“We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. Our too great love for it makes us restless with fears, burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistles 1-65

Your nervous system is not a luxury feature you can ignore. It is the infrastructure upon which everything else stands…and for neurodivergent nervous systems, this infrastructure is operating under constant strain.

Your nervous system is like an accounting system, tracking inputs and outputs that you’re not consciously monitoring. Your body conducts them consciously, expensively, relentlessly.

Every sensory input has a cost:

• Fluorescent lights

• Background noise

• Unexpected touch

• Scratchy fabric tags

• The smell of someone’s perfume

• Overlapping conversations

• Visual clutter

• Temperature fluctuations

• The buzz of electronics

These barely register for most nervous systems, for yours, each environmental insult is a withdrawal from your daily energy budget. It’s something your system cannot ignore, something it must process, something it must manage.

The burden is literal, not metaphorical.

Restless with Fears

Seneca knew that unmanaged burdens create restlessness with fears. When your nervous system is perpetually managing sensory input it cannot filter, it enters a state of chronic vigilance.

This is not anxiety you choose. This is your system defending itself against a world it experiences as hostile.

Your autistic brain may see patterns others miss, but it cannot unsee them. Your ADHD brain may hyperfocus brilliantly, but it cannot control the switching tax between tasks.

The combination creates a state of constant defensive alertness, restless with fears that your system might miss something, might overload or might just fail altogether.

Cognitive Load Cost

Beyond sensory burdens there is ‘cognitive load’ which is the mental effort required for:

• Switching between tasks

• Making decisions (even small ones: what to eat, what to wear)

• Processing social cues

• Organising thoughts

• Remembering appointments

• Filtering relevant from irrelevant information

• Maintaining attention on low-interest tasks

• Suppressing impulses

• Planning and executing sequential steps

You walk into an open-plan office and immediately you are in debt, sensory debt, then add the cognitive load that gets you through…never mind the environmental insults attacking throughout the day.

After work, you navigate a grocery store, again the debt is compounding. Later that evening you attend a social gathering with music, conversation and unpredictable movement…your debt is accelerating faster than you can track.

Sensory debt + Cognitive load + Environmental insult =

…a nervous system running a deficit it can never repay at the current rate of demands. The exhaustion isn’t in your head, it’s real.

Seneca’s wisdom says you should conduct yourself as if you cannot live without this body (because you cannot)…allow yourself to recover. Give yourself a break. Be compassionate towards yourself.

Today:

What sensory input is taxing you? What cognitive demands are real? Where is your environment insulting your nervous system?

What can you eliminate or reduce?

Where are you consistently overdrawn?

“You can’t pour from an empty cup.” — Anonymous

I often wonder if there’s a particular form of violence in the phrase “just push through it”…yes, I know it’s good to push through your barriers, to get to the next level, to grow, to expand your skills, expand your mindset…I’m not talking about that “just push through it”.

I’m talking about our social construct forcing everyone to conform? The duality of right and wrong, not from a moral perspective, from “this is the right way” perspective. Is it? Who said?

“They said”

You know my answer to that…who the f$*k are “they”?

Because you can push through.

You’ve been pushing through your entire life.

That’s how you got here…to this moment of complete depletion, reading about burnout because you’re in burnout.

Pushing through means:

• Going to the social event when your sensory system is already overloaded

• Maintaining eye contact when it causes physical pain

• Forcing yourself to focus when your attention is genuinely elsewhere

• Responding to texts immediately even when you don’t have the cognitive bandwidth

• Sitting still when your body needs to move

• Working through hyperfocus crashes without rest

• Attending to others’ emotions when yours are unprocessed

• Meeting deadlines by sacrificing sleep, food and basic self-maintenance

You can do all of this.

Neurodivergent people are exceptional at pushing through.

But there’s a cost. And the cost isn’t immediately visible, so you keep spending energy you don’t have, borrowing from tomorrow’s reserves, taking out loans against your nervous system’s capacity.

Until one day, the system refuses the transaction. The account is overdrawn and there is nothing left to borrow. That’s not the moment you became broken, that’s the moment your body finally enforced a boundary you kept ignoring.

The cup isn’t empty because you’re inadequate. It’s empty because you’ve been pouring while simultaneously being drained, never pausing long enough to refill.

Today:

List three things you’re currently “pushing through”.

Now ask: What would happen if I didn’t?

Not “what will others think” but “what would my nervous system need?”

The answer might terrify you. That’s information too.

Then…ask yourself “who are the ‘they’ in my life?

If you cannot answer it, stop pushing through.

“We wear the mask that grins and lies…[…]…worn as a social debt to conceal inner torment from the outside world.” — Paul Laurence Dunbar

Masking is the performance of neurotypicality. It’s not always intentional.

You’ve been doing it so long you might not even know where the mask ends and you begin.

It looks like:

• Forcing eye contact during conversations while you feel totally uncomfortable internally

• Suppressing stims (hand-flapping, rocking, fidgeting) that regulate your nervous system

• Scripting responses to sound ‘normal’

• Modulating your voice tone and volume to appear calm when you’re screaming inside

• Pretending to follow conversations you lost three topic-switches ago

• Hiding your interests because others find them ‘weird’ or ‘too intense’

• Performing interest in small talk when it feels like sensory sandpaper

• Smiling when you’re overwhelmed to avoid questions

• Making your ADHD brain appear organised through unsustainable compensation strategies

• Laughing at jokes you don’t understand to blend in

This is exhausting. The relentless fear you hold inside that turns to shame as you blame yourself. This is a full '‘nervous system override’…you are overriding your actual state to appear acceptable to others.

No wonder the clinical research found that chronic masking leads to increased anxiety, depression, identity confusion…and critically….burnout.

The effort of pretending to be someone you’re not, all day, every day, is unsustainable.

Masking doesn’t just hide your distress from others. It hides it from you.

That’s why I said it’s not always intentional. You have been acquiring social constructs all your life, from your culture, from authority figures in your life, teachers, parents, everyone.

As a woman, the patriarchy culture has played a big part in my life. Being told no 20,000 times before the age of 12 and being queer on top of that…I think like was priming me to wake up and push back ;)

The problem is…you become so skilled at masking, you don’t know you are doing it…you lose access to your own internal signals. You don’t listen to your body anymore. You don’t notice sensory overload until you’re in shutdown. You don’t recognise exhaustion until you physically collapse.

You can’t name your needs because you’ve spent decades suppressing them.

Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about masks as survival strategy under oppression. Your mask is similar…it’s a response to a world that punishes neurodivergent authenticity.

The survival strategies that worked at seven may be killing you at thirty-seven?

Today:

Notice one moment when you masked today.

What did it cost? What would unmasking have looked like?

You don’t have to change anything yet. Just notice.

The first act of resistance is seeing the cage.

There’s a voice in your head that says: not yet, not enough, not right.

It’s been there so long you think it’s yours.

It’s not.

That voice is the internalised shame of a world that told you your default was deficiency. That effort equals worth. That productivity determines value.

The Stoics had a word for this: akrasia — acting against your own knowledge of what’s good.

You know you’re enough. But you act like you’re not.

You know rest is necessary. But you treat it like failure.

You know your brain works differently. But you measure yourself by neurotypical metrics.

Marcus Aurelius: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

If you had one day left, would you spend it proving you’re enough?

Or would you finally believe it?

Today:

List three things you did today. Not achievements. Just things.

You woke up. You spoke to someone. You noticed something.

That’s enough.

Not because you accomplished something.
Because you exist.

The art of enough isn’t lowering standards.
It’s remembering that your worth was never conditional.

“If you wish to be beautiful, you will be continually tormented.”
— Epictetus, Discourses 4.9

You’ve spent years learning to appear normal.

Hiding the fidgeting. Rehearsing conversations. Over-explaining to preempt judgment. Performing focus when your mind is elsewhere.

The clinical term is masking. The lived experience is exhausting.

The Stoics understood the cost of living for external approval.

Epictetus: “If you wish to be beautiful, you will be continually tormented.”

Replace “beautiful” with “normal” and you have the ADHD experience.

Masking isn’t just performance, it’s an override of your nervous system. You’re constantly monitoring, adjusting, code-switching. Your energy goes to appearing regulated instead of being regulated. And the cost is more than exhaustion. It’s self-abandonment.

The most ironic thing about masking…is that we tend not to realise when we are masking, it can run deep.

Very deep.

I’m still unravelling years later.

When you mask, you exile the parts of yourself that don’t fit “society”. The restlessness. The tangential thinking. The emotional intensity. The need to move, interrupt, redirect.

Not flaws, but inbuilt regulation strategies.

And that’s ok.

I often wondered…”if we were so comfortable and didn’t mask, would our emotional intensity be sooo intense?”

Today:

Notice when you’re performing vs. when you’re present.

Where do you mask? With whom? What does it cost?

You don’t have to unmask everywhere.
But you need to know where the mask is.

Because the Stoic goal isn’t to be loved by everyone.
It’s to be yourself without apology.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” — Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

For most people, that space is a luxury.

For you, that space is survival.

Your brain processes faster than your executive function can regulate. Impulse arrives before inhibition. The thought becomes the word becomes the action before you’ve registered the gap.

This is a processing speed mismatch, not impulsivity.

Your limbic system runs hot. Your prefrontal cortex is still booting up.

The Stoic practice of the pause is about inserting choice into the gap between the thought and action, rather than slowing down your thoughts.

Epictetus said: “First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.”

Name it before you act on it.

The pause requires noticing, not stopping.

One breath between urge and action.
One second between reaction and response.

That’s where your freedom lives.

Today:

Before you speak, pause.
Before you send, pause.
Before you commit, pause.

Not to suppress. To choose.

The pause reclaiming agency.

“Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3

The Stoics talked endlessly about stillness.

But they didn’t mean silence.

Stillness isn’t the absence of movement. It’s the absence of reaction.

Your mind will move, that’s what it does. Thoughts will come in clusters, tangents, spirals. Attention will shift. This is not failure. This is your baseline.

The neurotypical world conflates stillness with a quiet mind. They’re wrong.

Stillness is non-reactivity to the movement.

You can have a mind full of thoughts and still be still. You can have sensory input flooding your system and still be grounded. You can feel restless and not be controlled by the restlessness.

This is the Stoic practice: observing without being swept away.

Marcus Aurelius had a racing mind. Seneca dealt with chronic anxiety. Epictetus was enslaved, disabled and constantly managing a nervous system under siege.

None of them achieved silence.

They achieved equanimity in the noise.

Today:

You don’t need a quiet mind to have a still one.

Notice when you’re watching your thoughts vs. when you’re in them.

That distance — however brief — is stillness.

You don’t need to stop the movement.
You need to stop being moved by it.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20

Your restlessness has been pathologised your entire life.

Sit still. Pay attention. Stop fidgeting. Focus.

But restlessness isn’t resistance to the world. It’s responding to it.

Your nervous system is designed for pattern detection, novelty-seeking, rapid environmental scanning. What looks like distraction is actually high-bandwidth information processing.

You’re focusing on everything, not failing to focus!

The Stoics understood that what appears as an obstacle is often an advantage disguised. Your restlessness isn’t the problem. The problem is a world that built itself for neurotypes that process sequentially, slowly, with sustained narrow attention.

That’s not you. And that’s not a deficiency.

Your brain evolved for environments that rewarded rapid attention-shifting. Hunting. Gathering. Threat detection. Creative problem-solving under pressure. The ability to hold multiple possibilities simultaneously. Simulate multiple outcomes. Experiment mentally before acting.

You’re not broken. You’re built for complexity.

The work isn’t to eliminate restlessness. The work is to channel it.

Today:

When you feel restless, ask: What is my nervous system trying to tell me?

Not “what’s wrong with me” but “what does this energy want to do?”

Restlessness is information, not condemnation.

Your body is speaking. Start listening.

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.41

There’s a story you’ve been telling yourself about your brain.

It goes something like: broken, less-than, can’t-keep-up, too much.

The evidence feels overwhelming. Forgotten appointments. Unfinished projects. Conversations where you interrupted again.

And…cue the “oh too familiar” shame circuit. The story gets reinforced.

But here’s what you haven’t been told:

The story is not the storm.

The storm is real.

Your nervous system processes the present moment differently. Attention moves. Dopamine follows novelty, not importance. Time feels slippery.

These are features of your neurology and not failures of your character.

The Stoics knew this distinction. Marcus Aurelius ran an empire while his mind generated relentless thought-loops. He survived by separating what happens from what he told himself about what happens.

You cannot control the storm.
But you can stop believing the storm makes you broken.

Today:

Notice the gap between observation and judgment.

“My mind is moving quickly” — observation.
“I’m scattered and useless” — story.

“I forgot the email” — observation.
“I’m unreliable and everyone’s disappointed” — story.

Your freedom lives in that gap.

You don’t need to calm the storm.
You need to stop letting the story about the storm define you.

You were always whole.
Now you’re learning to see it.

We talk about identity, internalisation, shame frameworks and the quiet exhaustion of holding everything together while feeling like you’re falling apart inside.

Our mini-podcasts are co-created with EchoMind AI that are trained on 1000’s of peer-reviewed studies, clinical guidelines and extensive lived-experience research. They are evidence-based and neurodiversity-affirming summaries and are not a substitute for personalised medical advice - informational purposes only.

Ironically, that same week her eight year old daughter was given detention for being distracted in class. In reality, her daughter was deeply absorbed in the sensation of sunlight on her desk, unable to shift her attention to tomorrow’s homework assignment.

At the CEO’s retreat, they called this presence.

At school, it was called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Same neurological state. Opposite labels.

Think about that for a moment.

I know this contradiction intimately, because I’ve lived on both sides of it.

Corporate mindfulness is a €60 billion industry built on teaching executives to stop ruminating about the past, release anxiety about the future…and exist fully in the present moment.

We call this wisdom.

We call it enlightenment.

We even pay meditation teachers hundreds of euro per session to help us achieve it.

The Phenomenological Lens

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 42, a “late diagnosis”.

The thought never entered my head prior to the summer of 2023 when my nephew (who was on a waiting list for an assessment, 1-2 years at this point) mentioned the word “hyperfocus” to me.

Then it dawned on me…I “hyperfocus” on projects. I work hard, I go deep, I love complex problems and spot patterns no one else seems to see at the time.

My clinical assessment revealed what felt like the opposite at the time…it said that I had “severe ADHD, combined type”.

I translated this to: “I am a complete mess”.

And I was, I was a mess emotionally.

Because, I didn’t have the vocabulary nor the understanding of ADHD as I do now.

Because, I believed the deficit-based clinical report. Of course I would, my self esteem was through the floor and drowning in a spiral of shame all my life. I crashed. I was burned out.

What I didn’t know at the time, I just need rest and recovery. I needed to stop. To listen to my body. Unravel. Unlearn. Find me?

I was already a “self-help guru” as I must have read 1’000s of books on the subject - obviously in hindsight, I was searching for answers to my “ADHD challenges”.

The Philosophy Seminar

A couple of years ago I was sitting in philosophy class, the topic was Presence of Mind and it occurred to me that ADHD brains are more present than neurotypical brains.

My classmates were visibly uncomfortable.

“ADHD people aren’t less present,” I insisted. “We’re more present than neurotypical brains. I believe we’re locked in the present moment.”

Our tutor looked confused.

“That’s not how ADHD works,” someone said. “People with ADHD can’t pay attention. They’re spacing out. They’re mentally absent.”

I couldn’t prove my argument then. I didn’t have the language for what I was experiencing or the clinical data to back it up.

But I knew something was fundamentally wrong with how we understood attention in ADHD. There was a disconnect between what I was told and what I was experiencing.

Fast forward to now, and a deep dive into the science of ADHD, I have the vocabulary to articulate what I was experiencing.

The clinical data validates what I intuitively understood: ADHD brains don’t have an attention deficit. We have a temporal flexibility deficit.

We’re not absent. We’re radically, overwhelmingly HERE.

The Mindful Deep Dive

I hyperfocused on ADHD and co-occurring conditions, read hundreds of scientific papers…talked to hundreds more about neurodivergence.

A couple of years later and I have learned practically all I can about ADHD (without things repeating), innately understanding the female presentation, how our ADHD brain affects our daily living, I used myself as a guinea pig and experimented hundreds of treatment options.

To learn more about the systemic challenges we face, I embedded myself into the neurodiversity space, advising companies, top neuroscientists, psychiatrists, clinicians, therapists, coaches…all of us, learning from one another.

By decoding and recoding the ADHD & Autism diagnostic assessment process and all that touches, I have learned how our brains operate, how the neurological differences affect us emotionally and uncovered the underlying emotional profile for most neurodivergent people.

In the process, I set up two neurodivergent diagnostic clinics, ADHD Services and built a revolutionary, clinically validated AI tool that reduces the clinician’s workflow by 90%, EchoMind AI. Allowing clinicians to focus solely on the patient, providing the added value people despretedly need to learn about and manage neurodivergence.

…reducing the cost of a diagnostic assessment by 50%, making it more accessible. Achieving the first milestone of our mission:

“Better Access. Bigger Impact. Brighter Futures”

We are in the process of analysing over 1 million lines of data to see what else we can uncover. I can confidently share what I knew to be true, I knew deep down, through my lived experience and speaking with many other ADHDers:

“ADHD is not a deficit of attention…it’s a surplus of presence.”

The Clinical Evidence

I re-did my assessment with our clinical team and analysed the results from a strengths-based lens, rather than a deficit lens.

“I’m highly present-focused, engage deeply in current tasks and have a strong potential for flow and spontaneity.”…I would agree.

Am I still riddled with anxiety and RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria)? Yes.

I often wonder if the reason for this anxiety is due to the social expectations and constructs we currently live in? I’m different, and this world doesn’t work for me.

The same assessment that diagnosed me with severe ADHD was simultaneously telling me that being intensely present was my greatest cognitive strength!

How does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense once you understand what ADHD actually is: not a deficit in the capacity for attention, but a deficit in the ability to “time-travel between the past, present and future” the way neurotypical brains do.

The Research

Research confirms this. In the Western world it’s called “Time Blindness”.

Russell Barkley, a renowned psychologist specialising in ADHD, coined the “Now” and “Not Now” categories to explain how time is experienced by someone with ADHD.

“People with ADHD essentially live in a “permanent present” and struggle to learn from the past or look into the future”

Acting without thinking…impulsivity or being present? Think about it.

If you watch a dog in the park…she’s not making to-do lists or rehearsing tomorrow’s conversations. When she sniffs a flower, she’s experiencing every molecule of that scent with total absorption. When a butterfly passes, her entire being pivots to track its flight. She’s not “distracted”...she’s supremely attuned to each shifting moment of reality as it unfolds. What we call “inattention” in humans might actually be this same radical presence? A nervous system so alive to the immediate environment that it refuses to filter out the world in favour of abstract future tasks.

Capturing how someone with inattentive ADHD might actually be more present to sensory and environmental details than someone whose attention is narrowly focused on predetermined goals or concerns.

Studies using the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory consistently show that adults with ADHD score significantly higher on “Present Hedonism”...a dimension characterised by living in the moment, reduced future focus and intense present-moment experience.

Let’s face it, if ADHD wasn’t or isn’t a benefit to our evolutionary existence then the genetic persistence at 5-10% of the population worldwide, suggests a strong evolutionarily advantageous component, no?

The neurobiological differences in dopamine systems and brain regions controlling attention, executive function and impulse control reflect deep evolutionary roots, not evolutionary mistakes.

Natural selection doesn’t preserve genuinely harmful traits across hundreds of thousands of years…if ADHD were purely detrimental, it would have disappeared.

The Striking Contradiction

The research on mindfulness meditation and time perception reveals this striking contradiction. Multiple studies (Wittmann & Schmidt, 2014; Berkovich-Ohana et al, 2013; Droit-Volet et al, 2015, 2019) have examined how mindfulness meditation affects time perception, consistently finding that experienced meditators develop enhanced present-moment awareness and altered time perception…they perceive time as passing more slowly and experience an expansion of the present moment.

Researchers frame this as a beneficial outcome of meditation practice, something that enhances wellbeing and cognitive function.

Yet here’s the profound irony: people with ADHD naturally experience many of these same temporal phenomena…difficulty estimating time intervals, deep absorption in present-moment experiences, and altered time perception…but instead of being celebrated as naturally mindful, we’re pathologised and medicated. Why?

These meditation studies describe practitioners developing what they call ‘enhanced present-moment awareness’ and becoming less focused on clock time and more immersed in immediate experience.

But when someone with ADHD displays ‘time blindness’ and becomes completely absorbed in the present task (hyperfocus), losing track of hours, we don’t call it enlightenment, we call it executive dysfunction?

Which raises the fundamental question:

Why is the same phenomenological state dysfunction in one context and enlightenment in another?

Is ADHD truly a dysfunction, or is it a disability created by our current social constructs? Is the “disorder” in us or in systems designed for the temporal navigation we can’t perform?

So we’re essentially teaching neurotypical people to achieve a brain state that occurs naturally in ADHD, celebrating it in one context as wisdom while treating it as a disorder that requires medication in another?

The Paradox

We’ll pay thousands for retreats to temporarily access a state of consciousness that some people naturally inhabit, while simultaneously telling those people they’re broken and need fixing?

Let me show you what this looks like in real life.

I can read a room in 1.17 seconds. Walk into a space and I immediately know who’s uncomfortable, who’s performing confidence, who’s genuinely relaxed, which relationships are strained.

I don’t believe it’s magical intuition, I believe I’m hyper-present in environmental awareness. I’m processing micro-expressions, body language, spatial dynamics and vocal tone with overwhelming immediacy because I’m completely here.

I’m present.

Which makes sense, as our ADHD ancestors were foragers, explorers and in touch with the land and our environment - intrinsically present.

Not distracted. Not absent. Radically present.

I can hyperfocus for eight hours straight without eating when I’m engaged in something intrinsically motivating. Time disappears. External stimuli fade. I enter a flow state so deep that meditation masters spend decades trying to cultivate it.

But ask me to remember a doctor’s appointment next Tuesday?

I forget. Not because I don’t care, but because my brain can’t hold future tasks in working memory while being anchored in the present moment.

That’s the paradox.

The same present-moment intensity that makes me brilliant at crisis management, creative problem-solving and deep work…makes me absolutely terrible at future planning, remembering obligations and maintaining long-term organisation.

Why? Because organisation requires holding future tasks in mind while acting in the present. It requires mental time-travel.

And that’s exactly what ADHD brains struggle with.

The Neuroscience of Mental Time-Travel

Here’s what neurotypical brains do constantly, so automatically they don’t even notice they’re doing it:

“They hold the past and future in working memory while acting in the present.”

A neurotypical person can sit in a meeting, fully engaged with the current discussion, while simultaneously maintaining awareness that they need to pick up groceries after work, remembering what their partner said at breakfast and planning tomorrow’s presentation.

They’re mentally time-travelling. Constantly.

Russell Barkley’s research on executive function describes this as “cross-temporal organisation of behaviour”. The ability to use working memory to hold past experiences and future goals while making decisions in the present moment.

ADHD brains can’t do this effectively.

Not because we lack the capacity for attention, but because we lack the cognitive infrastructure for temporal navigation. We’re anchored in NOW. Locked in the present moment, whether that’s intense focus on external tasks or deep absorption in internal sensations.

This is what neuroscience shows.

Think about “spacing out” …the classic ADHD symptom that everyone uses as evidence that we’re not paying attention.

Here’s what’s actually happening:

My mind isn’t absent. It’s experiencing internal presence. I’m fully engaged with internal sensations, emotions, bodily awareness. I’m just not present where others expect me to be…on the external task.

Still present. Just not externally directed.

Or consider hyperfocus, which researchers Ashinoff and Abu-Akel (2021) describe as “the forgotten frontier of attention”. Diminished perception of external stimuli. Complete absorption in present-moment experience.

We call this a symptom when it happens in an ADHD child.

We call it an achievement when it happens to a monk.

This is the exact state mindfulness retreats try to cultivate.

The Systems Problem

Here’s where the real problem emerges:

Our entire society…our education system, employment, healthcare, social systems are all designed for people who can mentally time-travel…linear thinkers.

It’s no one’s fault. It’s systemic.

But everyone is still complicit and not questioning the status quo.

Our school system is archaic and it’s this that sets people up for their future…to remember data. AI is already making memorisation obsolete, yet our schools still optimise for data retention.

Imagine instead designing education around building personal AI architectures that 10x or 100x learning? Systems that help children disseminate massive datasets that may find correlations that solve humanity’s biggest problems?

But we don’t need to wait for an educational revolution, we can start now with organisational change right now.

Is there an overlooked cohort in your organisation that could produce 2x, 3x or 10,000x output within the right environment?

Companies are still operating in outdated procedures, policies and rules as “this is how it was always done”. Even big tech…who claim to be the forefront of innovation. Yes, I know there needs to be standard governance in order to keep some level of control.

Considering ~20% of the adult population are neurodivergent, which translate to one in every five people in your organisation.

That’s ~1.2 billion people globally, roughly equivalent to the working populations of two of the most powerful countries in the world…China (2nd) and India (4th), with ecominies producing a combined GDP of `€20 trillion.

There is untapped innovation and productivity potential, sitting right under your nose.

Perhaps it’s time for business leaders to explore this underuntilised talent?

Perhaps that €15k mindfullness retreat budget might be better spent on cultivating the cohort that’s already mindful?

I’m not talking about tick-box reasonable accommodations that make organisations feel compliant while changing nothing. I’m talking about radical universal design that supports the entire organisation rather than constrains it.

I’m not stating neurodivergent people are brilliant and others are not. Far from it. I’m highlighting that invisible social and organisational constructs determine your company’s success or its ceiling.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be challenges when change happens, there always is.

The will be lots of challenges such as rigid thinking or when hyperfocus hits and for how long. We can’t choose hyperfocus state, nor can we easily exit it.

Neurotypical brains can shift between temporal zones (past, present, future) with relative flexibility. They can visit the present, then return to future planning.

It’s a bit harder for neurodivergent brains. But there are workarounds.

There are easy-ish fixes. When you have to traverse between clock time and event time, you can work 1-2 months (clock time) ahead of deadlines, that’s what keeps me on track. This gives me all the time I need to produce what I want to and complete it, in the time it takes to finish it (event time).

What works for me, may not work for everyone. But change is happening anyway.

You are going to feel the pain. The question is, do you want to feel the pain you introduce strategically…allowing you to get ahead of the curve…or the pain someone else inflicts on you? A competitor. Geopolitical shifts. Market disruption. Technology that renders your current practices obsolete.

You still get to choose which pain you experience.

But you don’t get to choose whether change comes.

In the next article, I’ll show you exactly what infrastructure makes this transformation possible and why the organisations that build it first will own the next decade.

_______

Charlene Coleman is cofounder of EchoMind AI and ADHD Services providing accessible ADHD assessments and support. She was diagnosed with ADHD at 42 and dedicates her work on reframing neurodivergence through phenomenological and systems-thinking lenses.

#ADHD #Neurodivergence #Mindfulness #Phenomenology #TimePerception #ActuallyADHD #tdahbr

ADHD is under-recognised and under-diagnosed, particularly in females. Girls and women have more inattentive indicators than hyperactivity or impulsivity, than our male counterparts, meaning our ADHD is less visible than males.

Coupled with a high likelihood of co-occurring anxiety and other emotional challenges, further disguising our ADHD.

Making it harder to detect and more susceptible to misdiagnosis.

“Even after extensively reaching out for help for mental health problems, women were diagnosed 4 years later than males”, according to a study of 85,000 patients with ADHD.

Considering untreated ADHD costs the Irish economy approximately £3bln a year and the UK economy £17 billion, it’s probably about time our governments invest accessible care, no?

• The mortality rate for people with ADHD is double the general population (primarily due to accidental deaths, suicide and lifestyle-related diseases such as substance abuse and eating disorders…not primarily natural illnesses).

• Further research found that people with ADHD reported 26.6 years less to live than the control group.

• A recent UK study found that women’s lifespan decreases by ~9 years due to having untreated ADHD

Have a go for yourself and check your health expectancy with this calculator. By sticking to the basics, good nutrition, sleep and daily exercise we can dramatically increase our life expectancy.

In response to this, we created The ADHD Series: Fit & Focused with ADHD that helps people get start on a healthier path, as medication isn’t the holy grail answer everyone thinks it is.

• Girls with undiagnosed or untreated ADHD are more likely to commit suicide than their neurotypical peers.

• Women with ADHD more likely…

  • to suffer a divorce,

  • be a single parent,

  • be undereducated,

  • be underemployed or unemployed,

  • suffer from insomnia and

  • live in constant stress due to difficulty in managing the demands of daily life expected of them from society.

Oh, one last thing…ADHD can also occur in highly intelligent women…therefore, a woman with a satisfactory or above average academic achievement or a successful career, should not rule out a diagnosis.

The above sends shivers through my spine.

Partly, because I have experienced it.

Partly, because after spending 3 years studying ADHD in all forms….performing mini-experiments on myself, interviewing health/medical/research professionals across the globe, setting up and running an ADHD/Autism diagnostic clinic, talking to others and hearing their experiences, reading hundreds of scientific research papers, spending hours trawling all corners of the internet, distilling all the above into building our own LLM for healthcare clinics…

AND…reflecting on 44 years of my own lived experience…

It scares the bejesus outta me.

I don’t have the solution. But something deep inside is driving me to try and find it. What I do know for sure, is I cannot do this alone and the solution most certainly is a collaborative one.

I think it’s time we took women’s mental health more seriously. Don’t you?

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Let’s start by raising awareness.

This isn’t anyone’s fault…it’s systemic. It’s how people were trained to think, how people were educated, capital distribution for capitalistic reasoning. We can break through the many layers of the systemic onion together, one layer at a time, uncovering the core with many small steps…please share this post with your friends and networks. Thank you.

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How ADHD Shows Up in Girls and Women.

The presentation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in girls and women often differs from the typical male presentation, making it crucial to understand the unique indicators across the lifespan.

Females are often described as having a less overt, more subtle and internalised symptom profile.

The following are indicators for ADHD in girls and women, categorised by symptom type and associated features, drawing from a review of item-level symptom studies, expert consensus and clinical research across 96 different sources.

Predominant Female Symptom Profile: Inattentive

Girls and women are significantly more likely to present with the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD.

Core Inattention ADHD Symptoms

Inattentive symptoms are often the focus of difficulties for girls and women as these “quiet struggles” are easily overlooked by parents and teachers.

Specific Item-Level Findings:

• Fails to sustain attention in tasks (more likely in females with childhood ADHD than males).

• Often easily distracted (more likely in females with ADHD in both childhood and adulthood than males).

• Often has difficulty organising tasks (more likely in females with adult ADHD than males).

Descriptive Inattention Indicators:

• Daydreaming (common in the inattentive subtype).

• Disorganisation (or difficulty organising tasks).

• Difficulty focusing or concentration problems.

• Lack of attention to details.

• Forgetfulness.

• Losing personal items (keys, backpack, things).

• Difficulty following directions.

• Difficulty finishing tasks.

• Lack of effort or motivation.

• Feeling easily overwhelmed.

• Mind wandering.

• Presenting as passive or sluggish.

• Struggling with the executive functioning domain of working memory.

• Inadequate internal representation of time (referred to as “time blindness”).

• Reluctance to read.

• Workplace challenges (in roles requiring multitasking, organisation and focus, often leading to burnout from overcompensating)

Core Hyperactivity/Impulsivity ADHD Symptoms

While females often show fewer overt hyperactive-impulsive symptoms compared to males, these symptoms can manifest differently.

Specific Item-Level Findings:

• Often talks excessively (more likely in females with adult ADHD than males).

• Often blurts out answers (more likely in females with adult ADHD than males).

• Internal restlessness (hyperactivity appears as mental restlessness or “racing thoughts,” which cannot be perceived by others).

Descriptive Hyperactivity/Impulsivity Indicators:

• External Hyper-verbalisation (overly intense verbal behaviour):

  • Incessant talking.

  • Talking rapidly, jumping from topic to topic.

  • Dominating conversations without realising.

  • Blurting out thoughts before filtering.

  • Over-explaining or giving long, detailed stories.

  • Struggling to pause or let others speak.

• Internal Hyper-verbalisation

  • Constant internal monologue or “mental chatter.”

  • Replaying conversations or arguments in their head.

  • Over-thinking what to say next, rehearsing lines.

  • Mental “script writing”…conversations running on a loop.

  • Feeling like the brain won’t “switch off,” even in quiet moments.

• Doodling (as a form of internal hyperactivity).

• Fidgeting (in less obvious ways than boys, such as twirling hair, chewing cuticles or nails, or toe tapping).

• Emotional excitability.

• Impulsive “lashing out”.

• Impulsive changes in conversation topics

• Changing friends impulsively

• Difficulty waiting/challenges with waiting.

• Interrupting others.

Emotional and Internalising Indicators (Red Flags)

Girls and women are more likely to display associated emotional and internalising challenges:

• Emotional lability and emotional dysregulation problems

  • irritability,

  • low frustration tolerance,

  • fast-shifting moods,

  • mood changes,

  • emotional volatility,

  • volatile emotions.

• Anxiety:

  • often chronic,

  • generalised anxiety disorder,

  • physiological anxiety,

  • learner anxiety or

  • anxiety about getting school assignments in on time

• Depression/Low mood:

  • including major depressive disorder,

  • anhedonia - difficult to feel pleasure in pleasurable things

  • negative self-esteem,

  • negative mood.

• Stress (often related to persistent internalising symptoms).

• Emotional Distress.

• Low self-esteem, self-doubt, self-blame, or feelings of inadequacy.

• Shame (by age 12, kids with ADHD hears negative feedback more than 20,000 times).

• Perfectionistic behaviour/Perfectionism:

  • often developed as a compensatory strategy for difficulties and

  • hides struggles, leading to relentless self-monitoring, anxiety and burnout.

• Loneliness.

• Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD):

  • RSD Internal signs (what the person feels):

    • Crushing shame or humiliation after small criticism.

    • Replaying conversations for hours or days.

    • Feeling physically sick, panicked, or like “the world has ended” after perceived rejection.

    • Interpreting neutral feedback (“could you try it this way?”) as a personal attack.

    • Intense fear of letting people down.

  • RSD External signs (what others may notice):

    • Suddenly withdrawing from relationships or projects.

    • Over-apologising or people-pleasing.

    • Outbursts of anger or defensiveness when feeling criticised.

    • Perfectionism…to avoid any chance of rejection.

    • Avoiding opportunities altogether (“if I don’t try, I can’t be rejected”).

• Difficulty accepting emotions:

  • Struggling to sit with emotions (e.g. sadness, anger, frustration).

  • Quickly trying to suppress, rationalise, or distract away.

  • Feeling emotions as “too much” or “unacceptable.”

  • Guilt or shame about being “too sensitive” or “overreacting.”

  • Internal (hidden signs):

    • Harsh self-talk: “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

    • Avoiding situations that might trigger uncomfortable emotions.

    • Bottling up feelings until they explode.

    • Numbness or detachment when overwhelmed.

  • External (visible signs):

    • Minimising feelings (“It’s fine, I don’t care”) even when clearly upset.

    • Switching quickly to humour or distraction instead of staying in the feeling.

    • Intense outbursts that seem sudden, but are really a buildup from not processing emotions earlier.

    • Difficulty naming emotions (alexithymia-like presentation, which is “emotional blindness” difficulty understanding which emotion is which).

• Chronic overwhelm in daily life management.

• Difficulty in articulating internal struggles and asking for help, often leading to retreating when credibility is (or perceived to be) questioned.

  ---

Masking and Compensatory Strategies

Women and girls often develop intelligent, sophisticated coping mechanisms to hide their difficulties or to “fit in”, called masking.

These strategies can make them look organised, compliant and high-achieving on the outside…while internally, they’re absolutely exhausted and overwhelmed.

Making an diagnostic assessment difficult, as they themselves don’t usually know they are masking. I’m still uncovering my masking layers and sometimes I’m absolutely stunned I never notice it before. I like to think of it as a fish in water analogy, does a fish know it’s in water?

• Masking/Camouflaging behaviours:

  • Imitating peers’ social behaviours to “blend in”.

  • Copying other people’s work styles or routines.

  • Hiding fidgeting, restlessness, or zoning out.

  • Putting on a “together” or “polished” persona.

• Increased stress and anxiety due to masking and undiagnosed difficulties.

  • High levels of tension because every interaction feels like performance.

  • Anxiety about being “found out.”

  • Emotional burnout after social or work events.

• Immense effort or overcompensation:

  • Working longer hours than peers to keep up.

  • Taking work home or re-doing tasks for reassurance.

  • Exhausting oneself to achieve good grades

  • Striving for perfectionism

  • Never feeling “good enough.”

• Being perceived as overly compliant or behaviourally compliant.

  • Teachers and bosses describe them as “well-behaved” or “model students.”

  • Fear of conflict means they avoid speaking up, even if overwhelmed.

  • Can be mistaken for being “fine” when they’re quietly struggling.

• Buffering behaviours:

  • Using humour, charm or helpfulness to mask difficulties.

  • Double-checking or triple-checking tasks to avoid mistakes.

  • Over-relying on lists, apps, colour-coding or sticky notes as survival tools.

Hormonal and Life-Stage Indicators

ADHD symptoms in women often change and intensify during periods of hormonal transition:

• Symptoms worsen in the premenstrual period due to estrogen drops.

…sometimes referred to as ‘danger week’

Really? Come on.

Using language like “danger week” to describe the week before girls and women get their period, automatically induces internalised shame and puts the blame on them. This was said by women.

This is an example of how our thought patterns are so ingrained that they are invisible. It’s not the fault of the women who said danger week.

It’s systemic.

“During this time, the severity of symptoms, including ADHD severity, mood, memory, and cognition, increases, which leads people to “call it danger week because they can be dangerous to others”. The individual may lose control over themselves, often leading to feelings of shame and the need to apologise to family, partners or bosses afterwards”

I’m guilty of saying similar things myself. Sorry, let me rephrase that…I tend to catch myself saying similar things and I’m undergoing a process of unlearning various thought patterns. That’s why I write. To think. Back to the indicator list…

• Puberty: Symptoms may increase in severity as estrogen enters the picture.

  • Girls in their early teens with ADHD may show more aggressive behaviour,

  • academic problems and

  • earlier signs of substance-related problems than control girls.

• Perimenopause and Menopause: Symptoms can intensify or become unmanageable as estrogen declines. Emotional changes and cognitive problems occurring during menopause impact ADHD symptoms significantly.

• Pregnancy and Postpartum: Increased risk of Postpartum Depression (PPD) and postnatal anxiety.

• Increased risk of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD).

Impairments and Functional Problems

Females with ADHD generally experience serious impairments across multiple domains, which may serve as triggers for referral:

• Academic problems:

  • lower achievement,

  • difficulty in classroom learning,

  • disparity between educational performance and achievement.

• Interpersonal relationship problems:

  • difficulty with peer relationships,

  • social problems,

  • conflict,

  • inability to manage and maintain functional interpersonal relationships,

  • social isolation.

• Vulnerability to bullying (physical, social-relational and cyberbullying).

• Adverse home impacts/Impairment in home life (more impaired than males with ADHD).

• Occupational challenges:

  • difficulty with tasks,

  • lower employability,

  • reduced economic prosperity.

• Difficulty managing money.

• Lack of planning for the future.

High-Risk behaviours and Vulnerabilities

Females with ADHD, particularly those who remain undiagnosed, face heightened risks:

• Deliberate Self-Harm (DSH):

  • self-injury, cutting,

  • suicidal ideation, or

  • suicide attempts (markedly elevated risk, especially with combined-type ADHD).

• Substance use and abuse (including alcohol and cannabis abuse; increased risk compared to non-ADHD females).

• Risk-taking behaviour and sensation seeking (via social networks/internet use, dangerous activities).

• Risky sexual behaviour:

  • becoming sexually active earlier,

  • having an increased number of sexual partners,

  • engaging in unsafe sexual practices,

  • inconsistent use of birth control.

• Elevated rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

• Increased risk of unplanned/teen pregnancies and early motherhood.

• Vulnerability to sexual victimisation.

Common Misdiagnoses and Co-occurring Conditions

The symptoms in females are frequently misattributed or overshadowed by other mental health conditions, leading to misdiagnosis or diagnostic delay, such as:

• Anxiety.

• Mood disorders/Depression.

• Eating disorders.

• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)/Personality disorders.

• Bipolar.

• Tics/Tourette’s.

• Autism.

• Somatic Symptoms:

  • chronic pain,

  • fibromyalgia,

  • chronic fatigue syndrome,

  • headaches.

• Other general mental health conditions.

Wow!

Wow! I’m exhausted writing this article, even though it’s a listicle.

An internal emotional exhaustion, that’s what I’m feeling. Maybe empathy, perhaps? I’m not sure. I can relate to a lot of the above. I also know a lot of women who are suffering.

Thats why it’s so important to educate and share our lived experiences.

Raising awareness, educating our healthcare professionals, teachers and parents is a crucial first step to spotting ADHD in girls and women and getting them the help they need.

Early intervention helps to reduce the challenges discussed while increasing access to the right treatment. We prepared a free downloadable checklist for clinicians to use as a guide in spotting ADHD indicators in girls and women.

Download Checklist & Real Life Scenarios

Sensory processing differences are incredibly common in people like us too (people with ADHD)

A major systematic review and meta analysis across various scientific studies and over 5000 participants has found that people with ADHD show significantly higher levels of atypical sensory processing across all four areas compared to neurotypical people:

1. sensitivity

2. avoiding

3. seeking

4. low registration

Scientists, researchers and media primarily focus on autistic individuals when researching sensory processing differences. Currently, the sensory processing profile of someone with ADHD isn’t taken into consideration throughout the diagnostic assessment and I believe it should be.

What This Means for You

Social media has been amazing in helping raise awareness of ADHD and educating the general population. More and more people are sharing their lived experience which is amazing. On the other hand it shines a light on the massive gap between scientific research and lived experience relative to ADHD.

The gap between male vs female presentation research and now the gap between the sensory processing research. I wonder what else hasn’t had much limelight? We’ll be digging deep into scientific papers and rallying science, funders, researchers to explore ADHD more attentively as undiagnosed and untreated ADHD costs the UK economy £17 Billion a year! How? That’s another article in itself.

For example, untreated or unknown sensory sensitivity can prevent someone going to the gym. They don’t understand why they don’t like it, they just don’t. They can feel this inner tension, an inner anxiety or think they are frustrated, and can be quick tempered. Some people feel completely inadequate and leave.

As you can imagine, that has a knock on effect on their physical and mental health affecting overall life expectancy and longevity. In fact, a recent study found:

Women are mostly affected by losing 27.5% more life than men, losing almost 9 years from their life, dropping their life expectancy from 84 years to 75 years.

Read that again.

In 8.64 years you can obtain a full medical degree and a masters on top…knock a nice €145,152 off your mortgage, watch your kid go through primary school, meeting your grandkids.

It’s a lot of life lost.

By understanding our brain’s neurotype profile, our sensory profile and how we operate in this world, we can begin to create an environment that works for us.

Make better choices and advocate for our needs.

The four areas of sensory processing typically show up in daily life like:

1. Sensitivity (Sensory Over-Responsiveness)

• Being easily overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights or strong smells.

• Finding clothing tags or certain fabrics unbearably irritating.

• Struggling to concentrate in busy environments because every small sound or movement is noticed.

Have you ever found yourself feeling completely overwhelmed or frustrated and unsure why? Perhaps you suffer from headaches and wondered why you preferred to work at home (alone) than in an open plan office? Maybe the sound of clicking of keyboards or the blinding fluorescent lights are actually taking more out of you than you realise.

2. Avoiding (Active Withdrawal from Sensory Input)

• Leaving a crowded room because the noise feels too much.

• Preferring dim lighting and quiet spaces.

• Avoiding certain foods because of texture or smell.

Are you that person who (unknowingly) declines invitations at loud restaurants and opts for a walk in the park instead? I say unknowingly as you may not know why you don’t like those restaurants.

3. Seeking (Sensory Craving/Active Engagement)

• Constantly fiddling with objects, tapping or pacing.

• Playing music loudly or turning up the TV volume more than others.

• Enjoying spicy or strong-tasting foods.

A pen chewer? Needing an extra tactile input to stay regulated? Yup, I can relate.

4. Low Registration (Sensory Under-Responsiveness or Missed Cues)

• Not noticing when someone calls their name.

• Missing subtle tastes, smells or body cues (like hunger).

• Appearing “tuned out” because sensory input doesn’t register strongly.

Have you ever cut yourself and didn’t realise it until you saw blood everywhere?

What This Means for Me

Considering the above, curiosity got the better of me, so I took the TriggerAtlas test. I wanted to see if it flagged any sensitivities even though I knew it was originally built for autistic individuals.

I took TriggerAtlas 6months before I came across the ADHD sensory processing research. Here are my highest sensitivity areas:

Looking at my own TriggerAtlas results, I made the various changes to my daily life it suggested. I invested in earplugs, noise cancelling headphones and brown tinted glasses.

I can honestly say it has changed my life for the better.

I never realised how much the fluorescent lights actually affected me until I was able to wear tinted glassess indoors. I also wear them at the gym - it looks like I’m wearing sunglasses in a dark-ish (with bright fluorescent lights) room.

I was conscious of wearing the tinted glassess at the beginning. Of course my anxiety kicked in. However, ater I wore them “on and off” for a full session, I felt more comfortable during the next session as the benefit outweighed my paranoia. The difference I feel internally is unbelievable, I don’t have the words to describe it fully at the moment.

TriggerAtlas is a 30-40 page report that has been analysed by a therapist and emailed to you within a week of completing the contextual questionnaire. The report covers six domains and 150 trigger points.

The report is full of insights and practical strategies, so you can create an external environment that works for you.

Honestly, I didn’t know how much the “outside environment” actually affected my “internal environment”, like my emotions and levels of anxiety. At the time when I completed TriggerAlas all I wanted to do was understand myself a bit more, and now, this research validates that people with ADHD also have atypical sensory differences.

My sensory profile shows:

• Lighting (9.4/10) - Bright lights, fluorescent lighting and rapid changes cause immediate discomfort and cognitive disruption

• Facial cues interpretation (9.3/10) - Reading expressions is exhausting emotionally which can to misunderstanding

• Relationship to rules (7.9/10) - When established norms aren't followed, my brain treats it as environmental instability requiring immediate attention

• Smells (7.0/10)- Strong odours can trigger nausea and sensory panic

• Changes & transitions (6.9/10) - Even minor schedule modifications require significant cognitive resources to process

• Disruption of safe spaces (6.9/10) - Material changes to my secure environment demand careful preparation to avoid overload

⠀Why This Matters

The research confirms that the sensory processing differences are neurobiological differences and deserve recognition and accommodation.

How we experience the world, inside and out, are part of the neurodivergent operating system which require specific environmental changes and supports.

The more people are aware of these differences, the easier it will be to identify and accommodate.

Current ADHD diagnostic assessment and treatment approaches focus heavily on attention and hyperactivity symptoms while ignoring sensory processing.

But my lived experience (and others I’ve spoken to) shows these sensory patterns can significantly impact daily functioning, relationships and overall wellbeing.

I tracked my progress and within 3months of making the changes, my overall wellbeing increased by 45% and my ability to regulate my emotions increased by 40%.

This is what I mean’t earlier when I said it changed my life.

As a result I'm learning to work with my sensory profile through environmental modifications, introducing protective strategies and recovery routines.

A recovery routine is something you enjoy or a nap or a walk through trees, that you do (schedule) after you have had exposure to a lot of stimulation.

Understanding that my brain processes sensory information differently helps me advocate for what I need and reduce self-criticism (yes that monkey-mind chatter that never shuts up…), especially when I reach sensory overload.

I have now perfected the non-guilt afternoon Netflix binge on a school day…classic #ADmomo

This research validates that comprehensive ADHD support should include sensory assessments and interventions. Not just for kids, but especially for adults who may have spent decades masking or misunderstanding these patterns.

That’s why we have incorporated TriggerAtlas into our diagnostic assessment process at ADHD Services.

It was 3:47 pm on a Tuesday afternoon when I found myself standing in my kitchen, holding a cuppa and staring at the dishwasher that had been beeping for completion for... honestly, I had no idea how long.

The laundry was half-folded on the spare bed (from Sunday) and my laptop was open with 63 tabs about "productivity hacks”…the irony!

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a tiny voice was screaming that I had a deadline. Today? Hmm maybe yesterday? I don’t know. That's when I realised my brain had essentially filed for divorce from basic functioning.

When I tell people that I’m trying to get on top of things, they say to “just get organised”, to “just do it” when you finish work before anything else, or in-between calls?

In my head I kept hearing…“I tried all that” and I’ve been trying to crack this barrier my entire life. It’s exhausting.

“Our executive function is a set of mental skills that help us plan, organise, start and complete tasks. ”

The core executive function skills are:

• Working memory - this is like your brain’s sticky notes to remember things, like remembering instructions while completing a task…however, these sticky notes keep falling off.

• Flexible thinking - pivoting when plans go sideways (as the always do) or shifting between different tasks, perspectives, new situations or new rules.

• Self-control - being able to direct yourself, resisting distractions, suppressing impulses or “thinking before acting”…like an internal referee, that tends to forget the rules.

The following also fall under executive function capabilities:

• Planning and Organisation - creating step-by-step approaches to tasks; organising materials, time and information.

• Time Management - estimating how long tasks take, allocating time appropriately and meeting deadlines.

• Task Initiation - starting tasks without excessive procrastination or overcoming inertia to begin activities.

• Sustained Attention - maintaining focus on tasks despite distractions or boredom.

• Self-Monitoring - tracking your own performance, recognising mistakes and adjusting behaviour accordingly.

• Emotional Regulation - managing and modulating emotional responses appropriately to situations.

• Goal-Directed Persistence - maintaining effort and motivation toward long term goals despite obstacles or setbacks.

• Metacognition - thinking about your own thinking; evaluating strategies and making adjustments.

• Decision making - choosing between 204 equally urgent tasks!
  

As you can imagine, an executive function that is dysfunctional can seriously inhibit our daily life. Let’s leave how it would affect work aside for a moment. An executive dysfunction affects our ability to organise things, like arranging a trip, a hair cut or going food shopping. It inhibits our follow through on tasks and is responsible for locking ourselves out of our house.

It’s responsible for us choosing the instant gratification (bad choice) over the longer term choice, affecting our health and finances.

Ultimately, playing havoc with our ability to regulate our emotions.

A lot of people tend to think that we are lazy or lack any willpower. That’s totally untrue and the danger is that a lot of ADHDers tend to adopt these negative beliefs, generating an overwhelming amount of internalised shame and guilt.

Often left wondering “why can’t I do these simple tasks in life?”

Believe me, we have tried everything. Absolutely everything!

I bought productivity course after productivity course, app after app. I used to have about 5-6 productivity apps on the go at any one time…as well as a written planner and my daily Google calendar.

It got to the point where I was spending more time jumping between productivity systems than actually getting any work done. It was insane.

I’m not the only one, I’ve talked to many people with ADHD who had a similar experience.

Trying to break the illusive productivity code that everyone else seems to have mastered seems impossible to ADHDers. As a result, never achieving their full potential, hiding from challenges and holding themselves back. Jumping from productivity system to productivity system…frozen in fear.

It’s not all bad! I promise.

Over the last few years I have studied ADHD, autism and wider neurodivergent co-occurring presentations. Be it, reading scientific journals, talking to others with ADHD, talking to medical and healthcare professionals, setting up a diagnostic clinic, building an AI clinical diagnostic tool and devouring absolutely everything I could on the internet.

I have found, that thanks to our Executive Dysfunction we are incredibly talented and creative.

We have an interest based nervous system which means we are highly motivated by interest, challenge, novelty, urgency and passion. Others are motivated by importance based attributes such as reward, consequences and deadlines.

Understanding this difference can revolutionise how you approach your work and life. When we truly have a strong interest in something, we have an even stronger drive to do what needs to be done thus accomplishing the tasks in record time.

Thanks to our hyperfocus abilities, we can devour subjects that interest us, understand large amounts of data and make them easy digestible to others. This stimulation or instant feedback loop fosters our ability to achieve great things.

Learning about executive function capabilities of neurotypical vs ADHDers, I was convinced this was the root cause to a lot of my daily challenges.

In order to understand my brain better, I put myself through various mini-experiments, as I wanted to see if I could outlearn the dysfunction.

I gained some valuable insights and will share through my writing.

One major and totally overlooked reason why people with ADHD struggle with everyday tasks is due to the phenomenon I like to call “learnin4g motivation”.

Learning Motivation: “the act of learning is more interesting and motivational to the ADHD brain than the outcome.”

Read that again.

The act of learning feeds our ADHD brains with more dopamine than actually achieving the outcome.

This was a lightbulb moment, another #ADmomo for me.

It suddenly explained everything in a language I could understand…why I had 63 tabs open about productivity instead of actually being productive?? Why I’d bought course after course but never quite finished implementing them?? Why the Sunday laundry was still on the spare bed???

I wasn’t failing at productivity. I was succeeding at learning about productivity. And my brain was rewarding me for it.

Understanding this distinction between interest-based and importance-based nervous systems changed everything for me. I stopped trying to force myself into neurotypical productivity systems that were never designed for how my brain works.

Instead, I started working with my executive dysfunction, not against it.

I learned to harness novelty, challenge and urgency intentionally. I stopped beating myself up for needing different fuel than everyone else. And I started building systems that actually worked for an interest-based nervous system.

The dishwasher still beeps. The tabs are still open. But now I understand why…and more importantly, I know what to do about it.

If you’ve been struggling with the same battles, wondering why “just do it” doesn’t work for you, you’re not broken. Your brain just runs on different fuel. And once you understand that, everything changes.

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