Natural therapies for ADHD mean choice. A choice for parents to the side effects that we all know that medication can have upon their child. The issue is which therapy? How can it work? What can work best?
Bach Flower remedies work on restoring emotional balance. Controlling emotions is the best way to control behaviours. Diet can affect behaviour through eliminating additives, which can cause hypersensitivity; exercise can create a feel good factor and channel hyperactivity constructively, dealing with perceptions and deep seated issues can change old patterns to create better outcomes. By using a spectrum of therapies it is possible to address a whole range of underlying issues which can contribute to a range of ADHD behaviours.
First of all no one really understands what causes ADHD and there is a lot of debate and controversy over this. Medication seems to be effective in some cases, not effective in other cases, and in some situations has even been known to make things worse. Very often the symptoms of ADHD can be caused by other underlying factors and this is where the dilemma lies! Natural therapies do not work in the same way that medication does - natural therapies are an all encompassing approach, treating the patient as a complete person with lots of conflicting symptoms. This means that a combination of symptoms including physical and emotional must be taken into account and also any environmental factors.
So where do you start when it comes to looking a natural therapy that is going to make a difference? It is more productive to focus on the symptoms rather than the diagnosis of ADHD. What is the difference we want to make? How do we define the desirable behaviours and the undesirable ones? How do we encourage one type of behaviour over another? When we have identified these criteria, we can then implement appropriate remedies and measure their effectiveness by what behaviour changes occur. Introducing different therapies will work in different ways for different people and not everything will work for everyone. So it is important to have a holistic approach here.
How this is achieved is through a combination of treatments that address emotions, nutrition, exercise and relaxation techniques. This is imperative for ADHD sufferers and of course is not easy to do. So measuring the improvements that happen whilst following a natural therapy is very important in finding out what is working best for the person concerned. That is how you can measure how good the techniques are in treating ADHD.