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ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Gut-Brain Health

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An evidence-based exploration of neuroscience, nutrition and the gut-brain connection from a clinical neuroscientist living with ADHD.

This is a book that speaks to both your biology and your belonging. It's a unique, neurodiversity-affirmative resource that:

· Reframes ADHD as a natural neurotype, a different way of living and making sense of the world, rather than a disorder.

· Expands neuroscience beyond the brain and into the whole body. Showing how gut, microbes, breath, heart, hormones and immune system are always in conversation.

· Reimagines nutrition and gut-brain health through a non-diet lens, offering flexible, compassionate tools that nourish body and mind without rules, shame or restriction.

· Extends gentle invitations, not prescriptions, to honour your ADHD as a whole body-mind experience, rather than reducing it to symptoms to be managed.

In a nutshell, ADHD Body and Mind is a companion, offering space to breathe, reflect, and return to yourself, again and again. It will help you reconnect with your body's natural rhythms, release some of the weight of shame and perfectionism, and discover a way of living with ADHD that feels not just manageable, but meaningful.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2026

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About the author

Miguel Toribio-Mateas

3 books4 followers

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5 stars
14 (38%)
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11 (30%)
3 stars
5 (13%)
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4 (11%)
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2 (5%)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Profile Image for Skylar Fink.
296 reviews10 followers
June 17, 2026
Unfortunately this one was not for me. I got as an arc from NetGalley! Thank you for the chance to review for my honest opinion. My son and myself both have ADHD and the cover intrigued me. I understand the author is gay and part of the LGBTQ+ community and I love that but the fact that it is brought up so much in a book about ADHD was confusing to me. If this was his personal memoir I would understand but it’s a book based on ADHD. It felt so repetitive I just couldn’t take it any more.
1 review
May 11, 2026
I’ve read a lot of books about ADHD, but very few have made me feel as seen as this one.

What I loved most about ADHD Body and Mind is that it doesn’t separate the science from the human being. Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas writes with real warmth, honesty and vulnerability, but without ever losing the depth of the evidence. The neuroscience, nutrition and gut-brain material is fascinating, but it never feels cold or detached. It feels like science being written about by someone who understands what it means to live inside a sensitive, complicated, brilliant and sometimes exhausted nervous system. That resonated immediately.

I also really appreciated the stories woven through the book, including Miguel’s own lived experience and the experiences of the people featured throughout. Those stories made the science easier to understand, but more importantly, they made it feel real. This is not a book that talks down to people with ADHD. It talks with us.

As a trans woman with ADHD, I found something here that I rarely find in books about neurodivergence: visibility. Not as a token mention, but as part of a wider, kinder understanding of identity, nervous system safety, masking, belonging and the many ways ADHD moulds the lives we have had to live. That mattered to me more than I expected. I felt included in the conversation, rather than added as an afterthought.

There is something incredibly generous about this book. It gave me language for things I had felt in my body for years but had never quite been able to explain. It helped me understand my ADHD with more compassion, and it reminded me that I am not a problem to be fixed.

For all those reasons and more, for anyone looking for a book that combines rigorous science with lived experience, emotional honesty and genuine care, I cannot recommend ADHD Body and Mind highly enough. I absolutely loved it. Thank you Miguel for creating it.
Profile Image for Susana Gonzalez.
10 reviews
May 30, 2026
Dr. Miguel Toribio-Mateas has written an incredibly valuable and much-needed book on ADHD.

Starting with the concept of neurotypes, Miguel moves away from pathologising ADHD and instead recognises neurodivergence as part of the neurological diversity that contributes to the survival, creativity, and evolution of the human species.

I especially loved the depth of the neuroscience throughout the book. The explanations of neurochemistry, nervous system responses, and the role of the gut microbiome in ADHD are fascinating, accessible, and clearly grounded in both scientific knowledge and compassion. Dr Miguel’s authenticity and high sensitivity are felt all the way through the pages.

The book has a thoughtful layout particularly which I found to be very ADHD-friendly. I found the structure helpful: shorter sections, bullet points, diagrams, reflective pauses, journalling prompts, lived experiences, and chapter summaries all made the content easy to engage with and revisit. I also appreciated being able to open the book “at random” and still gain something meaningful from whichever section I landed on.

Even the physical experience of the book feels intentional. The cover is beautiful, and the quality and feel of the paper made me genuinely want to hold the book and keep reading, something that matters more than people realise for many ADHD readers.

I feel lucky that Dr Miguel has written such an insightful and compassionate resource for generations to come. I will definitely be referring to it in my own work supporting young ADHDers in education.

I highly recommend this book.
Profile Image for Sian Thomas.
417 reviews21 followers
June 18, 2026
This was a brilliant, insightful read, written by someone very much in the know, that goes beyond the usual surface level books on ADHD.

Ben actually bought this for me as a gift after listening to the author on a podcast talking about nutrition and neurodiversity. While I'm not diagnosed with any sort of neurodiversity, there's definitely something neurospicy about my brain, so I know I do well to treat it that way.

I've read a couple of other wellness books that feature ADHD or are all about ADHD, and this was a level above them. It was well-structured in a way that suited my brain - the chapters were easily digestible and had useful snippets and headings as part of the framework. I also really enjoyed the author's voice and personal story. He is very well-versed in the neurodivergent mind academically as well as personally, being diagnosed in mid-life. He explains in the opening line that this was meant to be a text book, but ended up as an evidence based book with a soul.

It's not a book that gives you answers, but invites you to embrace and explore your neurodiversity. It approaches ADHD with a lot of data but also a lot of heart. It encouraged me to listen to my body and brain carefully to put new tools into practice. At times the message was repetitive, but it served to enforce it.

I've highlighted tens of passages in the book to come back, both for the practical advice but also the connection I felt with it - the visibility, the understanding. I came away from the book feeling seen, and reminded to be scared of the way that my brain might differ from others.
Profile Image for Ita.
63 reviews
July 3, 2026
I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life, so I'm still catching up on everything that comes with it. When I saw the title of this book and noticed it covered nutrition and gut health, two topics I'm also interested in, I thought, this is the book for me.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite land for me, though I can absolutely see it working for other readers. I really appreciated how a holistic approach, which I found refreshing.

Where it lost me was the amount of scientific information. There were times when I struggled to bridge the gap between "This is interesting" and "Okay... but how do I actually apply this?"and also had a hard time staying focused through the heavier neuroscience sections, they often felt like information dumps full of scientific jargon. I was also a little confused by the nutrition section, which leaned heavily toward a plant-based approach. It felt like a different tone from the neuroscience-heavy parts of the book and came across as presenting only the author's point of view. If you're happy with soy and other plant-based proteins, you're well covered. If most of your protein comes from meat, though, you may get the feeling that the book is gently nudging you toward a vegetarian diet.

Overall, while this wasn't the right fit for me, I think readers who enjoy diving into the science behind ADHD and prefer a more research-focused approach may get much more out of it than I did.

Thanks to NetGalley, publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read this ARC.
1 review
May 7, 2026
Some books inform you. Some books find you exactly when your nervous system can’t keep carrying what it has been carrying alone.

ADHD Body and Mind by Dr. Miguel Toribio-Mateas did that for me.

I have read many ADHD books, but this one felt different — softer, deeper, kinder. It didn’t make me feel like a list of symptoms to manage or a problem to solve. It made me feel understood as a whole human being living inside an overwhelmed body.

Page after page, I felt seen in the exhaustion, the emotional chaos, the constant dysregulation, the years of self-blame, and the silent grief that can come with trying so hard for so long.

What Dr. Miguel offers is more than science — he offers compassion. And for many of us with ADHD, that compassion is medicine.

This book made me cry, not because it was sad, but because it named things my body has known for years and reminded me that healing was never going to come from pushing harder.

It comes from understanding.
From nourishment.
From gentleness.
From finally meeting ourselves without shame.

I am so deeply grateful for this book and for Dr. Miguel’s humanity in writing it.

If you live with ADHD and feel chronically tired from fighting your own mind and body, please read this.

You deserve this kind of understanding. 🤍

Thank you ❤️❤️❤️
3 reviews
May 18, 2026
Absolutely terrible. Especially from a book written for people with ADHD, it is impossibly repetitive! (Like, i got you the first time, let's move along now...). This suggests either an author that doesn't know what they want to say succinctly, an editor that doesn't do their job properly, or the expectation that your audience is dumb. Any of these scenarios is bad.
Overall the writing was shockingly patronising, but by far the worst, WORST, unforgivable aspect of it was the fact that it was in part written by AI.
How can you call yourself an author and have a bot write on your behalf? Embarassing, and again insulting to me as a reader that the editor thought it'd be okay or we wouldn't notice.
I know this is to be expected more and more, but god it was my first time encountering AI speech in a book and it made me want to vomit.
I'm sure the author has some genuine insight to offer his audience, but god he makes us suffer to gain it. Terrible. Quite upset I spent money on it to be totally frank.
2 reviews
January 15, 2026
He seguido el trabajo de Dr Miguel Mateas desde hace tiempo. De hecho, fue clave para que pudiera reconocer y finalmente recibir mi diagnóstico de TDAH. Me ayudó a entender que mi cerebro simplemente funciona de forma diferente, no que esté roto ni que necesite ser arreglado.

Como explica tan bien este libro, el verdadero cambio ocurre cuando aprendes a trabajar con tu cerebro en lugar de luchar contra él. Recibir este diagnóstico ha sido completamente transformador para mi vida, y gran parte de ese cambio ha venido de aplicar las ideas y el enfoque que se comparten aquí.

Lo que realmente distingue a este libro es su mirada compasiva. Integra neurociencia, nutrición y estrategias de estilo de vida de una forma práctica, sólida y profundamente humana. Sea cual sea el punto en el que te encuentres en tu camino con el TDAH, o incluso si simplemente sientes curiosidad por entenderte mejor, este libro es una herramienta esencial.

Muchas gracias, Dr Miguel.
1 review
May 11, 2026
I bought ADHD Body and Mind because my partner has ADHD, and I wanted to understand their experience better. I expected useful information, but I didn’t expect the book to change the way I see some of the everyday things that can create tension in our relationship.

The science is clear and accessible, without feeling simplistic. It helped me understand behaviours I had sometimes taken personally, such as overwhelm, inconsistency, sensitivity, impulsivity or needing time to recover. Seeing these through the lens of the nervous system, rather than as character flaws or lack of effort, has made a real difference.

What I appreciated most is that the book is compassionate without being sentimental. It has helped me become more patient, more curious, and kinder in the way I respond to my partner. It’s a rich, thoughtful and very human guide, not only for people with ADHD, but for those of us who love them.
Profile Image for Ro U.
117 reviews3 followers
Read
May 7, 2026
I picked this up hoping for something that went a little deeper than the usual ADHD self-help fare, and it mostly delivered. The neurodiversity-affirming tone is consistent throughout and genuinely refreshing. It doesn't frame ADHD as a deficit to be managed so much as a different neurotype to understand, and that reframe alone made it feel worth reading.

The one thing worth flagging is that the line between established research and the author's own interpretation gets blurry in places. The book presents itself as evidence-based, and largely it is, but it drifts into personal opinion at times without being fully upfront about that shift. Worth going in aware of.

Overall, if you're looking for something that takes the science seriously while also making you feel like your brain isn't broken, this is a good one.

Thank you Netgalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the ARC!
Profile Image for Kelley S.
136 reviews
August 4, 2026
This is the best book I have read on ADHD. Covers the topic in depth and doesn't talk down to the reader. I would like to add this to my personal library at home. It gave me insights to my own behavior/dis-regulation, as well as my family's.

The book gives you all the tools you need to cope with ADHD. The author goes deep inside the brain for explanations to describe why the brain works the way it does, and how to access those particular areas of the brain for soothing, comfort, pressure release. The connection of the gut to the mind is so crucial to everyday life, I am glad this was in the book! Excellent lists of foods that boost gut health for the brain.

Thank you to NetGalley for early access to the Ebook, Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas, and Jessica Kingsley Publishers. The opinion expressed if fully and uniquely my own.
1 review
May 9, 2026
For someone with ADHD myself, this book was wonderful. Having someone explain, in such a constructive and compassionate way the nuances of ADHD was life affirming, freeing and, at times, emotional. A must for those with loved ones with ADHD/ neurodiversity too. So much invaluable information. Loved it 👏🏻Thank you Dr Miguel.
1 review
May 20, 2026
Having watched Dr Miguel on his instagram for quite a while I bought this book to help me gain a greater understanding of my ADHD diagnosed friends. Considering my limited knowledge of neuroscience & the gut I found it easy to understand & very helpful. Would recommend reading for anyone with ADHD symptoms or who has loved ones with symptoms.
Profile Image for Joanne- Bookish.zebra.
299 reviews6 followers
May 20, 2026
ARC Review
4⭐

This book was so informative without overloading me. I could take it chapter by chapter.
I loved that the references where at the end of the chapter, rather than the end of the book. It made them feel more accessible.
The 'in a nutshell' section was brilliant. Made it easier to remember with the simple recap.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the chance to read 💛
Profile Image for Bookbubble.
219 reviews4 followers
June 4, 2026
Rating 3.5 ⭐

ADHD Body and Mind pulls together neuroscience, neurochemistry, stress physiology, and nutrition in a way that’s clearly well-researched and thoughtful. The standout sections are the chapters on the brain and medication, which dive deeper into the neurological side of ADHD than most general trade books. If you like body-based explanations and a neurodiversity-affirming tone, there’s a lot here to appreciate.

The book lost me a bit when it came to practical application. There’s plenty of background and reflection, but not much that felt immediately useful for the everyday struggles many people with ADHD face, especially around food, sleep, and follow-through. The advice often stayed broad or leaned into mindfulness-style suggestions, which might work for some but didn’t feel particularly concrete or tailored to ADHD realities.

The nutrition section has real science, but it’s filtered through a specific food philosophy/diet (vegan) that may not be realistic, practical, or even physically tolerable for everyone. At times, the line between established science, emerging research, and personal opinion gets blurry. That's frustrating when the book presents itself as evidence-based. It's documented that ADHD people often have GI related issues and if your system doesn't tolerate high fiber and foods that ferment quickly in the gut well, following the guidance here may cause your system to rebel explosively.

The book is compassionate and ambitious with some interesting science, especially in the neuroscience sections. But if you’re looking for validation, body-based reflection, or a broader way of thinking about ADHD, it might resonate.
Profile Image for The_enchanted.Reader.
177 reviews1 follower
August 7, 2026
ADHD Body and Mind explores ADHD using Science and real-life case studies in an informative and useful way. Toribio-Mateas incorporates research and practical examples to help guide changes in the way we view ADHD. The nutrition element was really interesting as I haven't really come across a lot of information on how the body can be supported with food when easing the impact of ADHD on our every day life.

There are recaps and "in a nutshell" sections which is so incredibly helpful and it is exactly what is needed for ADHD brains. It was great especially when I wanted to remember specific information. I would have loved more of this breakdown.

With more and more research into ADHD these books are crucial to have available. For all people, genders and sexualities the experience within their own contexts cannot be just under one umbrella and this book does allow the focus to be on how mind and body is needed to be addressed and cared for.

Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews