Have you wondered how ADHD affects your brain? In this episode, Renee explains the complex relationship between ADHD, energy levels, and brain function. She dives deep into how different parts of the brain communicate and how this affects everything from motivation to emotional regulation.

By understanding these mechanisms, you can find new ways to manage ADHD and feel better about yourself.

Takeaways:

• Understanding ADHD is crucial for recognizing how it impacts your daily life, including executive functions.
• The brain's complexity is fascinating, especially how different parts influence ADHD symptoms and behaviors.
• Emotional regulation is a significant challenge for many with ADHD, affecting how we respond to stress and stimuli.
• Finding ways to manage your nervous system can improve how you handle daily tasks and emotional responses.
• Forgiving ourselves for our ADHD-related struggles is essential for self-acceptance and personal growth.
• Mindfulness and understanding your brain's needs can enhance your ability to focus and enjoy the present moment.

Links referenced in this episode:

• NeuroLaunch
• https://www.renee-allen.com

Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.

I'm Renee Allen, the host of this podcast, excited to be here today, talking more about adhd, the brain, all that stuff, the body.

I'm figuring it out bit by bit, hopefully along with you, hopefully helping you with it.

What I really want to do is give you any information I'm finding or any insights that I might have.

And as I talk about these things, you are thinking about how it applies to your life, and you come up with these fabulous ideas or actually just feel better about yourself because you realize, oh, I'm not doing this on purpose.

I'm not doing this because I can't motivate myself or whatever it is, or I can't keep up in life, whatever.

The thing is that you're struggling with with your adhd, you can see this is the brain, this is the body I'm working with.

And I can forgive myself.

I don't know if it's forgiving, but, you know, I can.

I can make peace with myself.

Not feel shame or embarrassment or just feel like you're less than.

It's just who you are.

It's just like if you had longer legs or shorter legs, it's the body that you've been given, and because of that, maybe you're not going to be a basketball player or something like that.

There's some things in life that you won't do as well because of the body that you've been given.

And the same with our brains and nervous systems.

And I hope that's making sense.

But just understanding who you are, how.

How things work for you, and.

And then once you have that information, you can find new ways to do things or new messages to tell yourself or ways to manage it, especially in your nervous system and with your thoughts.

Those are a big, big piece of doing well in life in general, but also with adhd.

So I've been learning some more about the brain and the body, and I found this website, it's called NeuroLaunch, as in neuroscience.

And it's.

You can find it yourself.

I'll put it in the show notes.

I know how to do that now.

When I first listened to podcasts, I'd hear people say, it's in the show notes.

And I had a hard time even finding show notes.

And, you know, I go to their website, like, what does this mean?

And I didn't always even remember to do that, but it just sounded so fancy.

And now I know how to put things on the show notes a little bit better.

But I wanted to get into why or the energy levels that we have with ADHD and understanding why sometimes we have a ton of energy or that hyper focus or that ability to do things and stay with it, and other times we don't.

Or sometimes we're really just kind of zoned out and not feeling like there's a lot going on in our brains.

You know, we just want to kind of coast and just relax and watch some show a million episodes or scroll or whatever.

And our brain needs that break or our brain just can't jump to the next level to do the things that we really need to do.

But there's a reason for why Sometimes we seem like we're.

The energy's lower than usual and other times it's higher than usual.

And I think this is kind of fascinating because there's, there's a reason for it.

The stimulants that, that people with ADHD are prescribed are to give you the stimulant that you need to be able to, to do things.

And sometimes we might feel like we're overstimulated, so.

And having nothing to do with any medication.

So what is that and why is that?

It's kind of fascinating that there's this, this back and forth, right?

And that.

Or that it happens in different ways.

So there are different parts of the brain, there are different chemicals, there are different ways that our brains function.

And it's quite complex for sure, but we think about executive function or executive dysfunction for adhd, that's in the prefrontal cortex.

I'm not going to pretend like I know where that is.

If I looked at a model of a brain, I would imagine it's at the front, but I'm sure there's a diagram here I could look at.

But the things that my brain retains or what matters to me aren't the overall picture like, of this is where it is and this is the name of it.

I'll probably have to read prefrontal cortex over and over to get that actually to stay in my brain and know what it means, but it's actually not to me.

It doesn't apply to my life today.

It doesn't make me think, okay, then why am I going to be like later today opening my computer to send an email because I got subs for my yoga class and an hour and a half later, after doing five other things or more or thinking I didn't have anything to do on my computer and maybe I'll just go, you know, look and see what's happening on instagram or whatever, and then remembering, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I had this email to send and now it's really late, but I gotta send it anyway.

Yeah.

Why do our brains act that way at some times and other times they don't?

And I guess what I'm saying is the information that we get with understanding ADHD for you, it may be easy to retain and know the specifics, but even if you don't know the specifics, you can't remember what executive dysfunction is exactly.

If you understand just how it applies to your life and understand why you can or cannot do something as easily as somebody else or as well, excuse me.

As you would like to.

That's where it's the most helpful.

Right.

Instead of just having a library of information, but knowing how to apply it in the moment and how to be at peace with yourself when things don't go as well as you would like them to or play out in the way that you'd like to.

So lots of little disclaimers here.

So there are mechanisms in the brain, and this is kind of a fascinating idea, that our nervous system can be hyperactive at times, it can be underactive at times.

And in the last episode, I talked about how the fight or flight mode, or the sympathetic nervous system is important to have not only for survival, but just to help us know when we need to go and do and put our bodies in a mode so we can accomplish things like, okay, you know, like, you think of when it's time to go and you got to gather up your people, if you have children or, okay, everyone, it's time to go.

You're more in that I've got to run.

And your body gets in more that tense mode.

Instead of sitting back, I'm ready to watch a movie.

That's not that mode.

Right.

And so there's a reason that we have the different modes in our bodies, but ADHD can cause both to happen.

And we have a low stimulus response at times, and we're kind of functioning in this low mode, a low arousal mode, where we can't get enough stimulation from our own system to be able to do what we need to do.

And so we seek stimulation.

And it doesn't have to be medication, but that can help.

Or caffeine is a stimulus.

Or for me, watching a TV show or listening to a TV show can be enough of a stimulus to help me go, okay, now I'm gonna go work on this.

And keeping that going, that stimulus going in my brain, it's like a drip of coffee for Somebody else.

I've got this TV show that I can listen to multiple episodes for a couple hours and just go, go, go, go, go.

And I thought it was because it was turning my brain off, meaning my own thoughts, my own ideas, my own executive dysfunction of trying to make a decision and not knowing what to do or I should be doing this, or, you know, just kind of thoughts that might not be helpful because I'm feeling bad about why can't I get this done?

So I thought it was turning that off.

And maybe that's part of that's true, but it's also giving me the ability.

It's giving me a little boost.

You think of somebody who needs to.

I don't know if you ever used a drinking fountain back in the day, but.

And some people still do, usually people just fill up their water bottles.

But drinking fountains, sometimes they have a lower one for children.

But when I was growing up, usually they didn't.

The only time I ever saw a drinking fountain that was low was in a kindergarten room where they specifically had a tiny little bathroom or a.

A tiny drinking fountain.

And I never got that room, and I always wished I did.

So that's why I look at it as, wow.

They got the kindergarten room with the tiny toilets and the tiny sinks.

But for the most part, the drinking fountains were adult size.

And in order to reach it, you either had to step on a stool, and usually there wasn't a stool around, or somebody would say, would you like a boost?

And, you know, an adult might pick a child up.

But what kids would do, like if you were at the school and we lived across the street from a school, if you're at the school ground and you're playing and you're playing and you get thirsty, we didn't carry water bottles around at all.

We just either found a drinking fountain or turned on a hose, drank out of the hose.

But what you do is you get on all fours on hands and knees, and you've made a little stool with your back, and the other person would step on your back.

And that little step up made it possible for that child or for me to get my drink of water.

And that's what the stimulation does, is it gives you a step up so that you can do that.

And so the stimulant medications bring you to the point so you can do things.

It's boosting the circuits that you need in your brain to be able to do things.

But your system may also be overactive in other ways, like I mentioned before.

And a lot of people with adhd.

Do you have a mind that just.

Just won't stop?

You just have ideas and thoughts, and it might be reliving what happened last week or yesterday or this morning.

It might start activating things emotionally for you.

And this is one of the problems I've been finding the last few years.

And who knows why these things happen now and not 10 years ago?

I think it has a lot to do with hormonal changes or shifts.

I'm past menopause, but something's going on.

You know, what's going on?

What changed in my brain?

I find that one of the problems with going on the computer or the phone or whatever is if I see an email, and I'm on a few email groups where people I've seen in concert James Taylor or.

Well, actually, I haven't seen James Taylor in concert, but I'd like to.

So I was on his email list, I think finally got off, because I thought, he's never coming here.

And actually, as much as I love him and his music, I looked up his videos, his current videos, and he doesn't sound the same as he used to, and maybe that's fine.

I've seen Paul McCartney.

He doesn't sound the same as he used to either.

And I loved his concerts.

But anyway, I will see something, or I'll go onto Instagram just to see, you know, like, if a relative's posted some pictures or my daughter's posted some pictures of her and her kids or whatever.

And instead I see somebody just went to a concert.

So I watch the video.

Well, then I get emotionally attached to that.

Oh, I love that song.

And it.

It kind of sinks me in to a different.

Different emotional state of craving more of that.

And then I go and find more videos by that person and just start watching, you know, Sting in concert or Billy Joel or.

Oh, you know, and then I want to share that, and then I'm taking a link and I'm sending it to my family, and it just keeps going and going, and it's.

I'm.

I'm not at a baseline with my emotions when these things happen, and.

And baseline, you know, like, more normal, more like I can take that in and process it and then keep going on with what I was doing before.

And I find myself emotionally getting really drawn to something.

It could even just be somebody posts that their house is for sale, and I think, oh, when we sold our house?

And then I look up that for a while and go look at pictures of our old house or think about it.

And yeah, it can be a lot.

And so your system can run more mellow or it can run more hyper.

And it doesn't even have to be the hyperactive part of adhd.

You might have the inattentive part and you're not impulsive or you don't have the hyperactive ways in your body and stuff, but you might have the hyperactivity with your emotional reaction or your stress response, how you respond to something.

Somebody sends you a text and they tell you about something and you think, I can't believe that.

You know, and it just puts you in a different mode.

And that's not the mode that you need to be in today to be able to go and do what you need to do next and remember what to do.

And all that being said, because I don't know how.

Speaking of stimulus and stuff, I've been recently, if you haven't noticed, I've been recording my podcasts an hour, an hour and a half before I need to go leave and go somewhere, like go teach a yoga class or something.

And I think, why is that?

Well, there's more stimulus there, right?

There's more stress with it.

Of, well, could I do it in the next hour?

Yeah, I probably could.

That might be enough of that stimulus just to get me to come in here and focus and do it.

Whereas when I have four hours, a big block of time, and I could also be packing for a trip, unpacking from a trip, answering emails, you know, whatever, doing billing, when I have more choices and more options and more freedom, I'm not as stimulated to do it.

So anyway, yeah, our bodies are crazy actually, to think about it.

If you try to think of when are you more stimulated, when are you naturally stimulated by something and when do you need some help and when does that help actually direct you, direct you to where you need to be and where, where, where does it actually kind of boost you up too high and then you know you're not doing what you want to do.

So anyway, okay, so let me.

I lost where.

Surprise, surprise.

I'm going to pause just for half a second because that's.

I have to announce these things because if I don't say it out loud, do you do this?

Do you talk out loud where you like?

Okay, I'm gonna do this next.

Then I might decide to do something else and I need drink water.

So just a second.

And I'm proud to say I didn't spill on myself.

I did right before it started.

I thought, get a quick drink of water and I Spilled.

But this shirt doesn't show it.

It's a good one for hot yoga, which is my next.

My next thing.

So where was I?

Where was I?

I should have paused for longer and remembered where I was.

But I think it's fascinating to understand these things of how sometimes you're over activated, sometimes you're under activated.

Because I think some of the misunderstandings of ADHD is people who don't know a lot about it, and that may have been you before you knew you had adhd.

If you don't know a lot about it and you know somebody that has adhd, you might just see the symptoms that you've heard of.

Like a little boy who's jumping around and just has so much energy and can't sit still and.

Or a little girl who can sit still.

But that might show up differently.

And I.

If you look back, you might find the ways that you did that in school that look differently than someone else.

Like for me, passing notes in class, I could write.

I could write a note.

I could fold it up.

I could fold it in a fancy way, you know, like doing, you know, making those little.

What are those things called where you.

They used to call them cootie catchers, actually.

Where you make the little square and then you fold it in and triangles and fold it again.

And then you have the four things and you, you write, you know, red, yellow, blue, green, and then you go.

And they choose.

And then you open it up and you give them a message like you're.

You're so sweet or whatever.

I don't know.

Did you ever make those?

You can also.

I didn't do it this way, but my husband made them where they look like a bird.

So instead of putting a thumb and a forefinger in each of those four little triangular cones, I don't know what it's called.

Instead of going back and forth and back and forth, and then you go pick one or two and then you open it up.

It also, you could just do it without playing it with somebody and just be able to move.

But it gave you so much to do because you could fold the paper and then you could play with the paper, you could write things on the paper, but my husband would just take your forefinger and your middle finger and then your thumb and you just put it in one hand and it's like a bird.

Like it can talk up and down like a puppet.

So we have our different ways of playing with paper when we're young, especially if we didn't have phones and things like that we.

Back in the days before the Internet, if you can recall that part of your life, or if you lived long enough to recall, to have that be a part of your life, you did things like that to keep your brain busy, to keep you from needing to get up and move.

It kept you activated in some way.

It was a stimulus.

It was a stimulus so you could listen.

And yay to the teachers who understood that and let you do stuff.

Like, I mean, good thing that writing notes is acceptable and needed in classes, because writing notes and then you can doodle or whatever, writing notes is something that keeps your hand busy, keeps your brain busy, but you can still listen.

Writing notes to your friend, they don't want you to pass notes, they want you to listen.

And if you're reading the note from your friend, you're probably really not listening.

But there's a lot of things that if you look back, you might find.

What did I do?

To keep myself calm enough to stay still and yet stimulated enough to be able to pay attention?

It's kind of fascinating, huh?

Okay, back to the prefrontal cortex.

So there are a lot of parts of the brain and the nervous system.

It's all this network.

And I'm just going to go through these.

This is from the NeuroLaunch website.

And I'm going to go through it.

And you don't have to remember the names of the parts of the brain, or if you understand it better than I do and you think, why are you apologizing?

Or tell me you don't need to remember it?

Not a problem.

I know it.

I should ask my son.

I mean, I'm sure he majored in neuroscience.

He's about to go to dental school.

I'm sure he remembers this stuff.

I imagine so.

But without going down that rabbit hole of curiosity, I want to give you just a little framework for how the different parts of our brain affect the different behaviors that we have that are tied to adhd.

It's kind of fascinating.

It's not just one part of the brain.

So the prefrontal cortex is the executive function where we plan things out, where we make decisions, where we control our impulses.

That is a huge part of adhd.

Right.

And it's just.

It's most commonly called executive dysfunction because it doesn't function in a way that is optimal or that works for people who have it working.

Right.

Right.

And so we might not be organized or we might be impulsive.

We might get distracted easily.

We might have paralysis.

What do they call it?

Paralysis?

Of analysis or analysis paralysis where we can't decide what to do because too many things, too many things, you know, and, and then also just the executive function of taking information in and that, that, what's it called?

Why can't I remember?

There's the short term memory, working memory.

That's what it is, working memory.

So yeah, that's, so that was a long term memory that I could remember the word working memory.

Long term memory is anything over what, 30 seconds or something where it's in your brain and you can find it eventually, hopefully.

So that's your long term memory, your short, your working memory is taking information the first time you hear it, the first time you see it is presented to you or at least in the moment.

Maybe you've heard it before, but it just didn't go in and it's, and it's doing something with it, whether it's looking at a credit card number and taking that information and typing it in or saying it out loud.

That's working memory to action.

Working memory to short term memory is a little bit longer, is taking that information where you can store it into your long term memory and it's in your brain.

So anyway, that's all part of executive function and that's the part of the brain that's affected with ADHD motor control.

So this is fascinating because some of us have the part of ADHD where we're restless, where we.

Have, have a hard time getting ourselves to get up and do.

And even if somebody says, well, you just set the goal and you do it and then, and then you, you know, put a check mark on, on your little chart that you've done this and, and getting that reward, you know, is exciting.

And then, and then you keep doing it.

You keep doing it.

Sometimes that works.

Getting into a routine and getting into a routine is actually super helpful because once you do, your brain doesn't have to function at the level to get yourself to do it again.

It's all that habit forming that is from the basal ganglia.

Where is that in the brain?

I don't know, but it can, it controls all that habit for animation and, and, and gets you to do things and then once you do them, that learning curve that, that whole I need to do this, I need to do this.

All that motivation that you need if, if, or you know, when people say oh, you're procrastinating, you didn't do it, or you can't stick with it or you're not consistent or maybe that's a message you're giving yourself those routine tasks.

That's all in that part of the brain.

And if you have adhd, your dopamine signaling or your amount of dopamine, your number of dopamine receptors that need to receive dopamine might be more than somebody else.

And you have the same amount of dopamine, but you have all these receptors, and they still can't go because they don't have enough.

You need something else.

So all of that is part of the brain function, and it's different than the prefrontal cortex.

It's a different part to form the habits and to do those things.

And maybe that's not your struggle with adhd.

Maybe you're like, I can work on a habit and I can do it.

I do really well with habits.

And a lot of people do.

If you do it over and over and over, because your brain just.

Your brain just knows at some point.

It's like, oh, I'm brushing my teeth, and then when I'm done, I'm putting the toothpaste here in this drawer, and I'm doing this.

You've done it so many times that you don't have to think about it.

And the first time you do it in a hotel room, where do I put my toothbrush?

Where do I put my toothpaste?

Do I put it back in my suitcase?

Do I leave it in here in the bathroom?

All those things take more thought.

But once it's a habit, you just do it.

And it.

And the toothbrush and the toothpaste might sound, you know, like it doesn't matter.

It's simple.

But it can be like that with things that.

That do matter more.

Like, I need to get myself to exercise.

When am I going to do it?

I need to make sure I'm ready when I go out the door.

And I. I know where my things are and all those things.

And you have it all set up where you grab, grab, grab, and you do it.

And every once in a while, we might have a brain glitch and forget one part.

But if we set ourselves up and do as much as we can in habitual way and also prepare ourselves when we're not stressed, then we can function better.

So, yeah.

So the cerebellum.

What is that?

Who knows?

Okay.

It's the part of the brain that we need for motor coordination and understanding time and understanding how long it takes to get something done or just a lot of brain function.

And what is it called?

Time blindness.

Okay.

I'm thinking my brain just glitched.

On its own.

Time blindness is a big part of.

I feel like I just said that, like, with a wrong accident.

Time blindness instead of time blindness.

I don't know.

I wanted the blind part not to go up so high anyway.

So time blindness is when it has.

There's a lot of things you might not estimate.

How much time it takes to do something.

Or you might know, I only have 15 minutes.

I need to run in and do my makeup.

I have time to do that.

And you go in there, you think you've taken 15 minutes, but you've taken.

It's taken 30 minutes.

Or.

Or you look at the next morning and you say, okay, I need to leave at this time.

And it's not necessarily not adding up.

You know, okay, I need to get to the airport at this time, because get there an hour and a half before, but I also need to park.

You can add those things up, but you may not estimate properly how long it takes to do all the little things.

And.

And somebody might say, we need to leave in 10 minutes.

And you say, okay.

And you go in the other room and they say, you know, we need to leave in 10 minutes.

And you think, I know it's only been five and it's been longer than 10 minutes.

So there's a lot of things with the time.

Ooh, time blindness.

That can be hard.

The motor coordination.

So I wonder how I'd like to look into this more.

Because the basal ganglia is the motor control.

I think that means the ability to get yourself to do something.

The motor coordination, I would think means more like getting my hands to hold onto my keys when I'm walking out the door.

And then I grab something out else with the other hand.

Don't forget that I'm holding onto the keys with this hand and drop it or mindlessly, you know, spill something or something like that, or trip or run into things.

And then you add the impulse control problem with that and run faster than you should and trip.

And it's a lot if you have the KL klutzy part.

Getting injured all the time, getting bruised all the time of adhd.

I honestly don't hear people talk about that as much on the ADHD forums or groups and Facebook or Reddit.

I don't know if it's as common for everyone else as it is for me, but big time for me.

Okay, Got two more parts of the brain.

And speaking of time, okay, so my hot yoga classes, Tuesday, Thursday mornings, they used to be at the same time.

And we will do better with Habits if we have the same schedule every day or at least, you know, five days a week and then weekends are different or something.

Well, I changed my Thursday class time to a half hour earlier because the class after, before came in like so quickly and we needed more time.

After yoga you need, if you can have a bigger break after your class, then other people aren't trying to come in while you're still just trying to slowly get up.

And anyway, I made it earlier and so I have to leave earlier today.

What was my point with that?

Oh, I'm still computing in my mind.

Like, do I leave by.

Yeah, I think I leave in 20 minutes.

But I did all the things.

I prepared my water bottle, my, my hydration drink, my snacks, my bag with the keys with the wallet.

I switch bags for each kind of class I teach because hot yoga needs different things than the other days.

It's a, it's a process, but it's what gets me there with the things I need to do.

So anyway, thank you for letting me go off every once in a while for five or who knows how many minutes.

Okay.

Another part of the brain, cerebellum was the motor coordination, time and coordination of the body.

Just a little tip, if you haven't already done this with keys, if you tend to lose your keys, there are the tile things.

You know, the little thing that you can put on your keychain that you can communicate with your phone to your keychain to find your keys.

Or if you've got your keys and you get out to the car and you're like, where's my phone?

I used to come in the house, open up my computer.

Do you find my iPhone from my computer or my Apple watch?

If I remember to wear it.

But you can also just do it from your keys, from your key to your phone or your phone to your keys.

And then, and then there's also Apple has one too.

What do they call it?

Tag?

I don't know.

My daughter in law gave me the Taiwan.

But back to keys.

My favorite thing is having that wristlet thing, the stretchy wristlet.

Because if I go in the store, I can just put it on my wrist and I know I have my keys and it's kind of a pain, you know, it's just right there.

But if I put it in my pocket when it's time to leave, well, I forget where it is.

In my pocket or in my purse.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Okay, so Back to the next part of the brain.

Amygdala.

So this is spelled differently than I thought it was.

I looked at this word and I thought, how am I going to say it?

It's like amy and then a G and then dala.

And I thought, how do you pronounce that?

But I've heard it enough that I just didn't know how it was spelled.

Amygdala.

Interesting.

Okay.

This is the emotional processing.

And emotional dysregulation is a big part of adhd, too.

And we can have more intense reactions than normal, or it can spike.

And it doesn't have to be in things like, oh, I get.

You know, you might think, oh, I don't get really angry.

But do you get sad more easily?

Do you have rejection sensitivity?

Do you get emotionally attached to people or places or things or experiences or places you've lived?

Or you hear a song.

I mean, that's one of the other things.

Like, I mentioned going on to Instagram just.

Or opening my email without knowing that I'm going to hear a song, because I click on someone's video, and it could even just be their Instagram story, and they have that song in the background.

It's better just watch on mute, believe me.

And emotionally, it takes you somewhere.

It's a dis.

Dysregulation.

It's not.

It's not that intense for everyone.

What I'm curious about before I go on is if the amygdala curiosity is part of adhd.

If amygdala is also related to.

Where did my brain just go?

Emotional processing.

Why'd my brain just go away as soon as I switch tabs?

I shouldn't even do that.

I should just save that for next time.

Maybe it'll come back.

I think this is where.

Maybe this is what I was.

Is this is what.

What triggers the fight or flight, because, yes, it does.

Okay, So I was going somewhere with it.

So it helps us recognize whether something's a threat or not.

And it switches us from I'm just so calm in here to something's happening that matters.

We went to see.

I mentioned this the other day.

We went to see Spider man on Tuesday, and there was a part that was, you know, like, sweet and romantic or whatever.

And I don't think that's a spoiler, because that would happen in this movie, right?

And it was just really sweet.

And the movie theater only had, you know, like, maybe 20 people in it.

And someone yelled and.

Which made us all kind of giggle because it was.

It was Kind of like.

Like, that was really great.

And.

And it was also kind of like, the guy was cute, you know, so it was kind of that kind of thing.

And so it was kind of like everyone chuckled and, you know, because usually people don't yell out in a theater.

But it was kind of sweet and in the moment.

But then about 10 seconds later, the exact same woo happened again.

And I thought, well, maybe it's somebody with their friend, and their friends are just like, what were you doing?

This is my mind thinking this during the movie.

What were you doing?

And.

And.

And, you know, like, don't do it again.

But then they did it just to be funny.

And then their friend's like, no, really, don't do that.

But then it happened again, and I thought, is this somebody who just thinks this is funny?

Well, it didn't take very long to realize that this was somebody that couldn't control this response.

And.

And then I could see somebody walking over.

Like, you can see the shadows and stuff and the movies going on and stuff.

And then I saw somebody standing kind of in front of somebody and kind of kneeling down in front of them.

And I thought, is this a friend?

I'm trying to figure it out.

And.

And all I could guess is it was a Tourette's syndrome response, is that somebody had that response, the vocal response to what they were seeing and they couldn't stop it.

And it went on with regularly regularity in the timing, like there was I don't know how many seconds in between, and then it would happen again.

It wasn't always quite as loud.

And then I saw a wheelchair, and then someone helped take somebody out.

And the only reason I'm bringing this up is my system changed from.

Not that I'm trying to make this all about me, but just to see how you can go from one state of being of, oh, I'm sitting here watching a movie and this is fun, and.

And I'm just completely relaxed, you know, like lying back, eating my popcorn or whatever.

And then.

And then just all cozy and happy inside with this, you know, sweet scene.

And then kind of smiley because somebody made the sound.

And that was kind of funny to curiosity, to concern.

And then I'm kind of.

I'm sad for the situation.

I'm sad that whoever is involved with that is.

It.

Can't enjoy being there anymore, you know, And I.

And.

And also just on some alertness to what's going on.

And that's the threat response, right.

Of what's going on here.

Is everyone okay?

Looking around.

And so your brain takes that stuff in and it can just switch.

And emotionally you can be taken somewhere.

And even watching a movie, emotionally you can be taken somewhere, right from laughing to being angry to crying.

And you can have these reactions and they can be intense for somebody where someone's just like, that movie was so sad and, you know, I just cried and cried and they're like, it was a little sad and their reaction isn't as intense.

And there's so many reasons for that.

But our brain regulates this and these emotions get processed in our systems and it's different for some people and other people.

So it's kind of fascinating.

And last thing, let me see here.

You would be so proud of me.

I just paused and took a drink of water without announcing it.

But of course, I have to share.

Sharing, you know, the need to share is part of ADHD too.

So the last thing that they have here for brain regions, and I don't know why they call this, I'll have to look into it, is they say there's a default mode, network, mind wandering, internal thought, rest state.

I'm curious about that because everything else has a name for the part of the brain.

And yeah, I'm just going to be curious about that.

You can be curious with me and I'll look into it some more.

But we do have our default modes in our brain of you're not planning on it, you're listening to somebody talk, and then your mind wanders, you have your own thoughts, you have your restful state of just letting go.

Hopefully.

Hopefully.

If you were in, if you went to school, public school, you may have been told you were a daydreamer.

My mom told me that, that when she was a child, she was called a daydreamer by her teacher.

And when I look at my mom's ways and my ways, I should ask her if she wants to do this, look through the whole thing and see if she thinks she has adhd.

Because I see a lot of symptoms there and it is highly hereditary.

But she said she was seen as a daydreamer.

Right.

And I think of when I was looking out the window in my classroom and the teacher says, pay attention.

And you realize I just went somewhere else completely with my mind and.

And yet I needed to do that.

I needed to do that was almost, you know, it's like a break, a break that my brain needed, or I think so anyway.

It was just my default mode.

And sometimes it's going into something that's just daydreaming.

About things that don't matter or just go off into some like, imaginary path, almost like you're dreaming, right?

Other times it's very, very active.

It's just your brain takes off and starts either popping out ideas like popcorn, you know, like popcorn popper.

And your ideas bounce all over the place.

Like if you're talking to a friend and.

Or like my daughter and she says, mom, I cannot follow you because you keep switching what you're talking about.

Or you go off on a tangent about this and you go up on tangent about that.

I can talk to somebody else and they can follow it because they do it too.

They can do it too.

But so your brain could be doing that on its own.

The, the conversation that you have, somebody is evidence of it to them.

You know, like, why, why is you.

Why?

You know, your ideas just keep going here, here, here, here, here.

But other times it's just, you take that one idea and it's like a hyper focus of that idea or a loop of that idea, and you can't stop thinking about that idea, especially if it is emotionally attached.

Like if you're hurt by something, if you're emotionally feeling pained by something that somebody said or did, that can be a loop of thought with a feeling attached to it.

And so we have these minds, and it's not just us.

It's every brain has this mind that can jump around and have thoughts that are automatic.

And for some, it's more restless.

Sometimes it's just kind of like, oh, it's just what I do.

But in the yoga world, they call it the monkey mind because you think of monkeys swinging from tree to tree to tree.

I think of the popcorn because new ideas just keep coming out of nowhere instead of going back and forth.

I also love the whole pinball thing, you know, like the ball going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And then finally, you know, maybe you hit it and get it into the spot you need it to be, to be.

But that is another part of our brain and we may not be able to quiet it as easily as other people do.

That might lead to the inability to focus or just stay on task, but there are ways to do this.

And that's one thing I love about mindfulness practices or meditation.

And I thought about this after last episode and oh, gosh, I have to leave pretty soon.

So I thought about this after the last episode.

Is that when you are in a yoga class or when you are focused on your breathing or when you are like thinking about, like, what's going on that somatic awareness of what's going on in my body.

Anything that you do that's a habit or that you learn to do is easier to do later.

Right?

You might more naturally do it.

And the practices of when you actually spend time sitting and slowing down your breathing, and you might think, okay, I'm going to go to this breathwork class.

Maybe you don't have a breathwork class.

Or maybe you're going to find my episode where I talk about breath work and I'm going to sit down for 20 minutes, or I don't know how long that episode was.

I'm going to sit down for 20 minutes and just focus on breath work and just learn how to do it.

Or I go to a yoga class and the teacher does this for 10 minutes at the beginning or five minutes or whatever, and I'm going to learn how to do it.

And then during that yoga class, the teacher talks about inhale while you bring your arms up and exhale while you fold forward and inhale for five counts and exhale for six or whatever there is directing you to do or pay attention to how your hips feel as you lie down.

And, you know, after you've just done this hip opener where the energy is, you know, a lot of times you can feel, I love to do this.

Like if we're lying on our backs and we do figure four, and one foot goes over the other knee and you're getting that stretch, whether you're pulling the legs in closer to your chest or your.

Your other foot's still on the floor and you open that, and then when you've finished, you just bring both legs straight again and just notice the difference between the two.

Is there a health benefit in that moment to noticing the difference?

Maybe.

Maybe getting that rest, that little recovery mode before doing the other side is important.

I actually, as a yoga teacher, I think it's probably more important to add movement.

And that's where I bring my hyperactive part of ADHD to my yoga classes.

There's a lot of movement back and forth in between, but it warms up.

It kind of lets go from what you've just been opening and maybe just lets it release a little bit, but you also warm up the other side.

But that, to me, is more of the body benefit in that moment.

But noticing how it feels becomes a habit for you.

So the more I did yoga, the more I noticed my breathing.

And it honestly took me years to actually understand how to do certain kinds of breath work in my body.

The most common one that you hear in a yoga class is called Ujjayi breath or ocean breath, sometimes they call it that.

And I probably did yoga on videos and that's probably part of it because they weren't.

They would give a few minutes or a few sentences on how to do it.

And I'm not saying that they didn't do a good job, but it never made sense for me and my body.

I thought I was doing it right until I actually did a whole video about that kind of breathing by Max Strom.

And he's fabulous.

But once I did that, I thought, oh, this is what it feels like.

And it gave me more benefits.

But paying attention to my breath, even those 10 years before I was actually doing Ujjayi breath, right, helped me because then I was in the habit in that hour of class or hour and a half or however long the class was.

Then during the day I was more likely to do that, notice my breathing, or during the day I was more likely to think what's going on with my shoulders right now?

Or what's happening in my hips?

Because I would learn something in class that I knew how to do in my body already.

But it was also something that I would think about doing because I did it so often, otherwise I would do it in real life.

And then I learned how it was blessing my life and helping me in my day to day life just be able to function better and also enjoy life better.

Just being able to be in a situation if you're always in a rush.

And honestly, if you, if your children have grown up like mine have and they're in their 20s and 30s now, but if your children have grown up and you just think, oh, where did that time go?

And you look at old pictures and you just think, ah, if I just had those moments back.

And although we know when we look at the pictures, everyone's quiet in the picture and still in the house, doesn't look messy.

So, you know, we're getting the good parts right.

But we know that these moments go by fast.

And then later, like I was thinking today what was happening?

I, oh, I was putting moisturizer on my face.

It's not really moisturizer, coconut oil.

And then I have this other, it's like a shea butter oil thing by Honest.

They don't make it anymore.

And so I bought five of them on ebay and I keep using them on my face, but it's basically the slathering in oil.

But the second one, the Honest company one that they stopped making, it's Actually, a baby ointment.

It's not an ointment.

It was like a moisturizing cream kind of thing.

Kind of like a very elevated Vaseline in a tube.

But it smells good and stuff.

And I thought, someday I'm going to run out of this.

No one will be selling it used on ebay anymore, and I won't live here.

And this will remind me of this time of life and I'll miss it.

And it's recognizing things like that in the moment when they're happening that help you appreciate the moment.

Whether you're by yourself and you're in a rush and you think, soak in this moment.

Because I miss other times, other areas of my life.

Soak it in.

And just stopping and breathing and noticing is really helpful for our whole bodies and beings.

It's helpful for our brains.

All of these things that I talk about help our brain function better and also just help us enjoy life better and feel, you know, feel more supportive of ourselves instead of just kind of like thinking, ah, ah, gotta go, go, go, and not doing it right and I could have got done more or whatever.

But yeah, the other thing I wanted to mention is with.

Not just in my bathroom with my moisturizer, but in moments with a friend or a walk.

And you're seeing certain trees that you love or with family.

That's one.

It's probably the biggest.

One of the biggest benefits I found from doing yoga is with being in the habit of slowing my breathing.

I'll just do that in those situations and think, don't think about, what are we eating for dinner?

I need to clean this up.

Just sit here, slow your breathing, look around, take it in.

What an amazing moment I'm experiencing right now and what amazing people I'm with, you know?

So, anyway.

Okay, I really do need to take off for hot yoga.

I think that's it for now.

I'm going to be out of town next week.

If I can control my impulse, I'm going to save this episode for next week because when I make them, I want to just publish them and have two in a week or even more.

It's like having a birthday present, wanting to give it to the person early.

But I'll try to wait till next week because I'll be gone part of next week into the next Monday.

And I know when I come back from a trip, it's hard for me to get things together.

So I'm hopefully going to make a few episodes before I leave and time them out.

You'll see if you get this before August?

We'll see before August 10th.

Then you'll know that I can't control my impulse to wait and publish it then.

Anyway, thanks for being here.

It's a pleasure to make these podcasts.

It makes me so happy to know that people are listening because as I've said before, honestly I'm not very good at getting the word out for it.

But I appreciate you being here and if you can help get the word out for me, share this with a friend loved one or two or three and I'll be back.

Bye.

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Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow Without a time for a. Rewind I run out of time to sing melodies and harmonies I'm cut short the silence of sound has yet been found but not by me.

Sa.