ADHD Rising: Why Diagnoses Surge and What Shapes Focus

On a studio set a few days before a long flight to Australia, Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, an integrative psychiatrist, sits down with a host who asks the question many viewers have been carrying around: why does ADHD seem to be everywhere now, when most adults grew up without the term in everyday use? The Heartfulness Community video, nearly two hours long, is less a diagnostic primer than an argument about timing. Sharma's central claims are that the foundations of attention are laid long before a child reaches a classroom, beginning with nutrition and environment at conception and across the first thousand days; that ADHD is a spectrum whose quiet inattentive form is the one most often missed; and that daily habits around sleep, food, screens and stress shape the brain that any treatment has to work with. These are his clinical views, and the piece below explains them on their own terms, along with the places where they remain his interpretation rather than consensus.

Why does it feel like ADHD is suddenly everywhere?

The host's opening question points at something real. Sharma does not claim the condition is new. "As a disorder it always existed," he says, and he asks viewers to think back to their own school days, when one or two classmates were always "a bit all over the place." Many of those children, he notes, did well later. Some were very smart. Some became out-of-the-box thinkers.

What has changed, in his account, is the environment. "Certainly our modern society or the ways we are living in has actually propagated some of the disorders exponentially," he says. The argument is that more of the conditions that push developing brains toward the extremes are now present, rather than that more people have suddenly been born with a different brain.

He also opens with a line that reframes the whole topic:

"Before the age of six, we were all ADHD." (Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, Heartfulness Community video, 0:00)

The point is developmental. Very young children are restless and distractible by default, and the video returns to this when it asks why every child under six seems restless. The diagnostic question, for Sharma, is not whether a child moves a lot but whether that behavior persists and disrupts life past the years when it is normal.

Is the first 1,000 days the real starting line?

The most distinctive part of Sharma's argument is chronological. He places the origins of attention well before birth. Citing a colleague, the integrative pediatrician Dr. Leila Masson, whose book the video links, he says the first 1,000 days of any child are very important, and that the period includes conception. For couples planning a pregnancy, he recommends a preparation window of about six months, with a full nutritional checkup of both partners, because the sperm and egg are "the first seed which will create that embryo."

He describes pregnancy as a production line running around the clock, and a line needs its warehouse stocked. The raw materials he names are good proteins, healthy fats, micronutrients, and as little exposure to environmental toxins as possible. He is also specific about numbers, though he frames them as rough ballpark figures: normal protein needs of about 1 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, which he says rise to roughly 1.5 times that during pregnancy and about two times during lactation. Healthy fats and vitamin D, in his metaphor, are the scaffolding.

Vitamin D has a particular job in his telling. It helps guide developing neurons to their designated destinations. When that migration goes wrong, he says, the possible outcomes range from a pregnancy that cannot continue to a child with a neurodevelopmental delay, or a brain that functions in a way that falls on the autism and ADHD spectrum. He links this to frontal-lobe functioning, which he says research has shown to be suboptimal in people on the ADHD spectrum.

These are strong causal claims, and they are the presenter's reading of the evidence. Readers should treat them as a framework to discuss with a physician, not as settled medical fact. The practical advice that follows is more domestic: a "rainbow" diet, rotating apple and mango varieties and eating across the color spectrum so that micronutrient and protein needs are covered, and avoiding packaged food. Vegetarians, he says, have plenty of protein options.

What does ADHD actually feel like from the inside?

To explain the experience, Sharma reaches for a driving image. Picture someone smearing mud across your windscreen. The view turns hazy, and you are still expected to navigate traffic through two small clear spots. That, he suggests, is how many people with ADHD see the world: through narrow openings in a fog that others do not perceive. Some of them are very smart despite it.

"Let's say you're driving a car and I put some mud on your windscreen. Okay. It's all hazy... And there are two tiny holes through which you are navigating the traffic." (Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, Heartfulness Community video, 7:29)

The analogy also explains a pattern he names directly. The hyperactive child creates a nuisance, and so, historically, worldwide, it is the hyperactive children who get treated. The inattentive child stays quieter, and the cost is internal. In his words, "those people who have got inattentive type, these are the people who start feeling that I'm not good." The visible problem gets the attention; the invisible one gets the self-doubt.

Why do the quiet daydreamers get missed?

The video's section on inattentive ADHD asks why daydreamers get missed, and the answer running through the conversation is that inattention rarely interrupts anyone's day the way restlessness does. A child who stares out the window is less likely to be flagged than one who cannot stay in a seat. An adult who drifts through meetings may be read as disengaged rather than unwell. Sharma's point is that the least disruptive form of the condition often produces the longest delay before anyone looks.

He also addresses the opposite error. Self-diagnosis is common, and he pushes back on the idea that a checklist can replace assessment. "It is something like you are trying to become a psychiatrist," he says in one exchange. He stresses the training behind clinical judgment as well, noting that "it takes 15 years to create one of me." The video's chapter on checking self-diagnosis first signals the same caution: a pause before concluding, followed by a look at how adult ADHD is actually diagnosed and at blood tests linked to brain fog.

He is equally blunt about the limits of medication. "A pill is not going to fix difficult boss or a difficult partner," he says, adding that "even if you're a millionaire or a billionaire, you have to manage your own pain." The video moves on to compare stimulant and non-stimulant options, but the framing is that medication works better when daily life is also being managed.

Do sleep, food and screens really shape focus?

The video's description promises an account of how sleep, food and screens shape focus and dopamine, and its chapter list maps those areas out. It sets sugar crashes against steady focus and offers a high-protein smoothie breakfast as an example. It gives separate sections to how much sleep adults really need, to cold exposure and the brain, and to breathwork for a calmer nervous system. It also covers reels, scrolling and dopamine, and how the brain makes dopamine and serotonin.

On mental state, Sharma makes a point that connects these habits: mental attitude "can have an effect" on the brain and on focus. In the cold-exposure discussion, the emphasis is on how the body's stress response interacts with attention. The video frames all of this as supportive of treatment rather than a replacement for it. A reader should take these sections as the presenter's practical suggestions, to be weighed against a clinician's advice.

What should parents and adults take from this conversation?

For parents, Sharma's framework suggests looking at the early environment and at whether restlessness or distractibility persists beyond the typical range, rather than at a single behavior in isolation. For adults asking "is this me?", the message is to slow down and get a proper assessment rather than trusting an online quiz. For anyone who cannot stop scrolling, the video's chapters on reels and dopamine suggest that screens are one of the daily inputs that shape attention.

Sharma also brings the question into schools. Asked whether children learn differently, he describes a young student who said he could not stand a classroom but learned well on his own outdoors. Sharma uses that to ask a simple clinical question: is a learner visual, hands-on or read-write? He points to alternative approaches such as Montessori and Waldorf as examples of schools that already build around different learning styles. A chapter in the video takes up how schools can support children with ADHD directly.

The conversation closes on a line about the limits of individual willpower and the value of habit. Near the end, the host turns to the idea that busy people often have more time, and the chapter ends with a note about the presenter's own father. The thread is consistent: Sharma's view is that focus is built from many small, repeated choices, not from one fix.

Where to go from here

Start with the video's chapter list and watch the sections that match your question: the first 1,000 days for parents-to-be, the three types and inattentive ADHD for anyone who daydreams through life, and the sleep, breathwork and screen sections for daily habits. The description links the book by Dr. Leila Masson on the first 1,000 days, a neurotransmitter primer from Simply Psychology, and a rainbow smoothie recipe. Keep the framework in proportion: these are one psychiatrist's clinical views on causes and daily habits. A formal evaluation by a qualified clinician is the right next step for anyone asking whether ADHD applies to them or to their child.