Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
Keep something to eat and drink within reach for hard conversations. Handing someone a biscuit and a glass of water often settles a room faster than any instruction does.
Part of why it works is that nobody has to be told how. A person too wound up to follow a breathing exercise can still take a sip and chew. Sharing it matters as well, since eating alongside someone softens things in a way that sitting opposite them does not.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Eat the good things We have provided for you (Quran 2:57), said of food sent down to people in the desert. Ordinary provision is allowed to be part of how someone is cared for.
وَظَلَّلۡنَا عَلَيۡكُمُ ٱلۡغَمَامَ وَأَنزَلۡنَا عَلَيۡكُمُ ٱلۡمَنَّ وَٱلسَّلۡوَىٰۖ كُلُواْ مِن طَيِّبَٰتِ مَا رَزَقۡنَٰكُمۡۚ وَمَا ظَلَمُونَا وَلَٰكِن كَانُوٓاْ أَنفُسَهُمۡ يَظۡلِمُونَ
We made the clouds cover you with shade, and sent manna and quails down to you, saying, ‘Eat the good things We have provided for you.’ It was not Us they wronged; they wronged themselves
Qur’an 2:57read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of mindfulness-based approaches in ADHD found improvements in symptoms and in the difficulties that travel with them, in both children and adults. The studies were small and few used active control groups, so read it as support for anchoring attention in the present rather than proof of any one method. A snack is a very cheap way to test that idea.
Oliva F, Malandrone F, di Girolamo G, Mirabella S, Colombi N, Carletto S, Ostacoli L. (2021). The efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder beyond core symptoms: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.. Journal of affective disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Eating pulls attention back into the body and the present moment without anyone having to try.
When not to
Check for allergies, and go carefully with anyone whose relationship with food is itself difficult.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Ask what someone takes that is not food, rather than asking what medications they are on. People do not file their supplements under drugs, so the usual question comes back empty.
With some sensory routines, the part doing the work may be a parent's steady hands and full attention rather than the technique itself. Worth knowing, because contact carries into the rest of the day and a protocol does not.
Cutting sugar does not improve ADHD, and nor does stripping out additives. Both have been tested repeatedly, including under conditions where nobody knew which child had eaten what.