ADHD at Work and Home: Friction, Focus & Finding Your Rythm

I think about Seinfeld and there's this episode where George is working for the Yankees and George gets this instruction from his boss and he misses the instruction. And then for the rest of the episode, he tries to figure out what it was that his boss told him to do and what he needed to do to get it done. And for me, like a lot of my life has felt like that. I felt like I'm in a meeting. I'm taking notes, but at the end of the day, I missed something. And then I'm trying to figure out through notes or hieroglyphics or whatever kind of juju, I can figure out what I need to do and what kind of instructions I need to identify.

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Musketeers Podcast, where we explore health, wellness, and the art of living. I'm Aussie Mike James, writer, speaker, and longtime fitness professional who's led teams since the '90s. And today's topic is one that touches a lot of our lives, whether we realize it or not. ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactive disorder, manifests itself not only in children but also in adults. And as maybe not good fortune would have it, but coincidence, I guess, one of the leading researchers in, or leading practitioners or treatment people for ADHD, a psychologist by the name of Thomas Brown, just recently passed away unfortunately, and he's in this weekend's Washington, I mean the Wall Street Journal, and he's quoted as saying, ADHD is not an all or nothing deal like pregnancy, with either you are, where you're either pregnant or not, and there's nothing in between. He explained that all the characteristics of ADHD are problems everybody has sometimes. It's just with some people who have ADHD, they have a lot more difficulty with it more of the time. So you can see it's a very wide encompassing topic, and I think we've all got a unique angle on this topic, and we're looking forward to unpacking it with you guys. But first, let's do a roundtable of our fellow Musketeers, and I'll introduce each, and they can give us a little brief rundown on their experience with ADHD. Firstly, to Dr. Kennedy.

How else everybody this afternoon, this evening, depending on where we are. And, uh, good to see everyone again. And as a clinician, I've seen patients with ADHD, and I think it's important for us to at least understand what's the definition of it. What, what is it that we're describing or about to talk about? It's ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental condition that's characterized by the persistent patterns of inattention, which means difficulty sustaining focus, disorganization, forgetfulness, hyperactivity, where you have excessive movement, restlessness, fidgeting, and impulsivity, where you're interrupting, you're always interrupting things, you never get through things, acting without thinking, impatience. And it typically begins in childhood and can persist into adolescence and adulthood, typically after the age of 3, between 3 and 12 years old. So that's typically what we see. Now, we see that there recently there's been And I say recently, maybe in the last 25, 30 years, there have been more adults with the disease. And we find this out with people who come from all walks of life have it, many of whom were never diagnosed when they were children, but then when they became adults. And for me, as an internist, I would see people who would come in and their comments would always be, you know, gee, I'm I'm really having trouble getting through the topics that I've been tasked with at work. With lawyers, with economists, with teachers, in every, every walk of life. And so, you know, you, you know, we ask them all of these questions to, and it's called the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, which, or briefly ASRS-V1, and it basically asks 6 questions that they have to ask themselves, they have to answer themselves. And I'll, you know, sort of go through this briefly. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project once the challenging parts have been made? And this is typically a yes or no answer. You know, it gives you, it says, Choices: never, rarely, sometimes, often, very often. Same thing, question 2: how often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization? Number 3: how often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations? Number 4: when you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started? And that, as in, I say that because I'd say 70% of the people who would come to me who had ADHD, that would be the one question that would almost always be in the positive and constantly in the positive for them. And so you see this all the time and, you know, question 5 is, how often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time. Now you saw this, you see very commonly with children. This is what they were telling my, telling my 5-year-old son that he had in kindergarten because he'd sit down, but then he'd want to be on the floor. He'd pick up a toy that was over there while the teacher, and the teacher would always say, he's not focused. He can't concentrate. He can't step. I think he has ADHD. And so of course, you know, as a parent, you kind of take that personal, you know, of course he tended not to have, he actually didn't have it. That was just his ability. He could be completely look like distracted and actually be the only one in the room that could answer the questions. So, you know, it's a fascinating thing. And question 6, how often do you feel overly active? And compelled to do other things like you were driven by a motor? And so these are those typical questions and the World Health Organization with psychiatrists, psychologists, educators all came up with this format and it actually expands out to 18 questions if those, but those are the primary ones, but there's a lot of other secondary.

Thank you, Dr. K. That sort of gives us a good framework. Kettle, as an economist with 30 years of, 35 years of experience across global institutions, what's been your experience with AD?

So now I just got this questionnaire, which I hear for the first time. I, I'm not so sure, but I'm also hypochondriac. That's what definitely true. So I will, so I would probably try to score a full score on this, No, no, definitely joke aside. You know, I think definitely I can recognize the procrastination thing. Do I have ADHD? I don't know. I definitely interrupt people. That didn't seem to be a part of your questionnaire. I was a joke with my, uh, when I, uh, I worked at the IMF and people working for me, I needed to have a point being made on 2, 3 seconds. If not, I lost interest. I don't know if that is the ADHD, but definitely problems of keeping concentrated, uh, you know, also part of my, my life.

Great. David, our media professional, what's been your experience with ADHD?

Well, I think that most of my life I had a lot of the symptoms and I had been on my own trying different things to cope with different things that I perceived as shortcomings or problems or things that were, I think, at the end of the day, related to what someone with ADHD would have. And I was just randomly looking at something. I don't remember where I found it, but I saw this notice, if you have these symptoms, we're doing a medical, a new medication trial for ADHD. And so I filled out this survey and then they called me in and then they did a diagnosis that I have ADHD and what the trial was doing was the medication worked for 4 hours and they wanted it to work for 6 or 8 so they could extend the patent. So I got to meet with some psychiatrists and do ongoing things with dosage and things like that. And that's how I learned as an adult and how I first tried to try and work with it.

Great. Interesting. Guys, it obviously looks like we'll each bring a different lens to the table today, the lived experience. Clinical, workplace, and leadership, and day-to-day living, all grounded in real stories, not just theory. But before we jump in, listeners, if this conversation resonates with you, hit subscribe so you don't miss upcoming episodes. We also share bonus clips, expert tips, and behind-the-scenes insights in our free Wellness Musketeers newsletter. The link will be in the show notes. But jumping right in here, Maybe, Dave, maybe you can expand a bit more on your history and maybe Dr. K can ask you a few of those probing clinical questions about how you found out how it's manifested, et cetera.

I always think about an episode of Seinfeld. George is working for the Yankees. George gets this instruction from his boss and he misses the instruction. And then for the rest of the episode, he tries to figure out what it was that his boss told him to do and what he needed to do to get it done. And for me, like a lot of my life has felt like that. Like I felt like I'm in a meeting, I'm taking notes. I, I, but at the end of the day, I missed something and then I'm trying to figure it out through notes or hieroglyphics or, you know, whatever kind of juju I can figure to kind of figure out what I need to do and what kind of instructions I need to identify. And I think I'm very easily distracted. I think it's been an issue with different relationships and things like that. And it's, on the other hand, I'm very creative. It's, I think everything is a mixed bag. In any situation, you have to always kind of look for the positive in it.

Absolutely.

It's not, it's not like, as things go, there are worse, much worse circumstances I could find myself in or any. Absolutely. Yes.

Absolutely.

So Dave, if you went under medication, did, did you notice that helped you?

It's kind of weird to me because there are different parts of it because like there are different kinds of medications and the medications are to help you focus for a fixed period of time. But if you're not sleeping well and you take it, then you're going to be sort of it sort of messed me up. And I also figured that I have some anxiety in the long term and that the ADHD was a trigger for it. And if I could control the anxiety better, then I could function better overall.

So just a question, so have they prescribed some anti-anxiety medication for you?

Yeah. Yeah. I, and actually that was just, yeah, that's just in the last, in recent times. But I have tried different ADHD medications and I do know people like a friend of mine's sister as an adult, she got diagnosed in the last couple years and she takes, what's it, Adderall or the, what's the common ADHD? Adderall.

Yeah.

Adderall. And it's been really helpful for her. So it's, I guess everybody's different and I think everyone, has their own coping structure to try and figure things out. You know, some are more effective, obviously.

Yeah.

I think I, I, you bring, you bring up a really good point with your, with yourself and that it's important to exclude other things that could mimic ADHD. Anxiety for sure can mimic it. So can depression. In that regard. And so as a clinician, one of the things we have to make sure is that, you know, it could be easy to put a person on a stimulant drug, but if you don't ask the person from the beginning, well, how do you sleep? And so if you're a person who sleeps 4 hours a night on average, 5 hours a night on average, and then you give them this drug, which is a stimulant for the most part. These drugs are stimulants. And so one of the things is, since it, for most people, and I won't say most, some people have to take the drug at least twice a day to get a benefit, right? And because the effect of the drug doesn't always last more than 4, 4 or 5 hours max, some people longer. And of course, they've come out with extended release forms that are supposed to give you a longer benefit of time, but every individual is different. But one of the things is it brings up— I've had a couple of attorneys as patients who would need it to be alert and functioning until late afternoon. And they were— in the morning, they were fine. They were right on point. They could read their cases. They could read documents. They were right on point. But then they would start to be easily distracted by 3:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the evening. And if they took the second dose of the drug after 4:00 in the afternoon, they wouldn't sleep. And then it becomes this revolving door.

That's what I was kind of getting to. It was sort of like on the one hand, if I had slept right and took the medication at the right time, I thought it was helpful. But like you said, if I have to take it twice a day and I had a cup of coffee sometime during the day, that would throw me off. I couldn't sleep. And then I get up, I'm still tired. I can't focus anyway because I'm exhausted. I take this medication, I'm on alert, zombie is what I was. And then one other thing I just wanted to ask about was that, like, I think for me, the longest time was I wasn't sure if I was anxious or depressed or anxious because I was depressed or depressed because I was anxious. And how did people figure out, you know, which it is that they have? And I had a doctor or someone say to me, well, everyone in your life, you're living your life, you're going to have a certain amount of anxiety and depression. And when is it that you need to address it or, or take medication or go to a doctor? It's like mental health.

Okay. There's two, there's two things that I just discovered with Adderall, which is kind of interesting factoid. I, I, and, and, and we can be, we can be, uh, I can be corrected. One is that apparently is illegal for athletes in certain sports, and the other one is illegal in Europe. Yeah. I don't know if that's true.

Well, the, it's a drug that has become abu— You know, you see it a lot in the college, in the college and in the, in the later years in high school where because what it did is it gave people the ability to focus, you know, like they have to cram for a big exam or final or they have to write a paper that they have to get done by a certain amount of time. And these drugs would allow them when they take it, to be focused and go hours and hours without any rest. And you would, and you could, you could see that it would help them academically because they were already smart to begin with. But now that they could focus in preparation for their exams or their, or their term paper, they could knock it out. They could just be so, so much more involved. But the side effects of the medicines are real. And that's why there's this constant thing.

It's an amphetamine. This is what's on the street. It's called speed.

Yes. Oh yeah.

So Dr. K and David, I'll address this to both of you. With a psychological intervention, if that's the word, when would you recommend that? Would you refer people on, Dr. K? And Dave, did you have talk with a psychologist about this? If you don't mind us probing into timing.

Yeah, I'd like to hear Dr. Kennedy's thoughts about this mental health referral and then the antidepressant.

It's changed a little bit and now, and then now that I'm out of the loop, I'm retired, but when I was practicing, one of the things that you needed to, in the past, you used to have to every 6 months or so, make sure that the person met with a psychiatrist/psychologist. To verify the need for it. But then when people, when people were getting, they became, it became such a drug of choice and it's still a controlled, they're all controlled substance drugs. So in other words, they're, they're considered like narcotics. So you used to have to, you literally used to have to give, the person would have to come in every 30 days. To get a prescription, you ask a series of questions to see how they're tolerating it, are they benefiting from it, etc., are they abusing it, etc., are they, you know, as they say, sharing it with whomever because, because of the illegal substance that it could become out on the street. Because it is, you know, it's like you said, Kettle, it's speed. And so you give it to the wrong person, who doesn't need it and they take it, they could have some really significant adverse effects.

Yeah. Like, like for me, I think that was pretty much, that's my experience is that I had to find a psychiatrist who could prescribe the medication and then I would go on some kind of whatever the recommended interval was, you know, and what a period of months or month, and then I would make adjustments. Based on that. And then the recommendation was, is that I should find someone else that I could speak with on a regular basis as a counselor for therapy to develop strategies to deal with the things that were related to the ADHD symptoms or whatever.

Yeah. And they, they changed the rules because when I first started in practice, the only people who could write those prescriptions were the psychiatrists. Primary care doctors couldn't do it. Anybody, you know, but then, I don't know, maybe 15 years, 10, 15 years ago, they started allowing us to be internists, family practice doctors, to be able to write the prescription. But still the requirement meant that periodically, and the patient has to sign a, a, at the beginning of the year, a document. That they're not going to abuse this, they're not going to sell it, that it is for them. They agree and understand what the side effects and the consequences of taking this drug chronically could do, etc. And, you know, the pandemic happened. And then when the pandemic happened, when we couldn't be face to face with people and people still needed their medications, then they changed. They, they fudged the rules a bit. So that people could, as long as the provider had a, you know, a DEA license that was current and that the patient was following up on a regular basis, you could write the prescription for 30 days, never more than 30 days. It's the, it pretty much is the other than, other than narcotic medications like codeine and stuff like that. It's the only other medicine that you can never write a refill for. And no pharmacist would ever refill it. Because patients learn how to be smart. They go into the pharmacist, say, look, I need you to call my doc and have them refill this for me. I'm out. And they were just there 15 days ago.

Oh, we are talking about Adderall. We're not talking about Prozac and things like that, which might—

No, but there are other— but all of the drugs in that class. So there's Adderall. And Serda, there's— but there's— these are highly stimulant. There's a whole bunch of them.

But you, Dave, you found, you found the dealing with the anxiety as being helpful, no? Is that what I understand?

Yeah.

To me, that was, that's really critical. Because I think that when you're having a lot of these kind of problems, at least for me, my, my go-to was to tear myself up and get myself in an agitated state and, uh, and then, you know, it just goes off to the races and have these like loops of disaster and destruction and personal devastation. You know, I need to find a way to slow that down. True.

Okay. Well, you know, that really, thank you, Dave, for sharing all of that. I mean, it's nothing to hide from, but it's just great to hear you just give us some insight into it. I think a lot of people wouldn't have that insight, so really appreciate that. And as we talk along, please feel free to jump in. And I want to just share with you a little about my, what I call my lion suit moment with ADHD. I go back to managing teams way back in the '90s, early 1980s is when I started. And I'm just reflecting on what Dr. Kennedy said. That was, the ADHD term wasn't even known, especially for adults. And of course you'll hear the baby boomer generation, my generation will say, ah, yeah, wasn't even around when we were growing up. It's not even, doesn't even exist. Well, I beg to differ. There wasn't social media around in those days. So, and everything, everyone, they all tend to blame social media. Certainly it's distracting, but I don't think it's the total cause. But what I, what I found with my management career, the groups I was managing, um, I only, they were basically part-time workers only working for 2 or 3-hour stints. So you didn't really get exposed to that lack of attention because you always had tasks they had to do and then they they were gone. I'm sure it was around. In fact, I know a lot of people from that time and, you know, I'm not a doctor, but I'm absolutely positive that it was around at that time. Where I became more familiar with it was when I came over here to the States in '93 and I started managing full-time people, you know, teams of about 8 to 10 to 12 sometimes of full-time employees. And it manifested itself in a lot of ways and it was really overwhelming for me. I'd never seen it before, but one of the key habits I saw, along with some of the things that Dr. Kennedy mentioned, was it was very hard to keep some people and some individuals focused in a conversation or a meeting on one topic. It would jump around everywhere. It would ricochet into a different topic, a different subject at the click of a finger. And you'd almost finish each meeting saying, what did we talk about in that meeting? I don't really know. I mean, everything was losing focus. So I, I was really concerned about it. I really couldn't get a handle on it. And even in the early 1990s, ADHD wasn't as recognized as it is now. So I happened to go to a fitness conference that was held, as luck would have it, at the Johns Hopkins University. And there was a female psychologist who was there giving a talk on this attention deficit disorder. And I thought, great, I'll go along to this. And obviously she's a very experienced woman. She did some roleplays with us in this small— we had a group of about 10 people in there. And I guess while she was doing this, she was getting a mini psychological profile on all of us. And I approached her after the session and mentioned that problem I had, that I had some individuals, one in particular, who I just couldn't keep on track. He jumped around in the meetings and changed topic at the drop of a hat, et cetera, et cetera. And to my surprise, she said, 'Well, you realize you're a big part of the problem here, right?' I said, 'Oh, really?' She goes, 'Yes, because you are from,' you know, I was from one of these Commonwealth nations, as she called them, that tend to be pretty laid back and tend to not interrupt people and tend to let people just talk on and on. You're a little bit averse to sort of coming down hard. So she said to me, 'You too, you know, you're not gonna solve this issue, but for your your problem, to keep it on track, you've got to put a lion suit on and call this out when it happens. So you've really got to interrupt. Don't let it flow on. And I thought, oh wow. And another psychologist who we both knew, Dr. Jim Stryker, said that I needed to pause for 5 seconds, just stop everything and let the people get it into the people's mind that, hey, we're changing topics. And I did do that and I was quite forceful with it. I'd say, hey, stick to the topic. We're jumping around everywhere. You're sidetracking again. 'Let's get back on topic.' And it was quite effective. So that indicates to me that it's, you know, the issue is how you handle it as well. It really changed my management style because it made me realize that, hey, you know, I'm being a bit lazy. I'm not really leading. I'm following. I'm being too polite, if that's the word. You've got to really take the leadership and direct the conversations. And I would certainly have these people and refer them on to a Jim Stryker or one of our psychologists or so forth. Wouldn't solve the problem, but for our issue, it would get things certainly back on track in running, you know, the fitness centers with over 3,000 members. You don't need to be sidetracked. They sidetrack you enough. So yeah, that was my sort of experience with it. And I realized that silence isn't kindness. You've got to direct things and become, you know, a leader, not just have a laissez-faire management style that lets it all just run. So with that in mind, Dr. Kennedy, if you had any questions about that one, guys, but that was my experience with it. Dr. Kennedy, have you seen that sort of behavior manifest as well with people with ADHD? They sort of change topics and are very hard to focus in a conversation?

Yeah. Or sometimes it's not even that they're changing topics. It's that they are, they'll get started with something, but they cannot focus. They cannot focus on the topic at hand, whatever that is. They really have a lot, like they have every intention of starting this particular topic to discuss this. And you don't see it as much. Cause like, for instance, when you take, for instance, someone who has to give a presentation and they have to get up in front of a group of audience and the subject is matter. Now there are some people who have the topic in their head. It's completely in there. They got it to memory. They've done it so many. Times, so they don't need slides. They don't need anything. They can go from one point to the other, continue the topic. But if you're the kind of person who allows the audience to ask a question while you're in the midst of your presentation and you start off answering that question, you almost never get back to the point where you initially started. And you see that a lot. And I've I've had patients come in and said, look, I, I just can't, you know, I start out, I have to finish reading this document and I've been, it's taken me 3 days and I can only read the first page and I get ready to go to the second page and the phone rings or I had this thought about something I should have done earlier in the day and I run and go do that. Like the person who starts out with, I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna go read these 4 or 5 pages, but in the back of your mind you're saying, I have to remember to take the trash out.

Like, like the internet and technology really enhances your ability to get distracted because you can go down, like, uh, you have this fleeting thought about Goodfellas and you start to look at Ray Liotta and then you read about Ray Liotta's parents, then you read about How he got along with Robert De Niro when they're filming the movie, and then it's 3 hours later and he didn't do that thing you said you were going to do initially.

Every day I've got to slap myself in the face about that one.

I think with meetings though, also, I think one thing is having an agenda. I think the meetings that I think weren't effective that I've been to were meetings that enabled me to be, to get everyone else distracted was when there wasn't an agenda, you know, and when there weren't action items. You know, when I, when there's action items, when I'm assigned something, I know I have accountability and I have to get something done. I think that, you know, deadlines also allow for a lot of room for things with ADHD where, you know, it's like, okay, I got to get this done in 5 days. And then at midnight, the night before it's due, I'm, I'm up till 3 in the morning finishing it where I had, had all these false starts along the way.

I thought it was interesting what you said about presentations, Dr. Kaye. I learned there you had to be a lot more assertive as well because you can have some, let's just face it, especially in where we worked, there's a lot of control mentality sort of people.

Yes.

It'll take over the whole presentation.

Yes.

So you have to be very assertive and say, well, look, you know, that's not really what we're talking about here. We'll address it after, or maybe you can come and see me after, but we're really going to stick on topic here. And I, discourage questions in the middle of the presentation if it warranted it. That was my one tactic anyway. What about you, Kettle?

Well, it, it helps depend on the audience, the people you're working with.

Yeah.

Cause there are some people you can do that with and they can ask a question that's a little bit off topic, but at the same time, they, they will allow you to keep going forward. Whereas other people will grab the reins. And automatically think it belongs to them at that point. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, both agenda as well as some limit on time because everybody thinks time is free.

Yes.

And, uh, you know, another problem can be at the IMF, all meetings tend to be 1 hour at minimum. And if there's not enough to discussion 1 hour, people can just waste their time easily. So you have to kind of say half an hour or something like that, that we're going to reach an agreement on something specific. Specific. Another thing that I haven't— didn't try a lot, but I know people have tried is stand-up meetings. But introduce a little pain, the cost of—

what, one thing I kind of wonder about—

in the financial sector, morning meetings, stand-up, because they're going to have to, you know, when basically they go through the, the, the events that day and what's going on.

Could we talk a little bit about like ADHD and ADD kind of things with How—

that was the next topic. Yeah. What's the difference, Dr. K?

And with relationships, with friendships, and maybe in the workplace. And we talked about the workplace, but how it relates to those other parts of your life.

So my understanding, and this is again my personal understanding of it, is ADD is the individual who they have difficulty in staying focused on anything. They don't necessarily have hyperactivity. They don't necessarily— they have a bit of anxiety. They have to— in other words, giving them a task to do, you almost have to always stay on them in order to complete it. So if you were to say to them at the beginning of the day, look, I need you to do this by 12 o'clock. Can you make sure that this person is running at this time? And if you don't go and check, they'll actually be doing something completely different. And it's not that they, not that they've forgotten, it's that, that they, they're just so easily distracted because if somebody came right behind them or they had a particular thought in mind of doing something else, they'll say, I gotta do this first. I gotta do this first. I gotta do this first. And so they'll always tell you that they have trouble getting things done. Almost always. So to me, and I tend to think of them both as the same thing in essence, because the treatment is pretty much the same thing. You know, the treatment for sure is pretty much the same. You know, that therapy works for those who have the milder forms because it's giving them— sometimes you have to give people focal points of things to do. This may go back to what Dave was saying by taking notes, that simply by taking notes helped you and then allowed you to stay a little bit more focused at times. Now, sometimes it didn't work, but it was another. The other thing is simple thing, making sure you get enough rest. And as Kettle said earlier, look, we all are going to have some degree of anxiety during life. It's just, you know, well, but most people's anxiety doesn't last all day or that it restricts you so much you can't do anything that you sort of stop, you know.

You go in this tailspin that it seems to, you know, less sleep because you're anxious and because you got less sleep, you're more prone for anxiety next day.

Yes.

And then, and then you don't get getting things done that you're supposed to done and somebody starts screaming at you, it might be a family member or might somebody else and you get more anxious and it just goes down from there.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

So Dave, in your personal relationships, let's just say, what did you find? What was the best approach to you? I mean, I don't imagine you'd want someone screaming at you or—

Well, I mean, I think that it's funny. I don't know if this is, have you ever had a friend and they, they, you've known them for a long time and then, and then, then they decide to tell you that they're, they're gay or something. And then it's the kind of thing where you knew that the whole time. And then you say to them, well, tell me something I didn't already know. And I think that with women I've been in relationships, you know, some things just kind of like show themselves and then it was the same thing. Okay, tell me something I didn't already know. I think the other part is, you know, that if finding someone that you can be in a relationship that can tolerate that and work with you. I think that's the thing with any relationship. I'm in the job market when I, when I look at different job things, like I've had occasional ones where they ask about neurodivergent and I had, I hadn't really heard that word till the last year, but that, you know, I don't, I don't volunteer any shortcomings. In, in my, in any place I've ever worked or any place I ever will work. I'll let them figure it out themselves.

Don't let them watch this podcast.

And you shouldn't because it's discriminatory.

Yeah. But I do think that, that for me, punctuality is hard, you know, and it's not like I'm trying to be disrespectful. It's like, so my, these, when one job I had, I would, we'd be having to go I would work for a congressman at one time. We had to go to the floor to do something and then, where's Dave? He's doing Dave things. I had to do these little odds and ends. It wasn't like obsessive compulsive, had to wash my hands 3 times and knock on the door, but I had to pull together these little odds and ends that I felt I needed to be with the congressman when we went to the floor. I mean, I think there are strategies needed to help you be able to be a better friend, to be in a relationship with someone, to be a son, a brother or father, you know, like, because there's going to be things where you got to find a way so that you're on top of things in the same way as anyone else.

Yeah. Yeah. I always found with friends, humor helps. I think if I found people were, uh, you know, constantly late or any of the other manifestations of interesting topics or sort of always try to frame it in a joke. Whoa, where are we going here with this conversation now? Well, we're covering a lot of areas. Um, you know, Rather, in a work situation, I would be a little bit more forceful, but in friendships, I think, yeah, no one's perfect. And I think, you know, to treat it with a bit of humor and care, I always found was, I thought it was effective. But anyway.

Or with my friends, just insult someone.

Well, I guess in certain tribes that probably works too. I don't know. So looking at all of this, Dr. K, what would you say? Is there a gender disparity? Is there more males than females? Do you know? You're aware of anything like that?

In the younger age, it seems to be more, more boys than men than girls, but with adults, it's probably 50/50, close to 50/50. And I think the other thing is that women in general are just more proactive with it, with relationship to their wellbeing than men and in general. And so they tend to get things addressed in earlier stages. Whereas as guys, a lot of times we say, if it's not— if it ain't stopping me from doing what I do every day, I just keep going. I just keep going. Yeah, just keep going. And I'll, I'll get to it next week. I know I should go and see someone about this. I know I should talk to them about it. Or you'll go into the doctor's office, what normally happens, and if the the significant other's not in the room with them, you'll say, how you doing today? Oh, I'm good. I'm good. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about today besides what we've already addressed? Oh no, I'm good. I'm perfect. And they'll go out and meet with their significant other later and say, well, what did the provider say? He said I'm good. Don't worry about it.

We're covering a lot of topics there, guys. I mean, can we sum it up, Dr. K? What would you think are the key takeaways to see, like coping strategies for people with ADHD, ADD?

Well, the first thing always is, is when you find that you're having difficulty focusing, staying on point with things, or you, or you get anxious all the time when you're trying to finish things, staying targeted, the first thing I do is always go and ask someone. So start with your primary care. Consider psychotherapy, 'cause psychotherapy has been very helpful because it helps people target the executive dysfunction that they're having, helping them to deal with the emotional regulations. Coaching, you know, seeing, having a, having a life coach, someone who can help you with time management, goal setting, organization, you know, lifestyle. They've always been anything that will help to enhance our cognitive function and give us support. So things like zinc, omega-3s, magnesium. Figuring out a structured routine for you. So if you know that you like to do A, B, C, and D at different times, then this is how I set my routine up. Exercise always is beneficial. And thereby also getting adequate amounts of sleep. This goes back to something Kettle mentioned earlier is that within the workplace, have accommodations that are beneficial. Like he said earlier, some people can't deal with a lot of noise around them when they're working. So maybe when they're working, they need to put headphones on, tasking things that they need to worry about, and also understanding what, what your family history is. Because if there are people in the family who, who had ADHD, there's a chance that there's a proponent. People who have sleep disorders, all of those things. And also making sure we exclude and rule out the things that can be confused with it: anxiety, mood disorders, things like that. Because they have overlapping features. And so sometimes if you treat the mood disorder, then the ADHD might actually lessen or disappear because it wasn't really ADHD to begin with. So those are things that would be helpful.

Okay. Okay. What about you, Dave? What's the coping strategies you'd recommend as someone who's lived with this?

I agree with everything Dr. Kennedy said. I think that it, you determine that you have a problem that you can't address by yourself, that some kind of mental health counseling and medication is something to consider. I think ideally it would be, in a perfect world, it would be both, that you'd consider medication, you'd consider counseling. I think that to kind of frame it from the perspective that as far as horrible things that can happen to a person, this isn't the worst thing, that you just have to find ways to for yourself that help you deal with things that reoccur on a regular basis. I think that the, that society we live in, everyone is a bit ADHD. I mean, everyone is responding to their phone, responding to pings and messages and this news story's coming up. What happened to the Kardashians? Who did, who just, you know, what did Trump just do? And we're all like ping pong balls, you know, going through different things and that focus is something that's harder for us all to achieve. And we have to take a breath sometimes and just kind of pause and reset and go forward. Terrific.

Great. Okay. I guess, I guess guys, we've covered a lot of topics there. Maybe we can finish off with some key takeaways from each of us. I'll get the ball rolling. I would say certainly compassion is a big factor. I mean, yes, you may have to put your lion suit on, but there's also compassion. There's leadership required, especially in a work situation. It's not just kindness. You've got to lead and set boundaries, set constraints, and direct and lead, which you're paid to do. And perhaps I wasn't doing so. It's a learning process from both sides. Kettle, what about you? What are your key takeaways from this discussion? I can't hear you, Kettle.

Sorry, my mic was off. When I listen to all of this, there's a lot of things that especially what Dr. K said, or Kenneth said, the things that can help kind of everyone. You know, we have problems with a lot of these things, maybe not all of them, all of us. And so things can help with how people process information, how they deal with deadlines, a lot of deadlines, a lot of people, a lot of interactions. All of these things, we're reacting differently and we are different. And as you've said, Mike, compassion, being kind helps a lot on this journey. So, um, yeah, this is what my takeaway is.

Okay.

What about you, Dr. K?

Yeah, I agree with everything that's been said, but one of the most important things is I think everybody should be honest with themselves to make sure you take stock, because we, we, we all have good days and bad days. But the bad days shouldn't outweigh the good days to the point where it's harder for us to function in the setting that we're in, be it school, be it work, be it around family. When those things start to happen, then one should be interested and inquisitive enough to say, what else can I do? Because there are plenty of resources out here. And people can, people can help themselves and it makes such a difference. So if we do those things, it will always be better because, you know, particularly in America, drugs always seems to be the answer for a lot of things, but it's not necessarily what we all need. Sometimes it's, it's, it's simple adjustments to what's already going on in our lives. And we just have to figure out what that is. So I always say being honest with yourself and not being afraid to seek guidance and help, because as they say, last time I checked, none of us is perfect.

Yeah, that's right. And Dave, it might be close to perfect, by the way, but anyway.

Thank you. I agree with everything everyone said. I think that, you know, self-compassion is really important. I think that it's important to consider trial and error. It's important to take a self-assessment as to what are the things that people are bringing to your attention about things that you may be falling short on and focus on those things. Like Dr. Kennedy said, you know, people will give you feedback and consider that as where the starting places are. I think that it's important to use technology. Like I had a big issue with taking copious notes as a way to, as a crutch to overcome my worry about not being able to keep up what was going on in a conversation or missing a direction, but now with AI tools, you know, given whatever circumstance you are with technology, you can record a meeting, focus on what is going on in the meeting without having to try and take these copious notes, but use technology, consider the primary things that you need to address, and trial and error.

Well, folks, in closing, whether you've worn the lion suit, wrestled with deadlines, or lived with a racing mind, we're all navigating something. Be kind to yourself, then don't be afraid to speak up. That's a wrap on this inspiring conversation with the Wellness Musketeers. Huge thanks to all of you for joining us today. And for our listeners, now, if you found this episode valuable, folks, hit follow on your podcast app so you never miss what's next. And if someone in your life could benefit from this, share it with them. It helps grow our community and spark New Conversations. You'll find links to any resources we spoke of in the episode description. So until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and stay well.