SuccessFULL With ADHD

4 Ways to Manage Your Election Anxiety with ADHD

• Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC • Season 1 • Episode 79

Share episode

This week I'm joined by my good friend, Neuropsychotherapist, and Author Britt Frank. Britt is a familiar face here, and today we’re diving into a topic that’s more relevant than ever: election anxiety. With the upcoming election in 2024, many of us, especially those with ADHD, are feeling overwhelmed by the constant news and social media overload. Britt shares her expertise on why our brains react this way, how the ADHD brain is particularly affected, and most importantly, strategies to help us stay grounded in such chaotic times.

Together, we explore practical ways to regulate your nervous system, why ADHDers tend to get stuck in anxiety loops, and how we can learn to manage these stress triggers. Britt also discusses her new Getting Unstuck Workbook and offers some powerful takeaways on how we can all regain a sense of control, even when it feels like the world is spiraling. 

Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP is a licensed neuropsychotherapist and author of The Science of Stuck (Penguin Random House), named by SHRM, Esquire, New York Magazine, and The Next Big Idea Club as a must-read. Britt received her undergraduate degree from Duke University and her master’s degree from the University of Kansas, where she later became an award-winning adjunct instructor. Britt is a contributing writer to Psychology Today and her work has been featured in Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, Fast Company, Psych Central, SELF, and Thrive Global.

 

Episode Highlights:

[2:18] – The overwhelm of politics and how it’s affecting everyone, particularly the ADHD community.
[4:36] – Understanding how the ADHD brain reacts to news overload and what we can do about it.
[7:56] – Breaking down why election cycles trigger deep-rooted family or personal anxieties. [16:12] – Practical strategies to stop negative thought loops, including Britt’s “snow-globing” technique.
[20:36] – What’s your role? Understanding where to focus your energy and make the best choices for your mental health.
[28:42] – How to handle doomscrolling and reduce anxiety during election season by managing your nervous system.
[33:05] – Britt shares insights from her Getting Unstuck Workbook and the concept of "micro yeses." 
[37:02] – Self-compassion and how to validate your feelings during overwhelming times.

 

Connect with Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP:

 

Thank you for tuning into "SuccessFULL with ADHD." If this episode has impacted you, remember to rate, follow, share, and review our podcast. Your support helps us reach and help more individuals navigating their journeys with ADHD.

Want to be ‘SuccessFULL with ADHD’ by Activating Your ADHD Potential?
Order our 3x best-selling book/workbook for adults with ADHD ▶️ http://bit.ly/activateadhd

Britt Frank:

When it comes to the election and the news and like global it's not just about what's happening on a large scale. Our brains are also recognizing patterns. What about this feels familiar. What you know, if you ask someone, think of a politician who triggers you, any politician at all, who triggers you, and then you say, what about that person triggers me the most, that answer will likely be a trailhead to a family of origin wound. So objectively, certain people doing certain things, that's going to be triggering, but it's fascinating. I've never not seen that true, where what triggers you about someone out there has a correlate within your own bubble. So it's What are my choices to first get regulated, and then what's my role? How can I contribute to this, you know, community, society, and then how can I help heal the stuff that's coming up for me as a result, it's a lot of work, which is why we're all so overwhelmed and frazzled in time.

Brooke Schnittman:

Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke schmidtman, let's get started. Welcome back to a very special episode of successful with ADHD. Today, I have my good friend and psychotherapist and neuroscientist, author of science of stuck and her new workbook, the getting unstuck workbook. Britt, Frank, I'm so happy you're here on successful with ADHD. You are not a stranger to this show. For those of you who've seen Britt in our previous episodes, in season one, we were talking about the why and if you should know your why and how to create action if you're in chaos. That was an amazing episode. And today we are going to be talking about election anxiety. So we're going to take this a step further, because this is on the top of our mind today as we go into a new election in November, 2024 how you process all this? Why we have so much anxiety surrounding it, and we're going to dig deeper from a neuroscientist lens. Welcome to the show, Brit

Britt Frank:

Hi. Thank you so much. It's so good to see you. This is such a hot button topic, but like, okay, there's the fire. Let's jump into it.

Brooke Schnittman:

Let's do it so Brit I mean, there's no the two things that I usually don't talk about in my business is religion and politics, right? Same thing with family and friends. But I'm sorry, there's just such extreme divide in our country between red and blue, and I believe that on top of the extreme divide, it's creating so much anxiety, and now Biden dropped out, so there's even more, you know, anxiety and chaos, and you know politics is Just on the front of everyone's mind right now when they're trying to do everything else, work related, personal related, like it's all you see everywhere. Can you kind of just dissect this a little bit for us?

Britt Frank:

Yes. And disclaimer, people are listening to this going, Oh God, I roll. We're not talking about the policy. We're not talking policy. We're not talking red versus blue. We're talking about the process of being a human in an election year, and the information overload that is causing so much stress, so much anxiety. I'm sure this is true for you during election years, my phone rings off the hook people that wouldn't even generally identify themselves as having ADHD or having anxiety, or all of a sudden, just flooded with this discomfort and this stress, and then, because it's on a mass scale, my nervous system and your nervous system are going to ping off of each other. So if everyone's nervous system is dysregulated, we're going to feel this very I mean, you could feel if you're a highly sensitive person, which I am, superpower just being online, maybe

Brooke Schnittman:

people in general, that's like 99% of us, right?

Britt Frank:

Exact neuro divergence for the win? Yes, our spidey senses are going, Hey, why? Like, my brain feels frazzled just looking online. And I know generally, how to drive my brain, so I I'm really excited that we can talk about not just what's happening, but what we can do about it. And as much as our first episode was like trash the y, we're gonna put some sprinkles of why back in here? Because we do need it a little bit.

Brooke Schnittman:

I'm so glad. I'm so glad. And you know, it was actually Britt's idea to talk about this, and I'm so thrilled that you want to talk about it, and it is literally everywhere. You can't hide it. Everyone's talking about it. It's everywhere in social media. We don't know if we should say something about our opinion, but then when people. Their opinion, and you disagree with their opinion, then there's all of this emotion. So why is this all happening, especially to the highly sensitive person, people with ADHD particularly, what's why? What's

Britt Frank:

What's the deal? I will not even begin to try to answer the why is this happening on a global scale? I don't know. I am not a policy person or a political analyst, so I have no idea how or why this is now what it is. I mean, you can see trends, but what I can say is the reason that people with ADHD or any type of neurodivergence are feeling a kind of a way is because the news is engineered to be lighting up the back of our brain and our lives work best when we're driving from the front of our brain. And on a good day, with a neurotypical brain looking at the news is going to throw that all out of whack. But with an ADHD brain, it being amygdala lit up all day, every day, and if you look at the news, I don't know if this is still a thing. Do kids still have to go through news articles and highlight biased words in news articles in order to

Brooke Schnittman:

figure out my senses are not doing that. I feel so old saying this,

Britt Frank:

but I'm like, we really I remember sitting with like newspaper clippings and a highlighter where they're using words intended to create a certain feeling, generally fear based, because a fear based person is quick to click and click and click and click like a lab rat. And we know this isn't paranoia or conspiracy. We know that media is engineered for clicks and for stickiness, and so we really want to go back to those old school principals like circa 1990 where before we go into reactivity, we take a step back and get ourselves into a window of tolerance, especially if Now, whether or not we should be arguing our opinions with people, that's a very personal decision. I don't but it's not like I sit and I put my nose in the sand and I don't look or care, but there are certain people it's just a waste of energy to argue with. So my energy is better served in other ways. But if you are going to try to change a mind or argue a point, doing it while your amygdala is lit up is a bad idea. I don't like always very bad idea. It's always a bad idea to argue from your amygdala versus your neocortex.

Brooke Schnittman:

Okay, so like we were talking about earlier, I feel like my amygdala has been lit up even more than ever. And I don't know if it's politics, it probably is consciously a little bit of that, but there's so many other things that I think are just spiraling in the world today. So how do you, I guess, understand from an ADHD perspective, when our amygdala is not lit up so much,

Britt Frank:

I know for me, when I'm like, on a spot like and I, again, I get be informed. So we need to know what's happening, so we can make informed choices and be, you know, useful to each other and ourselves and our communities and the world. But if you're clicking the same story 20 times to get every last bit of dopamine rung out of that thing, I don't know about you, but I if I'm paying attention, sometimes I paying attention isn't enough to get me off of a loop, but I know when I'm on a loop, when I have ingested enough information that I need, versus when now I'm just going on, like this fear binge, where? What else do I need to be afraid of? Click on that, click on this, click on that. Whoa. Which is why the question we asked in the first episode, what are my choices? And getting into those micro yeses, you know, like, what's a small step you can take when it comes to the election and the news and, like, global it's not just about what's happening on a large scale. Our brains are also recognizing patterns. What about this feels familiar? What you know, if you ask someone like, take a politician, and I will, I will pick size. I'll just say, think of a politician who triggers you, any politician at all who triggers you. And then you say, what about that person triggers me the most? That answer will likely be a trailhead to a family of origin. Won't so objectively, certain people doing certain things that's going to be triggering, but it's fascinating. I've never not seen that true, where what triggers you about someone out there has a correlate within your own bubble. So it's What are my choices to first get regulated, and then what's my role? How can I contribute to this, you know, community, society, and then how can I help heal the stuff that's coming up for me as a result, it's a lot of work, which is why we're all so overwhelmed and frazzled in

Brooke Schnittman:

time. Yeah, and I know that we can have different social media accounts and follow different people and different ones, but it's literally everywhere, like if I go to check comments on. And my coaching with work social media like this pops up, that pops up, friends pop up, you know, accounts pop up. It's just, it's all you can see. So that's there, right? And maybe you don't look at social media, or maybe you have in a different account, okay? So maybe that's one step, but let's say it's just there, right? And then it just takes too much work to now change around your social media so you're not following these people or looking or seeing so you're trying to figure out why this politician or this information is triggering you, and then you're finding the family origin, right? But then what do you do about it?

Britt Frank:

Sometimes, and sometimes all of that is too much. You know, if you have kids and schedules and a job and you're juggling trying to figure out, like, what's my core wound and how do I manage this now is just not a viable option. And I see so many people beat themselves up for not doing their work, and it's like, sometimes the work is not to do your work. You know you have to pick your battles. So a good question to ask once you feel that I'm stuck on an ADHD loop is, how important is it that I dive into this for some things that ding my brain? It's just not important that I take a shovel and start digging for other things, it's incredibly important. So Donald and I like scaling questions for ADHD, because it forces the activity into the front. So on a scale of one to 10, with one being it's not important at all, and 10 being It's crucial. How important on a one to 10 is it that I figured this out right now that can be hugely helpful.

Brooke Schnittman:

The scale of one to 10, I love a scale of one to 10. It's a trick, you know? It's

Britt Frank:

a psychology trick,

Brooke Schnittman:

your specialty. I love it. So, you know, I'm thinking about this as I'm talking to you, and then I think about my book, right? Activate your ADHD potential, and we talk about the overwhelm and underwhelmed with ADHD, right? So this is a lot of overwhelm, right? I don't think people are underwhelmed these days. I think their dopamine is like, just so high in triggering, right? And the amygdala is overworking, and it's smaller in us, ADHD, or to begin with, the theory, right, from shankman's work and other people's work, now we're overwhelmed, we're overstimulated, we're in survival mode. And I remember in chapter three, step four is the why funnel. So like, I can literally just go back to my why funnel and be like, Why am I motivated about looking at this social media, or why is it important not to look at the social media, or why is this triggering for me and go through the questions like you just activated that for me in my prefrontal cortex. And I know I'm rambling here, but I think for us ADHD, or sometimes just like having someone on the other side asking that question, or, like, activating that working in long term memory, can help us do what we already know, but actually execute on it. So you just unlock that for me. So thank you, yay. I

Britt Frank:

can give you another little cheat code when you're on I and I know this is true for me too. When I'm stuck in a doom spiral, scrolling whatever research loop, I'm not going to stop, like I know this from being a recovering addict, like my addicts, inclined parts of my brain sometimes are going to just give me the finger, and they're not going to stop. So on those occasions, rather than trying to stop. I need to change my research obsession. And so instead of what like whatever the thing is that I'm Doom scrolling about, then a good question, which will still keep you in a dopamine seeking loop, but a better one is, who is benefiting off of my fear right now? What things might I buy as a result of my fear. What other things might I subscribe to as a result of my fear? And then I can go on a research ADHD loop, but one that will actually lead me to a, oh, okay, this makes sense now and again. That's not me being a conspiracy theorist. That's just business, you know, like someone's making money off of my fear. If I feel like I'm, you know, unlivable, and my I don't look right, someone's gonna benefit off of all the crap I'm gonna buy to put in my face or on my face, or in my hair or whatever. And the truth, the same is true for news. So if you're bound and determined to stay on an addictive dopamine seeking news loop, switch the question to who's profiting off of this, and that will help a lot,

Brooke Schnittman:

so many gold nuggets. When talking to you, I feel like my body is a lot calmer just by acknowledging what probably almost all of us are feeling ADHD or not right now, like. Said, The neurodivergent community. Another thing that I've recently heard, and I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this, is, I just interviewed Jim quick, right? So our episode, this episode, will come out, you know, a couple months later, but he said that when you are in hyper focus. So let's say, in this situation, right, you are fixated on this negative thought loop, right? So the hyper focus is for things that are activating your nervous system in a in a negative way, right? Let's now it's negative, right? Sometimes we hyper focus on things that are helping us. This seems to be kind of hurting us, right? So if you're hyper focusing on something that isn't making you feel good, he said, stop in the middle of a sentence, or stop in the middle of the thought. Do something like a break, right? Do your break, but know that you can come back to that mid thought or mid sentence and and pick up where you left off, so you're not feeling as guilty or scared to leave that thought.

Britt Frank:

I love that. I call that snow globe in your brain, and it's such a great technique where it's like, we gotta shake it up, because once you get on a loop, this is true regardless of the size of your amygdala, regardless of which parts of your brain are automatic, automating which things. Once you're on a loop, it's really easy to get stuck there. It's easier if you have ADHD or any other kind of neurodivergence. But when you snow globe your brain, that deactivates the autopilot setting, and when you deactivate auto and you switch to manual, then you feel more agency to make choices. So the step away and do, literally do anything else. Even if you turn away, you just shake your arms out and then turn back to the screen. Sometimes that little snow globing of your brain can create space for choice, and that's where we feel better. We always feel better when our choice power is activated,

Brooke Schnittman:

yes, when we're in control of our choices, yes, instead

Britt Frank:

of our choices controlling us, at which point they're no longer choices.

Brooke Schnittman:

Question for you, the snow globeing and activating the different parts of our brain is that similar or the same as the dmn and the TPN, where, with ADHD, we're usually often in the dmn, like Dr hellwell talks about the demon, right? And that's where the creative hyper focus comes in. But then we can't switch as easily to the TPN, where's the task positive, where we're actually executing?

Britt Frank:

Yeah, they're not the same. One is the snow globing is the mechanism that allows the switch to get flipped, and the snow globing Isn't the switch. The snow globing turns off autopilot, at which point now you can look at your dashboard, and then you'll have a lot more Brain Juice where you want it so you can go with do I want to stay here, or do I want to go here? Do I want to be in this zone? Or do I want to be in this zone without being sort of stuck on it? Because even if you're stuck on a creative loop, feeling stuck and feeling out of control is just not a good feeling, especially there's so much uncertainty in the world. And we know our brains, all brains, hate uncertainty. So if we have to live in a world that is this unstable, uncertain, knowing how to flip certain brain switches so you can get from zone to zone is useful, and snow globing helps with that.

Brooke Schnittman:

Wow. Okay, so snow globing is helping us flip this the switch now, once the switch is flipped, yes, that's a tongue teaser. Try to say it three times fast once the switch is flipped, then yeah. How do we continue to regulate our nervous systems as ADHD ers and the neurodivergent community alike, with all of the politics anxiety right now.

Britt Frank:

So what's my role and what are my choices? Are the questions that I really like. Because, again, we want to be useful, not just to ourselves and our immediate bubble, but we want to I mean, most people want to be that's why we're all arguing with each other. It's like, I want you to believe what I believe, because I think the world will be better if you think like I think, and then we make the world a lot worse by doing that. But it's really, really helpful to be regulated and to know our role. It is not. I don't have enough bandwidth to be useful to every person in every situation, from the micro to the macro, like it's just not possible. Like to care and be useful about every social injustice and every political crisis, like you can't do it. So rather than feeling frozen in the overwhelm of the task, what's my role here? Do I need to donate money? Do I need to donate time? Do I need. To get educated about something, and then, what are my choices? So first, if you can figure out what your role is, like, my role with my family of origin is not to fight with them or convince them to believe what I believe. Like I've tried. It doesn't work. So my energy if you, if you're talking in terms of spoons, like spoon theory or energy units, if you only have so many spoons or energy units. What's my role? Where are those energy units going to be best spent? And then, what are my choices that will help take this giant blob of overwhelm down to little, teeny, tiny buckets where you can then activate your Yes, where then you'll feel better?

Brooke Schnittman:

Yes, yes. And when you are in a place where your spoons are so little, like you're down to one spoon, or you're so burned out and overwhelmed by everything that you're seeing, is it the snow globe effect? Or is it what is my role? What are my choices? Or do you kind of just like, stop everything and then start with something that is going to be serving you? Obviously, I'm trying to create logic with this. Yes,

Unknown:

no, no,

Brooke Schnittman:

I love it, which I know you can't always,

Britt Frank:

if only, right? I wish we could just think our way through this stuff. Like, if only we can logic our way through this insanity of a world.

Brooke Schnittman:

I know I'm trying to, like, scan my brain and make sense of all of this

Britt Frank:

now, unplugging and plugging back in, like, going full stop on everything is a viable strategy. And for some people, that works for me, if I stop everything, I tend to go into freeze. So, like, if I hit the brakes really hard, I can't get going again. And so what's my role? And then what are my choices? Is more of a neutral zone. I'm still moving. I haven't stopped it, especially if you have one spoon, if you have one spoon, and it's like a teeny, teeny little soup, like a, like a little teaspoon, a baby spoon, right? Little one. And what's my role? I don't have enough spoons to go out and campaign or be a voice or engage in a lively debate. I need my spoon drawer filled up, and so my role here is to fill up my spoon drawer, and then where my choices are going to be. Are there any people, places, thoughts or things available to me right now that I can choose, and again, a micro, yes, is the smallest thing you can possibly do, cut into 10 smaller pieces. So it's so easy to do you feel silly doing it. That's a micro.

Brooke Schnittman:

And with that being said, maybe you have this in your workbook for people who want to have the space to think about this, or have the sentence starters, to say no to things, because this often happens for the neurodivergent community, when we see too much, there's too much distraction, and We're saying yes to too many things that we can't take on right now. So could you share perhaps one sentence starter that once the person understands their choices, which might be to not see this person or not look on social media, or go to bed early or walk outside. What is something that the person can say to feel empowered and also feel like they're taking ownership of maybe saying no to plans that have already been created, yeah, and also feel like, good about the whole situation, because with ADHD, we tend to ruminate on things afterwards, right? We think, Okay, this is really good in the moment, like, I'm gonna just cancel 90% of the things that I've said yes to. But then after you're like, Oh my God, I'm such a bad person. I can't believe I did that and then feel worse.

Britt Frank:

So I don't know how to solve for not ruminating, but I can solve for shortening the span of the rumination because even with all the tools that I have, if I set a boundary or say no to someone and they get all like tweaked about it, I go into a rumination spot. Which should I accept this? Should I said that I have the conversation 20 extra ways in my head. And this literally just happened the other day. I i set a boundary. It was a beautiful it was just like chef's kiss. It was a gorgeous boundary. I was so proud of my inner children for setting it. And of course, yes, people on the receiving end of boundaries tend to not like that, and I'm in my spin. Okay, so the trick to shorten a rumination spiral is to switch from first person thinking to third person thinking. I will explain what I mean by that. Oh, my God, I suck. I'm such a bad friend. I'm such a bad person. I me, me, me, me, my that's first person thinking. I'm thinking as just like the global me, if I can separate. This part of and again, everyone who's seen inside out too, and if you haven't go watch it, because it's based on this concept that we're made of different parts. I have. I am not my ruminating part. She is there ruminating. I am the competence, capable adult who can say to her, and all I say to her is what I say to a friend. Oh, my God, I know you feel like absolute dog poo right now. I know it was so hard for you to set that boundary. I'm so proud of you, and I know it stinks that your friend is not really responding very well to that. And then switching from first person to third person, self talk, then moves the activity from your amygdala to your frontal cortex. It slows things down. It brings you into regulation. You're gonna feel weird doing it. I mean, it's second nature for me now, but like she feels away. I'm fine. My ruminating part is not fine. So the person to tend to her is me, and if I need help, I will call on other people. But separating. You are not your rumination, you are not your anxiety. You are not your ADHD. If you think of these as separate characters in your mind, who have good intentions and who are all trying to help, Dick, short says there's no bad parts, there's bad behaviors, but all our parts are good and well meaning. So if you can separate that separation isn't just a psychobabble exercise, there are very real physiological benefits of doing it. So third person self talk. Use your pronouns or your name to talk to the part.

Brooke Schnittman:

So for those of you who don't know, Britt is talking about internal family systems. Richard Schwartz, right, yeah, who, I guess goes by Dick Schwartz. Now I don't know his approach. I've

Britt Frank:

never met him. I'm just like, oh yeah, Dick shorts. Like, we're super familiar. He blurbed the book, which was generous.

Brooke Schnittman:

He totally recommended your book, but okay,

Britt Frank:

I'm an ifs trained practitioner, but I've never actually sat and, like, had coffee with a man. So yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

yeah, okay. But he also recommended your book, which is cool. And on top of that, I am actually a current client going through ifs and EMDR right now, and having that inner child work with like young Brooke and older Brooke. And the young Brooke is like hugged by older Brooke, and we walk together, right? And it really that distinction that you're talking about. I didn't even think about that in the moment, but it really does help separating that yes, on

Britt Frank:

the going back to the election news stuff, sorry, I'm so excited to talk to you. My brain just goes in 30 different I have so many tabs right now. I'm like, okay, if I'm on a news cycle binge, and again, I'm not even willing to change the question. I'm bound and determined to keep doing what I'm doing. And like, you're not going to get me to stop. Fine, then the All right, Britt, I know we need to do this right now. I'm not going to leave you. I know for whatever reason you're you're on this loop. I call this the follow your drunk friend around the bar. Exercise like when you're following when you're in college and you're following your drunk friends, you're not going to logic or rational or reason her, you know, or he or they. But like, the task is, can we minimize the damage so they don't walk into walls or get into a dangerous situation? So I will accompany my ruminating, OCD, Doom spiraling part until they're done. All right, you want to look at another new site. All right, this, I'm here. I'm not going to leave you. I'm so sorry that I can't help you right now. But like, I'm here, and when we pop out of this, which we will, I will not get mad at you and shame you and yell at you. That reduces cortisol, it shortens the rumination, and it helps you pop out a bit faster. Ooh,

Brooke Schnittman:

I love this. All amazing reactive strategies to calm your nervous system. What are some proactive strategies that we can take?

Britt Frank:

I'm not laughing at you. I'm just like, oh yeah, don't look at the news. Minimize social media. Power down your screen. I'll give you something better than that, but I laugh. Thank

Brooke Schnittman:

you. How can we become before we see all that,

Britt Frank:

speaking out loud is really helpful. So before you're on a thing like I can feel myself being pulled and if you start paying attention, you look feel yourself being pulled into any type of cycle, not always, but sometimes. And I'll say out loud, oh, Britt, I feel you, you're, you're wanting to go this way, like, what's going on? Girl, let's, let's sit down and talk. And I have clients who will sit down with two coffee cups on a table in front of them and actually dialog with themselves, using that active imagination strategy, and that can help prevent, not always, but talking out loud, because inside your head is where that's where all the stuff is overwhelmed and stuck, and your amygdala is small and your neocortex isn't lit up. Talking out loud slows everything way down, because I think way faster than I can speak, and that will help prevent a thing. So.

Brooke Schnittman:

Right, yeah, oh, my God, that's so good. And a lot of us individuals with ADHD sub vocalize because we verbally process information. So if we can talk to ourself when we don't have other people around to talk to, then that can help us understand what we're about to go into, or what's really going on right now, so we can talk ourselves out of it, or exactly not

Britt Frank:

talk ourselves out of it or through it. That's like, yeah, yeah. It's the same strategy with children. When I had a play therapy practice, you always start validating. So, okay, Britt, I feel you wanting to get on the new sites right now, and just like spend the next two hours avoiding what you should be doing to go do that. And you know, like I'm here, and it makes sense that you want to do that. I mean, I wonder if there are some other choices available. We could do this or this or this, and sort of love and logic yourself by giving yourself choices.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yes, I talk so much about like treating yourself like a baby, then it's not babyish to do that, to actually treat Why do you think we treat babies the way that we treat them? Right? We hug them, we give them naps. We feed them, we nurture them, we take them outside. Why don't we do the same thing to ourselves?

Britt Frank:

I mean, we should all be like fidgets and blankets and stuffies and playgrounds, fidget sand, and I sit here and dig around. I stim all day, and because it helps. So like, let's just make that a thing that is normal, where normalizing, yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

whatever works for you, whatever exactly you Wow. So I know as two neurodivergent people, we can totally like, do, do, do, do go in all different directions. Can you you gave us really good strategies about proactive strategies and reactive strategies for sorting through the anxiety of news and politics right now, since it's front and center and you essentially cannot avoid it unless you live under a rock. I don't care. It's just really hard, right? Yeah, okay with all that being said, what do you recommend? Because you have two amazing books, right? So I got this first when I first met you, and you came out with this workbook, which all of us love, workbooks, let's be honest, right? Where can people go in these books? So obviously they'll hear the answers that you shared in this podcast, but where can they go to just get started in regulating their nervous system and getting unstuck in any situation,

Britt Frank:

in all of the situations. Well, okay, I'll start with the workbook I wrote. It for the science of stuck is written the way I speak. It's very conversational. It's not academic or fluffy, but sometimes I don't want to read. I just want a strategy. I want a tool, and I don't want to sit there and have to dig for it. It's like, if you want a recipe, I don't want to read the five page blog post about how, like, in

Brooke Schnittman:

the beginning, too many executive functions, right, and then from there, you just give up. You even forgot why you started right,

Britt Frank:

exactly. And then I'm clicking on their pictures. Oh, Where'd she get that out? It's no so. Two

Brooke Schnittman:

hours later, two hours later,

Britt Frank:

I just wanted to make a protein bagging so the workbook starts right off the bat with a quiz, and the quiz gives you like, what's your self help style? Are you more of a thinker? Are you more of a feeler? Are you a doer, or are you more of a mindfulness person? And then after you get your quiz self help style, I designed the book so you can flip through it and just look for everything is really clearly marked. So like, if you're a doer, it's footprints. If you're a feeler, it's a heart. It's pretty simple. You can literally just flip through the book and look for the icon that matches. And those are strategies tailored to you. So you can skip all the nonsense and all the noise that you don't need. So that's a really easy way that you can jump to what you need without having to dig. Because the last thing you want to do when you're overwhelmed is dig for, like, what's the thing I need? Look for the hearts, look for the footprints, look for the whatever, whatever your thing is, that's one. And then what's a micro yes is my always, my favorite tool for overwhelm, like, whatever you're overwhelmed with, What are my choices, and what can I say yes to? What's the smallest thing? That's an easy yes will get you from stuck to go, maybe not stuck to yay, but it will get you from stuck to unstuck. And then you can take a few more steps. The expectation that we go from stuck to yay is not helpful, like, don't beat yourself up. We go from I feel like crap. I'm doing nothing. So. Do I feel like crap and I'm doing a small thing, do I feel like crap and I'm doing a few more things, and then eventually we get to feeling neutral, then good? Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman:

wow, that's really good. And how often does how does one person remind themselves to What are my choices, and what can I say yes to? Like, is it a timer? Is it a Pavlov theory, where you open a cabinet and there's a bell, or is it you start feeling your body and then you do it like, what would you say you would recommend holistically?

Britt Frank:

Well, I think our brains, based on our brains design, right? They like ritual and routine and cycles. So if I do a body scan, I'm gonna tell you to go away and throw something at you because I don't want to do a body scan. I don't like going inside like I don't I go to therapy too. I do all the things too. So working

Brooke Schnittman:

amazing. So do I? I mean, I see you coach too, right? Live, live. What you preach? Right? True

Britt Frank:

story. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Ritualize it like I like habit stacking, which is a James clear atomic habits principle like a thing that you're already doing. Stick this principle on top of it, so reminding yourself that your brain is on your side. Do that when you brush your teeth. If you don't brush your teeth, do it when you pee, because everyone is going to pee every day, even if you're not good about oral hygiene. So figure out a thing that you're already doing routinely, then stack this onto that, and then what's my micro? Yes, could be at night, while you're making dinner or bringing fast food home or whatever, like, stick this task on top of a task that's already easy to do, and that way your brain doesn't have to work as hard to get it done. So

Brooke Schnittman:

good, so good. So okay, usually I do give us one recommendation to walk away with that can help our listeners, but I feel like it's very clear what that recommendation is. Am I wrong here?

Britt Frank:

Not at all, but I will add like for like, validate. This is hard. People are coming in, people are suffering, they're struggling, they're scared, they're overwhelmed, and that's real, like I can't solve for global unrest, but this What's wrong with me, that I can't, what's wrong with me that I'm not I'm so lazy, I'm so unmotivated. It's like there is no room on a good day for that kind of shame. Validate to yourself as often as you need. I make sense. Like those are your three words, those are your that's your recommendation. I make sense. I don't know why I make sense, but I do my brain. You don't need to know why right now. But like, I make sense, there is no such thing as a lazy, crazy or unmotivated person like you make sense and give yourself a little bit just a little bit of validation. It'll go a long way.

Brooke Schnittman:

All right. So everyone listening right now, I want you to take a deep breath and say, I make sense. Feels really good.

Britt Frank:

It does. It's very settling, because even if we don't understand every nuance, just knowing that at the core there is an i, and that I does make sense, and that there will be choices that will help move us through assuming you have them, if you don't have choices, that's a whole nother conversation, but knowing that I made sense made really hard things more endurable when I got there.

Brooke Schnittman:

So good. So for those of you who resonate with this, go check out Britt Frank. Check out her book, The Science of stock. Check out her workbook, the getting unstuck workbook. Check her out on Instagram. Britt Frank, right? Yeah, okay. And I would also recommend that you go listen to our first episode in Season One, unsuccessful with ADHD, because there she talks a lot about her story on what got her here today and why she does the things that she does today was all about what we do with these emotions, these big emotions and feelings in the state that we're in. So the beginning of all of this, if you're interested, like so many ADHD ers are, where we need to research the person in front of us, right? We have to go way back. Go look at season one. Listen to Britt. You'll get a lot out of that too. And thank you. I love having these conversations with you. Thanks for coming on today.

Britt Frank:

So much fun. Thanks for having me. It's so good to see you. Same

Brooke Schnittman:

here. Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey, and if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us@coachingwithbrooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke, and remember it's Brooke with an E. Thanks again for listening. See you next time you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC

Host