It can be difficult to speak frankly about executive function in a world where that term is widely associated with pathologies such as major depression or attention deficit. In the latter case, and especially with regards to diagnoses like ADHD, you may find that adults are especially reticent; while attention deficit disorders in children have been sensationalized and fretted about for decades, it is only relatively recently that “adult ADHD” has achieved a similar salience. And even then, the debate still churns among the many associated fields of research over whether so-called “adult onset ADHD” ought to be recognized as a valid or useful diagnosis.
And it’s a shame, because leaving all of that terminological brouhaha aside, the concept itself is rather more nuanced and quite a bit more useful than the above conception suggests. Thankfully, the National Institute of Health has defined it very sensibly:
Executive functions (EFs) make possible mentally playing with ideas; taking the time to think before acting; meeting novel, unanticipated challenges; resisting temptations; and staying focused. Core EFs are inhibition […], working memory, and cognitive flexibility(…).
Now of course the connection between impairments in those areas just described and diagnoses like ADHD should be clear. Whether or not you know or believe you have ADHD, however, you can probably relate to the feeling of having variable success with your own executive functioning. Therefore, the idea of impaired or even just suboptimal executive functioning cannot only be relevant in the context of a diagnosis – indeed, as the NIH goes on to point out, “stress, lack of sleep, loneliness, or lack of exercise each impair Efs.”
A FEW GOOD NEURONS
Surely at least a few of you reading this are thinking, “Stress? Lack of sleep? Loneliness? That just sounds like life!” It may come out as a sigh or a shriek depending on your temperament, but the same conclusion emerges regardless: struggling with executive function is not limited to those with a diagnosis, and with or without any diagnosis, suboptimal executive functioning is in itself a valid reason to reach out for help.
To put it bluntly, executive functions are the things that help you do the things you really don’t want to, when for one reason or another those things are necessary to not only survive but thrive. For example, research has shown that for adults with or without an ADHD diagnosis, executive function struggles in the area of food preparation were correlated with a lower reported overall quality of life.
In a culture that largely revolves around work, we are not generally inclined to think of cooking in this way, that is to say as a complex, multistage, goal-oriented behavior that requires different degrees of cognitive and emotional flexibility, planning, improvisation, sociocultural literacy and all manner of other things – but we all intuitively understand that the harder a time you have getting it together to prepare a meal, the more your quality of life will suffer.
GET TO THE POINT ALREADY
It’s enough to make you wonder why we invented things like cooking and work to begin with, isn’t it? Well, another choice quotation from the NIH may yet hold the key: “EFs are trainable and can be improved with practice.” The study referenced above concerning food preparation was making the case for cooking as a form of occupational therapy to train executive functions, but there are a wide variety of approaches to optimizing executive functioning through repeated conditioning.
The approaches that we specialize in at the Sacarin Center, namely the sound training approach developed by Dr. Alfred Tomatis, qEEG-based swLORETA neurofeedback and photobiomodulation, have their foundations in the same core concept but operate on a neurophysiological and neuropsychological basis. These methods directly engage neuroplasticity by means of direct stimulation through light or sound that trains the brain’s internal communication to better support executive function and attention. Whether you have struggled with executive function or all your life or are only recently starting to notice changes, reach out to Dr. Sacarin for a free consultation to see whether any of our treatment approaches might be helpful for you. To read more about our approaches please visit: ADHD Therapy | Dr. Sacarin Listening Center | Seattle, WA and Depression Treatment | Dr. Sacarin Listening Center | Seattle, WA
