Why Families with ADHD are turning away meds and taking up home based remedies instead

When it comes to correcting the ADHD mind's wandering ways, medications like Adderall and Ritalin have been proven in study after study to work. But the good news ends there.

Consider Adderall. Classed as an amphetamine, a cousin of methamphetamine, Adderall has serious risks when overused. Some of these risks include:

• Cardiac issues
• Insomnia
• Unhealthy levels of weight loss
• Major depression
• Inability to concentrate

Is that last one puzzling? For about 30% of Adderall users, the medication will actually make it harder, not easier to focus and get things done.

So how can a focus drug scramble someone's focus? The answer lies in the nature of how these medications act on the brain.

Referred to informally as "chemical scalpels" by some psychiatrists, focus enhancement drugs respond well for certain users with certain brain chemistries. For others, the drugs may actually worsen the neurotransmitter imbalance they originally sought to correct.

Non-medication based ADHD relief programs are gaining popularity

With 3/10 people being drug non-responders, and the other 7/10 starting to realize that medications are a poor long term option, home based solutions have been gaining in popularity in recent years.

One example of such a program is the Concentration Zen home-based ADHD relief system. Written by ADHD coach Sean Desilva, this program advocates ADHD correction through lifestyle changes.

"Good diet, exercise, mental exercise, and control of one's environment to minimize distractions are proven to help people concentrate. They don't even need to have ADHD, though those who do see an even greater degree of change," says Sean, who formerly had a severe case of ADHD himself but corrected it using his own program.

Why do the majority of the ADHD affected population continue to use medications?

Lifestyle management based approaches have only come into the limelight in recent years, and have a lot of ground to make up in terms of awareness.

"I think once the public starts to learn how powerful habits are in controlling neurobiological disorders like ADHD, more folks will turn to diet and lifestyle correcting programs to regain control of their mind. The benefits of ADHD relief based on lifestyle changes are lower costs and long term sustainability without putting one’s health at risk, all solid benefits that fare very well against the medication route"  Sean says.

For more information about the Concentration Zen home-based ADHD Relief Program, see here: Clic here!

Concentration Zen Review: A newer, better drug free ADHD solution?

As a kid, my parents used snap their fingers at me at the dinner table constantly. "Pay attention to what I'm saying!" Well it wasn't my fault… my attention issues did come from them.

Art and PE classes were my favorites, because I could actually keep up. But science, math, or foreign languages? Forget about it. 

This is life with ADHD. It puts your thoughts into a blender and scrambles them up. Focusing on tasks of non-trivial mental effort become incredibly difficult. 

It hurts relationships too. People who "know" that you have ADHD still feel slighted when you say "huh?" or "I'm sorry I didn't hear you." 

The gut instinct is to feel like you don't care. When I took a look at Concentration Zen, it was a big deal for me. Yes, I wanted to be more productive, or rather -- I wanted to just be able to function like a normal person. But I also wanted people to see that I cared about them and wasn't a lazy and at times, hyperactive jerk.

Core concept behind the program

Concentration Zen bills itself as "A sustainable, home-based system for helping control your ADHD." Author Sean Desilva specifically makes the case that medications like Adderall or Ritalin do help people control their ADHD, but can still be a bad long-term solution because they treat effects, not causes. Fortunately for us, the causes can be managed simply -- not easily -- by making lifestyle changes.

The 3 pillars of true, long term ADHD relief

Sean teaches a three pillar system for helping bring the mind under control and back into a state of productive focus. Diet is the first pillar and a natural way of regulating proper neurotransmitter function, along with giving the brain adequate replenishment to repair and maintain itself. “Mental training” is another leg of the system and more or less teaches how to stay focused on one input, without letting the mind wander off. The key to getting from mile-a-minute thinking to true, concentrated focus is to use baby steps that gently encouraged focus on just one thing. In time, the mind is able to stay put. The final leg of the program is the environmental restructuring pillar, which Sean teaches us is critical for people with ADHD. Because it's not just the mind that's causing the distractions, but noises, visual sights, instant messages, and so on. And eliminating those is the easy half of the battle.

Pros and cons of the Concentration Zen method

I like that Sean has created a disciplined approach to organizing one's life and mind. There's a strong case that ADHD can indeed be mitigated by nourishing the brain's chemical needs via foods, after all the brain is 100% made up of food. My experience with the mental training plan has been both positive and somewhat relaxing. When you ask only so much of yourself each day, you make progress without feeling burdened on day 2. It is a great system for incremental focus improvement in that regard. I can definitely see most people getting things done a lot more effectively – with or without ADHD – by following this system. Can it eliminate ADHD completely though? For that I'm not sure. But then again, neither does Adderall. This program is not a magic pill, but the start of a major lifestyle change that will help affected people regain the ability to do what they consciously want to focus on. Overall rating I give Concentration Zen a solid 4.5 out of 5. Not a magic pill, nor was it intended to be. It is a collection of methods that anyone can use at home to regain conscious control of how their brain thinks and manages its attention span. The end result is being able to do more in less time. And that's what I was looking for. Check out Concentration Zen at the following link: Clic here!