March 18, 2024 • 55 mins
Today we are answering the question- do you have adult onset ADHD- with Tracy Otsuka. Tracy is a certified ADHD coach and the author of “ADHD For Smart Ass Women. She believes that there is a peri-menopausal onset of ADHD caused by changing estrogen levels. Since there has not been a lot of research into what ADHD looks like in women, many women are misdiagnosed or mis-medicated. Tracy is on a mission to educate as many women as she can about the results of her research on adult onset ADHD in midlife women. She removes the stigma and misconceptions of ADHD as well as highlighting the superpowers. This episode is full of practical information and is a terrific resource for anyone who may feel that their brains are changing in midlife. There’s nothing to fear only strategies to learn and steps to take toward taking action. Please grab a cuppa something wonderful and join us for this encouraging, enlightening conversation. https://www.tracyotsuka.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi, I'm Gina for our Welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a cup of something
wonderful for real talk, life changingstrategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now, please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back
(00:29):
to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcastthat helps you navigate the challenges and the
changes of midlife and empowers you tolive a more vibrant second half. If
you find us on YouTube today,don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell.
You can catch all the show noteson www dot Feminine roadmap dot com
and any major podcast platform will haveall of the episodes. Today, we
(00:52):
are going to be talking about abrand new conversation. In the seven years
we've been doing this, I havenot talked about ADHD, and my guest
talks about how many people don't reallyknow what it is, what it looks
like, especially in women, whichleads to a lot of misdiagnoses, mismedication,
and she believes that there's a perimenopausalswitch that happens in some women causing
(01:19):
adult onset ADHD. My guest todayis Tracy Otsuka. She is a certified
ADHD coach. She is the hostof the ADHD for Smart Ass Women podcast,
and she is the author of hernew book, ADHD for Smart Ass
Women. Tracy, thank you somuch for being on my show today.
(01:40):
Well, thank you for having me. And I'm sure that there are some
people today who are thinking, Oh, that can't possibly be me. I'm
not even interested in this topic,and my suggestion and advice to you is
pay attention because most people have noidea what ADHD looks like. I'm really
excited to have this conversation because jokingly, you know, we talk about when
(02:05):
our hormones change, we literally feellike we're losing our mind. And there
really is a vein of people thatare afraid that they're actually getting dementia from
that. They don't understand brain fog. But then we have the confusion and
all these other things. So thisconversation is rounding out that kind of brain
conversation. So what led you tothis mission and this message, Tracy,
(02:25):
Well, it started out when myson was twelve, after three years of
all different kinds of testing and differenttherapies, from occupational therapy to visual spatial
visual processing therapy, he was finallydiagnosed with ADHD. And I had thought,
(02:46):
my husband thought that ADHD meant thatyou weren't very smart, you were
all over the place, and youwere not going to do very well in
life, and it could not befarther from the truth. So what we
did, though, however, waswe did know anything about ADHD. So
we ended up hiring a psychologist whowas supposedly an expert in our area in
(03:07):
ADHD. And after the third visit, she had sat my son down.
She had seen us as a familyand then it was just my husband and
me. It was just my husbandand me. Yeah, it was just
me. Yeah, just my husbandand me. I don't know why I
always mix those up. So wesat down with her and she said that
our job as his parents was toreduce his expectations because he was far too
(03:31):
ambitious, so he would not bedisappointed in life. So, needless to
say, that was the last timewe saw her, and so I decided
to start doing the research myself,and I learned everything I could possibly learn
about ADHD, and lo and behold. It took me eight months, but
eight months later I recognized that,oh my gosh, adhg is genetic.
(03:57):
It is about as genetic as height, so highly attic, he had to
get it from someone, and Irealized that he got it from me.
And I realized that because of onesentence that I read in the Bible of
Adhd at the time, which wasned halliwell's driven to distraction, and that
was that hyperactive. Excuse me,drivenness is a form of hyperactivity. I
(04:20):
am nothing if not driven. ButI did well in school, whereas my
son really struggled. And that isbecause boys typically externalize their symptoms versus girls
internalize them. And what I meanby that is if a girl has ADHD,
she's actually in her head beating herselfup about well, why can't I
(04:41):
do this? And I should bedoing that, and so she's always kind
of masking. That's how we tendto deal with ADHD or manage ADHD,
versus boys are kind of the stereotypicalclimbing up the walls, you know,
being a problem, mouthing off,annoying everyone, and so because they're so
annoying, they get the services.Girls are also twice as likely to have
(05:06):
a form of ADHD called inattentive ADHD. What that looks like is the absent
minded professor as an adult. Soyou know, you're just so outstanding in
that one area you're outstanding in.But then the everyday stuff like making sure
dinner's on the table, getting yourkids picked up on time, getting them
to school on time, making surea lot, you know, all of
(05:28):
that boring work that's like groundhog Daythat never ends because the next day it
starts all over again. Those arethe things that we can typically be kind
of terrible at, and so becausewe're you know, we're so bad in
those areas a lot of times,what will happen with women is they don't
even realize how brilliant they are inthe areas they're brilliant in. So in
(05:50):
the classroom, that inattentive girl canlook like the girl who sits in the
back and she's just in her ownlittle daydream. She's creating her own little
fan to see world. The teachercalls on her and she's like what what
And she doesn't even know what classshe's in, let alone that she's in
school, right because she's in herown little fantasy world. So what happens
(06:12):
to girls and women after years anddecades of internalizing all these symptoms. They
often get diagnosed with anxiety, depression, sometimes bipolar disorder, when underlying all
of it is ADHD, and ifyou treat the ADHD, sometimes all the
other symptoms will go away. Oftenit's comorbid. So there's a little bit
(06:34):
of a lot of those things.But and that's just how mental health works.
But you know, a lot oftimes the symptoms will go away.
I mean, the reason why she'sso anxious is because she's trying to manage
all the stuff that's going on withher brain and trying to figure out,
Okay, well, why can't Ido this the way everybody else can do
it. The other problem is allof the you know, the socialization issues
(06:59):
and sexism and this, you know, uh societal roles. Right, how
girls are supposed to be. Imean, if you think about life and
how you grew up, it wasjust assumed girls are always needed, right,
They have better penmanship, they're moreorganized, And this is not true.
It has nothing to do with whetheryou were born a girl or you
were born a boy. But becausethat's what society teaches us, we internalize
(07:26):
that the third thing or thing thatis different between girls and boys is girls
are typically diagnosed later in life,so they're diagnosed in puberty or after versus
boys tend to be diagnosed you know, seven, eight, nine years old.
So you know a lot of peoplethink, even experts, even you
(07:49):
know, clinicians who you know they'rein you know, mental health, they
think that if you don't have thesesymptoms when you're a child, that you
don't have ADHD. And granted youdo need symptoms as a child, but
what are the symptoms you're looking for? So hyperactivity can look like ultra chattiness
(08:11):
and what do we always think girlshave? Right? Girls are chatty?
Women talk too much? No,they don't. It's certain people with ADHD
that's just you know, a formof hyperactivity that they're going to be talking
a lot. So there are alot of symptoms that look different in women
than men and boys. That's reallyfascinating. Yeah, you know, I
(08:37):
totally understand what you're saying. Boysare squirrely, boys have difficulty learning.
You know, you have all ofthese statements, and then the girls are
kind of if they are not quietdoing what they're supposed to do, then
they're a problem. But it's notusually like an ADHD thing. Yeah,
I totally get that. It's funnybecause I have people that pop up in
(08:58):
my mind as you're saying these things. You know. But I'm very fascinated
to talk about the hormonal this adultonset because I think that, like I
said, there's a lot of confusionin our bodies and on our minds,
and we do begin to feel like, what's wrong with me? Why can't
I, you know, fill inthe blank. So let's talk a little
(09:22):
bit about this adult onset ADHD inorder to do that? Is it okay
if I back up a little bitand we talk about what ADHD is generally,
because that will then give a greaterunderstanding. First of all, it'll
allow your listener to think about,well, could that be me? And
then it'll give them a greater understandingof why we have this problem. What
(09:46):
I call maturity on set ADHD.Is that okay, absolutely, okay,
I don't want to do my ADHDjust run over people thing? Right?
Oh you are? You have thefloor, teach us all you can,
and the amount of time we havetogether wonderful. So ADHD is a neurobiological
condition, and ultimately what it meansis there's hyperactivity. You can't sit still
(10:09):
or hyperactivity in the brain. Youcan't shut the brain off. Right,
there's impulsivity, which bottom line meansyou think. I mean, you act
before you think often. And thenthe third one is distractability, So you
struggle with focus, you struggle withattention. However, what I want to
say, and no one ever talksabout this, and this is my big
(10:31):
you know, this is what Italk about. Forty three percent of all
adults with ADHD are in excellent mentalhealth. Yet all we do is focus
on the pathology, right, wefocus on what the ADHD brain does not
do well. Well, I willassure you that, yeah, there are
things that we're not so great atall, those things that I talked about
(10:54):
before, unless it's an area ofinterest. And that's what makes it so
hard to diagnose ADHD. It looksa little bit different in everyone, but
the common thread that we all haveis we have brains of interest. So,
and I'm gonna tell you why ina second. So if we're interested,
we'll totally pop in and we'll hyperfocus and you cannot distract us.
(11:18):
If we're not interested, we couldcare less. And that's how you end
up with that kid who parents willsay, oh my gosh, it's a
character flaw, it's a moral failing. He's not trying hard enough. She's
not trying hard enough because when she'sinterested, like when she's playing video games,
she can do that till the cowscome home. But then when it
comes to homework, she can't doanything right. So I just need and
(11:43):
I kind of did my ADHD digressionthing. But what I really want people
to understand is, yes, thereare things we struggle with, but there
are things that we are positively brilliantat. So what are some of the
telltale signs that people don't typically talkabout which you would never think, Oh,
that means you have ADHD. Soif you are the kind of person
(12:05):
number one that has unexplained underachievement,So what that looks like is you are
a woman that your friends will betalking to you and they're like, she
is so bright, you know,and she's so interesting and so interested in
so much, but why can't sheget it together? Like why hasn't she
been able to have really any successin you know, her career and maybe
(12:30):
as a parent she really struggles likewhat could that be unexplained underachievement? That
can be a sign of ADHD.The second one is consistent inconsistency. So
in my son, that would looklike a's and f's in the same class
in the same week. So youknow, it's just you can't even predict
like when is that brilliant brain goingto show up? And when is it
(12:56):
not? Well, it's going toshow up one it's interested, okay.
And so then the third one istypical tips and tricks for productivity, Like
those kind of productivity hacks, theyjust don't work for your ADHD brain.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat's the one, Eat that frog.
(13:16):
There's no way in hell I'm eatingthat frog, because eat that frog means
you do the hardest thing, firstthing in the morning, or just do
it. Well, if we couldjust do it, we would have just
done it. Or time blocking,you know, plan your whole calendar out
for the whole month and block allthe time. There is no way because
(13:37):
I just never know if I'm goingto show up on that day and want
to do that thing. And soagain it's about interest. So you have
those three things and what they alldo, So that'll kind of give you
an indication of oh, does itsound like me? Does it sound like
my kid, does that sound likemy friend? But then beyond that,
(14:00):
so why is this what is goingon with the ADHD brain that interest is
so important? It's dopamine and wedon't know it's a neurotransmitter. We don't
know, And dopamine is the it'sthe feel good motivation, just do it,
you know, let's get it done. Neurotransmitter or hormone. And so
(14:22):
they don't know for sure with ADHD, but we have enough brain stands and
you know, you know, waysthat they've looked at the brain that what
they do know is that it's eitherthat the ADHD brain doesn't make enough dopamine
or it's that we don't process itin the way that a typical brain processes
it. Now, dopamine controls ourprefrontal cortex, that frontal lobe of the
(14:46):
brain that is responsible for our executivefunctions. Our executive functions are like the
CEO of our brain, and thatis the part of our brain that is
responsible for planning and sc and timemanagement. We don't see time often.
It's responsible for motivation and decision makingand organization. So all of those things
(15:09):
are things that the ADHD brain struggleswith when we do well and don't struggle
so much in those areas. It'sbecause we are in an area the interest.
So now that we kind of understandhow the brain works and we understand
how important dopamine is, I'd loveto answer your question. And your question
(15:31):
was, so what is the dealwith this late in life? You know,
ADHD kind of diagnoses that a lotof women are receiving well. First
of all, just like in mostscience and medicine, women's bodies aren't studied,
right. We are just assumed thator it is just assumed that we
(15:52):
are many men. And so whenit comes to everything from you know,
architecture and how we design you know, homes and office buildings and cities and
you know, or how we organizethem or how you know, how we
determine what thermostat should you know,where should we set a thermostat in an
office building? Like, women arenever considered, and so what ends up
(16:15):
happening is they're ignored. And thatis exactly what happened with ADHD. So
all of the research up until veryrecently, and even the research that we
have now it's a little tiny,you know, study sizes, but all
of the research has pretty much beendone on prepubescent white boys, and so
that is why we haven't known.Frankly that you know, most people don't
(16:38):
even know that women can have ADHDor that girls can have ADHD. That's
changing because of COVID, and youknow, so the pandemic, everybody was
staying at home and all of asudden, you know, you had to
manage your career at home as awoman, you had to manage your whole
family at home, and then youhad to manage their education as well,
and women just got to the breakmaking point. But we also had all
(17:02):
this time at home. So westarted watching you know, TikTok videos and
we started to realize that, ohmy gosh, there is a reason why
my brain is the way or operatesthe way it operates. So what happens
with women is we have all thesestages in our life right where our hormones
start bouncing around. So puberty,which is when ADHD is typically diagnosed in
(17:26):
girls if we get it, pregnancy, hostpartum, paramenopause, and then menopause.
And so what happens with women inall those stages, but especially later
in life paramenopause and menopause is ourestrogen goes down. Well, guess what
(17:51):
they've finally discovered because of a fewlittle studies. Estrogen modulates dopamine. Okay,
so when you're estrogen goes down,your dopamine goes down. What controls
our prefrontal cortex the dopamine. Soso where am I going with this?
So estrogen modulates modulates dopamine. Andon top of all of that, we
(18:15):
know that for everybody, men,women, everybody, our dopamine goes down
ten percent per decade. So you'vegot that going on, You've got normal
menopause, perimenopause and menopause, andthen on top of that you put ADHD.
So where do you think our dopaminelevels are? Right? They're literally
in the toilet. And so womenlike me who I have always had ADHD,
(18:41):
I have always been extremely hyperactive.I've always been really chatty. I'm
totally entrepreneurial, and I believe thatmost entrepreneurs are somewhere on the ADHD spectrum
because it is a spectrum. SoI had symptoms, but I had the
good symptoms of ADHD. I hadthe drivenness, I had the you know,
(19:03):
extreme socialization, I had the highenergy, I had all the stuff
that really helped me as an entrepreneurand helped me to, you know,
have a law degree and get agraduate law degree. And I've had several
companies that I've run. It wasmy ADHD that allowed me to be successful.
But all of a sudden, rightaround perimenopause, I didn't even recognize
(19:30):
myself. I've always had really highconfidence. I was starting to question myself
in my confidence levels. I literallythought I had dementia because I could not
remember anything. And at one pointI actually went to the doctor's and I
was tested for Parkinson's. My handwritingchanged, just everything changed. Things I
(19:56):
could do so I am a hugecook or I was to the tune of
I could have seventy five people overfor dinner and I wouldn't even think twice
about it, like I loved it. I couldn't even cook for a party
of four. I couldn't get throughthe recipes, I couldn't read all the
text. I was burning things,and I had I was never like that
before. That was where I washighly confident. My whole brain changed and
(20:19):
I felt like my whole personality waschanging. And so I had gone to
everyone. I had gone to ahormone specialist. I had gone to my
gynecologist, I had gone to anatural path I had gone to a psychologist.
(20:40):
The psychologist, by the way,she was also she was Chinese,
so she was also Asian. Andshe looked at me, and I was
like, what is going on withme? And she said, there's nothing
wrong with you at all. It'sjust, you know, it's an Asian
thing. The bloom comes off therows and we're always such drivers, and
things are just never as exciting asthey, you know, have been in
(21:02):
the past, and it's just whathappens when you get older. So that
was the advice that I was given. And it wasn't until I figured out
for myself that it was ADHD thateverything changed, because once we understand what
it is, then we can startbuilding strategies and workarounds and so, you
know, I completely reinvented my life, my career, my you know,
(21:25):
and this is what I do,helping thousands of women understand they're brilliant ADHD
brains. Because most of the informationarount out there is about the the pathology
of ADHD. Everything that's broken,Yeah, and I think that's what makes
it difficult to want to face itis because the context that it's delivered in
(21:47):
is negative. Right. We thinkthat if you have this then you are
wrong or bad or insufficient and broken. Right. Yeah, so I would
imagine that it's difficult for women towrap their minds around it in a positive
way initially. Do you find thatto be true? Absolutely, and especially
if from the time you were akid. See, I was one of
(22:11):
the lucky ones. I realize nowI did fairly well in school, but
I realize now that I worked harderthan everybody. So I was the one
who worked for weeks in advance,put together the most incredible notes. Like
when I went through law school,the books that we'd have to read,
I can't remember what you call them. They were all tabbed, they were
(22:32):
highlighted, and then from there Iwould create this incredible outline in a notebook
that was also tabbed and highlighted andyou know, with red pencil. And
then from there it went to afew page outline. From there it went
to note cards. I mean,it was insane the amount of work I
did to do as well as Iwas able to do, but that was
(22:53):
because of my ADHD. And thenI would give it to my roommate.
She would study the night before andyou would always get a half a grade
at least higher than I did,you know, And so you start to
think that, well, I mustnot be very smart, right m And
I was lucky like my son.I remember, he went to go He
went to three high schools in fouryears. And in his junior year,
(23:15):
he was so excited because finally hewas able to sit down with the career
with the college counselor. She sathim down and she said to him.
She gave him a pamphlet. Shedidn't say anything. She gave him a
pamphlet on how to be an hback technician. Now, there is nothing
wrong with being an h back technician, if that's what you're passionate about.
(23:37):
My kid was scared of bugs.H back technicians. They crawl under houses,
like you know. And then shesaid to me, and this was,
you know, a woman who hadbeen a professor at Stanford, and
she had started Stanford Online Universe HighSchool. And she said, there is
nothing more we can do for yourson. I just want to port that
(24:00):
my son is a senior at NYUand he's graduating in May. I don't
know how he did it. Threemajors in four years. But he's graduating
and what he has decided, he'sgoing to be a psychologist. And he
was also diagnosed with dyslexia, butnot until his sophomore year, sophomore junior
(24:21):
year of college. So had theycaught that early on, right, I
mean they saw ADHD, and soall you see is ADHD. They didn't
find the dyslexia. They didn't seethe dyslexia even though he kept asking about
it. So I guess my reasonfor bringing this up is if something feels
(24:41):
wrong, if you feel like thereis just something not going right with your
brain, and you know you're bright, and you know that you're not achieving
what you're capable of, consider ADHD. You know. It's fascinating how as
(25:03):
humans we learned to cope with whateverour challenges are, right, We just
kind of accept it and find theworkarounds. And the more challenged a person
is, the more workarounds they haveto come up with. I'm thinking about
my oldest daughter, and we hadchallenges. I homeschooled my girls, so
(25:25):
I was aware of their learning styles, you know, and choosing a curriculum
that was suited to the way thatthey learned, so it was really helpful.
But we hit this spot round aboutfifth grade for her, and I
realized that there was some sort ofbreakdown like from her brain to paper when
(25:48):
it came to writing, she couldn'tdo like a simple book report because there
was some kind of a processing yes, dysfunction. So this is the thing,
as you talk, you know,we struggled through that as a family,
and I did. I tried everythingI knew and things that I wasn't
sure were going to work, andwe finally found a place like we did
(26:10):
a very non traditional because I neededto give her a feeling of I can
do this, because it's so demoralizingto struggle without knowing why you're struggling.
Do you just need you to betrue? Yes, And that's that's the
thing, like I'm not good atthis or I can't, which drives me
bananas. The word can't because maybeyou can't do it to that level.
(26:33):
But there's so much we can do. So these workarounds that you're talking about,
the highlighting, the coloring, thetabbing, the this that that you
know, I see that, andwe ended up doing word vomiting is what
I called it. We're not goingto worry about what the words are,
what they mean, whether they're important. Just get them out and once I
helped her process getting them out tothe whole in your head thing. So,
(26:57):
what strategies or what things do youencourage women to do If they consider
that this is a problem that theyhave, they probably have a workaround or
maybe they just have given up.I don't know. I guess it could
go either way, right, Yeah, I mean, sadly, what happens
to a lot of women is thatthey develop what we call learned helplessness.
(27:18):
And you can understand why that wouldhappen, right, If your entire life
you try to do things you can'tdo it. You can do it,
you can't do it their way,but you have your own way. And
so if you're constantly told your wayisn't the right way, this is how
you have to do it, you'rejust like, Okay, forget it,
I'm not going to do it.Okay, tell me what to do.
(27:40):
And then the rest of your lifeyou're being told what to do. And
then guess what happens, you know, right, Yeah, when you're living,
what ends up happening is when you'redoing what other people want you to
do right, you end up livingtheir life instead of your life. And
so for an ADHD brain, Ithink the most important thing is number one,
(28:02):
that you are in an area ofenter interest. Yes, and you
know what that is. Right whenyou're passionate, when you're just lit up,
when you're like I am in theright place at the right time,
that is where you need to be. That is where you need to be
exploring more. When you are strugglingand you just hate it and you're beating
yourself up and you're not good atit, stop doing it. I mean.
(28:26):
And so many ADHD women what happensis they struggle in school, right,
their brain is because also with ADHD, and this is mental health.
What we are discovering is that whenyou have one thing like let's say you
have anxiety, and anxiety is juststress, right, it's how you're it's
(28:47):
your nervous system regulation and how you'redealing with your nervous system. And you
could understand that if you're a younggirl and you have ADHD, that you
would have anxiety because you're stressed allthat time. So what was the question?
Where where were we going? Myad? What's so funny? Now
(29:07):
you've got me on a tangent aboutdysregulation, that whole disregulated system, because
I was basically commenting on you eithergive up right or you Yeah, learned
helplessness. Learn helplessness is where wewere headed. But I do I see
that dysregulation, and I've also seenthat learned helplessness, which I'm that that
(29:29):
that characteristic drives me bananas. Idon't have it in our home, but
I have people in my life whodo that. That drives me bonkers.
But in a context, it's interestingto look at it from a different angle.
Yeah. Absolutely, If you havenever felt safe, if you have
never felt like you were seen forwho you are, regardless of what you
(29:53):
do or how you do it,that's trauma. And what's traumatic to may
not be traumatic to you, andvice versa. Right, So we I
mean, we have to take thatinto account and guess what the symptoms of
trauma mirror ADHD almost exactly. Sothen you throw trauma into the next What
(30:17):
do you think your prefrontal cortex isdoing? You know, it's constantly off
right and on that high alert,which which takes all of your energies and
all of your resources away from thistask at hand. Right from the planning,
the processing, the scheduling, youknow, time management, all of
(30:37):
it. So okay, so wewere just talking about learned helplessness and then
we're but you had a question beyondthat that. While we were talking about,
you know, how how do youhelp women? You know, because
they're either going to give up ortheir or their you know, right,
so you need to be in anarea of interest. And so what I
(31:00):
was saying is that because school canbe so hard for so many of these
girls, they end up in thesemenial jobs. And I have a theory
that ADHD women are not meant tofollow. So stop trying to fit in.
You are never going to fit in. You are meant to lead.
So the goal is figure out whereis that. Because when when we're in
(31:21):
interest, we are we pop intohyper focus, so we learn faster and
better than anyone else. And mypremise is that anything that has been that,
anyone that has moved any big ideasforward in life, I'm certain the
wheel was invented by someone with ADHD. It is a person with ADHD.
Because remember how we were talking aboutall the thoughts, right, the hyperactivity
(31:45):
of all the thoughts, that's whatgoes on in the ADHD brain. So
those thoughts, though are exactly whatmake us creative. So someone who's linear
thinking, they're just thinking of whatis in front of that, and they
already know what they expect, andso that's all they see the ADHD brain,
(32:06):
which we can kind of sometimes feellike, oh my god, she's
all over the place and she's daydreamingand she's but that exact brain type is
what is creativity. We have allthe thoughts all at the same time,
and then we're able to harness themand put them together in a way that
nobody has ever thought to create aproduct that nobody has ever come up with,
(32:29):
or an idea that no one hasever thought of. So we need
people with ADHD and we need typicalsto support them, right, because we
are great starters all the ideas.We're okay middlers in terms of getting the
ideas to fruition because it's fun andit's interesting, but we're kind of awful,
(32:53):
you know, at the at thefollow up stage, because by then
it's just so boring. So weneed those people at the follow up stage,
right. We build the businesses,and they're the ones that then keep
it going. Once we've lost interestin our own to the next business.
So it's the problem of finishing.Yeah. Well, and what I always
(33:13):
talk about with my women is weneed to learn how to be last five
percent finishers. Yeah, all thethings that are important to us. You
know. Part of the problem isso the ADHD brain, as I mentioned,
it's an interest based nervous system.A typical brain has an important space
nervous system. If it's important tothe parents, if it's important to the
(33:37):
teachers, if it's important to thecoaches and the spouses and the bosses that
you get that thing done because youshould just get it done. They can
say, Okay, I'm going toget it done. We can't do that.
It's or we can, but it'sso much harder because we have these
interest based nervous systems. If we'renot interested, it's really hard for us
(33:59):
to do that thing. So youhave these girls who struggle in school and
so then they take these menial jobslike I don't know, there are Starbucks,
bury stuff. Again, if that'swhat you want to do and you're
passionate about it, go for it. But for many of us, it's
just not enough. We're not aiminghigh enough. And so what you'll find
in school is school will typically geteasier and easier if you're in an area
(34:25):
of interest. So if you're atthat PhD level, if you're at the
master's level, all of a suddenyou're the valedictorian. Again, it's because
of interest versus what does education do? Education until we get into frankly grad
school, it goes wide instead ofdeep. You have to learn all of
the things, and most of thosethings we don't give a crap about.
(34:46):
So that's what makes it so hard. So basically, our ability to be
bought in, yes, the reasonwe succeed. And if we're not bought
in, it's literally like fighting upstream. It's painful. Yes, yeah,
(35:10):
I see that. Okay, Sointerest is where I go first. Then
I go to positive emotion. Andthis is true for everybody, but it
is especially true for the ADHD brain. And this is so important for kids.
If we are not in positive emotion, we can't get out of our
(35:31):
own way. But we're in positiveemotion, the sky is the limit.
Nobody can stop us. No,So this you know, what do they
call that kind of parenting? Toughlove parenting, all of that, and
we don't like to be told whatto do, so we can get very
oppositional, right, So you putthat combination together, it is just not
(35:54):
going to be successful. It's notgoing to work. You are never going
to win against someone with ADHD who'sstubborn and is like you know, you
may win in that one instance,but you will not win the long haul.
So for kids with ADHD, themost important thing that a parent can
do is be that person who justbelieves in them against all the odds because
(36:19):
they are fighting usually the education system, they're struggling with the relationships with friends
there. You know, it's lifeis just harder for them when you know,
just school is so is so hardand that follows us all the way
through. So it is so importantto be in positive emotions. So if
(36:39):
you are struggling to do this thingyou don't really want to do, how
can you make it fun, challengingor social? Because those three things spiked
dopamine for all brains, but especiallyfor the ADHD brain. So, okay,
I don't want my kitchen to looklike a disaster. And just so
(37:00):
you know, not everybody with ADHDhas a disaster of a home. Some
of them can be like me,which is a recovering perfectionist. So I
call it visual pollution. If everythingaround me is not perfect, I cannot
focus on the thing that I needto focus on or that I want to
(37:20):
focus on. So I'll do thisthing called procrasta cleaning, which I think
is a really successful type of procrastination. As procrastination, things come. But
still, I want people to knowthat, again, you've met one person
with ADHD, You've met one personwith ADHD. The symptoms look different in
everyone, a little bit different ineveryone, but we all have this interest
(37:45):
and we all have this need forpositive emotion. So if you've got to
get that thing done, because weall do. We live in a society
that you know, you got topay your taxes, you got to pay
your bills. How can you makeit challenging? How can you make it
fun? How can you make itsocial? We're very social. Connecting with
(38:07):
other humans is so important for us. So again, if I've got to
get the dishes washed, because I'mnot going to walk out in the morning
to this kitchen, that's a bigdisaster. Because positive emotion, right,
So what can I do well?I can put on music, I can
you know, enlist help which theyshould be there helping anyway and list help,
(38:28):
you know, to kind of makeit a game. I know that.
Okay, last time I washed allthe dishes in twelve minutes. Today,
I'm going to beat that time.We love to be challenged. I'm
going to do it in ten andyou put on a timer and then of
course, you know, my bigthing is my big one is I can
listen to a podcast so I cando whatever I need to do to make
that task more fun, challenging orsocial. It's bringing dopamine into the equation
(38:57):
for yourself, is what I hearyou saying. So if it is a
dopamine crashing task, you know whatis going to bring the dopamine back into
the equations. So that now thisperimenopausal how is it, how is it
presenting itself? How are we aswomen going to maybe recognize it or identify
(39:22):
the possibility that this could be somethingwe're struggling with. Well, and it's
hard to tease it out, rightbecause just perimenopause and menopause in general,
everything that's the same area of thebrain. Right, So it's a dopamine
issue too, But it would beso uncharacteristic that you're like, there is
(39:43):
something truly wrong here, And Ithink so seventy five percent at least seventy
five percent of women that have ADHDhave not been diagnosed. And I would
say, I'm going to get myselfout here on a limb. I would
say most of the women who feellike I don't even recognize myself anymore,
(40:04):
that it's so severe my working memory, because we all have that where you
walk into a room and you're goingto go do something and then you forget
right stand there going Yeah, butit's how often does it happen, and
does it happen to the point whereit is really making life so much more
(40:24):
difficult? Ye, Like, it'snot funny anymore, Right, it gets
scary for some women? Yes,yes, if you're talking about to the
point where I feel like my wholepersonality has changed and it's scary, I
would absolutely look into ADHD. Mmhmm. Now lifestyle choices. I realize
(40:49):
we're talking about, you know,chemicals, and we're talking about all obviously
by this point, habits, workarounds, coping skills, and now our whole
life is changed. Every woman Italk to a midlife we just feel like
we are is what is happening.There's so many variables and so many changes,
(41:09):
and so what kind of health strategiesor are there any health strategies that
can set us up to get ourselvesback on track. Yes, and they're
probably all that many women will hate. But I promise you if you just
start with one, and just starta little bit. So you know,
(41:30):
I know so many people are soadverse to the term exercise, and so
I try not to use that andwhat I use more is just move your
body. And when you're moving yourbody, after you're done, I want
you to pay attention. So oneof the things ADHD women often are not
so good at because we're just Icall us next people. We're always onto
(41:52):
that next thing, right, We'relooking for the dopamine, and so we
don't pause long enough to get insideour body and ask ourselves, Okay,
so I just worked out how doI feel? Or I just went for
a walk, how do I feel? Because when you connect how you feel
to the fact that you moved yourbody, it is so much easier to
(42:15):
move your body because you know,on the other side of moving your body,
this is how you're going to feelso much better. And so what
you do is you literally change yourbrain. It's neuroplasticity. You know.
I used to work out. I'vealways worked out, and that's how I've
managed my ADHD. And as asmall girl, up until I was thirteen
years old, I danced ballet sixdays a week, and I am certain
(42:37):
that that's what saved me as well. Because what we know is exercise also
increases dopamine, and exercise is aseffective. So a course of exercise twenty
only twenty minutes at seventy percent ofyour maximum heart rate is comparable to a
course of adderall which is a stimulantmedication for ADHD, and Prozac, which
(43:01):
is medication for depression. Right,so I think they might prescribe it for
anxiety at times too. So weknow that it helps any brain, but
it really helps the ADHD brain.And what we've discovered is there are some
people who, you know, liketheir marathon runners, they're just really physically
(43:22):
active and they're able to manage theirADHD, don't even know they have ADHD,
and then something will happen. They'llhurt their knee, they'll break a
leg, they can't work out theway they worked out before, and all
of a sudden, they get allof these, you know, symptoms that
they never had before. So exercisesleep. And I was the biggest sleep
(43:44):
denier until I had to do apresentation for Attitude magazine on sleep, and
it was called revenge bedtime procrastination becausethat's who I was. I you know
that that's time when every that else'sasleep and you have it all to yourself
and you don't even have to dowork, you can just do whatever you
(44:07):
want. Well, it's going torevenge bed time procrastination, and that's who
I was. I would stay uptill forever. Part of it is I
didn't need a whole lot of sleep. I have a lot of energy naturally,
but I just hated to sleep.The other part is, you know
when you're sleeping, when you're lyingin bed, it's like all those thoughts,
(44:27):
right, and often they're not verygood thoughts. And so I just
did not It wasn't once I gotto bed, I fell asleep right away.
It was and I didn't wake upin the middle of the night and
couldn't go back to sleep. Inever had any of that, not through
paramountopause, none of it. Butwhat I had was I couldn't get myself
into bed because my mind was suchthat, oh, my gosh, there's
(44:50):
not enough hours in the day.Because we struggle with time, we're time
blind. Often there's not enough hoursin the day. Why would I waste
it in bed sleeping? There's somuch to do? And then I found
a statistic that showed that the quantityand quality of your REM sleep is directly
proportional to your lifespan. And yourREM sleep is the sleep that consolidates your
(45:15):
learning. So whatever you're learning duringthe day, when you go to sleep,
it consolidates your learning, which iswhy we shouldn't cram right in school
and all of that, which Idid all of it, it doesn't work.
And your REM sleep is it's likefree therapy. It's also responsible for
emotionally regulating your nervous system. Soonce I knew those three things, I
(45:37):
was like, Okay, I don'tneed eight hours, but I need to
at least try to get seven hours, And so that became my new normal.
And the thing is when you getinto bed determines when you're going to
wake up, determines when you're goingto get sleepy. So you can get
back into bed your circadian rhythm,right. And so if you can set
(45:59):
your day by first thing in themorning working out, you literally train your
brain where it is not I'm likea robot. Now, it's not even
the thought that, oh I don'twant to work out, like, I
don't even have those feelings ever.I just get up and I go because
I have trained my brain that Ifeel better when I do that. The
(46:19):
other thing that I think really worksis nature. We are I mean,
we're all you know, we're humans, we're animals, right, and we
are all about We're part of nature. And so nature is one of the
other things that I find is soimportant for the ADHD brain. So if
you can get outside for ten minutesfirst thing in the morning, again,
(46:43):
that will set your circadian clock,your circadian rhythms, rhythm, and it
really helps you to just kind ofanchor the day and again calm that nervous
system down. You know, ourcortisol levels typically are highest first thing in
the morning. I mean, evenwhen it's raining, if I can,
you know, even if i'm youknow, in the patio and the overhang,
(47:04):
I'll just go out there for afew minutes first thing in the morning,
and again you know that really helpsto to calm myself down. I'm
trying to think. Okay, sothis is my big strategy. Though,
wait where is it? This isa podcast? So or are you only
on YouTube? Do you? Areyou also on Oh you're on all the
platforms. You're on all the platforms. So what I'm holding up is it's
(47:27):
called a time cube, and thisis probably the biggest hack among my community.
So sometimes we struggle to start,right, there's something that we really
need to start, and we don'twant to start. All that is is
emotion. It's not about doing thething, it's about how we feel about
doing the thing. So what wehave to do is we have to get
(47:50):
out of our head and we haveto get into our body into action.
This time cube is the best wayto do that. And so what I'm
holding up this one happens to bebamboo, and unfortunately they don't make it
anymore. But there's all kinds oftimes around the side of it, ten,
twenty, twenty five, five ten, and then on one side is
a timer. The only side Iever really use is twenty five. So
(48:13):
what you do is you literally justset it like this and you turn it
on its end and it automatically startscounting down. And so the beauty of
this is you are right away gettinginto action. And so the deal I
strike with myself is you can doit for twenty five minutes. That's all
you have to do. If youwant to quit after twenty five minutes,
(48:34):
you may quit. Do you know, In I don't know, six years
of using this strategy, I havenever quit once. So what this does
is it sends me down into hyperfocus and it basically takes me out of
my brain and gets me into actionso that I'm not sitting there just you
know, how we can be inour brain and we're thinking, thinking,
thinking, we're actually doing something abouta problem, when in fact, we
(49:00):
don't know how it's going to workout until we get into action and do
it. So this is, forI know, my ADHD women like the
best hack ever because it forces youto get into action and we can do
anything for twenty five minutes. Yeah. I was going to ask you for
three key takeaways, but you literallyjust did them all. You just nailed
(49:20):
them all. Do you have anythingelse that you would like to add to
that? Because that was such acomplete wrap up of how to manage if
we're feeling these things, do youhave any of their takeaways that are important
to share before? I think thatprobably the most important thing I will say,
especially when it comes to our medicalhealth, is we are the best
(49:42):
expert on us. I don't carewho the doctor is. I don't care
who the specialist is. I don'tcare who the therapist is. They don't
have access to that inner rudder thatis who we are. Only we do
and we cannot give that away toanyone. And what I find is in
mid life and beyond, especially inour society where you know, you turn
(50:04):
like late forties fifty, all ofa sudden we become invisible, you know,
as women. And that is suchbullshit because what I have discovered,
well, you've seen studies. Recently, Forbes had a study out about all
the new businesses that are started,all the entrepreneurial ventures, Like the percentage
of women that are starting that arefifty five plus was off the charts.
(50:29):
I think it was the single biggestgroup. And we are the ones that
are out there doing this. Andso don't let anyone take your power away,
right, don't let anyone take yourconfidence away, because I know what
that feels like you know, especiallywhen we used to get a lot of
attention. It was different attention whenwe were younger. But this kind of
(50:52):
attention where you're actually able to changelives, where you're able to make a
difference, It not only changes otherpeople's lives, it also changes our own
life. And so I just believethat for women, we're past, you
know, raising the kids, We'repast those early stages of whatever careers we
(51:13):
had. Then these are the yearsof our life when we can really make
an impact, and we need tomake that impact to change society, to
make it better, because we haveso much wisdom. So I just want
to encourage any woman if she's thinkingof starting anything, you know, trying
anything different learning ADHD people, weare lifelong learners, just go out there
(51:37):
and do it. I can't encourageyou enough because you will make that difference,
and by changing other people's lives,you will change your own. So
thank you wonderful. How can peoplefind you and your resources, Tracy?
Probably the easiest way is to goto my website, which is ADHD forsmartwomen
dot com. Everything's there, excellent. Well, Tracy, of course,
(52:00):
I want to thank you so muchfor saying yes to me. I slid
into your DMS on social media andsaid, hey, I need you to
be on my show. And ofcourse you have proven to be one hundred
and fifty percent what we needed.And so I want to thank you so
much for taking your journey, learningwhat you've done, learning about yourself and
about other people, and to yourown point, changing your own life and
(52:23):
changing other people's lives in the process. What a gift you're bringing to the
world. Thank you so much,Thank you, it was a privilege.
Wonderful friends. Today. If you'reon YouTube, just look down below,
I'll have the link to Tracy thereand the title of her book and her
podcast. If you need to headto www. Dot Feminine roadmap dot com
(52:44):
Forward Slash episode three six two.You can also get a hold of all
the show notes there. Then well, they will be hyperlinked so you can
just click on them. You know, this is one of those conversations.
I know I say this all thetime, but seriously, every week when
I talk to my amazing guess whatthey bring to the table. This particular
topic, though, could be themissing puzzle piece for so many of us
(53:08):
that are feeling extra disconnected, extraconfused, extra frustrated with the changes within
our bodies and our minds, likewe feel beside ourselves as if we don't
even know who we are anymore,and to feel that there's no hope or
help for us is so discouraging.This is a resource that can put you,
(53:32):
back to Tracy's words, in yourpower, knowing yourself and understanding your
value and what you're struggling with sothat you can advocate for yourself so powerful.
You do not have to wear thejacket of the labels that you are
given. And we don't even needto look at ADHD as a label.
(53:52):
What we look at it as isit's a way our brain works. It's
neither positive nor negative in that context. It is the way that our brain
works. If you have it,and if it is, then what can
you do to be the most successful. We don't need to see it as
a negative or a disability or away of holding ourselves back. It can
(54:12):
just be part of who we areand it can be a superpower. So
many things that we have and oursuperpowers, And just really want to encourage
you. If any of this soundsfamiliar, Get on Tracy's Instagram, Get
on her website, listen to herpodcast. Just be curious and educate yourself.
If it's not you, maybe it'syour daughter, or your mother,
or your sister. You know,why not go in community and move this
(54:37):
forward in a way where we cantap into the best of who we are.
And if we know what our challengesare, then we can face that
challenge and use it to make ourlives better. So friends, tap into
those resources, figure out what itis that you're struggling with, and there's
hope. There's always hope. You'renot broken, there's nothing wrong with you.
(54:57):
This is just a shift in aseason and there are ways that we
can be successful. Thank you somuch for being with us today. Please
share this conversation with your friends,your sisters, your cousins, anybody you
can think of that this might relateto. And I look forward to sharing
more interesting and empowering people and conversationsand strategies with you in the weeks to
come. Take care of my friends. Bye bye,
Hi, I'm Gina for our Welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a cup of something
wonderful for real talk, life changingstrategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now, please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back
(00:29):
to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcastthat helps you navigate the challenges and the
changes of midlife and empowers you tolive a more vibrant second half. If
you find us on YouTube today,don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell.
You can catch all the show noteson www dot Feminine roadmap dot com
and any major podcast platform will haveall of the episodes. Today, we
(00:52):
are going to be talking about abrand new conversation. In the seven years
we've been doing this, I havenot talked about ADHD, and my guest
talks about how many people don't reallyknow what it is, what it looks
like, especially in women, whichleads to a lot of misdiagnoses, mismedication,
and she believes that there's a perimenopausalswitch that happens in some women causing
(01:19):
adult onset ADHD. My guest todayis Tracy Otsuka. She is a certified
ADHD coach. She is the hostof the ADHD for Smart Ass Women podcast,
and she is the author of hernew book, ADHD for Smart Ass
Women. Tracy, thank you somuch for being on my show today.
(01:40):
Well, thank you for having me. And I'm sure that there are some
people today who are thinking, Oh, that can't possibly be me. I'm
not even interested in this topic,and my suggestion and advice to you is
pay attention because most people have noidea what ADHD looks like. I'm really
excited to have this conversation because jokingly, you know, we talk about when
(02:05):
our hormones change, we literally feellike we're losing our mind. And there
really is a vein of people thatare afraid that they're actually getting dementia from
that. They don't understand brain fog. But then we have the confusion and
all these other things. So thisconversation is rounding out that kind of brain
conversation. So what led you tothis mission and this message, Tracy,
(02:25):
Well, it started out when myson was twelve, after three years of
all different kinds of testing and differenttherapies, from occupational therapy to visual spatial
visual processing therapy, he was finallydiagnosed with ADHD. And I had thought,
(02:46):
my husband thought that ADHD meant thatyou weren't very smart, you were
all over the place, and youwere not going to do very well in
life, and it could not befarther from the truth. So what we
did, though, however, waswe did know anything about ADHD. So
we ended up hiring a psychologist whowas supposedly an expert in our area in
(03:07):
ADHD. And after the third visit, she had sat my son down.
She had seen us as a familyand then it was just my husband and
me. It was just my husbandand me. Yeah, it was just
me. Yeah, just my husbandand me. I don't know why I
always mix those up. So wesat down with her and she said that
our job as his parents was toreduce his expectations because he was far too
(03:31):
ambitious, so he would not bedisappointed in life. So, needless to
say, that was the last timewe saw her, and so I decided
to start doing the research myself,and I learned everything I could possibly learn
about ADHD, and lo and behold. It took me eight months, but
eight months later I recognized that,oh my gosh, adhg is genetic.
(03:57):
It is about as genetic as height, so highly attic, he had to
get it from someone, and Irealized that he got it from me.
And I realized that because of onesentence that I read in the Bible of
Adhd at the time, which wasned halliwell's driven to distraction, and that
was that hyperactive. Excuse me,drivenness is a form of hyperactivity. I
(04:20):
am nothing if not driven. ButI did well in school, whereas my
son really struggled. And that isbecause boys typically externalize their symptoms versus girls
internalize them. And what I meanby that is if a girl has ADHD,
she's actually in her head beating herselfup about well, why can't I
(04:41):
do this? And I should bedoing that, and so she's always kind
of masking. That's how we tendto deal with ADHD or manage ADHD,
versus boys are kind of the stereotypicalclimbing up the walls, you know,
being a problem, mouthing off,annoying everyone, and so because they're so
annoying, they get the services.Girls are also twice as likely to have
(05:06):
a form of ADHD called inattentive ADHD. What that looks like is the absent
minded professor as an adult. Soyou know, you're just so outstanding in
that one area you're outstanding in.But then the everyday stuff like making sure
dinner's on the table, getting yourkids picked up on time, getting them
to school on time, making surea lot, you know, all of
(05:28):
that boring work that's like groundhog Daythat never ends because the next day it
starts all over again. Those arethe things that we can typically be kind
of terrible at, and so becausewe're you know, we're so bad in
those areas a lot of times,what will happen with women is they don't
even realize how brilliant they are inthe areas they're brilliant in. So in
(05:50):
the classroom, that inattentive girl canlook like the girl who sits in the
back and she's just in her ownlittle daydream. She's creating her own little
fan to see world. The teachercalls on her and she's like what what
And she doesn't even know what classshe's in, let alone that she's in
school, right because she's in herown little fantasy world. So what happens
(06:12):
to girls and women after years anddecades of internalizing all these symptoms. They
often get diagnosed with anxiety, depression, sometimes bipolar disorder, when underlying all
of it is ADHD, and ifyou treat the ADHD, sometimes all the
other symptoms will go away. Oftenit's comorbid. So there's a little bit
(06:34):
of a lot of those things.But and that's just how mental health works.
But you know, a lot oftimes the symptoms will go away.
I mean, the reason why she'sso anxious is because she's trying to manage
all the stuff that's going on withher brain and trying to figure out,
Okay, well, why can't Ido this the way everybody else can do
it. The other problem is allof the you know, the socialization issues
(06:59):
and sexism and this, you know, uh societal roles. Right, how
girls are supposed to be. Imean, if you think about life and
how you grew up, it wasjust assumed girls are always needed, right,
They have better penmanship, they're moreorganized, And this is not true.
It has nothing to do with whetheryou were born a girl or you
were born a boy. But becausethat's what society teaches us, we internalize
(07:26):
that the third thing or thing thatis different between girls and boys is girls
are typically diagnosed later in life,so they're diagnosed in puberty or after versus
boys tend to be diagnosed you know, seven, eight, nine years old.
So you know a lot of peoplethink, even experts, even you
(07:49):
know, clinicians who you know they'rein you know, mental health, they
think that if you don't have thesesymptoms when you're a child, that you
don't have ADHD. And granted youdo need symptoms as a child, but
what are the symptoms you're looking for? So hyperactivity can look like ultra chattiness
(08:11):
and what do we always think girlshave? Right? Girls are chatty?
Women talk too much? No,they don't. It's certain people with ADHD
that's just you know, a formof hyperactivity that they're going to be talking
a lot. So there are alot of symptoms that look different in women
than men and boys. That's reallyfascinating. Yeah, you know, I
(08:37):
totally understand what you're saying. Boysare squirrely, boys have difficulty learning.
You know, you have all ofthese statements, and then the girls are
kind of if they are not quietdoing what they're supposed to do, then
they're a problem. But it's notusually like an ADHD thing. Yeah,
I totally get that. It's funnybecause I have people that pop up in
(08:58):
my mind as you're saying these things. You know. But I'm very fascinated
to talk about the hormonal this adultonset because I think that, like I
said, there's a lot of confusionin our bodies and on our minds,
and we do begin to feel like, what's wrong with me? Why can't
I, you know, fill inthe blank. So let's talk a little
(09:22):
bit about this adult onset ADHD inorder to do that? Is it okay
if I back up a little bitand we talk about what ADHD is generally,
because that will then give a greaterunderstanding. First of all, it'll
allow your listener to think about,well, could that be me? And
then it'll give them a greater understandingof why we have this problem. What
(09:46):
I call maturity on set ADHD.Is that okay, absolutely, okay,
I don't want to do my ADHDjust run over people thing? Right?
Oh you are? You have thefloor, teach us all you can,
and the amount of time we havetogether wonderful. So ADHD is a neurobiological
condition, and ultimately what it meansis there's hyperactivity. You can't sit still
(10:09):
or hyperactivity in the brain. Youcan't shut the brain off. Right,
there's impulsivity, which bottom line meansyou think. I mean, you act
before you think often. And thenthe third one is distractability, So you
struggle with focus, you struggle withattention. However, what I want to
say, and no one ever talksabout this, and this is my big
(10:31):
you know, this is what Italk about. Forty three percent of all
adults with ADHD are in excellent mentalhealth. Yet all we do is focus
on the pathology, right, wefocus on what the ADHD brain does not
do well. Well, I willassure you that, yeah, there are
things that we're not so great atall, those things that I talked about
(10:54):
before, unless it's an area ofinterest. And that's what makes it so
hard to diagnose ADHD. It looksa little bit different in everyone, but
the common thread that we all haveis we have brains of interest. So,
and I'm gonna tell you why ina second. So if we're interested,
we'll totally pop in and we'll hyperfocus and you cannot distract us.
(11:18):
If we're not interested, we couldcare less. And that's how you end
up with that kid who parents willsay, oh my gosh, it's a
character flaw, it's a moral failing. He's not trying hard enough. She's
not trying hard enough because when she'sinterested, like when she's playing video games,
she can do that till the cowscome home. But then when it
comes to homework, she can't doanything right. So I just need and
(11:43):
I kind of did my ADHD digressionthing. But what I really want people
to understand is, yes, thereare things we struggle with, but there
are things that we are positively brilliantat. So what are some of the
telltale signs that people don't typically talkabout which you would never think, Oh,
that means you have ADHD. Soif you are the kind of person
(12:05):
number one that has unexplained underachievement,So what that looks like is you are
a woman that your friends will betalking to you and they're like, she
is so bright, you know,and she's so interesting and so interested in
so much, but why can't sheget it together? Like why hasn't she
been able to have really any successin you know, her career and maybe
(12:30):
as a parent she really struggles likewhat could that be unexplained underachievement? That
can be a sign of ADHD.The second one is consistent inconsistency. So
in my son, that would looklike a's and f's in the same class
in the same week. So youknow, it's just you can't even predict
like when is that brilliant brain goingto show up? And when is it
(12:56):
not? Well, it's going toshow up one it's interested, okay.
And so then the third one istypical tips and tricks for productivity, Like
those kind of productivity hacks, theyjust don't work for your ADHD brain.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat's the one, Eat that frog.
(13:16):
There's no way in hell I'm eatingthat frog, because eat that frog means
you do the hardest thing, firstthing in the morning, or just do
it. Well, if we couldjust do it, we would have just
done it. Or time blocking,you know, plan your whole calendar out
for the whole month and block allthe time. There is no way because
(13:37):
I just never know if I'm goingto show up on that day and want
to do that thing. And soagain it's about interest. So you have
those three things and what they alldo, So that'll kind of give you
an indication of oh, does itsound like me? Does it sound like
my kid, does that sound likemy friend? But then beyond that,
(14:00):
so why is this what is goingon with the ADHD brain that interest is
so important? It's dopamine and wedon't know it's a neurotransmitter. We don't
know, And dopamine is the it'sthe feel good motivation, just do it,
you know, let's get it done. Neurotransmitter or hormone. And so
(14:22):
they don't know for sure with ADHD, but we have enough brain stands and
you know, you know, waysthat they've looked at the brain that what
they do know is that it's eitherthat the ADHD brain doesn't make enough dopamine
or it's that we don't process itin the way that a typical brain processes
it. Now, dopamine controls ourprefrontal cortex, that frontal lobe of the
(14:46):
brain that is responsible for our executivefunctions. Our executive functions are like the
CEO of our brain, and thatis the part of our brain that is
responsible for planning and sc and timemanagement. We don't see time often.
It's responsible for motivation and decision makingand organization. So all of those things
(15:09):
are things that the ADHD brain struggleswith when we do well and don't struggle
so much in those areas. It'sbecause we are in an area the interest.
So now that we kind of understandhow the brain works and we understand
how important dopamine is, I'd loveto answer your question. And your question
(15:31):
was, so what is the dealwith this late in life? You know,
ADHD kind of diagnoses that a lotof women are receiving well. First
of all, just like in mostscience and medicine, women's bodies aren't studied,
right. We are just assumed thator it is just assumed that we
(15:52):
are many men. And so whenit comes to everything from you know,
architecture and how we design you know, homes and office buildings and cities and
you know, or how we organizethem or how you know, how we
determine what thermostat should you know,where should we set a thermostat in an
office building? Like, women arenever considered, and so what ends up
(16:15):
happening is they're ignored. And thatis exactly what happened with ADHD. So
all of the research up until veryrecently, and even the research that we
have now it's a little tiny,you know, study sizes, but all
of the research has pretty much beendone on prepubescent white boys, and so
that is why we haven't known.Frankly that you know, most people don't
(16:38):
even know that women can have ADHDor that girls can have ADHD. That's
changing because of COVID, and youknow, so the pandemic, everybody was
staying at home and all of asudden, you know, you had to
manage your career at home as awoman, you had to manage your whole
family at home, and then youhad to manage their education as well,
and women just got to the breakmaking point. But we also had all
(17:02):
this time at home. So westarted watching you know, TikTok videos and
we started to realize that, ohmy gosh, there is a reason why
my brain is the way or operatesthe way it operates. So what happens
with women is we have all thesestages in our life right where our hormones
start bouncing around. So puberty,which is when ADHD is typically diagnosed in
(17:26):
girls if we get it, pregnancy, hostpartum, paramenopause, and then menopause.
And so what happens with women inall those stages, but especially later
in life paramenopause and menopause is ourestrogen goes down. Well, guess what
(17:51):
they've finally discovered because of a fewlittle studies. Estrogen modulates dopamine. Okay,
so when you're estrogen goes down,your dopamine goes down. What controls
our prefrontal cortex the dopamine. Soso where am I going with this?
So estrogen modulates modulates dopamine. Andon top of all of that, we
(18:15):
know that for everybody, men,women, everybody, our dopamine goes down
ten percent per decade. So you'vegot that going on, You've got normal
menopause, perimenopause and menopause, andthen on top of that you put ADHD.
So where do you think our dopaminelevels are? Right? They're literally
in the toilet. And so womenlike me who I have always had ADHD,
(18:41):
I have always been extremely hyperactive.I've always been really chatty. I'm
totally entrepreneurial, and I believe thatmost entrepreneurs are somewhere on the ADHD spectrum
because it is a spectrum. SoI had symptoms, but I had the
good symptoms of ADHD. I hadthe drivenness, I had the you know,
(19:03):
extreme socialization, I had the highenergy, I had all the stuff
that really helped me as an entrepreneurand helped me to, you know,
have a law degree and get agraduate law degree. And I've had several
companies that I've run. It wasmy ADHD that allowed me to be successful.
But all of a sudden, rightaround perimenopause, I didn't even recognize
(19:30):
myself. I've always had really highconfidence. I was starting to question myself
in my confidence levels. I literallythought I had dementia because I could not
remember anything. And at one pointI actually went to the doctor's and I
was tested for Parkinson's. My handwritingchanged, just everything changed. Things I
(19:56):
could do so I am a hugecook or I was to the tune of
I could have seventy five people overfor dinner and I wouldn't even think twice
about it, like I loved it. I couldn't even cook for a party
of four. I couldn't get throughthe recipes, I couldn't read all the
text. I was burning things,and I had I was never like that
before. That was where I washighly confident. My whole brain changed and
(20:19):
I felt like my whole personality waschanging. And so I had gone to
everyone. I had gone to ahormone specialist. I had gone to my
gynecologist, I had gone to anatural path I had gone to a psychologist.
(20:40):
The psychologist, by the way,she was also she was Chinese,
so she was also Asian. Andshe looked at me, and I was
like, what is going on withme? And she said, there's nothing
wrong with you at all. It'sjust, you know, it's an Asian
thing. The bloom comes off therows and we're always such drivers, and
things are just never as exciting asthey, you know, have been in
(21:02):
the past, and it's just whathappens when you get older. So that
was the advice that I was given. And it wasn't until I figured out
for myself that it was ADHD thateverything changed, because once we understand what
it is, then we can startbuilding strategies and workarounds and so, you
know, I completely reinvented my life, my career, my you know,
(21:25):
and this is what I do,helping thousands of women understand they're brilliant ADHD
brains. Because most of the informationarount out there is about the the pathology
of ADHD. Everything that's broken,Yeah, and I think that's what makes
it difficult to want to face itis because the context that it's delivered in
(21:47):
is negative. Right. We thinkthat if you have this then you are
wrong or bad or insufficient and broken. Right. Yeah, so I would
imagine that it's difficult for women towrap their minds around it in a positive
way initially. Do you find thatto be true? Absolutely, and especially
if from the time you were akid. See, I was one of
(22:11):
the lucky ones. I realize nowI did fairly well in school, but
I realize now that I worked harderthan everybody. So I was the one
who worked for weeks in advance,put together the most incredible notes. Like
when I went through law school,the books that we'd have to read,
I can't remember what you call them. They were all tabbed, they were
(22:32):
highlighted, and then from there Iwould create this incredible outline in a notebook
that was also tabbed and highlighted andyou know, with red pencil. And
then from there it went to afew page outline. From there it went
to note cards. I mean,it was insane the amount of work I
did to do as well as Iwas able to do, but that was
(22:53):
because of my ADHD. And thenI would give it to my roommate.
She would study the night before andyou would always get a half a grade
at least higher than I did,you know, And so you start to
think that, well, I mustnot be very smart, right m And
I was lucky like my son.I remember, he went to go He
went to three high schools in fouryears. And in his junior year,
(23:15):
he was so excited because finally hewas able to sit down with the career
with the college counselor. She sathim down and she said to him.
She gave him a pamphlet. Shedidn't say anything. She gave him a
pamphlet on how to be an hback technician. Now, there is nothing
wrong with being an h back technician, if that's what you're passionate about.
(23:37):
My kid was scared of bugs.H back technicians. They crawl under houses,
like you know. And then shesaid to me, and this was,
you know, a woman who hadbeen a professor at Stanford, and
she had started Stanford Online Universe HighSchool. And she said, there is
nothing more we can do for yourson. I just want to port that
(24:00):
my son is a senior at NYUand he's graduating in May. I don't
know how he did it. Threemajors in four years. But he's graduating
and what he has decided, he'sgoing to be a psychologist. And he
was also diagnosed with dyslexia, butnot until his sophomore year, sophomore junior
(24:21):
year of college. So had theycaught that early on, right, I
mean they saw ADHD, and soall you see is ADHD. They didn't
find the dyslexia. They didn't seethe dyslexia even though he kept asking about
it. So I guess my reasonfor bringing this up is if something feels
(24:41):
wrong, if you feel like thereis just something not going right with your
brain, and you know you're bright, and you know that you're not achieving
what you're capable of, consider ADHD. You know. It's fascinating how as
(25:03):
humans we learned to cope with whateverour challenges are, right, We just
kind of accept it and find theworkarounds. And the more challenged a person
is, the more workarounds they haveto come up with. I'm thinking about
my oldest daughter, and we hadchallenges. I homeschooled my girls, so
(25:25):
I was aware of their learning styles, you know, and choosing a curriculum
that was suited to the way thatthey learned, so it was really helpful.
But we hit this spot round aboutfifth grade for her, and I
realized that there was some sort ofbreakdown like from her brain to paper when
(25:48):
it came to writing, she couldn'tdo like a simple book report because there
was some kind of a processing yes, dysfunction. So this is the thing,
as you talk, you know,we struggled through that as a family,
and I did. I tried everythingI knew and things that I wasn't
sure were going to work, andwe finally found a place like we did
(26:10):
a very non traditional because I neededto give her a feeling of I can
do this, because it's so demoralizingto struggle without knowing why you're struggling.
Do you just need you to betrue? Yes, And that's that's the
thing, like I'm not good atthis or I can't, which drives me
bananas. The word can't because maybeyou can't do it to that level.
(26:33):
But there's so much we can do. So these workarounds that you're talking about,
the highlighting, the coloring, thetabbing, the this that that you
know, I see that, andwe ended up doing word vomiting is what
I called it. We're not goingto worry about what the words are,
what they mean, whether they're important. Just get them out and once I
helped her process getting them out tothe whole in your head thing. So,
(26:57):
what strategies or what things do youencourage women to do If they consider
that this is a problem that theyhave, they probably have a workaround or
maybe they just have given up.I don't know. I guess it could
go either way, right, Yeah, I mean, sadly, what happens
to a lot of women is thatthey develop what we call learned helplessness.
(27:18):
And you can understand why that wouldhappen, right, If your entire life
you try to do things you can'tdo it. You can do it,
you can't do it their way,but you have your own way. And
so if you're constantly told your wayisn't the right way, this is how
you have to do it, you'rejust like, Okay, forget it,
I'm not going to do it.Okay, tell me what to do.
(27:40):
And then the rest of your lifeyou're being told what to do. And
then guess what happens, you know, right, Yeah, when you're living,
what ends up happening is when you'redoing what other people want you to
do right, you end up livingtheir life instead of your life. And
so for an ADHD brain, Ithink the most important thing is number one,
(28:02):
that you are in an area ofenter interest. Yes, and you
know what that is. Right whenyou're passionate, when you're just lit up,
when you're like I am in theright place at the right time,
that is where you need to be. That is where you need to be
exploring more. When you are strugglingand you just hate it and you're beating
yourself up and you're not good atit, stop doing it. I mean.
(28:26):
And so many ADHD women what happensis they struggle in school, right,
their brain is because also with ADHD, and this is mental health.
What we are discovering is that whenyou have one thing like let's say you
have anxiety, and anxiety is juststress, right, it's how you're it's
(28:47):
your nervous system regulation and how you'redealing with your nervous system. And you
could understand that if you're a younggirl and you have ADHD, that you
would have anxiety because you're stressed allthat time. So what was the question?
Where where were we going? Myad? What's so funny? Now
(29:07):
you've got me on a tangent aboutdysregulation, that whole disregulated system, because
I was basically commenting on you eithergive up right or you Yeah, learned
helplessness. Learn helplessness is where wewere headed. But I do I see
that dysregulation, and I've also seenthat learned helplessness, which I'm that that
(29:29):
that characteristic drives me bananas. Idon't have it in our home, but
I have people in my life whodo that. That drives me bonkers.
But in a context, it's interestingto look at it from a different angle.
Yeah. Absolutely, If you havenever felt safe, if you have
never felt like you were seen forwho you are, regardless of what you
(29:53):
do or how you do it,that's trauma. And what's traumatic to may
not be traumatic to you, andvice versa. Right, So we I
mean, we have to take thatinto account and guess what the symptoms of
trauma mirror ADHD almost exactly. Sothen you throw trauma into the next What
(30:17):
do you think your prefrontal cortex isdoing? You know, it's constantly off
right and on that high alert,which which takes all of your energies and
all of your resources away from thistask at hand. Right from the planning,
the processing, the scheduling, youknow, time management, all of
(30:37):
it. So okay, so wewere just talking about learned helplessness and then
we're but you had a question beyondthat that. While we were talking about,
you know, how how do youhelp women? You know, because
they're either going to give up ortheir or their you know, right,
so you need to be in anarea of interest. And so what I
(31:00):
was saying is that because school canbe so hard for so many of these
girls, they end up in thesemenial jobs. And I have a theory
that ADHD women are not meant tofollow. So stop trying to fit in.
You are never going to fit in. You are meant to lead.
So the goal is figure out whereis that. Because when when we're in
(31:21):
interest, we are we pop intohyper focus, so we learn faster and
better than anyone else. And mypremise is that anything that has been that,
anyone that has moved any big ideasforward in life, I'm certain the
wheel was invented by someone with ADHD. It is a person with ADHD.
Because remember how we were talking aboutall the thoughts, right, the hyperactivity
(31:45):
of all the thoughts, that's whatgoes on in the ADHD brain. So
those thoughts, though are exactly whatmake us creative. So someone who's linear
thinking, they're just thinking of whatis in front of that, and they
already know what they expect, andso that's all they see the ADHD brain,
(32:06):
which we can kind of sometimes feellike, oh my god, she's
all over the place and she's daydreamingand she's but that exact brain type is
what is creativity. We have allthe thoughts all at the same time,
and then we're able to harness themand put them together in a way that
nobody has ever thought to create aproduct that nobody has ever come up with,
(32:29):
or an idea that no one hasever thought of. So we need
people with ADHD and we need typicalsto support them, right, because we
are great starters all the ideas.We're okay middlers in terms of getting the
ideas to fruition because it's fun andit's interesting, but we're kind of awful,
(32:53):
you know, at the at thefollow up stage, because by then
it's just so boring. So weneed those people at the follow up stage,
right. We build the businesses,and they're the ones that then keep
it going. Once we've lost interestin our own to the next business.
So it's the problem of finishing.Yeah. Well, and what I always
(33:13):
talk about with my women is weneed to learn how to be last five
percent finishers. Yeah, all thethings that are important to us. You
know. Part of the problem isso the ADHD brain, as I mentioned,
it's an interest based nervous system.A typical brain has an important space
nervous system. If it's important tothe parents, if it's important to the
(33:37):
teachers, if it's important to thecoaches and the spouses and the bosses that
you get that thing done because youshould just get it done. They can
say, Okay, I'm going toget it done. We can't do that.
It's or we can, but it'sso much harder because we have these
interest based nervous systems. If we'renot interested, it's really hard for us
(33:59):
to do that thing. So youhave these girls who struggle in school and
so then they take these menial jobslike I don't know, there are Starbucks,
bury stuff. Again, if that'swhat you want to do and you're
passionate about it, go for it. But for many of us, it's
just not enough. We're not aiminghigh enough. And so what you'll find
in school is school will typically geteasier and easier if you're in an area
(34:25):
of interest. So if you're atthat PhD level, if you're at the
master's level, all of a suddenyou're the valedictorian. Again, it's because
of interest versus what does education do? Education until we get into frankly grad
school, it goes wide instead ofdeep. You have to learn all of
the things, and most of thosethings we don't give a crap about.
(34:46):
So that's what makes it so hard. So basically, our ability to be
bought in, yes, the reasonwe succeed. And if we're not bought
in, it's literally like fighting upstream. It's painful. Yes, yeah,
(35:10):
I see that. Okay, Sointerest is where I go first. Then
I go to positive emotion. Andthis is true for everybody, but it
is especially true for the ADHD brain. And this is so important for kids.
If we are not in positive emotion, we can't get out of our
(35:31):
own way. But we're in positiveemotion, the sky is the limit.
Nobody can stop us. No,So this you know, what do they
call that kind of parenting? Toughlove parenting, all of that, and
we don't like to be told whatto do, so we can get very
oppositional, right, So you putthat combination together, it is just not
(35:54):
going to be successful. It's notgoing to work. You are never going
to win against someone with ADHD who'sstubborn and is like you know, you
may win in that one instance,but you will not win the long haul.
So for kids with ADHD, themost important thing that a parent can
do is be that person who justbelieves in them against all the odds because
(36:19):
they are fighting usually the education system, they're struggling with the relationships with friends
there. You know, it's lifeis just harder for them when you know,
just school is so is so hardand that follows us all the way
through. So it is so importantto be in positive emotions. So if
(36:39):
you are struggling to do this thingyou don't really want to do, how
can you make it fun, challengingor social? Because those three things spiked
dopamine for all brains, but especiallyfor the ADHD brain. So, okay,
I don't want my kitchen to looklike a disaster. And just so
(37:00):
you know, not everybody with ADHDhas a disaster of a home. Some
of them can be like me,which is a recovering perfectionist. So I
call it visual pollution. If everythingaround me is not perfect, I cannot
focus on the thing that I needto focus on or that I want to
(37:20):
focus on. So I'll do thisthing called procrasta cleaning, which I think
is a really successful type of procrastination. As procrastination, things come. But
still, I want people to knowthat, again, you've met one person
with ADHD, You've met one personwith ADHD. The symptoms look different in
everyone, a little bit different ineveryone, but we all have this interest
(37:45):
and we all have this need forpositive emotion. So if you've got to
get that thing done, because weall do. We live in a society
that you know, you got topay your taxes, you got to pay
your bills. How can you makeit challenging? How can you make it
fun? How can you make itsocial? We're very social. Connecting with
(38:07):
other humans is so important for us. So again, if I've got to
get the dishes washed, because I'mnot going to walk out in the morning
to this kitchen, that's a bigdisaster. Because positive emotion, right,
So what can I do well?I can put on music, I can
you know, enlist help which theyshould be there helping anyway and list help,
(38:28):
you know, to kind of makeit a game. I know that.
Okay, last time I washed allthe dishes in twelve minutes. Today,
I'm going to beat that time.We love to be challenged. I'm
going to do it in ten andyou put on a timer and then of
course, you know, my bigthing is my big one is I can
listen to a podcast so I cando whatever I need to do to make
that task more fun, challenging orsocial. It's bringing dopamine into the equation
(38:57):
for yourself, is what I hearyou saying. So if it is a
dopamine crashing task, you know whatis going to bring the dopamine back into
the equations. So that now thisperimenopausal how is it, how is it
presenting itself? How are we aswomen going to maybe recognize it or identify
(39:22):
the possibility that this could be somethingwe're struggling with. Well, and it's
hard to tease it out, rightbecause just perimenopause and menopause in general,
everything that's the same area of thebrain. Right, So it's a dopamine
issue too, But it would beso uncharacteristic that you're like, there is
(39:43):
something truly wrong here, And Ithink so seventy five percent at least seventy
five percent of women that have ADHDhave not been diagnosed. And I would
say, I'm going to get myselfout here on a limb. I would
say most of the women who feellike I don't even recognize myself anymore,
(40:04):
that it's so severe my working memory, because we all have that where you
walk into a room and you're goingto go do something and then you forget
right stand there going Yeah, butit's how often does it happen, and
does it happen to the point whereit is really making life so much more
(40:24):
difficult? Ye, Like, it'snot funny anymore, Right, it gets
scary for some women? Yes,yes, if you're talking about to the
point where I feel like my wholepersonality has changed and it's scary, I
would absolutely look into ADHD. Mmhmm. Now lifestyle choices. I realize
(40:49):
we're talking about, you know,chemicals, and we're talking about all obviously
by this point, habits, workarounds, coping skills, and now our whole
life is changed. Every woman Italk to a midlife we just feel like
we are is what is happening.There's so many variables and so many changes,
(41:09):
and so what kind of health strategiesor are there any health strategies that
can set us up to get ourselvesback on track. Yes, and they're
probably all that many women will hate. But I promise you if you just
start with one, and just starta little bit. So you know,
(41:30):
I know so many people are soadverse to the term exercise, and so
I try not to use that andwhat I use more is just move your
body. And when you're moving yourbody, after you're done, I want
you to pay attention. So oneof the things ADHD women often are not
so good at because we're just Icall us next people. We're always onto
(41:52):
that next thing, right, We'relooking for the dopamine, and so we
don't pause long enough to get insideour body and ask ourselves, Okay,
so I just worked out how doI feel? Or I just went for
a walk, how do I feel? Because when you connect how you feel
to the fact that you moved yourbody, it is so much easier to
(42:15):
move your body because you know,on the other side of moving your body,
this is how you're going to feelso much better. And so what
you do is you literally change yourbrain. It's neuroplasticity. You know.
I used to work out. I'vealways worked out, and that's how I've
managed my ADHD. And as asmall girl, up until I was thirteen
years old, I danced ballet sixdays a week, and I am certain
(42:37):
that that's what saved me as well. Because what we know is exercise also
increases dopamine, and exercise is aseffective. So a course of exercise twenty
only twenty minutes at seventy percent ofyour maximum heart rate is comparable to a
course of adderall which is a stimulantmedication for ADHD, and Prozac, which
(43:01):
is medication for depression. Right,so I think they might prescribe it for
anxiety at times too. So weknow that it helps any brain, but
it really helps the ADHD brain.And what we've discovered is there are some
people who, you know, liketheir marathon runners, they're just really physically
(43:22):
active and they're able to manage theirADHD, don't even know they have ADHD,
and then something will happen. They'llhurt their knee, they'll break a
leg, they can't work out theway they worked out before, and all
of a sudden, they get allof these, you know, symptoms that
they never had before. So exercisesleep. And I was the biggest sleep
(43:44):
denier until I had to do apresentation for Attitude magazine on sleep, and
it was called revenge bedtime procrastination becausethat's who I was. I you know
that that's time when every that else'sasleep and you have it all to yourself
and you don't even have to dowork, you can just do whatever you
(44:07):
want. Well, it's going torevenge bed time procrastination, and that's who
I was. I would stay uptill forever. Part of it is I
didn't need a whole lot of sleep. I have a lot of energy naturally,
but I just hated to sleep.The other part is, you know
when you're sleeping, when you're lyingin bed, it's like all those thoughts,
(44:27):
right, and often they're not verygood thoughts. And so I just
did not It wasn't once I gotto bed, I fell asleep right away.
It was and I didn't wake upin the middle of the night and
couldn't go back to sleep. Inever had any of that, not through
paramountopause, none of it. Butwhat I had was I couldn't get myself
into bed because my mind was suchthat, oh, my gosh, there's
(44:50):
not enough hours in the day.Because we struggle with time, we're time
blind. Often there's not enough hoursin the day. Why would I waste
it in bed sleeping? There's somuch to do? And then I found
a statistic that showed that the quantityand quality of your REM sleep is directly
proportional to your lifespan. And yourREM sleep is the sleep that consolidates your
(45:15):
learning. So whatever you're learning duringthe day, when you go to sleep,
it consolidates your learning, which iswhy we shouldn't cram right in school
and all of that, which Idid all of it, it doesn't work.
And your REM sleep is it's likefree therapy. It's also responsible for
emotionally regulating your nervous system. Soonce I knew those three things, I
(45:37):
was like, Okay, I don'tneed eight hours, but I need to
at least try to get seven hours, And so that became my new normal.
And the thing is when you getinto bed determines when you're going to
wake up, determines when you're goingto get sleepy. So you can get
back into bed your circadian rhythm,right. And so if you can set
(45:59):
your day by first thing in themorning working out, you literally train your
brain where it is not I'm likea robot. Now, it's not even
the thought that, oh I don'twant to work out, like, I
don't even have those feelings ever.I just get up and I go because
I have trained my brain that Ifeel better when I do that. The
(46:19):
other thing that I think really worksis nature. We are I mean,
we're all you know, we're humans, we're animals, right, and we
are all about We're part of nature. And so nature is one of the
other things that I find is soimportant for the ADHD brain. So if
you can get outside for ten minutesfirst thing in the morning, again,
(46:43):
that will set your circadian clock,your circadian rhythms, rhythm, and it
really helps you to just kind ofanchor the day and again calm that nervous
system down. You know, ourcortisol levels typically are highest first thing in
the morning. I mean, evenwhen it's raining, if I can,
you know, even if i'm youknow, in the patio and the overhang,
(47:04):
I'll just go out there for afew minutes first thing in the morning,
and again you know that really helpsto to calm myself down. I'm
trying to think. Okay, sothis is my big strategy. Though,
wait where is it? This isa podcast? So or are you only
on YouTube? Do you? Areyou also on Oh you're on all the
platforms. You're on all the platforms. So what I'm holding up is it's
(47:27):
called a time cube, and thisis probably the biggest hack among my community.
So sometimes we struggle to start,right, there's something that we really
need to start, and we don'twant to start. All that is is
emotion. It's not about doing thething, it's about how we feel about
doing the thing. So what wehave to do is we have to get
(47:50):
out of our head and we haveto get into our body into action.
This time cube is the best wayto do that. And so what I'm
holding up this one happens to bebamboo, and unfortunately they don't make it
anymore. But there's all kinds oftimes around the side of it, ten,
twenty, twenty five, five ten, and then on one side is
a timer. The only side Iever really use is twenty five. So
(48:13):
what you do is you literally justset it like this and you turn it
on its end and it automatically startscounting down. And so the beauty of
this is you are right away gettinginto action. And so the deal I
strike with myself is you can doit for twenty five minutes. That's all
you have to do. If youwant to quit after twenty five minutes,
(48:34):
you may quit. Do you know, In I don't know, six years
of using this strategy, I havenever quit once. So what this does
is it sends me down into hyperfocus and it basically takes me out of
my brain and gets me into actionso that I'm not sitting there just you
know, how we can be inour brain and we're thinking, thinking,
thinking, we're actually doing something abouta problem, when in fact, we
(49:00):
don't know how it's going to workout until we get into action and do
it. So this is, forI know, my ADHD women like the
best hack ever because it forces youto get into action and we can do
anything for twenty five minutes. Yeah. I was going to ask you for
three key takeaways, but you literallyjust did them all. You just nailed
(49:20):
them all. Do you have anythingelse that you would like to add to
that? Because that was such acomplete wrap up of how to manage if
we're feeling these things, do youhave any of their takeaways that are important
to share before? I think thatprobably the most important thing I will say,
especially when it comes to our medicalhealth, is we are the best
(49:42):
expert on us. I don't carewho the doctor is. I don't care
who the specialist is. I don'tcare who the therapist is. They don't
have access to that inner rudder thatis who we are. Only we do
and we cannot give that away toanyone. And what I find is in
mid life and beyond, especially inour society where you know, you turn
(50:04):
like late forties fifty, all ofa sudden we become invisible, you know,
as women. And that is suchbullshit because what I have discovered,
well, you've seen studies. Recently, Forbes had a study out about all
the new businesses that are started,all the entrepreneurial ventures, Like the percentage
of women that are starting that arefifty five plus was off the charts.
(50:29):
I think it was the single biggestgroup. And we are the ones that
are out there doing this. Andso don't let anyone take your power away,
right, don't let anyone take yourconfidence away, because I know what
that feels like you know, especiallywhen we used to get a lot of
attention. It was different attention whenwe were younger. But this kind of
(50:52):
attention where you're actually able to changelives, where you're able to make a
difference, It not only changes otherpeople's lives, it also changes our own
life. And so I just believethat for women, we're past, you
know, raising the kids, We'repast those early stages of whatever careers we
(51:13):
had. Then these are the yearsof our life when we can really make
an impact, and we need tomake that impact to change society, to
make it better, because we haveso much wisdom. So I just want
to encourage any woman if she's thinkingof starting anything, you know, trying
anything different learning ADHD people, weare lifelong learners, just go out there
(51:37):
and do it. I can't encourageyou enough because you will make that difference,
and by changing other people's lives,you will change your own. So
thank you wonderful. How can peoplefind you and your resources, Tracy?
Probably the easiest way is to goto my website, which is ADHD forsmartwomen
dot com. Everything's there, excellent. Well, Tracy, of course,
(52:00):
I want to thank you so muchfor saying yes to me. I slid
into your DMS on social media andsaid, hey, I need you to
be on my show. And ofcourse you have proven to be one hundred
and fifty percent what we needed.And so I want to thank you so
much for taking your journey, learningwhat you've done, learning about yourself and
about other people, and to yourown point, changing your own life and
(52:23):
changing other people's lives in the process. What a gift you're bringing to the
world. Thank you so much,Thank you, it was a privilege.
Wonderful friends. Today. If you'reon YouTube, just look down below,
I'll have the link to Tracy thereand the title of her book and her
podcast. If you need to headto www. Dot Feminine roadmap dot com
(52:44):
Forward Slash episode three six two.You can also get a hold of all
the show notes there. Then well, they will be hyperlinked so you can
just click on them. You know, this is one of those conversations.
I know I say this all thetime, but seriously, every week when
I talk to my amazing guess whatthey bring to the table. This particular
topic, though, could be themissing puzzle piece for so many of us
(53:08):
that are feeling extra disconnected, extraconfused, extra frustrated with the changes within
our bodies and our minds, likewe feel beside ourselves as if we don't
even know who we are anymore,and to feel that there's no hope or
help for us is so discouraging.This is a resource that can put you,
(53:32):
back to Tracy's words, in yourpower, knowing yourself and understanding your
value and what you're struggling with sothat you can advocate for yourself so powerful.
You do not have to wear thejacket of the labels that you are
given. And we don't even needto look at ADHD as a label.
(53:52):
What we look at it as isit's a way our brain works. It's
neither positive nor negative in that context. It is the way that our brain
works. If you have it,and if it is, then what can
you do to be the most successful. We don't need to see it as
a negative or a disability or away of holding ourselves back. It can
(54:12):
just be part of who we areand it can be a superpower. So
many things that we have and oursuperpowers, And just really want to encourage
you. If any of this soundsfamiliar, Get on Tracy's Instagram, Get
on her website, listen to herpodcast. Just be curious and educate yourself.
If it's not you, maybe it'syour daughter, or your mother,
or your sister. You know,why not go in community and move this
(54:37):
forward in a way where we cantap into the best of who we are.
And if we know what our challengesare, then we can face that
challenge and use it to make ourlives better. So friends, tap into
those resources, figure out what itis that you're struggling with, and there's
hope. There's always hope. You'renot broken, there's nothing wrong with you.
(54:57):
This is just a shift in aseason and there are ways that we
can be successful. Thank you somuch for being with us today. Please
share this conversation with your friends,your sisters, your cousins, anybody you
can think of that this might relateto. And I look forward to sharing
more interesting and empowering people and conversationsand strategies with you in the weeks to
come. Take care of my friends. Bye bye,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.