Dr. Sasha Hamdani: Why Disciplined Women Fall Apart (It's Not Anxiety, It's ADHD)

I was diagnosed with ADHD at seven and spent the next twenty years on medication before taking myself off everything in 2021. For most of that time I thought ADHD just meant I couldn't focus. Nobody ever told me the part actually running my life was emotional regulation.

Dr. Sasha Hamdani is a psychiatrist and ADHD specialist who has ADHD herself. She explains why ADHD is a regulation disorder rather than an attention disorder, why the diagnostic criteria were built by studying hyperactive little boys and how that leaves women misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression, and what is happening in your amygdala when one small criticism floods you for hours. We get into rejection sensitivity, procrastination, perfectionism, sleep, caffeine and ADHD medication, and I share for the first time that my six-year-old son was just diagnosed.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Trailer/Intro
1:00 - Welcome to the Empower Podcast
1:45 - Diagnosed with ADHD at seven, Ritalin and an eating disorder
2:50 - What we miss when we call ADHD an attention problem
3:40 - Dr. Sasha Hamdani on ADHD as a regulation disorder
4:15 - Her own ADHD diagnosis and the "vitamin" her parents gave her
5:30 - Finding out at seventeen that it was ADHD medication
7:00 - Why ADHD medication alone doesn't treat ADHD
8:20 - Relearning how to sleep, eat and function with an ADHD brain
9:30 - Dopamine dysregulation in the ADHD brain explained simply
10:40 - Why the ADHD criteria were built on hyperactive little boys
11:10 - Why inattentive girls and daydreamers get missed
11:50 - Emotional regulation is the biggest piece of ADHD
13:00 - Emotional dysregulation, entrepreneurship and feeling like you're drowning
13:40 - Why ADHD in women gets misdiagnosed as anxiety or depression
14:50 - Lexapro, Wellbutrin and being medicated for the wrong thing
16:00 - Europe added emotional regulation to the ADHD criteria in 2019
19:50 - Why adult women are the hardest group to diagnose with ADHD
20:40 - What a proper ADHD assessment actually looks like
22:40 - The three types of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive, combined
23:20 - Compensatory behaviours and how to ask women the right questions
23:50 - Is ADHD over-diagnosed or under-diagnosed
24:40 - Advice for parents scared to get their child evaluated for ADHD
26:10 - Sharing my six-year-old son's ADHD diagnosis
27:20 - ADHD tools in the toolkit and matching the tool to the child
28:00 - The nighttime zoomies and channelling hyperactivity
29:40 - Emotional regulation tools and repairing after you snap
31:40 - How to talk to a partner or child in high emotional dysregulation
32:20 - Emotional sensitivity as a neurological phenomenon
38:20 - Why criticism and tone changes hit so hard: the amygdala
39:00 - The frontal lobe delay and realising two hours too late
40:00 - How to slow the amygdala down in real time
41:20 - Delaying your response and writing it down instead
44:50 - Fight, flight and freeze in conflict, and why you shut down
47:20 - ADHD procrastination and the emotion hiding underneath it
49:30 - Why tiny tasks feel impossible: novelty and urgency
52:00 - Perfectionism, fear of rejection and feeling paralysed
54:00 - Done is better than perfect
55:20 - Working out for your brain, not your appearance
57:30 - Food, the Mediterranean diet and net progress over rigidity
1:02:00 - Sleep, delayed melatonin onset and why it's non-negotiable with ADHD
1:03:50 - Sleep tracking and the hormonal overlay across your cycle
1:05:10 - The second wind and revenge bedtime procrastination
1:06:00 - Caffeine and ADHD: why it isn't a substitute for treatment
1:07:00 - Cutting caffeine for 12 weeks and what changed
1:07:40 - How to decide whether ADHD medication is right for you
1:10:30 - How to come off ADHD medication safely
1:11:30 - Creatine, supplements and brain health
1:12:40 - ADHD misinformation on social media and who to trust
1:14:50 - Dr. Hamdani's book Too Sensitive and the emotional sensitivity spectrum
1:18:00 - What empowerment means to Dr. Sasha Hamdani

Follow Dr. Sasha Hamdani:

Website: https://www.drhamdanimd.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepsychdoctormd

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thepsychdoctormd

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thepsychdoctormd
Book: Too Sensitive, available anywhere books are sold

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