← ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast
ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast
Breaking down ADHD Neuroscience, Menstrual Cycles, Hormones and Anxiety
00:21:12
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast. I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains. After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd. In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey. Here's today's episode. So hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast. I'm bringing you another mashup episode. It's a combination of two guests who I absolutely love speaking to and I know I've got a huge amount of wisdom and I'm sharing that today with you. So today we have Nicole Vignola and we also have Dr. Lotta Borg Skogland. Now I'm going to start with Nicole. Nicole is a neuroscientist, she's an author, consultant and a brain performance coach. And her fantastic book Rewire your Neuro Toolkit for Everyday Life was published in May. And it's absolutely fantastic. And I loved speaking to Nicole all about the neuroscience, the understanding of our brain and understanding how our brain impacts the way our ADHD shows up. So let's have a little listen to what Nicole's got to say and then we'll come back to Lotta. So can I ask you talk about this? And I know with the default mode network, it's something that's been talked quite a lot about in ADHD right now and there's this understanding that we've got the default mode network and I'm probably going to just butcher this. But from what I understand from my very basic level is that is the bias that where we can ruminate and worry and it's sort of the negative things that sort of come in. And with adhd, what I think neuroscientists have spotted is that we are more prone to a more sort of powerful dmn and we have to reactivate our tpn, which is the task positive network, and we have to. And I guess that's sort of neuroplasticity, isn't it? We do things through gratitude and through noticing those small wins and noticing the little things and the appreciating the little things that have happened. And I don't know if you're aware of Dr. Ned Halliwell. He's at the forefront of ADHD and he has been for many, many years. And he said that the most profound sort of discovery now with ADHD and helping his clients and his patients is for them to understand the DMN and why. Why we have this in our brain and why we're more prone to this being kind of like the driving force. So could you speak a little bit about how we can activate the TPN a little bit more and kind of suppress the dmn?
- [03:01]
B
Yes, I love that you've mentioned that. And it is the forefront of science and it's. So let me just give you a little bit of a background on the DMN and the tpn, which TPN falls within the Central Executive Network, which is responsible for decision making, problem solving, etc. But just to backtrack a little bit, the Default Mode network resides in a big area of the brain and it's essentially what the name says, default mode of thinking. So what are you thinking about when you're not really thinking about anything? Now, the DMN is responsible for rumination, internal wondering, also responsible for autobiographical memories, but also creativity. Now, whichever way it has been wired is what's going to dominate. So the way that I explain it is the Default Mode network is like a garden and if you allow it to overgrow with weeds, it will override everything. It will kind of be like a negative place that you don't want to go into. And that's a typical feeling of, I don't want to sit alone with my thoughts. I'm just going to keep myself super busy so I don't have to deal with that. The problem with that is that you get into bed at night and that's when all those thoughts start arising and you're going, oh my goodness, now I can't sleep. So the more time we spend in the DMN and cultivate a positive garden, if you will pull out the weeds and plant the flower beds with gratitude and all the wonderful things you mentioned, then we can wire this place to be a comfortable place of quote, unquote, happiness and maybe even creativity. It should be a wonderful place of mind wandering. When we're children, it's more active in a creative and imaginative way. I don't know if you can resonate with that, but I do recall having times where I'd come home and just daydream on my bed, which I don't do ever, ever, ever anymore. And now the central executive network or the task positive network responsible for more outward thinking tasks. So what you're probably active in right now. Now from my understanding, there's sometimes an asynchrony in the way that these two networks fire which overlap when they perhaps shouldn't, or one comes on when the other one shouldn't be on, et cetera. So that's when you get kind of like attention redirection when you're supposed to be doing a task at hand, particularly if you find it boring. Now we can actually strengthen the central executive network through things like meditation, which can help you actually change the connectivity between how the frontal cortex communicates with the rest of the brain so that you have more control over redirecting your attention back to central executive network or back to task positive function rather than dmn. So you're kind of saying yes, we know that this is more active, but we can pull it back. We can strengthen the central executive network through focusing on things like deep work, et cetera. Of course the caveat is that we have to be one motivated or primed I think is the correct sort of way to describe it, to want to do work for an extended period of time. So removing distractions, starting small, you know, whether it's five minutes of focused work because you know, there are days where I sit down and I actually can't even do something for five minutes without thinking, oh, I need to check something, I need to get up and make a coffee. You know, those are those self interruptions. And there was a study that was done and unfortunately they didn't differentiate between neurodivergent and neurotypical. They weren't purely neurotypical. There was a, you know, pool that was mixed, they just didn't specify, which is unfortunate. But it showed that 51% of our interruptions are self governed. So they self initiated, which means that we'll sit down to work and we'll go, oh, I need to make that coffee. Oh, what about that email? Oh, the dog needs to do this. Yeah, you know, so you know, through things like meditation, which again catch 22 because it requires quite a lot of focus to be able to drive that. Not the quiet. Because I think people have got meditation a bit twisted over the years and rightly so. I think the, I think the wellness industry has just completely confused people, you know, but we can't be quiet. Our brains cannot be quiet.
- [07:09]
A
That's really validating. Yeah, that's validating to hear. So I mean, what would you say meditation wise. I mean, I'd love to hear from a neuroscientist. What is the most effective for a neurodivergent brain?
- [07:22]
B
I would say so focusing on breath. So we have something called exteroception, which is you're sensing everything from the outside. And then we have interoception, which is thinking about your lungs expanding, thinking about your breath, thinking about how you feel internally, and doing something where you're introspective and checking on your senses from the inside. So maybe focusing on your breath going from top to bottom. I sort of visualize my breath going from toes all the way through to the top of my head all the way back down. And the purpose of meditation? To allow thoughts to come in if they do, because they will. That's the way the thoughts work. They're spontaneous. They will arise at any point, and they should. That's how we're wired. But it's not attaching yourself to those thoughts. So if you think of the email, you don't go, oh, my goodness gracious. And then you start going this whole route of why you didn't send the email, or X, Y, Z, or actually, even worse, get up and send the email midway. It's about conflict resolution in the brain, which can then help you with conflict resolution in real life. So when you're sat down to do work and you've got a competing sound outside, you can then train your brain to redirect back to the task at hand.
- [08:34]
A
See, that's really powerful. And that leads me onto actually something that I wanted to finish with, because I wanted to finish with something quite powerful and uplifting, and that is being able to use our brains to visualize and to kind of use it as an amazing tool for creating and desiring and really honing in on what's important to us and being able to kind of filter out the noise. So, yes, you know, we talk about manifestation. We talk about kind of like the power of visualization and calling things to us. But what I'd like to know is, from a neuroscience perspective, we've got something from. I think I'm right in saying it's the reticular activating system. And when we use that to our benefit, we can hone in. And which is why people, a lot of people say, you know, vision boards or action boards can be very powerful. What's your take on that?
- [09:26]
B
Yes, I alluded to it earlier when I was talking about how we have information in our periphery, and if you choose to focus on the negative that is everything you're going to see. So if I said to you now, Kate, how many blue things are in your room right now? And you start looking at all the blue things, and I say, okay, great. How many red things were there? You didn't pay attention to the red things. You were only looking for the blue things. And that's kind of how this vision board and manifestation works. If you've got your eyes on a goal and you, you're blocking out everything else, you're not going to see the other stuff. You're just going to be focusing on what you want, which means that it will then also be amplified from your environment, so you see something else that then confirms your bias around what you want. So there's so much science around it. And we know that it can rewire part of the cerebellum which is responsible for motor function. So athletes that would practice, say, a golf shot, for example, in their mind would then be able to execute it even better when they came to it. So we know that visualization is grounded in data. We can also sort of create pathways through thought alone. So there was a wonderful study done in 1995. This is kind of like the basis of, oh, okay, our thoughts are pretty powerful and can create synapses. Is. Dr. Pasquale Leone took two groups of individuals. He told one group to imagine that they were playing a five finger piece on the piano. They had never played the piano before. And he told the other group again, who had never played the piano before, to learn the five finger piece, actually physically use their hands. Both groups had similar levels of plasticity in the motor cortex, which is amazing. So they basically saw and realized that through thought we can start to prime that area, the motor cortex, in response to how your hand is then going to move, which is, I don't know. It blew my mind when I read that study. Basically, the way that visualization works is it helps to kind of create a blueprint for what it is that you want. Because the brain also likes to keep us safe. I actually can resonate with that. I have a client in New York who would really like to live by the beach. But before we started working together, it was almost like impossible for her to think that because her job is in New York, her life is in New York. She was born in New York. And it takes a lot to think about wanting to live in, say, Miami, for example. But through visualizing, she has started to kind of see what life would be like. So you're teaching your brain and body how you could feel in a place like that so that you can start to assimilate your life with something else. Because the brain wants to keep you safe and it wants to keep you where you are, even if where you are doesn't align with you anymore. It would prefer the known, the comfort of the known versus the fear of the unknown, even if the fear of the unknown is better. And that's generally why people also tend to stay in toxic relationships. Because the fear of the unknown is sometimes worse than the comfort of the known. And the brain doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. Not really. Our conscious brain can tell us morally, but on a neurobiological level, whatever's been repeated is the sequence of events that it's going to take. Every time the path more traveled. It's only when we start breaking out of that and creating new pathways that we can start moving towards a different future. And through visualization we can start priming that pathway to say, okay, this is the route we, we've always taken. But what if we actually went this way? And how would you feel if you started going down this way? So when you start doing it, it's not as scary and slowly you can kind of move towards this new version or new place.
- [13:08]
A
Okay, so we now have Dr. Lotte Borg Skoglund. Now, Lotta is an amazing expert in adhd. She is also an associate professor in psychiatry at the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Uppsala University. And she's also a researcher of clinical neuroscience at Karolinska Institute. And her scientific and research work targets intersection of ADHD and all the different comorbid or co occurring traits of adhd, including mood disorders. She's also the author of six popular science books on ADHD and addiction. And her book ADHD Girls to Women Getting on the Radar has been translated into several European languages. Now Dr. Lotta is really beginning that foundational research and getting across to the masses about ADHD and hormones. And it's so important that we understand this. So now let's listen to Dr. Lotta Borg Skogland.
- [14:05]
C
And that is also something that we are trying to do in later life, trying to build this community where we can share these stories and experiences with each other and learn from that. So just pool the kind of knowledge and experience that we have and, and collect that and then see what can we harvest from that.
- [14:28]
A
Yeah, and that I think that's when being ADHD informed, understanding the mood regulation, the emotional, you know, all of that, the impulsivity, the, where Our energy levels are, you know, so many of us are very good in the morning, you know, like sort of late morning till early, you know, afternoon, and then it tails off. All these different little nuances are so powerful.
- [14:53]
C
That's also why you need to know your ADHD brain and your ADHD profile, right? Because if you have a profile of, as a psychiatrist, you often see that if you have a lot of anxiety as comorbidity or as part of your ADHD profile, that is. Can be somehow protective against the worst impulsivity thing, right? Because you are anxious that things are going to be happening to you or you're thinking a lot, catastrophic thoughts in advance. And then you tend to get. It's very painful and you, you may struggle and suffer a lot, but it, it kind of protects you against the things that, that can be very impulsive. So if you have that kind of adhd, then actually the period around ovulation where estrogen levels are peaking can be the worst for you because then you. Or it can be, sorry, it can be better for you because then you have the kind of lift of the mood and the thing by the estrogen and then you suffer really, really, really during the pmds, pms. But if you, if you don't have this anxiety trait, then you might be susceptible for, for impulsivity. And then you might be susceptible just around ovulation because then the estrogen level kind of can reinforce the impulsivity that can be perceived as kind of a. Done in a positive, like in a positive manner. So it is like, oh, yeah, I feel like, you know, going out, seeing people, I feel like doing this. I feel like buying this. I feel like driving really fast in my car.
- [16:37]
B
It's like, yay.
- [16:38]
C
So that part of AD can be really, really, you know, increased and be very dangerous for you, right? So if, if that kind of positive, positively driven impulsivity increases around ovulation because estrogen levels are high. And then you also add on to that by, you know, your, your ADHD medication that might also work more effectively during that time and further trigger actually the impulsivity. If the levels get too high, then that can be the worst part of your month. So you have to kind of break it down to, okay, there are the hormonal fluctuation. So there are different part of the hormonal cycle, but then there is the individual ADHD profile. So it's not like all women with ADHD have the worst, you know, consequences of their ADHD and their hormonal suffering during PMS. PMDs first for some people it is the, the increased impulsivity around ovulation that actually you know, makes so much like ripple. Have some, so many ripple effects that you have to kind of sort out the mess that you create during one or two days when you are extremely impulsive and that takes the rest of the month to mend and sort that out.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah, I mean that's so beautifully described and like you say it's, you can relate to it in so many different ways and but I know also from a psychiatric perspective, if you do really struggle with the PMDD alongside the ADHD medication it's possible to take, I'm just asking antidepressants or anti anxiety medication just for that last two months to sort of bolster ourselves. Is that something that you help women with as well?
- [18:36]
C
Yeah. So that, that kind of strategy we've, we have used for a long time for PMS, PMDD, PMDS to just use like cyclic SSRI treatment 10 days before your, your, you have your period to, to just even out or to, to reduce the anxiety and depressive symptoms during pms. So, so that is something that you can use. But I think it's really important to try to disentangle if what you are experiencing is distinct comorbidity. So is this pms, pmds, is this distinct anxiety? Is it anxiety disorder? Is it a, a depressive disorder? Because then you probably some kind of treatment for that distinct comorbid condition. It is not certain that the ADHD medication then will help.
- [19:45]
A
I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode. If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. And please do check out my website, adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk for lots of free resources and paid for workshops. I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there. Take care and see you for the next episode.
- [20:21]
B
Foreign.
- [20:26]
A
I hear from so many of you every week that this podcast has helped you immeasurably. And if that is the case, and it really has helped you understand and validate yourself and your experiences as well as giving you options and ways to move forward positively and finally believe that you can thrive at life with more insights, more guidance, I would absolutely love it if you could support the podcast with a small tip. I actively choose not to hand over the sponsorship or advertising of this podcast to ensure that it's the most pleasurable and easy listening experience for you as the listener. So any tip or any contribution is greatly appreciated to ensure that I can carry on with this podcast with the content. All the details are in the show notes. There's a link there. Thank you so much and see you for the next episode.