Hacking Your ADHD

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our research recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try to find any practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called "Evidence of Emotion Dysregulation as a Core Symptom of Adult ADHD: A Systematic Review." Just to give a bit of background here, when Skye and I were discussing topics to look into for future episodes, rejection sensitive dysphoria was one that seemed like it might be really interesting to see what's actually out there. In a way, it was interesting because there's just not a whole lot of research on the topic. So instead, we came up with this paper, which asks whether emotion dysregulation should be considered a core fourth symptom of adult ADHD alongside traditional things like inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.

To get started, let's try to get a quick definition of what we're talking about with emotional dysregulation and, of course, rejection sensitive dysphoria. You want to hit that one, Skye?

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/319

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with the fantastic Jessica McCabe. Many of you probably know Jessica from her award-winning YouTube Channel, How to ADHD, where she has helped millions of people better understand how ADHD brains work. And Jessica is a returning guest, last time she was on we talked about her then upcoming and now New York Times bestselling book, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) - which just came out in paperback.

And last time Jessica was on the show she was pregnant, so we dive into that a bit on this episode, discussing how having a kid really changed everything for her. And we really do dive into some of those struggles that come with parenting while ADHD and how those can compound with regular ADHD struggles as well through things like sleep, scheduling and how much pressure we put on ourselves. We also get to hear a little about the new book that Jessica is starting to work on.

How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) - Barnes & Noble

How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) - Amazon

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/318

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This episode's Top Tips:

1. A system can be a great fit for how your brain works and still stop fitting the life you're actually living. When something that used to work stops working, check what changed around it, be it your schedule, responsibilities, environment, or available support. Then look at what was useful about the old system and what needs to change to fit the life you have now.

2. Try putting something you actually want to do on the calendar before everything else fills the space. That might also mean scheduling more time for rest or fun than feels strictly necessary, because if we leave those things to whatever time is left over, there often isn't much left. This is something I've talked about before and am still not particularly good at myself, but making space for it deliberately gives that time a much better chance of actually happening.

3. Progress isn't about reaching a point where everything suddenly becomes easy. Part of it is adjusting what you expect from yourself, and part of it is getting better at recognizing which tools and supports you need. So when you're struggling, instead of making that struggle a verdict about yourself, ask: Why is this hard right now, and what can I do about it?

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with someone who has an impressive 12 years of podcasting and over 800 episodes, Eric Zimmer, is the host of The One You Feed podcast, taking the name from the parable of the two wolves inside you and asking which one grows, well, it's the one you feed. After struggling with heroin addiction and homelessness in his twenties, Zimmer became deeply interested in how people make lasting changes in their lives. Drawing on both behavioral science and his own experience with addiction and recovery, Zimmer's work focuses on exploring behavior change, meaning, and what helps people build better lives. Zimmer is also the author of How a Little Becomes a Lot.

In our conversation, Eric and I talk about why lasting change is usually built with the small, unglamorous days after the big moment and not in the moment itself. We explore how structure can reduce the need for willpower, how it can help separate deciding from doing, and how change becomes easier when we treat it as a skill to practice rather than a test of character. And while Eric hasn't been diagnosed with ADHD himself, we still get into topics like time blindness, using tools without shame, and why a little bit of something often beats a lot of nothing.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/317

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This episode's Top Tips:

1. Change is a skill you can get better at, not a trait that is set in stone. While it can feel impossible to change at first, it is something that we can get better at, it just takes practice. This doesn't mean that the process will be easy, just that if you keep at it you can make progress.

2. When possible, make the decision about what you're going to do, before you're in the moment of having to act. By giving yourself a little structure, you're not asking yourself to make a fresh decision every minute. And while you'll still have a choice to make when the time comes, you've already made that choice at least a little easier.

3. Often our plans are built out of our best case scenarios and can break down when we hit the speed bumps of real life. So it's important that we remember that a little bit of something beats a lot of nothing. This means that we want to decide the minimum version of what we're doing instead of relying on that best case scenario.

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper, dive into what it says and how it was conducted, and try to find practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're discussing a paper called "Evaluating Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Review of Current Methods and Issues." This is a continuation of what we were talking about two weeks ago. This is Part 2 because the paper was so long and densely packed with information.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/316

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

Hey Team! This week I'm talking with Dana K. White, the creator of A Slob Comes Clean and the author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, and her newest book Procrastinators Get Stuff Done: How to Go from Overwhelmed to Finished. Her work grew out of her own struggles with clutter and home management, and she's become known for practical, reality-based strategies designed for people who feel like traditional organizing advice just doesn't work for them.

This was a real fun episode and I just gotta say that I love that title, A Slob Comes Clean - it's a pun, it tells you exactly what to expect and gives that little of hey I was there too and we both can get out. Also as a slob myself, it's very validating.

So, in our conversation today we work through her decluttering methodology, from where we should start to where something goes to how we really should be using containers. We also talk about clutter thresholds, family-buy-in, ways to reframe what a win actually looks like. She also shares some of the ways her advice has changed over the years, including things she used to recommend and now recommends against.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/315

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. When putting stuff away it's important to decide where you'd look for an item and put it there instead of just thinking about where it "should" go. By putting something where you'd look for it first, when it comes time to look for the thing you know exactly where to go.

   2. While a container's first job is to hold things, it also serves as a way to set limits on how much of something can go in there. When the container is full, that's it, that's the limit and that decision is made for you.

   3. If we can change our goals from "done" to "better" we can shift our entire mentality around cleaning, organizing and decluttering. Instead of needing to set aside a whole weekend to completely upend your house, you can do five minutes and that progress still counts as a win.

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with Dr. Jolene Brighten, a naturopathic doctor, women's health educator, and author whose work focuses on hormones, reproductive health, and the ways hormonal changes can affect women across their lifespan. She's the author of Beyond the Pill and Is This Normal?, and her newest work, ADHD and Women, coming out October 6th, explores the intersection of hormones and ADHD in women.

I know hormones and ADHD is a topic we've explored before, but Dr. Brighten was a delight to have on the show, and this conversation went in all kinds of directions. So yes, we talked about how hormonal shifts across your life affect ADHD symptoms, why medication can sometimes feel less effective at different points, and some of the ways those changes may show up differently for women with ADHD.

But we also got into the much more practical question of what you actually do when you know your brain isn't going to perform exactly the same way every day, like externalizing executive function instead of trying to remember harder, building small pleasures into the day, and recognizing that sometimes the best intervention isn't the full protocol, it's finding the smallest lever you can actually pull.

Dr. Brighten's Book ADHD & Women: https://drbrighten.com/adhd-and-women/

Dr. Brighten's Website: https://drbrighten.com

Dr. Brighten's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjolenebrighten

Dr. Brighten's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrJoleneBrighten

Dr. Brighten's Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drjolenebrighten

Dr. Brighten's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drbrighten/

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/314

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. With ADHD it's often said that we know what to do, but have trouble executing on those ideas. For something like exercise, the best idea is then to work towards making it accessible. Instead of focusing on getting the biggest result, we can look toward what we actually enjoy doing and can sustain, even if for just a little bit, we're going to see far more consistent results.
   2. It's important to remember that everything has a cost, even if we're not noticing it at the moment. These costs can compound when we're not paying attention and lead us to wonder why doing just one simple task can leave us exhausted. This doesn't mean that we necessarily need to be doing less, but it does mean we need to pay extra attention to what something is actually going to cost us.
   3. Our brains are not meant to be at peak productivity all month, and that applies doubly if you experience a cycle. As Dr. Brighten says, "that is [just] how you are physiologically designed." This means that it's important that we're giving ourselves grace and letting ourselves block out time on the calendar for when we're not going to be at our peak (and again, we do not need to be at our peak all the time, or even most of the time; it's called the peak for a reason).

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Evaluating Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD: A Review of Current Methods and Issues. And this paper is a narrative review that surveys the current landscape of ADHD diagnosis, where the DSM criteria came from, how they've evolved, and any known problem areas that are in there.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/313

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with Dr. Jennie Byrne, a board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist with over 20 years specializing in high-achieving professionals and adults with ADHD. She has a PhD in Neurophysiology and an MD from NYU with her psychiatry residency at Mount Sinai (pronounced SIGH-nye). Now she runs Constellation PLLC, a concierge telepsychiatry practice where she helps busy professionals manage their ADHD. In her most recent book, ADHD in Professionals: Embracing Your Brain, Dr. Byrne examines how ADHD shows up at work, and why some individuals thrive while for others everything looks great on paper, but underneath they're struggling.

In this episode, we consider why the idea that "you're too high functioning to have ADHD" isn't a diagnosis and how often that same high performance at work can lead to a crash at home. We also play with the ideas of using anxiety as fuel and the costs that come with that, how productivity advice built for neurotypical brains can backfire for us and our environmental fit can make all the difference.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/312

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. Your environment can play an important role in managing your ADHD, but it can cut both ways. A brain that loves working fast and connecting dots could easily be an asset in a high-stress fast-moving environment like the ER, OR or ICU. But then that same brain could fall apart when stuck in front of a pile of emails. Finding the right fit for you allows you to get the results without paying an extra cost you never intended to.
   2. While it is possible to use anxiety as a fuel to get stuff done, it often comes with a physiological cost. And it's important that we acknowledge the cost because it's too easy to let ourselves fall into the trap of letting anxiety provide all of our extra motivation which can then lead to chronic stress, health problems, and even a shorter lifespan.
   3. The idea that you're "too high functioning" to have ADHD often comes from a training gap and it is not diagnostic. High achievers are often able to hold it together at work but then fall apart at home, so it's important that you are able to express the totality of your existence with ADHD and find a clinician that is up to date on the current research.

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with Dr. Megan Anna Neff, an AuDHD clinical psychologist, author, and educator. She holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from George Fox University, which she completed the same year that she was diagnosed as autistic. Dr. Neff has moved away from traditional clinical practice to focus on creating research-informed, lived-experience-centered, and emotionally resonant resources and training through her platform Neurodivergent Insights.

In our conversation today, we discuss her diagnosis, how ADHD and Autism tend to run in families, and the ripple effects that can happen from there. We get into sensory processing and its role in burnout and self-regulation. We also hit on interoception, alexithymia, and self-care, and round things out with some frameworks and ideas on how we can work with our brains. It's a conversation of identity and self-attunement that I really enjoyed.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/311

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. Alexithymia, sometimes called emotional blindness, is a trait where you can have difficulties processing or describing your emotions and is often felt in ADHD with the experience of going from 0 to 100 with an emotion. While this can feel impossible to work on in the moment, learning to name your emotions and tracking how you feel through socio-emotional training can provide measurable improvements.
   2. Self-care starts with figuring out where you're at, but most advice on self-care often assumes that you already know what you need. With ADHD and poor interoception that can be a hard read. When we're feeling dysregulated, often our first step needs to be checking in with ourselves, and as Dr. Neff suggests, creating more sensory predictability.
   3. Masking can train you out of listening to your body because it is a learned way of suppressing yourself. While this insight won't necessarily fix what's going on here, it gives you a starting point to notice when you're not listening to your body because you're just not noticing, versus when you've trained yourself out of it.

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called "Psychological Implications of Exclusion in Individuals with ADHD Symptomatology." That's a hard word there. This study asked a deceptively simple question: when people with ADHD symptoms are socially excluded, do their bodies respond differently than those without ADHD? And so basically, what we're talking about today is RSD, or Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is something that a lot of people have really started to resonate with, but there isn't a ton of research on yet. And I think this is a great place for us to kind of dive in on that research. So let's get into it.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/310

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon