Low Dopamine Days

Hello and good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, also host of the weedingcast podcast, which is hosted on all places where podcasts exist. But welcome to my live show, everyone. Today I have lost count. I'm pretty sure I'm on day 10 of my 30 day challenge of going live every single Monday through Friday. Today I want to talk about something that is actually currently happening. For me, this is like a very, like, topical two today thing. Low dopamine days. Okay? So if you have adhd, I guarantee you have had a low dopamine day if you're not familiar with what that feels like. I'm taking my glasses off because there's a glare if you're not familiar with what that feels like. So low dopamine days are basically when you have no energy. You have no energy. You have. It's like your get up and go got up and left and ditched you here without any caffeine. And you just can't seem to get your shit together. Hi, welcome. Your shit together to actually go and do the things. Okay. Dopamine. Low dopamine days hit us random. Like it just hits us whenever it feels like it. They're really common on days after, you know, days where we've accomplished a lot. So if you worked like a 14 hour day yesterday, pretty much guaranteed you're going to have a low dopamine day today. Used all your dopamine yesterday day. They also can happen when you're tired, when you're sick, just because, like, it's, it's random, right? So when you have adhd, you have an imbalance of dopamine, right? Your body doesn't consistently create it and, you know, you're just kind of at the mercy of like, how much dopamine you have in your system. Now there are dopamine, like, deficient days and then there are days where you just don't have enough in the morning to get up and going. There are two different strategies for these, and I want to talk through both, but I really want to, like, stress that today we're talking about what do you do on days where you have no dopamine? You can't get it running. And those are the days where you start kind of villainizing yourself. Like, those are the days where you start making yourself out to be the bad guy because you start telling yourself that you're lazy, that you just, you can't do anything, that you're not the kind of person who finishes stuff. And it's those days that are so dangerous to business owners, right? Because if you have this narrative going on in the back of your mind that's telling you that you can't do stuff because you're lazy, there's something quintessentially wrong with you, then you're gonna start, like, creating a lot of beliefs that are gonna start getting reinforced by anything that could possibly go wrong in your business. And what ultimately happens is you start creating this narrative that you shouldn't be someone who's running a business. Which is not true. Is not true. You can run a business and still have ADHD and have low dopamine days. I do it. Lots of ADHD business owners do it. Every single day. Now let's talk about those days before we get into like the super low dopamine days. And for those of you who are joining us, welcome. If you have any questions for this, please pop them in the comments. I love for this to be interactive. The days where you wake up and you just don't really have a whole lot of get up and go, those aren't necessarily low dopamine days. On those days, one of the things that I love doing is giving myself some, like, fun things to do in the morning and having it on my to do list. So currently, like, I'm on my like 11th novel in like seven weeks right now. So in the mornings, one of the things that I do to like, get myself to get up and go is I assign myself 30 to 60 minutes of pleasure reading in the morning while I'm drinking coffee. I love it because it's literally something fun that I can get super sucked into. It's something like I'm going to be sitting there on my phone scrolling anyway while I drink my coffee. I might as well be immersed in a story, right? I might as well be like maybe learning something or kind of like visiting my friends on the pages. And it gives me the ability, like, to do something that's a low lift for me and then be able to cross it off as self care. Right? Once you start crossing things off your list in the morning, that's what gets that drip of dopamine going. Okay, you know that saying, like, eat the frog, eat the frog first thing in the morning. Do the hardest thing. People with adhd, we can't do it. We have to do easier things in the morning. First thing that gets the dopamine drip going. And then we can tackle the more difficult stuff later in the morning or in the early afternoon. Okay. If you have ADHD and you're trying to get yourself to do the hardest thing every single morning, and you're struggling to stick to it. That is normal. That is normal. Don't try to make yourself do that. You're not setting yourself up for success. Okay, now, okay, so those are normal days for people with adhd. Let's talk about the days where you get up and go, got up and left, and you are stranded here on a highway in the middle of the desert and you just can't for the life of you get yourself to get up and move. Okay? I've been in that today. Okay? I had a couple client calls. I had a ton of things that I wanted to get done today, and I just had no energy for any of it. And on those days, it's really easy to get in your own head and make it a problem with yourself and start hating on yourself and telling yourself you're lazy and there's something wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. Your brain just works differently. Your brain just produces dopamine sporadically. It has its own wonky little schedule here. The other thing about you, if you have ADHD and you're having a low dopamine day, you know that when you sit down and do the work, when you have that get up and go, you're going to get everything done in a third, if not a quarter of the amount of time it would take a neurotypical, right? It's nothing that you can't handle. Like, you're going to be fine if you leave it to the last minute. Okay? I stopped. I stopped, like, hating on myself for leaving things last minute because that's when I get my best work done, okay? It's okay. Like, other people who have a problem with you doing stuff to the last minute, like, that's their problem, okay? That's their problem. It's not your problem. Okay? So on low dopamine days, we're talking bare bones. Bare bones, self care a little bit in your business, but really cut yourself some slack, all right? It's not you being lazy. It's you needing rest. Two different things, okay? They look the same on the outside. Like, it could be you sitting in front of the TV and not doing anything. Okay? One could be laziness, but it's not for you. It's you, like, your brain literally just can't get up and go because there's not enough dopamine in it. Okay? That is not lazy. That is executive dysfunction. All right? So some four things that I generally, like, make Myself do do on those days. And they are super low lift number one. I drink a crap ton of water, okay? Your brain cannot work properly if it's not well lubricated. I love this bottle. It's glass I bought on Amazon. It's a half gallon. I drink like three of these a day. Okay. On days where I'm low dopamine, I might even drink four of them. Okay. But I also still talk a lot on my days. Like, you don't want to, like, overdo water. You can actually, like, hurt yourself that way. But drink plenty of water. Make sure that you are hydrated. You know, along the lines of your diet, you do not want to introduce a lot of sugar on these days, okay? Sugar will bring you up and drop you down even worse. Okay. So you want to make sure that you are eating a lot of, like, healthy proteins, that you're eating fruits and vegetables and that you're having, like, complex carbs, okay? Those. Don't overthink it, though. Don't overthink it. Just make sure that you are eating when you are hungry and you're eating stuff that's like, you know, as healthy as you can get, okay? The second thing that I like to do is, you know, going for a walk or stretching, okay. On low dopamine days, there's no way in hell that I'm making it to the gym, okay? There's no way. And if I do make it to the gym, I'm going to walk on the treadmill. I know that I would rather go outside with my dog and see the birds and see the bees and see the flowers and the trees and all the things and maybe run into a neighbor and have a nice little conversation than go and be grouchy on a treadmill. Feeling like I just failed at a workout. Okay? Get outside and touch grass. It makes a major difference. Oh, my uncle's calling. I'll call him right back. Okay? So, yeah, so self care is so important on these days. Now, the third thing, you know, you're still running a business, right? You still have to do marketing and you still have to do any client work, right? So if you have any client calls that you have to do, do them. Do them. You'll be amazed how your nervous system just kind of like hops to. To provide the service for the person, right? That is amazing. You go and do that. But you also still have to create visibility for your business. It can feel really hard to create content on these days. This is one of the reasons why, when you have really High dopamine days. I recommend setting aside some time to like, create backup content that you can plug in on these days. So you can literally just go to your backup, you know, list and just, you know, copy and paste a post into the, into your social media and have that be that, you know, if you don't have that set up though, you know, going and commenting on other people's stuff, that's a really easy way to build visibility. Doing a really like low key story on Instagram, that is another way to build visibility. Don't overthink it. You know, set a timer for yourself for 10 minutes and try to comment on as many people's posts as possible. And let that be enough, okay? Let that be enough. And lastly, rest. Rest, okay, Rest. When you have a low dopamine day, you like, the more you try to force yourself to get more done, guess what's going to happen the next day you're going to have another low dopamine day. And the next day you're going to have another low dopamine day. If you constantly push yourself into that deficit, you're never going to get out of the hole, right? So you want to really prioritize. Rest, okay? It is one of the best things for you when you're having a low dopamine day. It will set you up for success tomorrow, okay? And be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself, okay? You're not a machine, you're not a robot. We have this expectation that like, we should be able to operate like robots in our businesses. But guess what? We live in meat suits. We live in meat suits that provide that, like produce chemicals. And sometimes those chemicals, like just aren't enough to get us doing the things that is okay. That is absolutely okay. It happens to the best of us. It doesn't mean that you're lazy, it doesn't mean that you're broken. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't be running a business. It just means that you're having a low dopamine day. I will finish on this. I mean, because I'm having a little dopamine day, I'm going to keep this short. You know, we are meaning making machines, right? It's one of the most beautiful things about humans, right? Because with that ability to make meaning out of anything, you know, that is the source of our music, of our poetry, of our art, you know, like beautiful stories and novels, you know, like all the novels I'm reading right now, they all have like this underlying meaning, right? There's nuance to it. You know, it's how, like we communicate with each other in really beautiful ways on the same side or on the other side of this coin. We often take data, data and we turn it into meaning. So data is, I'm really low energy today. I'm really low energy and I just am so tired and I can't get myself to do anything. Wow. And then we turn into this meaning of, wow, I'm lazy, I shouldn't be running a business, I'm a failure. That's a big jump. Like, that is a lot of meaning to attach to the simple piece of data that you don't have. A whole lot of energy, okay? Don't do that to yourself, okay? Be nicer to yourself, okay? You deserve it. And if you struggle to be nice to yourself, then you want to connect up with other people who have adhd, who run their businesses and who understand this about themselves. You know, if you're in this world and you really want a place to go. One of the things I'm launching in a couple weeks is the hyper focused membership, okay? It is a really like low cost membership. It's one of my most affordable programs and it's specifically for ADHD business owners. So that you can like come to a coaching call once a month with me, do actual networking with other ADHD business owners. Okay? So like, the point of this group is for you to get business legitimately. I want you getting business and I want you asking for referrals from other people who also have ADHD because they understand what clients are going to thrive with you and what clients aren't. Right? The other beautiful thing about this is you're going to have access to this great community of other ADHD business owners. You cannot create a business by yourself, okay? It just doesn't happen. Okay? It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to raise a business. And one of the things that will cripple your business more than anything else is shame. And oftentimes ADHD business owners, when they turn to like support systems out in the world, they don't, they don't know to turn to support systems that are ADHD friendly and they end up in these neurotypical pods, not pods, but neurotypical groups that don't understand that their brains just work differently. Right? They don't understand that we can't just push through on certain days. They don't understand that we're going to have low dopamine days. They don't understand that we don't really work Like a neurotypical. So I really wanted to make this space where ADHD business owners could come together and support each other and understand that they can ask for what they need and not have neurotypical advice lobbed at them. All right, but in the meantime, if you're having a low dopamine day, I want you to be really gentle with yourself. Okay? Water and healthy foods, Go for a walk or stretch, do really low lift social media stuff and rest above all. With that. I'm gonna go and rest. It's about 7:30 here. Thank you so much for joining Drew. And, oh, just let me see. Are there things that can boost dopamine? You know, so I kind of covered this in the beginning, but yes, absolutely. Low dopamine days are really hard to boost dopamine. Like, you're already in a deficit, so, sure, you can try, but, like, the more you try to do, the further in deficit you can go on normal days. One of the ways that you can boost your dopamine is by doing, like, small, easy, kind of fun stuff in the morning and assigning it to yourself. So, like, one of the things that I've been talking about lately, like, this is the 11th novel that I've read in seven weeks. Right. I have assigned myself 30 to 60 minutes of reading every single morning with my coffee. This Devil's is like, keeping me off my phone. Right. You know, right as I wake up. Amazing. And it also gives me something that's, like, really easy for me to get into, that I can then, like, craft. Cross off my list. Hi, David. And yeah, so, like, you want to give yourself easy stuff in the morning. You don't want to try to do that hardest thing first thing in the morning. It's just. It's gonna make you feel like an absolute failure. You want to build up to it. So, like, what I always like to do is give myself, like, three fairly easy things to do in the morning before I try to tackle the big thing. Oh, my God. Sci Fi fantasy book club. Yes. I'm so into it. I have. Oh, my God, I've. I have so many recommendations. Yes, absolutely. I'm. I'm into it. But anyway, yeah, so you can absolutely build dopamine. You know, staying hydrated is really important. Like, having really healthy food is also really important for, you know, dopamine. You want to eliminate sugar. That's one of the killers for people with adhd. You want to get really good sleep, which is hard because, you know, like, especially if you're running your own business, you Know, you don't have to be up at a certain point, like, to get to the office, you know, most days. So you usually don't go to bed at the same time. Right. So there are things that you can do that will help you. But of course, you know, you're an imperfect person. And I. I don't want to say, like, here is the strict schedule you have to stick to because you're not going to stick to it. You know, you can have. You can have, like, best intentions, right? And then you can fail once and then feel like an absolute failure for the rest of the week. The best thing to do here is just have, like, here's my ideal day, and the most I could stick to it, I get more credit, right? There's no failing. It's all just bonus points. So, like, say part of your ideal day is to go to bed by nine, right? Okay. So, like, if you go to bed by nine, great. You got points that day, right? You just. It was bonus points. That's it. And say, the next day, like, if you worked out in the morning, great. Bonus points. Yeah. It's one of the things about having ADHD is, you know, that strict schedule of, like, here are all the things that I need to do. Let me see. Have you covered people who stay up late in order to be in control? That's a little too close to home, Justin. Because I am one of those people. People. I will get to that. The thing about having ADHD and, like, trying to stick to, like, a really strict schedule is, like, once you go off the rails, you make yourself wrong. You start feeling like, oh, my God, I screwed this up. Like, everything is. Is out the window now I can't do anything on this list. Like, now I have to start over. And usually, like, it's Tuesday. And then because this one schedule has gotten thrown off, like, the rest of the week is right. Even though it's not. Even though there's nothing that day that, like, was gonna impact the next few days. Like, it's just that you didn't stick to it perfectly. What I find really helpful for folks with ADHD is just giving yourself, like, a running to do list and each morning picking three realistic tasks to get done that day, you know, and it feels like you're not giving yourself enough work. It really does. But what happens is, you know, if. If you're looking at this to do list and getting overwhelmed and getting into executive dysfunction, you weren't going to get anything done anyway, Right? But if you do get those first three Things done. Those three things that you assigned yourself, that's three things that you wouldn't have gotten done otherwise. Right. But what often happens is you get those three things done and they're like, oh, cool, I can still do more. And you, you do a couple other things without even realizing that you're able to cross them off the list. Now, we don't go into the day like saying, okay, I'm gonna do these three things, but I do gonna do like five or six. No, that's not the point. Three things. This is actually what I do with my clients on Mondays. We do a sprint, and I have them organize exactly what those things are for Monday and get their list in order for the rest of the week so they can pull from it. But yeah, that's. That's really helpful to build dopamine. As for your question about the people who stay up late in order to be in control, you know, it's tough. You know, we live in such a virtual world. I think a lot of. A lot of what happens at the end of the day is we're just so burned out from our world. We're burned out and we just kind of need, like, some kind of stimulation. We need, like, to feel connected. So we might like, desk scroll on social media. You know, we stay up and watch TV just because we need to zone out. What I learned about myself early on when I, like, worked in restaurants and then worked in sales is that, you know, you can be out because, like, when you're in sales, like, they're like happy hours and dinners that you have to go to and a whole bunch of stuff like you're not just working a 9 to 5. And it's absolutely not happening when you work in restaurants. But you know that feeling when you come home and like, you should go to bed, but you know that if you go to bed too soon, you're just going to lay there awake because your brain hasn't had a chance to turn off. I think for people with ADHD specifically, we instinctually want to give ourselves that time for our brains to turn off. But it takes a while, right? It takes a while. And also different things can impact us. Right now I have a ring light at me. This will make sure that I'm not going to fall asleep for another three hours. There's no way I could go from ring light time to going straight to bed and falling asleep. Okay. Our circadian rhythms are a lot more sensitive than non ADHD people. So, I mean, like, that control. Yeah. Like, it can feel Like a thing that you do for control. But really, really what I believe around this is that you're doing it because you legitimately need time to decompress and you just don't understand like, how to do that. There's, there's a whole, there's a whole like bunch of research happening right now on people with ADHD and sleep and how like we fall asleep and how we stay asleep and like what happens, happens to us in sleep and how much sleep we need. You know, it's, it's really interesting. I haven't read off on all of it and I really do want to do a whole Winnie cast episode on that because there's so much data right now and it's all really helpful. And also having said that, want to name that? Even knowing all the data, it doesn't mean you're going to do it perfectly. Okay. You know, like, we are like information hoarders. I was talking about this to a, with a friend the other day. We were doing a live on TikTok and she was talking about how she uses ChatGPT to help her like come up with subject lines for emails and, and content prompts and things like that. And I was joking about like, how I do too. But I get so excited about all the things I can get from chat GBT that I start just like asking for all these prompts. Before I know it, I have like 300 things in all different areas. Then I get overwhelmed and I can't do anything with it. Like, but I come, I become like this really, really like greedy information hoarder. I want to get them all like the Pokemon, right? It's the same for information on ourselves. Like we can read all the data and we can read all the research on how we are, you know, better with sleep. And then we expect that knowing that stuff is going to make us perfect at it. And then when we're not perfect at it, we start seeing ourselves as failures. Not the case. Okay. Again, like, it's that whole, like, I have this data, I'm going to make meaning out of it. Right? It's the wrong meaning. It just means that you have this data, you're not using it. And then of course, like, you know, let's talk about doctors. You know, there are plenty of doctors out there who smoke. There are plenty of doctors out there who don't eat vegetables, right? They know what's healthy and yet they don't do just. It happens to the best of us. Do I use any kind of time or to limit time Spent on one activity. I. This is a tough one. So, like, if it's something like, if I'm reading and there's a chance that I could get, like, sucked in for an hour and a half and knock it out and, like, be late to a call. Absolutely. Absolutely do that. But if I'm in the middle of a creative project, if I am trying to, like, get through a bunch of emails, if I'm writing, like, a whole marketing sequence for a product project, launch timers actually make me less productive. And the reason being is that when you have ADHD and you're in flow and you're doing the work and you're, like, so immersed in it, the moment. Immediately takes you out. So instead of. And it takes us a while to get into that flow, right? So, like, it takes us anywhere from, like, 20 to 40 minutes to actually get into the work, right? Because you see the thing, then you have to pee, and then you have to go fill this up again. And then you come back, and then, like, you. You get. Else. And then you come back and you're like, okay, I have to buckle down after that whole process. If you then realize, oh, my God, I only have an hour left, it's not enough time. If I'm giving myself a timer and I have, like, an hour left or half hour, How much more time do I have? How much more time do I have? Right. So what I prefer to do, Justin, for time management is when I have a big project, when I have something that, like, requires my focus to do, I have to give myself several hours. I have to give myself, at minimum, three hours to do it. Ideally, it's closer to six or seven. Right. It's like the whole day. And that's when I will get into flow and I will get so much more done than the typical person. Person. So I hope that helps. Let me see Joe identify what is wrong and do the opposite. What is. I'm. What is wrong and do the opposite. Yeah, I. I do agree with that. I'm sure you're saying that in reference to something specific I said, though, and I like, I hope I can make the connection at some point. Anyway, I hope this has been super useful. Like I said, I'm having a low dopamine day, so I'm gonna wrap it up here. I just want to say thank you to Justin and Donna and Joe and David and Drew Sutherland. Thank you all for being here. I hope this DM them to me. And if you're really struggling in your business and you feel like you could use some support from someone who really understands the ADHD struggle. Hi. That's what I do. So book a call with me. DM me if you can't find them.