Every single ADHD symptom listed in the DSM-5 (which is what therapists are using to diagnose ADHD) can be reduced, mitigated, or even eliminated when you gain one skill: Emotional and nervous system regulation. That’s a little abstract, and I know some of you already want to fight me on this, so let’s just compare.
One common symptom of ADHD is distractibility or struggling to sustain attention on a task. But when are you personally the least distractible? When you are overwhelmed and anxious, when you’re bored and lethargic, or when you are calm and curious?
Don’t talk to me yet about how you’re never calm and curious or how you can’t control those states of being. Just think about how your emotional state impacts your distractibility.
Let’s do another: Trouble following through. Is it easier to follow through when you are panicked, paralyzed, or content?
How about memory? We have crappy memories, right? But do you remember the most when you are angry, engaged, or apathetic?
How about impulsivity? Do you butt in on conversations and make unwise purchases more when you’re excited or when you are grateful?
The emotions you feel in your body are the fuel that moves your actions from acceptable and typical into disruptive. And yes, the brain you were given and the upbringing you received set you up to have very big, very powerful, very quickly reacted to emotions. But you don’t have to let them keep running the show.
The fastest way to get emotional control and move into the space where you are actually using your emotions to gain control of your life rather than letting them control you is to build FOUR habits as quickly and relentlessly as possible.
1. The first one is to build the habit of noticing and allowing or not reacting to emotions when they hit your body.
This actually takes a lot of courage because we mistakenly believe that our emotions are intolerable and that we cannot experience them for very long. We can, and in fact, if we do, they move through our body pretty quickly if we don’t keep reinvigorating them.
2. Number two, we need to build the skill and the habit of moving ourselves from an emotionally elevated place into one of neutrality. There are lots of different techniques that can help us do this, both mental and body up techniques.
3. Third, we need to discover and build a habit of moving into thoughts that will create a positive, lightly positive state in our bodies. Your thoughts are actually how you can create emotions, and we want to create emotions that are low in intensity but slightly positive because, from that place, we can make the best decisions, access most of our wisdom, and take action.
4. And four, we need to support these thoughts that we’ve decided we want to be thinking more often with the tools that we use. Often, we go to the tools first, expecting the tools to fix our lives, and they can kind of do it in a backward way sometimes, but it works better to go, “What do I want to be thinking? How can my tools help me think better?”
Yes, I’m going to break these down a little further to make them easier and more fun. Follow me so you don’t miss it!
Xoxo,
Jessica
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