030: fatherless homes and ADHD (+ jiu jitsu as a rescue)

Hello fellow human,

Been a little while between drinks, hope your week has started off well.

Swinging by with another episode of the podcast, this time exploring the connection between single-parent households and ADHD risk.

2 million years ago, we won the female kin network.

500,000 years ago, we won Dad’s investment in human-making.

In the last 50 years of cultural poverty, we have gone an uncomfortable distance to losing both of those supports, and landing back at only mum and bub, which is an incredible amount of pressure on DNA soup in the petri dish of our experience.

For those familiar with this work, you will be well versed in understanding that we are not on an escalator ride to our highest expression; our human-ness is a fragile elevation maintained by our teachers. Dad’s role in that arrangement is top-down, Mum’s role in that arrangement is bottom-up. We see this neurologically, we see it hormonally, and we see it by just asking kids how they know their parents love them.

When dad is not there, we lose a tremendous influence on executive functioning that, from population size studies, meta-analysis studies and longitudinal studies, has presented itself as a unique risk factor contributing towards ADHD symptom severity and likelihood of diagnosis (so too does access to green space, further emphasising the importance of gene x environment analysis).

If that is the case, and if an intervention is needed, for ourselves or for our loved ones, it is helpful to investigate what needs repairing and what can potentially offer wild adoption, of which we are highly capable of partaking in. In that regard, findings related to jiu jitsu and martial arts more broadly are presented, which interestingly mirror the rough-and-tumble play influence that is fundamental to the shaping of our neural networks associated with inhibition control, working memory and attention regulation. Despite worries of: doesn’t combat sport increase aggression? We consistently find the exact opposite, and with increases in skill level, further decreases in aggression scores are seen (as one example), providing a highly capable rescue, should we choose to accept it.

Link below for those who may find it of interest.

To your healing 💙,

Jas

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