I was first diagnosed with ADHD over 20 years ago, when I was in my mid–20s. At the time, nobody talked about ADHD. For the past two decades, the main source of my education about how to get my brain to function optimally has been my own experiments.
One of my crucial discoveries was I must engage in physical exercise in order for my brain to “plug-in” and focus on cognitive tasks.
The science behind this is now more widely known: people with ADHD have a deficit of dopamine. Dopamine is the “reward” chemical in the brain. Practically speaking, dopamine helps with motivation and focus.
Exercise is a verified mode of stimulant that gives the brain the dopamine hit it needs to plug in and engage in cognitive work.
Although exercise is important for everyone for overall mental and physical health, neurotypical people don’t need the dopamine from exercise to engage in other tasks. They can find the reward in the task itself.
The ADHD experience is different. My morning workout is linked to many outcomes, but the primary result I aim for is to plug in my brain so I can do my work.
That said, I’ve learned that not all exercise is created equal in this regard. Sometimes a workout hits the mark perfectly and fuels a productive deep work session and a “flow” state. Other times, a workout can leave me so drained that I can put two words together.
Like the medication I take each day, exercise is a stimulant that triggers the production of dopamine. And finding the right stimulus is crucial.
Through experiments, I’ve discovered a list of factors that create the ideal stimulus.
7 Factors to Create the Ideal Workout Stimulus for ADHD Brains
(1) The Right Amount of Physical Challenge
Exercise can be challenging on two levels: physical and cognitive.
A hard workout that pushes you to the limits of your physical endurance is physically challenging. You stress your muscles and your aerobic capacity. If you hit it right, you feel like you worked hard but you also feel energized by the work.
A workout can fail to trigger the production of dopamine if it is too challenging physically or if it’s not challenging enough. The sweet spot can vary based on multiple factors: sleep, time of month in my cycle, fatigue levels from previous workouts, and cognitive load.
There’s a delicate balance necessary here: I need to be forced to work hard enough so that I feel like I “pushed myself” and accomplished something that was challenging, but the challenge must feel like it is within my realm of capability.
If the workout feels like it’s beyond my capability in terms of either the movement patterns, coordination, skills, or load involved, my frustration tolerance will deplete quickly and the workout will fail to produce the dopamine hit I need.
In fact, it will have the opposite effect: it will shut down my resources and deplete my motivation to do anything.
(2) Limited Cognitive Challenge
Some workouts stress the physical body and also tax cognitive resources. Learning new movement patterns, classes with intense choreography, and technical movements like weightlifting that require attention to form are all examples of workouts that can be cognitively challenging.
There are times to learn or practice new skills and movement patterns, but those types of workouts aren’t ideal for when I need to generate dopamine I need to plug in my brain to start my day.
A cognitively taxing workout can drain the cognitive energy I need to focus and do my work.
(3) Repetitive Movements
Repetitive movements that are relatively simple and require no thought process are ideal for triggering dopamine.
Running, walking, hiking, biking, swimming all allow the brain to shut off focus on the movement and the body to take over.
Jumping rope can also work well here, if you have facility with the movement.
Simple movements with dumbbells can also work here, as long as the movement is familiar.
I’ve found that this category can expand with skill development. When I’m first learning a movement pattern, it may be too cognitively demanding to stimulate dopamine. Once I have facility with that movement, I can get into flow with it.
(4) Clear Guidelines and Instructions
Two key principle are at play here:
A confused mind says no.
When I’m not clear on what I need to do or how to do it, or I am worried that I’m not performing movements properly, I will deplete frustration tolerance and my nervous system will shut down.
Decisions are Distractions, aka Decisions Deplete Dopamine.
The goal is to limit the decisions that I am forced to make.
Any decisions deplete dopamine and waste precious cognitive resources
What exercises to do, what weights to use, how many sets and reps, what weights to put on the bar, how long to rest between sets, how long to go for: all are seemingly small decisions that are like death by a thousand cuts.
Each decision drains my decision bandwidth and depletes my dopamine. It also creates frustration, which depletes my frustration tolerance for the day.
(5) Time Structures
Left to my own rhythms, I can waste a lot of energy on puttering and delay.
This is one reason I like to take classes, especially first thing in the morning.
My commitment to show up for a 5:30 am class, forces me to get out of bed and out the door without giving me time for distractions.
Once I’m at the gym, class forces me to start before I have a chance to deplete too much nervous system energy on unnecessary warm-up drills or other puttering.
Class also forces me to stay on a certain pace. Left to my own rhythm, I’ll move through things slowly, with a lot of transition time. Although some transition time is necessary for rest, I can take too much when left to my own rhythms. Too much transition time allows the dopamine to dissipate.
Class also gives me a clear ending time, which forces me into the next phase of my morning routine.
(6) No Screens and Limited Conversations
In general, I have a policy of no-screens before my workout and before I do my first session of morning workout. I like to keep conversations or external stimulus to a bare minimum. Although sometimes it’s unavoidable, I try to limit it.
Each conversation creates decision points. It introduces more noise into the process. This interferes with the flow of my workout and with cultivating the energy I need to do my best work.
(7) Advanced Planning
Planning and implementation rely on two different parts of my brain, and those activities need to be separated as much as possible.
Ideally I like to have my plan for my morning workout before I get to the gym, so that I can show up and execute without needing to think about it in the moment.
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