The struggles an ADHDer faces on a daily basis can take a toll on their mental health. When you mess up as much as an ADHDer does, you start to believe the negative messages you hear both from internal and external sources. This is especially relevant if the ADHD diagnosis does not happen early in childhood. The longer one goes without an ADHD diagnosis, the more one wonders, “What is wrong with me? I must lazy and/or dumb.”

In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is stuck reliving the same day over and over again. This movie is hilarious, and I highly recommend it. However, it might cause some uneasy comparisons for some of us with ADHD. Sometimes, we can get stuck in a negative cycle of the same patterns or behaviors that do not serve us.

Who wants to go through life with every day being a grind? No one! Who wants any part of life to be a grind? No one! So, why, then, do we do things we find to be a grind? Because we let the things we do become a grind. Everyone has things in their life that are a grind. However, we do not simply have to accept these things as a grind. We can find a way to gamify these tasks and make them fun.

Exercise is one of the most common “alternative treatments” for ADHD bandied about on the internet. At first glance, it might seem weird that this would be promoted for ADHD. How would going for a run help one’s ability to concentrate? However, this issue is not without at least some scientific backing.

Extreme puzzle involves doing a jigsaw puzzle and running. I do the puzzle on my kitchen counter and, for every piece I place in the puzzle, I sprint up a nearby staircase. I have to hit both feet on the top of the stairs, it does not count. Typically, the sprint up the stairs occurs immediately after the piece has been placed in the puzzle. However, if I get on a roll, I allow myself to connect all of the pieces I can and then do however many sprints I owe in a row. For example, if I saw three pieces that I could immediately connect to the puzzle, I would place those three in the puzzle, and then I would do three sprints up the stairs in a row.