Looking for ADHD self-empowerment, guidance and support? Look through my ADHD Women's Wellbeing resources here. My entire 'ADHD Women's Wellbeing Series' is on offer this July. Head here to learn more about the workshops and use code JULY to get 35% off.

I'm sure you relate to recalling an entire conversation from months ago or even song lyrics from the 80s, but forgetting why you walked into a room thirty seconds ago?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Dr Sarah Rudebeck, a clinical psychologist with a PhD in memory from the University of Oxford.

Sarah specialises in working memory and executive function difficulties in adults, and is the co-founder of Recallify, an AI companion for memory support. She works clinically in the NHS, with a particular interest in bridging the gap between what research tells us about memory and what people are actually offered in terms of help.

In this episode, we talk about the difference between memories that are simply hard to retrieve under pressure and genuine working memory difficulties, why so many ADHD adults share a similar cognitive profile of strong intellectual ability alongside weaker working memory and attention, and why working memory cannot be trained like a muscle, no matter how many crosswords or brain games we try. We also get into the practical side, from school admin and parenting reminders to household overwhelm and overbuying, and how Sarah's own frustration with the gap between research and everyday support led her to co-found Recallify.

In this episode, we cover:

• The difference between memories that are "in there" and memories you can retrieve under pressure
• What working memory actually is, and how it differs from attention, executive function and long-term memory
• The common ADHD cognitive profile: strong intellectual ability alongside weaker working memory and processing speed
• What happens during a neuropsychological assessment, and what it reveals about your own pattern of strengths and difficulties
• Why working memory cannot be trained like a muscle, and what the research on brain training actually shows
• How hormonal changes in midlife can affect word retrieval and confidence
• Where working memory difficulties show up day to day, from school admin to household overwhelm
• Why so many of us overbuy and overcompensate rather than under-organise
• Sarah's own experience of dyslexia and learning to lean on her strengths
• How Recallify came about, and how its brain dump and task features work

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Welcome, and introducing Dr Sarah Rudebeck
• 01:23 - Sarah's background and her work in the NHS
• 02:43 - Why memory can feel reliable in conversation but fail under pressure
• 05:50 - What working memory actually is
• 08:36 - What happens during a neuropsychological assessment
• 12:21 - How working memory difficulties show up in children at school
• 14:41 - Why working memory cannot be trained like a muscle
• 19:44 - Everyday examples: parenting, school admin and household overwhelm
• 24:38 - Why so many of us overbuy rather than under-organise
• 29:31 - Using your strengths to work around your weaknesses
• 32:01 - How the gap in NHS support led Sarah to create Recallify
• 46:33 - Sarah's free trial offer for listeners

This week's episode is sponsored by elete, a simple way to support your hydration by adding essential electrolytes to the water you're already drinking. So many of us get completely absorbed in a task and forget to drink anything for hours, then wonder why we feel foggy or flat later in the day. Elete is sugar-free, with no artificial sweeteners or unnecessary additives, and it's trusted by health-conscious families, athletes and wellness professionals alike. Head to eletewater.co.uk and use the code WWP20 for an exclusive 20% listener discount.

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Visit Recallify's website: recallify.ai
• Connect with Recallify on Instagram: instagram.com/recallify.ai, Facebook and LinkedIn
• Email Sarah's team for a free one-month trial of Recallify; each voucher is unique so you'll need to get in touch directly: [email protected]

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a.

Wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum.

To four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today I'm here with Dr. Sarah Rudabeck.

And she is a clinical psychologist.

Psychologist with a PhD in memory from the University of Oxford and she specializes in working memory and executive function difficulties in adults and is also the co founder of recallify, which is an AI companion for memory support.

And she works clinically in the NHS and has a particular interest in bridging the gap between what research tells us about memory and what people are actually offered in terms of help.

So I'm delighted to welcome onto the podcast today.

Sarah, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure.

Yeah, I mean, I was.

We were just having a little chat off camera and I'd be so interested to just hear a little bit about your background and I guess the very specifics of.

Of where your interest is with neuropsychology.

And working with working memory and I guess sort of more of the cognitive side and the impact that that can.

Have on people's lives.

And I know so many of the women that are listening, you know, will all probably relate to what working memory difficulties and how that's impacted them over their lifespan.

So, yeah, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background as well.

Yeah, I did a PhD at Oxford and then I've trained to be a clinical psychologist and throughout my whole career I've been working with people with different conditions that lead to memory, concentration and executive functioning difficulties.

So I work primarily in the NHS with people who have neurological conditions and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Those are my two kind of specialties.

Got really frustrated.

I've been working in the NHS now as a clinician for about 10 years and I was writing so many reports and doing assessments of people and we have these huge waiting lists right now and people just aren't getting the support they need.

So I was really keen to Use all that research, evidence and knowledge and training.

I've done a huge amount of training.

There's huge amounts of training that NHS professionals have to do to sit in front of you in the clinic, to actually use some of that knowledge and to get it so that we can help people live better lives and manage their executive functioning and working memory difficulties day to day, so they can have a better life and function better at work, at home and in the workplace and at school sometimes, if they're teenagers.

Okay, so we're talking about this sort of like this filing system in our brain.

And it feels like with my adhd, if I try and recall things on demand, I really struggle.

But then on other times, like if I'm having a conversation on this podcast and I'm not into pressure and I can remember conversations from previous guests or information from an article I read, it's fine.

But if someone said to me, right, you need to stand up and remember a 15 minute speech or do a TED talk, I really don't know if I'd be able to do that.

Like, I don't think I would be able to be an actor on stage because I don't think I have the ability to remember lines.

What, what's the difference between that, where it's sort of like not being under pressure with your memory and very deliberate memory that you need?

Well, I guess when we see that in clinic, I would think of that as anxiety, potentially causing a bit of a issue or kind of your ability to retrieve the memories, because, well, you're describing there is your memories of are in there.

You can get them at other times when you're relaxed, you can just recall them and talk about them.

And so, yeah, sometimes we see this quite a lot in clinic when we're testing people if they're anxious or their attention is kind of drifting and things like that, they struggle to retrieve the right information.

But actually if you do a recognition test for them, they know it all.

Do you see what I mean?

So if you give them a few prompts and you're like, is it this or this?

They're like, yeah, it's that obviously.

So they've got all the information in there, the memories are there, but it's actually anxiety and stress and also attention can mean it's harder to retrieve information.

And I think everyone finds out to a certain extent.

You see what I mean?

And I think it's even harder when you've got ADHD in particular.

Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely feel there's a.

The women That I speak to say.

They say to me definitely in midlife, I think with like hormones and perimenopause that they were able to stand up with confidence and talk about things or they'd be able to retrieve the words or articulate themselves.

And they don't have that same level of confidence maybe in their working memory, maybe with their organizational skills and I guess with maybe having to make a speech or do a talk and they don't have that confidence to be able to recall the information or the stats or the data or whatever that might be.

So would you say is that a working memory issue?

No, I don't think we would say that from a cognitive perspective that that's a working memory issue per se.

It's more like a kind of retrieval issue, potentially working memory, I guess you do have to hold it for it to kind of go back out again.

But I would think that to be more attentional and executive functions, not necessarily working memory, which is kind of getting information in, in the first place.

Later it goes onto working memory and then into your long term memory system.

Okay, so the working memory is like the processing part.

Yeah, it's almost like that processing power to kind of get it into your brain in the first place and then you have to kind of retrieve it back out again out of your temporal lobes, we would say, if it's been stored correctly.

So, you know, if you've got the information in there, it should be okay to retrieve.

But yes, it's about managing how to do that, when to do that, and different things around your attentional capabilities as well.

Because obviously you've got to kind of be able to focus and plan and organize and think through, you know, your memories in themselves.

And that's a big task and difficult thing to do sometimes, particularly in our really complex worlds where we're.

Our attention is being like overwhelmed basically all the time at this point.

I think women particularly, and women in there, as our hormones start to change and things like that, we're also managing kind of huge amounts, aren't we?

Often in terms of work with our potential children and also as carers to older people as well, maybe our own parents.

So there's so many competing demands and I think that's why it's so important for women to give themselves a break and also use strategies and tools to try and support their memories, their working memories, and their planning and organization generally to help them day to day.

Yeah, I don't think this daily life that we live in, like you say, with so many demands and Then we've got our phones sucking our energy and notifications going off and just so many things all happening at once.

It is no wonder that we are feeling so burnt out psychologically and mentally.

And we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves that when we do drop balls or we can't remember things, that is a problem, that it's like a deficit of ours.

But what we do know is ADHD has always been there and working memory, cognitive difficulties or delays.

The attention side, all of that has always been part of an ADHD profile.

What would you say are the things that people are coming in for?

They come into your clinic and they're not sure what's sort of going on.

They're kind of like, is it dementia?

Is it adhd?

Is a.

Is there some form of brain injury?

Like what, what are those things?

Working memories, kind of the most significant things that you're seeing cognitively that people are coming in and you can say, okay, that is definitely more of an ADHD profile as opposed to anything else.

Yeah, absolutely.

In the clinic, it's quite easy to tell tease apart these things.

We'd obviously, in the NHS services that I work in, we'd also have quite a lot of information from medical teams.

Do you see what it means?

I'm not a standalone necessary assessment, so I would always be working with doctors and other allied health care professionals, as you always should be, especially in ADHD services or neurology services.

So I'd have lots of other information and evidence.

I guess if we were to do a neuropsychological assessment of a person, which is what I specialize in, this is what we're doing, basically a big battery of cognitive tests on someone to look at their kind of individual strengths and weaknesses.

So we always start by doing intellectual assessments of people.

And I don't know if you've had one, Kate, but they're quite interesting to kind of think about your own strengths and weaknesses.

So you look at verbal iq, non verbal iq, working memory and processing speed all in one big test.

And these are very well known kind of standardized tests and are used across the world.

And then we'd also look at attention, do some tests around attention.

We'd look at memory as well, particularly long term memory.

So that means getting people to learn information and then leaving gaps and like.

So it isn't that immediate short term memory, it's like after half an hour, what can you recall?

And these types of things.

And we also sometimes look at executive functions as well, though frankly, it's quite hard to test people's executive functions because they are such a, like day to day thing, like planning, you're organizing, you're inhibiting things.

And actually that's quite a hard thing to test.

But we do, there are some and we do try and do them.

So when we have all the results of that, we can kind of tease apart people's individual cognitive profiles.

And if it's someone who has, you know, and that can really help us, guide us what we think, or it can help guide doctors to diagnose people with different types of condition.

So I guess in neurodevelopmental services I would be much more involved in making those diagnoses.

And it's quite clear often when there's more of like ADHD picture because you'd see classically a really kind of average good, maybe even better than that, like exceptional intellectual abilities.

By that I mean verbal intellect, non verbal intellectual abilities.

You know, those things we really think are important for people's kind of productivity and how well they're going to do in life.

But then you might see quite big gap or difference between that and their working memory abilities and potentially even processing speed as well.

So that's how fast you're thinking through information as well.

And then obviously we'd expect kind of attention tests for them to be weaker on that too.

Issues with impulsivity and inattention in some of these kind of standard tasks that we're doing, often they're super boring.

Because attention tests are kind of designed to be incredibly dull.

Looking at reaction times and things like that, of sustained attention, divided attention.

So yeah, we see this, that people have a whole host of intellectual abilities and I see such smart people, but they have this big gap between their intellect and their working memory and processing speed and attentional abilities that can really cause major kind of issues with them showing their fantastic abilities day to day and getting on at life and work.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You sort of see this manifest in kids, I guess when they're really enthusiastic in class, they, they're the ones that put their hands up, they're curious, they're asking lots of questions, there might be an interest in there.

But then when they are then asked to either deduce it down into an essay or a comprehension or something like that, that's where you see that disparity.

Or you have a child that is really interested in one subject and really not interested in another and you see this huge disparity between grades.

And I wish more teachers could see through the lines, you know, read between the lines here because that should be a clear indicator that there's something going on with regards to whether it is the working memory of the processing.

I guess.

Again, I'm not an expert, but I wonder if you are a child that's really interested in history and that is like your special interest and you really love that, then maybe you will kind of override those, those difficulties somewhat because of your interest and your attention on the topic and you'll sort of like engage.

There's a hook there, an engagement.

Ye into it.

Yeah.

You're kind of like amplify that just because you really want to learn.

Yeah.

But then you're not interested in science and so that's where they fall behind.

And I mean I've got children all ADHD and there's, there's a couple of them where that, that processing hasn't been there to the point where one of my daughters got caught, called that she was a slow processor, which is not great for someone's self esteem when you know very well that she's very clever.

But she really has struggled, you know, through GCSEs and now a levels to hold on to the, to process the information, to then retain the information, to then relay the information, which is unfortunately what you're rewarded for in the schooling system and then beyond in universities.

So what options are there apart from, you know, we've obviously got medication.

Medication can be hugely helpful in those situations.

What other options have we got to almost like train our brains to operate in this very noisy world?

Or do we just have to find different ways of learning, being living, working?

Yeah, I mean that's a huge question.

And everyone's done so much research into kind of working memory training.

I did my PhD into working memory training like 15 years ago.

We were all excited 15 years ago, like doing training and I'm afraid like really that body of literature showed that at the end of the day, after thousands of studies, you can't really train your working memory.

Really.

Sadly, we were all like very hopeful.

The study I did showed it did help, you know, this kind of thing.

But, but really what those studies showed is you can train someone to do well at a task, a working memory task.

But that doesn't translate any way to any other working memory tasks day to day.

So there was this problem with the transfer effect.

It was called in kind of science speak, but it's just like the brain isn't like a muscle.

Do you see what I mean?

We can't work it out and then it's there for you to use all the time.

It got good at the one task that I was giving people to do and then it didn't kind of actually make anything better in the people's lives day to day to improve their memories.

How does that work with like, I guess the notion of neuroplasticity, like people talking about like our neural pathways and training them and I mean I've heard on the flip side that yes, the brain is a muscle and we can train the brain.

So where, where's that kind of.

Yeah, bits of the brain can be trained, but not all bits of the brain.

That's the problem.

It's really complicated, isn't it?

Okay, I think it's nice to have catch all terms like that.

But we know neuroplasticity does exist for certain things.

And you know, I work sometimes people having neuro rehabilitation and so we know that plasticity is definitely possible for your like movements and for like learning to speak again.

So some areas of the brain are really able and want to be plastic or find new pathways.

Do you see what I mean?

And kind of work out how to do things.

But we really haven't seen.

I work with physios that are getting people to do repetitive movements and they do regain functions in their bodies.

It's fantastic.

People walking again after brain injuries and also work with speech and language therapists where they do kind of really repetitive speech therapy and that can really help people.

So this is particularly after stroke or traumatic brain injuries.

But the brain is so complicated and we're just like scratching the surface.

And from what I've seen so far of the literature, the temporal, medial temporal lobes, we really don't think those bits of the brain are like a muscle.

Do you see what I mean?

They're really delicate, they're really specific in the way that they're, they're working.

And if anything happens to your brain, that's the bit that starts to, to get damaged almost very quickly.

Is that the working memory parts?

No.

So the, the working memory part is thought to be classically the frontal lobe.

But we're now really understanding that the brain is like a interconnected circuits and web almost, isn't it?

So I think that's the other issue is that how do you train a circuit necessarily to see what I mean, working memory is probably is interactions between the frontal lobe, front bit and parietal lobe towards the back.

So that's the other issue is that actually it's a kind of interconnectivity and communication that's happening in the brain often.

So that's why maybe that is much harder for us to train motor, like moving your body.

They know exactly on your brain which bit moves your hand.

Do you see what I mean?

Like, you can map it exactly where it is.

And so the brain is doing things in different ways for different functions.

And that's why I think we're struggling more in the cognitive side because it's a much more complex thing to work out how to train these things.

Things or determine.

Is there a way to make them more trainable?

I guess.

Okay, so that is quite validating for people because there's a lot of us that kind of think we need to be doing more, we should be doing more.

Let's play Scrabble, let's do a crossword, let's learn a new language.

And that might help with other parts of our brain.

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying, just said stay in a black box.

It's not, it's not worth doing anything.

But I'm just saying the memory training and working memory training literally, so far hasn't found that like you can train your working memory like a muscle.

We definitely know the benefits of keeping active, doing things, being in education and kind of using all of your brain together.

But, yeah, so far we haven't found any kind of really specific things that can target, you know, working memory and executive functionings and the things that we'd like to help people with from the clinic.

I mean, can you give me a couple of examples of, and I'm going to be very general here, of how working memory shows up in our life?

Maybe let's take academia out of it, but, you know, working mum, parenting, like you say, maybe looking after older parents, midlife, busy, busy.

Like where would those parts of our working memory be?

Holding, holding things up for us and maybe letting us down so we can really understand that it's not a failure, unlike our part, or we're not flawed or lazy or broken or not trying hard enough.

I think it's really important that we can sort of understand the practicalities of where that might show up.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think people are absolutely not any of those things you just said.

They are overwhelmed and they have this individual difference that they need to just work out strategies and ways to, to support themselves with and maybe also get other people to support them with.

And I guess that's the other gripe I have is the lack of support in the NHS for people to have, like, support and interventions after they're diagnosed with different types of neurodevelopmental.

Condition and ADHD in particular.

So yeah, I see it a lot in the clinic.

People talking to me about the difficulties that they're experiencing with their working memory.

But they tell me about these real life experiences, experiences.

So they say things like, when I'm working with teenagers, the parents always say, I'm sure you feel like this, Kate.

You know, I'm just reminding them constantly over and over again to do their homework, to do all these different things.

And in that I can.

That's such a kind of rich thing because it tells me that that young person isn't able to hold in mind the parents four different things that they've shouted at them in the morning they maybe have taken in too potentially.

Do you see what I mean?

And then they might carry out some of that, then they might get a bit distracted towards the end, so then kind of attention starts to come in as well.

So that's a really common one that I hear, particularly when I work with parents and teenagers.

You know, we all have a number of different things we've got to remember in the mornings, don't we?

And going through that in our head is a huge kind of task.

And often parents are helping teenagers with that.

And so they've already said the list to do.

And it's really frustrating that when they don't actually carry it out.

I think with the parents themselves, when I'm working with someone who's a bit later on in life, in their 40s and things like that, people really talk about the massive burden of school admin and multiple different systems that they're getting from different children's schools, different apps, different emails, WhatsApp, parenting group, parent groups attached to schools as well.

And that is causing a major working memory problem because that's really needing you to hold significant amounts of memory into your working memory.

Do you see what I mean?

Per child almost.

And then it is going to probably overreach capacity very quickly.

And that often is a big working memory problem that people experience.

And I just think it's people also being kind of very over overloaded almost with information here.

Other bits of life is all happening at the same time as all of this information is coming in to try and get into your working memory, isn't it?

You're probably making breakfast, you're probably trying to get yourself ready.

You know, you've got other things that you're also having to run in your working memory of what you've got to do.

So I just see people getting really overloaded with the practicalities.

Of over information these days, I guess.

Yeah, that's a very, very relatable scenario.

And I'm already thinking about, you know, the WhatsApp group that is constantly pinging.

And then there's that one person that says, I've not paid this, or what day is PE or.

And thankfully, women are, you know, very supportive.

And, you know, thankfully, there's all the mums seem to recognize whether we've got ADHD or not, that we are overloaded.

We're totally overloaded by life and the collision with our attention and the collision with, you know, executive functioning and all of that.

And sometimes it can be quite hazy, can't it, to know, is that working memory difficulty or is that my executive functioning?

Do you help people in clinic kind of, I guess, understand what is what so they can help.

I guess it's more empowering to know, isn't it, what's going on?

That's what you are trying to do when you do a neuropsychology assessment because you're saying often the person comes in with quite kind of general, you know, kind of descriptions like, oh, I can't remember anything, or things like that.

Then the point of doing the assessment is to be like, you know, actually, this is the thing that's tricky.

So sometimes all I'm saying is, you know, the only thing that's tricky for you is your.

We call it processing speed, how fast you think through information or.

And attention.

That's it.

You know, everything else is really good.

And so let's use strategies that use your great memory, your high intellectual abilities to kind of overcome those things.

And I think that's the real key in ADHD is because people often have so many strengths.

We often talk a lot about what's hard and what's difficult.

You see what I mean?

But think about, okay, what's my unique strengths and what can I use to then overcome some of these things?

So, for example, this is an adhd, but I'm dyslexic.

And so I've had to use my intellectual abilities a lot of the time to think like, I don't really know how to write this.

Do you see what I mean?

But I'm going to work out how to do it.

And I think often dyslexic people do that a lot.

So it's about kind of being a bit more strengths focused, I think, sometimes, and really thinking like, what am I good at and how am I going to overcome this kind of mild weakness?

For me, yeah, I mean, I think it's Important to state that I think when you've lived undiagnosed with adhd, the challenges often outweigh our strengths because for us it's just like kind of like a personality defect.

So say it reflects in our organizational space or in our house, especially as a woman, you know, constantly that there's criticism.

So it's hard to then see your strengths, which we know we have many.

But the challenges and the difficulties and the deficits that we sort of see outweigh that because we think, well, what kind of person am I if I can't tidy up a kitchen drawer?

What kind of person am I if I can't keep my bedroom tidy?

But yes, I'm a clinical lead in.

A. Yeah,.

Yeah, but in our head our self steam is.

Well, the drawer in the kitchen still hasn't been tidied.

So forget that I've got a PhD, I can't, I can't keep a kit or I can't remember to feed my kids or I've forgotten to go to the supermarket again or my kids gone to school without their PE bag again or I've forgotten my best friend's birthday and those little micro reminders, you know, I believe often outweigh.

Unless we've got like really fantastic self esteem, amazing support, we've not been criticized over and over and we kind of fully understand ourselves with compassion and healing and all of that.

It can be really hard to focus on those strengths.

I'm not disputing that we don't have them.

I guess it's just changing.

I think with a diagnosis and maybe with help and support that you offer, that is when we're able to make that switch and kind of go okay, so it's not a reflection of my personality that I struggle to remember X, Y and Z.

You work in the nhs, you're a clinician, you're seeing patients every day and you're still noticing that there's a gap in, in what is offered and what can support people which has led you to create an app.

And I'm very interested to hear a little bit about what it is, what it does, how it helps people and how you came to thinking about it.

Yeah, well, I guess it was born out of frustration.

So like I said, I've been working for 10 years clinically and you do go into being a clinician.

It's hard job to get into clinical training and things like that.

And you go in thinking a bit like I'm going to change people's lives.

You know, you're kind of thinking these kind of things, which obviously you can do and it does happen.

But I was getting a bit feeling like, you know, I'm assessing people, I'm giving them.

They now know their strengths and weaknesses, just like we talked about.

I've told them all these things that might help them, but then what's actually there practically for them day to day to help them to sort out that draw, manage their kids.

Admin.

Do you see what I mean?

All those kind of practical things, day to day, that was actually really affecting their mental health.

Like you say, people end up anxious and depressed because they feel like they can't overcome cognitive difficulties.

So that was really what led me to create Requalify, the app that we've created for people with memory and attention difficulties.

And it was also, I guess I started to look a bit more into what was out there for people after diagnoses and I was a bit surprised.

Not much has been created by clinicians or researchers and I felt like there was a bit of a kind of evidence gap.

Do you see what I mean?

And a lot of sales is going on.

I guess I need to learn about sales.

It's not my forte, but.

But I just wanted to make sure, you know, and create some things that can use some of that research knowledge that I've got and clinical knowledge and kind of best practice and put it into an app to see if that can support people day to day to kind of get on with life and manage working memory and attentional difficulties.

But it's been a long road, I can only imagine.

I mean, to get it out there and with working in the NHS and everything that you do.

But I think you're absolutely right.

I mean, I get emails all the time from.

I don't want to be too dismissive, but from sort of like tech bros who are, you know, working on apps and it's.

This is.

And they promise me that it's going to help this and it's going to help that.

And then, yes, they probably got great AI experience, coding tech experience, I'm not disputing any of that, but to have the, the clinical support and the, the knowledge of what you're seeing day to day in your patients and clients, it's so powerful.

And I guess you're seeing that the gaps of what's being offered right now.

So before you.

Before is re qualify.

So it's kind of like recall.

Yes, Re qualify.

What were you giving your patients and what did you feel?

A bit helpless.

And are you able to now prescribe the App as kind of like homework or whatever.

Yeah, well, I can't in my NHS job because that would be a conflict of interest.

But.

But it's out there and you know, people are using it now and, you know, we're really wanting to get feedback from people and their use of recallifying.

We're running some research studies as well at the moment.

So, yeah, before recallify was created, what I was, and I still do suggest to people in, in the clinic because they do help, is the usual strategies for working memory and attention.

So working memory is basically write it down as soon as possible or record it in some way, get people to repeat information and have that as a kind of reasonable adjustment as well, if you can, in, you know, classrooms or at work.

So, you know, people using things like copilot and stuff like that now more and more and then trying to do like reminders and things like that in their phones or other systems to help kind of with remembering when to do things and task management as well.

But really the working memory kind of strategies aren't particularly rocket science, are they?

And so I was a bit.

I also felt like sometimes I worked more with younger people, so with teenagers and young adults and I just felt like a lot of the time they did absolutely none of the strategies.

I was saying there was a bit of an issue there as well, but that's, that's a different thing.

And I'm sure as they become adults, they'll learn and think about their own strategies.

Do you see what I mean?

To manage it?

Yeah.

So those were the kind of generic ones that we were kind of suggesting to people.

And I would, I had started to suggest to people, record information on your phone because I knew everyone had a phone and that kind of what led me to think, surely we could build an app helping using AI to automatically create tasks so that your reminders automatically into your calendar.

Do you see what I mean?

Create summary.

So it's really out of me telling people to do things in clinic and trying trying different things out with different clients that I kind of came to the idea of requalified.

But we've also had, in any type of health app, you have to have a lot of what's called co design.

So we've had a lot of users with conditions, you know, with memory and attention difficulties of ADHD and different types of neurological condition.

They've kind of told us like this doesn't work, what does this even bit mean?

And we've kind of really slowly made the app so that it's as Helpful and as usable as possible.

But even after we've done that co design stage, we're, like I said, we've moved on to kind of like, right, does it actually help?

And we're doing the research studies to try and look at that now.

First of all, congratulations on getting something like that off the ground because it's one thing having an idea and it's another thing getting it out there and getting it tested and you know, like you say, getting all the feedback and everything.

So, you know, huge, huge congratulations on that.

And I was thinking of all the different little workarounds that I guess I have found and AI really has been a massive lifesaver for me, you know, it really has because I've got the kind of memory that if I'm walking the dog all of a sudden lots.

Of things will just pop into my head.

And so I've used different apps where I voice record an idea, I will just put something in my notes app.

I've got lots of different strategies, but I do need to, I have sort of streamlined them a little bit more now that I has got better.

But you know, in the past it would be send myself a message, voice record, send myself an email to remind myself to do something, all these different things.

I'm a huge fan of my Google Calendar, my Apple Calendar, because absolutely everything goes on there.

And my kids, for whatever reason, my two teenage kids are still resistant to using online calendars.

And I'm like, well, how are you meant to remember?

They go, I remember.

I'm like, you remember.

You may remember your hairdresser's appointment tomorrow, but you don't remember that you need to clean your room, bring your five mugs down, put your dirty washing in the washing basket, you know.

But they'll remember the hairdresser, their one hairdresser appointment, because for me it's reducing the cognitive load.

And yes, teenager has way less cognitive load because essentially they're living in their.

Own little selfish bubble because mum's taken over the cognitive load.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And you know, some husbands, you know, their wives hold that cognitive load for them.

Maybe a couple of generations ago that was fine if a woman wasn't working and then their primary job role was just being at home doing all of that.

But now women are working and learning and doing all sorts.

We can't hold the load for everyone anymore.

I'm trying to teach my, my older kids, I'm like, just put it in your diary.

And then it takes some one thing out of your head and they're like, no, I'm just like, oh.

So they'll have to learn that.

Unfortunately, you know, we've all had to learn the hard way.

And they are, yes, maybe more in the back foot because technology is there as a constant distraction.

But on the flip side, I guess they're so much more tech literate and AI is just going to be part of their world and life now, where, you know, for us, it's still like, oh, my God, I did this thing and then it popped up.

Yeah.

And we're just starting to try and use it in the nhs.

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Yeah.

I mean, finally.

And like.

And I guess from what you're saying, Kate, that's exactly what we were trying to do.

Because I felt like what people were trying to do when they were tech savvy like yourself is that they were using like multiple different systems, which almost in itself was a, like, executive functioning workout.

Do you see what I mean?

Like, where did I put that thing?

Is it in the notes going on?

And so we callify.

It's just trying to synthesize all of that, almost exactly what you talked about there, into one platform.

So that what we have a lot of our ADHD users are using it for is.

So there's a record function and, and then.

And an upload function.

So basically you can get all the information you want into the app.

So what one of our ADHD mum users does is on a Sunday, she records what she calls a mind dump.

She's sweet.

She.

I understand, she does a mind dump every Sunday night into the app and then out of it, the AI will pull out all of your reminders and tasks and it will set them automatically for you.

So it's going into your calendar, do you know what I mean?

In the app, going into your calendar and then the tasks are there and then she uses it.

You know, when you get the ping from the.

What's the WhatsApp group, it's like, remember, no uniform day tomorrow.

She'll just do a quick voice note and then the app, you know, so she kind of uses it throughout the week as well.

Like on the fly.

She's like, amazing.

And then every, every night she goes back through it and double check, like, has a look at kind of the next day, basically.

So she's using Requalify like you are.

Do you see what I mean?

All these other apps, but it's all kind of synthesized into one place.

And yeah, so she uses a lot of reminders and tasks, which we have, but the other thing we've got is you can record quite long information.

So like some people I work find it really hard to hold in mind like long meetings, basically where people are talking an hour and your attention is kind of zoning in and out, you know, particularly when people have the kind of more inattentive subtype of adhd.

So they will record on record, qualify big, big chunks of, you know, whole meetings and things like that.

And then they've got it and they can look back through the main points because it like summarizes it for you.

So those are particularly good if you know, you can't use copilot and other AIs because you're not on an online meeting.

It's like an actual kind of conversation meeting.

We have a lot of people using them for medical appointments as well.

And I think absolutely, I see that a lot.

People just don't.

It's very hard.

You're bombarded by information when you see a doctor or you know, and you've, you've wanted to have this appointment for so long.

Often people are recording on recallify and then they've got it there.

They know the outcomes and like what's changing and things like that.

So there's quite a few different ways people are using it, but it was really just trying to synthesize.

Okay.

We know these strategies of like simplifying information, setting reminders, having task lists come out of things and trying to capture it all in one place.

Yeah.

And I think you've got the, the credibility factor for sure because of being, you know, a researcher, clinician, really knowing your stuff because you're seeing those day to day issues every day.

And you know, I straight away, you know when you're telling me about the, the lady who brain dumps, I was like, oh my God.

It's like that would be an amazing feeling, wouldn't it?

You get to sleep on a Sunday night and you know that everything from the week is already out of your head because that just contributes to the overwhelm.

And we've got to remember that burnout is such a huge part of a neurodivergent experience because our brain, the capacity that we've, you know, so much that we've got to hold and struggle to hold, just, you know, our nervous system just breaks with it and there's only so much.

And so you can't sort of under, underestimate the power of being able to brain dump something like that because it's on telling our nervous system, okay, it's safe now.

Like you can breathe.

It's okay.

You have not forgotten something.

You're not missing something.

Because sometimes I'll go to bed at night and go, I've forgotten something.

I should be doing something or say, decide to have a cup of tea, you know, during a, you know, a working day.

And I'd be like, there's something.

Maybe I've missed a meeting.

But it's so nice for our nervous system just to kind of feel settled for once.

Yeah, exactly.

And interesting, as you were talking about, I, you know, I've obviously trained in therapy, CBT and all that kind of stuff.

And a lot of what I tell people when we're doing CBT is that is one of the strategies, isn't it?

Brain dump everything out and, and park it and then go to bed.

Because often our brains are so busy when we're in bed, especially on Sunday night when it's like, I've got the week ahead, you know, and I've like, fizzing almost with things that we've got a plan to do.

Have I forgotten something?

What's going to come up?

And that's so hard when you have ADHD and autism.

And so it's so important.

And that's one of the big CBT strategies was like, write everything down and recall a vi.

And other apps are just saying, like, no, dump it in here and then you've got it and I'm going to help you and remind you and you can look back through it.

It's all here, don't worry, we've got it.

And I guess that's all I was wanting to do is something that's kind of supportive and like, almost like a kind of second brain, almost.

You know, we've got a massive processing power on our phones now.

Let's take advantage of it and use it, not just have it as a distraction tool to do Instagram and whatever it can help us.

AI has a great power for good, potentially.

Do you see what I mean?

And yeah, yeah.

Make sure that we use AI in the right way to benefit human beings and not just create great businesses or whatever most people are trying to do with it.

Yeah, yeah.

I love that idea of it being a second brain.

It's kind of like your brain reserve, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

It's a brain reserve.

I like it.

Yeah.

So I know that you're able to offer the listeners a trial.

Is that right?

Yeah.

So we'd love to get more feedback from people with adhd.

Like I said, we've got quite a few users.

We're getting some really nice feedback but as you know I want to be evidence based and I want to get great feedback from people and we make changes to the app directly based on the feedback we get from people.

So I'd really like to offer everyone like a month free using recallify and so if you want to email us so it's infoecallify.AI we will send you a personalized voucher and we'll also, you know, we are, I know apps sometimes don't work on their own.

We need support and we need humans and clinicians and so I'm here and we also have a clinical team to support people using recallify and kind of getting it as a habit into their day to day routine.

So it also offer you that support as well.

So I'd love to hear from people and to offer you that, you know, human support to use requalify and to kind of think through cognitive strategies and ways to help you.

And also to have a go and use recallify for a month and to give us any feedback and your thoughts on it would be fantastic.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I'm going to make sure that we put the email in the show notes so if you didn't quite get that, I'll put it in the show notes and then people can get in touch with you and hopefully contribute to the evolution of recallify because I'm going to, I'm definitely going to give it a go for sure.

Okay, I'm going to now brain dumping away.

You're going to, you're going to regret it.

It's probably going to break.

I'm going to break, break AI with the brain dump that I'm going to give.

Oh, I can't wait.

It's, it's really, really great to be able to talk to someone who is going to creating an AI tool that is, you know, really going to help people.

And so I just want to thank you so much.

Thank you so much Kate.

It's been great to come on.

Thank you so much Sarah.

I'll speak to you soon.

Thank you for being here and listening to today's episode.

I just want to remind you that if you are looking for more support on your ADHD journey, there are so many resources waiting for you over at ADHD.

ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk so inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshop library you'll find practical and compassionate guidance on topics such as nervous system regulation, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, perfectionism, emotional regulation, hormones, parenting and so much more, all designed specifically for late diagnosed neurodivergent women.

You can also explore my new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit which was published by dk, which is also available in ebook and audiobook which is packed full of tools to help you feel calmer, more regulated and more like yourself.

And if you do crave a bit more deeper connection and ongoing support, come and join us inside the More Yourself community.

It's a gentle space for learning, reflection and connection with other neurodivergent women.

And you'll also find the recordings from our first ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event which brought together incredible speakers and a room full of inspiring women for a truly special day.

We have recorded it all for you and it's there to buy, so whether you're just starting your journey or looking to go deeper, there's something there for every stage.

Just head to ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk to explore everything and as always, thank you so much for being here and for being part of this community.