Herbal remedies for ADD

Just a couple short decades ago, if you saw the abbreviation ADD or heard it said allow, you might have thought they were simply using a funny way to refer to a common mathematical function. But now, we all know that ADD stands for attention deficit disorder, and this disorder seems to be running rampant through the children of America, so much so that doctors are prescribing medicines such as Ritalin and Adderall left and right to keep this disease in check. For many parents though, a diagnosis of ADD in their child or children presents a unique problem. These parents are wary or mistrustful of treating their delicate and growing children with harsh prescription drugs. But, on the other hand, the symptoms of ADD are often more than apparent, and also extremely disruptive – at home or at school. Parents who do not wish to give their children Ritalin, Adderall or one of the pleathora of other attention deficit disorder drugs out there on the market may be faced with what seems like an untenable dilemma.

But other parents, despite a distrust of factory medicine and an ADD diagnosis, have found a middle way, and that middle way is herbal remedies for ADD. Long before medicine was consigned to labs and factories, it was created by the shamans and healers of our ancestors. And those shamans and healers were often women – the traditional nurturers and caregivers of a tribe, band or village. These women, of course, did not have access to factory medicine, so they had to learn everything they could about the properties of the medicines they did have at hand – herbs and medicinal plants. In this way, the women and mothers of our species were able to keep civilization healthy and strong for millions of years in order to evolve into the organized and highly complex society we live in today. And they did this all with herbal remedies.

So how can herbal remedies help a child’s ADD? First, it’s important to define ADD. ADD is a learning disability characterized by excessive talking and interrupting, trouble concentrating, forgetfulness, impaired judgment and a shortened attention span. As you can see, any of these symptoms could impair a child’s ability to learn, and all of them together can create quite a disruption either in the classroom or at home. Scientists have shown that ADD is simply a failure in coordination in one part of the brain. This failure stops children from sorting out the stimuli they need to concentrate on the task at hand, thus causing the classic ADD symptoms we surely all recognize by now.

Sure, medicine can be prescribed to control ADD, but that medicine often has unwanted side effects. Herbal remedies for ADD, however, can be more natural and useful for a parent who does not want to medicate their child with factory produced medicine.

Commonly known herbal remedies for ADD include ginkgo biloba, Skullcap, Sativa, Lemon Balm, Velerian, Lobelia, Hawthorn and German Chamomile, among others. These herbal remedies for ADD supposedly help calm the child’s over stimulated senses and allow him or her to focus and pay attention on the things that young minds should be paying attention to – absorbing as much knowledge as possible like a little sponge while paying attention to teachers and learning as much as school can teach them.

If you feel that your child suffers from ADD, there are also others things you can do aside from giving them herbal remedies for ADD. For example, make sure they get enough sunlight. A sedentary child who does not get much sun can suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD.) Also make sure that they avoid sugar at all costs. Sugar can exacerbate the failure in brain chemistry that caused ADD in the first place.

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Last updated on Jul 20th, 2010 and filed under Alternative Medicine. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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