Can Supplements Help With ADHD?
Written and Clinically Validated by: Matt Marshall, PharmD
From zoning out in class to leaving our car keys in the refrigerator, there’s no question that ADHD and ADHD-like symptoms simply make life more difficult than it already has to be.
Then there’s the added stress of perpetually running late and the odd looks from your friends and peers (probably from losing your wallet for the 3rd time in the last hour).
Indeed, the trademark symptoms of ADHD – memory struggles and addled focus – are causative of many different collateral symptoms such as stress, anxiety, insomnia, and even depression.
While adhering to the treatment regimen prescribed by your doctor will always be the most effective plan of action, we’ve gone ahead and reviewed some other, less commonly pursued tips and tricks to help manage ADHD symptoms.
Check out the graphic below for a quick roundup as we cover each in detail. Feel free to save and share the graphic around if you or someone you know will find it helpful!
Supplements
You always see supplements marketed for working out, weight loss, and a host of other things – but ADHD? It’s true that you can’t treat ADHD with supplements or vitamins; however, certain products can help make symptoms more manageable and thus perhaps make your life a little easier.
Let’s take a look at what the research suggests and how these products work.
Bacopa
What is it: Bacopa Monnieri is an herb known to help with memory, learning, and stress relief.
While this is already sounding pretty good for ADHD, the truly novel thing about Bacopa is the mechanism through which it boosts your brain. By helping slow down the process of forgetting newly acquired information, Bacopa helps you retain more of your hard-earned knowledge.
While everyone’s experience with ADHD is subjective, we can probably all agree that forgetfulness is the hallmark sign. As such, this supplement is awesome, not just for its boon to your memory, but through its other benefits towards stress and anxiety.
What does it help with:
- Forgetfulness and Memory
- Stress and Anxiety
How to take it: Bacopa takes 1-2 months for its effects to be truly noticeable. Take 300mg once daily with a meal to maximize absorption.
Acetyl-L-Carnitine
What is it: ALCAR, known by its full name as acetyl-L-Carnitine, not to be confused with L-carnitine, crosses the blood brain barrier more efficiently than its non-acetylated counterpart – meaning a far more potent nootropic (brain boosting) effect.
According to the research, ALCAR seems to reduce mental fatigue while boosting concentration – effects that go hand in hand with long bouts of intense focusing such as while studying or certain types of work environments.
In a separate study considering children with ADHD, the supplement appeared to improve attention and focus in general, so this supplement pretty much sells itself for support of ADHD-related symptoms.
Thanks to its fatigue blocking effects though, consider it handy for other conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, or being a college student.
What Does it help with:
- Mental Fatigue
- Focus
- Concentration
How to take it: 600-2500mg daily – Bring up dose as needed for desired effect.
Phosphatidylserine
What is it: A powerful supplement for brain function in general, Phosphatidylserine is not just a mouth-full to say out loud, it’s also a potent booster of memory, mood, attention, focus, and cognition (how fast you can think and process information).
With data to back it up in ADHD populations as well, it’s a must for anyone looking to improve their performance in school, work, or just learning in general.
What does it help with:
- Memory and Cognition
- Attention and Focus
- Mood
How to take it: Take 100mg 2-3 times daily as required for noticeable effects
Lemon Balm and Valerian Root
What it is: As shown in the studies these 2 agents tend to work more on the impulsive and fidgety traits of ADHD. If you find yourself easily distracted, frequently lost to sudden impulse, or unnecessarily restless – consider using these.
These supplements also work well for calming the mind and winding down any intrusive thoughts from a noisy brain while trying to go to sleep – in addition to improving overall sleep quality.
Be cautious when taking these during the day, however, as they may induce low levels of sedation in some.
What does it help with?
- Restlessness
- Anxiety support
- Insomnia support
- Sleep Quality
How to take it: Valerian Root: take 640mg once daily, preferably at bedtime. Lemon Balm: Take 320mg once daily, also preferably at bedtime.
Fish oil
What is it: Fish oil, or more importantly, the Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil, have been shown to boost attention and focus measures in ADHD populations.
In fact, it’s not uncommon to see this prescribed alongside traditional medications for managing ADHD.
According to the research, people with ADHD tend to have lower levels of EPA and DHA, components that make up omega-3 fatty acids. As a result, it makes sense how supplementing this can help enhance attention and ability to concentrate in ADHD populations.
What does it help:
- Attention
- Concentration
- Mood
How to take it: Take 1000mg of Omega-3s daily. Make sure to read the label of the product you choose to determine how many servings it will take to reach that. If you experience gastrointestinal side effects try splitting up your doses throughout the day.
If you experience the dreaded “fish burps”, simply store your capsules in the freezer. Doing this thickens the coating and usually prevents the fish breath.
Vitamins
Zinc, magnesium, and iron deficiencies can all contribute to symptoms associated with ADHD such as fatigue, restlessness, and difficulty sleeping.
In someone likely to be deficient in these minerals, such as in people with dietary limitations (plant-based diets), women (iron especially), or athletes (due to sweating excessively), a vitamin deficiency could easily be causative for some of the ADHD-like symptoms.
In people without a deficiency or unlikely to develop one, however, there isn’t any clinical data, nor any significant reason to suggest any benefit for taking these.
How to take it: Zinc: 30-40mg once daily, Magnesium: 200-400mg taken once daily at bedtime, Iron: Dependent on your Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) – check out the table below to find yours:
Melatonin
What is it: Melatonin is the natural hormone your body produces to induce sleep.
Supplementation may help with insomnia that also is associated with ADHD, however if you aren’t struggling with sleeplessness, this likely wont be of much use to the rest of your ADHD symptoms. If you are, however; expect melatonin to work wonders.
The reason being that impaired sleep can easily manifest as ADHD-like symptoms. Fatigue, inability to concentrate, brain-fog, and impulsivity are all things that arise easily from a sleep-addled mind.
What does it help with:
- Falling asleep
- Staying asleep
- Resetting schedule
- Jet lag
How to take it: Start with a very low dose (0.5-1mg at bedtime) to ensure you aren’t taking too much. If you are especially struggling with nighttime awakenings, consider using the extended-release product.
Other Solutions to Try
We have probably all heard at this point that meditation, exercise, 8 hours of sleep, and a healthy diet are the first steps to improving symptoms. In fact we hear this for just about everything that can go wrong with our bodies.
While that doesn’t make it any less true that it helps, our focus is to shed some light on the things that you may not know already.
Music
Listening to music or background noise has been shown to improve concentration – especially in the ADHD brain.
Aim for calm, medium-tempo music with easy-to-follow rhythms. This is one of those things that you’ll have to, pardon the pun, play by ear. If it’s distracting, obviously don’t put it on your work or study playlist.
Especially interesting is that it’s been shown that white noise (or non-obtrusive background music) appears to boost focus and concentration levels for people with ADHD, but may have the opposite effect on people without ADHD.
It’s theorized that this is due to the characteristic lower levels of dopamine in the ADHD brain, meaning that the higher level of baseline dopamine induced by having music or noise in the background helps lock in focus.
Staying Organized
This is obviously harder than it sounds, but the more you establish a habit of keeping things organized in your life, the easier it gets. Remember, you don’t have to start big – it can be as simple as just making your bed every day at the beginning. Like going to the gym, you do a little more every week until one day, it feels weird to not know where your keys are.
To help save you some time, we’ve researched the best brands on the market for the supplements discussed above. Below you will find the links to each product – feel free to check them out and compare with your own research! We receive a small kickback (about 5%) from Amazon, not the brand, which means that we can not only continue to produce high quality content, but keep our recommendations 100% free of bias as well.
Cover Photo: Photo by Aiony Haust on Unsplash
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170184/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6043674/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17683456
Phosphatidylserine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23495677
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21807480
ALCAR
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15039515
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12213433
Lemon Balm and valerian
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24837472
Bacopa
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12093601
Melatonin
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170184/
Omega-3s
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5669464/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625948/
Vitamins
