Over the last few weeks, it has been increasingly difficult for me to keep myself focused on what I want to be focused on. I don’t think I have to particularly speak to the reasons; we’re all handling the state of the world in our own ways - in many ways, it has a similar feel to the beginning of the pandemic, where I felt like I needed to pay extra attention to the news because so many people around me were ignoring the alarm bells.

Trying to deal with all of this while also having to grapple with the cognitive dissonance of having to go on with real life while all of this is also going on at the same time can be incredibly difficult. It feels like we should be able to press pause on all the other things going on in our life.

But regardless of how we feel, time marches on.

In today’s episode, we’re tackling how to navigate life when focus feels impossible, why we turn to numbing when we’re overwhelmed, and most importantly, how we can break out of that cycle in a way that actually supports us.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/212

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

1. 1. More than anything, I want to remind everyone to give themselves grace when they’re going through something. We’re not always going to get it right, but being hard on ourselves is never the right answer.
   2. Throughout your day, take a moment to check in with how you’re feeling. We tend to ignore our feelings until they become something we have to deal with.
   3. Forget the "Go big or go home" mentality. Tiny changes—like five minutes of mindful breathing or a short walk—are more effective than drastic, unrealistic plans.
   4. When everything feels overwhelming, find support. Whether it’s a friend, an online group, or a therapist, you don’t have to handle everything alone.

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.

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

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.