You're understanding your ADHD. But what happens when you’re ready to actually live differently?

Join me live in Manchester this December for The Next Chapter — an immersive event for women ready to move beyond understanding their ADHD and explore what comes next with more confidence, self-compassion and permission to be themselves.

All surrounded by like-minded neurodivergent women who truly get it. Ready for your next chapter? Find out more: Book your place here⁠.

________________________________________

For decades, ADHD research focused overwhelmingly on hyperactive boys while girls and women with ADHD were missed, misdiagnosed or told they were anxious or depressed. ADHD expert, Dr Kathleen Nadeau has spent more than 40 years helping to change our understanding of ADHD in women.

On this week’s episode of The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, I’m joined by internationally recognised clinical psychologist, author and ADHD pioneer Kathleen G. Nadeau, PhD.

Kathleen has written or co-authored 18 books on ADHD and was awarded the CHADD Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025. Her ground breaking work has helped bring ADHD in girls, women and older adults into a conversation that once centred almost entirely on hyperactive young boys.

And having ADHD herself, alongside decades of clinical experience and generations of ADHD within her own family, Kathleen brings a perspective that goes far beyond diagnostic criteria.

We talk about what ADHD looked like when Kathleen entered the field in the 1970s, why so many intelligent girls and women were missed and what happens when a woman spends her life believing she simply needs to try harder.

We also get into hormones, perimenopause and postpartum mental health, the physical conditions increasingly being seen alongside ADHD and why our healthcare systems still struggle when women’s physical and mental health needs intersect.

But this isn’t only a conversation about what has gone wrong.

Kathleen talks beautifully about finding the environment in which your ADHD brain can thrive, the healing that can come with a later-life diagnosis and why women need connection with other women who finally understand.

You do not have to spend the rest of your life trying to make yourself fit the wrong environment.

Sometimes, you need to plant yourself in a different garden.

________________________________________

In this episode, we cover:

• How our understanding of ADHD has changed since Kathleen began working in the field in the late 1970s

• Why ADHD was once seen almost entirely as a condition affecting hyperactive young boys

• The moment Kathleen began recognising ADHD in parents, adults and within her own family

• Why bright, high-achieving children can have ADHD even when they're doing exceptionally well academically

• Looking beyond traditional ADHD diagnostic criteria to understand the wider experience

• How girls and women with ADHD were overlooked and the work that began changing that

• Rejection sensitivity, feeling different and the impact of growing up without an explanation for your ADHD

• Why ADHD can be both challenging and a source of curiosity, connection and different ways of thinking

• Whether our schools and workplaces are asking ADHD brains to function in environments that don't suit them

• ADHD hormones, puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause and why the research is still catching up

• Why women's ADHD symptoms have so often been misdiagnosed as anxiety or depression

• What happens when psychiatry, women's health and other areas of medicine operate in separate silos

• The physical conditions and health difficulties increasingly being seen alongside ADHD

• Why connection with other ADHD women can be such an important part of healing

• Receiving an ADHD diagnosis in your 60s, 70s or later, and navigating grief for the life you might have lived

• Why a late diagnosis can offer more healing than regret

• Kathleen's “right garden” approach and finding the environments, relationships and work where you can thrive

• High-achieving ADHD women who hold everything together at work before collapsing behind closed doors

• The invisible expectations still placed on women to manage families, homes, relationships and emotional labour

• Why ADHD treatment needs to go beyond medication, coaching or therapy in isolation

• Learning to care for yourself, follow your heart and stop measuring yourself by how well you meet everyone else's needs

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Dr Kathleen Nadeau

02:25 - Kathleen's personal ADHD “learning lab”

04:00 - Working with ADHD since the late 1970s

06:00 - How ADHD diagnosis and treatment looked in the early days

07:00 - Realising adults didn't simply grow out of ADHD

09:30 - Writing some of the earliest books about ADHD

11:20 - Who was being missed?

12:00 - Gifted children, hidden ADHD and looking beyond school performance

13:00 - Looking beyond the diagnostic criteria

15:00 - What the early ADHD criteria left out

16:00 - Rejection sensitivity and why girls changed the conversation

17:00 - Kathleen's pioneering work on ADHD in women and girls

18:00 - What decades of following ADHD families can teach us

20:00 - ADHD as a type of brain, not simply a disorder

21:00 - Curiosity, connection and the strengths within an ADHD brain

23:00 - Do our education systems actually suit ADHD brains?

25:00 - Different ways of learning

26:00 - ADHD, hormones and the stages of a woman's life

27:00 - Why women were excluded from so much medical research

30:00 - The resistance to recognising hormones as part of the ADHD conversation

32:00 - Postpartum mental health and the research still desperately needed

35:00 - Why women's healthcare needs a more integrated approach

37:00 - ADHD and associated physical health conditions

39:00 - Why ADHD women connect so powerfully with each other

40:00 - Groups, validation and finally feeling like you fit in

42:00 - Late diagnosis, grief and understanding a lifetime through a new lens

44:00 - Planting yourself in the right garden

46:00 - Kathleen's next chapter and the Institute for Lifespan ADHD Training

47:00 - Why ADHD treatment needs a more integrated approach

49:00 - Giving yourself permission to do life differently

50:00 - High-achieving ADHD women and what happens behind closed doors

52:00 - The expectations still placed on women to hold everything together

53:30 - The ILAT Global Summit and training professionals to better support ADHD

56:30 - Kathleen's advice for women diagnosed later in life

Articles Mentioned:

www.additudemag.com/lindsay-clancy-postpartum-adhd/

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website here.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) here
• Join the More Yourself membership community here
• Learn more about Kathleen and the Institute for Lifespan ADHD Training at ilat.org
• Visit Kathleen's website at drkathleennadeau.com
• Connect with Kathleen on LinkedIn
• Find out more and register for the ILAT Global Summit (online) at ilatglobal.org

⭐ADHD Women's Wellbeing listeners can use the code ILAT50 at checkout to save $50 on online summit registration.

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing author, coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see we're planning and get involved!

Today's Podcast:

One statistic changed everything for Amanda Perry. More than half of neurodivergent entrepreneurs say they only started a business because the workplace couldn’t support them.

Not a dream. A necessity.

This week’s More Yourself episode comes from my first-ever live podcast recording, with Amanda Perry, founder of Brain First and author of Brain First Business: The ADHD Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success.

Amanda has spent 18 years building businesses, 13 of them undiagnosed. Burnout after burnout. Bankruptcy. A marketing agency that grew from five people to 40 in three months. After her ADHD diagnosis at 42, she sold it and started again, this time brain first.

Champagne dreams and lemonade energy. The fear of burning out again. God mode and the crash that follows. And why so many of us end up building a prison instead of a business.

Recorded live, with your questions answered in real time.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at http://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why so many neurodivergent entrepreneurs start businesses out of necessity, not desire
• Amanda’s 13 undiagnosed years in business: burnout, bankruptcy and chasing the LinkedIn version of success
• What rich really means, and giving yourself permission to define success on your own terms
• How Amanda built a prison instead of a business twice, and what she’s doing differently now
• Why delegation feels so hard with ADHD, and the shift from VAs to an inverted Christmas tree structure
• FOBO, the fear of burning out, and why shrinking your life isn’t the same as healing
• God mode, hyperfocus and spotting the first sign of burnout
• Interruptions, motherhood and protecting your focus when you work from home
• Brain First Workplace, the dropped kerb and why neuro-inclusive design benefits everyone
• Live Q&A on breaking the burnout cycle, keeping things simple and disclosing ADHD at work

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Welcome and Amanda’s journey in business
• 00:43 - Why so many neurodivergent founders start businesses out of necessity
• 02:30 - 18 years in business, 13 undiagnosed: burnout, bankruptcy and borrowed goals
• 05:35 - Permission to create your own version of success
• 07:20 - “Disgustingly rich” and what rich really means
• 10:48 - Building a prison, not a business
• 12:07 - Purpose, values and the pressure to be nice as a female founder
• 13:30 - Delegation, communication and why it’s quicker to do it yourself
• 16:04 - From VAs to a chief of staff: the inverted Christmas tree
• 17:33 - Self-trust, perimenopause and not knowing how you’ll wake up
• 18:14 - Kate on leaving PR and shrinking herself to avoid burnout
• 22:01 - FOBO: the fear of burning out
• 24:48 - Champagne dreams, lemonade energy
• 25:19 - Interruptions, motherhood and the nervous system
• 27:41 - God mode, hyperfocus and the first sign of burnout
• 33:07 - Brain First Workplace and open conversations at work
• 34:26 - Tribunals, “them and us” culture and why managers are scared
• 36:30 - The dropped kerb and designing for every brain
• 42:20 - Live Q&A: breaking out of the prison cycle
• 44:58 - Awareness, alignment and action
• 46:57 - Don’t be afraid of simplicity
• 48:13 - Disclosing ADHD at work
• 50:17 - Ideas, strategy and getting from A to Z before anyone else
• 52:26 - Where to find Amanda

Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠

Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠

Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Get Amanda’s book, Brain First Business: The ADHD Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success

Visit Amanda’s website: amandaperry.co.uk

Connect with Amanda on Instagram Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing author, coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Actually Helps You!? This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠

Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

_____________________

You leave the party first. You pay extra for the room on your own. You say yes, then spend the whole evening counting down until you can go home. And somewhere along the way, you decided that made you the difficult one.

On this week’s episode of The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, I’m joined by Alice Bramhill, registered mental health nurse, interpersonal psychotherapist and accredited therapeutic coach specialising in neurodivergent adults. Her first book, I Need My Space (But I Like You Too!): A Neurodivergent Guide to All Types of Relationships, is out now.

Alice has nearly 30 years of clinical experience. She was diagnosed with ADHD at 47 and autism at 50, and is a parent carer to two neurodivergent children.

Masking until there’s nothing left. Being the fixer, the capable one, the people pleaser. Families who keep casting you in your old role. A nervous system that panics every time you say no.

You’re allowed to need your space.

This is a fantastic conversation that I know will resonate so strongly with so many of you.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at http://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

_____________________

In this episode, we cover:

• Why relationships sit at the heart of our mental health, and what interpersonal psychotherapy can offer neurodivergent adults
• How masking leads to an erosion of self and a lack of authenticity in our relationships
• What an emotionally sustainable life looks like, and why so many social expectations simply aren't sustainable for us
• Why it's okay to leave the party after an hour, and how to communicate your social battery without shame
• Rejection sensitivity and why it isn't our job to manage other people's emotions
• Shrinking versus discernment, and how to navigate the fear of loneliness when you start pulling back
• Setting boundaries with family when you've always been cast as the fixer, the capable one or the people pleaser
• What emotional labour really means, and where information sharing ends and over-explaining begins
• Why your nervous system may push back when you start saying no, and how to practise it gently
• Noticing the shoulds, starting with a maybe and why it's okay to disappoint people

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Alice Bramhill

01:30 - Why Alice wrote I Need My Space

02:30 - Interpersonal psychotherapy and why relationships shape our mental health

05:30 - Masking, authenticity and the erosion of self

07:30 - Building an emotionally sustainable life

09:30 - Redefining the terms of engagement and leaving when you're done

11:30 - Rejection sensitivity and other people's emotions

14:00 - Needing space in friendships and on holidays

16:30 - Shrinking, discernment and the fear of loneliness

20:30 - Shedding, permission and life after diagnosis

21:30 - Perimenopause and caring less about what others think

25:00 - Who Alice wrote the book for

26:30 - Boundaries with family and stepping out of old roles

30:30 - What emotional labour really means

34:00 - The fixers, the capable ones and the people pleasers

36:30 - When your nervous system pushes back

39:00 - Cycle breakers and generational change

41:00 - Noticing automatic yeses and starting with a maybe

42:30 - Catching the shoulds and getting curious

44:00 - Asking why and giving yourself permission to disappoint people

46:00 - Where to find Alice's book, Substack and one-to-one support

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website here.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) here
• Join the More Yourself membership community here

• Visit Alice's website and join the waitlist for one-to-ones here
• Connect with Alice on Instagram

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing author, coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

Understood.org's The ADHD Channel for Women features three shows hosted by three different hosts, unpacking a different side of life with ADHD. They cover everything from sex, dating, and relationships to deep dives into where neurodivergence meets the biggest news stories, like how a newly discovered gene variant could change the way we treat ADHD. There's also an ADHD coach who answers listeners' questions.

Check out The ADHD Channel for Women ⁠here

This episode from The ADHD Channel for Women is called ‘ADHD and autism: Do I have AuDHD?’ You’ll hear a clear and compassionate look at where ADHD and autism meet, where they part ways and what it means when you recognise yourself in both.

AuDHD isn’t a formal diagnosis. But it’s everywhere online, and for many late-diagnosed women it’s the first language that has ever truly fitted. Dr. J, a licensed psychologist and host of Understood.org’s ADHD and podcast, explains why the overlap is the norm rather than the exception. Research suggests that 30 to 50 percent of autistic people also meet the criteria for ADHD.

She unpacks the push and pull so many people with AuDHD describe. Craving routine but struggling to keep it. Wanting deep connection but hitting a wall of social exhaustion. She also talks honestly about what comes next, including the grief that can surface if a label you’ve found community in doesn’t become your diagnosis.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit dedicated to empowering the millions of people with learning and thinking differences, such as ADHD and dyslexia.

For all things ADHD Women's Wellbeing, including the podcast, resources and events, head here: www.adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This ADHD Awareness Month 2026, ADHD Women's Wellbeing is putting this community, lived experiences, and practical support front and center. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠

Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

We talk a lot about hormones and ADHD. But this conversation goes much deeper.

What if the fatigue, anxiety, gut issues, difficult periods and the way your ADHD seems to shift throughout your cycle aren’t separate problems? What if they’re all giving you information about what’s happening in your body?

This week on The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, I’m joined by Dr Jolene Brighten for a fascinating and powerful deep dive into the biology behind ADHD in women, and some of the connections we just aren’t talking about enough.

Jolene is a board-certified naturopathic endocrinologist, nutritionist, certified menopause specialist and bestselling author of Beyond the Pill and Is This Normal? Her new book, ADHD and Women: A Guide to Understanding Your Hormones and Thriving with ADHD, is out now.

And she does not hold back in this conversation.

We get into progesterone, histamine, endometriosis, PMDD and perimenopause, and what they can mean for women with ADHD. We explore why symptoms that appear unrelated may be more connected than we realise, why so many women have spent years being passed between specialists and why understanding ADHD as something that affects the whole body can completely change the conversation.

Jolene also shares her own story, from her son’s ADHD diagnosis to being diagnosed with endometriosis after 29 years of periods and later discovering she is autistic.

This is one of those episodes that may have you joining dots you didn’t even realise were connected. If you’ve ever felt as though your hormones, brain and body are all speaking different languages, this conversation could help you understand the bigger picture.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen ⁠and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

_____________________

In this episode, we cover:

• Jolene's late diagnoses of ADHD, endometriosis and autism, and why accommodations are so often mistaken for success
• Why fatigue and anxiety are among the most common symptoms of endometriosis, and how it can be present without any pain
• The links between ADHD, endometriosis, PMDD and fibroids, and why medicine so often treats them as coincidences
• How histamine and mast cells may be connected to 2am to 4am waking, irritability and emotional dysregulation
• What happens to dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine and GABA when oestrogen and progesterone drop
• Why hysterectomy and hormone suppression don't cure PMDD or endometriosis, and what this means for ADHD women
• Body identical progesterone versus synthetic progestins, progesterone intolerance and why starting low and going slow can help
• What research tells us about hormonal contraception and depression in ADHD women
• Why movement is so powerful for the ADHD brain, and an honest look at why it can feel so hard to do
• Alcohol, GABA and the luteal phase, and why we were never designed to be productive all the time

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Dr Jolene Brighten

02:30 - Jolene's journey to ADHD, endometriosis and autism diagnoses

05:30 - Entrepreneurship, accommodations and the support nobody sees

08:00 - What endometriosis can look like, including when there's no pain

10:00 - Jolene's endometriosis story, from childhood gut issues to secondary infertility

15:00 - Mast cells, histamine and the brain, immune and hormone connection

17:00 - Kate's experience with endometriosis, adenomyosis and continuous progesterone

21:00 - Access to care in the UK, US and Canada

23:00 - Why ADHD is the operating system you were born with

25:00 - What happens to the brain when oestrogen and progesterone drop

27:00 - PMDD: why it may be more than one condition

29:00 - NAC, mitochondria and the ADHD brain in perimenopause

32:00 - Progesterone, progestins and the research on contraception and depression

35:00 - ADHD as a full-body condition and the gut microbiome

37:00 - Progesterone intolerance, dosing and different ways of taking it

42:00 - Serotonin, dopamine and how the ADHD brain adapts

43:00 - Exercise, BDNF and giving your brain more energy

46:00 - Hysterectomies, unsupported women and the generations before us

48:00 - Alcohol, GABA and the luteal phase

49:00 - Rejecting productivity culture and honouring the need to rest

53:00 - Superpowers, kryptonite and asking what it's costing you

56:00 - Where to find Jolene's book and resources

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website here.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) here
• Join the More Yourself membership community here
• Get Jolene's book, ADHD and Women (also available in ebook and audiobook): drbrighten.com/adhd-and-women
• Visit Jolene's website for free articles on hormones, ADHD, PMDD and endometriosis: drbrighten.com
• Listen to Jolene's podcast: The Dr. Brighten Show
• Connect with Jolene on Instagram: @drjolenebrighten
• Watch Jolene on YouTube: @DrJoleneBrighten

See Explore Worldwide's range of destinations in the link HERE

If today’s episode brought up anything for you, these organisations offer support and information:⁠⁠

• Endometriosis UK Support Network⁠⁠
• ⁠The Miscarriage Association helpline and support services⁠
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Campaign Against Living Miserably

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Actually Helps YOU: This ADHD Awareness Month 2026, I'm putting community, real experiences, and practical support throughout the month. There are live podcast recordings, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

This one is a little different. No guest, no workshop clip — just me, talking to you about what's coming next and why community is at the heart of everything we're building here.

Today I'm sharing a personal update about what's happening at ADHD Women's Wellbeing this October and beyond, including some exciting plans for live events in 2027, how you can get involved in ADHD Awareness Month right now, and how I want your wisdom to shape something I'm creating for this community.

This one is warm, unscripted and very much from the heart. Sign up for the ADHD WW events waitlist here

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen ⁠and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

In this episode, I cover:

• What the first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing live event in Manchester taught me, and why I want to do more
• My plans for in-person events in 2027, what they'll look and feel like, and how to get on the waitlist
• Why ADHD Awareness Month 2026 is all about community, lived experience and what actually helps
• The Google Form I'm creating to collect your wisdom — what makes your daily life easier with ADHD — and how your answers will shape a community workbook
• How to attend free live podcast recordings this October and ask experts your questions in real time
• Why I believe lived experience often comes before the research, and why I want more of your voice in this space
• The legacy I want to leave through ADHD Women's Wellbeing and what I'm building towards
• Why I'm doing all of this with very finite energy, a tiny team, and a genuine commitment to keeping things accessible

Links and Resources:

• Visit the Events page and join the live events waitlist here
• Fill in the What Actually Helps You Form here
• Explore the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshop Library here
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) here
• Join the More Yourself membership community here
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Actually Helps You?

This ADHD Awareness Month, I’m putting real experiences, community and practical support at the heart of the conversation. Join live conversations, podcast events and opportunities to share what actually helps you. Add your name to my event waitlist as well!

Visit the Events page to see what’s happening and get involved.

_________________________________________

What if the burnout, the guilt and the relentless doing weren't signs that you were failing, but signs that the playbook you'd been given was never designed for you in the first place?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Meghan French Dunbar, bestselling author, business anthropologist and founder of Conscious Company Magazine, the first nationally distributed print magazine in the US focusing on impact-driven business.

Meghan's book, This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success, is a USA Today bestseller and Next Big Idea Club selection. She works with companies including Coach, John Deere, Torani and Kate Spade on leadership and culture strategy, writes for Forbes, Fast Company and Inc, and hosts the podcast Unbehaved. She was diagnosed with ADHD four years ago, and this conversation made a lot of sense of a lot of things.

We talk about purpose burnout, motherhood, identity, joy and what it actually looks like to build a life and career around meaning rather than productivity. Meghan is warm, honest and brilliantly funny, and this is one of those conversations that leaves you feeling both validated and quietly ready to do something differently.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at ⁠https://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

In this episode, we cover:

• How Meghan's ADHD diagnosis four years ago reframed her entire career and the relentless curiosity that drove it
• Why she burnt out running her own organisation, resigned from it, and spent two years rebuilding from the ground up
• The difference between social success and soul success, and the three elements the most fulfilled leaders Meghan interviewed all had in common
• Why sustained leadership is about the quality of your being, not the quantity of your doing
• The six key predictors of burnout, and why ADHD makes several of them almost inevitable without the right support
• What the broaden and build theory tells us about joy, and why nurturing it is not indulgent but a genuine performance strategy
• The joy trip: what it is, why Meghan introduced it into her family and what it has given her every year since
• Why ADHD women are often the outliers who model a different way of working, and why that matters for everyone around them
• What enough looks like, and why deciding that with your partner is one of the most radical acts available to us
• Why autonomy is the non-negotiable for so many neurodivergent entrepreneurs

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Welcome and introducing Meghan French Dunbar
• 02:00 - What drives Meghan's passion for business, impact and entrepreneurship
• 05:00 - How her ADHD diagnosis reframed decades of relentless curiosity
• 08:00 - Burning out as founder, resigning in 2020 and two years of rebuilding
• 12:00 - What the outliers taught her: soul success, purpose and quality of life
• 16:00 - Sustained leadership: why quality of being beats quantity of doing
• 19:00 - The practical foundations: sleep, movement, joy and professional support
• 22:00 - Why younger generations are already rewriting the playbook
• 25:00 - The joy trip: how it started, what it involves and why it changed everything
• 31:00 - The broaden and build theory: the science behind why joy makes you better at everything
• 35:00 - Modeling a different way for other women
• 38:00 - What Meghan's working life looks like now, and what enough means to her
• 42:00 - Autonomy, ADHD and why working for yourself so often becomes the answe

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here
• Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠
• Visit Meghan's website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com
• Connect with Meghan on Instagram
• Connect with Meghan on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Meghan's Substack: Unbehaved
• Listen to Meghan's podcast: Unbehaved
• Watch Meghan's TEDx talk
• Get Meghan's book: This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

Understood.org's The ADHD Channel for Women features three shows hosted by three different hosts, unpacking a different side of life with ADHD. They cover everything from sex, dating, and relationships to deep dives into where neurodivergence meets the biggest news stories, like how a newly discovered gene variant could change the way we treat ADHD. There's also an ADHD coach who answers listeners' questions.

Check out The ADHD Channel for Women ⁠here

This episode from The ADHD Channel for Women is called 'I’ve never felt like a good woman...' You'll hear a complex conversation about ADHD, femininity, gender, and why talking about the hard stuff is important.

Cate sits down with Rae Jacobson, host of Understood.org’s Hyperfocus podcast, journalist, and a producer on this show. They talk about something they’ve both struggled to name: the collision between ADHD, femininity, and gender expression. They dig into what it felt like to watch other girls “get it.” The tidiness. The calm. The effortlessness. All things that executive dysfunction made feel out of reach. 

They talk about the pressure to be nurturing, organized, and endlessly available — and what happens when your brain doesn’t cooperate with any of it. And they look at the research on outcomes for women and girls with ADHD."

This week’s episode is sponsored by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit dedicated to empowering the millions of people with learning and thinking differences, such as ADHD and dyslexia.

For all things ADHD Women's Wellbeing, including the podcast, resources and events, head here: www.adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk

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ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠Visit the Events page⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved. If you've ever felt shame about what you eat, how you forget to eat, or why your safe foods feel so necessary, this episode is going to be a genuine relief.

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm delighted to welcome back Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas, clinical neuroscientist, applied microbiologist, nutrition researcher, Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University and Senior Lecturer at the University of West London.

Miguel has just published his brilliant new book, ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Gut-Brain Health, published by Jessica Kingsley/Hachette. His research has appeared in leading journals including the BMJ and BMC Psychiatry, and his work is known for translating complex science into something genuinely human and accessible.

This is one of those conversations that covers a huge amount of ground while never once feeling overwhelming. We talk about why the ADHD brain is wired for resilience and what that actually costs us, why the gut-brain connection matters so much for neurodivergent people, how to approach nutrition with compassion rather than perfectionism, and why your safe foods are not something to be ashamed of. We also get into the language of science, why terms like comorbidity matter, and how researchers like Miguel are slowly shifting the field towards a more neuroaffirmative approach.

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In this episode, we cover:

• Why compassion and kindness are at the heart of Miguel's approach to ADHD, nutrition and the nervous system
• How the ADHD nervous system forms in high alert, and what that means for resilience and hypervigilance
• Why ADHD is far more than a dopamine deficiency, and how hormones, gut bacteria and the nervous system are all part of the picture
• The gut-brain axis and why looking after your gut has a direct impact on your ADHD brain
• Why the language of science still creates problems, including terms like comorbidity and healthy cohort, and how researchers are starting to push back
• How to read ADHD Body and Mind in whichever way works for your brain, whether that's cover to cover or jumping straight to chapter nine
• Why understanding the why behind your ADHD behaviours is the keystone to change, even when it doesn't fix things overnight
• Miguel's approach to nutrition: keep your safe foods, add rather than subtract, and never shame what nourishes you
• Why safe foods are doing an important job for your nervous system, and why being pushed out of your comfort zone too quickly never lasts
• The circle approach to expanding your diet gently, starting from your anchors and building outward
• Why a hot bath is an act of self-compassion backed by neuroscience, and why you don't need to get into cold water to support your nervous system
• The self-kindness toolkit at the end of the book and what it covers

Chapters:

• 00:00 - Welcome and introducing Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas back to the podcast
• 02:00 - What's at the heart of ADHD Body and Mind, and why compassion comes first
• 05:00 - Why the ADHD nervous system is wired for hypervigilance and resilience
• 08:00 - ADHD as more than dopamine: hormones, gut bacteria and the full picture
• 11:00 - The neuroaffirmative lens in academic research and why language matters
• 15:00 - How the gut-brain axis connects to ADHD and emotional regulation
• 19:00 - The awareness and repetition model: why understanding the why is the keystone
• 23:00 - Nutrition without perfectionism: how to approach food with kindness
• 27:00 - Safe foods, anchors and adding rather than subtracting
• 32:00 - The circle approach: expanding your diet gently from the inside out
• 37:00 - The ADHD cookery school: creativity, condiments and cooking without recipes
• 42:00 - Hot baths, cold water and why softness is sometimes the braver choice
• 46:00 - The self-kindness toolkit and what the book offers neurodivergent readers and clinicians

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠
• Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠
• Visit Miguel's website
• Connect with Miguel on Instagram
• Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn
• Get Miguel's book: ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Gut-Brain Health

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach, author of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved. If you've ever wondered why some days feel manageable and others feel completely impossible, even when nothing has obviously changed, your nervous system is trying to tell you something.

Welcome to this week's More Yourself Monday episode. Today I'm sharing a clip from one of my workshops on the nervous system, polyvagal theory and how understanding both can genuinely change the way you move through your days with ADHD.

This is not a clinical lecture. This is a simple, accessible explanation of why your nervous system behaves the way it does, what the polyvagal ladder actually means in real life, and how you can start to work with your nervous system rather than against it. I also introduce the concept of glimmers, those small micro moments of safety and joy that can shift your entire day when you learn to notice and actively seek them out.

The full workshop is available on my website, and the link is below.

In this episode, we cover:

• What it means to feel grounded, connected and safe in your nervous system, and why so many of us rarely get there
• A simple explanation of polyvagal theory and why it matters so much for neurodivergent people
• The three states of the polyvagal ladder: ventral vagal, sympathetic and dorsal vagal, and what each one feels like from the inside
• Why the ADHD brain so often operates in fight or flight mode, and what that costs us over time
• What the dorsal vagal shutdown state feels like, and why it shows up as fatigue, numbness and withdrawal
• The window of tolerance: what it is, what opens and closes it, and why ADHD narrows it
• The difference between hyper arousal and hypo arousal, and why each needs a different response
• What glimmers are and why they matter as much as knowing your triggers
• How to identify your own personal glimmers and actively harness them across the day
• Why regulating your own nervous system is not selfish but has a ripple effect on everyone around you
• The role of co-regulation and why our nervous system state affects the people we live and work with

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠
• Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠
• Get the full nervous system and polyvagal theory workshop series here with a 10% discount for Podcast listeners

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?
This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. Visit the Events page to see what’s happening and get involved.

Content note: This episode contains references to suicide and family bereavement. If you are struggling, please reach out to a trusted support resource.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. You can also check out the Campaign Against Living Miserably here

What if the traits you've spent a lifetime apologising for are actually the source of your greatest ability?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Laura Day, New York Times bestselling author, teacher and intuitive consultant who has spent four decades working with individuals and some of the world's largest companies to help them identify and achieve their goals.

Laura's new book, The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future, is the book she describes as an ADHD manual — a practical, evidence-informed framework for building the scaffolding that helps neurodivergent brains thrive. With two New York Times bestsellers to her name and a 40-year teaching community, Laura is also someone who has lived with ADHD her entire life, and this conversation is one of the most honest, warm and genuinely surprising I have had on the podcast.

We talk about Laura's childhood in a household where neurodivergence was everywhere but unnamed, why girls of her generation were never allowed to act out and what that suppression cost them, how she built a career advising billion-dollar companies using her intuitive mind, and why the ADHD brain is uniquely suited to intuition, just not always in the way we expect.

In this episode, we cover:

• Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11, and why girls of her generation were never treated
• Growing up in a household where neurodivergence showed up in multiple family members, often with devastating consequences
• How Laura used survival, focus and necessity as her prosthetic scaffolding before she understood her own neurology
• Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain, and how to make that work for you rather than against you
• Why intuition is not something you tap into but something that is always downloading, and how to structure it usefully
• The difference between the voice of fear and the voice of intuition, and why documentation matters more than belief
• How Laura advises billion-dollar companies using intuitive methods, and why business and science do what works regardless of belief
• Why Laura says you are your own worst intuitive, and why community-based intuitive practice is so powerful
• The shame and blame pages: a research-backed tool for releasing what no longer serves you
• Why doing just the next thing is one of the most powerful strategies for ADHD brains
• How Laura built scaffolding for her household without knowing it was for neurodivergence
• Why vulnerability is not a weakness but the source of extraordinary ability
• The Prism: what it offers neurodivergent people and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Welcome and introducing Laura Day
• 02:00 - Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11 and why girls weren't treated in her generation
• 05:00 - Growing up with neurodivergence all around her, and what it cost her family
• 08:00 - How she used her role as oldest child to create focus and structure
• 10:00 - Spatial difficulties, irritability and the compensations she built over decades
• 13:00 - Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain
• 16:00 - How intuition actually works and why it is always downloading
• 20:00 - Documenting intuition and building a feedback loop with the world
• 23:00 - How she works with billion-dollar companies and why they don't need to believe in it
• 27:00 - Social dynamics, masking and forgetting to say hello
• 31:00 - Emotional regulation, overstimulation and learning to step away rather than snap
• 35:00 - Generational patterns, self-awareness and raising neurodivergent children
• 40:00 - Just do the next thing: why this is the most powerful ADHD strategy
• 44:00 - The shame and blame pages and the research behind letting go
• 47:00 - The Prism: seven steps, and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual
• 50:00 - How to find Laura and join her teaching community

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠
• Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here
• Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠
• Visit Laura's website: lauraday.com
• Get Laura's new book: The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future, also available as an audiobook narrated by Laura herself

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices