The Brain That Changes Every Month with Dr. Jolene Brighten

Hey Team!

This week I'm talking with Dr. Jolene Brighten, a naturopathic doctor, women's health educator, and author whose work focuses on hormones, reproductive health, and the ways hormonal changes can affect women across their lifespan. She's the author of Beyond the Pill and Is This Normal?, and her newest work, ADHD and Women, coming out October 6th, explores the intersection of hormones and ADHD in women.

I know hormones and ADHD is a topic we've explored before, but Dr. Brighten was a delight to have on the show, and this conversation went in all kinds of directions. So yes, we talked about how hormonal shifts across your life affect ADHD symptoms, why medication can sometimes feel less effective at different points, and some of the ways those changes may show up differently for women with ADHD.

But we also got into the much more practical question of what you actually do when you know your brain isn't going to perform exactly the same way every day, like externalizing executive function instead of trying to remember harder, building small pleasures into the day, and recognizing that sometimes the best intervention isn't the full protocol, it's finding the smallest lever you can actually pull.

Dr. Brighten's Book ADHD & Women: https://drbrighten.com/adhd-and-women/

Dr. Brighten's Website: https://drbrighten.com

Dr. Brighten's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjolenebrighten

Dr. Brighten's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrJoleneBrighten

Dr. Brighten's Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drjolenebrighten

Dr. Brighten's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drbrighten/

If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/314

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD

This Episode's Top Tips

1. 1. With ADHD it's often said that we know what to do, but have trouble executing on those ideas. For something like exercise, the best idea is then to work towards making it accessible. Instead of focusing on getting the biggest result, we can look toward what we actually enjoy doing and can sustain, even if for just a little bit, we're going to see far more consistent results.
   2. It's important to remember that everything has a cost, even if we're not noticing it at the moment. These costs can compound when we're not paying attention and lead us to wonder why doing just one simple task can leave us exhausted. This doesn't mean that we necessarily need to be doing less, but it does mean we need to pay extra attention to what something is actually going to cost us.
   3. Our brains are not meant to be at peak productivity all month, and that applies doubly if you experience a cycle. As Dr. Brighten says, "that is [just] how you are physiologically designed." This means that it's important that we're giving ourselves grace and letting ourselves block out time on the calendar for when we're not going to be at our peak (and again, we do not need to be at our peak all the time, or even most of the time; it's called the peak for a reason).