Green Tea, Classical Music and Walks In Nature
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Summary: The author explores how dopamine fluctuations, resulting from swinging blood sugars, impacts her ADHD-like symptoms. She links insulin levels to dopamine regulation, noting sugar’s role in affecting mood and motivation. To heal her ADHD symptoms naturally, the author adopts green tea for dopamine, classical music for focus, and nature walks for exercise and emotional balance.
As I discussed in my last blog post, I believe that I’ve got Inattentive ADD (although I’ve not been officially diagnosed with it). Dr. Amen discusses in his book ‘Healing ADD’ how ‘dopamine is generally considered the neurotransmitter involved in Inattentive ADD’ (Amen, 2013 p. 104).
What Is Dopamine?
The classic introduction to Dopamine usually includes a spiel about how it is a neurotransmitter, how it works in the brain to enable a person to focus and how it gives a person motivation, desire and drive to achieve a task. Even this preliminary information is still useful to me. Taking Dr Amen’s view that dopamine is involved in ADD, it is easy for me to understand why my motivation is erratic at best and completely absent at worst.
The Other Side Of Dopamine
Knowing that dopamine is impacting my motivation towards healing is all well and good but, for me, that isn’t the full picture. As I already discussed in my post on Candace Pert’s neuroscientific work, there is no clear distinction between the ‘neurotransmitters’ of the brain (which Dopamine is classed as) and the ‘hormones’ of the body. Instead, our body consists of peptides that link communication and action between the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. Indeed, researchers now seem to be garnering support for Candace Pert’s theory…
The Link Between Insulin And Dopamine
I was interested to find a preliminary study conducted in 2007 by a group of researchers at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center that identified insulin as having an important role in the dopamine pathways in the brain
This study showed that, when insulin levels are low in the brain (which occurs when a diabetic has high blood sugar levels), the dopamine pathways in the brain is unable to produce normal levels of dopamine. I would therefore anticipate that, when a diabetic has higher than non-diabetic blood sugar levels (which occurs for most diabetics after every carbohydrate-based meal), dopamine is suppressed and ADD symptoms are likely to be present.
So, as a diabetic with unnaturally oscillating blood sugars, it’s a double whammy. If my blood sugars are out of whack, my dopamine levels are too and my motivation goes down the plughole. So then trying to get motivated to get my sugars back in range is all that bit harder! So how do I square this circle??
Sugar And ADD
Sugar provides an exogenous method for increasing dopamine levels in my system. When I eat something sugary, my brain lights up with increased dopamine levels and I get back in my groove. So every time I reach for a piece of chocolate, a slice of cake or some other sugar-rich food, I am finding a way to increase my depleted dopamine levels. But each additional sugar feeding also leads to weight gain. Indeed, it has been found that obese people have a five to ten times increased rate of ADHD than the general population.
As if that isn’t bad enough, each time I eat sugar, I am increasing dopamine levels in my system artificially, by outside means. Therefore, my brain is learning that it needs to make less dopamine endogenously because the sugar will be along soon to increase dopamine again. And so the vicious cycle begins… Dopamine levels are low in my brain, my system waits for the sugar, I eat the sugar, my brain learns it doesn’t need to manufacture its own and therefore makes even less!
How Can I Heal My ADD Naturally?
If I can find a way to naturally increase my dopamine levels, then my ADD is (or at least its symptoms are) likely to reduce or disappear. Having just discussed the benefits of removing sugar (something I did successfully during my Whole30 challenge), eliminating sugar in my diet seems like an obvious first step. But my intuition is saying no to this.
I have eaten a low-carbohydrate diet for periods of my life with success but the longest I have ever achieved was seven months. Then, Christmas came along and the deprivation I felt at not being able to eat the foods I loved was too great. Every time I have tried to eat low-carb since then, the same thing always happens.
In order to achieve great healing, both physically and emotionally, I personally need to do something that does not feel so punitive or restrictive to me. Please don’t misunderstand me… I know of several diabetics that are hugely successful long-term with low-carbohydrate eating and it brings great quality to their lives. I have great respect for their way of life. But I also believe that healing is a very individual journey and you have to respond to what feels right for you as an individual. I know that I need an alternative to low-carbing.
Initial Steps To Healing My ADD
I have a tonne of ideas about where to start with healing my ADD. But, if I’ve picked anything at all up from my reading in this area, I really think, for now (and ever after!), I need to start small. My usual plan is to go in with everything at the same time and then give up or stop with exhaustion within a month.
And most importantly…
What can I commit to now that I will be able to continue to do in the future?
To work out what to do to heal my ADD, I want to tap into my intuition, my inner wisdom. I am sure that my path to healing is already known within me, I just have to listen to it. For now, I am going to focus on only three simple things. These are my first three steps on a road of a thousand miles…
1. Green Tea
My gut instinct is still telling me that Kelly Turner’s research (see my post here) has tapped into the inherent mechanism by which the body heals from any health issue, not just cancer. So I wish to try to use her strategies where possible. Therefore, a first easy step for me is to take follow her protocol to take some herbs and/or supplements. But which ones?
2. Listen To Classical Music
I found a piece of neuroscientific research that found that classical music increases dopamine production in the brain.
I am not an expert on classical music, let alone its effects on my brain(!), so I was unsure which pieces of classical music should be on my playlist. Thankfully, the experts over at the ADDitude blog have already put together a list of suitable music!
I have uploaded it onto Spotify as a playlist and called it ‘Classical Music for ADHD’. I am going to hit the play button for 30 minutes every weekday morning as I get ready for my day and hopefully my dopamine levels will rise beautifully!
3. Get Out In Nature
I love nature and really don’t need any excuse to get out in it! Life is always busy and I guess I don’t prioritise doing this as much as I would like to. This one is on my list of action items for multiple reasons.
Firstly, I feel good in nature. Kelly Turner emphasises the need to increase positive emotions and reduce negative emotions as part of your healing journey. Nature does this for me.
Secondly, multiple studies highlight the direct link between exercise and increased dopamine levels. So walking in nature also ticks this box.
Thirdly, this one feels so intuitively right (although, at the moment, it’s a sweltering 30-degrees plus out my window and a part of me just wants to run and hide in a deep freezer rather than go out and walk!!). Therefore, I am going to commit to walking for at least 15 minutes in nature five days each week. Ideally, I would like to do 30 minutes but I want to make sure it is achievable rather than setting myself up to fail.
A Helping Hand…
I discussed above about the vicious cycle that is set up in ADHD where a depletion of dopamine causes you to lack the motivation necessary to make the changes that will lead to you increasing your dopamine. For example, lacking motivation means that you won’t go for that great twenty-minute run that will naturally increase your dopamine. I really struggle with this lack of motivation and therefore I am desperate to find a way to solve this Gordian Knot. And I think I may have found the answer…
Accountability Buddies!
Until I have been doing my dopamine-focussed tasks and activities long enough to have built up a more-naturally-occurring dopamine supply in my system, my motivation is likely to be sporadic or non-existent. So I am going to have to rely on the dopamine, and resulting motivation, of others!! My husband is going to be my main buddy in this but I will also be recruiting my friends into this (unbeknownst to them!). This will particularly be required for getting out in nature.
Drinking my green tea should be fairly straightforward. I have linked it to my first meal of the day. I have put my teacup on top of the plate I usually have for breakfast so hopefully that will work!
Listening to classical music for thirty minutes should be the easiest. I have asked my Amazon Alexa to play my ‘Classical Music for ADHD’ playlist at 8am each morning. So there are no excuses for that one!
Let’s see how this goes!
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Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.
