Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast

We've been talking a lot about planning on the show and how to approach routines, breaking negative patterns, and so on over the last handful of weeks. We've heard the struggles and believe it when we tell you: We're struggling too!

This week we have some thought on the hard stuff: leaning into not planning. While we likely don't have the answers to all your questions, we do have some thoughts on short term and long term planning that should go a long way toward freeing yourself from the stress and anxiety that comes with uncertainty. Forgive yourself, adjust your expectations, and face the hard stuff as it comes.

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

Parents are faced with an extraordinary set of new responsibilities under at-home directives around the country. Being able to work at home, if possible, and take on the additional roles of schedule-keepers, quarantine teachers, and more can be an incredible strain on the parent-child relationship.

This week on the show, Dr. Marcy Caldwell joins Nikki and Pete to talk about the pillars of successful parenting, and how to maintain your reserves when you're feeling tested. She introduces us to the STOPP model, which is a comforting acronym for your own emotional regulation (S: Separate, T: Take a Breath, O: Observe yourself first, then observe what just happened, P: Perspective, P: Proceed).

Links & Notes

• Calm: Meditation and mindfulness
• Freedom
• ADDept.org: Thriving with ADHD

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

We're all living day-to-day, week-to-week now. The distant future is out of our control. We know things are changing around us, the world is moving forward fluidly, and we know transition is always on the horizon... we just don't know when.

What do you do when the routines you trusted are thrown into chaos? It's all about bookends and anchors. Now isn't the time to be the most productive you've ever been in your life. It's time to build new and resilient routines and patterns into your days to keep you moving, and moving forward. This week on the show, Nikki and Pete walk through the tools you need to build momentum into your life in times of chaos and feel confident that even in uncertainty, you can continue to contribute.

Links & Notes

• ADHD Study Hall

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

We posted a question on our Facebook page asking you how you were adjusting, what you were facing in terms of your own challenges, as we move into whatever comes next for us on this planet. Starting with what we all know: this is hard. We're hurting. We're confused. But there is a silver lining: We're all doing those things together. This week on the show, we're going to share some of those challenges faced by so many of you who responded and, more importantly, a collection of the incredible responses you offered one another in support.

Links & Notes

• "Why You Should Ignore All That Coronovirus-Inspired Productivity Productivity Pressure" — Aisha S. Ahmad, The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Sawbones Episode 316: The Coronavirus Part 2

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

Environmental stress can make you feel like you're in a never-ending loop. The anxiety that comes with the rapidly changing world around us and the barrage of negative news can amplify negative patterns in our thoughts and behaviors. What we need is a pattern interrupt, a set of tools that can help us to step out of the cycle and regain a sense of calm or peace.

Today on the show, Dr. Dodge Rea gives us some tools to interrupt those negative patterns. He introduces a valuable resource in the work of Les Fehmi on alpha and beta brainwaves, and leads us through a meditation on open focus that can serve as your start in a practice to calm your mind and body.

Links & Notes

• The Open-Focused Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body by Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins 
• About Dodge Rea

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

Continuing our conversation about the massive shift we're facing as we wade through the global shutdown, today we're talking about technology. What are you doing to make the shift? How are you communication? How are you staying productive? How are you keeping your wits about you?  

This week on the show, Bob "Dr. Mac" Levitus is back with us to share what he's learned over the last few weeks in working remotely. From protocol for conducting a great video conference to just how hard he leans on his simple, analog tools to keep productive, Bob's got some great tools and recommendations for whatever level of home work you're trying to accomplish!

Links & Notes

• Digital and Analog Tips for Life Cooped Up at Home — Bob LeVitus at houstonchronicle.com
• WorkingSmarterForMacUsers.com/free — Download Bob's Daily Productivity Checklist
• Zonebox for Pomodoro (macOS)
• Working Smarter for Mac Users 5-Hour Online Course — use code TakeControlADHD at checkout to save 90%!
• Blue Yeti Nano
• ATR2100x USB Microphone
• Libby — Access your library's digital books
• Kanopy — Stream your library's digital movies
• ExpressVPN
• TunnelBear
• Zoom for Telemedicine (HIPPA)
• Doxy.Me
• VSee
• Eero — Improve your WiFi at home
• Netgear Orbi — Better WiFi Everywhere (Amazon)
• HIPPA Covered Entities and Business Associates — HHS.gov
• HIPPA Fast Facts for Covered Entities

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

With our own emotions taxed during this time of pandemic, it's easy to misunderstand how our children are living through this same experience. These emotions of fear and uncertainty are amplified for them, and figuring out how to talk about both the disease and the isolation as unique events is becoming more critical in helping them to understand why we are living the way we are right now.

This week on the show, coach and author Caroline Maguire is back to help us through these thorny issues. Her book, Why Will No One Play With Me? has already helped so many in our own community addressing social challenges for our kids. Today, we're turning the tools she outlines in the book toward living through the pandemic together.

Links & Notes

Thank you for supporting The ADHD Podcast on Patreon!

• Why Will No One Play With Me?: The Play Better Plan to Help Children of All Ages Make Friends and Thrive by Caroline Maguire
• "5 Ways to Maintain Your Child's Social Skills Right Now" by Caroline Maguire

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

We're living through a time of crisis. The pandemic is of course the global medical crisis. But inside each of us, we're living through our own, individual crises. If you're living with ADHD, you're likely keeping an eye on the horizion ... the ADHD Storm of the Century is on us.

That's why we're so lucky to have our friend James Ochoa back on the show this week. Author of Focused Forward, James joins us to talk about the emotional distress onslaught that comes with the fear and uncertainty we're living with today. We take on trauma and grief as we navigate losses behind us, and ahead, and he provides a fantastic framework for connecting meaning to our individual experiences as a form of mindful grounding through this experience.

Links & Notes

Thank you for supporting The ADHD Podcast on Patreon!

• JamesOchoa.com
• Listen to The Complex

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

Telephone anxiety is its own special breed of Social Phobia. As such, it brings a raft of psychological and behavioral baggage that is not specifically part of the ADHD catalog. Throw ADHD into the mix and you have a new concoction, one that celebrates the fear of navigating the phone with the distraction and rejection sensitivity that we’ve all come to know and love.

This week on the show, Nikki and Pete are kicking off a series on communication and starting with a tool that frustrates many: the phone. From addressing social phobia to building and overcoming the fear hierarchy, we’re all about building a new relationship with the phone today… and maybe even conquering your voicemail!

Links & Notes

Thank you for supporting The ADHD Podcast on Patreon!

• The Exposure Hierarchy
• How to Know If You Have a Phone Phobia
• Psychologists Explain Your Phone Anxiety (and How to Get Over It)
• ADD and Phone Anxiety
• Best Visual Voicemail Apps of 2020

• (01:22) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast

If you live with ADHD you know the precarious line that you can walk between fact and fiction. Whether you’re tempted to lie to yourself about what you’re capable of in a given time period or lie to your boss about what you’ve accomplished this week, the instinct to make those around you feel better by smoothing the edges of reality is strong.

This week, we’re thrilled to have Ari Tuckman back on the show to talk about ADHD and lies, the situations that are most likely to cause you to push that button, and how to reframe your behavior and make amends if you’ve found yourself in uncomfortable, lie-inducing situations.

Links & Notes

Thank you for supporting The ADHD Podcast on Patreon!

• Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA
• ADHD After Dark: Better Sex Life, Better Relationship by Ari Tuckman
• Tell Me No Lies: How to stop lying to your partner — and yourself — in the four stages of marriage by Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson

• (00:00) - Welcome to The ADHD Podcast