What Causes ADHD and Anxiety?

Do you want to know what causes ADHD and Anxiety? One word, your BRAIN. Your brain is causing the symptoms of ADHD and anxiety by its use of an irregular brain pattern. The good news is that the pattern can be changed and optimized.

Neuroscientists have discovered that there is an operating mode that our brains can use to be in “the zone” of calm focus most, if not all, of the time. Unfortunately, most people do not use this mode. Science shows that over 50% of the population has been diagnosed with a mental health condition and those numbers are rising every day.

An irregular brain pattern is referred to as Neurological Dysregulation Syndrome. It works like this. Our brains should be able to shift between five basic speeds throughout our day and our life. The speeds control that state that our minds and bodies are in. These speeds are:

Delta – Extra Slow Speed – Sleep

Theta – Slow Speed – Grogginess and Tiredness

Alpha – Medium Speed – Relaxation

Low Beta – Fast Speed – Alert, Calm-Focus

High Beta – Extra Fast Speed – Stress, Fight or Flight

We use each speed to be able to get into the desired, or necessary state. If you use a speed too much you can get stuck in it. This is what happens in anxiety. A person becomes anxious due to an event or circumstance and then continues to use an anxious brain pattern of extra fast brain activity. They can get “stuck” in extra fast speed and it can become impossible to unstick the pattern without help. Thus, they continue to feel more and more anxious.

Is ADHD Genetic?

When it comes to ADHD, people are born with the slow brain activity. It tends to be hereditary in nature. This means that your brain pattern is like your mom’s pattern, your dad’s pattern or a combination of the both when you are born. But how you use the pattern is important too. With continual use of the slower brain activity it continually locks itself in as the brain pattern mode and ADHD symptoms can get worse. Many times, anxiety develops as well as the brain compensates for the extra slow speed by kicking the brain into overdrive, extra fast speed. This tends to make things worse, not better, for the person.

How does Neurofeedback help ADHD and Anxiety?

Non-medical neurofeedback has been proven to unstick people’s brain from an irregular brain pattern and set them on the course of using the new, better brain pattern more and more and making it stick. Neurofeedback therapy teaches the brain to make more of the medium speed brain activity for calm focus and less of the slow brain activity that creates attention difficulties and less of the extra fast brain activity that creates anxiety. This is the idea behind “neuroplasticity”, the brain’s ability to change itself. It will change the operating mode toward the one that is being used all the time. So…. You need to make sure you are using the new and better brain pattern most of the time following neurofeedback and it will permanently stick. It is not magic, it’s neuroscience.