Of Course You're Still Struggling (but it's Okay) with Jessica McCabe
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with the fantastic Jessica McCabe. Many of you probably know Jessica from her award-winning YouTube Channel, How to ADHD, where she has helped millions of people better understand how ADHD brains work. And Jessica is a returning guest, last time she was on we talked about her then upcoming and now New York Times bestselling book, How to ADHD: An Insider’s Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It) - which just came out in paperback. And last time Jessica was on the show she was pregnant, so we dive into that a bit on this episode, discussing how having...
info_outline
The One You Feed with Eric Zimmer
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with someone who has an impressive 12 years of podcasting and over 800 episodes, Eric Zimmer, is the host of The One You Feed podcast, taking the name from the parable of the two wolves inside you and asking which one grows, well, it's the one you feed. After struggling with heroin addiction and homelessness in his twenties, Zimmer became deeply interested in how people make lasting changes in their lives. Drawing on both behavioral science and his own experience with addiction and recovery, Zimmer’s work focuses on exploring behavior change, meaning, and...
info_outline
Research Recap with Skye: Current Methods and Issues Surrounding ADHD - Part 2
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper, dive into what it says and how it was conducted, and try to find practical takeaways. In this episode, we're discussing a paper called "Evaluating Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Review of Current Methods and Issues." This is a continuation of what we were talking...
info_outline
Decluttering at the Speed of Life with Dana K. White
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with Dana K. White, the creator of A Slob Comes Clean and the author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind, and her newest book Procrastinators Get Stuff Done: How to Go from Overwhelmed to Finished. Her work grew out of her own struggles with clutter and home management, and she’s become known for practical, reality-based strategies designed for people who feel like traditional organizing advice just doesn’t work for them. This was a real fun episode and I just gotta say that I love that title, A Slob Comes...
info_outline
The Brain That Changes Every Month with Dr. Jolene Brighten
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with Dr. Jolene Brighten, a naturopathic doctor, women's health educator, and author whose work focuses on hormones, reproductive health, and the ways hormonal changes can affect women across their lifespan. She's the author of Beyond the Pill and Is This Normal?, and her newest work, ADHD and Women, coming out October 6th, explores the intersection of hormones and ADHD in women. I know hormones and ADHD is a topic we've explored before, but Dr. Brighten was a delight to have on the show, and this conversation went in all kinds of directions. So yes, we talked...
info_outline
Research Recap with Skye: Current Methods and Issues Surrounding ADHD
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Evaluating Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD: A Review of Current Methods and Issues. And this paper is a narrative...
info_outline
ADHD and the High Achiever with Dr. Jennie Byrne
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with Dr. Jennie Byrne, a board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist with over 20 years specializing in high-achieving professionals and adults with ADHD. She has a PhD in Neurophysiology and an MD from NYU with her psychiatry residency at Mount Sinai (pronounced SIGH-nye). Now she runs Constellation PLLC, a concierge telepsychiatry practice where she helps busy professionals manage their ADHD. In her most recent book, ADHD in Professionals: Embracing Your Brain, Dr. Byrne examines how ADHD shows up at work, and why some individuals thrive while for others...
info_outline
Alexithymia, ADHD, and the Feelings You Miss with Dr. Megan Anna Neff
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! This week I'm talking with Dr. Megan Anna Neff, an AuDHD clinical psychologist, author, and educator. She holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from George Fox University, which she completed the same year that she was diagnosed as autistic. Dr. Neff has moved away from traditional clinical practice to focus on creating research-informed, lived-experience-centered, and emotionally resonant resources and training through her platform Neurodivergent Insights. In our conversation today, we discuss her diagnosis, how ADHD and Autism tend to run in families, and the ripple effects that...
info_outline
Research Recap with Skye: Social Exclusion
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called "Psychological Implications of Exclusion in Individuals with ADHD Symptomatology." That's a hard word there. This study asked a...
info_outline
Focus: The ADHD guide to productivity *that actually works* With James and Sam Brown
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey team! This week I'm talking with James and Sam Brown, co-authors of Focus: The ADHD guide to productivity that actually works - James is a science communicator with a PhD in Biomedical Science, and 20+ years in academia and Chair of the adult ADHD charity ADHDadultUK. Sam, also known as Mrs. AuDHD online, is an Executive Administrator with ADHD-informed PA expertise, an ADHD coach, Director and Secretary of JBHD Ltd, and a Trustee of ADHDadultUK. Together (with Alex Conner) they co-host The ADHD Adults podcast. As both of them were diagnosed as adults, they use their lived (but...
info_outlineExecutive function is a hot topic around ADHD - and more specifically how we often have a deficit in it.
One of the trickiest parts about executive function is that there isn’t a universally accepted model of executive functions - I know that feels kind of surprising because it seems like something that is talked about as much as executive functions is that we’d have something that is generally agreed upon. So for this episode, we’re going to be focusing on Russell Barkley’s self-regulation model - although I’ll certainly be pulling from other sources as well.
I really like Dr. Barkley’s model of self-regulation, because in many ways we can actually look at ADHD as a disorder of self-regulation itself. And that’s exactly what Dr. Barkley proposes, that executive function and self-regulation are the same thing and that with ADHD we have a deficit in our executive functions and therefore a deficit in our self-regulation.
As such, I’ll be using executive function and self-regulation interchangeably throughout the episode to help emphasize that they are the same thing.
In this episode, I’m going to go into exactly what executive function and self-regulation are, how we use them and how we can get back on track when we find ourselves missing some of that self-regulation.
Support me on Patreon
Connect with me on:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
or ask me a question on my Contact Page
Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/executivefunction
This Episode’s Top Tips
- We can think of executive functions and self-regulation as the same thing.
- Our primary executive functions are working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control.
- We have a limited resource pool for our executive functions and we use some of it every time we engage in self-regulation. Fortunately, we can help restore some of these resources by doing things like taking a break, having a snack, and getting some exercise.
- One of the best ways to help with executive function is to modify our environment so that we’re reducing the amount of self-regulation we need to do. This means doing things like putting away distractions and making time more visible.