Latest / Quick Wins for ADHD Moms - Short Episodes, Real Solutions for Burnout and Overwhelm / Why You Can Clean the Whole House But Can't Reply to That One Email, and How to Fix It | 036

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Why You Can Clean the Whole House But Can't Reply to That One Email, and How to Fix It | 036 · Quick Wins for ADHD Moms - Short Episodes, Real Solutions for Burnout and Overwhelm

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can deep clean your entire kitchen while listening to a podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Easy, right?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't seem to answer that one email, or the 400 emails, that is sitting in your inbox.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just can't.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You could spend three hours researching the perfect planner.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But to schedule that dentist appointment is the hardest thing on your entire task list today.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can hyperfocus on reorganizing your whole pantry and it looks like a magazine chute.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: But that laundry is probably still sitting in that laundry basket and needs folded.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: If that sounds familiar, I want you to stay with me today, because there's a reason for all of that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think once you understand it, a little bit of the shame and guilt around it will start to melt off.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's today's quick win.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today's quick win is more of an experiment.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they're all experiments, but I want to give this to you before I explain why it works.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because if your brain is anything like mine, you'll pay better attention to the explanation once you have something to test it against.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing some research on resonance and frequency because I like to take ideas and blend them together and see how this all fits, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And with the ADHD brain, and I'm like, there's gotta be some kind of resonance frequency thing connected to it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of how I've built this episode is based on resonance.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So today's quick win is pick one task that you've just been avoiding.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's been sitting on your list.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not your worst one, but just a mildly annoying one.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now set a timer for 20 minutes.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And before you start, um try putting on some brown noise.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that low hum fan noise, maybe some white noise, maybe some instrumental music or your favorite band, maybe um get coffee shop ambiance, or a body double, maybe calling your best friend while you fold laundry, or have a YouTube video on, or watch Netflix.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pair it with something that is kind of keeps your brain moving, if that makes sense.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can find brown noise or white noise on YouTube.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally whole long videos of just brown noise or white noise, or just search ADHD focus music.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a certain frequency that works.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the science behind it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's another show.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The exact science behind it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just put something on to um help your brain focus on a few other things while you're doing a task that you don't really want to do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the quick win is reflecting on that experience.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So your only job during those 20 minutes while you're doing that task is do I feel more locked in while I'm doing this, while I have this brown noise or white noise or frequency music on?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I more distracted or irritated?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to fix your brain, you're just kind of tuning it.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So why does any of that work?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the concept I want you to sit with today, and I've mentioned this before, is resonance.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So resonance is just when something clicks, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's when your brain feels awake and it feels alive.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And your attention kind of happens on its own instead of you having to drag it there by force.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: ADHD brains are often what researchers describe as under-aroused in their attention networks.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't mean maybe they're lazy.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just means their brain's baseline stimulation level is a little bit different than someone else's maybe more neurotypical brain.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it needs a different kind of input to get traction.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe think of it this way: my background is in radio.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you're old enough like me, you remember being in the car and flipping through the stations before the digital stations, the analog stations.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And imagine that old radio, uh, you're trying to find and tune in that station and you hear all that static.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the signal is there, the radio station is broadcasting the music, but you have to keep adjusting the dial frequency to hear it clearly so it comes in.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the radio is not broken, it's just that the radio needs a little more fine-tuning than most.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Research actually shows that moderate background noise can improve focus for people with inatten of ADHD profiles.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's this concept called stochastic resonance.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a phenomenon where random noise improves the detection of weak signals in a system.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's often applied in neuroscience and physics, stochastic resonance, just meaning basically means a small amount of extra noise can help the brain detect the signal more clearly.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was in high school, I played basketball and we would wait for the junior high teams to get done.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, I would be working on my homework.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it was loud.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: The varsity, you know, everybody's cheering, the sneakers are squeaking on the floor, the refs are blowing their whistles, and people would walk by me as I'm like completely hyper-focused on doing my homework.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They walk by and they're like, How can you possibly focus?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it was one of the most natural environments that I could focus in.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was hyper-focused, locked in, getting stuff done during all of this, what seemed like chaos.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it was more of resonance.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't really understand that yet.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not the same for everyone.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're more hyperactive or impulsive in your ADHD profile, maybe extra sensory noise could make things worse.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why one ADHD mom feels silence unbearable and another one finds it perfectly calming.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're both right, they're just tuned a little bit differently.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're doing is you're kind of finding out what is your focus frequency.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: What helps you focus more?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is it more noise?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it less noise?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't know.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's for you to figure out.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So now we kind of understand what this resonance kind of thing is and why your brain craves it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about how to actually design for it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple different layers here.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's sound and environment, and they kind of build on each other.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: On sound, the research points to a few things that tend to help in a ten of ADHD profiles.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Brown noise, like the lower, richer humming of the fan, white noise, like that classic static, like TV, static hiss, a coffee shop ambiance, instrumental music, put on some Bach, some Mozart, some class, any kind of classical music.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the key is just moderate stimulation, not silence, but not chaos.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just finding that sweet spot in between.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So sound is just kind of the starting point as you're reflecting on, you know, what is what is working for you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sound is a starting point because you've got the right audio environment.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the next thing is what is your what is your body doing, your physical body doing.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I installed this standing desk in my studio and I have a wiggly chair that moves while I sit.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of changes the way I work.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I like movements, it's kind of its own form of stimulation.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of ADHD brains, a body that's slightly engaged is a brain that's a little bit more available.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So once you've got kind of your sound and your body positioning working for you, there's one more layer that helps to tie it all together.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a design trigger.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So before I enter something that I don't really want to do, but here we are, um, I'll put on some music while I'm gathering my documents or getting ready to work.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time the music starts competing with my thinking, I'm already hyper-focusing and I can turn the music down.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a starting point.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the on-ramp.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you're training your brain to associate that input with, okay, now we're going to focus.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it just starts doing the work for you.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a habit.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think your brain is just looking for the sound input.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's looking for meaning, urgency, novelty, an identity alignment.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, think about why you build a business overnight, assuming you're building businesses.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, you've got like a history of businesses, but think about why you could design a website overnight, but you just can't meal plan for the week.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the hardest thing.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of those tasks has resonance and it connects with what I love and what I love to do and design.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the other one just feels more abstract or delayed, or it just takes more thinking power.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not really a discipline problem.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of a neurological thing.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when a task, like when it's really hard for you to go, I need to peel myself off this couch, because I have a lot of things I need to do today.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, don't start with, oh, you're so lazy.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you just get yourself off the couch?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Start asking yourself, okay, where's the resonance missing here?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where's where's the movement or urgency?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need a body double?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to put a timer on?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to put some music on?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look around your environment.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your body position, think about, you know, and this is not being sick.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a whole different on the couch kind of day, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is just like, I know what I need to do.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't get started.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, that's fine.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start reflecting on what's challenging me right now.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why, you know, what if I love using that phrase, what if I put on my favorite music?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: What if I'm able to say, Alexa, play classical music?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then within 30 seconds, my brain's like, okay, engaged, go.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can get up off the couch now.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's trying to figure out what's not resonating in your environment.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, right, you cannot control it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But many times I think we can control it more than we think.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We can design it better.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: We can always design our own environments better.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So take a breath with me for a second.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to think about how much energy you've spent over the years trying to work against your brain instead of with it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you didn't even know you were doing this.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you were sitting in silence because focus is just supposed to look like you're paying attention, and silence will help you focus better.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe trying to grind through boring tasks with nothing but willpower isn't working, and you shouldn't feel ashamed about that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you come to the realization that, you know what, a silent environment doesn't really work for me, or a chaotic environment doesn't work for me.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I need earplugs.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Game changer.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't necessarily that you were failing at focus.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: You were just living in this wrong frequency.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: The radio wasn't tuned in.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that shift from why can't I just do this to okay, okay, what does my brain need right now to engage?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the shift.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the work that you need to do to figure out how to function better.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, not forcing yourself into a system that wasn't built for your brain, redesigning your environment, designing something that is made for your brain.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's looking back and thinking about those instances, like when I was at the basketball game and I was like super hyper focused on doing all my homework and getting it done.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back and going, oh, wow, okay, so maybe I just need a little more input in my environment for me to focus better.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're finding resonance that works with your brain.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So stop treating it as a coincidence that when, oh, when I have music on, I actually get the house clean.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a coincidence.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually designing something that works for you.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a design principle.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if something in today's episode really hit for you and you're sitting there thinking, I need a reset, I need somewhere to start, I have something for you.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the dopamine hit list.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a free one-page download with quick wins organized by time of day.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your morning, midday, afternoon, nighttime, and what to do when you're completely frozen.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a planner, it's not a whole system, it's just a list of small things that could actually work with your brain chemistry.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can grab it for free at theadhdmom.com.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that again theadhdmom.com to go find your dopamine hit list.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have a wonderful week.