The iTOVi Scanner is a great companion for ADHDers!

Whether you have ADHD yourself or want to help a loved one, perhaps a child, manage their ADHD better—the iTOVi Scanner may be just the tool you’ve been looking for!

If you’re here on the iTOVi Blog, you’ve likely heard of the benefits of essential oils for ADHD before—increased focus, improved working memory, sleep quality, and help in establishing healthy habits, etc—but did you know that the iTOVi Scanner can take these benefits even further? 

Apart from giving you personalized product recommendations to help you to maximize your essential oil benefits, the iTOVi Scanner can be a great tool for ADHD life hacks, including routine and environmental optimization, personal check-ins, and wellness plan creation.

Want the details? Engage your hyperfocus and keep reading!

A Quick Recap on ADHD

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

It is quite common, with one survey in 2019 showing 9.4% of children diagnosed with ADHD (that’s almost 10% of the population!). And, though this disorder is most frequently associated with children, many carry the effects of their ADHD into adulthood. 

Simply put, ADHD arises when a brain has a deficiency in (or otherwise irregular relationship with) certain brain chemicals or “neurotransmitters”, especially dopamine and norepinephrine. 

These neurotransmitters are crucial to motivation and focus. Thus, it is common for those with ADHD to present:

• Difficulty focusing, also known as “inattentiveness”

• A tendency to focus so much that they “zone out”, called “hyperfocus”

Or 

• Manifest both “inattentiveness” and “hyperfocus”, showing intense focus and interest in some areas and struggling mightily to summon motivation and focus in other areas

Many people think of these symptoms as primarily affecting young boys in classroom settings, but young girls can be affected as well (though they are likely to manifest their symptoms differently and more likely to go undiagnosed and untreated) and the effects of ADHD can extend far beyond the classroom. 

For example, people with ADHD of all ages may struggle to stay organized and to complete the many, mundane but necessary tasks of healthy living. This can lead to significant life, work, and relationship difficulties, compound their risk of injury, anxiety, and depression, and even shorten life expectancy!

However, many with ADHD have found a positive side to their symptoms—channeling their hyperfocus to help them exhibit increased creativity, excel greatly in their chosen fields, develop a deep sense of self-awareness, and even display powerful leadership skills!

There is no cure for ADHD. However, the negative side of ADHD is typically most effectively managed through some combination of medication, education, skills training, and/or psychological counseling. 

The Benefits of Essential Oils for ADHD

Physical Health

Certain genetic factors, plus the tendency to struggle maintaining their basic health habits (proper sleep, nutrition, exercise, social health, etc), put ADHDers at elevated risk for dozens of physical health conditions including sleep disorders, liver disease, pulmonary disease, obesity, and more!

Additionally, those with ADHD may live with an added measure of daily stress and/or have a hard time destressing successfully. 

This is why essential oils and supplements may be a great idea for ADHDers! 

In addition to supporting the immune system and metabolism, helping balance hormones, reduce inflammation, and reduce mental stress, essential oils can also provide a distinctive and powerful sensory cue that ADHDers can utilize to help them follow through on wellness habits, including bedtime routines, meditation, exercise motivation, craving control, and more. 

Mental and Emotional Health

ADHD might be said to bring certain advantages and disadvantages when it comes to mental and emotional health. 

Due to their unique brain chemistry, those with ADHD often feel their emotions with heightened intensity! They are, often enough, described by those around them as “sensitive”, “nervous”, “worriers”, or even “drama queens”, their unique brain chemistry sometimes making it extra difficult for them to access their working memory and control their emotional impulses when emotionally aroused. 

All of this, of course, can take a significant toll on the stress levels, self-image, and social relationships of those with ADHD, making it small wonder that depression and anxiety are so much more common among those with ADHD than the general population.

On the positive side, however, those with ADHD, because they often grapple with intense emotions, have been known to develop impressive resilience, deep personal self-awareness, passion, creativity, and empathy!

Essential oils can play a positive role by providing a  powerful sensory cue that reaches the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain, making it easier for those with ADHD to destress (as they will often need to do) and calm their intense emotions. 

Additionally, support and usage protocols for emotional processing abound in essential oil literature and the essential oil community. 

The iTOVi Scanner & ADHD

Optimizing Routines & Environments through the iTOVi Scanner

One of the greatest challenges of ADHD can be regularly transitioning from a state of distractibility or hyperfocus into a state where they can focus on what really needs to be focused on. 

ADHD experts, clinicians, parents, and teachers have repeatedly found that established routines and environmental optimization can be game-changing for those with ADHD! However, the best results are achieved, when said routines and environments are highly personalized and include powerful sensory elements. 

And that’s just what the iTOVi Scanner is good at! 

Consider: 

• • iTOVi Scanning is fun! So it can be a great, easy “first step” in a routine that helps the subject shift their focus into doing something difficult. 
  • Scanning keeps it interesting! The act of scanning will be largely the same each time, but you will have a unique scan report to study each time. This will help your routine feel less rote. (For best results, if you wish, you can create a product group of just brain support and/or focus-related products and scan yourself with that.)
  • The scan results are personalized and relevant to the moment, so every time you scan you’ll get some great ideas on the best oils to apply/diffuse right now! 
  • Diffusing/topically applying an oil as a part of your routine can be a powerful sensory cue to help you follow through on your routine and focus. 
  • You can use particular scents to characterize and optimize particular spaces for particular tasks. And the iTOVi Scanner can help you choose an oil that you often have a strong response to. 
  • If you want to use the same oil for the same routine every time, regular iTOVi Scans can help you pick out an oil that your body has a strong and regular response to. 

Really, you can make your iTOVi Scanner and essential oils a part of any routine you choose to implement into your life!

iTOVi & the Power of Personal Check-Ins

It can make a world of difference for someone with ADHD to regularly stop and check in with themselves. 

So much so that “Emotion tracker” sheets, DRCs (Daily Report Cards, often used for ADHD children in school), and other means for self-monitoring/self-check-ins abound in the ADHD community and are often recommended by clinicians and ADHD experts. 

And the iTOVi Scanner can lend a hand!

Every scan can be an opportunity to stop and reflect on your internal state. 

Those who scan themselves regularly can even start to develop a sense for their moods (i.e. when I am feeling at my lowest these oils/emotional categories seem to appear in my scan report more and when I am in a good mood these oils/emotional categories tend to crop up)!

Whether you manage your ADHD on your own or are a parent seeking to help a child with ADHD, you can use the iTOVi Scanner and the oils it recommends to foster emotional self-awareness and habits of emotional self-care.

 (Bonus tip: For parents, experts recommend that you have a short, positive one-on-one interaction with your child every day right when they come home from school! This could be a great time for a scan!)

Wellness Plan Guidance with the iTOVi Scanner

It’s especially important to take care of your health/support your general wellness when you have ADHD. 

As they say “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”! Which is exactly why the essential oil community promotes wellness routines that will help you stay ahead of things and enjoy your best physical and emotional health!

It can be difficult, especially for beginners, to know where to start with a personalized wellness plan—but the iTOVi can be a great help!

If you’re having difficulties knowing where you want to start with your wellness plan, your personal scans (especially the first page of your scan report showing you your strongest responses) can give you some great ideas on where to start! 

If you know generally the area of wellness in which you want to improve (exercise, sleep, anger management, etc), you can search your scan results, including any relevant body system or emotional categories and the products listed under them, to help you find the best products for you to use in the next few weeks of your wellness plan!

Regular scans will give you an idea for which products and wellness categories your body is most often responding most strongly to. So, make sure to involve your scanner and scan report history whenever you are looking to update your wellness plan!

(Plus, you can get a great read on the unchanging foundations of your body’s wellness  through iTOVi DNA!)

Conclusion

Those with ADHD fight a daily battle to succeed in a world that, in many ways, hasn’t been set up to accommodate their unique needs. 

However, there is hope as in recent decades have seen some great improvement in public education, research, accommodations, and the emergence of a far-reaching online community of ADHDers who can connect with and support each other!

What’s important now is to keep the momentum building, including getting more and more ADHD voices added to the global conversation. 

Take care of yourself so you can live your best life, speak out, and add your unique gifts to a world that will always need out-of-the-box thinkers and a human family that will never be complete without its ADHDers!