Kristen Carder 0:05
Music. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast, where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults. With ADHD, I’m your host, Kristen Carter and I have ADHD, let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder, I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristin Carter, and you’ve tuned into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. What’s up? ADHD ers, how are you? Thank you so much for pressing play on this podcast. I am so happy that you’re here. We are here together trying to survive the end of winter, the beginning of spring, when at least, if you are in a cold area of the world, it is just like, will we ever get to nice weather time? That is the time of year, it is like, will we ever get there? And so if you are just like trying to survive and hanging on for dear life, hanging on by a thread, same I am in this with you. I’ve got a solo episode for you today. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. As I always say for these solo shows, buckle up. We’re going in a lot of different directions. If you have ADHD, like I have ADHD, hopefully that’s a really fun ride for you. And if you don’t just hang on tight, hang on tight for dear life, because we’re going in a bunch of different directions. Today we’re going to talk about how to follow through when life happens.

And in the last month, life has happened to me, and I’ve learned a lot, and so I’m going to share that with you. I’m going to share an awesome resource with you. You’re going to be able to implement it with your following through practice, and we’re going to talk about some research that I’m very much looking forward to getting to, because it literally proves that working out and physical exercise is harder for us at each deers than it is for neurotypicals. And you know that I’ve been on like a kick lately? I’ve been on a kick about this type of thing. So we’re going to talk about that today, and I’m going to answer a voice mail from a listener. I love it when y’all call in, so don’t ever stop. We’re going to talk about emotional regulation, and how to do that when you don’t have the space to, like, leave the room and go hide in a corner. Like, how do you regulate your emotions in real time? So those are the places that we are going today. Before we get started, parents, I want to talk to you for a second before we get started here with this episode, I want to take a minute to talk to the parents who have ADHD, who are trying to parent children who may or may not have ADHD.

I’m curious, do you feel like your emotions hijack your ability to parent? Like one moment you’re calm, and the next you’re snapping, you’re overwhelmed, you’re shutting down, you’re just like, you’re not okay. When I was parenting little kids, not so much anymore, but when I was parenting little kids, I felt like I was swinging between Mary Poppins and Cruella de Vil all day long. Just like the pendulum would swing from me being like sweet and kind and creative and just wonderful to like hot mess. I’m picturing the car scene where, like, Carla Deville is, like driving the car like a like a crazy woman. I would swing between those two opposite extremes all day, every day.

And I wonder if you feel like you do that too. Maybe if you’re a dude, you feel more like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, like swinging between two extremes. What happens when this is kind of our life is our kids don’t know which version of us is going to show up, right? And then, because we recognize that, and we can see the impact of our emotions on our kids, we start to spiral in guilt and shame. I’m wondering, If that sounds familiar, what I’ve recognized is that emotional regulation is the number one skill that makes parenting with ADHD possible, like good enough parenting with ADHD, it is born out of our ability to emotionally regulate. It doesn’t mean that we perfect. It doesn’t mean that we do everything right, but if we can regulate our emotions, we can be good enough parents with ADHD, and the best news is that you can absolutely strengthen this skill starting right now and here, here’s what I’m going to offer to you.

I want you to join me for a live master class on Tuesday, March 25 at 1pm where I’m going to teach you a simple, ADHD friendly tool that you can start using immediately. No fly. Off, no vague advice, just a real strategy that works for ADHD brains, that you can implement like today immediately with your kiddos. No matter what their ages are, maybe they’re already grown and flown, but you would like to strengthen your relationship with them. This tool will help you. Okay, so what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna go to, I have adhd.com/free class, and there you’re going to pop in your email, and that means you’re going to sign up for the class. Whether or not you can make it live, it doesn’t really matter, because I’m going to send you the replay, but if you can come live, you’re going to get access to an extra bonus, and I’ll be able to answer your questions on the call in real time. I would absolutely love for you to join me, especially if you’re a parent, especially if you have ADHD, especially if you want to improve your relationship with your kiddos, go to Ihaveadhd.com/free class to sign up. All right, we’re going to be talking about how to follow through when life happens. And the reason why I’m talking about this is because for the last two months, all of January, all of February, I taught a course in focused which is my ADHD coaching program. I taught a course on how to follow through, and in the middle of the course, my family starts to get sick.

Everybody, everybody is getting sick. They’re falling like dominoes. I already told you this story. I already told you this story, they’re falling like dominoes, and I am super smug and like, I’m not getting sick. I’m so much better than everyone else. And then Dun, dun, dun. It hit me. It hit me, and I was not okay. I was I was not able to work. I was not able to function. I was so sick. And it was ironic that I’m teaching a course on how to follow through to a bunch of ADHD ers who are struggling to follow through. And in the middle of the course, I get sick and I’m not able to follow through and listen it each year, following through is hard enough when everything goes right, like it takes so much energy, it takes so much effort, it takes so much emotional regulation and, like, mental and emotional capacity when Everything is going right. But what about when life happens? What ha? What about when the plan was solid and the motivation was even there, but then a kid gets sick, or you get sick, or work throws you a curve ball, or something completely unexpected, forces you to pivot, forces you to pause, forces you to stop. I’m getting warm talking about it because it’s so annoying. It’s so frustrating, and it can feel like all of this effort that you’ve put into gathering momentum and like getting the train moving, it gets wiped out by circumstances beyond your control. I want you to think about and I’ve talked about this before, but I love this analogy. If you picture like one of those old steam trains, this is such a nerdy analogy, but I’m just gonna go ahead. Okay, if you picture one of those old, old, old steam trains that takes just like, so long to get moving. It’s like,

I don’t even know that I’m not my kids would be mortified right now, but do you know what I’m saying? It just like, it takes so long for it to get rolling, and it takes so much effort, and there’s just so much needed to get the momentum flowing. But then when it’s once, it starts moving, it’s got the velocity, it’s got the momentum, and it’s just like, it’s on the track and it’s moving. I feel like, for so many of ADHD brains, so many of us with ADHD, that’s what it’s like, like, getting started is so hard, and so finally, we’re like, kind of in this rhythm, and we’re going and that’s great, but then life happens. Something unexpected happens, something outside of our control happens, and that disruption, especially when you have ADHD, can be super hard to recover from, because re engaging with the task after you’ve stopped, it’s like having to start that steam engine going again, and so it feels like starting from scratch. It feels like I’m like, I’ve been interrupted. My streak is broken, and now I have to use all of this emotional, physical, mental, spiritual energy to get myself going again, and our ADHD brains are always doing a cost benefit analysis.

Our brains are always trying to decide, is this worth it? Is this? Is this gonna be worth it? Like it’s all of the effort that I have to put in to starting over, to restarting. To, like, gathering the momentum and gathering the effort, is it gonna be worth it? And this is so often why we just kind of throw in the towel and we give up, because we decide when we do that cost benefit analysis, and maybe you’re not even aware of the cost benefit analysis that your brain is doing in the background, like behind the scenes, we do that cost benefit analysis, and so often we determine whether consciously or unconsciously, Nope, it’s just not worth it. This is just not worth it. It is too much effort.

And so I just want to say, like, if you are, if you are really trying to follow through on something which all of us are like. We want to have jobs, we want to have homes that function properly. We want to have relationships with people. We want to be connected to our communities. We want to accomplish things in our lives. But that’s that like interruption and starting from scratch can just feel so overwhelmingly difficult, and so I just want to encourage you that like life happens and plans will get derailed. That doesn’t actually sound like an encouragement, so I apologize, but it is, I promise. Because here’s the thing, I want you to really be conscious to remember that it’s not a personal failure when life happens. It’s just reality. It’s just the way of it. It’s just what happens. Because we live in a world like we just live in this world, and life happens, and the faster that we can accept interruptions and setbacks as a part of the process, not like an indictment of our abilities or our intentions or our ability to follow through, then the faster that we can recover, because when life happens and we say, I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow through.

I knew I would get interrupted. I knew it wasn’t worth it. I knew it like, Have you said that to yourself, ADHD, or because I’ve said it to myself, and then I spiral in shame and frustration and self blame and self loathing, and then all of that extra work is heaped on, and now the effort is even more comprehensive. I don’t know, overwhelming to get started again, because not only is it already hard to start, but now I’ve got shame and blame and self loathing and all of those horrible feelings. But if I can let go of that and just be like, Okay, this is just the way of it. This is just life happening. This is just what happens to all humans. This is not because I’m bad at following through. It’s not because I’ve done something wrong, like my kids just get sick. I used to get mad at my kids for getting sick. Anyone else? Is anyone else as bad of a mom as me to actually get mad at your child for getting sick because it interrupted your momentum is so embarrassing to admit, but I hope it’s relatable. I hope it’s relatable because, you know, we’re I talked about parenting and the emotional regulation involved with parenting. And I really hope that you will join me for my master class, because if you are anything like me, and have been interrupted by the person that you love the most in the world and gotten so angry at them and then so full of shame for getting mad at someone who’s sick like literally, they can’t help it. Why would I ever get mad at my sweet press precious, innocent child for being sick? Well, in the background, it’s because my brain is doing this cost benefit analysis of it costs me so much to be interrupted and to have to restart. And so I didn’t have the emotional regulation available.

I didn’t have the acceptance available to me at the time, and so I would get mad at my sweet little child for interrupting my momentum. But what I want to encourage all of us to do is to drop the drama. First of all, that applies to like every area of life, but when we are attempting to follow through on something that matters to us, and we have an interruption, if we can just work on dropping the drama and practicing self compassion in these moments, it will allow us to get back on track without burning extra energy on guilt and shame and frustration and being mad at your sweet, adorable, innocent child that you love the most in the whole world for interrupting your flow. It’s so hard. To to follow through, and so many of us struggle because we get interrupted, and this, the starting over just feels like such a burden. But I know that you are good at starting over. I don’t even know you personally, and I know that you’re good at starting over because I know you have ADHD, and as someone with ADHD, you’ve had to start over many, many, many times. And so I know that this is something that you can do. You can start over now. Following through is one of the hardest things that somebody with ADHD can do.

And it’s not because we don’t care, and it’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because our executive functioning wiring makes it incredibly difficult to sustain our action over time, and when that action gets interrupted, it becomes even harder. So we talked about how to handle it when you’re following through, intention is interrupted by something outside of your control. But what happens? What do you do when it actually is your fault that you’re not following through? What happens and how do we recover when you know you’re not following through, and it really is on you. There’s no one else to blame. There’s no sweet, innocent child to blame. There’s no getting sick to blame. There’s no like, weird work thing to blame, like it’s actually your fault, like when the excuse tank is totally empty and you’re left with the uncomfortable truth that you just didn’t do the thing, or you’re actively watching yourself. Have you ever done this? I know you have. You’re trying to get something done, or you have the intention to get something done, or you want to get something done, and you’re not doing it, and you’re watching yourself not do it, and you’re like, hello, you’re not doing the thing. And you’re having this conversation with yourself, where you’re like, Yeah, I don’t want to do the thing.

And why aren’t you doing the thing? I’m not doing the thing. And you just talk back and forth to yourself and continue to not do the thing. What do you do? Then most of us spiral out again in the shame, in the blame, in the Here you go again, just not following through on the thing you said you’re going to do. I can’t trust you. You’re unreliable. You’re never going to amount to anything. But I would love instead, because I know that doesn’t work. Maybe we could just bring some awareness. Maybe we could just sit in awareness of like, okay, I’m not doing the thing, and ask a question. Instead of beating yourself up, let’s get curious. What’s going on here, what’s missing, what would actually make it possible for me to follow through that is so important, because for so many of us, we just we beat ourselves up, we beat ourselves up, and we think that beating ourselves up is the way to make sustainable progress. And I’m not saying it doesn’t work once in a while. I know it does, but it’s not sustainable. It burns us out. It makes us resist doing anything more in the future. And so instead, let’s meet some of the needs that are lacking.

If you think back to your childhood and what happened when you didn’t follow through in your childhood, were you supported? Were you surrounded by a loving caregiver and said, Hey, I noticed that you’re not following through on this, and I’d really love to help you. What do you need from me to get it done? I’m just gonna let the crickets like chirp here, because I’m guessing no most of us with ADHD grew up in really chaotic and dysfunctional families where we were super, super punished for not getting the things done, and so we were labeled as unreliable and unpredictable and unable to just do simple things, and now we’re in this new place. It’s called adulthood.

And what I want to encourage you to do is, instead of shaming and blaming yourself even when you are at fault, come alongside yourself and say, Hey, what do you need? What support do you need here? Do you Is this too hard? Do you need to ask for help? Do we need to break it down into a smaller task? Do you need a break? Do you need a snack? Do we need to go for a walk? Do you need to do some self coaching? Do we need to do some mindfulness and regulation, like, what is it? What do you need? It doesn’t mean that you let yourself off the hook. My son took the practice S A T this weekend, and it was excruciating. It was so annoying. He didn’t want to do it. We had made a plan Sunday afternoon, we’re doing the practice S A T, and he was like, I don’t want to do it. And I was like, I know. I’m sorry. It’s not going to be fun. And. And the whole time he sat there and he was like, I hate this. I don’t want to do this. And instead of saying, just shut up and do it, why can’t you just do it? Why do you have to complain all the time? Why can’t you just do it? You have no choice but to do it. So you might as well just do it. Just be quiet and do it, and not say that to him. I said, Yeah, this sucks. I stayed in the same room with him, and I did my own work. And every time he said, I don’t want to do this, I said, I know this is really hard. This totally sucks. What do you need? Do you want to snack? I didn’t say, Oh, you don’t have to do it. You don’t want to do it. That’s fine. You don’t have to do it. But instead, I gave him support so that he could complete the task that he knew he wanted to complete. I mean, he didn’t want to do it, but he wanted to do it, which is just like all of the tasks, right?

That’s how I feel about everything. I don’t actually want to do it, but I do want to have it done, right? And that is a really good question, actually, to ask yourself, do you want this? Do you want it? Do you want to do it? Do you want the outcome, because our ADHD brains will resist things that don’t feel personally meaningful. And so doing a quick check in of like, is this actually something that I want, or am I just like, shoulding on myself? Am I just telling myself I should do it? Am I just doing it because everybody else is doing it, or is this actually something I want? If it is something I want. It’s okay to be like, I don’t want to do it, but I want it to be done. And so how can I help myself get it done? If you do want to do it, the question needs to be, what needs to change in order to make it work? What needs to change to get that momentum going, to get that steam train rolling, to get me, like going down the track and having some momentum. It could be some external structure, some support, a different way of getting started, or maybe even a fresh start, like starting over, and that’s fine, because there’s no shame in trying again.

Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time and you wake up early, make a list, cross the things off the list in order. Yeah, we know what to do, but ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It’s a disorder of knowing exactly what to do, but not being able to get yourself to do it. That’s why I created focused. I’m a life coach with multiple certifications, and since 2019 I’ve spent 1000s of hours coaching adults with ADHD.

Time for me to focus on you. Hello. Welcome to your coaching call.

I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD, go from Hot Mess express to grounded and thriving. I’ll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain, regulate your emotions and accept yourself flaws and all with this foundation, we build the skills to improve life with ADHD. And not only do you get skills and tools in focus, but you’re surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr Ned Hallowell says healing happens in community, and I have absolutely found this to be true. So if you’re an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make real, lasting changes in your life. Join hundreds of others from around the world in focused go to I have adhd.com/focus to learn more.

That’s I have adhd.com/focused so I just want to remind you that when your plans of following through inevitably get interrupted, and they will when your momentum inevitably gets interrupted thwarted, whether it is something outside of your control, like somebody getting sick, somebody that you have to take care of, a work thing coming up an emergency, whether it’s outside of your control or completely in your control, and you know that it’s your fault and no one else’s fault. I just want you to remember that the less drama that you have about it, the better, if you can just accept that like, Okay, this is happening right now and not add in blame, judgment, shame, frustration overwhelm the spiral of emotions that hijack our ability to restart that will be so much better for you. Our plans get interrupted constantly. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you’re behind. You are still worthy, just exactly as you are. And following through is a practice, and not following through is not a moral failing. Getting interrupted is not a moral failing, whether it’s your fault or not, it’s not a moral failing. You don’t have to prove your worth through your productivity, but I do know that you want to get shit done. I know that about you. I like that’s why you’re listening to this podcast. That’s why you are doing the work of self development.

So I know you want to get stuff done, and I’m with you same. I want to get stuff done too, and I’m constantly interrupted, and it’s very frustrating. And the the the faster that I can get to a place of acceptance of like, okay, this is happening. What do I need to move forward? What do I what do I need to implement in order to get that momentum going again? The faster that happens, the faster I can restart, the faster I can get my momentum, chugging along like that steam train rolling down the track like I think I can. I think I can, I think I can. That’s where I want to be. I want to just be chugging along. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I want that to be my internal voice, not I’m a piece of crap. I can’t do this. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it. This is taking too long. I am unreliable. No, I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

And listen, I know that you can, and we are so in this together. Yes, I’ve done a lot of self development work, and I still struggle, and I’m still interrupted, and I still feel the emotional spiral inviting me to, like, jump in and take a deep dive, and I just have to continually coach myself to not go to the deep, dark place, because I know it’s going to steal my time, it’s going to steal my energy, and it’s going to make it even harder for me to follow through. All right, my friend, let’s move on to a voicemail call in.

Now, listen, I love getting your voicemails. We have a whole folder in Google Drive of all of your voicemails. I love, love getting them. I listen to every single one. I would love for you to call in with a question or a comment or something you’re struggling with. The number is 833-281-2343, we also have that linked in the show notes. We’re going to hear from Maddie. Let’s hear from Maddie.

Caller 27:27
Hi Kristen, it’s Maddie. I adore you. Do the podcast door focused all the things. So what I want to know, or just want to pick your brain about, is, no, my teacher job is incredibly mentally and emotionally acting. Getting dysregulated is something that happens multiple times a day for me, but unfortunately, it’s one of those things where I don’t have the luxury of being able to remove myself from the environment, which is what normally works for me when I’m feeling dysregulated. So what I’m curious to know is, do you have any ideas of ways that I can regulate myself discreetly while in the classroom? So I don’t have to believe

Kristen Carder 28:15
I love that question, Maddie, thank you so much for calling in. I really appreciate this question. So Maddie is a teacher. She’s with children all day long, and she gets very dysregulated. I can only imagine how loud it is, how chaotic it can be, how much pressure there is on you. Maddie, as a teacher, to like complete all of the things necessary for the day in order to feel accomplished, but then trying to get all these kiddos to do what you’re asking them to do, I can’t even imagine. I can’t imagine, because I’m a parent, but I can’t imagine having to do it with like 30 children. I only have three children, so I can’t imagine. And, yeah, I mean, we’re going to talk about this in the parenting master class that I am hosting on March 25 but I do want to give you just a little bit of advice Maddie, because for you, it’s a little bit different. You’re not able to escape. You’re not able to like, Okay, I need to pause, and I need to take a good five minutes, and I need to, like, you know, go lay in the fetal position in the corner and, like, regulate myself like you’re not able to do that. So how do you regulate your nervous system, your emotions, when you can’t escape, when you have to do it in real time? And I will say that this is a practice. It’s something that we’re going to struggle with at first, but we can get better at overtime. I heard someone say recently, if you have time to breathe, you have time to breathe intentionally. And I thought that was mind blowing. I absolutely love that perspective, and I agree wholeheartedly. And mindful breathing has many. Benefits, and you can do it without anyone knowing. So for you, specifically Maddie, what I want you to focus on, and anyone who relates to Maddie situation, I want you to focus on mindful breathing. I want you to breathe slowly in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Bonus points, if you have the mental faculties to be able to count while you breathe so count of three while you breathe in, and then a count of three while you breathe out, trying to increase that number. So maybe you can count to four while you breathe in through your nose, and count to four while you breathe out through your mouth, maybe you could even get to five or to six. And what that is doing is allowing your brain and body to come into alignment just for a very, very brief moment, and reset your nervous system. So we’re going to breathe intentionally. We’re going to breathe slowly in through the nose, and then we’re going to breathe out through the mouth. And here are the benefits of mindful breathing. It can reduce stress and anxiety because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes relaxation and reduces stress hormones. It can also lower blood pressure, and I’m sure in the moment your blood pressure is soaring, it can lower blood pressure. Studies have shown that regular, mindful breathing practice can help lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. It can also increase your emotional regulation, which is exactly what you’re asking for by bringing awareness to your emotions. Mindful breathing helps individuals manage their emotional responses and reduce reactivity. So again, we are just breathing. Your kids are being crazy and chaotic around you. There’s a lot of noise and you can’t escape but all you’re doing is breathing in through your nose and breathing out through your mouth, and you’re doing this with intention. So I’m breathing in for a count of three and I’m breathing out for a count of three, if you can get to four, or if you can get to five, and maybe you just maybe all you have is 10 seconds. So maybe you’re only doing just one in and out, and that’s it, but that over time, done enough times throughout the day, would you have to breathe all day long? Done enough times throughout the day, it will absolutely reduce your stress levels. It’s also going to enhance your focus and your concentration. So focusing on your breath, even just for a couple of seconds, can improve your attention and cognitive function. And as someone with ADHD, I know that will be extremely, extremely valuable to you. It can also reduce your anxiety, and that’s huge. So all of this is extremely useful mindful breathing in the moment. It’s not a complete emotional regulation practice. You don’t have the time and energy and awareness to be able to, like, feel your emotions throughout your body and, like, label the emotion and really do like, deep emotional work or like a somatic experiencing practice, but just mindful breathing can be enough in those moments. So that’s what I really encourage you to do, mindful breathing. It’s it’s simple, it’s accessible, and it can be incorporated into your everyday life. So it doesn’t require any special equipment or training. It can be done anywhere, anytime, including in the classroom. Maddie, so I hope that helps you so much. All right, we’re gonna move on to the resource of the week. Somebody popped this into our focused community, Slack. And slack is the platform that we host all of our like, chit chats on all of the community like, back and forth. I’ve been really intentional to keep everybody in focused off of social media. So we don’t have, like, a Facebook group or something like that. We use Slack. And a lot of you probably use Slack for work. It’s very like organized, but it allows for really great community feel. And so in our ADHD resources channel, somebody popped in this app called Habitica. Habitica, Habitica, I’m not sure how to say it. It’s probably left up to interpretation. Habitica, I think that’s how we’re gonna say it. So what’s cool, and I talked about following through so much at the beginning of this episode, what’s awesome is that you can use Habitica to gamify the things that you want to follow through on. It’s a free habit building and productivity app that treats your real life like a game that’s pretty fun, so you can put in things that you want to do, that you want to accomplish, and it has in game. Rewards and punishments to Mo, well, I don’t like punishments, but, like, you know, consequences if you don’t do it, and it helps to motivate you, and it builds a strong social network to inspire you. I don’t know. I mean, I’m a tiny bit skeptical. I did download it. I’ve used it a tiny bit. I’m not one for like, gamifying things, necessarily. But if that is something that appeals to you, I think it can really help you achieve some of your goals, especially the simple kind of routine goals that we want to do that we know will keep us happier and healthier, like eating consistently and maybe moving our bodies consistently and going to sleep at like, a decent time. What I’ve found through Habitica is that like using it to do those simple and when I say simple, I don’t mean simple. I mean, like, really, really hard things for people with ADHD, those routine type things that can often get over, overlooked, but really improve our lives if we’re able to do it. Habitat can really help with that kind of thing. There’s nothing easy about following through on a routine, like for someone with ADHD, there’s nothing easy about that. If you want to have like, a consistent schedule, if you want to go to bed at a consistent time if you want to eat healthy in a consistent way. I mean, it’s just, there’s nothing easy about that, and maybe consistency isn’t even available to us. But I know that persistence is an ADHD, or I know you are persistent AF, and so you can use this resource, this Habitica app, to gamify the things that you want to follow through on gamify habits that you want to incorporate into your life. So you should definitely check it out. All

right, we’re gonna wrap it up this week with some research to support the complaining that I have done about exercising, and I absolutely love it when I can find research that supports my complaints, because who doesn’t love to be validated? I mean, everybody likes to be validated, right? A couple weeks ago, I talked about how difficult it is for ADHD ers to exercise, and yes, I was very clear to share that there is research to show that exercise, 30 minutes a day of aerobic exercise, improves cognition for people with ADHD. And I submit my apology for downplaying the value of exercise, and I fully took responsibility for that. And so I apologize to you, but we know that exercise can absolutely help people with ADHD. The research that we’re talking about this week is entitled exploring barriers and facilitators to physical activity in adults with ADHD, exploring the barriers. And let me just tell you, research validates that there are a lot of barriers to those of us with ADHD engaging in regular physical exercise. So we know it’s important. We know that it makes a difference. We know that it improves cognition and emotional regulation, and really, just like overall quality of life, we know that we accept it, and I submit my apology to downplaying exercise, I submit it, and I love you, and I love exercise, and it’s great, and it is very clear that physical activity is more difficult to engage in on a regular basis for adults with ADHD. So this study explores the impact of physical activity on individuals with ADHD, highlighting both its benefits and barriers to engagement. Now we already know this, but research shows that physical activity improves executive functions such as attention, impulse control, cognitive flexibility and planning, leading to better performance and reduced ADHD related behavioral symptoms. Okay? Noted, we’ve got it, and for both children and adults with ADHD, physical activity enhances mood, self esteem, social functioning while decreasing anxiety and depression. All right, I hear you, yes, however. And this is a big however. This is like, Are you old enough to have watched PeeWee Herman’s big adventure? This is embarrassing. I can’t believe I’m gonna reference it here. You know that part where he’s like, come on, Simone, let’s talk about your big butt.

Movie Clip 39:42
Everyone I know has a big butt. Come on, Simone, let’s talk about your big butt.

Kristen Carder 39:49
Okay, I’m cracking myself up. I mean, it is hysterical. And this is the really big but the really big but to all of like. Exercise is amazing. Exercise is good. Exercise is great for people with ADHD, okay, but there is a really big but, and that is that executive dysfunction, forgetfulness, time, blindness and distraction pose significant challenges to maintaining a consistent physical activity routine. No duh, like, no freaking duh. We know I’m, I’m channeling all of the 90s energy right now. No duh, we know this, and so I’m, I’m popping this research in to this podcast today to say, yes, physical activity is great. We should definitely be doing it and or but really big, but it’s very difficult for us. Can I’m reading on in the study, many participants reported difficulty initiating exercise despite recognizing its benefits. Hard same hard relate. I struggle to initiate exercise despite me recognizing its benefits. Emotional states also influence physical activity, engagement with depression and anxiety acting as barriers while stress relief improved, mental clarity served as motivators. So here’s what it’s saying. Here, we know that it helps us. We know that it’s going to improve our anxiety, it’s going to improve our it’s going to help to relieve stress. We know that, but we also struggle with depression and anxiety. And depression and anxiety can often keep us from engaging and initiating these physical activity so it’s kind of like a double edged sword. We know that physical activity is going to help depression and anxiety, but because we have depression and anxiety, we struggle to move forward with physical activity, right? Oh, yes. Okay, so again, this is a lot of times research just validates what we already know, what we in the community are already experiencing, but we’re already talking about what we’re already going through, but it is validating. It is nice to see people recognizing like, yeah, there are some pretty intense barriers to adults with ADHD engaging in physical activity. Participants described physical activity as a catalyst for positive health habits such as better sleep and nutrition, and noted its role in boosting motivation and product productivity. Amazing overall, the study underscores the need for tailored strategies to support physical engagement in individuals with ADHD, given its profound physical and psychological benefits. So we need tailored strategies to support physical engagement. We want to be physically active. We know that it benefits us, but we need some tailored strategies to make that work. Now I’m going to link all of this in the show notes so you have the study to reference if you’re a nerd like me and you like to read studies. So I want to wrap up here with talking about what are some of those tailored strategies that we can use to support physical activity, our own physical activity, and our engagement in physical activity, because we know we have ADHD and we know we’re going to need some additional support. Now this harkens back to the beginning of the episode, when we talk about following through. One of the things that so many of us want to follow through on is physical activity. We want to be physically active. We want to work out. We want to go to yoga. We want to do the things. And when we’re interrupted by life happening, we can spiral out. Well, great. My streak is broken. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this. I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow through. Or maybe it’s our fault, our depression, our anxiety, our overwhelm, our emotional dysregulation, prevents us from, you know, working out and then we’re watching ourselves resist doing the very thing that we actually want to do. And so those interruptions that we talked about at the beginning of the episode, I want you to think about them in light of physical exercise, physical activity and following through on moving your body. And I just want to encourage you that interruptions are normal, that you don’t have to have a streak. Once I dropped my expectation that I would have a streak, like To hell with the streaks. I don’t care about a freaking streak. Do you know what I love? Day one? Day one is my favorite. I love to restart. I love day one. I don’t care. Like for me, I treat every single day as day one. So I was doing such a good job of going to yoga twice a week, which I am very proud of. And then I got sick as a dog, and I had a two full week. Period where I just I couldn’t hack it. And instead of shaming myself and blaming myself like I would have five or 10 years ago, you just can’t do it. You can’t follow through. Look at look at what you did. You interrupted your streak. Now you have to start all over again, or, like all of that drama I was just like, I can’t wait to restart. I can’t wait to go again. I can’t wait for day one, and I treated it just like, absolutely no drama. Start again day one. I want to encourage you to stop thinking about streaks. If that’s something that’s in your mind, like, I gotta have I gotta keep my streak. I gotta have a strict like every day is day one. Let’s just start again, again, again. That’s what helps us to be persistent. A F is just treating every day like it is day one. I love day one. Let’s go and remember that we’re moving our bodies because it’s good for us, because it’s a gift, not because society tells you to not, because research tells you to not to change your body, not to not to like, make yourself into looking like something on Instagram. That’s a filter anyway, and it’s all fake. Okay, we’re doing this as a gift to ourself. We’re doing this to regulate our emotions. We’re doing this because it actually feels good. It feels good to have accomplished something. I got back from yoga last night, and I felt so wobbly, and I was just on the couch feeling so wobbly.

My husband was like, um, are you okay? And I was like, I feel so I like, gave it my all, which, I know it’s just yoga, but like, I’m in my 40s, so give me a break. I gave it my all, and, and I felt so wobbly, and it felt so great and and we have to remember how good it feels to move. So remember that you deserve some extra support because you have ADHD. Remember that you can start over again and again and again. Remember that streaks do not matter, that day one is the best. I hope you are able to take this and use it to follow through on the things that matter most to you, and I will be right here next week, following through on what matters most to me, which is being here with the podcast every single Tuesday. I will see you then bye, bye. If you’re being treated for your ADHD, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted, no matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world. Focused is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused for all the info you.