Hacking Your ADHD

Hey team, Happy New Year! I'm excited to get going into 2023, but I also don't want to just be doing everything by the seat of my pants, so it's time to do a little planning and think about how we want this year to go. In this episode, I will be talking about rest and planning and getting into some of the things I specifically want to do with the podcast in 2023. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/2023

One of the things I never quite got a grasp on is seasons... I mean I grew up in Hawaii and we basically had hot and not quite as hot. But this comes up for me because technically we're still in Spring right now so I guess this could still be a Spring Cleaning episode - officially Summer starts on the Solstice in June on the 20th... so I made in by like a week if you're listening to this when it comes out. Regardless of if this is Spring Cleaning or not, cleaning can be a great way to signal the start of something new. We all get used to the mess in our space and freshening things up can not only signal the start of something new but also shift our mindset. Today I'll be exploring the benefits of cleaning, how we can update our space, some tips on accountability, and then get into a few of the specific things that you can do. Support me on Patreon Ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/freshstartcleaning This Episode's Top Tips You can help spur your fresh start by rearranging your space - this doesn't have to be a big move, but sprucing up your environment can help it feel new and like you are starting fresh. Getting rid of our old stuff can help lift mental burdens and take care of old open loops. Our accumulated stuff often carries more mental weight than we really know. To help keep on track during cleaning make sure you create some accountability. It can be a great way to help you follow through with your planning and also in the moment through body doubling. Leave yourself notes as to where you left off in your cleaning so when you come back you can pick it back up without having to try and figure out what you were trying to do. While it may seem like we wouldn't forget, it's easy to lose track of where we were at in our plans.

Hey team, this week we've got a listener question: "My name is Mike and I have a question about wrapping things up. I have a really difficult time on the last lap of projects, or sometimes there is like a secret lap after what I thought was the last lap, which, you know, sometimes depending on the project includes like sending thank you notes or thank you emails or a bunch of stuff where I sort of feel like I already spent all of the dopamine and executive function of the rewards of a project. And then once I sort of feel like I reached that finish line, I realized there are a bunch of little loose ends that need tidying and I have a really hard time getting to them cuz it feels like it's over. Okay. Thank you very much." Hey, Mike, thanks for the question; I'm sure this is something that a lot of people deal with, I know I certainly do. It can feel incredibly disheartening to finish a task and then find out that, oh wait, there's just a little bit more to do. In today's episode, we'll be looking at how we can clean up some of these loose ends and also how we can avoid getting into some of these situations. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/125 Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Hey team, this week I'm talking with Aleta Storch of Wise Heart Nutrition, a small nutrition practice made up of 3 neurodivergent-affirming dietitians. She is a Registered Dietitian, Licensed Therapist, and a Body Trust Provider. Many of us with ADHD face many issues around eating and feeding ourselves - from things that can arise from choosing what to eat, when to eat, or just not having the executive function to get ourselves to eat. In our conversation today, Aleta and I talk about some of these issues surrounding ADHD and eating, such as interoception, meal planning, and issues surrounding executive function. We also discuss intuitive eating and how we can modify those ideas to fit in with our ADHD. If you're interested, be sure to sign up for the ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability Groups at coachingrewired.com Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/wiseheart Be sure to checkout Wise Heart Nutrition on their website: wiseheartnutrition.com or on Instagram

Hey team, as we begin to get ready to roll into the new year, we're going to be seeing a lot more about New Year's Resolutions and goal setting - but we're also going to be getting a lot of pushback articles as well. Articles telling us how setting goals is only setting us up for failure and what we need to do instead. And the question is, who do we believe? In this episode, we're going to be examining some of the arguments against setting goals and also looking at what we might want to be doing instead and how we can combine that all into one overall theory. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page This Episode's Top Tips Regardless if you want to call something a goal or not, breaking down a goal into its component parts and focusing on the process that's going to get you there is a better way to approach goal setting. We don't want to be striving for arbitrary numbers goal setting needs to have a why behind it to have any meaningful impact. We don't need to always hit our goals to be successful with them. Goals are often just targets we're aiming for, and we can always learn from our failures.

Hey team, in this week's episode, we're going to be diving into energy drinks… well, not literally, that would be sticky… and well, that amount of caffeine would probably be lethal. Anyways… Our topic for the week is energy drinks, how they affect us and as I just mentioned, that means we're also going to be talking about caffeine. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/123 Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page This Episode's Top Tips The main concern with energy drinks is how quickly they can provide a high amount of caffeine into your system. Typical energy drinks have 160-250mg of caffeine, compared to about half that for an 8-ounce cup of coffee. The biggest concern with large amounts of caffeine is its 3-7 hour half-life, which means that if we're having multiple energy drinks in a day, we can build up quite a lot in our system. With ADHD, it can be easy to view caffeine as a way for us to help manage our ADHD, but with how quickly we develop a tolerance to caffeine, that can easily get out of hand.

Hey team, this week we're talking about our weeks and how we can get more out of them with a weekly review. The idea behind a weekly review is that we're looking back on how things went and using that to help us figure out how we want our next week to go. In this episode we're going to go over the benefits of performing a weekly review, look at some of the ways to make doing it easier and then get into the nitty gritty of how to actually perform it. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/122 Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page This Episode's Top Tips The point of a weekly review is for us to not only look back at what happened last week, but use that knowledge to help us plan out how we're going to approach our next week. It allows us to gain clarity over what we've done and what we want to do. When we're performing our weekly review it is important to keep ourselves out of judgement - we're not trying to beat ourselves up over anything we didn't get to, we're just looking to make next week better. One of the most important things for making sure we complete our weekly review is to actually build in the time to perform it on our schedule. By building in and protecting our time to perform a weekly review we are far more likely to follow through on our intentions.

Hey team, this week we're getting emotional and talking about the relationship between ADHD and our emotions. While emotional dysregulation isn't part of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, some studies have found that 70% of adults with ADHD exhibit emotional dysregulation. In this episode, we'll get into why it isn't part of the diagnosis, as well as examine what emotional regulation is and what we can do to help ourselves keep our cool a little bit better. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/121 Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page This Episode's Top Tips Emotions are short-duration and are often in response to specific situations. Emotional regulation is our ability to control our emotional response to those situations, usually through down-regulation. Emotional impulsiveness and deficient emotional self-regulation were both parts of an ADHD diagnosis but were removed from the DSM in the 1970s because we can't easily measure emotions. We can help down-regulate our emotions through mindfulness, being aware of how we are physically feeling, slowing down, and removing ourselves from difficult situations.

Hey team, this week we're talking about coping - our ability to cope with stressful situations but more specifically, how we can work on coping with our ADHD. When we're coping with something, we're trying to figure our way through a tough situation. When we're trying to cope with our ADHD, it is often less about our emotional response (although that is important too) and how we're using our problem-solving skills to alleviate some of our ADHD mishaps. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/120 Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Check out this week's sponsor, Athletic Greens This Episode's Top Tips While ADHD coaching and therapy can seem similar, they are distinct practices, with therapists often focused on healing in the past and present and coaches more focused on future-oriented goal setting. When seeking out help in either of these domains, it is important to remember that they do not work like magic, and you are going to have to put in work to see results. Additionally, the individual you see will usually become much more important than their profession. Accountability is a tool that we can use to take ownership of our actions, and when used in conjunction with others, it can help create salience and clarity in what we are doing to follow through with our intentions.

All right, back on track with this series on Getting Started with ADHD Management, and this week we're going to be focusing on some of the more physical areas that can really help us get our ADHD under control, and those are sleep and exercise. During the monthly ADHD reWired Live Q&A, we frequently get questions about what are the top things that we all do for our ADHD, and inevitably the answers come back as sleep and exercise. It's just that important. And also, it's understandably hard for us to follow through on. So in today's episode, we're going to be discussing why these things are so important for our ADHD management, but also, just as importantly, how we better follow through on our intentions of getting better sleep and exercising more. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/119 This Episode's Top Tips While ADHD coaching and therapy can seem similar they are distinct practices with therapists often focused on healing in the past and present and coaches more focused on future-oriented goal setting. When seeking out help in either of these domains it is important to remember that they do not work like magic and you are going to have to put in work to see results. Additionally, the individual you see will usually end up being a lot more important than their profession. Accountability is a tool that we can use to take ownership of our actions and when used in conjunction with others it can help create salience and clarity in what we are doing to follow through with our intentions.

Hacking Your ADHD just passed the three-year mark, which I'm just amazed at. Amazed with having stuck with it, amazed with how the show has grown and amazed with my wonderful audience. It also feels like I was just doing the 2-year episode not so long go… you know, like 12 months ago or so. That's the funny thing about time, it just keeps marching on regardless of how well we're paying attention to it. For this year's anniversary episode, I decided that I'd take a look back at some of the things I've learned about ADHD over the last three years. I'm going to cover some of the a-ha's and misinformation that I've had and seen - as well; I'll be looking at how my views on trying to be neurotypical have changed and some of the ways I've learned to better embrace my ADHD. And, of course, I just want to mention that this episode is just touching on this topic of what I've learned because, well, it's been a lot. And I also just want to take a quick second to thank everyone who has decided to join me on this ADHD journey. I truly appreciate having you along for the ride. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Show note at HackingYourADHD.com/threeyears This Episode's Top Tips There are always going to be more a-ha moments when we go "oh, that's an ADHD thing?" but we've got to temper those moments with the understanding that there is also a lot of ADHD misinformation out there and we always have to check our sources. While it can feel like we're just a flavor of neurotypical it is important for us to realize that ADHD has it's own way of operating the brain and that we need to look for solutions that work with our brains, not someone else's. It's more than okay for us to do less, in fact a lot of the time is better for us to take something off our plate because we often take on too much. By doing less we're allowed to focus more on the things that really matter.

As I was finishing up my Getting Started episode I realized that if I had been talking to someone I'd also still have a ton of questions and feel like that episode really didn't answer anything for me. Or rather I think I'd have felt like it didn't answer the question I thought I had asked. Now to be fair to past me, while, yes, I kind of did that, but also when we're talking about where to get started with our ADHD management we really don't know those things but nonetheless those are really important things for us to hear. And I still think those are the place we should get started with our ADHD management, but I also know that there are other places that people are going to have questions about, so in this episode, I'm going to try addressing some of those, specifically, therapy, coaching, and accountability. I may even have to slap on part three to address some of the lifestyle changes that can be incredibly helpful for managing your ADHD. Again, as I mentioned in the last episode, ADHD is a spectrum disorder and we're all going to be starting at our places. We're all unique ADHD snowflakes and we're all going to have our areas where our ADHD affects us the most. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/117 This Episode's Top Tips While ADHD coaching and therapy can seem similar they are distinct practices with therapists often focused on healing in the past and present and coaches more focused on future-oriented goal setting. When seeking out help in either of these domains it is important to remember that they do not work like magic and you are going to have to put in work to see results. Additionally, the individual you see will usually end up being a lot more important than their profession. Accountability is a tool that we can use to take ownership of our actions and when used in conjunction with others it can help create salience and clarity in what we are doing to follow through with our intentions.

One of the questions that I've been getting a bit more frequently recently is just trying to understand where to get started with ADHD - and I think this is a question that a lot of us have because there is just so much out there on ADHD and it's hard to know where even to begin thinking about what you might want to be doing. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring this idea by first looking at some of the areas that ADHD entails, how that knowledge can boost your ability to manage your ADHD, and also take a look another look at the Wall of Awful. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/116 This Episode's Top Tips ADHD is a spectrum disorder meaning that you are going to have a variety of symptoms to varying degrees. Your ADHD is unique to you, and how you treat your ADHD is going to be a matter of figuring out which symptoms are affecting you the most. One of the hardest parts of ADHD is getting past our internalized messaging around who we are - if we haven't taken the time to work on accepting how our ADHD affects us, then it is easy for us to blame our problems on ourselves as personal failings instead of accepting how our ADHD can hold us back. The Wall of Awful is the emotional impact of repeated failure, and it makes activating on tasks even more difficult - there are 5 ways people try to get past the Wall of Awful, two don't work, and one works but is damaging to our relationships and then two that work - the two that don't work are staring at it or trying to go around it - the one that works but is damaging is trying to hulk smash through the wall - the two that work that we want to focus on are climbing the wall and putting a door in our wall.

Hey team - thanks for sticking with me during my break and to everyone that filled out my survey a few weeks back. Your input was really incredibly kind and I'm excited to get back into the show. To get things going we're going to come back at it with some listener questions - questions that I kind of let build up while I was on break, so I may be doing a few of these episodes to try and catch back up on things, although don't be shy to drop a new question on me at hackingyouradhd.com/contact In this week's Q&A we're going to be looking at working from home and how to do better with some of our eating habits. Support me on Patreon Show notes can be found at: HackingYourADHD.com/lq4

I know the term spiritual energy is going to throw a lot of people - so let's start off by getting clear on what I mean here. When I'm talking about spiritual energy I'm not talking about anything religious here, I'm simply referring to the idea that you have an energy reserve that you can tap into when you're doing something that matters. And specifically, something that matters to you - this doesn't have to be some higher calling type of idea. One thing that really illustrates the idea of digging deep into that energy reserve for me is when I'm doing something like weight lifting. As I get to the end of my set I can find myself flagging, I can feel like I'm not going to be able to push the bar the 3 more inches it needs to go to rack my bar - and yet I can have my spotter tell me "you've got this" and my brain hears that and I push just a little bit harder and I finish out. Where did that energy reserve come from? As far as I was concerned I was already pushing as hard as I could and yet, with just a few words I was able to find that motivation to push a little harder. Access to the human spirit isn't just limited to athletic endeavors. And our motivation to dip into this energy source often comes from doing meaningful work. Many people don't recognize meaning and purpose as potential sources of energy, but when we're doing work that aligns with our values we are able to accomplish so much more. Today we're going to be looking at three areas that we can use to access our spiritual energy: living their core values in their daily behaviors, doing the work that we do best and enjoy the most, and allocating time and energy in our lives for the things we deem most important. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Show note at HackingYourADHD.com/spiritualenergy This Episode's Top Tips There are three areas we need to focus on for our spiritual energy: Living our values, working with our passion, and scheduling time for those things that matter to us. Spend some time exploring your values by asking yourself what you can't stand - when you define what you won't put up with it is often helps define what we do stand for. Work on finding what you are passionate about by defining what you are willing to put up with - further refine your passion by finding your work "sweet-spot" by finding where you are effective, effortlessly absorbed, inspired, and fulfilled. Use your calendar to schedule your most important work - follow your energy patterns and try to schedule those most important tasks early in the day.

Help me out by taking my podcast survey! Emotional Energy isn't as cut and dry as physical energy - there are no emotional calories that we can track and measure. And while there is no scientific delineation of how to measure emotional energy it's still something that we can all feel - we're not robots. We know that when we're feeling those positive emotions that sometimes we can barely contain the energy we're feeling - when we're seething with rage it can feel like we're going to burst. When we're sad it can feel like we want to melt into our beds and never be seen again. When we're overstressed it can feel like if we don't do something our skin is going to crawl off but even the idea of attempting that first step still feels like too much Our emotions play a big role in our energy levels throughout the day. Just because we don't have a good way to measure them doesn't mean that we should write them off. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/emotionalenergy This Episode's Top Tips Our emotions play a big role in our energy management throughout the day - but emotions are complicated. While we can derive energy from both positive and negative emotions, we're better off using the energy from our positive emotions - The energy we draw off of emotions like fear or anger often comes with a price. We want to build our emotional intelligence by trying to observe ourselves - check-in with yourself throughout the day and ask, what am I doing? and how is that making me feel? You can also go beyond that by asking how you feel about the emotions you're feeling. When scheduling your day make sure that you are giving yourself time to recover after emotionally draining activities. If you need a quick fix to calm yourself down, try taking deep belly breaths. Deep breathing creates a physiological response that encourages your body to relax - as your body relaxes, your mind will follow. Give yourself some time to let yourself think. With ADHD we spend a lot of our day go from one distraction to the next - but when we let ourselves have the goal of just letting our minds wander it can help us explore how we're feeling and recharge our emotional batteries.

Help me out by taking my podcast survey! Today we're going to be looking at ways that we can work on cutting down distractions and staying focused. We'll also be looking at ways that we can better schedule our time to focus on when our brain is going to be working best and we'll also be looking at better ways to end our workday. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/mentalenergy This Episode's Top Tips Mental energy is about our ability to focus and keep our focus. To effectively do this we need to stop trying to multitask and reduce the number of distractions we have around us. This means limiting notifications and creating a work environment where we won't be easily interrupted. We can create smarter time blocks using our ultradian rhythms to guide us - breaking our scheduling into these 90-120 minute cycles allows us to focus on working when we've got the most energy and taking breaks when we're going to need them the most. Schedule your most important tasks for early in the day. By completing what's most important first you'll never find yourself at the end of the day having missed those tasks. You can decide if it's best to eat the frog with this task or to ease into it. End your workday with a shutdown routine to signal to your brain that you are really done with work. By only working while you are at work you'll make better use of your time and you'll allow yourself real time to relax and recover while you are at home.

Before we get going here, I just want to make sure you know that I'm not a doctor, and while this episode is a lot about your health, it is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice. Just because I say something on this show doesn't necessarily mean it will be the best advice for you - be smart and be safe. And when in doubt always consult your doctor before changing your diet or exercise routine. Today's episode is a follow up to last week's on Energy Management, but this week we are just going to be going over the area of physical energy. When we think about our energy levels, our physical energy is what we tend to primarily think about. We think about being tired or just needing a quick pick me up to get through our day. And our physical energy tends to be a basis for all our other types of energy (quick reminder those were: mental, emotional and spiritual along with our physical energy) - when we're physically exhausted it's hard for us to draw on our other wells of energy. Have a bad night's sleep? You might be feeling that brain fog all-day - blood sugar low? You might be more likely to snap at a family member over something not that important. We need our foundation of physical energy to power our bodies and to let us fully engage with our other energy sources. In today's episode, we're going to be covering the three main areas that we get our physical energy from: sleep, diet, and exercise. Show note at HackingYourADHD.com/physicalenergy This Episode's Top Tips Getting enough sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our energy levels. To help get a good night's sleep make sure you are allowing yourself to get 4-6 sleep cycles of 90 minutes. You can improve your sleep quality with a dark, cool room and by creating a routine to get you ready for sleep by your bedtime. Instead of focusing on what foods you should or shouldn't be eating, focus on ways that you can make the habits of eating the right foods easier. By making the lifestyle changes you are more likely to stick to your new dietary plan - making mistakes isn't a set back it's just part of the path to changing your habits. Aim to get 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise per day - we're just trying to get our heart rate up here. If you are just starting up, then maybe try starting with a light 10-minute walk and work your way up. Along with getting enough exercise during the day, you also are going to want to be moving more throughout the day. During your breaks be sure to get up and stretch a little and don't let you're self stay in one position for too long.

Hey team, in today's episode, I'm talking with Alma Galvan and Bob Dietrich - Alma is a neural researcher and Certified Brain Gym instructor, Bob Bob Dietrich is an award-winning public speaker, event producer, and entrepreneur, and together they run Brainworx, an educational program that teaches adults and children how to help manage anxiety, behavior, and improve focus through simple, scientifically-proven techniques. In this conversation, we talked about Alma's journey with raising two children diagnosed with multiple conditions, including Autism, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorder - and how those challenges led her down the road of discovering powerful techniques to help promote brain development. We talk about the pons and midbrain and how their underdevelopment can seriously impact our brain functions. We explore some simple exercises you can do to help restore some of this development and how our beliefs can shape our reality. Be sure to check out the free Workshop Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/brainworx

Today we've got a bit of a different episode coming your way - in this episode, I talk with award-winning director Saman Kesh. Kesh is known for his narrative music video work with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Calvin Harris, and Placebo. In our broad-ranging conversation, we talk about the creative process and having ADHD, medication, therapy, and a whole host of other topics. This episode is a bit more of the practical side of managing ADHD, and there are great tips littered throughout the episode. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/samankesh

I want to start this episode off by saying that this is something I'm bad at - and not in the sense that what I do to celebrate is bad or that I'm not celebrating the small wins throughout my day. It's bad in the sense that I almost entirely skip the whole thing. Recently this podcast tipped past half a million downloads. That's a pretty big milestone and is pretty indicative of how successful this endeavor has been. But it was barely a blip for me. I didn't want to acknowledge the success because it can be hard for me to acknowledge when I do things well. So this episode is as much for me as it is for all of you and in this episode, we're going to be exploring what it means to have small wins and also how we can celebrate them. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/winning This Episode's Top Tips Celebrating our wins is a way to boost our confidence and it will actively encourage us to seek out that same success again. We can differentiate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by thinking of intrinsic as what to do because it's interesting and inherently satisfying. Extrinsic motivation comes from rewards or from avoiding punishment. Both can be important parts of how we celebrate our success. Start celebrating your wins by acknowledging when they happen and then letting yourself do something fun to celebrate that success. Don't get down on yourself when the wins aren't coming - we're not always going to have smooth sailing, but only focusing on what didn't happen tends to make us overlook all the good things that did happen.

Over the last few weeks, I have hit a number of points where it all just felt like too much - now there are a number of things that have contributed to this, but one of the keys always behind when I get overwhelmed is doing too much. This is despite the fact that even when I have too much on my plate it always feels like I should be doing more. That I could squeeze in just a few more things and then… well then I'd probably also still be trying to add more things to do. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring why doing more isn't usually the best thing for us to pursue and how doing less can actually help us actually accomplish the things we really want to do. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/111 This Episode's Top Tips Prioritizing with ADHD can be difficult and that is only made more difficult as we add more and more to what we're doing. When we're able to pare down the amount we're doing we can then better prioritize all the things that actually need to get done. We don't have to do everything that ends up on our to-do lists - it's okay to cross things out even if we haven't completed them. We only have so much cognitive capacity to focus on any given thing and the more open loops we the more we are going to be drawing on that cognitive capacity. Our best bet for dealing with open loops is to work on simply opening fewer of them by taking less on.

Hey team, today I'm talking with Skye Rapson of Unconventional Organisation, a New Zealand-based coaching group that specializes in online coaching. They focus on providing research-backed and strengths-based ADHD support to help you get unstuck in your life. In our conversation, we cover a lot of different areas, including one that I've really been interested in recently, systems. We get into what systems are and how important it is to tailor these systems to our own ADHD and then how we can even do that. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/unconventionalorg Checkout Unconventional Organisation https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/ https://www.facebook.com/UnconventionalOrganisation/ https://www.instagram.com/unconventionalorganisation/

One of the thoughts I kept coming back to while working on my episode's on multitasking was what it really meant to be multitasking. I settled on using the idea of doing two cognitive tasks at the same time, but that left me with another quandary - what about when I'm doing one thing and just thinking about doing something else. Surely just thinking about something else wouldn't count as multitasking. But still... There have absolutely been times when I've been thinking about something else and found myself getting engrossed in my thoughts and losing track of conversations or what I was doing. Clearly, my thoughts can play a big role in what I'm doing and if my focus is somewhere else then it certainly isn't here in the present. Today we're going to explore what our brain is doing here - how our thoughts can kind of run away with us. We'll also be looking at hyperfocus and then bringing together how these things relate. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/wanderingmind This Episode's Top Tips The Default Mode Network is a collection of brain regions that are responsible for daydreaming, mind wandering and are primarily active in our wakeful resting state. In neurotypical brains the Default Mode Network disengages when we start working on task-specific work - this relationship doesn't hold up in ADHD brains and is why we can drift off in thought while trying to do complex tasks. Hyperfocus is when our concentration engages so much that we kind of just tune out the rest of the world. It can be a double-edged sword, however, because we can also miss cues to eat, use the bathroom and overuse our executive functions, and leave us completely drained when we come out of it. We can help both our default mode network and our hyperfocus by taking breaks throughout the day. We can go further by using those breaks for positive constructive daydreaming where we let our minds wander with purpose.

In last week's episode, I talked about the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap and how it can be hard for us to really remember or predict how our state is going to affect our actions - one of the consequences of this is that we often label ourselves as lazy when we didn't do something. Our cold state brain tells us that we should have just done the thing, all the while neglecting how we felt. This disconnect is what leads to a lot of our self-judgment and in particular, those of us with ADHD often find ourselves labeling ourselves as lazy. Why didn't I walk the dogs? I was feeling lazy - or maybe I feel overwhelmed with work or maybe I couldn't find the leashes. When we don't do something it's easy to label it as lazy, but often that doesn't tell us what was really going on. Today we're going to be exploring the idea of lazy and how what we might want to start looking at it a bit differently. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/lazymyth

Why do we make bad decisions in the moment? We've all done things that we regret doing right? yeah me, neither - but let's say hypothetically there was something that we regretted doing - something that we said or did that we feel like doesn't really reflect on as a person. Why is it I can have the best of intentions and still when it comes time I still make the wrong decision? Today we're going to be exploring the hot-cold empathy gap and why it can be so difficult for us to predict what we're actually going to do in the moment. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/empathygap This Episode's Top Tips The hot-cold empathy gap occurs when we fail to predict how our emotions are going to affect our decision-making when we're in that state. This doesn't only apply to things like being angry or depressed but can also apply to our motivation or energy levels. Our ADHD can easily let us overcommit on projects because we fail to predict that we might have less drive and motivation when it comes time to actually do the task. We can work on mitigating some of the effects of the hot-cold empathy gap by making the decisions we want to make easier to make in the moment. We can also use tools like accountability and breaking down our tasks to keep us on track.

Today I'm talking with Rick Webster of Rena-Fi - a psychology-based financial education platform. Rena-Fi provides ADHD-friendly ideas, articles, and materials to help with managing your finances. Be sure to check out Rena-Fi.com In our conversation today though, Rick and I cover a lot of ground outside of finances as well. Of course, we do talk about some ADHD financials as well, including that dreaded ADHD tax. I had a lot of fun during this interview and I hope you'll enjoy it too. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/renafi And be sure to check out Rena-fi Rena-fi Youtube Facebook Instagram

This week I had the pleasure of talking with MJ Siemens from the ADHD Diversified Podcast and what a conversation we had. In it, we talk a lot about the imposter syndrome that often accompanies success with ADHD and why we often don't feel successful despite hitting all those metrics we were supposed to. We also talk a lot about how we can work on reframing our views on success so that we can feel good about all those things we accomplish. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/successwithmj Be sure to go check out ADHD Diversified on your favorite podcast player!

Self-diagnosis has become a hot-button topic in the mental health world as social media has ramped up many people's awareness of many of these conditions. But how valid is that self-diagnosis? Some people argue it's dangerous while others argue that self-diagnosis is as valid as a formal diagnosis. In today's episode, we're going to wade into this minefield and see what grains of truth we can pull out and where this tool is useful and where it isn't. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/selfdiagnosis This Episode's Top Tips So yeah, this is normally where the top tips would go, but I'm not sure that works as well for this episode, so I just wanted to break things down real quick here. What I'm trying to get at with this episode is that self-diagnosis tends to be an issue of equity and the fact that not everyone can easily get assessed for their mental health conditions is a problem. There is still a lot of stigma and misinformation around ADHD so getting that diagnosis can be difficult. What it comes down to though is what that diagnosis is going to do for you - if you need medication and accommodations then, yes absolutely go seek that formal diagnosis, but if you're just looking for better ways to work with your brain, going with self-diagnosis isn't a bad option. And to be sure if you do go the route of self-diagnosis, just be sure to be open to other options. As we went over there are a lot of ways that ADHD symptoms can show up in other mental health conditions, so just stay open and stay curious. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what you're diagnosed with as long as your doing those things that makes it easier for you to work with your brain.

Executive function is a hot topic around ADHD - and more specifically how we often have a deficit in it. One of the trickiest parts about executive function is that there isn't a universally accepted model of executive functions - I know that feels kind of surprising because it seems like something that is talked about as much as executive functions is that we'd have something that is generally agreed upon. So for this episode, we're going to be focusing on Russell Barkley's self-regulation model - although I'll certainly be pulling from other sources as well. I really like Dr. Barkley's model of self-regulation, because in many ways we can actually look at ADHD as a disorder of self-regulation itself. And that's exactly what Dr. Barkley proposes, that executive function and self-regulation are the same thing and that with ADHD we have a deficit in our executive functions and therefore a deficit in our self-regulation. As such, I'll be using executive function and self-regulation interchangeably throughout the episode to help emphasize that they are the same thing. In this episode, I'm going to go into exactly what executive function and self-regulation are, how we use them and how we can get back on track when we find ourselves missing some of that self-regulation. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/executivefunction This Episode's Top Tips We can think of executive functions and self-regulation as the same thing. Our primary executive functions are working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. We have a limited resource pool for our executive functions and we use some of it every time we engage in self-regulation. Fortunately, we can help restore some of these resources by doing things like taking a break, having a snack, and getting some exercise. One of the best ways to help with executive function is to modify our environment so that we're reducing the amount of self-regulation we need to do. This means doing things like putting away distractions and making time more visible.

Today I'm talking with Ben Ahrens the CEO and Co-founder re-origin which is a science-based, self-directed neuroplasticity training program. Ben was a former trainer and semi-professional surfer who became bedridden with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease for over 3 years. In his search to help heal himself, Ben sought out and consulted with top neuroscientists and cutting-edge doctors from all over the world. His successful recovery led him to working with these same neuroscientists to develop the program that became re-origin. In my talk with Ben today we discuss how we can start with just one breath, the power of changing our beliefs and how important it is to embrace the process. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/onebreath

My friend and colleague, Bob Dietrich, is interviewing me and over 40 other amazing experts on The ADHD Toolbox LIVE! This FREE video series is packed with tools and strategies for overcoming overwhelm, anxiety, procrastination, executive function challenges, and much more. This is a must-have for any parent looking for solutions for their child. Join for FREE here Hey team, welcome back to another questions and answers episode - today I am going to be giving a follow up to my episode about doom boxes and try and clear a few things up - I'm also going to be answering a question about what some of my favorite apps are for productivity and focus. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/DoomboxQandA

This week I'm coming in with my second episode in the success with ADHD series and I'm talking with Brendan Mahan. Brendan is a dynamic ADHD/Executive Function consultant, coach, and speaker. And he runs the ADHD Essentials Podcast on this network. Brendan is also probably one of the people I quote the most when I'm doing this podcast because he just has so many great ideas about ADHD and how to approach those issues. You may remember him from when I interviewed him a few years ago about The Wall of Awful - if you haven't heard that episode go check it out, it's a concept that's definitely worth knowing about. In our conversation today Brendan and I talk about what makes us successful with ADHD and how we can reframe some of those ideas to fit with who we really are and how one of the biggest keys is finding that balance in our life and our work. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/ADHDsuccesspart2

To recap from last week we learned that are there are three kinds of multitasking - Classic Multitasking where we're trying to perform more than one task at the same time. Rapid task switching where we're just going from one task to another in quick succession. And interrupted task switching where we're interrupted from one task and switch what we're doing without finishing what we were doing. We also covered how we're more likely to try and multitask with things we're familiar with but how that actually creates more of a cognitive penalty from breaking up our tasks and how we often just don't realize how much concentration we're using to complete a task - as evidenced with how dangerous texting and driving is. This week we're going to be exploring more of the cognitive and biological costs of multitasking, then get into some specific kinds of multitasking that can really drain us and we'll finish up with some ways we can work on reducing the amount of multitasking we do. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/multitaskingpart2 This Episode's Top Tips Multitasking has both cognitive and biological costs that accumulate as we do more and more task switching. These costs can be especially hard on those of us with ADHD because they can serve to drain our executive functions. Multimedia multitasking is one of the worst ways we can multitask because often we're essentially binge multitasking where we multitask for a sustained period and really drain our systems. One of the biggest appeals to multitasking is that we don't have to prioritize what we're doing, we can just choose to do both. To help stave off multitasking work on knowing what your priorities are and create systems where you can focus on just doing those things. One of our best defenses against multitasking is mindfulness - if we can be specific about what we want to do and then become aware of what we are doing throughout the day we can help ourselves focus on doing just one thing at a time.

This week we're going to be deep-diving into multitasking - this is one of those topics that I frequently mention in episodes, but I've never featured before. Not because it doesn't deserve its own episode, but because multitasking is actually a fairly complicated issue and is going to take a bit of time to dissect. So this is actually just going to be my first episode in a series on multitasking and we'll really try and dig into the nitty-gritty of it. In today's episode, we're going to be talking a bit about what multitasking is and what it isn't - then we'll work on some ways to really drive home the time costs of multitasking and well finish up by looking at some of the ways that multitasking can actually put us in harm's way. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/multitasking This Episode's Top Tips There are three kinds of multitasking - Classic Multitasking where we're trying to perform more than one task at the same time. Rapid task switching where we're just going from one task to another in quick succession. And interrupted task switching where we're interrupted from one task and switch what we're doing without finishing what we were doing. When we're talking about multitasking we're primarily concerned with doing two cognitive tasks at the same time that require sustained attention. This means something like walking and listening to a podcast is fine to do because neither carries a huge cognitive load. We often try to multitask with things that we're already fairly practiced at, but this means that we're going to suffer even more of a penalty as we try to combine doing them with other things. Don't text and drive - or even just play with your phone while behind the wheel. When we're mentally juggling all of these different things we're dividing our attention and it takes time for us to refocus on what we need to be doing.

In this week's episode, I'm talking with Karen Broda, a Personal Trainer & Wellness Coach who helps ADHD-ers look & feel good naked! Her purpose is to have you thrive in your body, both physically & mentally so you can show up with confidence every day. The focus of her work is on uncovering & busting past the self-sabotaging beliefs that are causing you to get in your own way. Karen is a Pro Bikini Athlete, Circus artist & instructor, & lives in a Tiny Home she built herself! In our conversation today we discuss the importance of mindset, some of the ways we can reframe our views on exercise, and we also get into how we can set up systems that will keep us exercising even on those days when we don't want to. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/karenbroda This Episode's Top Tips We can think of our mindsets like a muscle and like a muscle they need to be exercised. By working on our mindset consistently we can work on overcoming some of our limiting beliefs. Reframing exercise as movement and movement that we enjoy doing is a great way to get yourself introduced to doing more activity in your day. A great way to find more ways to incorporate movement into your day is to break down the activities you already like doing and figuring out which parts of those you love and where you can find those same aspects in other activities. It's just about finding things that you can do to move your body consistently. The three components you need for building an exercise system and getting results with it are: First is consistency - next is having it challenge you and thirdly crafting a positive mindset around your routine. Make sure to first build your mindset and then your systems once you have those set you can build up your tips and tricks. Don't let yourself get bogged down in the little details before you create your foundation.

One of the ideas that I've been playing with lately is how to go about my planning in a more natural way or perhaps a better phrase would be functional, because while I love the idea of planning it doesn't always work out how I want to it to. And to be clear, I don't mean that my plans don't work out, what I've been grappling with is that often when I do my planning I've failing to do it in a way that encompasses both my professional and personal life. I think this is an aspect of layering on my personal planning over my professional planning - but really I should be doing it the other way around. It makes more sense for me to build my planning around things like saying when my kids are in and out of school. It should be based on what's going on in my life around me. And so it dawned on me that one of the ways I could adjust this planning was to focus that planning that was seasonal - because with each season there are definite changes in how I go about my life. And so today we're going to be exploring how we can look at planning with those seasonal changes in mind. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/seasonalplanning This Episode's Top Tips When we're writing out our plans we're not creating some set-in-stone document that we can't vire from - our plans should be malleable. It's also important that we're checking in with our plans as often as we need to so that we can stay on track. By planning with the seasons in mind we're thinking about the way our lives change with the seasons - are we going to be staying indoors or outdoors more? Are there seasonal events we want to keep in mind? What are the things you're going to be looking forward to in those seasons? Once you've figured out how you want your season to go you can break it down into what you want each month to look like and then take that information to plan out your coming days and weeks.

In this week's episode we're going to be diving into a listener question about cleaning and specifically about doom boxes - and if you don't know what those are don't worry you'll find out soon enough... and I'm sure you probably already have some around that house. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/doomboxes This Episode's Top Tips Dooms boxes are the collects of odds and ends that all end up in a single location - usually a box or a drawer. Having a doom box isn't a moral failing. When tackling your doom boxes set a schedule for when you're going to go through them and enlist some accountability to make sure that you actually do it. The biggest key to going through your doom box is to sort everything into where those things need to go and to not get up while going through your box. We will get distracted. We will forget what we were supposed to be doing or at least find something else that we'd rather be doing instead.

One of the ideas that I was presented with during the pandemic was that of surge capacity - this is the idea that we all have reserves of emotional energy that we can call on when we're in a crisis situation. And this was an important idea for people to grasp as the pandemic wore on because people were finding themselves depleted. Despite having been able to handle everything they eventually came to a wall where they didn't have any more to give. This is an important concept, but not specifically what I want to talk about today because what I want to talk about is what I gleaned from this idea. That we because we have surge capacity, we also have a normal capacity. This seems like a fairly obvious point, but also one I think that a lot of us with ADHD often overlook. Despite everything I know about planning it is still far too easy for me to try and squeeze too much into one day. And this isn't just in terms of how much time I have or how much energy I have, but just how much I can reasonably take on. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring this idea of capacity and how it can impact our ability to get anything done. We be looking at what we can do on these days and how we can actually use them to help ourselves to recover. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/LowCapacity This Episode's Top Tips We can hit low capacity when we've been pushing too hard for too long. Our capacity differs from our energy levels in that we can think of it as the total amount of energy we have for a day. Having a low capacity means that we're not recovering and that when we do recover we're only coming back to a low base rate of energy. When we're at low capacity we need to slow down and focus on the things we can do - this means prioritizing and thinking about ways we can apply "both-and" thinking where we accept reality and how we can function within it. A great way to help build back up our capacity is creating some accountability around our self-care tasks so that we actually follow through with those intentions.

Hey team, I've got a real treat for you today - as I mentioned earlier in the year I'm going to try and include a few more interviews on this podcast, and this month I'm bringing you my conversation with Dr. Tamara Rosier. I just had a blast talking with her and so this episode is a bit longer than I normally go simply because I didn't want to stop the interview. Dr. Rosier is an ADHD coach and runs the ADHD Center of West Michigan. In this interview, we talk about her book Your Brain's Not Broken: Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with ADHD. There is just so much good stuff in this interview we talk about emotional regulation, energy management, and a lot of the funny quirks of having ADHD. If you like the stuff I have on this podcast your honestly going to love her book and I think you'll really enjoy this interview as well. Be sure to check out the book Your Brain's Not Broken Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/YourBrainsNotBroken

All right, I'm back from my little break and we're just heading right back into the hard stuff - or at least how we can start getting it checked off our to-do list. Today we're going to be looking at some more ways that we can adjust our mindset around doing hard things and also looking at some of the reasons we might be choosing to do certain hard things. Then we'll finish up this series by digging into a few of the more concrete things that you can do so that you can tackle those hard things. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/hardthingspart3 This Episode's Top Tips Part of the reward of doing hard things is actually doing the hard things - this may seem glib, but when we're building up our habits and routines the only way we actually build them is by doing the hard parts. We can't skip to the end and expect to have picked up habits needed to maintain that goal. We can reshape our mindset around the things that we "have to do" - we often rebel against the have to's and so changing our mindset into things that we get to do can have a profound impact on how we approach doing those tasks. Two of the best ways to get through doing hard things is to know your why behind what you're doing and then having some accountability to help you follow through.

One of the questions that I frequently get is how people can actually apply what they're learning - in this podcast and from all the other things we learn. I know this is a particularly pernicious problem for ADHD because often we see things that we think would really make a difference in our lives, and yet we can't seem to get ourselves to apply these ideas. Today we're going to explore how we can start working on getting a better understanding of what we're learning, why we might want to start limiting what we're consuming and how to solidify those learnings into our lives. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/learningtoapply This Episode's Top Tips When writing notes from books, podcasts or videos create summaries and write them down in your own words to solidify your learnings. Be discerning about the media that you're taking in so that you don't overwhelm yourself with too many topics. We can only work on a few ideas at any given time, so you've got to be choosy about what you want to work on. Create a plan to follow through with what you're learning and use an accountability system to help you stay on track with your plan.

One of the reasons that many of us have trouble giving ourselves slack is because of our internalized perfectionism - it's something that controls our workflow and prevents us from ever taking a break because in our head we know we could be doing more. Even during the writing of this episode I had to fight off some of this internal perfectionism - this episode wasn't supposed to be entirely about perfectionism, but it was going to take a lot more than just one section to really tackle the topic - so now what was just going to be a two-part episode on giving yourself some slack is a series - and had I come into this knowing it was going to be a series I would have definitely approached it differently, but that's okay, it doesn't have to be perfect. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring the idea of how perfection acts as a coping mechanism - and why that's not a great thing. We'll also be looking at some of the different types of perfectionism and then we'll be exploring some of the ways that we can start to work on conquering our own perfectionism. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter Instagram or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/perfectlyimperfect This Episode's Top Tips Many of us with ADHD have picked up perfectionism as a coping mechanism to try and deal with the mistakes that have come from us having ADHD - however, perfectionism is a maladaptive coping mechanism that often leads to more problems than it solves There are three types of perfectionism - self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism and socially-prescribed perfectionism. The first step in dealing with our perfectionism is understanding that our perfectionist expectations of ourselves are unrealistic and that having those unrealistic expectations is unhealthy - if we can relax those standards we will often save time, effort, and stress. Practice Imperfection by choosing small tasks that you can be imperfect at, such as using multiple colors of pens (without a pattern), not correcting typos in texts to friends or even something like wearing mismatched socks (I mean as long as they're the same kind - I just mean two socks with different colors or patterns not like wool socks and cotton socks, I'm not a monster). Look for feedback before you're 100% done with a project - try out asking for feedback at 30% and 90% and be sure to be specific about the type of feedback you're looking for at each point.

Last week we began this series on how to do hard things and looked specifically at how we define hard things and ways that we can work through some of our problems so that they can become more manageable. This week we're going to be continuing that conversation but with a lens that focuses on why it can be so hard for us to even attempt to do hard things. We'll be looking at some of the misconceptions we have about doing hard things as well looking at how acknowledging the hard things we've done in the past can help us do more hard things in the present. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/hardthingspart2 This Episode's Top Tips We often discount our ability to do hard things from a mistaken belief that we've never been able to accomplish anything hard. When we mistake failing at simple things for failing at doing hard things it can reinforce the idea that we can't do hard things. Remember, just because something is simple doesn't mean it isn't hard. Don't assume the logic in your head is always actually logical. It is easy for us to make logical leaps that don't hold up to reality - slow down and examine those beliefs. You don't have to believe everything you think.

One of my favorite sayings from Brendan Mahan of the ADHD Essentials podcast is that ADHD is life on Hard Mode. The executive dysfunction that comes with ADHD makes everything just a little bit more difficult. From doing the dishes to filling out tax returns we find ourselves needing to put in more effort than our neurotypical peers. But what's important for us to remember is that while these things can absolutely be harder for us to do, it doesn't mean it's impossible. Today we're going to be exploring this idea of doing hard things - what makes something difficult and how we can work on moving ourselves through that process. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/hardthings This Episode's Top Tips It is important for us to define what we find being hard because when we choose to believe something should be easy we tend not to give it the attention that it deserves. Our problems can't be solved until we acknowledge them as problems - but also can't solve those problems unless we put forward the effort of defining them and acknowledging the underlying issues. Define what done looks like for a task and be sure to be mindful of how that can be functional in your life.

In this episode I'm talking with the CEO and founder of the company Shelpful, Sharon Pope - we've all had times when we needed a little help getting ourselves to follow a routine and sometimes we don't have the accountability in our lives to make that happen. Shelpful is all about solving that problem of getting that daily accountability. The program works through text messaging but you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself - this is all in the interview. Be sure to go checkout Shelpful at Shelpful.com Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/shelpful

As I'm getting ready to head into the holidays I thought I'd deliver you something a bit different in your podcast player - a story. I don't want to give anything away so get snuggled in and prepare yourself for The Dog and The Dragon by Brandon Sanderson. Be sure to go check out all of Sanderson's work at BrandonSanderson.com Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/dragon

Trimethylxanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug - for many caffeine is such a ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer. How could something so widely used that has so few regulations around it be a drug? But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. I feel like caffeine ticks the box pretty well on all those accounts. In today's episode, we'll be exploring how caffeine works - some of its benefits and negatives and then we'll be looking at what we know about how caffeine and ADHD mix. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/caffeine This Episode's Top Tips Caffeine is a psychoactive drug whose primary mechanism is binding to adenosine receptors in the brain. The buildup of adenosine in our system is what makes us sleepy, so by binding to these receptors caffeine is able to keep us awake. Caffeine has a host of benefits but having too much caffeine near bedtime can affect our slow-wave sleep and reduce our total amount of sleep. There is still a lot of research that needs to be done on the interaction between caffeine and ADHD but it is clear that many people with ADHD attempt to self-medicate with caffeine.

Hey team, today's episode is coming in a bit more seriously than some of my others so I just wanted to give you all a head's up. In today's episode, we have listener questions dealing with depression so we're going to be talking about comorbidity in ADHD and specifically, we're going to be talking about how ADHD interacts with depression. comorbidity - this is a term that comes up with ADHD frequently enough and really what we're talking about here is two or more disorders or illnesses occurring in the same person at the same time or successively as in one condition that occurs right after the other. often when we're using the term comorbidity there is also the implication that the interaction between the two conditions creates worse outcomes for both. And the worsening outcomes make complete sense - regardless of what you're dealing with, having to manage two conditions is going to be harder than just dealing with one. Today we'll be looking at which comorbidities can affect ADHD, take a closer look at depression, and then talk about ways that they can interact and we can work on treating them. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/depression This Episode's Top Tips ADHD had a plethora of comorbid conditions and it's important to see know how they interact to properly treat your mental health issues. Depression has one of the most common comorbidities with ADHD and it's estimated that 70% of adults with ADHD will at some point be treated for depression. When figuring out how we want to approach treating comorbid conditions it's important to figure out who's driving the bus. Symptoms from each condition can exacerbate other symptoms and by figuring out whose driving the bus you can work treating the root cause of your issue.

The ADHD brain has a strange relationship with thinking. One of my biggest gripes is that it often feels like I can't ever turn my brain off. No matter what I'm doing, I'm thinking about something. I could be washing dishes, but I'm thinking about what else I need to do before I go to bed. I could be walking to get the mail, and instead of wondering what's in the mailbox, I'm thinking about a conversation I had three years ago. Even when I'm trying to meditate, I'll often find myself thinking about what it means to be meditating. I'm not really sure that thinking about meditating while meditating is actually meditating - but hey, I'm still putting in the effort, it's called a practice for a reason. But just because our brains are whirring away doesn't mean that we're producing quality thoughts. Today we're going to take a dive into how we can better direct our brains. We'll be looking at why we should stop multitasking. The value of critical thinking and then explore ways that we can improve that thinking. Support me on Patreon Connect with me on: Twitter Tiktok or ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/criticalthinking This Episode's Top Tips Stop trying to multitask. Multitasking reduces the efficiency that we can perform any task and prevents us from really thinking through our problems. Critical thinking is valuable because it helps us make hard decisions and it makes us harder to manipulate. Ask yourself more questions to improve your critical thinking skills. Always challenge your assumptions. Find ways to help facilitate your thinking time such mind mapping or taking a walk.