LIVING WELL WITH ADHD
Five Things That May Actually Help
Many people with ADHD have tried a lot of strategies. Lists, timers, reminders, apps. Some help for a while. Many don’t stick. And when they fail, it’s easy to place the blame on the person who has ADHD.
But neuropsychologist Dr. David Nowell offers a different explanation: most strategies fail not because of willpower, but because the foundation underneath them is shaky. Before any system can work, the brain needs the right conditions. He calls these conditions the “Big Five” — five keystone habits that support focus, mood, and energy at a biological level. Improve even one, and the others get easier too.
1. Sleep Well
The brain has a daily peak window — a stretch of hours when focus comes more naturally. Sleep debt shrinks that window dramatically. Simple steps make a real difference: a consistent bedtime, a cool, dark room, and no screens in the bedroom. Phone and TV content is designed to keep people awake, and it works. Sleeping until noon on weekends is often a sign that the brain is trying to catch up on a weekday deficit — a pattern worth paying attention to.
2. Eat Protein at Every Meal
Carbohydrates fuel the brain for minutes. Protein fuels it for hours. For a brain that already struggles with sustained attention, that difference adds up. No special diet is required — just making sure something with protein shows up at every meal and snack. Eggs, cheese, nuts, meat, legumes. Beyond that, paying attention to how different foods affect focus and mood an hour or two later can be revealing. Nowell encourages treating it like a science project, not a test to pass or fail.
3. Move Every Day
Exercise raises the same brain chemicals that ADHD medications target — and an hour at the gym isn’t necessary to feel the difference. Research suggests that ten minutes of movement intense enough to produce slight breathlessness is enough to improve focus. A brisk walk, a quick bodyweight routine, jumping jacks before a hard task. The goal is to find the minimum that works and make it a daily habit rather than an occasional event.
4. Build a Support Team
Nobody manages everything alone — and people with ADHD often struggle most with the exact things that pile up quietly and cause big problems: bills, appointments, planning, paperwork. Nowell encourages his clients to think about who already helps them, and where they might ask for a little more. A friend who’s good with money. A family member who helps with the kids. A grocery delivery service that removes a weekly planning headache. Even small additions to a support network can free up significant mental energy for what matters most.
5. Use a Calendar — Intentionally
A calendar isn’t just for appointments. For an ADHD brain, it’s a tool for deciding in advance where attention will go — rather than letting the most urgent or stimulating thing in the room take over. Nowell recommends keeping a running list of everything that needs to be done, then, once a week, moving the most important items to specific days and times. A brief scan each morning helps orient the day. And at day’s end, the most useful question isn’t “why did I fail?” but “what’s one small thing I could do differently tomorrow?” — asked with curiosity rather than judgment.
These five practices work best together — each one supports the others. But changing everything at once isn’t necessary. Starting with whichever feels most manageable is enough. Progress in one area tends to carry into the rest.
And when things slip — because they will — writing it off as failure misses the point. Getting curious is more useful. What happened? What got in the way? What’s one small adjustment worth trying? That’s not falling short. That’s learning how the brain works. And that’s exactly where lasting change begins.
Based on Dr. David Nowell’s presentation at the PESI ADHD Summit, “ADHD, Neurodiversity, and Clinical Practice” (November 2022). Dr. Nowell is a neuropsychologist and adjunct instructor at Clark University who speaks internationally on executive functioning and the non-medication management of ADHD.
Photo by Leilani Norman
Leilani M Norman 
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