Many of us with ADHD tend to be collectors.  Collectors of everything from rescue dogs to creative projects to information.  The ease of acquiring information in the digital age makes it close to impossible to know when we have collected enough.  Is there any objective measure of when “research” turns into a rabbit hole? 

Add to this tendency the fact that we often struggle with FOMO and the pervasive sense that we are not doing enough, are falling behind, aren’t where we are supposed to be and generally not keeping up.  

FOMO renders us more susceptible to experiencing RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) because we are more vulnerable to criticism when we are already criticizing ourselves.  

So, in this insightful episode, I describe the intersections between ADHD, FOMO, RSD and information overload, with the goal of normalizing how common this is, how much anxiety and stress it causes, and what we can do to manage it. 

Here’s a sneak peek to what you’ll learn: 

• Understand how impulsivity and novelty seeking sets us up to become social media junkies.
• How to set boundaries and prevent information overload and overwhelm.
• Boredom, loneliness, and isolation are triggers for FOMO - learn to recognize and tackle them head-on.
• From mindfulness to mini-breaks, discover actionable steps to combat FOMO in real time.
• The often overlooked link between FOMO and RSD - let’s learn to protect our sensitivity 

Hey, we all struggle with social comparisons and the need for validation, but it’s incredibly important to focus on meaningful experiences with people who genuinely care about us. 

This episode is packed with strategies that not only help you combat FOMO and RSD but also ensure that you live a more connected and purposeful life.

💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, especially a fellow creative or business owner.  Use this link to make it easy.

Episodes on related topics to check out: 

Fancy, Gritty, Shiny, FOMO 

Overcoming Rejection Sensitivity in Entrepreneurship 

If you have been diagnosed with ADHD, one of the decisions you’ll need to make is whether to share it with others, especially people you work with. Join fellow ADHD coach Cathy Rashidian and I on July 19th for a LinkedIn Live discussion on if, when and how to disclose your diagnosis in the workplace or in your own business. 🚀 Register Now for the next LinkedIn Live on July 19th 

In this episode, I mentioned my pop up offers for July & August only, called the Summer Strategy Sessions, These are fast and focused engagements designed for maximum impact in minimum time.  Click on the hyperlink to schedule your no obligation consultation to see if one of these offers and working with me this summer is right for you. 

Well, hey, friend, and welcome back to the Driven Woman Entrepreneur podcast. This is your host, Diann Wingert, and we are here today to talk about the interplay between ADHD, FOMO, RSD, and information overload. You ready for this? Alright, it's no surprise that we are in a hyper connected world, and FOMO is a common experience for many people. I mean, let's face it, we're being constantly barraged by social media updates, news notifications, digital communications coming from every direction. And if you are a person who has ADHD, this sensation is even more pronounced. So the interplay between ADHD and FOMO not only intensifies the emotional experience, but also leads to significant information overload.

So in this episode, we're gonna talk about why people with ADHD are particularly susceptible to FOMO, what role rejection sensitive dysphoria plays in our felt experience and what to do about information overload, which is both a cause and a result of all these things. Are you ready? Okay, I don't want to assume that anyone listening is familiar with my work or even the terminology that I'm gonna use. So I'm gonna quickly identify a couple of terms so that I don't leave anyone out okay? If you already know a lot of this stuff, you can skip on ahead. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Those are the dominant area of symptoms, there's a lot more, but those are the big 3.

We now understand that ADHD affects both children and adults, and ADHD affects all genders. The largest group of people being added to the ADHD family is adult women because historically, we were not looking for ADHD in adults or in girls or women. Now we are finding out there's just as many of us as there are of the boys and men. And our inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity may look a little different than the dudes. If you have ADHD, you have all 3 of these things or you wouldn't qualify for the diagnosis. But how they look differs. Inattentiveness simply means we struggle to maintain our focus on anything that is not interesting to us. So we might be able to watch a 60 minute makeup video for movie makeup that we're never gonna do because it's interesting to us.

But we won't be able to watch a 5 minute video that'll tell us how to more quickly and efficiently balance our checkbook if it isn't. You get the point. The thing is that that because of this variable attentiveness trait and the importance of our interest to keep us focused, we are easily distracted by both external stimuli and internal stimuli, our own thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Given that we are constantly bombarded by information from the outside, much of it coming from notifications and social media, it is really, really difficult to maintain our attention where it belongs because of this reason. Now hyperactivity used to be thought of only being applicable to boys and to some degree men. But we now understand that hyperactivity for many females is mental hyperactivity. You might be totally chill on the outside, but that mind is always, always going, I refer to it as having a busy brain.

You may also be hyperverbal, which is clearly a case with me. Now the need for constantly being occupied and having multiple projects at the same time, that can be how hyperactivity looks for women with ADHD. However, you might not realize that the physical hyperactivity of ADHD might be spent in constantly checking your devices and social media platforms, probably haven't thought about it that way. But you probably have thought about the fact that impulsivity, 1 of the key characteristics of ADHD, does tend to mean that we act we are more likely to act on a whim without considering the long term consequences. Impulsivity, largely driven by dopamine seeking and novelty seeking, drives us to constantly seek out new information and new experiences and the easiest place to find them is online, especially through social media. Now we're gonna talk briefly about FOMO before I start to connect the dots.

Okay, FOMO, fear of missing out. It's defined as a pervasive feeling of apprehension that others may be having rewarding experiences that you are not a part of. This is obviously amplified by any amount of time we spend on social media because let's face it, nobody puts their bad hair days and fights with their partner. Well, some people do if that's their brand. But the majority of people post things on social media that make them look attractive, intelligent, successful, popular, good parents, like all the things that everybody wants for themselves. So we are seeing these carefully curated images and videos and audio that imply that everybody is frankly having a better time than we are. And if you have ADHD, inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity means you're more vulnerable to experiencing FOMO. It's a fact and I can prove it.

You ready? Okay and none of this is meant to shame, trigger, or make anyone feel bad. These are simply the known facts, and there is a considerable amount of research data to back it up as well as personal experience, yours and mine. One, people with ADHD constantly need stimulation. Now we can get it in a positive way, and there are also many not so positive ways to get it. But the ADHD brain is wired for novelty and stimulation. We crave it. We need it. We insist on it. We can't live without it. I refer to it as desperately seeking dopamine. And there is no place that provides a steady stream of stimulation quite like the Internet and especially social media.

Not only are there a ton of accounts to follow, but all of those accounts are constantly posting updates and providing new novel experiences. It is the ideal but dangerous source of dopamine for those of us with ADHD. We can just sit there passive AF and have our brain completely hijacked for untold amounts of time simply by opening an app. This leads to an addiction of FOMO and drives us to stay on the app. There are legitimate treatment centers for Internet addiction and social media addiction. They are right up there along with addiction to alcohol and drugs. I kid you not, if you don't believe me, Google it. We also, as adults with ADHD, have difficulty delaying gratification. Now doesn't mean we're necessarily getting to get into trouble, but let's just put it this way. If you spend any time on TikTok after hours, you might just wake up to a notification that your order has shipped, and you don't even freaking remember that you ordered a damn thing.

Social media likes, comments, new updates provide instant gratification, and TikTok is especially prone to flashy images becoming increasingly monetized with creators saying, hey, here's this cool new cordless vacuum, I just ordered mine, by the way. This cool new cordless vacuum that gets every speck of dog hair off your flooring and it's on sale now. Now, I will say, because I'm talking about how dangerous this is, I am experimenting with delaying gratification. I actually watched probably 20 different videos for that cordless vac before I actually placed the order. I am testing my ability to delay gratification by maybe putting the item in my online cart, but not purchasing. Taking it out of the cart, waiting, seeing if I still wanted as much a few days or a week later.

That's a more advanced skill if you're super, super impulsive. Don't put yourself to that kind of test. We'll get into some strategies and how to practice these things in just a few minutes. But for now, the ability to delay gratification tends to be impaired with people with ADHD. And I'll tell you what else tends to be impaired, our ability to see ourselves the way other people see us. People with ADHD are more inclined to engage in negative social comparisons and a heightened sensitivity to seeing other people doing things and assuming that that means that we're a loser. We don't have friends. We're not successful. Nobody likes us and so forth. We're gonna get into rejection sensitive dysphoria in a couple of minutes. But when you have ADHD, you're more likely to have FOMO. That FOMO is gonna drive you to be scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on social media.

Once you see something that indicates, oh, wow. Everybody really is better than you. Everyone's better looking, has a better partner, better kids. They're more successful in their business. They have better weekend plans. They make better meals. Even their dog is better than yours. Of course, you're gonna feel RSD. So knowing the potential for social media to, like, grab you and hold you and twist you into knots and throw you out, we can't be ignorant to that if we want to thrive and be happy. All of this consumption tends to lead to information overload and can I just say that in addition to the impulsivity and the FOMO. Most people with ADHD, especially most women with ADHD, we love to learn and we love to develop ourselves, and we love to acquire more information?

We can go down rabbit holes that are absolutely phenomenal and enjoy every moment of it because learning can provide a steady stream of dopamine. I have met so many women with ADHD who are investigative reporters, journalists, writers, researchers. Because the very act of seeking and finding and acquiring information in and of itself is stimulating. It can, just as with social media, lead to information overload so we have to be aware of what's happening. Now, we've got ADHD, we've got FOMO, we've got the vicious cycle that leads to information overload because the fear of missing out drives people with ADHD to engage more frequently with social media and other information sources like Reddit, Quora, and others.

This increased engagement means we're exposed to more information right? The more we are afraid of missing out, the more information we're going to engage with. The more information we engage with, the more we're likely to experience information overload. It's a totally logical but vicious cycle. Our executive functioning challenges mean it is difficult for us to filter information from the necessary to the unnecessary. Like, we just think in the moment, especially in that impulsive dopamine seeking moment, it all seems pretty good. So we have a harder time determining. Nice to know. Need to know. Important. Not important. Vital. Irrelevant.

That is one of the ways our executive functioning deficit tends to appear. And the faster we are going through that information seeking cycle and the more it is driven by anxiety and FOMO, the more we are literally creating a landmine of information on our computer and to some degree in our heads. Obviously, this is gonna lead to stress and overwhelm. No brain, no matter how fast, no matter how turbocharged, no matter how love of information and learning our brain happens to be, at some point, it becomes overwhelming, especially if you have problems with organizing information, prioritizing information, and storing and retrieving information. And if you do not have 4 fingers up right now, I don't know. Everyone I know with ADHD has trouble with all those things. When we are impulsively acquiring information, now we have to figure out what to do with it.

Now we have to figure out where to freaking put it. It's like throwing it in the garage and closing the door and hoping it somehow sorts it itself out but that never, never works. So naturally, this leads to more stress and more overwhelm and guess what? That leads to impaired productivity. Because as our brain becomes more and more and more overloaded with information, it's harder and harder for us to focus and complete whatever is in front of us at the time. Naturally, this leads to decreased productivity and opens a feedback loop where we are seeking more stimulation and novelty to escape feelings of failure and adequacy, which leads to more information seeking and more information that we then don't know how to organize, prioritize, store, and retrieve. It is truly a vicious, vicious cycle.

So I wanna share a case study with you to kind of put things into perspective. I'm gonna tell you about Sarah who has ADHD and has a big problem with FOMO, especially because it's directly related to what she does for a living. So Sarah is, I think, about 30 years old. She is in marketing, and she was diagnosed with ADHD at about the age of 28, I believe. She is highly active on social media and she told me when I first met her, well, she has to be because that's her job she's in marketing. But I mean constantly checking accounts throughout the day. Sarah's FOMO is a significant source of stress and has led to difficulties, not only managing her workload, but her relationships and her personal life. Her day begins, I kid you not, with checking her phone before she's even out of bed. I don't even think she has both eyes open.

She has definitely not had time to pee or make her first cup of coffee. She spends the first hour of her day every day, 7 days a week, scrolling through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, threads, everything. Then throughout the day, she's receiving notifications, she feels compelled to check them immediately. And, of course, this habit has led to multiple, multiple interruptions throughout the day. So whatever work she's actually trying to focus on at the time gets interrupted. Naturally, this is a problem because the inability to filter information due to her impulsivity. And I would even say, no shame, compulsivity about checking everything from her social media accounts, her clients' social media accounts, but has even extended to news articles even though she says she's not political, and celebrity gossip. Two favorites are The Real Housewives and 90 Day Fiance but trust me when I tell you, it's too much information.

I mean, Sarah finds it challenging to prioritize what is relevant from what is irrelevant and spends countless hours on what even she will admit is trivial non information and even fake news. Of course, this leads to a sense of being overwhelmed because she's trying to keep up with a vast amount of data on a daily basis. I mean, it makes me exhausted even sharing this with you and it's very, very exhausting for her. And I think what's, for me, most heartbreaking and poignant is that because Sarah is in marketing, she truly believes that the vast majority of this is absolutely necessary. Even though she's overwhelmed, stressed out, and is wondering if she needs to ask her doctor for antianxiety meds. She feels acute pressure to stay updated with everything happening around her and believes that if she misses one thing, it might be the very thing that her job depends on or that is the most important.

This is a really stressful way to live, and stress exacerbates ADHD symptoms, making it even harder for her to be genuinely productive. You know, this is not just Sarah, this is not an unusual thing. I think the vast majority of people, ADHD or no, are experiencing FOMO due to social media. And for the record, I am not anti social media, I like and use social media every day. But I have learned I have to put strict boundaries around how and when and for how long I use it and what I need to do when I realize I'm getting triggered by FOMO, which brings me to a listener question. A listener asks, okay, so I agree that I have ADHD and I admit that I have FOMO but, like, most of the time, I don't recognize that I'm experiencing FOMO until after I'm already in the deep end and I've lost a fair amount of time. And then I feel really crappy working my way back out of it. Is there a way to recognize and manage FOMO in the moment when you have ADHD?

This is such a good question because being able to kind of pull yourself back from the edge before you go over the cliff is really, really necessary. And I think due to our unique neurological traits with ADHD, it might not come easily. It might not come quickly, but I absolutely believe it is worth putting in the time and the practice with the right strategies. Because let's face it, FOMO is a fact of modern life. Your ADHD is not going away and there are real consequences to not managing it. So these are the approaches that I believe help recognize and manage FOMO on the spot and honestly, they are helpful for everyone, even people who do not have ADHD. Are you ready? I cannot say enough about the importance of constantly developing our self awareness. Self awareness is crucial for recognizing FOMO in real time. And it comes down to this. What are your triggers? What are your triggers?

You know, it's kind of like when someone wants to stop smoking, they work with someone to help identify what their smoking triggers are. Sometimes it's like first thing in the morning, the trigger is opening your eyes. For many people, they don't have a cigarette first thing in the morning. They pick up their phone and start scrolling. For other people, boredom is the trigger. And I've talked about boredom extensively in another episode. Boredom may be the trigger. A sense of loneliness may be the trigger. A feeling of being out of the loop or being unaware of what's going on around you.

Maybe because you work from home, you're isolated. Maybe you don't see as many people face to face as you used to. Maybe you don't interact with as many people online as you used to, those can be some common triggers. So developing self awareness about what actually triggers your FOMO in real time and recognizing the physical and emotional signs of FOMO. So take a moment, get quiet with yourself and pay attention. What are my triggers and what am I actually feeling and what sensations am I actually experiencing in my body when I have the experience of FOMO? Two things I recommend are mindfulness practices, like regular mindfulness meditation.

However brief can help so much to increase self awareness. Short daily sessions, I'm talking as little as 5 to 10 minutes, can make such a huge difference. Because mindfulness is simply training the mind to notice thoughts and emotions as they arise. So if you genuinely want to get better at recognizing when you're starting to go into a state of FOMO, this will be very helpful for RSD, which I'll talk about shortly. Short daily mindfulness sessions will help you start to train your mind to notice your thoughts and emotions as they arrive. Another great way to do this is what's called body scanning. This is more of the physical sensations and paying attention to maybe your heart rate is speeding up.

Maybe you're feeling more agitated or restless, or you have sort of a sense of urgency or apprehension or even impending doom. That might be your signal that you are beginning to experience FOMO. Implement an immediate intervention when you recognize FOMO setting in. And in order to implement, you have to know what to do, these are the simplest things. And you might think, well, that doesn't sound like it's gonna do anything. That's too easy, trust me. The easiest, simplest things are the most effective. One, pause and breathe, just a few deep breaths will help to calm your mind and your body. That moment of pause between the feeling of FOMO and acting on the feeling of FOMO, maybe all the relief you need to start to feel like you're in control.

I also really like, use, and recommend grounding techniques, such as in addition to focusing on your breath and the sensation of your breath as it's moving through your body, but feeling your feet on the ground, feeling the weight of your body on a chair, or couch, or bed, or even holding a small object in your hand to bring the attention back to the present moment. And you'll notice that none of these things require you to buy anything or acquire anything beyond your own awareness and your own body. Other things that are really, really effective. Cognitive reframing. Cognitive reframing simply means changing the way you are interpreting and responding to a situation that triggers FOMO.

So challenging your thoughts and using positive affirmations are two that I really like. Challenging your thoughts is like asking yourself questions that challenge the validity of your FOMO. Like, is this really something I need to pay attention to right now? Or I love this one, will this matter to me tomorrow? It's a pattern interrupt that's really, really powerful. Now positive affirmations are nothing new. They've been around, I think, since probably the sixties, if not earlier, but they're still really helpful. Things like, I am in control of my time and my focus, can help train you to think of yourself as being a person who is in control of your mind, your body and your reactions. That's a great way to fight FOMO. Establishing boundaries and around technology. I cannot emphasize this enough. We all need boundaries with technology if we experience FOMO, whether you have ADHD or not.

Using technology wisely, so it is a tool and not a master of your attention means limiting features like the amount of screen time. We there are apps that allow you to limit your screen time. You can disable your notifications. You can put your computer on do not disturb mode. You can install social media usage trackers so that you actually tell how much you are on these apps compared to how much you think you're on. And I'm a big fan of scheduled breaks from social media and even the Internet as in digital detox. You can do them like a summer break, but you can also limit your social media usage to specific times of the day and create transition rituals to get you out and doing something else. I'm gonna link to a few examples of this in the show notes so you can come back to it later.

And can I just say that social media takes up as much room in our lives as we allow it? And the best way to limit its ability to hijack us and hold us hostage is by engaging in alternative activities. If you experience and are impaired by FOMO, there's nothing better for dealing with that than either physical activities or creative hobbies, and preferably both. You don't have to get a gym membership. You can just turn on some party music and dance in your living room. You can go for a walk. You can do some stretching or yoga, or you can join a community sports team. Any kind of physical activity, trampolining, jump rope, push ups, you name it, will help reduce your anxiety, your physical reactivity, and help to refocus your mind, guaranteed.

And creative hobbies you know, before we had the Internet, before we had social media, people were kind of forced to come up with their own sort of entertainment. People were drawing and painting and writing and learning foreign languages and playing musical instruments and joining community theater and doing karaoke these things are still available to us. We are in the post pandemic world now, and all the things that we used to enjoy are still out there. But so many of us have become overly reliant on the passive forms of seeking stimulation for our brain that are really, really hurting us. If needed, seek support, not everybody needs it.

But if you do, there's no shame in it. Talk to someone, share your feelings of FOMO with a friend, a family member, or even a therapist, if it's really become a problem. Talking about these feelings and these experiences can just help you gain perspective and an accountability partner is really, really helpful. Because if you are really kind of in an addictive loop with the Internet, with social media, with indulging and impulsively checking, then maybe an accountability partner will help you break that cycle. I wanna share a question from another listener about the link between FOMO and rejection sensitive dysphoria. And I think that needs to be part of this conversation because all these things really are connected.

So here's the question, I feel like most of my emotional dysregulation is caused by the combo of FOMO and RSD rejection sensitive dysphoria, especially when it comes to marketing my business online on social media. Can you help me figure out why and what to do about it? Well, as we've been talking about, people with ADHD experience more FOMO. Many people with ADHD also experience rejection sensitive dysphoria. I have talked about this extensively on multiple interviews on other podcasts, and I will put a link to find those in the show notes so that you can refer to that information. But both FOMO and RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria, are amplified by the neurological and psychological traits of ADHD. It's why they're so highly correlated. So understanding the connection between these different experiences can absolutely provide deeper insights and help us develop more self awareness.

I'm not going to go into too much about what rejection sensitive dysphoria is, other than to say it is an extreme form of emotional sensitivity and reactivity to a perceived rejection, criticism, failure, or exclusion. Exclusion in the same way FOMO is. Now this causes intense emotional pain and can be triggered by situations where people feel misunderstood, ignored or undervalued, just like FOMO. The key characteristics of RSD include an intense emotional responsiveness that may have feelings of sadness, anger or shame in response to a perceived rejection or criticism. Fear of further and future rejection or the inability to meet other people's expectations, which often causes people to kind of retract and hide and avoidance of situations, almost like PTSD in a way, because the pain associated with RSD can be so severe for many individuals that they would rather avoid any possible situation where they could face rejection or criticism.

Now if you are a business owner, if you are an entrepreneur, if you are a creative, if you are a person who is self employed in any way, shape or form doing freelance work, contract work, side hustle work, if you experience FOMO, if you experience RSD, I beg you, listen to what I'm about to share because your happiness and your business success really do depend on it. Both FOMO and RSD involve a heightened sense of emotional sensitivity. And it's a really common trait for many people with ADHD because we're more susceptible to feeling triggered by the perception that we're being left out, we're going to experience feelings of inadequacy and exclusion.

When we perceive that we're missing out on something or that people are talking about us or people are choosing to exclude us, we're going to experience both FOMO and RSD. If you are prone to compare yourself with others, especially in a negative way, which is really, really common to people with ADHD, your self esteem is absolutely going to be impacted by both FOMO and RSD. I mean, let's face it. Seeing other people participating in things or even giving the impression of participating in them successfully can lead to really negative social comparisons. Opening up your social media app right? Let' we've recently had the 4th July holiday here in the US. And a lot of people go to barbecues and they get together with family and they go on vacations and they go see fireworks and they're doing all kinds of fun things.

Well, maybe you didn't have any of those experiences and you wished you could. Going on social media on that day on 4th July and seeing post after post after post, video after video of everybody, presumably everybody else having fun but you, can trigger not only a sense of missing out, but a negative social comparison to why is everyone else got something to do and someone to do it with but me? This can be extremely painful when FOMO and rejection sensitive dysphoria coexist so we need social validation. This is part of being human, but we do not need it from compulsively checking social media, and we do not need it from comparing ourselves to others. Social validation comes from experiences where we give ourselves the opportunity to be around people who actually care about us, who actually know us and who actually choose to spend time with us.

Another piece to this, is that the impulsivity of ADHD tends to drive behaviors that exacerbate both FOMO and rejection sensitive dysphoria. The need for immediate gratification just frankly leads to compulsive behaviors that are counterproductive. So instead of giving yourself the opportunity to be exposed to those feelings, create activities, create relationships, create projects, create hobbies, creative projects that you can get those needs met by so that you're not going to be so susceptible to the negative reactions of FOMO and RSD. If you're experiencing RSD, even without FOMO, the same strategies apply, mindfulness techniques, self compassion. Additionally, cognitive behavioral therapy, if you are working with someone, setting boundaries around your technology is as bit of a must with RSD as it is with FOMO, and engaging in meaningful activities that focus on connection, inclusion, community.

In conclusion, I personally find that there is a lot of connections between ADHD, FOMO, RSD information overload. I've tried to put those puzzle pieces together for you in a way that really reflects how complex and multifaceted this experience truly is and why we need to protect ourselves from negative experiences that steal our joy and limit our productivity. By understanding how these things play together, or I would say, fight with 1 another, we can develop strategies that limit our FOMO, limit our RSD and allow us to have a more meaningful, connected and vibrant life as a person with ADHD. Friends don't let friends do ADHD alone. So if any part of this episode has been helpful to you and you think it might be helpful to someone you know, especially if they are a creative or small business owner dealing with these issues, please do them a favor and do me a favor for creating this content for you and share this episode with them. There's a special link in the show notes that makes it super easy to do so.