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.

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.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/211

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This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. 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.
   2. 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.
   3. 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.

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

1. 1. Acknowledge the calendar as the foundation of effective planning; it’s non-negotiable for keeping track of tasks and appointments.
   2. 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.
   3. Embrace self-forgiveness and adaptation. Allow yourself the flexibility to change planning methods and forgive missed tasks to maintain motivation and effectiveness.

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

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This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. It’s important to remember that you need to approach OCD and ADHD treatments differently; techniques beneficial for one may exacerbate the other.
   2. 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.
   3. Be proactive in seeking diagnosis and treatment if OCD symptoms appear; early intervention can prevent the condition from worsening.