Weekly Marriage Tips

Heart to Heart

Tips for Thriving in your Marriage

"The most potent medication we have is also our most dangerous and abused drug. It is called food."

-Ned Hallowell

ADHD Marriage blog and forum

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What You Put in Your Body

As you think about your health, do you think of food as medication? If not, you might try it for a while. I find that thinking of food as medicine helps me think carefully about the choices I make about what to put into my body.

Simplified, a chemically healthy diet for your brain includes a little lean protein at every meal; lots of vegetables and beans; few processed foods and few/no sugared drinks. It also includes 2500 - 5000 mg of fish oil a day either from oily fish (examples: sardines/salmon) or fish oil supplements.* These combine together to provide sustained energy with fewer swings in mood plus improved focus.

There’s more, of course. But just following these basic guidelines will help you start harnessing the power of one of the most powerful drugs we have.  If you have ADHD, this type of diet can help you better manage your symptoms.

*If you are taking medications, please check with your doctor about taking higher doses of fish oil.

MY NEXT ADHD IN-DEPTH COUPLES PHONE SEMINAR IS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN SEPTEMBER 12.  FIND OUT MORE OR SIGN UP NOW AT THIS LINK!

If you or your spouse has ADHD, please join our forum at www.adhdmarriage.com to ask your questions and learn from others who share your issues.  In addition, you'll find in-depth essays to help you learn how to thrive in a marriage affected by ADHD.
 
Hope to hear from you there!
 
Melissa Orlov

Heart to Heart

Tips for Thriving in your Marriage

“We can train in rejoicing in even the smallest blessings our life holds. It is easy to miss our own good fortune; often happiness comes in ways we don’t even notice. It’s like a cartoon I saw of an astonished-looking man saying, ‘What was that?’ The caption below read, ‘Bob experiences a moment of well-being.’ The ordinariness of our good fortune is hard to catch.”

• Pema Chodron as quoted by Brian Johnson

ADHD Marriage blog and forum

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Rejoice in Small Blessings

Sometimes when I describe my life with my husband to other people I think to myself ‘wow, that sounds really boring!’ We cherish our routine of getting into bed together at night, take pleasure in being in the same room even if we aren’t talking to each other, laugh and say ‘we’ve been married too long!’ when we blurt out the same words at the same time.

These are silly little things – yet they aren’t. Getting into bed together at night is a “blessing” to us both since there were years when we were too angry at each other to create that pleasure. We feel fortunate for the stability of companionable silence after so many years of the opposite.

When we first decided to turn our relationship around we weren’t in a very good place at all – pain and anger still abounded. But we made a pact to actively seek out the good – and actively create good – in our relationship. We found, as Chodron suggests, that rejoicing in small blessings (wherever they may be found) was an excellent way to gain perspective and open our hearts to the healing we both needed.

© 2011 Melissa Orlov

Heart to Heart

Tips for Thriving in your Marriage

“The fear habit, the anger habit, the self-pity habit – all are strengthened and empowered when we continue to buy into them. The most compassionate things we can do is to interrupt these habits.”

• Pema Chodron

ADHD Marriage blog and forum

Dr. Hallowell's website

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Interrupting Habits of Thought

American Buddhist nun Chodron argues that “habitual momentum” keeps us stuck responding in thought-less ways to our feelings and the world around us. She proposes a process by which you acknowledge “churned up” feelings then overtly interrupt them to move away from them, as it is in our best interests to do so.

How about you? Do you have specific “patterns” of negative responses in your relationship – responses you repeat over and over again? If so, then Chodron suggests doing “anything that doesn’t reinforce the crippling habits.” That might even be singing, dancing, or running around the block. (I would take it one step further – don’t just interrupt the response patterns, replace them with something more productive – she has a version of this she calls “inclining our minds to joy”.) There is little doubt that if you interrupt those habits over and over again, pretty soon you may find they are no longer habits – and you are the winner since you are no longer a “slave” to negativity.

Heart to Heart

Tips for Thriving in your Marriage

“According to the latest research, 25 percent of Americans have no intimate social connection at all, and countless others spend the bulk of them time by themselves.  One recent study found that half of all American adults lack even a single close friend they can rely on.”

-Experience Life Magazine, May, 2011

ADHD Marriage blog and forum

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While I would like to see how the research about not having even a single close friend was done before I completely believe it, the direction of this statement is nonetheless sobering.  In an age of electronic connection, many of us are losing our deepest personal bonds.  Since good mental health is closely tied to how connected you are, this is bad news, indeed.

We all wish to be part of something “larger” than us – a community of like minded people, a group of cherished childhood friends, a cause, perhaps a religious organization, even a really good workout class.  But connecting take TIME and I wonder if part of the issue in our lack of connection comes from our inability to “schedule” time to connect in person.  We are too busy – with work, with following our kids around, with taking care of our “stuff.”

For the next few weeks, why not overtly set aside some specific time to connect somehow with other people who are important to you?  If you have to put some “stuff” aside, so be it.  The people connections are what really matter.

© 2011 Melissa Orlov

Heart to Heart

Tips for Thriving in your Marriage

(picture of a family lost in jungle.  Man says to wife…) “O.K., I admit it, we’re lost, but the important thing is to remain focused on whose fault it is.”

ADHD Marriage blog and forum

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We can laugh at this cartoon in part because it’s so true.  How often have you spent time and energy arguing with your partner about who is right, rather than simply working together (regardless of who is right) to solve the problem at hand?!

I plan to add this to my “front of the fridge” collection, right next to another of my favorites in which a “man” bird is leaning over to put the last piece of grass on his beautifully constructed nest while his “wife” looks on and says crossly “I can’t believe you’re going to put it there!”

I hang these things up where all can see for a reason – to remind myself (and my family) to “take it easy”, remain a team, and look for the lighter side in life.

© 2011 Melissa Orlov