PRACTICAL STEPS TO IMPROVE HABITS IF YOU HAVE ADHD (HELPFUL EVEN IF YOU DON’T)
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Episode 309:
Show Notes
Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy Burns discuss how to support the ADHD brain in building healthy habits, as part of their "Brain May" series. They emphasise that the strategies covered are helpful for everyone, not just those with an ADHD diagnosis.
ADHD in Women at Midlife
- ADHD in women is increasingly being diagnosed, often triggered when a child receives a diagnosis and the mother recognises herself in the symptoms.
- Oestrogen decline during perimenopause and menopause can exacerbate ADHD traits, causing previously robust coping strategies to break down.
- Dr Mary shares her own personal experience of recognising ADHD traits after her child's diagnosis, describing it as both liberating and emotional.
The Demands vs. Capacity Framework
A key concept introduced is balancing two forces:
- Demands: what life is asking of you, such as work, family, caregiving and decisions.
- Capacity: your brain's finite ability to regulate attention, emotion and decision-making.
When demands exceed capacity, even simple tasks feel overwhelming, and this is not a character flaw. The goal is to reduce demands and increase capacity simultaneously.
Reducing Food-Related Demands
- Simplify meals using a repeatable "Build a Plate" framework: protein, vegetables, a little fat and some flavour.
- Rotate the same five meals rather than cooking something new every day.
- Use convenience staples such as rotisserie chicken, frozen barramundi, pre-chopped vegetables, frozen edamame and vacuum-packed meat subscriptions.
- Prep ingredients rather than whole meals; chopping vegetables ahead removes decision-making at dinner time.
- Plan for your worst day, not your best, and have easy fallback meals ready.
Increasing Brain Capacity
- Sleep: even small improvements significantly help attention, emotion regulation and impulse control.
- Protein at the first meal of the day: reduces blood sugar swings, supports dopamine regulation and is especially beneficial for ADHD brains.
- Habits become automatic over time, so the initial effort of building them reduces as they become the brain's default.
Five Strategies to Build Better Habits
These five principles work for everyone, especially ADHD brains:
- Make it obvious: put your water bottle out, lay out your shoes, make the cue visible.
- Reduce friction: commit to something small and repeatable, not perfect or intense.
- Anchor to existing habits: link a new behaviour to something you already do daily, such as pairing HRT with tooth brushing.
- Make it more enjoyable: listen to a podcast, audiobook or music, and pair boring tasks with something pleasant.
- Add social accountability: commit to a friend, as pre-commitments make follow-through far more likely.
Consistency Over Perfection
- You do not need a new brain; you need a better system.
- Healthy habits are built through repetition until they become automatic. Missing once does not matter.
- My Metabolic Action Plan is highlighted as a structured framework that uses reward-based prompts to help people turn knowledge into action.
Work With Real Life Medicine
For a step-by-step approach to improving metabolic health in perimenopause, menopause and beyond, check out My Metabolic Action Plan. This doctor-led comprehensive program gives you
- Strategies to improve metabolism
- Skills to develop mindset
- Tools so you will implement
Episode 309:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (00:05) Hello lovely friend, I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (00:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns.
Both (00:11) We are doctors, weight management and metabolic health experts. We are the creators of My Metabolic Action Plan, your two-step map to real health and weight loss, which is in fact the name of this podcast. Join MyMap now at rlmedicine.com.
Dr Lucy Burns (00:30) Hello, lovely friend. Dr Mary here for another episode of the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast, joined by my gorgeous and knowledgeable colleague, Dr Lucy. Hello, Lucy. How are you?
Dr Lucy Burns (00:45) I am very well, Miss. I'm very well. Friends listening, my little puppy is in my room here with me. And she has just discovered a ball. You might hear it. So if there's any sort of background puppy-type noise, apologies. But she is super cute. And one of the things that is tricky is we have some building works going on in the back, which you can't hear, but she's quite scared of them. So I have to have her in my room here. But that means she is sometimes eating my slipper or playing with a little ball.
Dr Mary Barson (01:21) Life is imperfect. There's this wonderful picture book that I have seen called All Dogs Have ADHD, which I think is absolutely true. And this is particularly true of all puppies. Very topical, because today, as we continue our discussion of brain health in May, Brain May, we are talking about ADHD today and how we can support the ADHD brain to get healthy habits. And this topic will be helpful not just for people with ADHD, but for everybody: how we can make healthy habits that stick, that can improve our metabolism, but with putting on our ADHD lenses today.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:09) Indeed. Indeed. And, look, I know it probably feels like ADHD is the flavour of the month, and every second person seems to have a diagnosis of ADHD. And it is true. There is some increased diagnosis, particularly in women in midlife. And this is very topical for you and me, Miss , totally topical. So the scenario goes a little bit like this for a lot of women: their child may get diagnosed, you know, may show some symptoms, and maybe the school has noticed, or, in many cases, not noticed. But, you know, for whatever reason, the child ends up with a diagnosis or has a diagnosis. And along the way, the mother goes, "Hmm, I have a lot of these things going on." Or the husband might say to the mother, "You know this is you, don't you?" And the mother might go, "Really? I had no idea." "I thought everybody left doors open. I thought everybody lost things. I thought everyone had a messy desk. I thought everyone was late to everything they've ever done."
Dr Mary Barson (03:24) Yeah, and then it can be such a, well, first of all, it can be a difficult process pursuing a diagnosis of ADHD. But with diagnosis or no diagnosis, when women can then retrospectively sort of fit that explanation into their lives, it can be beautiful, it can be painful, it can be sad, it can be happy, it can be all of these things. And look, I don't mind sharing that this actually, this exactly, happened to me. I always used to joke that, oh, you know, yeah, I'm pretty scattered. Yeah, I can't have ADHD traits, you know, whatever. But, you know, I'm functional. You know, I'm a doctor. I couldn't possibly have ADHD. And then my child just started displaying symptoms. We went through this whole process. And then, as I was learning more, you know, beyond my few lectures in medical school about this, I was just like, holy guacamole, and it was just like this universe just opened up before me. And I realised that all of so many struggles that I had were because of the way my brain works, trying to force my beautiful neurodivergent brain to fit into a neurotypical world. And I felt sad for old Mary, but also really happy for current Mary, because it has been useful. It's been useful to understand myself, and I feel like I understand myself more than ever.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:50) Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the key, isn't it? It's not about going, oh, my God, I can't do this because I've got ADHD, or, oh, my God, you know, this will never happen for me because, you know, my brain doesn't work that way. It's about going, okay, so these are my strengths. These are the areas where I struggle in. How do I support the parts of me that struggle in a way that is not just, try harder, concentrate more? You know, my thing was just, Lucy, just don't lose things. Like, so ineffective.
Dr Mary Barson (05:26) So just get it together.
Dr Lucy Burns (05:27) Yeah. Yeah, just get out. Just don't be late. And honestly, working out why this pattern that seemed so obvious was repeated over and over again, to the point where I just thought, oh, my God, I'm so useless at time management, and it's really not about that at all. So part of the reason we want to talk about ADHD again is the consequences of some of the behavioural aspects, again, you know, things like difficulty with planning, difficulty with executive functioning, which is really just a fancy name for planning and executing things. So, again, things like, you know, people go, oh, just meal plan. It's like, hmm, technically that seems really obvious and easy, but actually executing that and following through is hard for people with ADHD. So the second little part of this puzzle, following on from last week's discussion around MHT and dementia prevention, is that we know for many women they have developed really resilient and really robust coping skills, or I guess workarounds, if you like. And then during menopause, when the oestrogen declines, which is a great, you know, oestrogen, a great mood stabiliser, clearly part of our brain functioning, we find that some of those traits become more exacerbated. And then, combined with the cognitive carrying load that women in midlife have, the wheels can fall off.
Dr Mary Barson (07:02) Look, this episode is not about me, but you have just described me, Lacey. I don't want to put myself in the middle of everything. That's okay. Solo mum with two kids that still need a lot of care. One of the three needs a significant amount of care.
Dr Lucy Burns (07:21) It's unreasonable that he has not yet learned to cook. I mean, honestly, what use is he?
Dr Mary Barson (07:28) That's right. Sometimes he even needs me to put his socks on. It's just outrageous. Yes, and I've got elderly parents that sort of need more and more help and support from me, and then all of a sudden, perimenopause has just started tugging at all of what I thought were fairly robust coping strategies, and it has required me. I have had to just sort of redesign a few of these things because all of a sudden, things got harder really quickly.
Dr Lucy Burns (07:58) Yes, absolutely. So the thing I think we need to address is our own internalised thoughts around what we might feel is laziness or incompetence and go, you know what, look, honestly, I don't know a single woman who's lazy. I know women who tell themselves they're lazy, and they'll go, I'm just hopeless because I just sit on the couch and scroll through my phone, and, you know, if I didn't do that, then my life would be fine. And, you know, there's a bit of truth in that, but what we're wanting to do is actually go further upstream and go, hang on, you're not sitting on the couch scrolling through your phone because you're just a lazy git. You'll be sitting on the couch scrolling through your phone because of various factors that often are where your brain is looking for relief from something and potentially looking to avoid something painful. So, again, it comes back to that beautiful framework that we have. Our brain has two jobs: to keep you safe, which it does by avoiding pain, it's normal, and to help you feel better. And, unfortunately, in our modern world these days, our brain thinks that things like phone scrolling help you feel better, although we all know that actually most people feel worse after phone scrolling, or it thinks that shopping will make you feel better, or eating will make you feel better. It's looking for things to make you feel better.
Dr Mary Barson (09:30) Yes, and what we're talking about today is that gap between knowledge and implementation. And so what we're talking about today is actually going to be helpful for everyone. Whether or not you identify as neurotypical, neurodiverse, somewhere in between, what we're talking about today is going to be practical and helpful for everyone. Yes. It's not about trying harder. It's about making things easier to do.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:59) Correct. I love that. Yes. Yes. And, again, I just look back at one of my children's school reports, and it used to say, you know, blah, blah, just needs to concentrate more. And it's like, hmm, interesting.
Dr Mary Barson (10:16) Thank you for that helpful feedback.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:17) Yes. And so, again, most people I know, most people we work with, they don't have a trying problem. They're not deficient in trying. They've been trying hard for a long time. So I don't know anybody who goes, you know what, this is the first time I've ever tried to lose weight or to look after myself or to develop a habit. So it's not a trying problem. It's a, yeah, we don't need to make it harder. We need to make it easier.
Dr Mary Barson (10:50) Yes. One of my favourite ways to frame making it easier, or to frame sort of ADHD symptoms, or just to frame how well we are coping at life, just to broaden this out, it really comes down to two things: our demands, like what demands are on us, and our capacity. So when demands are high and capacity is low, or it's not meeting our demands, everything feels harder than it should. But when our capacity is supported, even difficult things can become manageable. Think about these two things. What can you do to reduce your demands? And sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't. What can you do to increase your capacity? And you need to focus on both of them, not just one, because we can do things to improve our capacity. We can make sure that, you know, we can improve our sleep, and we can improve our nutrition. We could potentially get medication that might be part of it. We can scaffold ourselves. But if we are not doing anything to address our demands, then, again, we're just going to continue to be pedalling uphill when perhaps we could be pedalling on the flat. So if you're tired, you know, the decisions are piling up, work is busy, life is busy, kids are a lot, everything's a lot, and suddenly something simple like just cooking dinner or going for a walk or sitting down to do that meditation can just feel overwhelming. It's not a character flaw. You know, it's just your demands are higher than your capacity.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:24) Absolutely. And I think women need to recognise, or old people need to recognise, that there is a ceiling on capacity. Like, we can't, there's, it's not infinite. So when we meet that ceiling, it's not that you've failed, it's that you've reached the capacity ceiling. So, as you said, there are some things that we can do to definitely increase that, but it's not never-ending. I love, again, you are the queen of simple cooking for when your life is full and, you know, how to reduce demand, you know. And I think one of the things we're always talking about is the ugly food, #uglyfood, because honestly, fancy food and fancy presentations and, you know, making it complex, that is not a time for when your demands are high. You can do that when you've got nothing else to do.
Dr Mary Barson (13:25) One of my favourite ways to reduce demands is to simplify your food choices.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:30) Mm, yeah, yeah, because decision fatigue is real. It exists, and we see this all the time. When there's too much decision, too many options, you make none. And we've spoken about this many, many times. What we want is the, you know, the perfect number of choices, enough where you feel like you've got some variety, but not enough where you can't decide which one to do.
Dr Mary Barson (13:56) Yeah. I once spoke to a fabulous woman who felt as though it was a fundamental need that she had to cook a different meal for her family every single day of their lives, like that she felt that she needed to do something different every single day and that she couldn't repeat the same meal that she had cooked that year, and that she talked about how this was very draining and hard for her. As I was listening to this, my brain did explode, you know, like bits of brain were just like all over the room as I was looking at this, and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Personally, we have the same five meals on repeat. Occasionally we branch out, but when life's busy, the busy day-to-day life, that works for my family. I'm very happy with this.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:49) Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, again, this is part of why we have our framework, the Build a Plate framework, where you pick your protein, add a few veggies. If the protein is lean, you need a little bit of fat in the meal and some flavour. Like, it doesn't have to be complex, and we don't need a five-course meal and, you know, there may be a few little tweaks that you can make depending on family preferences and, you know, allergies and all of those things that we've got to take into account, but that's the broad framework for a low-carb, high-protein, real food approach. And it can be super easy. And even last night, so last night I had, so one of the things I'm trying to do is increase the fish in my diet. My husband doesn't particularly like eating fish that much, so two things happen. Whenever I go out for dinner, if there is a fish option on the menu and it aligns with my other goals, then I will usually order that. And the second thing is when he's not here, I will then make sure that I cook fish. But I've got this fantastic new fish concept, which is not really a concept. It's basically barramundi that is, so Australian-grown barramundi, not, you know, so it's not Tasmanian salmon, sadly, which is, you know, problematic. It's frozen. I can take it out of the fridge. It defrosts in an hour, and then I bang it into the air fryer with some herbs and some salt on the back of the skin, and it's crispy. I put it face up. It's crispy skin barramundi. I mean, I already feel like I'm having a restaurant meal with that. Yeah. Yeah, so some crispy skin barramundi with some veggies that have either a little bit of butter or goat's cheese, they're my two sort of flavouring options, and some herbs flung on top. All of that, like that whole meal together, takes, you know, about 12 minutes. Apart from the one hour, I just need to get it out of the fridge, and, look, to be honest, I could do an experiment on whether you can cook the barramundi from frozen. I haven't done that experiment yet. You probably could. Probably could. Yeah. Yeah, probably could. I'd love that. But, yeah, so it's just about having options that are easy and always available to you. So, you know, you and I, Miss , use a meat subscription. That meat subscription is vacuum-packed, which means it can sit in the fridge for a considerable amount of time. You know, when you buy meat from the butcher or the supermarket, you've got like one day to use it, you think, oh, that's annoying because we're going out tonight or whatever it is. So having flexibility is really useful. And something that I now do, which is not meal prepping because I'm garbage at it, I cannot do that thing. First of all, I don't have the executive functioning and the foresight to be able to do seven days in advance. Like, my brain's going, actually, I am still thinking about today, not three days' time. But I do prep ingredients. So, chop the veggies, and then when it comes to night, last night, I just go into my thing and go, what's already chopped? Oh, good, zucchini and broccoli, they're already chopped, bang. They're then cooked and buttered in two minutes.
Dr Mary Barson (18:08) Yum. Yeah, I know. I know. It's a lot of pre-deciding as well. So you're reducing the number of decisions that you have to make because every decision has a cost. Every decision is just going to chip away at your capacity. It's just going to increase those demands. And by the end of the day, particularly if you've got a full life, as most women do, by the end of the day, you're done. You don't want to decide another thing.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:31) Yeah, absolutely. And the thing that happens, I reckon, is you get a few good meals under your belt, and then your brain tucks them away in your little mind palace to be brought out on days where you're tired. And you go, oh, yeah, that's right, on my tired day I have this blah, blah, and blah, blah. And, again, another thing for me that has been really a new addition is edamame beans, which you can buy. They're already shelled, and they're frozen, and they defrost. You can either just defrost them sitting out, or you can plonk them in the microwave if you want. But, again, they're a little textural addition to salads that make it increase your protein, low carb, filling, lots of fibre. Like I go, good, oh, that was easy. That ticks all the boxes. Easy, yes. Yeah. So having those kind of little hacks, I guess, in your mind palace ready, and if your mind palace, which is what I just call my brain, if your brain won't brain, then having that list on your fridge is the other thing I've done. So I go, oh, God, brain's not thinking. Oh, I'll go to my fridge to remind myself what are my hacks.
Dr Mary Barson (19:43) Yeah, that's right. And you want to have those little plans in place for your worst day, not your best day. You don't want to have all of your meals dependent on you being at your best in order to think, plan, buy, prep, do. You want to have them for your worst day. And when you've got a plan for your worst day, then your brain is going to be supported. One of my things is a rotisserie chicken and a packet of, this is like my, you know, worst days, rotisserie chicken and a packet of those pre-chopped salads. They usually come with pretty crappy little dressing sachets full of nasty ingredients. If I just put those in the bin. But then, yeah, just upend the celery, upend the pre-chopped salad into a bowl, maybe put a little bit of vinegar on there, maybe some mingled dressings, and my rotisserie chicken, and it's like dinner done, and that's fine. Yep. I recently learnt that people call them bachelor handbags, the little bag that the rotisserie chicken comes in. I'm a fan of the bachelor handbag, it must be said.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:44) Yeah, absolutely. And, again, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's absolutely good enough. Good enough is good enough. You know, we talk about a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle is a series of decisions that you make over and over again until they become automatic. So for me, it is my automatic thing that I will find dinner in my fridge. It would be rare that we would have takeaway. It's not that I never have takeaway, but it's a rarity because my automatic thing is, oh, no, I've got food in here. What can I make? So it's my brain looking for a solution rather than a problem.
Dr Mary Barson (21:23) Yes. So we've talked about demand, specifically about food and ways you can reduce demands around food, which I think is really helpful. The other side of this is the capacity. And our capacity, it's not just our energy or motivation. What we're talking about here is your brain's ability to regulate your attention, your emotion, and your decision-making, and it is finite. You know, our brains do run out of steam. That's not the scientific term, but metaphorically, they run out of steam and, you know, we need to stop and rest. And there are things that really do help our capacity and that we are in control of to a certain extent, to a pretty big extent. So sleep is a big one. Even small improvements in sleep can significantly improve our ability to regulate our attention, emotion, decision-making, and impulse control. Nutrition matters too, particularly protein. Having protein in your meals is one of the biggest things people with or without ADHD, but there is good evidence for people with ADHD brains that having some protein really does help regulate, it helps improve the capacity of your brain to regulate all the things. So especially that first meal of the day, if you can just prioritise the protein, then you're going to be winning, and that's going to help reduce blood sugar swings, which in turn can make your brain less reactive and less impulsive and less likely to be overwhelmed. Just the simple action of having a protein-rich meal at the start of the day improves your brain capacity.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:00) Absolutely. And, you know, it seems so, when you sort of spell it out like that, you kind of go, oh, yeah, that seems obvious. Why didn't I think of that? And that's the whole thing. Just because it's obvious doesn't mean your brain thinks about it or notices it or is aware of it. But when a protein-rich first meal becomes your default, well, then you don't need to think about it anymore either. So initially, you've got to remind yourself because, like anything, you're building a new habit, your brain, it's not the automatic default. So it feels like, oh, this is a lot of work. How come I have to work so hard to remember to do this? It's because it's new. But over time, it becomes just what you do, and then you don't even think about it.
Dr Mary Barson (23:44) Yes, yes.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:45) I remember back in the olden days of dieting and Weight Watchers, and everything was low-fat everything. So I never, you know, I started never putting butter on toast because, you know, anyone who did that, that was, you know, you were evil if you had butter on your toast. So, yeah, so I just got used to this dry old toast, and for decades that's how I had my toast. So awful. But it was automatic to not put any butter on your toast. So, you know, we can develop things that definitely we just do on repeat without thinking, and they can be helpful, both things that are helpful for us and sometimes things that are less helpful. That's right.
Dr Mary Barson (24:29) Yes, it goes both ways.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:30) Yeah. Yes. So we want to focus then, obviously, on doing the things that become more helpful and building up that habit and doing it over and over and over until it's automatic, and then reducing the less helpful ones. And, again, we can build alternative habits to those until they are no longer in our brain's repertoire of options.
Dr Mary Barson (24:57) Yeah, and let's talk about that. Let's talk about how you can help to build those habits and break those old habits, you know, at that brain level. What helps, especially if people have ADHD? Yeah. ADHD, it's associated with differences, like we mentioned, in executive functioning, planning, working memory, follow-through, impulse control. These are all things that we can struggle with, but these are things that all humans can struggle with. People with ADHD have got more difficulties with dopamine regulation, which affects the motivation and reward. So tasks that are delayed, that are effortful, that don't have an immediate reward can be harder to start and harder to sustain. And we could talk about ways to sort of troubleshoot that to support yourself. So you want to, remember we talked, it's all about making it easier and not working harder. So perhaps now we could talk about how we can make it easier rather than working harder.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:00) Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, I've got a great example of that, but how my old self had probably paired. So for me, you know, study and homework. You know, I'm obviously, you know, smart doctor, but I didn't love study. I certainly didn't love homework. And so I used to pair it with food. So that was how I'd talk myself into, you know, just logging out Year 12 four-hour study blocks. We're all done with a block of Caramello chocolate. And, you know, and again, so that's an example of pairing a low dopamine activity with a high dopamine activity. And that served me well in Year 12, but it didn't serve me as a 47-year-old woman who found housework extremely boring. You had to do it every day. And so I'd be constantly trying to, you know, jolly myself along by doing it with a snack. And so I had to come up with a different tool. So that tool, you know, it's not terrible. It's not up there with murdering people, but it's a tool that wasn't serving me in my current age. So coming up with different ways to make boring things less boring. And what I did then was I chunked it down. Is that a word?
Dr Mary Barson (27:15) Yes.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:16) Yeah. Instead of going, oh, my God, I've got to clean the whole house. This is a six-hour marathon. I just said, oh, well, I'm doing that. So I would just do one little thing.
Dr Mary Barson (27:24) Yeah, I love that.
Dr Lucy Burns (27:25) And then if I did that one little thing, yeah, sometimes the one little thing would be two or three little things, but it was never going, oh, my God, I've got to do this whole slog of a whole day of something so boring. I'd rather die.
Dr Mary Barson (27:36) That's it. It's like consistency beats intensity every time when we want to sort of build, we want to change our habits. Yeah. Making it tiny, chunking it down. Chunking it down, yes. Shrink the change. Yes. That works particularly well if we make, just reduce the friction. So, you know, we're not talking about building perfect habits. We want to build repeatable habits because that's what a habit is. It's not particularly helpful for your long-term health if you go for one 5K run once. But if you went on a 10-minute walk, jog, you know, every day or five times a week for a month or three times a week for a month, that would be extremely helpful to your future self. So you want to build something that's repeatable, not perfect. So, yeah, chunking it down and just doing one bit of housework means that in a month's time your house is less likely to be a complete dumpster fire than if you just clean it perfectly once and then are exhausted and just your brain never wants to do it again because it was so hard.
Dr Lucy Burns (28:42) Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so shrinking the change and then also pairing it potentially with something that is more pleasant. So, again, you know, the perfect person would say, oh, I go for a walk because, you know, it's mindful and I can see the birds and, you know, I've got the morning light, and I get that. You know, that's the perfectness. However, for lots of people that's too boring, and their brain goes, oh, I'm not doing that, it's so boring. I'd rather do something more exciting. So you can think, well, how can I make this slightly boring walk more exciting? And, again, it might be that you decide to listen to a podcast or listen to an audiobook or phone a friend while you're doing the walk, or you make your walk as part of, so that it's not just, oh, I've just gone for a walk, it's something more built in so that you're walking to something. You know, I'm going to walk to the school to get the kids if that's potentially possible.
Dr Mary Barson (29:36) Yeah, that's anchoring it, yeah. So you've talked about two little strategies there, which I've picked up. One is making the reward more immediate because everybody's brain is wired for immediate rewards. You know, going back to what you said before, Lucy, our brain's job is to keep us safe and make us feel better, and we equate the same thing. You feeling that lovely dopamine hit you got from the block of Caramello chocolate, the deeper sort of non-conscious parts of your brain interpret that as, oh, I'm safe. I can't be having a lovely dopamine hit if I'm not safe. So, you know, you feel good and you feel safe. So we look for those immediate rewards, and most people would struggle with delaying the immediate reward for the delayed gratification, but people with ADHD struggle even more, and it's not because we're lazy, useless adults. It is because it's the way that our brain is wired. So if you compare that habit with something enjoyable, then you're getting that reward immediately. It's unlikely that in the world of useful, helpful rewards that we can get as high a concentrated dopamine hit as a block of Caramello chocolate, unfortunately, but you can still get something that's enjoyable, like listening to music while you walk is enjoyable. You're still getting that reward. You can put yourself on a star chart. I quite like star charts and that, you know, every 30 stars I get, I could go get a massage. You could do that if you want. It requires a bit of planning and thought, but it can be helpful. And you also talked about anchoring. So if there's something new that you want to do, anchor it to a habit that already exists. If you are going to pick up your children every day from school no matter what because you have just got that commitment as a parent, yeah, can you walk there? Can you park two blocks away? Can you, you know, anchor it to something that's already happening?
Dr Lucy Burns (31:28) Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, again, the final little hack for that, I guess, with particularly anybody, but particularly ADHD brains, is, you know, another way to make it more enjoyable and to give yourself some accountability is to pair that activity with a friend. So your friend, you and your friend have agreed, so you've made a pre-commitment commitment, a pre-activity commitment, because you've agreed to meet your friend at, you know, 3 o'clock, and you're both going to walk 20 minutes down to the school. And, you know, again, people with ADHD can struggle a little bit with time blindness and suddenly trying to fit too many things in before a specific commitment. But you give, you know, you give yourself a little bit of a fudge factor in there, and you go, okay, yep, I'm meeting this person at 3 o'clock, and, you know, you'll probably turn up at 10 past 3, but that's okay.
Dr Mary Barson (32:22) If they're a real friend, they'll love you anyway.
Dr Lucy Burns (32:23) Yes. Yeah, so I love this. So, in fact, it's about five. There's sort of five things, really, isn't there, that we can do, which, if we summarise them, we want to make it obvious. So, you know, again, we've talked a lot about making things obvious as to what you want to do. You know, if you're wanting to drink more water, well, then put your water bottle out. If you're wanting to go for a walk, well, have your shoes already on. So make the thing that you're wanting to do obvious. We want to make the friction really small. So the idea is that it's not a giant thing that you're agreeing to with yourself, you're agreeing to a small thing, and then sometimes that small thing can be bigger but doesn't always have to be. But we do know that if you say to yourself, well, I'm going to run 10Ks, likelihood is that you won't. We want to anchor it to an existing habit structure or deadline that we already do. So that can be, again, my HRT, I link that to brushing my teeth because my brain goes, right, well, I brush my teeth every day. I put the HRT on every day. In fact, it's a win-win because the HRT takes about two minutes to dry, which means now I'm not brushing my teeth. I'm actually going to the end of the two-minute buzz because I've got nothing else to do. Well, I'm waiting for it to dry anyway. So anchored it to something else there. That's good. Yeah. Think about how can I make it more fun? How can I make the reward more exciting? And, you know, this is also why people buy activewear because all of a sudden it feels more fun to put on something that's nice and new and shiny if you're planning some exercise. Or, as I said, it could be that you listen to a podcast, listen to an audiobook, make the boring thing less boring. And then if you can do that with a friend and make a time commitment with somebody else, then you are more likely to follow through.
Dr Mary Barson (34:19) Yep. I pair it to television. You know, if I want to watch some television during the day, I'm like, all right, but you have to do a core workout.
Dr Lucy Burns (34:25) Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah. And lots of people have done that. Do that while I watch Netflix. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. People set up their exercise bike or their treadmill next to the TV. You know, it used to be that in the old days, when there were ads, people would get up in the ad break and go and, you know, get a load of washing, fold, or something. Of course, now there's no ad breaks anymore. It's all been tedious. But, you know, I guess what we're saying is that you don't need to try harder. You just need some systems or a framework. And, you know, My Metabolic Action Plan, that is exactly that. So for anybody who's looking for a framework, it doesn't have to be perfect, okay? We want to really emphasise that because we are not robots. We're never going to be perfect. There's always going to be times where you miss something, where you say you're going to do something, you don't do it. That doesn't matter in a single event. It's all about consistency as opposed to perfection.
Dr Mary Barson (35:26) And having that external structure can be extremely helpful, whether that's with a friend or, like, yeah, with a very easily structured program, My Metabolic Action Plan.
Dr Lucy Burns (35:37) Yep, absolutely. So My Metabolic Action Plan gives you the framework, systems, and resources to give you the right knowledge. Again, without the right knowledge, you're going in the wrong direction, but then give you the tools to help you implement so you can turn that knowledge into doing. And we use lots of reward-based prompts because we know that that's what brains love.
Dr Mary Barson (36:03) Yes, we bring that reward into the moment.
Dr Lucy Burns (36:09) Indeed. All right, lovely friends, have a fabulous week. Again, if you have ADHD, this is for you. If you've got a friend who has ADHD, then send them a link to this. Basically, we want people to get access to the right knowledge as well, so the more you share, the more people hear.
Dr Mary Barson (36:30) That's right. You don't need a new brain, you just need a better system.
Dr Lucy Burns (36:34) Indeed. Have a fabulous week. Talk to you all soon.
Dr Lucy Burns (36:37) Bye-bye.
Dr Lucy Burns (36:40) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
