ADHD: The “Depends On The Day Syndrome”

In Calibrate Coaching, we often talk about how ADHD could be renamed “Depends On The Day Syndrome”. Just as it can be hard to pick our favorites on any given day, e.g., our favorite ice cream or movie (because it depends on the mood we’re in!), ADHD often presents differently depending on the day. It may depend on how much sleep we’ve had, when we’ve last eaten or hydrated, what our hormone levels are, whether we operated at 60% or 150% yesterday, you get the idea!

Tune In: Understanding Your Daily Experience

Tune into your brain and body to explore what and why you’re feeling the way you do today.  How do you feel physically? Fatigued? Energized? Then explore that: How was your sleep? When have you last eaten or had water? What is your sensory environment and experience right now? Would turning off the lights or putting on noise cancelling headphones or earplugs be helpful? How do you feel emotionally? Strong and confident?  Frustrated and overwhelmed? Explore what might be behind these feelings. Is there a physical cause? Are there specific (or general) stressors occurring today? Are you connecting with others or isolating yourself?  Tuning into what’s going on for you right now can help you assess and understand your challenges and how to address them, as well as help you identify what to celebrate and embrace today.

Building Your Toolbox of Tethers

Just as ADHD can present differently depending on the day, your memory and your ability to calibrate or regulate your emotions and your body may depend on the day. This is one reason why we encourage you to build a large and varied toolbox of tethers and strategies you can employ depending on what you remember and what feels accessible to you in the moment on a given day. (Note: Tethers are tools, accommodations, and strategies we use that tie us to what we want to do and help us achieve our goals.) We encourage you to get curious about your brain, body, and ADHD. In addition to tuning into your brain and body: What motivates or demotivates you, what are your strengths or values, what do you like or dislike, and how could you use those things to create tethers and strategies to help you accomplish what you want or intend to? For example, if you like fun or being competitive, maybe you can game-ify the task or how you choose a task by throwing darts onto a dartboard of various household chores, listen to a fun podcast while taking care of paperwork, or race the clock or timer to load the dishes in the dishwasher before time’s up!

Giving Your ADHD a Name (or Several!)

Speaking of fun, we encourage you to be creative and name your ADHD or have several names that you can use depending on the day! Your ADHD could be named “Simon Cowell” or “Shredder” from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when the inner critic is showing up strongly (or it could have other names depending on how it’s presenting that day). Naming your ADHD allows you to create some space, take a different perspective on it, bring in some humor, and create more accessibility to tethers when you need to calibrate and regulate!  

The Bottom Line: Calibrate Your Day

So bottom-line is that no matter the day, we encourage you to stop, pause, and tune into your brain and body and how your ADHD is showing up that day. Once you’ve stopped and tuned in to listen to your brain and body, then you are better able to identify and utilize tethers and strategies that will help you regulate and calibrate your way to a good day!