Month: March 2023

Avoiding Mental and Emotional Burnout at Work with ADHD

Doctor burned out Feeling tired and unexcited about work these days? You may be stressed, or you could be suffering from burnout. But how can you tell these apart, and what will help you feel better? Understanding how stress and burnout relate can help you keep energized and centered for work, home, and relationships.

Persistent Stress Leads to Burnout

When people with and without ADHD are stressed, they wonder about finding some trick to figuring out how to get their lives under control. They experience physical symptoms and search for a magic solution to make it all disappear. Whether dealing with persistent work changes, constant demands, or all-consuming projects in the office or at home, you’re simultaneously juggling and solving various issues. Things can feel overwhelming.  Persistent stress can lead to burnout over time. It indicates that you are giving too much until there’s nothing left to give. Remember, stress and burnout are on two ends of the energy spectrum. Stress occurs when there are too many pressures on your mind and body: it’s a matter of too much.  Burnout reflects a deficiency, a feeling of not having enough. You lack energy or resources because you are depleted. Your fuel tank is empty. When people are burned out, they experience more emotional symptoms such as hopelessness, a lack of motivation, and exhaustion. You’ve been multitasking and overworking for too long, exhausting your brain and body, and you feel like nothing is left. The candle that you’ve been burning at both ends has no wax left.

The Key to Lowering Stress

Lowering stress and addressing burnout also require different interventions. The key to lowering stress is reducing your commitments and slowing down stimulation. For folks with ADHD, these options can be unappealing and boring. Who wants to limit fun activities or do only one thing at a time? Because the ADHD brain craves novelty and struggles with managing intense emotions, it can be especially tough for you to do the activities that will assist you in managing stress.

Pause and Give Yourself Time

Reducing overwhelm by pausing or giving yourself time before agreeing to do something, scheduling adequate downtime to integrate and process information or experiences, and doing more of what you enjoy will help you feel less stressed. Setting up routines for eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, cleaning laundry, and spending time with friends reduces the sense of drowning–an important aspect of stress. You want to aim to decrease the ‘too-muchness’ of your life. This is why picking ONE habit to change will launch you towards progressing instead of aiming for three or four.

Learn How to Set Limits

Recovering from burnout differs because the issues relate more to feeling empty, overburdened, or unsatisfied. Isolation, shame, and self-criticism are common denominators for folks who experience burnout. Burnout is often the result of an imbalance in the work-life ratio in your life, which can include the extracurricular activities/school life ratio of kids for parents. How can you set limits on these? Think about something that makes you happy (no matter how small) and bring that into your life. Active self-care and a healthy lifestyle are key to recovering from and preventing burnout. 

Tips to Reduce Mental & Emotional Burnout

Follow these tips to reduce mental and emotional burnout at work:

1. Reduce Isolation

Talk to caring friends, partners, relatives, or professionals. This is tough to do because you often lack energy for connections when burnt out. But you need support right now to pivot into self-care.

2. Incorporate Pleasure Into Daily Life

You need a reprieve from your routine. What can you do, outside of work, to fill your bucket? Something that you enjoy and can put into your routine. If you don’t like running, even though it’s good for you, then it’s not that. 

3. Look at Work Differently

Reducing burnout means setting limits on what you do, how much time you spend on it, and how often you think (or obsess) about it. Who can assist you with figuring out how to set limits and what to say? Can you make a friend or two at work to increase comradery and support? This can reduce the drudgery–monotony–of an unfulfilling job. 

4. Plan for a Break

Take a few days off or a longer vacation to recharge. If you have it, use your sick time. After all, you are sick and tired, right?! Perhaps shake things up and make a day trip or two if you can’t afford to go away. Separate yourself from your environment. 

5. Explore What Contentment Looks Like

Your personal standard for sanity and success is yours and can’t be based on someone else’s ideas to heal burnout. Reconsider your priorities; nurture a hobby; spend time outside; watch a favorite movie; hang out with caring friends. 

6. Follow a Healthy Lifestyle

Start to exercise daily. Any form of physical movement will increase the endorphins in your brain and improve your mood. In addition, get enough sleep. Set up a regular bedtime and use alarms so you follow them. Eat fewer refined foods, and saturated fats, avoid nicotine, and use alcohol or marijuana sparingly, if at all.   

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3 Essential Time Management Tips for Kids with ADHD

analog clock puzzle piece time management graphicOne of the most common concerns raised by parents of kids with ADHD is how to help them learn effective time management. It’s an essential skill all kids need to develop in preparation for independent living. Parents report being most frustrated by their child’s seeming inability to get to school on time or finish their homework before the very last minute. I assure you that kids with ADHD are also frustrated. But they often don’t feel time passing: this is called time blindness. Developing good time management skills is tougher for neurodivergent brains due to common issues with impulse control, distractibility, poor planning, and disorganization. It’s important to teach kids time management skills regardless of their age. With a lot of practice, they will get the hang of it. In addition to teaching about how time passes with backward design, finding effective motivators is an important puzzle piece. The right motivators are ones that are meaningful to your child and improve initiation and persistence. Let’s take a closer look.

Backward design: A strategy that works

father helping son with homeworkSince many kids with ADHD struggle to feel time as it passes, we have to assist them to see it move. Analog clocks show this to them. They also need to understand how long things take. The backward design shows kids how to start with the desired time goal and work backward, subtracting how long things actually take. If you have to leave the house for school by 8 AM and it takes 15 minutes to each breakfast, 20 minutes to get out of bed and dressed, 5 minutes to brush your teeth, and another 10 minutes to grab your backpack, lunch, boots, and coat, then the wake-up time should be 7 AM with an extra 10 minutes for unexpected stuff. When you lay out the backward design for your child, set up a list for the tasks.  Remind your child to check it instead of asking you for repeated guidance. This way, they learn sequencing, planning, organization, and time management skills.

Why parents should step back from managing their child’s time

teen boy sleepingAs long as you, the parent, are responsible for the youngster’s time management, they will not fully learn how to do this for themselves. Here’s a common scenario: Your son has difficulty getting up in the morning and getting to school on time. Because you don’t want him to be late, you serve as his alarm clock, coming into his room or yelling at him to get up. On particularly rough mornings, you pull him out of bed. You always have breakfast on the table to avoid delays and pack his lunch the night before. In this situation, your son has learned that you have taken on all the responsibility of his morning. He doesn’t need to set the alarm because you are always watching the clock; you will always ensure he gets up and has all sorted out food. Your son has no incentive to do things differently because he knows you’ll rescue him.

Shift responsibility for time management slowly

Although your intentions are good (you don’t want your son being tardy or hungry), he’s not practicing time management for himself. The time has come (pun intended) to shift some of that responsibility to him, but slowly. passing key from one hand to anotherStart with a conversation about what needs to change and why. Explain why it’s important that your son manages his morning more independently so he can accumulate the skills he wants and needs on his journey toward greater autonomy. Explore the various challenges together and then agree on one thing to change and work on that. Shifting too many things at once will only create frustration and confusion. Brainstorm how your child can empower himself to get up in the morning without your help. And then, provide the necessary means, be it one or two alarm clocks or an earlier bedtime. Discuss the natural consequences of his not getting up on time. He’ll be tardy. He’ll need to walk instead of getting a ride, etc. Be patient while he learns, and stay consistent. Once he masters the first skill, you can introduce another one. Slow and steady progress wins the race in learning to understand and manage time more effectively.

Use motivators that are meaningful 

I work with a lot of parents who say no matter how they try to motivate their children, nothing seems to work. Ingrid, the mother of a 14-year-old girl, told me, “She just doesn’t seem to care about the consequences. I can beg, plead, punish, or sweet-talk her. The result is always the same. I’m all out of ideas.” smiling mother and daughterEffective motivators for kids and teens are ones that are meaningful to them. Punishments rarely work because they don’t teach your child anything – it’s just an angry reaction. The carrot is much better than the stick for inspiring kids to do the right thing. Each child is different, so there’s no formula for how best to motivate them. Work collaboratively to identify what matters to them. Then use those activities or rewards to inspire them to make different choices. 

Motivators that work

Say your child’s favorite breakfast is Dad’s special pancakes with whipped cream. For each morning that your child comes down to breakfast by 7:30 AM, you’ll make the special pancakes and even offer extra whipped cream. You know that eggs on toast won’t do the trick, but the promise of extra whipped cream is worth coming to breakfast for. Of course, there’s no magic here, so work with what you have. Be prepared for your child’s motivators to change over time as they grow. Pancakes may work for a 12-year-old, but by age 16, the prospect of getting a driver’s license may be a far more meaningful enticement. smiling teen student holding notebooksInstilling effective time management skills is a labor of love, patience, and steadiness. Sometimes it’s easier to do the work on behalf of your child, but we parents know it’s better to do what’s right than what’s easy. It may take a while, but with support and practice, your child or teen with ADHD will develop these critical tools along the way.  

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Please become a member of my newsletter community. You can find support and resources and connect with a group that understands your questions and needs. Click here  Follow me on social media: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Invite Me to Speak | Join A Group | Newsletter | Read my blog