Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD.
I'm your host William Curb, and I have ADHD On this podcast, I dig into the
tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD Brain.
Hey, team.
In physics, there's a concept called static friction.
It's the friction that exists between a stationary object and
the surface on which it's resting.
it's actually harder to get something moving than it is to keep it
moving once it's already in motion.
And this is something I think about when I'm staring at a pile
of mail or a sink full of dishes.
Those tasks that just build up, we often feel like we need a massive
internal explosion of energy to overcome that static friction like
we have to Hulk smash our way into productivity just to get off the couch.
but that explosion often carries us too far, landing us right in the middle
of a panic attack or total overwhelm.
We're essentially trying to jump from zero to 60 in a car that isn't even idling yet.
Today we're looking at a different approach, how we can gently
increase our internal RPMs without redlining the engine.
We're exploring the biology of our nervous system and how we can use bottom
up signals to tell our brain that it is time to move without relying on the
usual fuel of shame or last minute panic.
If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find
that@hackingyouradhd.com slash 2 7 4.
All right.
Keep on listening to find out how to finally win that
fight against your own sofa.
Polyvagal theory developed by Dr. Steven Port's, views our nervous system,
kind of like a ladder with ourselves regulating up and down the ladder.
At the bottom of the ladder, we're in the ventral vagal state, or an
optimal zone where we're feeling connected, curious, and calm.
Our heart rate is steady and we're ready to take on what it needs to.
In the middle of the ladder, we have the sympathetic activation of our nervous
system, the fight or flight response.
In this state, our body is flooded with energy, you know, for all
that fighting and flighting.
When we're stuck in this stage, we're often left, anxious and angry.
And then at the top of the ladder we've got the dorsal vagal.
This is the shutdown and freeze state.
Whatever we're interpreting as a threat is just too big, too much for us to take on.
So our body unplugs, we feel numb, foggy, or depressed.
It's important to understand that this isn't just something in our heads either.
When we're in these dysregulated states, we're experiencing a biological shift.
In a threat state, blood flow moves away from your prefrontal
cortex, and that's the logical decision making part of your brain.
And then towards the amygdala or the fear center, and this is why we
can't think our way out of panic, our thinking brain is literally offline.
We also see changes in our gut with our brain slowing down the digestive
process, which is why stress.
Can often lead to things like knots in the stomach or other issues in your tummy.
And this is important to remember because we often think of
regulation as coming from top down.
That is we are trying to use our logical mind to think our way
into regulating ourselves, the mind telling the body how to feel.
But for many of us with ADHD or trauma, bottom up regulation
is much more effective.
Our brain is constantly asking the body, how are we doing?
What's going on?
If my heart is racing and my breath is shallow, my brain
assumes there a threat, even if I'm just sitting in a quiet office.
If my shoulders are tight from sitting awkwardly in a chair all day.
My brain might be interpreting that as anxiety, and I feel stress, and with
this in mind, we can think about ways to help regulate ourselves by, instead of
trying to think our way into regulation, we're focusing on physical changes.
To change our state, you could try splashing cold water on your face,
which triggers the dive reflex, which instantly will slow your
heart rate or a weighted blanket.
Or heavy lifting to tell the brain exactly where your body is in space, which can
create a sense of physical security.
Humming or chanting can vibrate the vagus nerve signaling the
parasympathetic system to engage.
Now an important caveat to our ladder system from above is that we can also
think about ways that these systems overlap when we have the overlap
from our relaxed parasympathetic systems, the sympathetic system in the
middle, instead of fight or flight.
When we have that overlap from our relaxed parasympathetic system with
the sympathetic system in the middle instead of fight or flight, it's
more like we're in a ready state.
Think about sports, dance, or giving a speech.
This is a state where we're more engaged, but we're not relaxed and
we're also not in a threatened mode.
This can be a great state to be in when we're trying to perform a zone
of optimal stimulation too little, and we're bored and sluggish.
We make careless mistakes.
On the other end of the spectrum, we've got too much stimulation.
We feel panicked and we can't keep our focus.
So we're looking to hit that goldilock zone right in the middle where we've
got just enough stress to feel sharp and fast, but not so much that we're jittery.
And I wanna stick with this point for a minute because it's
something that did take a while for me to get my brain around.
I try to get ready for a test by meditating and find myself over the
edge into a sleepy, unfocused state.
It didn't seem to make sense to me at the time that having at least some
amount of stress was a good thing, but with what I know about ADHD now, it
makes perfect sense that without the right level of stimulation, keeping
my focus is just not going to happen if I don't have enough going on.
If I calm down too much before a test, my brain might decide that the task
is no longer urgent or stimulating.
Part of this comes from the fact that anxiety and excitement are nearly
identical physiologically in both states.
Your heart races, your palm sweat, and your cortisol spikes.
They're both high arousal states.
And so our brain can get confused between them.
Many of us with ADHD have subconsciously used anxiety and last minute panic as
a way to jumpstart our brains, which makes so much sense when we take into
account the idea of bottom up regulation
if physiological anxiety and excitement are basically the same, we can absolutely
feel like that looming deadline is basically the same as a rollercoaster.
Maybe not, literally.
This is also why when we're dealing with fake deadlines, they just
don't deliver in the same way.
The consequences are that the deadline gets moved.
That's gonna give me the same spike as riding through the
kitty coaster at the state Fair.
Now, I spent a lot of time prepping this piece for the idea that I really
want to talk about, which is that of calming up with everything that we've
already talked about in this piece.
It's an idea that pushes things to the next step.
It's about being able to move ourselves from that low energy state into
something where we're ready to take on a challenge, but not push ourselves so
much that we move into overstimulation.
If calming down is taking us from a state of stress, panic, overwhelm into
one where our nervous system is feeling regulated, then we can think of calming
up, not as doing the opposite, but doing the parallel where we're taking
ourselves from a state of numb, foggy, unmotivated into one where again.
We're regulated and ready to perform.
We're looking to gain clarity, focus, and find that zen state of just doing
The idea of calming up is that we're intentionally increasing our arousal
level through music, caffeine, movement, whatever it is, but without really
triggering that stress response.
We're just trying to find that sweet spot of focus.
Often when we're thinking about raising our state, raising our energy,
we're thinking about getting hyped up, about boosting our energy by
blasting some music or doing some jumping jacks to raise the heart rate.
We're trying to raise the intensity.
About getting pumped up, energized, and excited for what comes
next, but that isn't always the direction that we want to go.
Sure.
High energy and excitement can be routes to getting stuff done.
But as a dad in his forties, that's sometimes a lot to ask.
Instead, I'm just looking for ways that I can bring up my state without the
hype, without getting pumped up, and the emotional intensity that can come with it.
Because it's important to remember that if ADHD, it is incredibly easy for our
emotions to get hijacked and take us into actions that we don't want to do.
You know, finally noticing that the messy counter and the shame and
anger stored up in us gives us that motivation to finally tackle it.
Perhaps not in the best way possible, but it does get done.
And we've got to remember that if we're always relying on these kinds
of emotions to fuel our doing state, and it's the only tool we know about
getting ourselves moving, that's what we're always going to be reaching for.
When you are trying to break outta something like task paralysis, instead of
figuring out the next step to get going, we're trying to Hulk smash our way out.
We're looking for that big move that's going to get us up and off the couch
and doing things, and this can easily lead us into the realm of too much.
Instead of just standing up, we're peeling out of the driveway as the
lyrics to crazy train start up.
Let's go back to that mess example.
But instead, let's say it's a messy closet and we use that initial
drive to get everything out and, oh no, now we're overwhelmed.
That burst of emotion was only enough for the first step, and now I've
got stuff strewn across the room.
And this was a huge mistake so this is where I want to propose calming up instead
of rising to the challenge through anger or shame, or just straight impulsivity.
I want to think about how I can raise my state without the extra baggage.
I think a good way that we might want to think about this is something
like a cup of coffee, which honestly can be a great way to calm up.
Mm. Bear with me for a second.
I know that coffee isn't usually associated with the word calm,
although of course there are those ADHDers who do find it calming.
Regardless.
What I'm saying is that let's say one cup brings you up to a certain
level of focus, two cups maybe gets you a little bit higher, and then
five cups is probably way too much.
What we're looking for is one, maybe two cups of coffee worth of
hyping ourselves up, and then we're looking for the smallest steps
that we can take to get there.
All the stuff we probably know about already doing.
Listening to music, doing some light stretches, splashing some water
on her face, or maybe even just having that first cup of coffee.
The point is that we're looking to do things that are going to get us ready
for that next step of actually doing, and this is making me also think of things
of like getting stuck on the couch.
And I'm just sitting there scrolling.
I wanna get up and I go do something, but the executive function
evolved, just seem out of reach.
My first steps here are often figuring out the smallest steps that I can do.
And of course, this is assuming that I've noticed that I'm stuck and that
noticing is a different conversation.
We're talking about what to do once we're ready to do, but just
can't get ourselves to move.
So.
We start small.
Can I wiggle my toes?
Tap my feet, stretch out my leg.
If I just lean forward, I'm practically standing up already.
I just need to push with my legs and unbend myself.
Also, pro tip here, if your phone is what's keeping you stuck, toss it to
the other side of the couch gently or slide it away from yourself on the floor.
Maybe just turn it off like all the way off so that it can't grab
your attention for a minute or two.
Honestly, I hate having to do tricks like this because it feels like
I should be able to just regulate myself and just stand up or just not
look at my phone or whatever it is.
But let's go back to that bottom up regulation.
Our brain is following the messaging from our body, and so doing the standing up
thing is the way to cue my brain that, Hey, it's time to do things again, because
these tricks are me regulating myself.
And that's the point here, we're trying to regulate ourselves into a state where
we can follow through with our intentions and do the things that we want to do.
Well.
It feels like we should be able to just do, that's not really how our brains work.
And instead of trying to get ourselves to explode into action, let's instead
try calming up to where we want to be.
Thanks for sticking with me all the way to the end.
Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips.
One, stop trying to think your way out of a shutdown or panic.
When your prefrontal cortex is offline, your brain isn't listening
to logic, it's listening to your body.
Use physical signals like temperature or movement to tell
your brain you are safe or ready to move on to whatever comes next.
Two, understand that some stress is biologically necessary for ADHD to focus.
Instead of trying to be perfectly relaxed before a big task,
aim for optimal stimulation.
Enough arousal will feel sharp, but not so much that you're jittery.
Three, when you're stuck in a low energy state, don't look for that massive hype
session that might lead to overwhelm.
Instead, we're trying to calm up by using the smallest possible increments
of arousal, like a single song or some light stretching to reach a
little bit higher state of doing.
All right.
That's it.
Thanks for listening.
I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode.
Feel free to connect with me over@hackingyouradhd.com slash contact.
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And now for your moment of Dad, you know what the most kind of
dangerous canoe is, Avol canoe.