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Ep12 Pressing Play on ADHD and Perimenopause with Dr Helen Wall · The Pressing Play Podcast

• Joanne Fiddy: Paramanopause and perimenopause didn't make you ADHD. You are born with it, it's genetic. time they hit their forties, they're often so resilient in so many ways and have so much perseverance, so many skills, but there's always a hidden cost. felt like I understood a part of myself that I didn't know, especially the labels. This is more than a book. This is not what, this is a movement to change. Hello and welcome back to the Pressing Play podcast. This is such a special one. And I was just saying earlier, I am slightly fangirling because there's not many books in this world that change your life. And this is one of them. And I think so many people are gonna resonate with this book. Today we are diving into the topic that so many women are talking about right now, ADHD and perimenopause. And how many times have you found yourself right now that you're unraveling? this narrative and change the story for so many women. Whether you're on HRT, whether you're on ADHD meds, you've got to think about all the other things, know, nervous system regulation, diet, gut microbiome, understanding your brain and having that self-compassion and validation to know that you're not just lazy or ditzy or, losing your mind. It's all part of how your brain's wired. There's not many books in this world that change your life and this is one of them. you're questioning yourself and you're saying, it ADHD? Is it perimenopause? ⁓ my loves, joining me is Dr. Helen Wall, a trusted GP, a menopause specialist, a public health leader and author of this incredible book, Menopause and ADHD, How to Navigate Hormone Flux and Neurodivergence. through her work supporting women and advocating for better healthcare. She's helping shine a light on the often overlooked connection between hormone changes and neurodivergence. Today we're talking about why so many women are questioning ADHD in midlife and the impact of hormone fluctuations on the brain and the hidden cost of masking and how those beliefs that we have in childhood can shape our experience today. Thank you so much Dr. Helen for being on the pod. ⁓ Dr Helen: Honestly when people say things like that I always feel so weird because I've got massive imposter syndrome. Joanne Fiddy: No, not until you are incredible. And even how you wrote this book is so helpful because you also really understand that people who do have ADHD with memory and concentration, you've even created a book that helps you understand themselves better by breaking it down into the long, you know, the science that we need, the help, but also there's just little bites at the outtake at the end. So we can just understand what's going on per chapter. I've loved this book so much. Thank you. First, okay. Tell me, I feel like I speak every week to women, every week, either it's in the WhatsApp chat, it is with clients and they're questioning whether they have ADHD or perimenopause and it's all coming up now. I'd like to just start, let's just jump straight in. Why is it that perimenopause is bringing this to the surface? Dr Helen: Thank you. Well, I think there's multiple layers to unpack there, really, Joe. I think, you know, for years, women have gone missed with all forms of neurodivergence. So they've been misdiagnosed, they've been mislabeled, fobbed off, dismissed. Societal terminology around women, you know, they're scatty, they're ditzy, they're, you know, this and that. All the things that we wouldn't necessarily choose to put on a boy in terms of... Joanne Fiddy: Hmm. Thanks Dr Helen: their sort of labeling and language has been historically how women and girls have been brought up. And I think because of that, we've missed the opportunities to see neurodiversions, particularly ADHD in women and girls. They're not the hyperactive boy in the classroom that's running about, cast it still very often. I mean, this is a generalization. They're very often the girl who's trying to fit in, who's Joanne Fiddy: Mm. Dr Helen: inattentive in her mind, hyperactive in her mind, not able to switch off but internally restless and you know she can lose focus and she can be labelled as ditzy or a dippy or you can't stay focused and all of those things go with them through life and girls are very good at learning to fit into society and we programme them like that. We want them to be good girls and sit quietly and not be disruptive. And therefore they start building these scaffolding around them, which is basically a mask. So they learn to be good in public and those spaces. And what parents who come to see me as a GP will often say is, you know, the school say she's absolutely perfectly behaved. She's perfect pupil. She's perfectionist. And then she comes home and she completely goes into meltdown. That's because that's her safe space. You know, she spent all day in this world where she's having to perform almost. It's exhausting. And I think girls have done that for a long time and they've become women that do that. And then what happens in perimenopause is so many things get landed on us. You we all know about the mental load of women and what we carry. But the difference, I think, now is that we carry all of that alongside being, you know, leaders in the workplace and entrepreneurs running businesses, working effectively in many forms equal to men. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: carry in the mental load and then our hormones start to change as well and that has a significant effect on our brains and we know that the chemical messengers in our brain are significantly affected by changing hormone levels but we don't talk about it, we don't talk about it in medicine, we don't talk about it with girls when they're growing up, we certainly don't talk about it in sort of the general population and that's something I'm hoping to change. Joanne Fiddy: and No. No. Yeah. And you are in spades with your absolutely incredible book. And it's so interesting when you're talking about childhood, because the school system isn't set up for hormonal fluctuations. I mean, if, we'll go through more like what is ADHD, what is perimenopause, but if for instance, you start your cycle around exam time and you have to sit in an exam with that concentration, I can imagine that can have a real effect on your childhood and those beliefs. Dr Helen: No. Joanne Fiddy: And then also taking them further into that meeting where you're suddenly standing up to present or do something and you feel yourself having that same thing again with concentration or memory or brain fog. So it's really triggering that it doesn't get diagnosed sooner. I can imagine you see that a lot within your work. Dr Helen: Yeah. Yeah and you know I'm going to be really honest I think I mentioned this in my book you know I didn't see it for a long time I didn't see it in a lot of women you know I've been a GP for 17 18 years in the same practice a doctor for a lot longer and I've seen the same women throughout their life course from being teenagers they're now in their you know 30s and 40s and I suddenly Joanne Fiddy: Mm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dr Helen: realising some of them that all those times they kept coming back with treatment resistant anxiety, depression, things that were going a bit off piste in their life, things when they felt like their mind was just sort of completely imploding, be it post-pregnancy, be it puberty, it menopause, be it just the general implosion of the things that we carry as women in life, juggling everything. Joanne Fiddy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dr Helen: Yeah, I didn't always see the underlying thread, which in some of them was ADHD or neurodivergence generally. And yeah, you know, I think once you've seen it, it's really hard to unsee it. But the problem is so few people managed to see it at this point in society. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah, completely, completely agree. It's not something that is talked about. It's not something that's discussed in schools. It's something that can feel fobbed off. But it's a really, really important part because there is that, that hidden cost of masking isn't there. And, yeah. Dr Helen: Thank Yeah, and that's I always say, there's always a hidden cost. Women will often say, everybody thinks, everyone around them, because I think historically we've thought of neurodivergence as something negative and that people are not a functioning member of society and they're not getting on with their lives. But actually a lot of the women I come across have been hugely, massively functioning and successful in their lives. because they are so brilliant at juggling so many things and moving from task to task and so creative and so innovative and they develop so much resilience through their lives because they're basically swimming against the tide. They're having to function in a school system that was designed for the neurotypical brain, often in workplaces that are designed for the neurotypical brain, in society situations that are designed for that. So by the time they hit their 40s, they're often so resilient in so many ways and have so much perseverance, so many skills, but there's always a hidden cost. I always tell the tale of a lady that said to me, you she had a massively brilliant career. She was a lawyer, she was working in the city, she was flying high. All her family and friends thought she was doing amazing. And she was doing amazing. Um, but she, she sat and she cried and she said, the problem is that I've had to put so much effort into that. I've had to every night when I know I've got a meeting or anything serious, the next day I've got to prepare for three hours. I've got to rehearse what people are going to say about to rehearse what people might ask me. I've got to try and like get in that mindset. The cost of that to her was that she hadn't had a relationship for eight years. You know, she, she was now in her early forties and there was worried she was never going to have children. now those things. to every woman, but they were important to her and she'd missed out on that, she felt. And I think that's really sad because there's always a price that's been paid by the woman. Joanne Fiddy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about in the book about burnout and that you see that there's a lot of burnout in women as they are having to mask their symptoms. And then, then they hit the perimenopause and we'll go further into the brain in a bit later. If someone's listening now and I had, I've had a few people message me prior to you coming on the podcast today and they were just said, ⁓ yeah, I've had quite a lot of people message me with their questions, I love, which I love. And I feel like the most common. Dr Helen: Yeah. Okay. Joanne Fiddy: question that keeps coming up is what's the difference between perimenopause, if you can, I know, and ADHD. I was wondering whether there, and I know it's all in the book, and you go into it in detail, is there someone who's listening right now thinking, I feel like that could be me? Dr Helen: You know, I knew that was going to be the key question because that's the question I get the most, not just from women, but from other clinicians as well. know, what's been really, really great in many ways, but also, you know, I didn't expect it was the number of clinicians that have picked up this book or sort of heard about the book and said, I never realized there was a connection, you know, which has been amazing for me. But they often ask that question as well. And I think it can be very, very confusing. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Do you really? Hmm. Yeah. Dr Helen: ⁓ and it feels like a minefield. is a minefield. But what I always say to women, ⁓ is, know, menopause and perimenopause didn't make you ADHD. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition. You are born with it. It's genetic. Whether you know it or not through your childhood, through your earlier adult years, you always had ADHD. The problem is or maybe not the problem but the thing is you have probably likely masked that so you may not have realized yourself all through those years that you had ADHD but what most women are able to feel is that they always felt slightly different like there was something not quite as easy for them as for other people around them or as fitting as well as other people around them they sort of had that inner feeling but they just sort of lost over it because they were coping, they were managing, they were doing okay in life. But every now and again, it reared its head and it may likely have reared its head in puberty. It may more likely have reared its head when you were pregnant or after you've given birth. When those hormones change, it's a key time for it to pop up. But you may not have realized what it was, what that underlying thread of it was throughout your life. think the biggest thing for me is for women to think back. And think, you know, if this is something that you've gone your life, you've always felt like everything's been okay. You fitted in, you've done what you can do. Of course, we all have our own challenges, neurodivergent or neurotypical. And you get to menopause and suddenly you feel like you can't think straight and your hormones are not right and you're feeling not yourself. That is normal menopause, perimenopause. know, hormones will change how we feel. And so many women will say to me, I just don't feel like myself. That can absolutely be the sole change in Joanne Fiddy: and Dr Helen: in hormones because it affects every woman's chemical messages in her brain not just if you've got neurodivergence. But if you are somebody who has can recognize that throughout your life you perhaps have had some of these differences you know you perhaps have been inattentive you perhaps have been internally hyperactive restless not able to you know stick on task or complete task etc etc and as you say it's all in in the book then you get to perimenopause and the things that helped you cope before, so the scaffolding that you put in, the strategies you put in place, knowingly or unknowingly, suddenly collapse because your brain can't take that extra strain of the hormones now impacting your chemical brain messengers, then, you know, there's likely something else underlying that. And I think when I, often when I explain it to women and clinicians like that, they kind of see that it's not something that just pops up in... Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: perimenopause and menopause, but it's whether you can recognise it throughout the rest of your life. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah, and this is what this is what this book did. I'm not going to turn this into my own personal therapy session. But when I read your book and I messaged you, I found this so emotional because I recognize so much of myself in this. And especially I felt like I understood a part of myself that I didn't know. And especially the labels that I know, ditzy, scatty. And I always feel that I had to work that little bit harder. to fit in or when I have felt overexcited to be too much to dial myself down. And I do, anyone who feels that too, more just to read this. I, and that's how I love it was written because you read, I I read your book, put it down, took a breath, went back to it, it again. And then when the end, when you put the notes at the end, just to really help embody what you're saying. And I really, yeah, I really, really felt, I'm holding it to my heart. I really, really felt this as I was reading it. It's gonna help so many women. What inspired you to write this book? Dr Helen: It was a combination of things really. When I was 41, my brain suddenly stopped working. I'd always been really, well, I guess the outside world would always say I'd always been really academic and really clever, but I'd worked really hard. I was the kind of student at medical school who was, and this sounds real, I sound like a real loser now, but this is absolutely true. I was waiting for the library to open in the morning and I would be leaving. Joanne Fiddy: Hmm. Mm-hmm. for you. Dr Helen: it closed at night, know, before exam period, studying, you other people would be in the pub and I mean, don't get me wrong, I've parted hard as well. all the when, you know, I had to really put effort in. And I just wanted to be a doctor so much from being little that, you know, this was my like goal. And I was so determined. And, you know, I failed my first year in medical school exams, you know, and I had to keep going, I got a D in my chemistry and A level. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Dr Helen: in one of my modules, had to redo it, you know, so it's not been, it's not come easy to me. I've always been quite, you know, everybody's off switches, switched on. I've done this in my career. And then I got to 41 and suddenly my brain just wouldn't work. It like totally, it just totally like stopped functioning. couldn't think straight. couldn't. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Dr Helen: word fine, I couldn't do things that I'd done before with at speed or pace, I was struggling to juggle the mental load of being a mum of three, working full time, which I've always done, you know, home etc. And it took me probably about six months, I was started having hot sweats and night sweats and I suddenly thought to myself, gosh, I think this might be perimenopause. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm. Dr Helen: ⁓ and I went to my GP and basically my GP just laughed it off and said, you're too young. Like you still have an period, you're too young. It's not, it's not perimenopause. ⁓ and that just, I think that was a real eye-opener for me because I thought if a woman who's a GP and a woman's health specialist cannot get HRT, like God help every other woman. Yeah. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. you Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dr Helen: So there was that and I went privately and I got HRT and my brain just like almost recovered like within a couple of months I was back to my normal self. I beat myself up for a long time about having HRT because I kept believing myself, perhaps you are too young, you're just imagining it. So anyway, I went through all that same emotions that I know women go through even as a GP. And then what happened was around about a similar time a few months after my daughter who'd always struggled at school, not quite been able to focus, et cetera. she was diagnosed with dyslexia and then when she was doing the GCSEs with puberty, everything just a like an executive function of her brain, emotional regulation and long story short, was ended up being diagnosed ADHD and I started to sort of understand ADHD a lot better because I did a lot of research because of and then Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: sort of this link between could hormones, because she'd gone through puberty, I'd gone through perimenopause, how much did hormones actually impact our brains? Which, you know, we never get taught at medical school. You I've never been to that medical school that hormones impact your brain. Like I was a 43 year old woman at this point, having to look up and read about whether hormones impact anything in our brain. How ridiculous is that, you know? Joanne Fiddy: and No. Mm. Unbelievable, isn't it? Dr Helen: Yeah, it actually is. And I started to realize that there was things here and then I started to see it in my patients. I was running a menopause clinic at the time. I started to see in my patients this thing happening where they could go back through time and say, well, felt last time I felt like this is when I just had a baby. And I was like, yeah, there's definitely a pattern. So all these patterns were like, you know, as pattern spotting. Joanne Fiddy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dr Helen: I was researching at the same time and then I just started talking about it on Instagram. I didn't have a particularly big following at the time on Instagram. I've done a little bit TV work and people kept asking me to set up an Instagram channel. And I just started, you know, just really sort of openly just talking about it, you know, as anybody else noticed there. Has anybody else noticed that when they hit perimenopause, their brain stopped functioning? And it just exploded like almost overnight. Like women just came like in flocks and they were Joanne Fiddy: you Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr Helen: messaging me, telling me their experiences, they were commenting on the stories, I was researching more, I was putting more of that online, they weren't sort of really engaged in it and it just went and went and then Penguin got in touch and said, you know, this is clearly like a need for women to have this information, can we put it in a book? And I was like, yeah, let's put it in a book and that's where the book was born. So I haven't got a diagnosis of ADHD, there's plenty of people that would say I should have one. Joanne Fiddy: Wow. Mm-hmm. Dr Helen: And I certainly felt the impact of my chemical messengers dying off when my estrogen started to change ⁓ But yeah, I've just seen so many women ⁓ who've been impacted by this that I think when you're in that room with that woman in front of you and she suddenly feels seen It's such an emotional Moment, you know, it's so Yeah, it's just such an emotional Joanne Fiddy: Thanks you Yeah. Dr Helen: and I think I've written this book from the heart. It's a labor of love really because I've seen, I've had contact from so many women, I've seen so many women now. And yeah, it is a huge, huge issue. I think I've had a lot of pushback from some, when I've been doing my own PR of the book, quite a lot of people have said to oh, it's a niche topic that, it's quite niche. We're not going to cover that, it's niche. We went to number one bestseller Menopause and stayed there for the first two weeks. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Hmm. Dr Helen: on Amazon and it was 50 copies off of Sunday Times bestseller. You know, it was, that's how niche this topic is. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah, exactly. Congratulations. Congratulations. Dr Helen: I did, you know, well, I think it's more that it's not about me. This is not about me. This is about getting the bigger message out more. I did a book launch and I didn't want to do a book launch two weeks before because I was so worried that no one would turn up. I've got a huge imposter syndrome. Anyway, my family and friends like you've to do something, you've got to do something. So I contacted a local bookshop and a select company to a bit of like a book signing or something like that. Joanne Fiddy: Hmm. Dr Helen: Anyway, 30 women came from all over the country. Some of them had traveled like four hours. And it was so emotional. Like the emotion in that room. They told their stories of their journeys, how like they've been not seen, not heard for so long. And you know, the effect, the cost that that had had to them. Yeah, it was so hugely, hugely emotional. And I left that book launch thinking, this is more than a book. This is not a book. This is a, this is a... Joanne Fiddy: Well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dr Helen: a movement to change this narrative and change the story for so many women because I'll be damned. I don't know if I've got ADHD or not and I'm not sure I'll ever find out, but I'm damned if I'm going to sit here and let my daughter get to perimenopause and menopause and be in this situation. It's not happening. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah, no, no, not on your watch. And just so many people that you are, so many people, women that you are helping with this to feel seen. How many times do we just blame ourselves as women? How many times do we keep that label stuck on from childhood? How many times do we just suddenly question ourselves and we play ourselves down? And how many missed opportunities are there because we feel that there's actually something wrong with us? And you are, you... Dr Helen: Yes. Joanne Fiddy: This is a movement, this is more than a book. And you can see on your Instagram account, we'll put everything in the show notes for everybody to buy the book, to find you, to follow you. It's helping so many women and they can find themselves through the work that you do. It is so powerful and it's just such a empowering book. And it's so loving and caring inside. It's not a book where you're gonna read it and feel scared, it's empowering. And there's tools that you can help yourself and it understands what actually is happening. Because you just wanna understand yourself better. Because when it comes to hormonal changes, I mean, I've learned about periods, I remember, I mean, I'm born in the eighties, but they just stuck a tampon in a piece of glass and this tampon exploded. And I remember going, I was like, what is going on? And I think maybe my sex education was an animal. Like, I don't know what is happening. But, also, and also with the movies, it's like, get married, the end. Like, no, there's more to life. And this is all about what pressing play is about. It's like bringing guests on just like you. Dr Helen: What the hell is that? and I'll you Joanne Fiddy: who help us with that press play energy to move forward, that you have this mission from your heart. And with pressing play, I have a piece about dopamine and it's boosting dopamine about joy, connection and women to really feel empowered in themselves. In perimenopause, especially in ADHD, how important is dopamine? Dr Helen: wow, I mean, it's just massive, isn't it? And I think, you know, ADHD in itself, the key, the key difference with ADHD is the ADHD brain has different altered dopamine stipulins. So at one point in time, we used to say, ⁓ ADHD brains are chasing dopamine. I think that's probably a little bit oversimplified now and a bit outdated, but we know that, you know, ADHD brains have dopamine, but they often doesn't read it the same. So the receptors are not Joanne Fiddy: Mm. Dr Helen: receptive enough to it. The signaling is not, you know, not as not as spot on. So yes, in the simplest sense of the word, the ADHD brains are chasing dopamine. So if something is exciting, if something is, you know, gets your brain ticking, then you're going to do that. So that's why they're very good at hyper focusing on things that give them joy and give them passion, not great at starting tasks that are boring. ⁓ Joanne Fiddy: Yep. Mm. you Yeah. Dr Helen: or don't lead anywhere. If you're in a crisis or you've got a tight deadline, you need an ADHD person by your side because they thrive in that. They thrive on deadlines. They thrive in crisis. They do their best work when the pressure is on because they're getting that dopamine hit from that. So there is a lot about dopamine there. And I think in menopause as well, we know that estrogen is very important to our dopamine levels. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Yeah. Dr Helen: Estrogen again, we used to say it boosts, I'm saying we used to say, we've never said any of this, you know, we're going to say it. We used to be very, the research that there is was very oversimplified to start with. And it said, you know, that estrogen boosts dopamine. Again, that's, that is probably an oversimplification, but we need to help with the dopamine signaling in our brain. And when estrogen goes AWOL, so in perimenopause, it's fluctuating all over the place. And in menopause, it's dying off for once for better term. ⁓ then, know, that's going to impact on our dopamine stability and our dopamine signal brain. So yeah, I think it's a massive, massive part of this phase in our, in our lives. And, ⁓ I think, you know, I used to, when I first started down this road of doing this work, I thought this was an NHS issue. I thought that, you know, it was just an NHS issue that we were missing all these women and we weren't seeing them and we weren't diagnosed and picking up on the changes in hormones in the brain. Joanne Fiddy: Mm-hmm. Dr Helen: But I get messages from women all over the world, like globally. This is not an NHS issue. This is a women's health issue that is globally not talked about. We talk about female hormones in how they affect our reproductive organs. It's very siloed. We talk about fertility, periods, pregnancy, et cetera. What we don't talk about is... ⁓ Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: it affects our brain and it definitely impacts our dopamine but also our adrenaline signaling our GABA glutamate like loads of different messages chemical messages in our brain it's really important and progesterone again affects our GABA receptors in brain which which helps our sort of calming brain centers so Joanne Fiddy: Yeah Dr Helen: Yeah, and we don't talk about it. don't, we never taught it in medical school. We're not taught it in GP training. I'm not sure anyone's taught it to be fair. I'd love to hear if anybody's talking. Joanne Fiddy: No, no, no, it's not a thing we do. And we take those hormones for granted until something, then you feel like you're glitching. And I always think, poor little progesterone. I don't feel like progesterone gets enough love. Like you don't realize progesterone. And then you don't realize how... Dr Helen: I I know. I felt like I just it in there because I thought, we're giving estrogen all the glory here. Joanne Fiddy: No, but I'm glad you did because of progesterone. We don't appreciate it, but then you know it's linked together. And it's like, why am I suddenly so anxious? It's like, it's progesterone. Because it is in the head. And you talk about it so well. There's so much, I'm a science geek. There's so much science in the book, people. You will absolutely love it. I'm just really conscious of time. I was gonna just talk about HRT and ADHD together. What is your take on HRT and medication when it comes to ADHD? Dr Helen: Yeah, so I think the difficulty we have is we don't have any research on, you know, what's the benefit of HRT and HHD. Everything we've got is anecdotal and experience based, which in itself is, you know, it's not, doesn't make it wrong. We've got the theory. So we know that the fluctuating levels of hormones in perimenopause and the dwindling levels in menopause impact on those chemical messengers that we've talked about in our brain. Joanne Fiddy: Hmm. Dr Helen: So it makes sense that if we can stabilize those with some HRT, then we can stabilize the chaos in the brain as well. And I think that works very well in the women that I've seen in this situation. I think HRT has helped to stabilize things. I think it's difficult to find one thing with ADHD, particularly in this phase of life, that's going to help. You've got to have all sort of the bits of the jigsaw in together. So. Joanne Fiddy: Mmm. Yeah. Dr Helen: And I say this to all women, whether they've got ADHD or not, you know, with menopause in my menopause clinic, I say, you know, there's no amount of HRT that I can give you that's going to fix everything because if your diet's not great or you're drinking too much alcohol or you're just running on empty, you're constantly stressed and burnt out, which so many women in this point of life are all the HRT, you know, I could, I could literally ship in bucket loads of HRT for you and it's not going to, it's not going to make you feel amazing. It will help. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. totally agree. Dr Helen: It's going to stabilize those hormones a little bit and take that pressure off. But we've got to think about all the layers of health and well-being. And it's the same for ADHD. Some women do really well on ADHD meds. I've had women say to me they're life-changing. Those are the women who never go down that road. They don't want to go down the road of even an ADHD diagnosis, let alone medication. It's what's right for you. It's what feels right for you and what you need in that moment. Joanne Fiddy: Mm. Dr Helen: But whether you're on HRT, whether you're on ADHD meds, you've got to think about all the other things, know, nervous system regulation, diet, gut microbiome, because we know now that, I mean, there's more more evidence coming about that as well about how it helps with our estrogen recycling and all our serotonin. Most of our serotonin is made in the gut. helps with our brain mental health. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: You know, there's so much more to it than just going on HRT or going on ADHD medication. I think a huge part of this is just understanding your brain and having that compassion and validation to know that you're not just lazy or ditzy or losing your mind. It's all part of how your brain's wired. And I think for me, the biggest difficulty that women have is not with their ADHD, it's with trying to live as though they haven't got ADHD. Joanne Fiddy: Yes, ⁓ that's powerful. Yeah. Dr Helen: think when a woman accepts, know, yeah, I've got ADHD, this is how my brain works. These are the things I'm really good at because of my ADHD brain. These are the things that I struggle with a bit more because my brain's not wired that way and then manages the environment around that and manages to work with it rather than against it. That can be so, so therapeutic. But the problem is by the time we pick these women up, they often so burnt out and so down in the, you know, imploded with everything that's just gone on, that it's really hard. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: them to see and be motivated enough to do that work. So I hope that this mission will help women know what's coming and prepare for that rather than end up sort of in that burnout phase. Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Definitely, definitely. And you have some fantastic tools in this book as well of how you can empower yourself. And it is, it's like having that menu, isn't it? Pick what works well for you and maybe what works for you in your cycle or if you're not, whatever, there's something that you could, there's so much information in there. I love nervous system work. So I am an EFT practitioner and I do tapping for nine years. I've always found that what I've had on myself, but also with clients when I've been tapping, the minute we start tapping, and the nervous system going out, you can just see them regulate, the ideas come, the creativity comes. There's so much tools that you can help yourself. What would you say, if someone's listening now, like the three things they can do to help themselves, like lifestyle changes, or maybe it's not three, I've just given you like a top three, what do you, you can do more if you want to. Dr Helen: So I would say one of the first things I would say is externalise your brain. ADHD brains don't do well when it's cluttered with things to do and things to think about, etc. So get everything out on paper, whether that's a planner on your wall, whether it's a book, you know, whatever, write everything down. Don't try and hold it all in your mind because that's when you sort of just become really overwhelmed. That's sort of the practical thing. I would then say... Joanne Fiddy: Yeah. Dr Helen: you know, look at your diet. think so many of us, especially when we're so busy as mums and wives, and often we've got elderly parents we're looking after, etc. and we sort of grabbing food on the go, we're not really thinking about it. Try and do a little bit of work on your gut microbiome. So it's really, if you go to the letter, it says to eat 30 plant foods a week and take probiotics and prebiotics. I think that's quite overwhelming for people, but I think anything you can do, even if that's just cutting out a bit of processed food or to process food. adding a few more greens to your diet. I think we underestimate how much better we can feel by doing that. ⁓ And then the third thing, so that's sort of your diet, your physical thing. And then the third thing really, I think is just find a practice that helps with your nervous system regulation, whether that's going outside for a walk, whether that's learning some mindfulness, whether it's learning to meditate, yoga, whatever, whatever helps. find one thing that's going to help just bring you down from that high place because I think if you can do those three things, then already you'll be in a much better place whether you go for HRT or ADHD meds. Joanne Fiddy: Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much. I have one question I ask everybody and it's your last question. What are you pressing play on next? Dr Helen: I am basically I'm not stopping with this. I'm on a mission now. I'm on a mission to make everybody aware of the effect of female hormones on our brains, whether that's to do with ADHD or just to do with general wellness and mental health. So yeah, I've set up a community called Finally Seen. which people can join on my website and it's basically just going to be sending out information but hoping to get a few call to actions as well. My next thing I'm going to do is contact the medical schools with Freedom of Information Act to ask what they're teaching about this. Joanne Fiddy: You're not just helping women now, but it's generations to come. And I'm sure there's so many mothers out there that are recognizing their ADHD from their children. And I think it's having these tools that can help and support them. I'm so grateful you're here. Thank you so much for being a guest on the Pressing Play podcast. Thank you. Okay, press stop. Dr Helen: home soon. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.