Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective Ep 8 with Dr. Janeeka Benoit (Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician, Sports Medicine Specialist, Founder of Med Fit DO)

Dr. Janeeka Benoit AKA Dr. J, a Board Certified Internal Medicine physician specializing in Sports Medicine and the founder of Medfit DO. Dr. J is passionate about caring for not only the athletic population, but also passionate about teaching the general population on how to live healthier lives by living up to their optimum health, fitness, and wellness.

 

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Instead of telling yourself that you, we just said it, I can't do something. Ask yourself how can I do it? And that is very powerful because the word can't places us in a position of being stuck.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado -Marmarosh. I'm a family medicine doc with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas

I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers, four, three, and four years of age. And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after this. ADHD coaching and not for the past sticky. My typical day consisted of having 300 charts, backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects and a lack of time awareness.

I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fuels the last year. I figured out the secret learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into. I don't have genius, so they too can reclaim their personal lives back. Like I have.

Hi, everybody. I'm so excited that you're here at our podcast. It's beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective. I am the host, Diana Mercado-Marmarosh a family medicine physician, and I'm an ADHD life coach. And today I am so honored and so thrilled to bring a good friend of mine. An amazing physician and her name is Dr. Janeeka Benoit, and she's better known as Dr. J. So that's a little bit easier to say she's on social media and she is a board certified internal medicine physician and a sports medicine specialist. Interestingly enough, she's also the founder of med fit DO. She's a runner, she's an exercise enthusiast, and she's a former a certified personal trainer.

Not only does she enjoy caring for all her athletes, but she has passion for making sure that those chronic conditions are originally taken care of through exercise. So they could live holistic, healthier lives, not just mentally, but of course, physically, as we all know, quality of life really, uh, gets us going, right.

So she's an osteopathic physician. Dr. Jay is focused on treating the whole body so that people can live more fully and have a life transformation from the inside out. So I am so excited that she's here today and let's ask her about her unique story, how she got here and why she's, getting us to exercise.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah. So thank you so much for that. Great intro, Dr. Diana. So, stories. I remember one specific day during my second year of residency, I was in the clinic and I just couldn't wait to get out of there because my day was just so hectic. And, as I got home and I sat on my bed with the covers on my head, I was thinking to myself, I was very much like my patients, because just like my patients were overwhelmed from taking so many pills, I was overwhelmed with having to constantly be filled them and prescribed them.

Just like them, who sometimes they didn't even know why they were on certain pills. I didn't know my, why. I felt like, I didn't know my purpose of becoming a doctor in the first place, because I felt that I was just, I felt like, you know, I was like in a machine, I was just prescribing and refilling pills and I wanted to get to a point where, I can discover more to me and more that I could provide to my patients and just like them.

 Sometimes I feel in control of their health. I felt like I didn't, I was not in control of the trajectory of my career. And it was like looking down a dark tunnel with no end. And, I basically came to where awakening because, I was pretty much a regular avid exerciser. And even during residency, through the rigors of residency, I made exercise a habit.

It didn't matter. You know, if I was busy, you know, even just five minutes, 10 minutes. Made that a priority. And because I made exercises, what habit I've learned to develop, to make other aspects of my life as habits as well. And I wanted to get to a point to not only teach people about physical activity, but also how there's a huge mental component that is involved in it as well.

There is a mind and body connection that I think sometimes gets, maybe not dismissed, but not given as much attention as it needs to. And I wanted to help people discover that.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So tell me what were your thoughts or what did you notice when you did make that five to 10 minutes a priority for you? What kind of exercise were you doing?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah. Well, you know, even like before the exercising, this type of exercise before I was doing it was really my thoughts, but I had to focus on because I thought that because I was a resident, I had to devote all my time and energy to being a resident that this was going to, this is going to be a new phase in my life.

And this was going to take over and I did not have time. At least that's what I told myself. I don't have time to incorporate other parts into my life such as like exercising or journaling or, just hobbies that I enjoy that make me feel human.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Oh, so your thought was, I don't have enough time, so I'm just gonna do what I can to get through the space in my life.

But eventually you switched your thought, right? Because you said all of a sudden you started doing five or 10 minutes in there, even though your brain was telling me you didn't have time, you kind of said, well, let me just give this a try.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Exactly. So, and that's exactly what it was. And you know, sometimes I didn't have an hour to dedicate to an exercise routine, but I was just like, Hey, what if I dedicate 10 minutes?

And I like dedicate 10 minutes consistently throughout most days of the week, what happens. And that's how I made it a habit. It was your small bursts of exercises.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So what did you notice when you were giving yourself those 10 minutes? Like, were you able to focus more? Were you less irritable where you, what did you notice? Why was it beneficial? Even just 10 minutes?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Oh my goodness. Okay. So for me it was my mood. So I was just, just more energetic. I was happy. I was cause you know, the fact that I was doing something for me, I think. And so I think that's what it was. I was doing something for myself and because I was doing something for myself, I was able, I was better able to then provide to my patients.

Right. Because, whereas before I felt like I was not, I wasn't making time for myself and I, and I felt depleted, right. Because when you're seeing patients all day, you're taking all their problems, taking all that with you and then going home. And then there's no outlets, right? If there is no outlet, if there's no care that is, then we send it back to you, you feel depleted.

So that was the major shift for me. It's just like, I need to make myself a party. I need to, no matter how much time it requires, I need to make it a over a priority because when I make it a priority, I'm better able to show up for my patients.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's amazing. I'm so glad that you were able to discover that in residency, you know, some of us, it takes us many years after we finish our training to figure out that our time is just as important as our patient's time as our family time, as you know, our community time.

Like, it really is important that you do take care of you, because like you said, how you show up. It's a ripple effect. If you show up with a mind that is focused or with a mind that is not so irritable, then you're just a little more pleasant to be around and in your, just a little bit easier to manage tasks.

So obviously I invited you here today because as you know, I'm an ADHD life coach, but people that work with me don't have to have ADHD. They just have to feel like they want to get some type of organization or feel like they want to tackle their time. And I figured exercise would be a way for you to explain to us how you think that fits in with people who have ADHD or people who feel like they want to manage their schedule a little bit better or manage their emotions a little bit better.

 Do you have any insights about how you think exercise could help people with ADHD or time awareness?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Physiological level exercise. Can really release neuro-transmitters such as neuro epinephrin, epinephrin serotonin dopamine, and all of that helps to improve the executive functioning of the brain.

So in addition, exercise, can help with really two major components of ADHD. So that's inattention and inhibition. So with ADHD, there's, you know, inattention to like specific tasks. And there's also a lack of inhibition too. There's that impulsivity that's associated with ADHD. So those are benefits that exercise can provide.

In addition to that, with any ADHD, sleep quality is diminished as well. So, sleep quality is improved in terms of. The duration of your sleep, your sleep onset, your sleep efficiency, all of that can help with, um, ADHD symptoms from exercise.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Do you know, if there's a specific type of exercise that would be more beneficial with ADHD or not?

I will tell you, I personally, I think I didn't get diagnosed until I was in medical school because running was what I was doing. In high school and, you know, I was in the cross country team. And so I know. Yeah. So I always joke around and like I made the varsity team, not because I was the fastest, but I was the only one passing.

So, and then I was so embarrassed. I was like, do you really want me to run this race? I like I'm finishing it, but like way back there, but you know, it's so interesting how sometimes exercise teaches us all kinds of things about life, about showing up and running the race. Even if it's different from everybody else's race, right? Like keep improving yourself and beating your own self. Right. But I was wondering if you thought maybe something like gymnastics or karate or something they have to kind of pay attention to detail, like if that's more beneficial than just running or walking or that does matter?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: So I would say with ADHD, it's important for it to be fun and stimulating so that the person with ADHD can be engaged. in addition, HIIT, which is high intensity interval training. So it is, pretty intense depending on the type of exercise that you're doing and may require a more motor control.

But I would say HIIT once a person with ADHD, pass some progression in improving motor control. And, they get to a point where that they feel comfortable performing epicenter exercises. Then high intensity interval training, could be beneficial because. Short exercises for like intense periods of time.

So that is great for some, with ADHD because it's short and intense and that requires, you know, focus attention on that specific task and then onto the next movement. So that's another exercise that would, that could be beneficial for someone with ADHD.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's awesome. So, you know, we tend to have problems. Like we don't want to initiate tasks.

I think that they feel overwhelming sometimes, but sometimes when we finally do start a task or we have problems like with hyper-focus where we're like three hours have gone by, you're like, oh my God, three hours went by and you thought you were going to spend an hour. And sometimes we don't realize that we're spinning,

like, just because we're sitting there for a longer period of time, it doesn't necessarily mean that we were efficient and focus those three. I think it would be really good to integrate, like, let's say, put, put a timer and give yourself like 20 minutes to do a task, but then do like a five minute something.

And that's where exercise could come in. Right. Because it would give you that dopamine and norepinephrine surge, like you just said, and then you could go back and continue to do it. Most people think that if they step away from what they're doing, they're going to forget. But I think there's probably ways to give yourself a little nuggets where you left off and still be able to come back because now your brain is refreshed because you use like the exercise or the HIIT, like you said, even sometimes just turning on music might be okay to get you out of the zone of frustration or doing a task that you didn't want to do right there.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: For sure. For sure. Those are all great.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So tell me more about what you think is important or what are some tips about? I know you said you got yourself thinking, okay. I need to make this a priority, but what were some tricks that you use to make it a priority? Like sending you reminders? Did you tell a friend, did you have somebody like via your accountability partner?

How did you integrate exercise? So that he could feel like a routine and not like a task.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah. So I think one of the one thing that I really focused on during residency was to make sure that I got really good sleep. Right. So, and you know, just, just like an ADHD sleep can be impaired. So, , what I did, I went to sleep at the same time.

And I woke up at the same time and I would even do that during weekends. I may not necessarily wake up the same time I would during a day that I was working. but I'd make it a point. Well, on weekends, I'm not going to wake up at noon. I'm going to make sure that I wake up on the same, around the same time, during the weekend and wake up at the same time.

So that helped me create like a regular circadian rhythm with myself. Right. And it just naturally, my body just knows that, okay, I'm getting sleepy. Cause sometimes I may not even need my alarm clock. It's just like my body knows, like it's getting sleepy. It's it's time for me to go to sleep. In addition, it also teach other people that I go to bed at this time and I wake up at this time. So, you know, that was a boundary also, like I created, it's just like, this is time for my sleep. And so, because I mean, my sleep a priority, I was able to wake up, refresh to then exercise.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So did exercise was you did it first thing in the morning.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: So I did it in the, in the morning and I knew that because I knew that for me more mornings were the times that I was most efficient in terms of, mental clarity. I was, I had the most mental clarity in the morning and I wanted to optimize. That time for myself in the morning. So, because after work, oh, no, I'm just like, I don't, I don't want to exercise.

So I had to really take advantage of that time for myself in the morning to get my workout routine in. And then the third thing was not letting those limiting beliefs like, oh, I don't have time to make exercise part of my routine. You know, that I took out the way because I was like, I can't just have my whole life be my job.

Right. I have to also pour into myself as well, and I need to do things that keep me energized that keep me be charged because when I'm energized and recharged, I can then provide care to my patients in the way that I want to. I don't want to be tired and, you know, lacking sleep and irritable when I'm seeing my patients, I want to be my best self.

So I want to show up as my best self. So. Three things that I did is just making sleep a priority, recognizing that I was most efficient in the morning and also getting rid of the limiting belief that I don't have time to exercise, because I'm a resident.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Thank you so much for sharing that, you know, that believes that I don't have time is such a belief that gets us all into trouble or another thought, um, I'll do it tomorrow or I'll start Monday. Like, or I'll start the first of the month. Like, it makes a difference, right? , every day is as good as the day to start. And so you don't have to compare yourself to everybody else and you don't have to do the, you know, 50 minutes that everybody says you should do like five times a week, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes you just start where you are. And if it's three to five minutes that you start and you commit for like two weeks, and then next two weeks, you go up to 10 and then you just keep going. That's working on your mindset because it's who you're becoming. It's not how much you did, but the person who exercises.

Right, right. And what might be great for one person might not necessarily be for others. Right. Because we all have our uniqueness and our gifts and some of us functioning, like you said, amazing in the morning. That's me now, my husband he's the opposite. Like, he's like, don't talk to me until like 11 and I'm like, what the hell?

Like the kids have been up since six. You know, and like the kids will come in and they'll be like, mommy, don't wake up daddy. And I'm like, so why am I okay to be woken up? But not here. Like, it's just people, you know, like you said, you train them. Right. Like he's trained them not to bother him, quote unquote.

Right. But then he's the one who wants to stay up late with him at night when they they're full wired. Right. And so, again, knowing how you best function and then taking that into account. When you're trying to set up a technique, like exercising, setting up your system is important because otherwise, if you're not a morning person, all of a sudden you're like, yeah, well, I need to exercise in the morning.

You it's like trying to push a whole car up the hill. Like it's kind of hard, right. Versus if you know that you want to do this and how do you make it make sense into your system, then, then it's a little bit more doable. So, yeah, so it's so important to do it your way, and it's important to start. And as we know, like with ADHD, of course, Some of us who have the 80% of us are able to take pills and that helps us, but they don't teach the skills.

Right. Those pills don't do that. So that's, it's so important to be able to use exercise or meditation, or like you just said, sleep to get that executive function going. And there are those other 20% of people who can not tolerate medicine. Right. And. They use exercise as their medicine. And it's so important to see it as such because then you're not going to neglect it.

Right. You're not going to be like, well, I'll do it tomorrow. If you know, Hey, if I do this, like if I exercise for 40 minutes for an hour or whatever, and I feel like I can focus, then why wouldn't you take your medicine? If that's what could help you write? Yeah. What else do you think, like exercise can help somebody with ADHD?

Like, can you think you said that you noticed it helped your emotional state. Did you notice it helped with, impulse activity or, anything else that you noticed, like you were less likely to do something if you had already exercised like less likely to go get, go nuts or like something like that?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Well, I would say for me it helped with, you know, energy.

It helped with focus, clarity. , and it helped me be charged. I think those were, you know, the main things and, and because I knew I had to create time for it. It also helped with planning as well. So it was just like, okay, I have to exercise in the morning. All right. So that means I need to go to bed at this time.

So I wake up at bed at this time to exercise and then create time to eat breakfast. And so it allowed with the planning as well. And that's, you know, people with ADHD, they may have some difficulty with planning, which, you know, which is, one of the executive functions could be organized and planning. So the fact that I have to put it in my day and schedule it, I had to also schedule other things. So it helped with that aspect.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And so that's very important what you just said, because. When we have a goal or when we want to start something, if we don't know where it's going to fit in our schedule, it's not going to fit. Right. And the thing is like, you have to be very specific. Like you have to say, I'm going to walk for five minutes a day at the park next to my house, like on Monday and Tuesday, like you have to know exactly what you're doing when you're doing it. 'cause if you don't give yourself that intention with the goal, it's not going to happen. It's just going to be like, oh, someday I'll start to exercise. And it won't, like you said, and then if you're not aware, like, Hey, do I have clinic at that time? When I said I was going to exercise, then you really like, you can't be in two places at once.

Right. We try believe me. We try to bend time all the time, but we always get ourselves in trouble. Right. And so that's where it's so important. Like you said, talk about the planning, because most of us don't want to go into that. Let almost sounds like we're, you know, it's a sin to try to make somebody with ADHD, pin them down to commit to something.

But again, if it's a priority that you focus. Is what actually happens. Right. If you don't focus on it, it's not going to happen. That's so good. So can you tell me, like about your coaching? Can you tell me about your med fit programs that you have?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah, so, Medfit DO is a coaching program that I'm working on to help women prevent chronic disease through mental and physical fitness.

And, and the reason why I say mental, physical fitness is because I can't just focus on. The physical aspect of it, you know, there's like, as we've spoken about, as we alluded to so nicely, there's a mental component as well. Right. You know, there are limiting beliefs that get in the way there's a finding that's part of it.

That's all part of creating a physically active lifestyle. Um, the beauty, is that not only are you taking care of your yourself, um, you're creating a, a life for yourself where you are able to then show up for others. Right? Because I am working on my mind and I'm working on a body. I am now at a point where I'm excited, I'm more excited to go to work because.

Poured all this energy myself, I've worked on my mind. I've worked on my body. I'm excited to then give back to other people, um, and you know, feel happy to do so. Um, so that is the whole goal of MiFID, Neo. And, you know, my underlying mission is to help prevent chronic illnesses because, you know, in medicine, you know, patients sometimes will come to the doctor where they need medicine.

And I want to really stress that. Let's not wait to come to the doctor, let's start all of this like beforehand and let's start things, lifestyle beforehand. So we don't have to get to that point. And also be at a point where we can then create habits for ourselves that we can teach all children. And we can allow this to propagate from one generation to the next.

And I call this generational health. You know, you think you're a generational wealth and I believe in generational health as well. So that's the whole mission behind that video.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's awesome. Now, Dr. Jay, tell me. What does not exercising cost us. You told us kind of like, it cost us to have chronic conditions. Right? Like what else does it, what can it lead to if we don't exercise?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah. So, so not exercising, leads to a, I think, you know, honestly, I feel like it leads to a life of, feeling unfulfilled, right? Feeling that you can do more, but you're not taking the steps to do more, not making yourself a priority.

And, the lack of not making yourself a priority allows you to then feel depleted and irritable and victimized. And exercise allows you to be in control, allows you to be in the driver's seat, allows you to show off as the person that you want to be. So lack of all that, you're not able to show up in the way that you want to be. And it leads to a life of scarcity.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So what if somebody says, well, Dr. Jay, I, I have really bad knees. I can't even like walk for a long period of time. Like I can't exercise. Is there anything that I could do?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Oh, yeah, for sure. So instead of doing weight-bearing exercises, they can do, exercises lying down. So for example, they can, work on their core and they can do core exercises. Another thing is that they can also do strength exercises, maybe with like weights. If you don't have weights, then you can use like water bottles. So you can sit down and do weights. And another thing that I want to stress.

I hear this a lot. Right. I don't have Binny's I can't exercise, but I like to invite people to think about what can they do because the first thing is I can't do it and I invite them and I said, well, okay. And that allows them to be creative and really think about what they can do, because just because, yes, you have bad knees, quote unquote does not mean that you cannot exercise.

I mean, if you, if you can use your arms, um, you can, work on your core in a supine or lying down position. Set up for crunches, or if that's not your cup of tea, you can use ankle weights and do leg raises. There's so many things you can do. There's so much creativity. And, so that's what I, you know, like to focus on. What, what can you do? It makes me think about.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: With that being said, it's like what, you're basically what I keep trying to tell people, like you have to create your own system that allows you to support you in your zone of genius. It might be that your exercise is a sitting down Zumba. It might be that it's laying down Yoga. It might be that. You're on a stationary bike. It might be different things, right? You'd like you say, you have to think, what can I do instead of what can't I do, right? Because if you tell yourself you can't do it, you're not going to do it. If you tell yourself you will do it, then all of a sudden, your brain starts to think of all these other possibilities.

Right. And so, I don't know if you know, but I recently learned that in Colorado, they actually have a system that it's not, when people are misbehaving. You know, they're not focusing or they're getting themselves in trouble, like they're irritable or they're disrupting the class instead of having a timeout where they send them to go to the principal's office or whatever they have a time in.

So they actually have them jump on a stationary bike or do some pushups, or do some turn on some music, like do something to actually engage their dopamine levels, to calm, like in a healthy way to be able to. Focus in instead of punishing them. So to say, oh, gold, they actually letting them have a time in instead of a timeout.

And the teachers are reporting that their students are being so much more efficient, so more, so much more effective. They're like, almost like they want to purposely just behave so they could exercise. So they are now making sure that it's in their routine, kind of like what I was telling you, like give yourself that boost.

Exercising so that in between strategically so that you can focus more. So that's so interesting how. People just have to keep thinking outside the box. They just have to see what works for them and turn it around in a positive way so that it could benefit them. Yeah. So awesome. So we're getting to the point where if my listeners didn't listen to anything else, but there's one Pearl that you want to give us, maybe something I haven't asked you or something that you just want to emphasize so that they walk away with this Pearl and they can implement today.What would you tell them?

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah, I would tell them, instead of telling yourself, if you just said it, I can't do something, ask yourself how can I do it? And that is very powerful because the word can't places us in a position of being stuck. And it makes us seem like there are no other possibilities. There are no other options because I cannot do something.

However, if you rephrase that statement and ask yourself, well, how can I do it? Whoa. You now have. So many possibilities open to you and the world is now your oyster because you rephrase that statement, your reframe your mind as well. So, yes, I wanted to leave that tip because, I can't, it's a very dangerous word and I really would encourage your listeners to ask yourself how can I, instead of telling yourself I can't do it.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, so whatever you've done in the past, you've done it or whatever you haven't done it, you haven't done it. It doesn't mean it's going to define your future. Right? You have to ask yourself the right questions to get the right answer. How can I become somebody who is going to use exercise as my medicine?

Right. What can I do to do that? Like where am I physically emotionally able to. What can I do today to start that journey, right? You don't have to have it all together. We're not talking marathon style yet. Right? So where can my people find you so that they can come to your masterclasses or to find you and see what else? Pearls you have to.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: Yeah. So, you can find me on my Instagram page. That's Medfit DO, M E D F I T D O. And if you had to my link in my bio, I have my YouTube channel there. In addition, I have a free webinar. That's going down on Saturday, December 18th at 11:00 AM EST, 10:00 AM CST. And the registration link is in my bio just to learn about, ways of course, your fitness goals for the new year.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So good. Well, thank you. Definitely check her out. She's going to have so many more tips to give us start where you are. Don't compare yourself to anybody else. Just keep leveling up.

Dr. Janeeka Benoit: That's right.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Thank you so much for spending your time with us today. We know time is the currency.

As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook beyond ADHD physician's perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do you share this podcast with your friends, so they too can le