Shareefa J- EXERCISE

Is It My ADHD?

Today I'm talking about exercise and sport, with model and campaigner, Shareefa J.

ADHD is incredibly common amongst elite athletes, and yet for the majority of sufferers, it makes it doubly hard to perform.

I was 37 when it was first suggested I might have ADHD, so I obviously went straight to Google to see what kind of company I was in. I landed on an article about how common ADHD is in elite athletes — Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, Nicola Adams, gymnast Louis Smith, and Shaquille O'Neal are all in the club — and thought that perhaps everyone had been wrong about my diagnosis after all. Because I can NOT enjoy team sports, I can't throw or catch convincingly and I fall over my uncooperative limbs a lot. I struggle to follow instructions and routines, and I have never - not once - got the promised endorphin rush to outweigh the nausea and boredom of running. Years of criticism from PE teachers didn't help, and now I'm torn between wanting to live a long and healthy life, and not wanting to spend a moment of it working out.

Shareefa is one of the people who make me want to keep trying to find my 'thing', though. Shareefa is a model, mental-health campaigner, presenter and body positivity advocate. She was diagnosed with ADHD when she was 24, and shares helpful tips on dealing with the condition on her Instagram feed.

Shareefa shares her top tips for making exercise work for you, taking into account all the challenges ADHD can bring to maintaining a healthy routine. She and I discuss what doesn’t work, too, and discover a shared dislike of school PE.

Shareefa also reveals her secret to making a habit stick, how she feels about exercise today and how her ADHD impacts her sense of self.

You can find Shareefa here.

THE EXPERT

Dr Jo Steer is a chartered clinical psychologist working with children in Surrey, and the author of Understanding ADHD in Girls and Women

Please note, your first port of call if you think you might have ADHD should be your GP. In the meantime, you can find more information here:

The ADHD Foundation

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