Hacking Your ADHD

• You Might Also Like: ADHD Aha! from Understood.org

  Hey team! This episode, we’re doing something a bit different—I want to share an episode of another podcast with you. It’s called ADHD Aha! and it’s hosted by Laura Key. You may remember that last year I actually had the chance to be a guest on ADHD Aha! But if you haven’t heard it before, ADHD Aha! is all about those moments when people finally connect the dots on their ADHD—those “oh, that’s why I do that” realizations. Each episode dives into real, candid stories from people with ADHD, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably hear something that makes you go, “Yep, that’s way too relatable.” Even in the episode I’m about to share with you, I had a number of times I went, “Oh… oh!” In this episode, Laura talks with Matthew Raghunauth, an artist and UX designer, about his late ADHD diagnosis and how it completely shifted the way he saw himself. They dig into the struggle of prioritizing tasks, the spiral of catastrophizing, and the unique challenges that come with asking for help—especially when you’ve spent years thinking you just needed to try harder. I particularly liked the way Matthew framed how taking care of his ADHD was growing up and the mature thing for him to do. It’s a great conversation, and I think you’re going to get a lot out of it.  To listen to more episodes, search for ADHD AHA! in your podcast app or just click here.

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• Evolutionary Basis of ADHD with Dr. Ryan Sultan

  Hey Team! Today, I’m talking with Dr. Ryan Sultan, a distinguished psychiatrist specializing in ADHD, anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders. He serves as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Sultan is a Senior Psychiatrist at Integrative Psych. And he has also been exploring the evolutionary basis for ADHD. Now, let’s get to a few things up front here because often when I hear about evolution and ADHD, I know I’m about to hear something about ADHD as a superpower. That’s not what this conversation is about today. While we will be looking at how ADHD traits might have been useful in a pre-industrial world and why natural selection didn’t weed out our distractible, impulsive brains, the focus is more on how those brains thrived within society instead of looking at them in isolation. This means that our conversation mostly focuses on how these ADHD traits work in conjunction within society rather than trying to view them either negatively or positively. And then we also get into how understanding this evolutionary basis for ADHD can help us understand better ways of managing and treating ADHD. You can check out Dr. Sultan’s work here: https://www.integrative-psych.org/ If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/211 Subscibe to our YouTube channel here Support us on Patreon This Episode's Top Tips Regarding the evolutionary basis of ADHD, avoid thinking of it in terms of better or worse and instead try to see how ADHD traits can serve the community as a whole. With that lens in mind, the impulsivity, novelty-seeking, and hyper-focus of ADHD brains could have been advantages in early human societies, especially for hunting, exploring, and problem-solving in unpredictable environments. With the opposite from the structured, repetitive, sit-still-and-focus world we live in today giving us more difficulties because it wasn’t “designed” with the ADHD brain in mind. Neurodiversity can benefit everyone. Societies thrive on diverse thinking styles. ADHD brains bring creativity, spontaneity, and out-of-the-box problem-solving, which can be a huge asset when properly supported. We’re better when we work together.

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• Planning with Purpose: Antonia Bowring’s Guide to ADHD Success

  On today’s episode, we've got a returning guest, Antonia Bowring, an executive coach and author who's reshaping how we think about productivity in the ADHD community. In our pervious conversation we explored her journey writing 'Coach Yourself!' and today we will be diving into how she developed her ADHD Success Planner, and how these tools can help you manage daily tasks more effectively. Antonia breaks down her simple yet powerful three-part planning system designed to transform your weekly grind into a manageable flow. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/210 If you we able to join us for our Live AMA on YouTube, thank you! It was so nice getting to answer some of your questions. If you missed it and would like to watch it, the live recording can be found here. Please subscribe so you can join us for the next one! This Episode's Top Tips Acknowledge the calendar as the foundation of effective planning; it’s non-negotiable for keeping track of tasks and appointments. View planning not just as taking care of a task but as a vital form of self-care that helps manage stress and improves reliability. Embrace self-forgiveness and adaptation. Allow yourself the flexibility to change planning methods and forgive missed tasks to maintain motivation and effectiveness.

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• Navigating the Tangle of ADHD and OCD with Natalia Aiza

  Hey Team! In this episode, I’m thrilled to welcome Natalia Aíza, a multilingual counselor and OCD specialist.  Natalia is the founder and executive director of Kairos Wellness Collective, a therapy center that focuses on holistic care for clients experiencing OCD and Anxiety - located in Boulder, Colorado. They offer therapies including Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Play Therapy, Art Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Neurofeedback. Obviously, we won’t get into all of that in our conversation today, but we do hit on a few of those. Also, separately, I wanted to mention that Kairos is the Greek word meaning “the perfect, delicate, crucial moment; the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words or movement; also weather.” And really, I just wanted to share that because I love words like that - I just find them neat. Anyway, in our conversation today, we dive into the overlap of ADHD and OCD - how they are similar and how they differ, and also the unique challenges each presents, especially when they are co-occurring. Natalia shares her personal and professional insights on distinguishing between ADHD distractions and OCD compulsions and how to approach treatment for each. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/209 Also before we get started, I wanted to let you know about my AMA on YouTube Live, happening the week this is released on January 31st at 10 AM Pacific - if you’re interested you can find that on the Hacking Your ADHD YouTube page, youtube.com/@hackingyouradhd and subscribe to the channel - or if you want to submit a question ahead of time you can do so at hackingyouradhd.com/ama The #1 ADHD Coaching app for teens and adults. Use code HACKINGYOURADHD for 30% of your first month! https://www.shimmer.care/ This Episode's Top Tips It’s important to remember that you need to approach OCD and ADHD treatments differently; techniques beneficial for one may exacerbate the other. Try to distinguish between compulsions and simple fidgets or stims—while symptoms can be similar, it’s essential to understand the root causes that characterize compulsions. Be proactive in seeking diagnosis and treatment if OCD symptoms appear; early intervention can prevent the condition from worsening.  

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• Quitting Isn't Failing

  Hey Team I was recently thinking about kids being picky eaters and how there is a movement where we’re not supposed to say picky anymore; we’re supposed to say they’re selective eaters. And you know what, I get that. I grew up as a picky kid, and… let’s be honest, I’m a fairly picky adult as well. Scratch that, selective adult. And I know it’s semantics, but I often find semantics are important. Because if we’re reframing this idea of being picky into being selective, it loses a lot of that negative connotation, and it gives a lot more power to the idea that what we’re doing is we’re making choices. In this case, making choices about food, but I think this is something we should keep in mind as we’re moving into the new year because a lot of us are going to find that we’re going to need to be more selective with our goals, especially in regard to New Year’s Resolutions.  And this is the idea that we’re going to be exploring in this episode - what are the things that we really want to focus on doing - what are the things that we want to commit ourselves to, and then what are the things that we should be letting go of. If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/208 This Episode's Top Tips You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. If something feels draining, unaligned, or no longer serves you, it’s okay to move on. Work on reframing quitting as a positive. We’re redirecting our energy toward something more meaningful and prioritizing those things that we really want. Focus on sustainability. If a goal feels overwhelming, reassess and try to find a more manageable way to approach it.

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