“Hello, Im a fourty year old man that has been diognosed with A.D.D.. I have been on Aderall for four years. Prior to that I was an alcoholic and drug addict. I have tried just about every med available in the last few months trying to get out of the zombie stage. I decided to stop all meds two weeks ago. I have not felt this good in a long time. I am concerned becase I feel myself not being content with what I have and I worry about the old me returning. Do you know of anything that might take the edge off and yet not make me a zombie? I am trying excercise and diet but I feel myself getting board… Thanks Cory”

I totally understand. It was a rough transition for me to kick the meds, but it was well worth it. You’re right, you feel great in comparison to all those drugs slowing you down. You are right though,it is easy to get bored and distracted without any chemicals to keep your brain on a leash. I do have a few suggestions though:

1. Coffee/Tea. I can’t drink either because the caffeine makes me pass out. However, I know plenty of people who have ADD and survive just fine on two cups of coffee a day (one at breakfast and one at lunch). You do have to watch out for the crash afterwards though, it’s just something to keep in mind.
2. Chocolate, also contains caffeine. If I find that I need to focus, I’ll often snag a piece of chocolate. The sugar and caffeine helps to get my brain moving in the right direction again.
3. Meditation. It’s boring as… well… just sitting there for long periods of time. However, the discipline garnered from training your mind to shut up and be quiet is priceless. I use both meditation and self hypnosis techniques to get myself to sleep every night. As I’m sure you know, many who suffer from ADD also find it hard to sleep because their minds just won’t stop thinking.
4. Martial arts. Working out and eating right is great, but you don’t train your mind much with just that. Keeping your brain engaged and forcing some discipline on yourself with martial arts can be extremely helpful. Even something like Tae Bow (which is just the kung fu / kick boxing workout taken from the martial art) can be extremely beneficial.
5. Stay away from additive/preservatives. There is some scientific evidence and a wealth of anecdotal evidence to support the claim that ADD is caused by these artificial chemicals in our food. Although I’m not entirely sure if I believe this, it isn’t a bad idea to at least keep in mind that these artificial additives/preservatives and colorings are probably not good for you. I’m not saying “go all natural”. But rather that you try not to eat/drink overly fake/processed food. Here’s a link to some of these findings:
   http://www.chem-tox.com/pregnancy/artificial.htm

Well, that about sums it up. I hope that was helpful. Keep in mind, I’m not a doctor and the consumption of caffeine and chocolate may be contraindicated for other conditions (such as hypertension, high blood pressure, and diabetes). Not to mention the dangers of martial arts. I’m not giving medical advice, just sharing what works for me. (heh, just covering my butt).

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel Summers

P.S. Thank you Cory, for allowing me to post this here as well. I sincerely hope that this dialog was helpful to both you and any others with similar situations who happen to stumble upon this post.

As an inviatation to my readers, if you have any comments, and especially if you have any more suggestions for managing ADD without medication, please, by all means, leave a comment below.

I just got a facebook account. I’ve been meaning to get one for the longest time. All I knew about it before signing up was: You could upload photos, and a lot of people where on it. THAT’S IT! Wow, I was a little surprised to find that it has a much as it does. I’m all ready using a few apps, slinging comments all over people’s walls, and trying to snag as many friends as I can (of course all people that I actually know/knew… for now).

Now, why the heck does this matter to anyone?

Well, I’m working on an experiment. I’ve heard that facebook is a great way to drive traffic to websites, if done properly. I’ve got little blurbs about this and my other two sites up there at the moment. I also uploaded several pieces of my artwork and posted a link to this in the gallery description saying that I’ve got more here. On top of that, the items that I sell on t-shirts, I’ve got links to their product pages.

Facebook Seems like it was
practically made for artists!

I knew facebook was popular but I had no idea. I can totally see how much potential it has for connecting people. Because of the way it works, it’s perfect for visual artists. I’ve said it once, and I’ll probably say it a thousand times: getting traffic to your site (and eyeballs on your art) is all about increasing your presence on the web. People can only view your work if they know you’re there! Facebook looks to me like a great way to get exposure. At the very least, it will keep you in touch with your friends, and your friends in touch with you… and your art. Some of my best customers (and by that I mean they buy a lot of stuff ^_^) are friends and family. Let’s face it, we could all use more friends.

Let’s recap

As an artist you can build your traffic very simply by getting a facebook account, staying in touch with friends and family, uploading samples of your artwork with links back to your website (for if they want to see more).

Question for the artistic masses:

“Do you use Facebook? Do you use it to build you traffic for your site and get eyeballs on your art? If so, how successful is it?”
I’m very interested to see how others are doing with this. I’ll keep everyone updated on my results with facebook advertising.

Hope that was helpful,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

I know you can’t really explode your eyeballs if you try to stop a sneeze but suppressing a sneeze is never a good idea. The fact of the matter is that a sneeze can leave your mouth and nose at speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. Trying to stop such a force isn’t something I would advise. In fact, doing so could cause damage to your eyes, nose, and/or eardrums.

However, there is a way to stop a sneeze without causing damage. You have to stop it before it starts. It is possible to simply relax, clear your mind, and concentrate on stopping the involuntary spasm that is a sneeze, however, that’s not very reliable and its not easy to summon the will power to subdue something as powerful as a sneeze. Imagine that you’re an international super spy, you’re on a stealth mission, you’re in someone’s office trying to steal top secret plans and as you open up the drawer to the desk your nose begins to itch, then tingle and you sneeze. This alerts the guards outside who promptly rush into the room and shoot you in the face, mission over. Oops! I sneezed!

It’s actually really easy to stop a sneeze. Just one conveniently easy pressure point will do the trick. That’s right, all you have to do is take your index and middle finger and press them to the little indention that your super-orbital ridge (your eyebrow bones) make where they meet just above your nose (between and slightly above the eyebrows).

If you trace your eyebrows with your fingers you can feel the bones. You want to press right where they join up with the forehead. The bones form a shape that’s almost like a “W” that will perfectly fit two fingers. I’ve provided the illustration to help… well, illustrate this.

Now, I’ve got to lay out a few things. This pressure point will stop most sneezes. However, it won’t stop all sneezes, including:

• Those brought on by high concentrations of irritants (such as pepper up the nose).
• Those caused by extreme allergy attacks (such as sneezing fits that last several minuets).
• A sneeze that’s right about to happen.

It’s also very important that you catch the sneeze early. If you wait too long to apply the pressure point, it won’t work. Upon applying the pressure to this point, you should immediately stop feeling like you have to sneeze. If you can still feel the sneeze building up, get your fingers away from your face before you poke your eye out.

I personally use this technique all the time. Sneezes actually do serve a purpose, so I use it sparingly. I tend to use this when I’m on the phone, with a customer at work, when I’m trying to be sneaky, etc…

Give it a shot, you’ll be amazed at how well it works.

The dehydrating qualities of caffeine where somehow kept from me in my youth. My assumption was “if I’m thirsty, I should get a drink” Apparently, however, the type of drink is VERY important.

One day back in high school I guess I was a little dehydrated and feeling thirsty so I decided to get a drink. However I didn’t know that a coke would neither parch that thirst nor get me any less dehydrated. As stated before, the caffeine in coke is a dehydrant (it dehydrates you). Because of this, I got more dehydrated and thusly more thirsty. This produced a vicious cycle that I would soon regret because before I realized it, I had drank an entire 12 pack of coke in about 2 hours.

So what happens to a kid who has consumed 12 times the recommended daily intake of sugar and that much dehydrating, blood pressure increasing caffeine? Well, let me first state that I am no doctor, so I can’t really say that I blame Coke for what happened to me, the last thing I need is a law suit for defaming a huge corporation. In any case This is the sequence of events as they happened to me:

1. My increased blood pressure was obviously too much for the capillaries in my nose. They burst and I began to bleed profusely from my nose.
2. I actually lost quite a bit of blood and the fact that I’m actually very hemophobic (afraid of blood) caused me to actually pass out.
3. While unconscious, I went into convulsions. Nothing too violent, but I did claw a chunk out of my face, push all the air out of my lungs as all the muscles in my body contracted causing me to somewhat thrash around enough to give me a couple bruises.
4. Also while unconscious, I had the most amazing hallucination. I got to become the universe without time. Somehow, I was aware of everything in the universe all at once. Too bad it was really all in my head… and my brain can’t comprehend the sheer amount of data. Because knowing everything would be pretty cool.
5. Upon waking up a mere 30 seconds later (although it felt like an eternity… because… well… the no time thing) I felt like I was being electrocuted. Having been exposed to live wires many times throughout my life, I know the feeling well.
6. I had apparently gone through quite a workout because I was dripping in sweat.
7. Up until about 3 hours afterwards, my sense of equilibrium was shot. In fact, if I moved my head at all, I would feel like both myself and the whole world where spinning out of control.
8. After I dragged myself to bed, I slept for about 14-15 hours and still felt anemic the entire next day.

Now, I have to mention that I have passed out and had hallucinations simply from the sight of blood. That pesky hemophobia is to blame for that one. Still, I have NEVER experienced ANYTHING quite as traumatic from a simple nose bleed before. From then on, I have sworn off caffeine almost entirely. It really isn’t very good for you at all. It has been suggested that caffeine may cause a number of ailments from hypertension to wrinkles. Like most things, it can be good for you in small amounts. However, large amounts should certainly be avoided.

My advice to everyone is to lay off the caffeinated beverages compltely. I used to drink them because I believed I needed them to keep me awake (I’m a very sleepy person by nature). But I must admit, I have a ton more energy than I did when I was drinking caffeinated drinks all the time. On top of that, I don’t have to drink one every few hours just to keep from crashing. I was chemically dependent upon the drug known as caffeine for a long time. If I went for a day without it, I would get migraines and be so anxious and antsy that I would (out of habit) check the fridge every few hours even though I knew we where out. I’ve got to say, I’m so glad I kicked it. I sleep better, I feel more awake when I am awake, I’ve had far fewer nose bleeds, and I just feel better since kicking that coke monkey to the curb. Also, I’ve begun to notice that because I’m not addicted to my soft drink of choice, sprite, I don’t drink nearly as much soda as I used to. My teeth, my bones, my heart, my liver and my brain will thank me in the long run.

You see, my wife often complains about the odor produced by my bowel movements. In fact, the restroom is generally off limits as a biohazard zone for quite some time afterwards. I understand this is also a problem for many other men. Generally speaking all the females I’ve known are completely repelled by the odor produced by male feces. They tend to avoid it like the plague, spray all manner of odor eliminators and scents in an effort to cover it up, and make funny faces while rebuking the source of the odor.

With this in mind, I sat down to think about what I could do to help ease my wife’s olfactory discomfort. Because it is often difficult for anyone to wait several hours for the stink to clear before they can use the toilet, I decided that it might be more considerate to wait until just after my wife uses the toilet to “take the browns to the super bowl”.

Judging by both common sense and anecdotal evidence, we can all agree that people tend to relieve themselves every few hours and are thusly unlikely to need to use the toilet within a few hours of relieving themselves. By waiting until my wife has just used the toilet to “drop the kids off at the pool” I can maximize the amount of time that the air has to clear before next she must visit the restroom, thusly sparing her from as much of my foul reek as possible. I find this to be the most considerate course of actions possible. It’s also very easy to do so long as there happens to be no immediate urgency to your situation.

As an additional benefit, because a woman must always sit in order to use the toilet, using the toilet right after her ensures that the seat is nice, warm, and ready for your posterior. The only exception is when your wife is a germ-aphobe who simply “hovers.” However, baring that one exception, this situation will likely be the same across the board. I must admit, I do not miss the cold seat, and although my wife thinks I’m a bit of a jerk to specifically wait for her to “warm up the seat” for me, she does appreciate the less frequent assault on her nostrils.

Someone once said that marriage is about compromise. I think this is a perfect example of this. There are obvious benefits for both parties and very little effort is required to reap these benefits. Because of this, I’ve got a new rule for toilet etiquette: if at all possible, wait until directly after my wife has used the toilet to “take a dump”. By sparing her of my noxious fumes, I am rewarded with a freshly warmed seat. Seems fair enough to me.

Now users can actually see the various free traffic services and rate them according to their own personal experience with them. They can also suggest new free traffic generating services for us to rate and to advertise for. On top of that every user can leverage the ENTIRE SITE to display their affiliate links. That’s right, when users advertise their FTW affiliate link, those that surf the site from their links will see that user’s affiliate links for those services. Even if they visit the site and come back to it weeks later, they will still see that user’s affiliate links.

It’s a powerful system with great potential. The best part is, there is MUCH more to come. I also intend to monetize the site so that users can not only use the site to advertise for them, but to also generate them actual affiliate sales to earn them money! And it’s all free, forever, I’ll never charge a dime.

Go on, check it out, it won’t hurt to take a peek. Free Traffic Works and it can work for you.

Good thing I’m an art student! Because giving away old school assignments is the perfect super cheap art school student gift. If they’re your family, they’ll probably love to see some of your new artwork. They’ll love it even more if they actually get some of it! This also conveniently solves the problem of “where the heck am I going to store all this stuff?” Because the walls and shelves of your relatives are the perfect place to display your work.

If none of your assignments are worthy enough to be gifts, you could always draw/paint/sculpt something. For the most part, art is cheap. Especially if you’re just using paper and colored pencil. If you properly mount/mat the image so that it will either fit in a standard frame or you can put a little stand behind it then it can look fantastic. Artwork is a great gift, hands down. It’s personal, unique, and just theirs. Trust me, they’ll love it.

Now… if you’re a programmer, or a business major, or a botanist… sorry, I have no idea what you should do for cheap gifts. Although, I’m sure you could find a way to make some art related to your field. Programmers or math majors can create fractals with programs like Apophis. If you’re a business major, I’m sure there are crazy charts/graphs that you could print and mount. A botanist could find some cool plants or something to give away… or make some cool artistic something from dried leaves. But other than that, I’ve got no idea. All you non-artists, you’re pretty much on your own for this one. :P

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

Now, I know that fat is good for your brain, or rather the right kind of fat… mostly the kind found in fish. However, there are plenty of vitamins and minerals found in plants that we need too. Perhaps these vitamins are the reason for my mental incline after consuming veggies. Who knows. All I know is that if you don’t eat your veggies, your brain will suffer.

On another note, for general health, eat a ton of garlic. No one will like you… because your breath will stink… but your body will love you for it. Whenever I start to feel the slightest bit ill, I start eating copious amounts of garlic. The good thing is that I usually don’t get sick because of this… the downside is that my wife won’t kiss me when I smell like garlic. My only consolation is that she wouldn’t kiss me if I where sick either, so it’s not like I’m missing out on anything. Garlic is actually a pureative, and an antibiotic. It kills germs. If you’re spiritual, it also wards off evil spirits (which isn’t to say that it won’t ward off evil spirits if you aren’t spiritual). Garlic is just plain good for you because its so bad for almost everything else. I suppose it helps that I like garlic, huh? It’s great for knocking out a cold or the flu. But works best if you start eating it in large amounts right after your first symptoms.

If you don’t like garlic, cinnamon also helps… although it’s not as strong as garlic and tends to have adverse effects if consumed in large amounts.

Figured that was worth knowing, and certainly worth sharing,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

The only prerequisite to being able to control your dreams is that you realize a few things:
1) that you realize that you are dreaming
2) that you realize that everything that occurs in this world occurs because your mind invents it
3) that you realize that you have control over this world because this world was built by your mind.

Essentially once you realize that its all in your head, you realize that you can do whatever you want. Often the only limitation is your ability to suspend your own mind’s concept of reality. For instance, we all know that walls are solid. If you run straight at a wall you brain will expect you to hit it and it will react on instinct. In the dream world, you must override that instinct in order to run through that wall.

First I’m going to start off with an anecdote, then I’ll give some tips.

I have been controlling my dreams for a while now but my subconscious does not seem to like being controlled. It used to tear control back by randomly activating portions of my brain that I do not have conscious control over… such as my sense of balance. Once I was thrashed around for a while, I would eventually relinquish control of the dream back to my subconscious. However, because I kept at it my mind has come to realize that I will do whatever I want in my dreams and I will continue to fight with it if it opposes me. So instead of fighting, my subconscious eventually decided to allow me to use every ability that I would normally need to be lucid dreaming in order to use… while maintaining control of the dream. By that I mean that I never realize that I am dreaming, but I can still do some rather fantastic stuff. For a relatively comprehensive list of my dream abilities, see this page.

There are a ton of other abilities but that list can give you the basic idea of what can be accomplished through lucid dreaming. These abilities grow and change every day and quite often I acquire a completely new ability that is added to my repertoire. In the world of our minds, we can possess all the power of a god because we have completely control over that world. In other words, there is no limit to what you can do in your dreams once you learn to control them.

Tips for realizing you’re dreaming:
The first hurdle you’ll encounter in lucid dreaming is the ability to realize that you are dreaming.

Dream Recall: First, if you can’t remember a dream, you won’t be able to tell whether or not you where able to control it. Keeping a dream diary can be extremely useful for this. When you wake up, do not move a muscle. Find your last memory from the dream and ask yourself “how did I get to that point?” This will trigger you memory to sift through the dream backwards. Run through the story several times, seeing if you can remember anything more. Then get out out bed and write it down immediately! If, like many, you take a shower immediately after waking, this is also a good time to think over the dream before committing it to paper (or in my case, a blog). I certainly suggest using a blog as a dream diary, it’s just easier than writing it down… and you can share it with everyone, which is even cooler.

Common themes: Often there are common themes in dreams. For me, I am lost and confused in many of my dreams. When I become extremely lost or find myself overly confused I stop and think about it for a while. Often I can realize that I’m dreaming simply by this theme. Lately, death, fighting, and conflict have become common themes. Since these things do not occur very often, or to the extreme degree that they do in my dreams, I can often realize I’m dreaming when I begin to fight.

Recognizing oddities: In your dreams you may experience odd things such as meeting Jesus Christ, or being chased by zombie turtles. If you realize that you are trying to find a magic kumquat for your gorgon employer… you might be dreaming.

Reading: For most people it is extremely difficult to read in your dreams. A simple dream test is to attempt to read a book. If the words make no sense… or the sentences read something like “monster pink turgid monkey mass flared my inner most quantum pizza”… you might be dreaming. This particular trick doesn’t work on me however… because for some odd reason, I can read just fine in my dreams… or at least the dream does well enough to convince me that I can. This particular technique was actually used by Batman in eppisode 26 “Perchance to Dream” It works well for many people.

Associations: You can also make mental associations. For instance in Star Trek Voyager “Waking Moments” the character Chakotay uses lucid dreaming techniques to combat an alien that has invaded the dreams of the crew. He uses the image of Earth’s moon to allow him to realize he is dreaming. Essentially with this technique you simply choose a common object and produce an idiosyncrasy associated with it. Every time you see this object, you ask yourself “am I dreaming?” once it becomes habit, you will begin to do the same thing in your dreams. The only difference is that you will realize you are dreaming in those cases.

Another tip is to constantly remind yourself as you are falling asleep that you want to control your dream. Repeat in your mind “I am going to lucid dream tonight. I will control my dreams.” and just keep thinking this over and over again. You will fall asleep with it fresh in your mind and hopefully this will aid in your remembering to attempt controlling the dream.

A search on the net for “reality tests” will also reveal quite a few other techniques for realizing that you are dreaming.

Tips for controlling the dream:
It is important to note that it is very difficult to override your natural instincts. We are all hard wired to understand certain things about the world. Most surfaces are solid. You cannot walk through walls. Bugs are icky. Fire burns. etc… You must find ways around this in order to get what you want.

For example, I have found that I cannot make items appear from thin air. My mind cannot seem to convince itself that items can materialize from nothing. So in order to accomplish the same effect, I will reach beyond my field of vision (like behind me, behind an object, or into my pocket) and pull out the item that I’m looking for. In this instance it is important not to think “I want to get this object.” or even “I will get this object”. You must be certain that the item is already there and when you close your hand, that it will be grasping the specific object you’re looking for. Another good example is that I cannot walk through walls in my dreams. If I can see it, then I know I can run into it. So if I walk backwards towards the wall, while concentrating on passing through it, I can do just that. When I want to teleport from one location to another or one time to another, I simply close my eyes, concentrate on where I want to be, and fall backwards… through the ground. I usually land on the ground in the place I was thinking of.

The tip here is that your mind works on a few basic principles. The thing to remember is that ALL reality is filtered through your perception. When you dream, it is a world built by pure perception. You must find ways to alter your perception to achieve the desired results. For instance, If I look through a hole in a fence I can see to the other side. Once am can “perceive” the other side of the fence, I can shift my perception so that I am actually on the other side of the fence. This is why I must reach out of my “perception” to pull something into my line of sight. It’s all about shifting your perception.

It is often quite useful to use skills you’ve seen on television in order to accomplish your goals. When watching television/movies your mind temporarily suspends reality and you learn to accept the rules and laws of that universe. It is then easier to copy, for instance, the energy blast techniques from Dragon Ball Z than to invent your own moves. Some of my favorites are taken from wrestling and kong fu movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Less is more:
When controlling your dreams it is important to realize that the more conscious you are of your state, the more awake you will become. If your consciousness becomes too strong you will not only be aware that you are dreaming, but that you are laying on a bed asleep. As a rule, if you can feel the bed underneath you, you should stop controlling the dream because it’s about to turn into a daydream. Daydreams, of course, are not as interesting because they seem less real. Also, dreams are usually your brain simply trying to sort out random activation of various parts of itself. Because of this, dreams are often quite random and this uncertainty makes them more interesting. A dream that is completely under the control of the dreamer can become boring and stale. The subconscious mind is much better at creative thought than our conscious mind.

Why Control a dream?
1) To adjust the outcome (escape from the monster, date the hot chick, heal a wounded friend)
2) Explore your own mind. Your subconscious hides quite a bit in there, it’s fun to poke around.
3) Experience things you couldn’t in waking life (I personally have killed myself several different ways just to find out what death might be like… Groundhog’s Day Style).
4) Act out your fantasies. If you always wanted to go to some tropical island and have a romantic fling with a well tanned local… by all means, go for it.
5) Overcome phobias. Fight back against those giant spiders, torch some zombie clowns, etc…

That’s about all I’ve got for now. Hopefully, this is of at least some help to someone out there. I have spent quite a bit of time learning how to do this on my own only to find out that there are tons of resources online for lucid dreaming techniques and the like. If you like to dream, this is definitely something worth checking out. If you’ve got any comments or questions on this article or on lucid dreaming, feel free to comment on this post. If I don’t know the answer, I can find it out.

Thanks for reading,
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

However, I did eventually get an account simply to find an old friend (which I did). The cool thing was that I discovered how important social networking sites are for targeted traffic generation… at least for personal sites. This website is full of my artwork and opinions. Thusly, it is something that many of my friends may be interested in. Admitedly, I don’t have much of a social life and I find social networking sites like MySpace, Elftown, and Zaadz to be great ways to make friends online.

Now, that being said, don’t spam your friends. They don’t appreciate it. I post information in relevent forums and I also post bullitns/blog entries that my friends can see. That’s it. Still, it starts you off with a decent visitor base to work from.

For artists, I would definately suggest getting Elfwood and Deviantart accounts. These sites are ranked very highly in the search engines. Getting accounts with them and posting a few “teaser” pieces can only increase your traffic. However, you have to stay active. You have to get out there and comment on people’s artwork. You have to respond to comments on yours. Get out there and get involved, it’s fun and it is very rewarding.

For bloggers it is important that you visit other blogs and comment on them. Every comment you leave provides a link back to you. This is important because it not only increases search engine ranking but also, if your comment is provocative enough, will prompt people to come visit your blog. BlogRush is also useful in this capacity. Read this article to find out how.

My advice boils down to this:
Get out there and get involved. Make your presence known in the web community. At the same time, don’t spam. I happen to think Spam tastes good in person… but I hate it online. If you are an unknown on the web, your website will also remain unknown. I see far too many blogs with no comments in them. I try to make a point to try and comment on something.

An invitation to all bloggers!

If you have a blog and no comments, comment on this post here and I will be more than happy to drop you a line. Feel free to look around my site in the meantime. I’ve got ADD pretty bad, and if I could sit down long enough write out all of this stuff, you shouldn’t be too bored reading through it.

Get out there, mix it up, have some fun. That’s what this is all about anyway. Oh… and I wouldn’t mind selling a few T-shirts while I’m at it. :P

Type to you later,
~Nathaniel