Skillfully Handling Your Overwhelm When You Have ADHD

Description: Feelings of overwhelm are a common companion for ADHD adults. So, knowing these five steps to manage it in the moment is key to working well with your ADHD. Key Takeaways: * Your ADHD can make your overwhelm worse and your overwhelm can also exacerbate your ADHD symptoms. * Overwhelm can lead to procrastination as a way of deferring the discomfort of your overwhelm. * Addressing the source of your overwhelm can help reduce your tendency to procrastinate. * Managing your negative thought patterns is one of the keys to reducing your overwhelm. * Identifying and replacing your overwhelm routine with a more helpful habit is also important. * You will also want to know how to “pause” situations where you are feeling overwhelmed so you can decide what to do next. Resources: * ADHD and the Habit of Overwhelm * ADHD and Five Steps to Countering Overwhelm Transcript:  (00:00) Do you ever feel as though your brain is flooded like it may short circuit at any moment, and in those moments, maybe you can’t even think straight. You may even begin to panic going into fight, flight or freeze mode. You just want to escape from whatever is causing the overwhelm. Sound familiar?  (00:27) You’ve tuned into scattered focus, done re-imagining productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD, adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to be able to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins and I’m really glad you decided to join me today on this journey to re-imagining productivity with ADHD so you can get your important work done without trying to do it like everyone else. In this episode, we’ll explore why ADHD adults may be predisposed to becoming overwhelmed and how to manage it so it doesn’t get in your way of doing what is most meaningful to you each day. No doubt (01:18) everyone has challenges in their day to day life leading to overwhelm, but your ADHD challenges may be causing you more overwhelmed than your non ADHD family, friends and colleagues. I know you already know this, I didn’t need to tell you that, but I did and anyway, you’re overwhelmed and turned can exacerbate your ADHD symptoms. So figuring out how to manage it is an important piece of learning how to work with your ADHD. So let’s get on with doing that. And we’re going to start this journey by looking at a hypothetical scenario. Let’s take Carrie. She’s a software engineer and, of course, an adult with ADHD and she’s struggling to complete a report that is due in four days. She’s known about it for a month. Sound familiar? Anyway, she’s already blocked off time to work on the report from three to five. So far so good. She was being intentional with her time.  (02:16) It’s a little before three and she’s just left a meeting with her team. She’s pretty upset after the meeting and thinks to herself. Tony seemed really upset that the product rollout was delayed. He probably thinks it’s my fault. I’ll have to deal with that later. I really need to get down to work now. So Carrie opens the report to get started, but in that moment she starts to realize she may not have enough time to finish the report. Then she thinks to herself, I’m such a screw up and I bet I’m going to get fired. Oh, maybe I should answer that email from Paul that just popped up and I really should return series call too. I’m never going to get this report done in time. I can’t believe Tony is blaming me. Anyway,