5 Things That Quietly Changed Everything For My ADHD Brain
None of them required an overhaul.
I used to think I needed to make big changes to stop hating myself.
I was successful on paper — writing career, a book at 21, competitions, a business. And I was still miserable.
It wasn’t just depression, though that’s a common ADHD comorbidity. It was that I wasn’t living in a way that made my brain feel safe or regulated.
Either overstimulated and chasing dopamine just to stay afloat, or understimulated and ready to throw myself into the lake to feel something.
Neither was working.
What I’ve learned since my re-diagnosis at 31 is that we don’t need a complete overhaul. We need the right things — consistently.
These are the five that actually moved the needle. None of them cost anything. None of them required a new system or a better planner.
They just required me to finally pay attention to what my brain actually needed.
1. Taking care of my body — not just for appearances
When I was 29, I was competing in figure skating and speed skating, medaling in both, and coaching CrossFit.
I still thought I was fat.
I also had a binge eating issue — something I later learned is common in ADHDers. My diet at home was bland and predictable because sameness felt safe.
But I’d seek excitement with chocolate truffles, cookies, and once, a tiny flourless chocolate cake I ate in my bathroom.
Then I’d train it off. Until I couldn’t.
I got injured in 2023 and couldn’t walk for two weeks. I medicated with late-night Netflix and chip binges. I gained 5 pounds, then 15, then 25.
I’m still losing it.
What changed wasn’t a diet plan. It was understanding that food and movement aren’t about appearances — they’re about how our brains function.
Dr. John Ratey and Dr. Ned Hallowell consider healthy diet and daily exercise to be possible, powerful alternatives to ADHD medication. I know that firsthand.
When I was 11 and first got diagnosed, I removed foods I was sensitive to (dairy, gluten) and lost 30 pounds. My focus rebounded so completely that I forgot I had ADHD.
That didn’t last.
I went back to junk food, days without exercise, and zero attention to sugar. Or I was completely off sugar, exercising for hours, and tracking everything obsessively.
All or nothing. As usual.
What actually helped was the middle — balanced meals, cutting most processed food and sugar, moving every day in ways I don’t hate. A different workout each day. Classes when I need accountability. Music or audiobooks when I’m solo.
Sleep belongs here too. I spent years semi-nocturnal and prided myself on it. Last year, I finally got on a schedule.
In bed by midnight, up between 8 and 9. I’ve never felt better.
We need more sleep than we think — not less. We already struggle with executive function. We can’t afford to lose more to exhaustion.
Diet, exercise, and sleep aren’t a luxury. They are infrastructure.
2. I accepted that my productivity will never look neurotypical — and stopped apologizing for it
If anyone watched me write one of these pieces, they’d be surprised it gets done at all.
I open the tab. Start writing. End up on YouTube watching a video about roller coaster disasters. Remember an email I never answered. Get lost in the inbox. Back to writing.
Rinse, repeat.
I used to be embarrassed by this. I’d watch productivity guys talk about deep work and three-hour focus blocks and feel like I was failing.
Then I realized: neurodivergent brains aren’t built to work linearly. We make connections in unorthodox ways — and that’s actually where the good stuff comes from. It was when I wandered into another tab that I found the idea for this piece.
Forcing it doesn’t work. Stepping away does.
My best ideas have come in yoga class, roller skating outside at night, lying in bed with the cat.
I’ve also learned to trust my changes in direction.
I’d been working on a different article for a week before this one practically wrote itself — because I was more interested in it.
ADHD brains are powered by interest, not importance.
So I follow mine, even when my inner self-critic rolls her eyes at my latest task switch.
Now I take real breaks. Follow my curiosity without guilt. And choose one thing per day — the task taking up the most space in my head.
If I do that one thing, it’s a win. If not, it rolls to tomorrow.
No elaborate system. Just me, my interests, my random afternoon breaks, and one daily priority.
3. I stopped forcing myself to do things I genuinely don’t want to do
“No” was my favorite word growing up.
I was accused of being obstinate. Diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder alongside my first ADHD diagnosis.
I forgot both, and spent years wondering what was wrong with me.
Spoiler: not much. I just had an unacknowledged neurodivergent brain, and needed to do things differently.
Demand avoidance is a real part of the ADHD experience — a protective mechanism where we resist demands to preserve what little autonomy we feel we have.
When my mom asked me to clean the living room while I was finally, actually focused on my Nancy Drew book at age 8, shouting NO from my bedroom felt completely reasonable.
The irony is that as defiant as I was at home, I was a people pleaser everywhere else.
I said yes to things I didn’t want to do because I wanted people to like me. I went to networking mixers in my 20s even though I hated them. I just kept pushing through.
It never worked. I just burned out once a year.
(As for the networking: I spent most of it standing in a corner, stuffing cheese into my mouth to ease my discomfort.)
The real skill was learning to tell the difference between not wanting to do something because it’s hard, and not wanting to do it because it’s genuinely wrong for you right now.
Those are not the same thing. We just don’t always trust ourselves to know which is which.
I’m still figuring it out. But I’ve started asking one question before committing to anything: Do I actually want this, or do I think I should want it?
The resistance usually knows before I do. So I listen.
4. I started making small commitments — and keeping them
This past winter, I promised myself I’d go to the gym at least three times a week.
Then a 7-degree morning rolled around. Snowing. Dark. My cat meowing, hey, don’t leave.
I went anyway. Bundled up, threw my backpack on, trudged the two blocks through the snow. Did the workout.
And felt a flush of pride I hadn’t expected.
That small moment mattered more than I thought it would. It showed me I could commit to something and follow through.
Because for years, I did the opposite.
Said I’d write the article by the deadline and ended up begging for more time. Told myself I’d do two run-throughs in practice and barely did one. Promised I’d clean the room. Got overwhelmed. Did nothing.
The commitments were too big. I needed to make them small enough that there was no way to avoid them.
Self-esteem isn’t something you think your way into. It’s not affirmations or finally understanding your patterns.
It’s built from kept promises — small ones, daily.
The gym in the snowstorm. The project you finish even when it’s not perfect. The thing you said you’d do that you actually did.
We struggle with this because we want things fiercely and then lose interest. We get overwhelmed, distracted, bored.
We’ve broken enough promises to ourselves that we’ve stopped trusting ourselves entirely.
The way back isn’t more goals and shame. It’s making the ones we’re already breaking smaller. So small, that it’s impossible NOT to do them.
A full article becomes five minutes of writing with focus music in my earphones. A full workout becomes a few minutes on the rower. A cleaned room becomes organizing one specific tiny part of my space.
I also make my non-negotiables flexible.
It doesn’t matter if I do CrossFit, a spin class, or a 20-mile bike ride. Movement counts. The container stays the same; the contents can change.
Disappoint yourself enough times and it compounds. Keep your word to yourself — even once, even something small — and that compounds too.
5. I stopped researching my ADHD and started living my life
When I got re-diagnosed, the first thing I did was research.
Read all the books. Listened to all the podcasts. Watched all the YouTubes.
Don’t get me wrong — it helped. I’m a journalist. I’ve always loved researching, and it gave me language for experiences I hadn’t been able to name.
But after a year or two, I noticed my understanding of my ADHD was actually holding me back.
I was using it as an excuse for why I couldn’t do certain things. I told myself my ADHD meant I couldn’t work a traditional job. I called it social anxiety to explain why I avoided gatherings — when actually, I’m pretty good with people when I want to be. And when I snapped at my family, I’d blame the ADHD.
“We’re all overwhelmed sometimes,” my mom said. “That’s not an excuse.”
I was annoyed. But she was right.
ADHD is how my brain works. It’s not my identity. I don't consider it a core part of who I am any more than my preference for Mac over PC is a fundamental part of my personality.
When I stopped using it as a justification and started just living, things shifted.
I became more productive when I stopped convincing myself I couldn’t be. Less tired when I stopped telling myself I was running out of spoons. Less forgetful when I stopped treating forgetfulness as a fixed personality trait.
I just got on with things.
That made the biggest difference.
None of this required a complete overhaul.
Small changes, over time, not afraid to switch them up when needed. Paying attention to what actually worked and doing more of that.
We’re tempted to overcomplicate things — a lot of us ADHD brains are intelligent and love to create problems to solve. We think we need to overhaul our entire lives to see results.
We don’t. We need the right small things, done consistently.
That’s it.
If you’re doing all of this and still feel like you’re getting in your own way — not just organizationally, but in terms of what you actually want and why you keep stopping yourself — that’s exactly what I coach.