[XOPJ]

As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD(Inattentive) I've worked through years of misdiagnosis directed towards depression. I adopted the sport of Ultra-running years ago and with that extreme amount of exercise I've seen benefits and unlocked potential others have without difficulty.

There's obvious connections to exercise levels and my overall health, but with the depression it never resolved it. Only recently we found the ADHD diagnosis through reduced running, then tracking all symptoms and doing a deeper analysis on how I interact and think. When you live your entire life struggling to focus you build patterns and tricks to fit in. Turns out these are super bizarre when you speak them out-loud for someone to hear for the first time. I recently explained this break through as similar to how we all do some specific behavior such as sanitary cleaning after a bowel movement, but no one actually talks about their process in detail to know how different we all are. Thinking and focus are sort of like that for me.

I'm seeing a lot of comments here that didn't maybe read the article and see how small an impact exercise has, especially compared to medication. After now taking medication for the I've been on a strong emotional ride realizing this correct diagnosis and prescription years ago would have greatly changed my life. With exercise back up to normal levels again I'm seeing 90% improvement by medication is in no way replaceable with running 120 miles a week for a 10-20% improvement.

As I'm now working on finding a plan to reduce and then quit the medication these studies are fascinating for me to potentially know the upper limits each coping mechanism provides. This might make me consider quitting my sport and only contributing enough effort to maximize the return so I can then pick up other habits for a greater duration.

To anyone else suffering through inattentive ADHD I wish you the best.