That’s why I wrote my book, Healthy Happy ADHD. It’s aimed at women with ADHD, like me, who want to get more out of life and be happy and healthy – mentally, emotionally, and physically. Productivity is often the focus when medication comes into the picture, but there’s so much more to being well than this. I’m the best version of myself thanks to the principles in my book. It combines everything I’ve learnt about ADHD with my background as a health and fitness coach, having set up a women’s only gym in Ireland 13 years ago and coached thousands of women through their transformations since. Here’s how I’ve learnt to thrive with ADHD, and how you can too.
1. Change your routine
People with ADHD experience boredom intolerance, the flip-side of our reputation for being impulsive and thrill-seeking. It’s much harder for us to tough out things that are monotonous and uninteresting, compared with other people. In fact, it’s hard for us to even get started on something that can bore us, no matter how urgently it needs doing.
Everyone with ADHD is different, and is bored and excited by different things. The first thing I’d recommend is that you spend time really reconnecting with yourself and working out what does interest you. For women with ADHD that can be buried under layers of shame because we’ve told ourselves that we should be interested in more “important” things. A lot of us get trapped in careers and lifestyles we don’t really want.
Those of us with ADHD get frustrated with routine more quickly so we have to follow our interests. If you’re trying to exercise, follow what appeals to you in the moment. Sometimes it’s skipping as fast as you can for 20 seconds; other times it’s listening to a podcast on a long walk. You can switch it as soon as you get bored. Don’t feel that you have to stick to one thing forever to be fit or productive.
2. Simplify everything to get more done
You’ll often hear from productivity gurus that you should get the hardest task of the day out of the way first. When you have ADHD, though, you need to make everything as easy as you can for yourself. This gives you the energy to power through your to-do list and cuts through executive dysfunction, a feature of ADHD that makes it harder to plan and organise things and to get things done as your mind is racing and your interests constantly shift.
I often advise women to simplify their relationship with food when they’re trying to eat healthily. Sometimes, cooking a complicated meal can feel overwhelming (especially when online recipes come with dozens of ingredients that you don’t have at home). Instead, have easy options for your meals that you can do on autopilot. For breakfast, I know that I’ll either have scrambled eggs with avocado or porridge made with protein powder. Knowing that when I wake up means that I reliably feed myself well. I call these “ADHD easy meals”, and there are more examples of them in my book.
It’s the same with arriving on time to appointments and to work. I stress myself out over this: just last week I was a day early to a visa interview. I was so anxious about missing my slot that I had over-corrected dramatically. But I have found ways to cope with every-day tasks. Set alarms on a physical timer rather than your phone, which is a distraction machine, so that you don’t get sucked into it. Time yourself putting on your shoes and coat in the morning so that you know how long it really takes for you to leave the house, and factor that into your route. Don’t force yourself to change and be un-distractable – just learn how to work with your brain.
3. Move your body to feel less anxious
A huge amount of women with ADHD suffer with anxiety: nearly three quarters of us report regularly feeling anxious, some research suggests, compared with around 5% of women who don’t have ADHD.
For us, the best way to handle these “on edge” feelings is often through exercise. Anxiety isn’t just in your head, it’s also in your body; it can be your body’s way of saying, “I need to move” so that you can regulate it. Often, it’s a build-up of excess energy – something that’s pretty typical when you have internal hyperactivity, a feature of ADHD – and getting that energy out through movement makes a huge difference.
I know that it can be easier said than done, but fitting in movement can be simple and doesn’t always mean a long, intense gym session. For example, sometimes I love to skip with a skipping rope while I wait for my dinner to cook, or to go on a Lime bike ride down the river in London, where I live. Being outside is especially helpful: the world passing by you on both sides is a form of bilateral stimulation for your brain, which is proven to help calm you.
4. Eat for your ADHD
When you have ADHD, what you eat is really important. A “balanced” diet is helpful, but it’s worth bearing in mind that you have different needs to neurotypical people, because your hormones work differently in your body, and food is fuel for your hormones.
As women, whether we’re still having periods or have reached the menopause, our hormones have a bigger role in our health. Healthy fats are especially important to hormone production (which is also interrupted by anxiety and stress,because of the release of cortisol as part of your body’s stress response). I always include a source of healthy fats in my meals: avocado, full-fat yogurt, olive oil and nut butters are all good examples.
Protein is crucial too as it keeps you satiated and energised. If you struggle to eat healthily, try starting by putting your protein intake first – about 1.5-2g per kilogram of your body weight is best for your health. Not only will you feel better physically, but this also cuts the mental load of calorie counting that so many women carry around, meaning you can focus on fuelling yourself properly.
5. Build your self esteem
As a woman with ADHD, it’s so easy to get worn down by others’ expectations, and do yourself down for struggling to meet them. The best way to counter this is to develop healthy self esteem. One way you can do this is by asking yourself questions instead of beating yourself up for making mistakes: things like “why did that happen?” and “how often does this happen?” can help you create better routines that fit your way of being. This practice can also put issues in their proper place and see that they don’t always reflect on who you are as a person.
It can also be really helpful to picture your future self, all the things she enjoys and wants to do and how she feels about herself. This can make it a lot easier to get where you want to be. It doesn’t have to mean picturing your dream job or body – it can just be visualising your perfect morning and the happiness you would feel in simple moments of peace and joy. This helps your brain to understand that things can change for the better and that you’re capable of living the life you want to live, full of health and happiness, even as someone with ADHD.
