ADHD Research Recap: Executive functioning, time perception and a new attention disorder

Skye: 0:05

Hi, we are the ADHD Skills Lab Podcast. My name is Skye.

Sarah: 0:10

And my name is Sarah.

Skye: 0:11

And we will be your hosts chatting to you about practical ADHD strategies you can use, the research behind some of these strategies as well as interviewing other professionals with ADHD about how they've developed skills in working through struggles in their lives.

Sarah: 0:25

You might know us from Unconventional Organisation where we talk about this kind of stuff all day long. So we're super excited to have you along. And we're gonna chat through it together.

Skye: 0:39

So today, we have three articles for you. We have a meta analysis on time perception, which is very, very cool. We have an article on sluggish cognitive tempo, which we have a lot of thoughts on. I hadn't heard a lot about it before preparing for this interview. And then we're going to round out with a really cool article on different kinds of meditation based mind body interventions. Let's start with time perception. So basically, this study is a meta analysis that was done in 2020. It was published this year, where they looked at how children and adolescents perceived time and it went in a little bit more in depth into their impairments with time, which has been really cool to read, because we always talk about time blindness, and there are studies on it. But it's good to get a few more and to talk a little bit more about the research behind it. So Sarah, do you want to give us a little bit about the details of the study?

Sarah: 1:38

Yeah, so as Skye mentioned, this was a meta analysis, which is really great, because it gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Basically, it compiled 27 Different studies. So the sample size was quite large, it was 1620 children and adolescents with ADHD. And 1249 controls. So no ADHD,

Skye: 2:01

That's maybe the largest amount of people with ADHD, we've had in any study that we've looked at so far.

Sarah: 2:07

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I really love sort of what they looked at here. So basically, they were generally just looking at evaluating what they called the time perception impairment. So just sort of different ways that people experienced time.

Skye: 2:24

Yeah, I think it was really interesting. They actually talked about two areas, which we know about, but it's nice to have it in more detail, which is accuracy and precision. Can you remember what the actual definition of that was?

Sarah: 2:38

Yeah. So I actually went through because I wanted to see what they were measuring, like, how do you give a time test. And as it turns out, they had sort of four different ways that they measured your ability to estimate time. So the first one is pretty basic time estimation, that sort of like estimate the duration of this time length. The second one was called time production. So they sort of have the subject, identify the start and the stop time, have a period of time. So say, they'd be like, tell me five seconds, and you'd have to start, and then five seconds later stop. The third one was time reproduction, which is basically just being exposed to a stimuli for a certain amount of time, and then having to reproduce that same interval of time.

Skye: 3:22

Yeah.

Sarah: 3:23

And then the last one is also really cool. And I have a personal anecdote about this one, but time discrimination, which is basically like you have to say which one of these intervals is shorter or longer? So these are all really specific sort of ways to measure time. And I actually can't wait to start talking about some of these in sessions with clients.

Skye: 3:45

Yeah, no, I loved it.Because, you know, often when we talk about time blindness, based on the research that we were looking at previously, you were often talking about time accuracy, like how accurately could you say, what are we talking about examples? It was like, if you had, you know, a sense, you were given nothing and, you know, no time, things to read, and you had to figure out how long 10 minutes was, could you do that? And that's something I actually had to do as part of my ADHD testing way back in the day, it was be in a room for five minutes. And like,I can tell you, I had no idea. I didn't even realize it was a test. I was just sitting there thinking I don't have a watch, I don't know, and then did everything really fast. So that's really funny. It was a weird experience to suddenly be put in that position. But it is interesting to talk about, you know, can you recreate it because often when we are looking at things like workplace scenarios, it's about saying, Okay, well, one, do you know how long it took you to write this report? Could you do it again?Like could you get a sense of that again, is that going to be different again, and I think there's a lot of interesting things that we as an organization are going to want to dive into in this kind of article and this sense of time blindness to develop and grow our theories of time and our strategies for time, which is what we're always doing. So but what did they find before we get too in the weeds there?

Sarah: 5:12

So basically, to summarize this, they found that the subjects with ADHD perceived time less accurately, less precisely, and tended to overestimate time compared to the controls. Now, there's a whole discussion about like factors that might have caused this, you know, and they kind of start to point to the existing body of research on internal clocks. And so there were some really interesting things wrapped up in that discussion.

Skye: 5:43

Yeah, and for those of you who are interested, they specifically referenced the Scalar Expectancy Theory, or the SET theory, and the Dynamic Attending Theory or the DAT theory. So those are kind of the two ones, where they talked about the internal clock, I thought it was really interesting what the set theory there was the idea of a pacemaker counter within an individual, which generates temporal pulses, and the potential for people with ADHD to have it basically do this in a different way, from neurotypical. So this is going to be fun, if we can get some neuroscience on this. This would be really cool to really be able to see, but we are, I guess, starting to get a sense of just how differently our brains work when it comes to time, which doesn't often come up. It can come up in the diagnosis, but it's not heavily discussed as much. So for a lot of people, this is the thing that comes as a little bit of a Oh, I didn't realize everybody else didn't do this moment.

Sarah: 6:42

Yeah, it's really interesting to sort of talk about, I just want to circle back a little bit before we move on completely, because the authors were talking about how set theory and d a t dat, I guess, oh, actually, I just said set theory. And the T stands for theory. So sat and dat. So yeah, they suggest that the executive functioning difficulties of working memory and attention regulation may be partly responsible for people's inaccurate perception of time.

Skye: 7:13

Yeah, I thought that was really interesting as well, connecting that working memory capacity makes sense. They said working memory could play a crucial role in time perception. I'm just quoting them here, as sufficient working memory capacity is required to register the pulses accurately, which essentially means if you don't, you know, there's a sense and this is all theory, right? So we're still, they're still developing this. But you know,if you don't remember, or if your working memory capacity is low, it might be difficult for you to even register. And we've all been there, where we're like, where am I? How long has it been? What am I doing? So yeah, I think it definitely relates.

Sarah: 7:54

And then, the DAT suggests that individuals who have attention problems might be more susceptible to the influence of external stimuli and time perception. So that's basically like, if you hear music playing in the background that can pull you away from your perception of time, and either speed it up or slow it down, which, again, is just super cool. Yeah. But also unfortunate.

Skye: 8:19

Yeah, I mean, cool to know, not cool to experience, I would probably say for sure. Yeah, there was also some idea that maybe they talked about this as well, our findings find the proposition of a faster internal clock, and individuals with ADHD might be the case, which I find very fascinating, the idea that maybe, because I definitely feel like, I don't know if you've ever heard the idea of like, where's your center of gravity? I often as a person who has ADHD feel like it's a little bit in front of me. Because I'm always moving towards the next thing. I'm always thinking about the future. I'm always kind of estimating things as being surely that will take an hour.Like I'm already thinking about the end of it. And I did wonder about that when they spoke about this idea of a faster internal clock.

Sarah: 9:07

That's a fantastic point.I wonder if that's part of why I'm so clumsy.

Skye: 9:14

That might be related, but different topics. But yeah, I can definitely relate. Yeah. But I think that it is an interesting idea to think about your internal clock. So what are the practical takeaways of this study, which just to summarize, found that there was a difference, we tend to not be as accurate in our perceptions of time, or as precise in our perceptions of time. So if you feel like your time is different from other people, yeah, it is probably the case with ADHD. What can we do practically, we now have this information. We're kind of a bit I wouldn't say light hearted about it. But for us, it's something that we know and we study and we have a lot of strategies for. What can we take away for the people who are like, oh, gosh, this is this is terrible. I didn't know this was happening at all.

Sarah: 10:07

Yeah, so the author suggests early training to enhance time perception. And now for us as ADHD coaches, that sort of just means, like, lots of ways to externalize time,like, let's make time more tangible, you know, I think that I've actually been playing with as a parent is, instead of saying five minutes, we're leaving in five minutes, I'll say something like we're leaving after one more round of Fornite, or something like real, that they can latch on to. Now for not children. There are other strategies to make time more tangible as well. Time timers are a huge, very fantastic tool,very popular with lots of clients. There's even a book that comes with some of them.And basically a Time Timer, if you don't know, it just shows you sort of how much time is left. And it just sort of gets smaller, as you watch the time sort of disappear, you know, and then just sort of finding more ways to anchor time throughout the day, you know, maybe two more like actual specific things that happened to you.

Skye: 11:14

Yeah, I think that's, that's a really good point. And yeah, a lot of clients use time timers. And one of the reasons for that is, because it's not very loud. And when we talk about time and time, as I always want to say, you don't have to have a buzzer that goes off throughout your day, we don't have to regiment it because for a lot of people, it feels like that's the only way to measure an externalized time. And that can be quite annoying, and quite frankly, a bit stressful to constantly have alarms in your life. So things like having a visual clock, like a Time Timer,or having something like okay, I have a cup of tea. And when the cup of tea is done, and I get started, or I play a game when the game is done, then I do this. There will be things in your life that need a timer like deadlines, you know, places you have to be. But for everything else, it's thinking about, Okay,do I have anything in my life that takes a certain amount of time or roughly a certain amount of time? And can I use that to help me externalize more and more? And some people just find it helpful to have a speaking clock. And Sarah, I see you've got that one in your notes here.But yeah, exactly. Having that.You can find them on apps where they just say like, it's 10o'clock, it's 1030 or however much you want it to do. And that in itself, you can just be like,Oh, thanks.

Sarah: 12:37

Yeah, it's like having an assistant who just sort of tells you what the time is at a frequency that you choose.

Skye: 12:43

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, lots of different ways to do it. But definitely, you know,if you are learning about time blindness, this is something that we recommend. Externalizing time is really great. Before we wrap up on this paper, I just want to give a shout out to this paper in general, for being so easy to read. Yes, and very well written like it was very easy for us to find the material to find the information. Having that many people who had ADHD, I understand that it can be often easier to find children,adolescents with ADHD going into schools versus adults. But yeah,just a very well made very well written study.

Sarah: 13:26

And I did also want to shout out that the authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and our publication. And also they received no financial support for the research, authorship or publication. Yeah, I think that's always really important to sort of notice about articles.

Skye: 13:46

Yeah, exactly. If you if you do see something, it doesn't necessarily mean that the article is not relevant. But it is nice to just have that information and to know that information for sure. So yeah,very, very cool article that we will link down below in our show notes from the Journal of attention disorders. Okay, so the second article that we are going to talk about today is something that was really interesting, because I didn't know a lot about this thing. So we're talking about a study that essentially looked at the differences between ADHD and something called sluggish cognitive tempo in adults. So again, this article is 2023article and we will put it in the show notes below as well,but it's talking about something and it's also the Journal of attention disorders. So shout out to them they get a lot of ADHD research, but it's very interesting article because they basically look at the concept of ADHD as we know, you know, we've talked about it a lot. It is something that is a combined type so you can be diagnosed with primarily inattentive or primarily hyperactive even though the H in ADHD does stand for hyperactive, you can get diagnosed with primarily inattentive, combined type, or primarily hyperactive ADHD. And this sluggish cognitive tempo is sort of attempting to stand apart as its own diagnosis. It's not in the DSM, which is why it hadn't come across my desk at this point. But it is something that has been kicking around since the 1980s. In various forms, and people have been have been talking about it. Yeah. So that's kind of what it is. And I just want to start out before we even get started, I just want to make a note that Becker in 2022,he was quoted in this article as saying that he thinks that we should call it cognitive disengagement syndrome, because the term sluggish is what he would call a derogatory term. So I just want to say that right off the bat, for those of you who are looking at this and thinking, This sounds a little bit, I don't know if I want to get diagnosed with this. There are people who are literally involved in the study who feel this way about the title. So Sarah, do you want to take us through a little bit about what sluggish cognitive tempo is and what they were attempting to find in this article?

Sarah: 16:14

Yeah, so they define sluggish cognitive tempo as a system cluster comprised of lethargy, under activity,apathy, daydreaming, slow thinking, excessive sleep, and being easily lost in thoughts.

Skye: 16:30

They related to depression. And they related it to like a combo, ADHD depressions, it sort of felt like it was like, if you were to straddle the space between ADHD inattentive and depression, you would find sluggish cognitive tempo there, that was kind of the impression that I got,essentially, the hypothesis was actually that sluggish cognitive tempo is a primary factor of time blindness. I'm going to spoil it right now, they didn't find that. So that was an interesting part of the study as well. But this study they did was in Brazil, with 446 people,women, ages 18 to 65, only 22%of the sample said that they had ADHD. And a similar percentage said that they had depression.Sarah, do you remember what that number was?

Sarah: 17:21

Yeah. So among the variables that they were analyzing in this study, mental health diagnosis is one of them.Now, they did nothing to sort of externally verify these diagnosis. But, as you mentioned, 22.9% reported having an ADHD diagnosis, whereas 20.4%reported having a depressive disorder.

Skye: 17:44

And they didn't have any discussion about whether that was combined, like whether that was the same person. And we know that that can happen. So we sort of have to, I guess, assume that that is not the case, to capture a CT, they used or sluggish cognitive tempo, something called the adult concentration inventory, which Becker carried out in a meta analysis. So because there's no DSM diagnosis for this, they actually use sort of something that they developed a few questions to then define SCT. And I didn't go into it in too much detail, I assume that because 2016 study would have be partially doing factor analysis and things like that to try and actually find and define the questions. But that's what they did

Sarah: 18:33

study was self report questionnaire of some kind.

Skye: 18:37

Yeah, and I think that's something that we've really picked up in the last audit, you know, the last set of research recaps and you know, we're sort of developing our knowledge alongside this, that the difference between a subjective reporting and an objective reporting is a big factor,similarly to the difference between whether somebody has ADHD symptoms says they are diagnosed with ADHD, or there's an external, you know, evidence that they were diagnosed. These are all kinds of different levels of information that you can have in these areas.Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, which you can do on any of your podcast players to get weekly updates when we launch a new podcast episode.So what did they actually find?We know that they found that time perception which we've actually interestingly talked about just previously in the last article, so we have a good sense of that was not specifically associated with SCT in comparison to ADHD, so they didn't find any significant differences and that was contrary to what they thought that they would find. What else did they find Sarah?

Sarah: 19:49

Overall, they found that inattentive ADHD was most closely associated with a dysfunction and time management,hyperactive ADHD was most closely associated with dysfunction and self restraint and SCT. So the sluggish cognitive tempo was most closely associated with dysfunctions in self organization and problem solving.

Skye: 20:12

Okay, and what does that mean? Because I read it. I was like, okay, cool, but like, what is this? What is self management to time motivation was it basically just that was like the Barclay scale of executive functioning was you could be struggling with self management,self motivation, or organization. And this is what it was relating to?

Sarah: 20:35

you already alluded to the meta analysis that Becker did in 2016, that was sort of outlining a measure called Adult concentration inventory. They also used the adult self report scale, that's just a standard sort of ADHD symptoms scale.It's used often in diagnosis,along with usually other measures. There was also the Barkley deficits and executive functioning scale, which I mentioned already, that one sort of measures the inhibitory control, so like, self control,basically, that one also measures Yeah, the time management, the organization and problem solving, the self restraint, motivation, and emotional regulation. But they also finally, they also use, Oh,nope, there's still three more.They also use the Melbourne decision making questionnaire.

Skye: 21:31

Yeah, shout out to Australia. I was like, woohoo,Melbourne.

Sarah: 21:35

And then the self report scale, which was developed by the World Health Organization,that's just a common mental disorder scale. And then also finally rounding it out, the subjective time questionnaire,which as you could imagine, is about time experiencing time.

Skye: 21:52

Yeah. Okay. And none of the results that they found was significant. You know, they did do a regression model. They didn't seem to find anything significant. Is that accurate?

Sarah: 22:06

Yeah, that is what they report. Inattentive ADHD was predicted mostly by, as I mentioned, sort of self management to time and self motivation. Yeah. So that's pretty much what they came away with is just not a lot of very strong things.

Skye: 22:21

Yeah, they actually do say that this, and this is a quote,they said, the study has many limitations. So yeah, they didn't necessarily find what they were looking for. But the idea, I guess, was to add to the weight of information on this idea of sluggish cognitive tempo.

Sarah: 22:39

And its distinction between ADHD,

Skye: 22:42

and its distinction between ADHD which they did find some things but not exactly what they're expecting to find, the opposite of distinction with time blindness, or time focus. I think what, basically what we're seeing is we're not totally convinced about SCT. But if you in terms of like, what is the practical takeaway from this, I think the practical takeaway is just to know that this is a thing. So some psychiatrists and psychologists will diagnose it,it doesn't appear in the DSM,but it is something that people could get diagnosed with. There is controversy around it. And I think it's a developing area,there's a sense that it could become something that people get diagnosed with a lot more. But you know, we were looking at some more gray literature. So New York Times article on this topic, and they there was some controversy around the fact that Russell Barkley who's a big factor in this development is very, very big and important to the ADHD space, did have some connections to some funding for this idea of SCT. And then the actual article itself did have a conflict of interest with regards to some of the royalties from one of the executive functioning scales was paid to some of the people who were doing the study. So there's a little bit of a little bit of interesting controversy there.Not a lot of results at this point. But interesting to know,know a little bit more about something that we haven't really heard a lot about. Sarah, what was your kind of thoughts on this?

Sarah: 24:16

Yeah, I mean, I had never heard of this before. And all of the reading that I've done,which was so interesting, you know, obviously, there's always sort of controversy in the mental health space. But whenever there's like a financial conflict of interest,I always sort of, but I did want to add that one of the limitations that this study reported was that there was no control group. I think that's really important to point out.

Skye: 24:38

Yeah, well, that's kind of interesting, because they sort of, it feels like there's a control group because they have so many people, but you're right, because they just took a number of people and some of them have ADHD. There's sort of an assumption that the people who don't have ADHD are the control group, but I guess it's not specifically set up or specifically discussed.

Sarah: 25:01

Yeah, you're right, it does say that almost 52% of the participants denied any condition.

Skye: 25:08

Yeah. So then I don't know whether those people would be considered the control.

Sarah: 25:13

Yeah, I mean, so it has actually a section called limitations. And the first sentence is one that you have already quoted. And then the very second sentence is the study design was cross sectional, without a control group, or an external validation of ADHD diagnosis.

Skye: 25:31

Yeah. So basically, it's just to say that if sluggish cognitive tempo or what Becker wanted to call it, which is cognitive disengagement syndrome. If this was to be developed into something, we would definitely need to see more research, I think, and this isn't just us, this is something that everybody agrees with,including the people who are doing this study. Absolutely.But at this point, yeah, it is something so if you hear about it, and you want to know more about it, or if other people you know, are talking about it, and their diagnosis, potentially with inattentive, ADHD, listen to this, or read or read the article, as well, or read the New York Times article that will be in the show notes. Yeah.

Sarah: 26:14

And practical takeaway,though, you know, this article did sort of add more evidence to the pile that people with ADHD struggle with time perception.

Skye: 26:23

Yeah, no, that is, that is a really good point. That is,that is a really good point. And yeah, all the things we've said previously about time perception are relevant here. Yes, we see time differently, it's a real thing. It's good to know. So the last paper that we're going to look at is the effects of meditation based mind body interventions on symptoms of executive functioning ADHD. This is another meta analysis, again from this year. And it's not really connected to the previous two, but we wanted to put it at the end, because it's a good study, and it has some really practical implications. So their overall research question was just having a look at how what they called mindfulness based interventions. So that could be in this specific instance, that was yoga, tai chi, or mindfulness itself, what effect that had on executive functioning score, and overall ADHD symptoms. And that's what they were looking for. So Sarah,do you want to give us some more of the methodology what they were doing?

Sarah: 27:26

Yeah. So you know, as you mentioned, this is a meta analysis. So 19, studies were included in this, the total sample size is 1018. I don't know what this means, but the protocol for this study was registered with Prospero.

Skye: 27:44

Yeah. So basically, what that means is that there's a place you can go, so with literature reviews, meta analysis, there's a place you can actually go and you can find exactly what they did in terms of the protocols of the study.So a good, a really good literature review should be done in such a way as you could almost copy it. So they've registered there, they've said,This is what we're doing.Sometimes people do that,because it's going to take so long to do in itself. And it's a protocol space. So search for protocol registrations, and then you can get all of the details of what they did, which is,which is just a nice little addition.

Sarah: 28:23

That's super cool.

Skye: 28:24

Yeah, it's very, very cool. It's something I learned about, I actually had to do a meta analysis study a while back. So we had to learn about all this sort of stuff.

Sarah: 28:34

So the inclusion criteria for this meta analysis was that subjects had a diagnosis of ADHD, according to the ICD Edition or the DSM, the retrieval time limit. So basically, all of the papers that were included is basically from the beginning of the database to July 31 2022, which is when they sort of did this,

Skye: 28:55

which is good, it's good to know when they finished it,because sometimes, you know,sometimes these things can be a bit older than you realize. And so it's nice to know, this is,you know, finished in 2022, from the beginning of time, the inception of the database, I love that idea. They're like who knows when it started. And the databases that they use, were pretty good as well. They use like PubMed, the Cochrane Library, you know, PsychINFO, so lots of cool stuff. And then China national knowledge infrastructure. So there was some China connection there as well, which I think is interesting. This meta analysis wasn't necessarily conducted wasn't just conducted in English, they were looking for Tai Chi as well and things related to that.

Sarah: 29:36

So they did find sort of a positive, yet small slash medium effect on inattention symptoms hyperactivity and impulsivity symptoms, and executive functioning symptoms.So, you know, sort of all of these various studies would have conducted in MBI, the mindfulness based intervention of whatever type and Then come away finding some effect on symptoms on the baseline symptoms. They did sort of speculate on why there were some various results like this. So like, in this case, they suspected that the high rate of medication usage of the sample may reduce the MBAs impact on inattention. So basically, like they were arguing that medication itself was helping with the inattentive symptoms already. And so the MBI didn't really have its fair shot, I guess.

Skye: 30:32

It is an interesting question, though, we don't really talk enough about when people have ADHD, and they're doing a study, we don't talk enough about whether those people are taking medication or not, or using other I guess other benefits as well, like ADHD people are not all created equal. One person with ADHD doing a study is not necessarily going to have the same effects as somebody else. So I think it is a good thing to bring up and to mention.

Sarah: 30:59

Yeah, they definitely listed that as one of the limitations of this study, and encourage future research to sort of try to control for that in some way. Although I will mention that this meta analysis only used random controlled trials,

Skye: 31:13

yes, we should probably just define what that is. So randomized control trials basically means that they they randomly decide who's going to do the intervention, so the tai chi or the mindfulness and who isn't. They're not deciding like, Okay, this entire group is doing it, this entire group is not. And in some cases that might have even been blind. So they might not have even known who was doing what, although I don't have the details on that for every single paper that they looked at. Did you have anything else to add to what randomised control trials are?

Sarah: 31:47

Not specifically but they did also say that there's difficulty implementing a blinded study in the MBI space,because

Skye: 31:56

that's very true.

Sarah: 31:57

People, people are going to know that they're doing a yoga treatment, you know,

Skye: 32:02

it's like this one is not yoga. This is just bending down like, this is different. Might help anyway.

Sarah: 32:10

Yeah, that was another limitation that they sort of mentioned.

Skye: 32:13

Yeah, no, that is very true. I can't believe I missed.I'm so used to randomized controlled trials, double blinded study. But you're right.If it's not a medication, it's much harder to do. But it's still nice that they were looking at, yeah, at least randomizing who was doing it. So whether the person did it or not, was not decided based on whether they loved yoga, for example.

Sarah: 32:36

Right. And, you know,because of the large range of ages, they also sort of pointed out that the effects of hyperactivity symptoms, and impulsivity symptoms just tend to decrease with age anyway. So that may have also skewed some of the results slightly,

Skye: 32:55

which is nice to know. I mean, that's super positive to say, like, they found that we tend to improve over time.Sometimes it doesn't feel like that, sometimes it feels like you hit a wall, you have a kid,you get a job, and you're just like, Okay, that's it. But you know, it's nice to know that is the case, at least in the study.

Sarah: 33:12

Yeah. So basically, you know, the long and short of it is further research is obviously needed in this area, maybe more specifically designed studies that control for some of the limitations that this meta analysis found, but they propose that mindfulness based interventions may be a viable additional treatment option for ADHD, which is great, because this meta analysis focused specifically on like ADHD symptoms and executive functioning, whereas a lot of the mindfulness research really focuses more on emotional self regulation.

Skye: 33:48

That's so true. That's so true. Yeah.

Sarah: 33:51

So it's great to sort of have this as well.

Skye: 33:54

Yeah. And I just wanted to point out a few other interesting quotes from the study, they found that compared with a control condition, these interventions had a small to medium effect on inattention,hyperactivity, and executive functioning in ADHD individuals.So they were still seeing that difference, like there was an effect. And I think it was really good to note. But it's also interesting to note that when you compare the intervention, we still struggle more with these things than the control condition, which on the one hand, can be seen as being negative, but on the other hand,it's just a continued. It showcases that the study really did its job using those controls, being able to find that information.

Sarah: 34:35

Another really cool thing about this meta analysis is that it gave preference for parent evaluation or teacher evaluation, as opposed to just a self report. Yeah, that was another thing that sort of lent more objectivity.

Skye: 34:49

Yeah. And it brought in Tai Chi, which is very cool. I haven't done tai chi, and they did say there weren't a lot of studies on Tai Chi, so it wasn't as much as many of the interventions But it was cool to see something else, at least in our western, looks at different things, made me want to try it.

Sarah: 35:06

I also don't know anything about tai chi. So if anybody out there who's listening sort of yeah knows about tai chi, we would love to hear from you.

Skye: 35:15

If you have ADHD and you know about tai chi, message us,send us an email, we'd love to talk to you. So definitely another study showcasing the importance of mindfulness and movement with ADHD. The benefits, like you said,specifically focusing on those executive functions, which I think are sometimes missed in terms of the mental health,which is so important. But obviously, with ADHD, we also want that working memory support, we want that executive functioning support. So yeah,just something very, very cool.I guess my question, and I,we've talked about this before,but I think it's always good to know, say somebody is, is in a position they've heard this study, they go right mindfulness, I remember, I'm supposed to be doing that. And they don't necessarily want to go and like start a full yoga practice, what is a small change, ADHD friendly change that people can use, if they want to get started on these mindfulness movement interventions?

Sarah: 36:09

I always suggest that people just start small, we often get these ideas that a whole practice needs to be like a 15 minute yoga flow or something like that. But it could be simple, as simple as an eight second stretch, you know,if it's a interoceptive,mindfulness exercise, and it's more like, you know, I'm gonna take the next 10 seconds to sort of scan my brain or scan my body, just finding the smallest possible thing that you can commit to, and committing to that on a regular basis. Because building a habit, it's less about how long you do it for in a time period. And it's more about how often you do it in a row. It's more about the consistency.

Skye: 36:51

Yeah, no 100%, I often say to clients, just turn yourself upside down once today. And I even think about it and do it like that myself, sometimes, you know, if you're just doing, you know, a downward dog, and doing that, I mean, we know it's kind of good for your spine to do that as well. So just kind of,if you're just doing one of those a day, in front of the TV,or wherever you are, or for the meditation side, it's like, can you turn off your podcast or music or whatever you're doing and mindfully do an activity,even for a minute, or even for30 seconds in a day. This isn't just stuff that I recommend, I do this often to get myself back into these practices, because it is very hard to continue to stay engaged with them. And it's surprising how helpful it can be to have those little touchstones in the weeks where you're not doing as well as when you're too busy or things are happening.

Sarah: 37:49

I personally use my dishes time as an opportunity for mindfulness. You know, it's so easy to see sort of a sink full of dishes and go, ugh, I'm doing the dishes again. And then just to sort of turn it into a different experience. You know,it really helps me to sort of consolidate some of my time.

Skye: 38:07

Yeah, I think it kind of comes back to what we, you know,we had Katie Webber on, we talked about adding complexity to a task to make it ironically easier to do. And this is kind of adding complexity to the dishes.

Sarah: 38:18

We're multitasking.

Skye: 38:21

Exactly. So yeah, three really interesting studies today, and very cool to chat through them as usual. And if you have any thoughts on them,if you wrote them, or you know someone who did, and you think that they'd like to come on and chat about it, please message us. We're always happy to do that. But yeah, I think very cool. You know, there's lots of practical strategies in terms of mindfulness in terms of the time perception, and learned about a whole new area of research and diagnosis as well. Anything you wanted to add before we close out today, Sarah?

Sarah: 38:52

Well, we did forget to mention the lack of conflict of interest or financial issues with this study.

Skye: 39:00

So in terms of this, I think they just wanted to they just wanted to find out about you know, meditation based mind body interventions. I'm sure someone on this study does Tai Chi, that's not a financial conflict of interest, but I bet you somebody does it because they were very excited to add it and I think that was super cool.Okay, well, that is everything for this research recap. Thank you so much for coming along and we will see you in the next one.Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out or connect with us, you can leave us a message at admin@unconventionalorganisation.com

Sarah: 39:37

You can also find out more about our ADHD coaching organisation, read our free articles or sign up to our online courses at unconventionalorganisation.com That's organisation with a Z or an S, they both will get you there.

Skye: 39:51

If you'd like to learn more about what we discussed here today or you want to read the transcript, you can find that at our show notes page at unconventionalorganisation.com

Sarah: 39:59

If you've enjoyed this podcast and think someone else might find the strategies and stories helpful, the best thing you can do is share episodes using the share button in the podcast player, or leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify or your podcast player of choice, letting them know why you've benefited from this podcast.

Skye: 40:17

Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you back in the ADHD lab next week.