Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast Series by Attitude magazine.

This is Wayne Callen for Attitude magazine.

Glad you can be with us.

We receive lots of emails here at Attitude asking about lifestyle changes to manage a child's ADHD symptoms.

Many kids are already taking medication and parents are hoping that the right combination of exercise,

diet, a good sleep regimen and stress reduction can further contribute to symptom

management. The evidence is increasing that these lifestyle changes

can help in a major way with ADHD. In his wonderful book,

getting ahead of ADHD, expert Joel Nigg writes that having a highly nutritious diet

and getting exercise and enough sleep are especially effective for kids with ADHD.

In the last five years the scientific view on nutrition has changed from researchers just thinking that diet is a fad and cannot

affect ADHD to wait, hold it, maybe it can.

In addition, sleep can be the main tool nature uses to grow a child's brain, says Joel Meg.

It is an essential part of wiring the brain and learning.

And finally, studies suggest that the benefits of exercise on hyperactivity, attention, executive function, and cognition equal about half the effect of medication for children with ADHD. We are pleased to have top

expert Sandy Newmark with us today to sort all this out and give us specific

strategies on diets, sleep, exercise, and even stress reduction.

He is a clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California

and head of the Pediatric Integrative Neurodevelopmental Program at the Oshar Center for Integrative Medicine.

Dr Newmark uses an integrative approach to treating children, which means looking at the child as a whole not just as medical diagnosis

and using the most effective and least harmful therapies to help children succeed.

The sponsor of this week's attitude webinar is Niba Health.

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