Dr. Tracey Marks
Appearances
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And I would suggest, you know, trying that during lunch, a lunch break. It could just take five minutes to kind of from head to toe, contract, relax. And then that will help reset your muscles so that at the end of the day, you didn't spend eight hours all contracted.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's a perfect example, which is pretty typical that people with anxiety can be very sensitive to body sensations. And those body sensations then trip off. anxiety in their head. So sometimes, especially if they don't associate it with anxiety.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So for example, someone who let's say has panic attacks and they know that their panic attacks are classically their heart beating and or heart racing and and trouble breathing maybe, and then maybe they can then do things to slow their breaths. But sometimes it's not always obvious what the anxiety or the physical sign is.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So he's describing this sensation in his head that he's calling nausea, and maybe it feels like maybe it's some kind of nausea thing, it could just be this kind of dissociative experience of just kind of losing track with his environment and things that can happen with people and freak them out. Really?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Really? Yes. So... Dissociative experiences, you can lose touch with your environment or lose touch with even or an alteration in your experience, even with yourself. So someone can say, look in the mirror and just be like, I don't look like myself. And then they can just think, what is wrong with me? And not recognize that as, say, a symptom of anxiety, just let's say.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So, yeah, he's calling it nausea. And maybe he might feel some nausea, but it's probably more of a depersonalization or derealization experience that he's having, which can accompany anxiety or be an anxiety symptom. Wow.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Do you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Okay. because you cannot stop the initial response. What you can stop is the propagation of the response that then turns into freezing or lots of rumination in your head and worst case scenarios and all of that. That's where it just continues from the original thing that started it. So there's this intervention called interoceptive exposure. I talk about it in my book.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Right. So interoceptive exposure really is what it is at a high level is trying to get you to disconnect the physical sensations from it being anxiety-provoking. Because people can get to just where you are of fearing the anxiety because, let's say, they feel a little churn in their stomach, and, uh-oh, I'm going to, like, this is going to turn into a mess for the next hour or so.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Or I might have a panic attack or something. So you fear the reaction to the physical sensation. So with interoceptive exposure, you want to identify what are some of those sensations that trigger these responses. And then you want to intentionally, in a calm situation, expose yourself to those situations.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So let's just say if you notice that your heart, when your heart races, or if you feel your heart beat, that that's going to make you worry that, uh-oh, you're getting ready to have a panic attack. Yeah. you could do something to intentionally increase your heart rate. Oh my God, but wouldn't that make you have a panic attack? You'll be surprised.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
When you don't have a panic attack, because you probably won't because of the situation, so do a couple of jumping jacks, your heart's beating faster now, but you're in a safe situation, and you can get the reinforcement that just because my heart races or gets faster doesn't mean I'm going to have full-blown panic or that it's going to explode into... uncontrollable anxiety.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So you're exposing yourself to these physical sensations in a safe environment and you're intentionally doing it. And then you're getting the reinforcement that, okay, I can handle this.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
What does that do? So spinning in the chair activates your vestibular system or your balance in your ears. And it can trigger that same sensation of feeling the weirdness in your head or like you're dizzy. Because dizziness, sometimes people, if they feel lightheaded, will be, you know, like, what's wrong with me?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And that, they become fearful of being lightheaded because, and then that makes them anxious. Yes. So intentionally make yourself lightheaded or have a spinning sensation to, again, reinforce the idea that It's not dangerous. You can handle this. You can manage it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's right. So when you get anxious, you get slowed digestion. So you get less movement of your gut. And so, yeah, that's how you can get a stomach ache from eating when you're anxious or even completely lose your appetite to eat when you're anxious. But anyway, the pit in the stomach, yeah, it's related to gastrointestinal slowing and changes because of the increased fat.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
cortisol and stress hormones. So what can you do about that? Well, the first step is what you've already said is recognizing that that's part of how you are manifesting anxiety and then address the anxiety with the tools that work for you. Not everything works for everyone. An example of something could be breath work.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
changing your breathing pattern just to do a reset to then relieve some of the anxieties. Because that's what we're trying to do here. We're saying, I got this pit in my stomach. I'm probably anxious or tense about walking in. Because you might not always be conscious or consciously aware that I'm anxious walking into work. It's more like I'm doing this thing. Oh, here's the pit.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
okay, I hate my life, dah, dah, dah, and you just kind of keep working. Yes. But if you can separate out, okay, I've got this pit in my stomach, it's anxiety, I am going to do something to calm myself.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So we have two competing systems. We have the amygdala, which is a... structure in your brain that is responsible for threat detection. So it detects threats and it prepares your body to be able to either fight or flee. So by increasing the sympathetic response in your body so that you get increases in epinephrine and things to stimulate you to be able to defend yourself.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Once that threat is passed, then the parasympathetic system kicks in to calm things down. So it's like pressing on the brakes. So the sympathetic system turns up the gas and the parasympathetic turns on the brakes to slow things back down to just kind of a normal resting state. Got it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And you can't always, the person can't always control the stepping on the gas. Okay. So you can step on the gas and accelerate, but then you can come back. once you recognize that that's what's happening. So the key here is understanding how your brain works so that then you can make your own interventions on that. I just had a huge breakthrough in listening to you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Where the heck have you been for crying out loud? And, you know, and that's transformative. You got to change the focus from trying to prevent the reaction to controlling the reaction and modifying the reaction so that it's not as damaging or it doesn't cause problems for you. That's what we're focusing on.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Absolutely. And that takes the pressure off you to feel like you've got to do the right thing to get yourself not to be anxious.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
,,,,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,, It's to stimulate their vocal cords. Breathing is something you can do if you're walking into a networking meeting because it's something you can do privately. And so it's not just, oh, just breathe. There's certain types of breathing patterns that you can employ that are calming.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Two classic ones are the box breathing, where you inhale for four seconds or a count of four. You hold it for four. then you exhale for four, and then you hold that for four. Now, some people don't like that, aren't able to do it as well. I know sometimes it could trigger hyperventilation for me because I can feel like I'm not breathing. So there's other types of breathing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I'll give you two more. One is a four, seven, eight breathing pattern. So you inhale for four, hold for seven seconds, and then exhale for eight. And that longer exhale really is stimulating for your vagus nerve.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yeah, and if you're not into the counting, just breathing in deeply, slowly, and exhaling slowly. Even that is helpful because, again, when you're tense, you're breathing fast and shallow.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Okay, so I'm going to talk about the tools and then there's lifestyle stuff. Oh, okay. Okay. So the tools are things that are kind of like based on cognitive behavior therapy that could help you manage your anxiety. Mind tools, that's just kind of how I broke these things up. But the mind tools are things like grounding therapy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
A simple one is, you know, counting or looking in a room and picking out a color and naming all of the things in the room with that color. What does that do? That takes you out of the moment of what about this and what about that and brings you into the present moment of experiencing the colors in the room. Excellent. What's a behavioral tool that you could use?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
A behavioral tool would be something like coloring. Now, that's not something that you would do at the networking meeting. Depends how boring it is. Yeah, exactly. But that would be something that you would do on your own to help bring down the level of tension and anxiety in general. Got it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So another behavioral tool would be like the interoceptive exposure that I talked about or any kind of exposure. So let's say that if you know that you have got to attend networking meetings, but they make you want to throw up every time you get ready to walk in the door, you can create a list of little steps that can get you to being able to go into a networking meeting and feel comfortable.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So it starts with showing up at the place. Then it could be being able to walk into a room and you don't have to say anything, just be able to walk into the room and manage that level of anxiety. Then the next step could be actually being able to walk into the room and go talk to one person So on and so forth.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You kind of build out this gradual exposure to the thing that makes you anxious, which ultimately would be walking around from person to person and talking about stuff spontaneously. So get good at the first steps of just being able to walk into the room and you just gradually build your confidence.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And you desensitize yourself to these threatening things that then they become less threatening for you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's a fair way to say it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So this is where the exposure really reinforces that you do have the capacity to handle it. And when you take that away, that reinforcement away by avoiding it, then you can't remember that you can actually do this. And so again, going back to exposing yourself, you're not just trying to jump right in and say, okay, I'm going to go to this place.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And let's say you fear throwing up in a public place. I'm just going to just jump in and hope for the best. Instead, you take little steps toward getting to that ultimate place. I mentioned the lifestyle stuff as well. Oh, please, yes. Because one of the biggest ways we can change how we manage anxiety or how it manages us is our lifestyle choices. Those things really do matter.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And probably the biggest ones, sleep, diet, and exercise. And every time I talk about these things, I always kind of feel like I have to brace myself for the person saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. But really, it really does matter. Why? Because all these little habits... rewire our brain in either a negative way or a positive way.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So just taking diet, diet with high sugar content, which I'm guilty of, heavily processed foods creates inflammation in your body. It changes the constitution of your gut bacteria. and inflammation and things send negative signals to the brain that then make it harder to manage anxiety.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And you know how? No. It increases anxiety because those behaviors send signals to the brain. They actually change the way your genes express themselves. It's called epigenetics. It's kind of a new topic. And so it can make anxiety worse if it affects the genes that express cortisol production by making it overactive or underactive. So...
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Wonderful. That was the intent is to give people a resource. I mean, it kind of reads like an encyclopedia a little bit. Well, you're very smart. So yes, it does.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I think that, you know, for years, we've known that these things are helpful, but didn't really understand how they're helpful. And these behaviors really do make a difference. Sleep, if you go without sleep, sleep deprivation makes anxiety worse at baseline. So it's more than just... Why does it make it worse if you don't get enough sleep? There's a lot that goes on during sleep.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And so just like we have to plug in our phones in order for it to work, Our brains and body need a rest because when we're sleeping, there's lots of generative functions and things that happen. And when we don't have enough time for our body to kind of take what we learn during the day, file it away, then you end up with just too much.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You'd end up with the information overload and having trouble processing it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Exercise.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Exercise, it's probably better to think of it as how exercise reduces anxiety. Okay. So exercise increases brain-derived neurotropic factor, BDNF, which is a protein that is responsible for regenerating nerves, repairing bad nerve connections. It's the very thing we want. to be thriving and it's like fertilizer for the brain.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So exercise increases the amount of BDNF we have to then be able to rewire, to allow the good habits that we develop to make a difference in our brains. If you don't have that, then you're just kind of left with your baseline of what you're stuck with. So it's more about enhancement than it is about fixing. Got it. This makes so much sense. It all makes sense.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
If you just understand, if you just understand how your brain works, then you can build a system around yourself to overcome these challenges and turn them into strengths. Wow.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So yeah, they're very interconnected, kind of a bi-directional relationship, meaning one can affect the other. So absolutely, ADHD can cause what we would consider like a secondary anxiety. So it kind of derives from ADHD. And if you think about it, just the sheer disorganization of thought can make you feel out of control.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Sure. I think the biggest thing that someone can take away if they listen and understand what we're talking about today is the fact that your brain is changeable. And regardless of what condition you may have, you can improve the quality of your life with simple behaviors and habits. You have control over this and you have agency over your mental health.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And therefore then create anxiety about your ability to just even like hold it together, to be able to perform, be productive, all of these things.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
It is.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yeah. Really, the lack of control over your own thoughts and behaviors. Mm-hmm. So another thing that's kind of key with ADHD, though, is so you've got the standard inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Okay. That kind of classically defines ADHD. But then you've got the executive dysfunction. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Executive functions are things like time management, organization, working memory, the ability to keep things top of mind for easy retrieval later.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I'm not telling. So those activities or those abilities are controlled by the prefrontal cortex, front part of the brain. With people with ADHD who have low levels of dopamine in that area, they have less ability to control those functions. So emotion regulation is an executive function. It is? It is. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So if you've got something that would ordinarily cause some level of anxiety, it can escalate in the person with ADHD because they have less ability to rein it in.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yeah. So one more thing about the relationship. With ADHD, because the prefrontal cortex, yes, being the brain's CEO and the conductor itself, It will manage the amygdala, which is our fear center. If it is compromised, like with ADHD, it won't be able to manage the amygdala as well.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So the amygdala can hijack its control and then turn everything into something to be afraid of and convince you that you have got to worry about the worst case scenario.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I just want to say, I do think that there's a misconception, though, that more people have ADHD these days. And that everybody's got it or that it's overdiagnosed. I think what's happening is that there's more education about it and a more appreciation for it and therefore a greater detection of it. Even when I was in residency 25 years ago, adult ADHD was just kind of quarantined.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Quasi-appreciated. In fact, it was kind of seen as something that's not real. It's a disorder in children. So over time, we've come to recognize adult ADHD as its own entity that is real. It's not just adults seeking performance enhancement.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That said, I think there's societal factors that affect people being diagnosed with it. It's just hyperactivity could be bad behavior, resistance to even seeing something mental as something that needs attention. But I'm just saying all that to say, I think we've evolved when it comes to seeing mental health as a real thing to pay attention to and prioritize, but it's been a long haul that way.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And there's still a lot of remnant bias against it. It's easy to just kind of write it off as, well, you know, these are just quirks or something about them.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So I will say it really is on a spectrum because, again, I'll use myself as an example. Have you been diagnosed with it? I was treated as a child, more for hyperactivity though. But yeah, I was treated as a child for ADHD. And as an adult, I still have trouble owning it because I feel like of all the people I've treated, and I look at my son and my husband, I'm like, I'm not like them.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So I can't really have this. What? What?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I still have trouble accepting that. Well, I don't, I just think I'm one of those adults who's grown out of it, but I know that I haven't. And the reason is because- I still, I reckon what it is, is I recognize what my weaknesses are. So I'm a slow reader. So I could not have a job where I had to like put down a book every week that I just wouldn't work in that kind of situation.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So, um, and I have trouble set shifting. What's that? So it's going from one task where you're into it and then you got to stop and go do something else.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's right. So someone who doesn't have trouble with that can like work and then, oh, there's a meeting. Okay, I'll stop, pick up, go to this meeting. Okay, that meeting's over. Okay, go back and jump right back in. No. So I will have like, I don't see patients on Fridays and that's days that I kind of do business related things.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's what exactly what happens. So if I've got to take my mom to a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day, I know that that day is going to be completely wasted for me. And other people will say, well, you had two hours before the appointment and two hours after. So what's the problem? That interruption will just ruin my whole day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
No way. And so someone with ADHD, one misconception is you can't focus at all. And it's not only about focusing because people with ADHD can hyper-focus on things that they're interested in. It's a stimulation issue. What does that mean? That means that the ADHD brain... needs stimulation to stay engaged in something. So it has to be something that commands your attention and keeps your attention.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And as soon as there's boredom involved, then you're gone.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So anxiety, there's been a huge uptick in anxiety. I mean, anxiety, first of all, it's a very big topic because there's lots of different types of anxiety. Probably the most common ones are social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. But that said... It all started with a pandemic. So the World Health Organization reported a 25% increase in anxiety globally, starting with the pandemic.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's where the dopamine comes in and the whole reward circuit. So because of the lower levels of dopamine, then you can struggle on staying engaged and paying attention to things that don't interest you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Absolutely. And, you know, the thing you were talking about with the leaving stuff in the middle of the floor and making it look like they're just a jerk, they don't care, is why people with ADHD can have relationship problems, a lot of relationship problems, because the non-ADHD person can feel like the person doesn't care. It's like... You don't see this tennis shoe in the middle of the floor.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You just stepped over it. How did you miss? How are you missing that? Do you not care about our house looking good? But it's not that they don't care. It's just not on their radar.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Well, the thing is, it would be great if you could control what gets your attention enough to be able to stay engaged, but you can't always do that. Now, you could exploit that if you knew, if you're self-aware enough to know that these are the things that I know I can lock into, and these are the things that are not.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So I'm going to try and minimize how much of those things that I have to do or get help with those or whatever. Got it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yes. So body picking, the technical term is body focused repetitive behaviors. And it really is its own disorder that mainly is skin picking and hair pulling. And those things can become really problematic for people.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Well, so for the compulsive disorder of the body-focused repetitive disorders, people can actually pull it out from the root. Ouch. And part of the, like, pleasure of it is actually that pulling it out from the roots. Oh, my gosh. It's not really splitting. Okay. But for people, so there's that. Right. That's compulsive disorder.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
But kind of a lower level of that is general body behaviors that can also include nail biting and cuticle biting, biting the inside of your cheek. Right.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And sadly, it's still continuing to rise. It's not like it got better after things settled down. We're still having increases in incidence of anxiety. Now, why do you think that is? I think it has to do with our digital world this day where we're always on 24-hour news cycles, social media with constant comparisons and access to bad news at any time of day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
It can be. Really? So people with anxiety can do it to relieve tension and be self-soothing. People with ADHD can do it for stimulation.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Because the ADHD brain needs stimulation, and this provides sensory input for the brain. So you could have someone who's, say, studying or watching television, and they may kind of enjoy what they're watching, maybe, maybe not. but they can kind of get into this trance state of just kind of pulling, picking, or whatever that's stimulating their brain and keeping it active.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So first of all, there's just even recognizing the habit because some people can do it and not even really being aware that they're doing it. And then when you add on the time blindness or time expansion that you mentioned. Oh, with ADHD. With ADHD, you can think you're just doing it for a minute and it was really 45 minutes that you were doing that thing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And now you've got sores or you've got bald spots. Right. So first, there's just the awareness of it, of what it is you're doing, and then being aware of any triggers that make you do it or that make it worse. It can be anxiety can make it worse. Boredom can make it worse.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Then putting other things in place, we call it habit reversal, putting other habits in place to replace these more destructive habits. Someone who picks their nails or bites their cuticles could either put on gloves. Let's say you notice that you do this while you're watching television a lot. You can put on gloves while you're watching television.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You don't need to walk around for your whole life with gloves, but just during these times.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
it breaks the cycle. Because if you go back to the idea of this being like a semi-automatic thing that you engage in, it helps break that semi-automatic thing so that you have more intentional behaviors. So while I'm watching television, instead of me biting my cuticles or picking my nails, I'm doing this other thing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
All right, so yes, he spoke to exactly what we were just talking about, the unconscious nature, not unconscious in the sense that you're not awake, you're not aware. So it's beyond your awareness that you're doing this soothing thing. So there's nothing inherently wrong with doing things that are self-soothing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
It becomes an issue when it either causes problems for you for some reason, like you're pulling out your hair or, you know, destroying your upper lip or bottom lip because you're biting, or it's socially unacceptable. So yeah, he can't go places doing this when he starts to get anxious. So it's about finding other self-soothing things. Either, so twofold.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
One is reducing the, finding things that reduces anxiety. And that could be, you know, the breathing or something vagal.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And also, our brains can be overloaded with information that then can create anxiety. So we have information overload, lots of hard working. I mean, there's just lots of societal factors.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Absolutely. Because the biggest step here is the awareness part. Yes. Because, yeah, a lot of times these things just happen automatically. You're not even aware that you're doing it or you're not aware that you're doing it for as long as you're doing it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yes. So if it's really severe, I think they should seek professional help from like a therapist to help them develop some kind of like habit reversal therapy to get them to be able to not be able to do this. Sometimes medication is what someone needs to reduce their anxiety. especially if they're engaging in a way that's really destructive.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Yeah, so a tic is an involuntary, usually sudden, rapid behavior that can either be motor or vocal. It can be its own thing. So something like Tourette's syndrome involves tics, but not all tics are Tourette's syndrome. Motor tics would be things like grimacing or blinking your eyes Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's absolutely right. So just as our brains can change in a negative way, our brains can change in a positive way. And we have the ability to make those changes ourselves.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Sure. So I always kind of give, when I'm talking to people or talking to patients, the caveat that anxiety is one of those things that waxes and wanes over time. It's like a wave. So you can have periods of your life where it's more manageable, and then periods of your life where it becomes unmanageable because of stressors.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And so it is important to realize that this isn't something where the end point should be, I want to be cured and be anxiety-free. I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that, Dr. Mark. Get rid of it. It's just not realistic, number one. And some amount of anxiety is advantageous.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You know, if you get anxious about some kind of upcoming presentation that you need to make, it may make you plan more. So some amount of anxiety drives us to be better. But nonetheless, when it gets overwhelming for you, that's when problems set in and it can impair your functioning. And that's the level at which we want to look at making changes. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I am feeling anxious. Why are you? What does that mean? For me, because it's probably a performance anxiety and I have to check myself because my natural tendency is to just kind of want to unload all this information and not keep it I have to work to make information accessible to people and not go down rabbit holes and things like that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Or I get, I overthink making sure I don't say the wrong thing and all of that. So that's where I am.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's right. Yeah. So it kind of, this ties into your question about what really is anxiety. And it's a full body experience. It's not just in your head and it's not just in your body, it's both. So for me, going back to your question, my mouth gets dry, which then my lips could stick if I'm like trying to smile and I'm like, am I looking ridiculous?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So, and then I get in my head about how do I look, how do I sound and all of that. So that's kind of how I experience anxiety. worrying about what the other person's thinking. But so going back to the usual experience of anxiety, which I shouldn't even say usual, it's an individual experience.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So you can have the head symptoms would be like worrying in your head, fear, over-concern about what people are thinking, like I was just talking about. Yeah. In your body, we get a sympathetic response, which historically or biologically was designed to give us the ability to fight or flee some perceived threats. But that response turns on even for threats that are real or imagined.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So if I'm imagining that I'm gonna look ridiculous because of something I say, then I can start having my heart racing I can start feeling other gastrointestinal things. Some people can feel like they're going to have the runs and, uh-oh, what's that going to mean?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
You can have the sense of just tension in your body and not even realize that you're tensing your shoulders and things and then get to the end of the day and you're exhausted. And you're like, all I did was sit all day. Why am I tired? because you can get a lot of muscle tension. So those are some of the physical signs.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
So if you're anxious, one sign of that or one symptom of that is tensing muscles. And a lot of times we can tense our muscles without even being aware. So you sit at a desk, your neck muscles are tight, your shoulder muscles are tight.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
That's probably not bad posture, but anxiety? Yes, because if you're stressed out, then your muscles tense, okay? And then you can carry that posture for hours and your muscles are working. When they tense, they're working. So at the end of the day, your muscles have been working harder than you're aware that they're working because you were just sitting all day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
Correct. The beauty of this is that if you are aware and understand that this is one of your responses, then you can offset it with things. What do I do? What do I do, Dr. Marks? So I had a morning where I woke up and I could barely lift my head off the bed. And I thought, oh my goodness, am I paralyzed? The downside of being a doctor, thinking about all kinds of things.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
But anyway, and all it was, was that I had kind of a stressful week and I had been sitting at my computer hunched over using my mouse and the shoulder up. And I didn't realize that that was what I was doing, that I use my mouse with my shoulder up like this. And so my neck was almost like I could just, again, barely lift my head off the bed. So what do I do to offset that now?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
I do what's called progressive muscle relaxation. Well, first of all, I try to be aware of how I'm sitting in my chair, but even I can't, that's not perfect. So progressive muscle relaxation is one of those body tools where you start from either the head or the foot And you take muscle groups and you contract them and then relax them.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Truth About Anxiety & ADHD: Life-Changing Tools From a Renowned Psychiatrist
And what that does is it makes you aware of what muscles were actually tense. So you could be, you know, you could contract your shoulders and then relax them and realize, wow, okay, I didn't realize I was kind of sitting like this all day long. Yeah. But that helps create a relaxation state in your body. It helps kind of release that muscle tension.