[dashwehacct]

I feel like there has to be other under explored methods of treating ADHD aside from medication. I’ve yet to find any for myself, but am also incredibly hesitant to medicate my symptoms away. I’ve tried stimulants in the past and was left feeling like I traded one issue (lack of concentration and executive function) for another (racing thought and elevated heart rate).

I do see CBT mentioned, but only as an adjunct to medication. Another commenter here mentioned NLP which I have never heard of prior. Will take a look into this as well.

[eyelidlessness]

I’ll get to your question, but first…

> racing thought and elevated heart rate

This sounds an awful lot like either your dosage was too high or you’re one of the people with ADHD who doesn’t actually respond well to stimulants. Elevated heart rate/blood pressure is common and responsible doctors prescribing these drugs check it routinely, but racing thoughts is not a typical reaction at an appropriate dose.

Regarding other methods, one common but less formal thing that has helped me, and which I’ve seen benefit a lot of friends and others diagnosed later in life: developing and nurturing an awareness of the kinds of coping mechanisms that are already present, with close attention to which are helpful but could be developed further and to which are counterproductive or just neutral so they might be put aside.

For myself, I’ve realized that there’s a couple common threads through most of my helpful coping mechanisms. Foremost among them: keeping consistent routines is kind of a house of cards, but one which is much more resilient for me if I allow myself to be fairly rigid about them. Another: having a high degree of control over the sensory stimulation I’m exposed to, especially but not only sound, is one of my best defenses against cognitive overload.

These coping mechanisms vary by person but they often cluster around the kinds of problem areas that ADHD patients notice rather than the external problem areas that tend to lead to childhood diagnosis (or internalized self judgment reflecting real or perceived external judgment regardless of diagnosis age). As in, “why does ____ cause me to struggle and what’s been most effective when I do struggle?” tends to be a better starting point than “why can’t I just do ____ like normal people seem to do?” If nothing else, it gives you a chance to have self empathy and recognize that there are reasons and that you may already have a framework for those reasons, even if you haven’t noticed it yet.

[triggercut]

If racing thoughts exist without medication too. I would look at CBT to help with that. They will probably also look at mindfulness and meditation exercises to give you tools to deal with it when it starts.

It depends on what the thoughts are as to what will work best, if they are beliefs or schemas about yourself, random ideas or memories. What they are could mean they have a different purpose.

I have them regardless of treatment, mostly ideas for things to research, or questions to answer or creative things, sometimes I just need to record them and know they are captured somewhere. Like a voice recorder. Because years of trying to remember things means when I have an idea, sometimes, I'll run it over and over and over again to make sure it doesn't get lost. Capturing it and putting it somewhere safe means I can let myself move on more easily.

I do have elevated blood pressure that is now slightly on the "hmmmm lets watch that" side, but I had very healthy blood pressure to begin with and can thankfully adequately manage it with some medication.