, and nothing conclusive should be taken from it.
Another recent study showing that fidgeting and moving helps concentration in ADD children: <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150417190003.ht...</a>
Interesting -- this study referenced another which focused on the effects of color on individuals with and without ADHD (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854630/</a>). The game was designed for and taken from study for use in this one -- the results were nearly the same. The other study came back with similar results due to the structure of the game favoring ADHD individuals for level 1 and favoring individuals without ADHD for level 2.<p><i>The results in the original study were nearly the same proportionally and the game was found to favor the performance of an individual with ADHD.</i><p>The linked study, in fact, goes on to misrepresent the study it references in stating it was conducted "to quantify the performance of people with ADHD characteristics," when in fact the study stated it was conducted to describe "the development and the testing of a virtual environment that is capable to quantify the influence of red-green versus blue-yellow colour stimuli on the performance of people."<p>The referenced study concluded: "The game proved to be a user-friendly tool capable to detect and quantify the influence of color on the performance of people executing tasks that require attention and showed to be attractive for people with ADHD"
Physical exercise is generally repetitive,boring and requires discipline to stick to.<p>It could be that forcing someone to overrule their impulses for a period of time might be the solution, rather than the exercise itself.<p>I would ask for a control group who are forced to do some boring, repetitive activity without physical exertion like meditation and see if the results are mirrored.
Unmedicated, regularly attending school, able to focus for at least five minutes on a videogame, and:<p>> volunteers with notably good grades in all subjects, without reports about behavior problems and a good social life at school and at home.<p>That seems like a relatively mild case of ADHD.<p>[EDIT: Quote applies to control group, as pointed out by andreasvc. The first three points appear to still stand.]<p>I'm also wondering how the resulting GC and GE values from "Performance of groups in the whole game" figure are so different, considering that part of the selection process was being able to complete the level in 600 seconds, ±5%.<p>On a side note, this was very interesting:<p>> These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance.
For 2 months now, an alarm clock program alerts me every hour to do 1-2 minutes of quick but high intensity exercises. That's every hour. The benefits are amazing. I'm amazed at how many of my problems went away. I now get to sleep on time, wake up feeling rested, do not toss and turn during sleep, have a healthy appetite, gained muscle, hair loss stopped, and I cut down on procrastinating and my focus has drastically increased. Who knows how many pills I would have been prescribed had I told my doctor about my problems.<p>I saw most results within 24 hours, others after only 4 days.
Would be interesting to know how long the effect lasts, e.g. will 1h, 12h or 24h between the physical exercise and the test make a difference.<p>If it's say ~8 hours, then scheduling gym classes in the beginning of school days may help these children. If it's 1h it won't matter much, as long as gym isn't at the end of a school day.
Exercise helps a ton with depression too. And probably anxiety, though I don't have any direct experience.<p>I think it's no exaggeration to say that richer countries have been experiencing a rise in mental health issues, and that is in a large part, although not entirely, due to sedentary lifestyles.
I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but im pretty sure im on the spectrum. Did some Insanity this morning with the wife and noticed how much it enabled me to focus afterward and how it mitigated my desire for a drink, which I use for the same effect. I highly recommend regular physical exercise.
This graph feels a bit fishy and / or more interesting than the presented result: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone.0122119.g007.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372555/bin/pone...</a><p>GE = w/ ADHD
GE-EF = w/ ADHD and exercise<p>GC = w/o ADHD
GC-EF = w/o ADHD and exercise<p>Look how poorly GC-EF performed relative to the other groups in absolute terms. There's visually a much larger difference in concentration for those without ADHD, but who exercised than those that didn't exercise.<p>If we were to focus on the largest difference of effect shouldn't our conclusion be, 'Intense exercise can make the attention of people without ADHD worse than those with ADHD'?<p>This is what the authors say, "The results of this study also show that the GC group has a performance that is 42% better than the GC-EF group. These data seem indicate that after an intense physical exercise, people without ADHD show impairment in attention performance. However, this hypothesis requires further studies, which include the assessment of the duration of this effect."<p>Hmmm ..., color me a skeptical statistician.
Interesting methodology. I've used John J. Ratey's 2008 book Spark: Revolutionary New Science of Exercise & the Brain to regularly remind myself, for my own health, of numerous ways exercise has been demonstrated to help mental health including its place in my anxiety and depression toolbox.
Anecdotal : I have diagnosed ADD and started lifting (starting strength) some month ago. At first I felt some benefits, I would say almost the same feeling as with Ritalin, but it's almost already gone by now.<p>I should do more cardio to see if it's the same.
I think this is because blood moving at higher speeds and pressure gets nutrients to cells that don't always get all the nutrients they need. And it also removes waste products better, like a power washer removes dirt from your car better than just pouring water over it.
While this study agrees with everything I know from anecdotal evidence, it's not an enormous sample size. Two groups of 28 people each doesn't provide an enormous amount of statistical evidence.
For my ADHD a combination of ritalin, a LOT of sport (martial arts) and playing the piano did wonders. About a year of the sport and I've managed to lower my dose by about 50%.
TL:DR: "Conclusion: This study confirms the hypothesis of Medina et al. and Koehl et al.: intense physical exercise improves the attention of children and adolescents with ADHD symptoms. Physical exercise may be helpful for their learning because attention is essential to the school performance of any individual.<p>Physical exercises help improve children's attention and provide greater impulse control; these additional effects appear almost immediately, as confirmed in this study, which helps the concentration of children with ADHD."
Am I the only one who finds it difficult to mentally concentrate on a task after physical exercise? I feel like all my energy has been spent and there's not much (glucose?) left for my brain to function at higher levels of abstractions.