Whether you are skipping meals or eating poorly, your nutritional choices have an impact on your health and productivity.

Studies show that when your blood sugar drops, your brain is less able to focus and control your impulses. So, when you have ADHD, eating right is even more important to help manage your symptoms.

1. Make sure to eat a brain-friendly diet:

• Fewer simple carbohydrates (candy , sugar, white flour)
• High in protein (beans, cheese, eggs, nuts)
• More complex carbohydrates (vegetables, oranges, apples, pears)
• More Omega-3 fatty acids (tuna, salmon, walnuts)
• Water

2. Remember to eat. Let’s face it – when you get caught in hyper-focus sometimes it’s easy to forget to eat. That’s why establishing certain times of day that you consistently stop what you are doing and eat, is a good idea. Set an alarm to remind you to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In addition, make sure that you always carry a healthy snack with you so that you are never caught without an energy boost.

3. Make meals simple. Don’t make meals more complicated than they need to be. Make a list of the foods you and your family like and create a meal plan around them. It can be as simple as having chicken on Mondays, pasta on Tuesdays, fish on Wednesdays, and then adding a vegetable and a side. If you don’t to cook or are short on time, try using a food preparation service like Let’s Dish or Dream Dinners. You can have them prepare a month’s worth of meals for you to pick up and stick in your freezer. If you like to cook – focus on simple 3-ingredient meals during the week or prepare big batches over the weekend to eat throughout the week.

When you’re sleep deprived, your brain has an especially hard time ignoring distractions and controlling impulses. Sleep recharges your brain so you wake up ready to face the challenges of the day.

Arianna Huffington editor of The Huffington Post shares a story on TED about how she was so sleep deprived that she fainted from exhaustion, broke her cheekbone and had to have several stitches in her face. Sadly it took an incident like that for her to realize the importance of sleep. She now preaches the restorative power of sleep and believes that we can all sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness.

Here are some things you can do to improve your sleep habits:

1. Discuss your sleep issues with your doctor to make sure that there is no underlying medical condition causing your sleep problems.
2. Change your bedtime in increments. So, instead of going from a 1am bedtime to a 10pm bedtime. Try going to bed 10-15 minutes earlier until you’ve worked your way to your bedtime goal.
3. Set a bedtime alarm go off an hour before bedtime. If you tend to get caught up watching TV or on the computer, place the alarm clock in another room so you will be forced to get up to turn it off.
4. Establish a wind down routine that slows your brain down in preparation for sleep. Choose a quiet relaxing activity like taking a warm bath, reading, listening to music, or meditation.
5. Post reminders of the importance of sleep in your life.

Here is an exercise to help you figure it out:

1. Take a blank piece of paper and write at the top “I want to be a person who…”
2. Then, set a timer for 60 seconds and write down all the words that come to your mind without censoring or erasing.
3. Next, take this list of words and phrases and find pictures, images, and even songs – anything that evokes a visual or emotional representation of your words.
4. Put these items in a physical folder or a digital folder. Set a recurring reminder to look at these things on the first of every month.
5. By the end of the year you can evaluate if you have become the person you wanted to be.