ADHD and Sleep  ·  A Field Guide 03:00 AM Wide Awake at 3am, and Your Brain Will Not Let You Back Down The 3am wake up almost every woman with ADHD knows by heart. Here is what your brain and your hormones are actually doing at that hour, and how to work with it. 7 minute read Written by Adam Tristan Every week, a woman sits across from me and describes the same night. She falls asleep fine. Then, somewhere between 2 and 3 in the morning, her eyes snap open. The house is dark and quiet. And her brain, the same one that spent all day struggling to focus on a single email, is suddenly running at full speed. The thing she forgot to do. The conversation from six years ago. The mental list that will not stop scrolling. She lies there for an hour. Maybe two. By the...Read more

ADHD and Menopause: Why Your Focus and Mood Change ADHD and Perimenopause When your brain starts to feel like a stranger If your ADHD feels louder in your 40s, you are not imagining it. Here is what perimenopause and low estrogen do to your focus, mood, and memory, and the first moves that actually help. By Adam Geiger  ·  ADHD consultant, and yes, one of us I hear the same thing almost every week. A woman sits down across from me, and some version of the same story comes out. It usually sounds like this. I used to be able to hold it together. I had systems. The lists worked. And then somewhere in my 40s, it all stopped working. She tells me her focus is slipping. Her mood swings got sharper. She walks into rooms and forgets why she came in. She cries at things that never used to...Read more

ADHD Teen Won’t Do Chores? Why “Old Enough to Know Better” Backfires ADHD Parenting · Teens & Young Adults Your ADHD Teen Isn’t Lazy. They’re Stuck at the Launch. Why “you’re old enough to know better” makes the chore thing worse, not better You asked an hour ago. “Yeah, in a sec.” The dishes are still in the sink. They are seventeen. Or nineteen. Or twenty two and technically an adult. And the thought lands hard and hot. You are old enough to know better. Breathe with us for a second. Because what is actually happening here is not what it looks like. And “old enough to know better” is the exact belief keeping everyone stuck. By Adam Tristan · ADHD Consultant They already know how. That was never the problem. Your kid can load a dishwasher. They know where the trash goes. They have watched you do laundry ten...Read more

The ADHD Blueprint Toy Story 5 Got Screen Time Half Right. Here Is What Every Parent of an ADHD Kid Actually Needs. Picture it. You took the kids to see Toy Story 5. You are sitting in a dark theater watching a story about a little girl named Bonnie who slowly disappears into a glowing tablet while the toys who love her get left in a pile on the floor. And the whole movie is basically begging you to put the screens down and let your kid be a kid again. And then it hits you. You are watching this message on a giant screen. You drove your family to a building so they could stare at a screen for 102 minutes to learn that screens are stealing childhood. Your kid is mesmerized. You are mesmerized. The irony is so thick you could chew it. Pause for the existential whiplash....Read more

ADHD & Hormones For Women ADHD and Hormones: Why Your Symptoms Get Worse Before Your Period If your ADHD gets worse before your period, you are not imagining it. Some weeks you are sharp. Some weeks the same brain cannot start a sentence. There is a reason, and once you can see it, you can finally work with your cycle instead of against it. You know the pattern even if nobody ever named it for you. For about two weeks you are on top of everything. Then, somewhere after ovulation and right before your period, the same brain falls apart. Focus gone. Words missing. Patience worn thin. You glance at the calendar, see where you are in your cycle, and it finally clicks. This is the link between ADHD and hormones, and for women it changes everything about how we understand our own minds. Our ADHD is not constant. It...Read more