Cognitive Training for ADHD: How Brain Training Works

Cognitive training is essentially exercising your brain. It is a very similar concept to how you train your body, but instead of targeting your muscles, it targets your cognitive abilities, sharpening and strengthening them.

Cognitive training can be useful for anyone who wants to practise specific cognitive skills, but it has received particular attention in ADHD because difficulties with attention and executive functioning are common in the condition [1]. 

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Cognitive Training and ADHD

The goal of cognitive training is not to make you smarter. It's to practise specific cognitive skills that can be challenging in everyday life and, ideally, help transfer those skills into real world situations.

Some of the situations that ADHDers can struggle with, and for which cognitive training can prove useful, include [2]:

• Holding information in mind while using it (have you ever had to read the same paragraph three times because you cannot remember what you just read?!)
• Maintaining attention over time (long classes or meetings, for example)
• Resisting distractions (do you usually check your phone a million times while working or studying?)
• Planning and organising (do you have a really difficult time planning your projects or putting together a task calendar?)
• Emotional self-regulation (snapping when someone tells you something unpleasant, impulsive overspending, or emotional eating are some common examples)

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Cognitive Training: Basics and How it Works 

A structured cognitive training programme is more than just playing games (even if they're challenging or fun), and generally has specific cognitive targets, repetition, feedback, and adaptive difficulty [3]. This means that if someone performs well, the task becomes harder; if they struggle, the difficulty can be adjusted.

A structured cognitive programme attempts to help you train these skills in an organised and meaningful manner so that you can  improve the cognitive processes behind these situations and apply the learned skills to real-life situations.

One of the principles behind cognitive training is neuroplasticity, which refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt in response to experience, learning, and repeated practice (which is what cognitive training does). In the same way as working out helps you perform a specific movement more efficiently, repeatedly practising a cognitive skill may strengthen the neural processes involved in that skill, hence making you more efficient on tasks that require that cognitive ability [4]. 

Combined with other strategies for managing ADHD, cognitive training through apps or other devices can be a useful way to keep practising, learning, and challenging your brain. Think of yourself as a sculptor and your brain as your work of art: something you can continuously shape and improve. Because even with ADHD, there is always room to learn and adapt!