Hacking Your ADHD – Details, episodes & analysis

Hey team!

Today I'm talking with Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, a clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and the author of You, Your Husband & His Mother.

She has spent almost two decades helping couples get unstuck from repeating the same old arguments and start building relationships that actually work in real life. And she also runs her own podcast, Dear Dr. Tracy.

In our conversation, we get into how our relationships don't exist in a vacuum, how family expectations shape our decisions, and why it's so important to be on the same team with your partner, especially when you're juggling extended family, ADHD, and a few generational differences in "how things are done." We also get into setting values-based boundaries, navigating conflict without turning it into a blame game, and using small moments to rebuild connection when everything feels off balance.

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/255

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. Work on shifting from "Me vs. You" to "Us vs. the Problem" mentality. This shift in mindset can completely change how a couple navigates conflict. By reframing the conflict, you turn what could've been another argument into a shared problem. And I do want to add on here as well that this is a learned skill and takes time to develop, but is well worth doing.
   2. Boundaries aren't about controlling someone else's behavior; they're about choosing how you'll respond. We often sabotage our own boundaries by overexplaining them, giving people justifications that sound like permission to debate our choices. You can't stop someone from knocking, but you can decide whether you'll open the door.
   3. Try building a "Roadmap" of each other's regulation styles. While everyone has a different way of dealing with stress (and with ADHD, emotional regulation can be unpredictable), knowing them in advance can help prevent some frustrating moments.

Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb. On this podcast, we dig into tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series.

In this series, we usually look at a single research paper, but today we're covering two and pulling out practical takeaways. We'll discuss two papers on ADHD strengths: Strengths and Challenges to Embrace Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Employment: A Systematic Review, and Paradoxical Career Strengths and Successes of ADHD Adults: An Evolving Narrative. I love an "evolving narrative," and the way papers are named.

Before we get started, I'd love to hear what you think of these Research Recaps. If you have thoughts or a paper/topic you want us to review, head over to hackingadhd.com/contact and let us know. New episodes of Research Recap come out every other Friday. All right—let's get into it

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at https://HackingYourADHD.com/254

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk - YouTube

https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon

t for a few months now and it's definitely one that I'm always on the look out for new episodes. Rae does a great job with her interviews, asking both the basic questions to help ground the conversation, but also getting into the more nuanced issues that come with neurodivergence. 

Today, I'm going to share an episode with you where Rae talks with Dr. Christine Hargrove, a Marriage & Family Therapist with a focus on neurodiversity and financial therapy that she uses to help individuals and couples understand how their symptoms affect their financial behavior.

And honestly, this is a great episode - I know so many people who struggle with their finances, but more specifically, struggle directly because of their ADHD.

Be sure to subscribe to Hyperfocus with Rea Jacobson in your podcast player!

Hey Team!

We've got a returning guest this week who was a real hit last time, Saman Kesh - Saman is an Iranian-American filmmaker who has worked with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Calvin Harris, Kygo, Placebo, !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk)

Anyway, we're not here to discuss any of that today, instead we're going to be talking about his recent ketamine treatment. A while ago, Saman reached out to me asking if this was something that I'd like to cover on the show, and yeah, this is absolutely something I think would make for a really interesting show. Now, with that said, I do want to emphasize that we are talking about Saman's treatment here, and this is neither a defense nor a condemnation of ketamine treatments. I also want to emphasize that this is not something that is for treating ADHD but has been proven to be effective as an off-label treatment for a variety of mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and trauma.

If ketamine treatment is something of interest to you I also strongly advise that you do so with medical supervision. This isn't stuff to play around with, and we still have a lot to learn despite the fact that ketamine has over 50 years of clinical use and research behind it.

Perhaps at some point, I'll work on an episode from more of a treatment perspective, but for now, we're just talking about Saman's experience. Also to note from this episode is that we talked for quite a long time and so I decided that we could split the episode into two parts.

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Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/170

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. It's important for us to understand that the way we treat our ADHD is not one size fits all and that there are a variety of ways that we can treat our ADHD. While medication is an effective step, we also want to be looking at other ways that we can improve our mental functions with things like exercise, diet and stuff like mediation.
2. Recognize and celebrate the strengths and perspectives ADHD adds to your life, rather than focusing solely on its challenges. And while there is no question that there are challenges if we can recognize the unique way ADHD brains navigate the world we can celebrate the strengths and perspectives ADHD adds to our life and work.
3. Understand the importance of allowing flexibility in routines to accommodate the ADHD brain's need for variation and stimulation.

Hey Team!This week we're joined by Ying Deng, known as ADHD Asian Girl across social media. I was able to get to know Ying a bit at the recent International ADHD Conference and thought she'd be a great guest for the show. Meditation is something that I've wanted to discuss on the show for quite a while now, but it also isn't something I'm super knowledgeable about so it was great to have a chance for this discussion.In our conversation today we get into what mindfulness and mediation actually is - and some about what it isn't, since meditation isn't exactly something we get an accurate picture of from popular media. We talk about some of the reasons that mediation can be beneficial for ADHD as well as some of the strategies to help bring meditation into our lives because ADHD can also make it a hard habit to start.

Be sure to check out all of Ying's Mindfulness Course or checkout where she's on the web with her Linktree

Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/169

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. We can engage in mindfulness during daily activities like putting on socks or brewing coffee. By focusing on the sensations we can work on being present in the moment.
2. ADHD can make it hard for us to build our practice so we can mix up our routine with guided and unguided meditations, sit outside to connect with nature or engage in mindful movements to cater to how we're feeling on any given day.
3. We don't need to meditate for long periods and if we find that challenging, start with shorter, more manageable sessions and gradually increase the duration as we build the habit.
4. Body doubling can be a great way for us to get into a meditation practice. Partner up with someone or join a community for meditation sessions to make the practice more engaging and accountable.

Hey team!

This week, we have the return of Skye Rapson of Unconventional Organization to discuss an innovative tool she developed, the Planning Funnel, which is designed to help us break down our goals into manageable steps.

This was a really fun conversation, and the planning funnel looks awesome - now, as a note, the planning funnel is part of Unconventional Organisation's ADHD Academy - but they do have a promotion going now that includes the Planning Funnel and 15% off your first month. So if that's something you're interested in be sure to go check out https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/the-adhd-academy 

In our conversation today, we talk about the importance of goals and planning, how to break down those goals, and ways that we can use ADHD-friendly strategies to make executing on those goals easier.

Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/168

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. Recognize that planning your goals is crucial, especially for individuals with ADHD, as it helps in managing time blindness and setting realistic expectations.
2. Focus on a few select goals or themes to avoid feeling overwhelmed. This approach allows for more in-depth planning and a higher success rate.
3. Break your goals into subtasks to make them feel more achievable and to clearly see the progression towards your larger goal.
4. Planning can be more emotional than we tend to think of it. We need to be mindful of self-criticism and negative internal dialogues that can arise during the planning process and give ourselves the time it deserves.

Hey Team!

Today we've got a real treat, I'm talking to one of my favorite people, Brendan Mahan of the ADHD Essentials Podcast. I last had Brendan on to talk about the Wall of Awful, his model of how everything that we do can be made harder from repeated failure. It's a great episode and I'll link that in the show notes if you want to get caught up on that.

I asked Brendan back on the show because while we were at the International ADHD Conference I got talking to him about a different model of his and that's the 9 parts of a transition. Now I understand that the idea of 9 parts of a transition can seem a bit daunting, but what I think the most salient point of this episode is, is that transitions are far more than what we initially think they are. Because of this we often underestimate what goes into making those transitions. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, in our conversation today, Brendan breaks down this model and we also explore strategies for managing distractions and understanding our emotional states.

Checkout Brendan's podcast ADHD Essentials

Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/167

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. Understand that each transition includes multiple components, not just the physical move from one task to another. We need to consider not just the stopping, moving, and starting components of a transition, but also the physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects as well.
2. And just to hammer this piece home, we need to recognize and address the emotional aspects of transitions, as they play a significant role in the process. This is especially important when we're switching contexts, like going from work to family stuff.
3. It's also important for us to understand that sometimes not all the parts of a transition are going to be all that impactful - some parts of the transition are going to be easy. But when we do struggle with moving onto the next thing it is important that we can step back and try and identify what's going on and where we're finding that resistance.

Hey team!

I've got a fun episode for you this week - I'm talking with Jesse J. Anderson about his new book, Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD. I actually got to meet Jesse in person last November at the International ADHD conference (and I got to be on a panel with him as well) although we recorded this before then. And if you don't immediately recognize the name, I'm sure you've seen some of his stuff online where he posts as ADHD Jesse.

In our conversation today we delve into his experiences with ADHD, his journey as an author, discussing practical coping strategies, challenges with memory and motivation, and the importance of adapting to individual mental processes.

Be sure to check out Jesse's book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD

Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/165

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. Avoid relying solely on urgency as a motivation source, as it can lead to negatively reinforcing cycles and increased anxiety. We can embrace a variety of strategies for coping with ADHD, while acknowledging that what works may change over time or depending on the situation.
2. Prospective memory is our ability to remember to remember - and so with our ADHD it can be struggle not only to remember what we need to remember, but even that there is something that needs to be remembered. There are a variety of solutions we can try to help with this such as physical reminders, our calendars, and alarms on our phones.
3. It's important that we acknowledge and address the shame often associated with ADHD. ADHD is hard and having difficulties with ADHD is not your fault. However, we still need to take responsibility for finding and implementing coping strategies.

Hey Team!

We're kicking off 2024 with the incredible Jessica McCabe - creator, writer, and host of the award-winning YouTube channel How to ADHD. I'm sure a lot of you are already familiar with Jessica's work as her YouTube channel has more than a million subscribers, but for those of you who haven't, her channel contains a wealth of knowledge about ADHD and is one of the things that kicked me in the pants to start taking my ADHD more seriously.

And now she's coming out with a book: How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) - which is coming out on January 2nd - so tomorrow if you're listening to this when this episode comes out.

In our conversation today, Jessica and I discussed how we want to go from surviving our ADHD to thriving with it, to get past some of our issues with executive function and universal design. We also get into a lot of stuff about her book and how she was able to use a lot of the strategies that she wrote about in the book to also help her write that same book.

Honestly, this episode was a blast to record and I hope you enjoy as much as I did putting it together.

Be sure to check out howtoadhdbook.com to find Jessica's book

Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/164

This Episode's Top Tips 

1. When we want to move from surviving to thriving we want to start looking at not just how we can get more things done, but what's worth doing.
2. Even projects we're interested in can be difficult for us to work on, so it's important for us to keep them exciting with variety.
3. When planning out those big projects, work backward from where you want to be to figure out all the steps in between so that we can see that path to done.
4. Effort for us is not the problem, so trying harder is not the answer.

In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about what's going on with Hacking Your ADHD over this last year and what's coming up next year.

No real show notes for this episode but feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page

Support me on Patreon

Find the episode on my website here: HackingYourADHD.com/163