One of the most insidious challenges of managing ADHD is to remember to do it.
Thanks, ADHD đ
We're great at coming up with strategies. We suck at remembering to use them.
How do we make ADHD easier?
Metaphorically speaking, what's the music of your mind? Your heart? Your body? Your environments? Your relationships?
How can you keep it simple?
Leverage the best parts of your existing mental & emotional rhythms & patterns.
This is what works for me:
For more than a decade, I was completely immersed in Swing Dancing. It was a MAJOR hyperfixation, and has become one of the primary lenses through which I see and experience life â including my ADHD.
The five basic principles of learning dance align SO perfectly with effective ADHD support & treatment:
Body. Energy. Action. Time. Space.
BEATS. Iâve translated this to a broader mental model for how I think about ADHD support:
Body (Sensory), Basic Needs, Beliefs, Boundaries, Balance
Energy & Emotions
Action (Movement), Activation Energy, Awareness
Time, Transitions, & Tolerations (Rhythm, Cadence, Pacing, etc)
Space (Environment), Support, Silliness, Successes
These ADHD BEATSâ˘ď¸ become my memory, emotional, & sensory buckets that I can leverage for reliable mental connections, when I need to recall something. The more I use it, the better it gets.
It's a sort of spring board that reminds me of so many other effective things I can do to manage in a given situation.
How do you make ADHD easy?
Drop me a comment, and let me know!