Starting to use natural remedies for ADHD

The first natural remedies for ADHD that we use in the HET (holistic Educational Therapy) Programme are the Bach Flower Remedies. These represent a complete emotional management system and behaviour is always a barometer for our emotional state. Once we convert the behaviours into emotional responses and relate them to the corresponding behaviours – we have a very powerful, safe, simple and effective system which turns emotional behaviour around usually in the matter of a few days.

Now this is a very simple healing system – and in harmony with the whole HET concept so safe and so simple that the worst thing that it can do is not work – However – if you take it, it does work and I’ll explain how….

Dr. Edward Bach, originally from Birmingham in the West Midlands, was a Harley Street physician in the 1930s  and was very inspired by the concepts and results around homeopathy, he took this work to another level by developing a system called the flower essences. He became discouraged by the limitations of conventional medicine and turned to alternative approaches. This is when he developed the system of flower essences that we refer to today as the Bach Flower Remedies. Most people are familiar with the internationally famous ‘Rescue Remedy’, which is a combination of 5 of the 38 remedies he introduced, which covers the whole spectrum of emotions.

Now the effectiveness of these remedies depends on how accurately we can pinpoint the emotions which are being felt at the time. These Flower essence remedies can be taken either as mood remedies which are for fleeting or passing moods, or treatment remedies which are combinations of anything up to 7 of the remedies taken together, which are prepared in atreatment bottle and taken over 3 weeks.

It would be great if we could take all 38 remedies together, to sort any bad feelings at any time, but anything more than 7 taken together and they kind of tend to dilute one another and are nowhere near as effective. So the trick is to identify which (of up to 7) emotions are present right now and address them with corresponding remedies and they work a little bit like flipping a coin round from negative to positive. The beauty of this system is if the positive emotion is already showing then there is nothing to turn around. So the worst thing that can happen is that they don’t work. There is something like 23 million different possible blends that can be taken in various combinations, so you can see that it is a very personalised approach.

It really is important to stress at this point that the Bach Flower Remedies are all perfectly safe and have no side effects. They are suitable even for babies and animals – even plants benefit from taking them! 

These remedies usually include something called a ‘type’ remedy. This is about the type of person that we are – it is linked with our personality and when we are under stress, the negative aspects of our personality manifest through our emotions in our behaviour.

The Bach Flower Remedies are our first port of call within the HET system, the reason for this is it is directly linked to our behaviour. Once we feel better about things, our behaviour becomes more productive and positive with ‘feel good’ factor. By simply taking a remedy, it can turn things around very quickly.

We do this by preparing a treatment bottle to unblock the stuck emotions which are playing out negatively in our lives. This is a little bit like a blocked sink, we need to unblock whatever it is that has got in the way of the flow of our emotions in the first place and then we can get things flowing again.

We know the remedies are starting to take effect when we suddenly become aware within ourselves that we are saying or doing things differently – that “Oh, Gosh – where did that come from?” feeling. When we say or do things differently, then we create different outcomes and this makes a huge difference in our lives.

When we’ve turned things around to a more positive focus in our lives then, we can learn which remedies we need to take as our ‘type’ remedies when we are stressed. We can also learn which remedies to take for fleeting or passing moods, to help move us forward at difficult times.

So, the real trick is identifying which remedies are appropriate for the way we are feeling. This means that we are able to look at the negative traits that each remedy works upon and also the positive state of mind or feeling that it  brings us to when we have taken it. It is the accuracy of this part of the process that determines how effective the remedies are when we take them.

Usually every blend is unique and different and always addresses the way that the person is feeling right now. Sometimes it  takes a second blend. Each blend lasts for three weeks. If the person keeps comingup with the same remedies again and again, then it is an indication that we need to go in at a deeper leveleand start to look at the core issue remedies. However we nearly always see an improvement in behaviours on the Bach remedies very quickly which it is why it is our first step in HET, after identifying behaviours and setting consistent boundaries to  introduce natural remedies for ADHD.