ADHD and: Burnout

Many women with ADHD get stuck in a never-ending cycle of burnout. Trying to manage work, family, and social commitments can feel overwhelming, leaving them tired and unable to keep up. This stress can make everyday tasks seem even more difficult and lead to feelings of frustration.

In this episode, Dr. J explains what burnout is and the ways it can appear in daily life. Listen as she breaks down the impact it can have on women with ADHD. Plus, get practical tips for recognizing early signs of burnout and how to stop it before it gets worse.

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• ADHD burnout

• How ADHD can affect your mental health

• Mental load: The invisible weight women with ADHD carry

(00:50) What is burnout?

(01:33) How ADHD impacts burnout

Dr. J: Picture this, you're juggling a million tasks, work deadlines, family commitments, social obligations. And despite your best efforts, it feels like the weight of all of this is just too much. You're overwhelmed, exhausted, and struggling to keep it all together. For women with ADHD, this isn't just a momentary stress. It's a cycle of burnout that feels endless. This is "ADHD and," where we talk about everyday life and ADHD. I'm your host, Dr. J. I'm a licensed psychologist who works with people with ADHD. Today we're talking about ADHD and burnout.

Burnout is more than just feeling tired after a long week. It's intense emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. But what does burnout really look like? And how can you tell when it's more than a bad day? Burnout, is a gradual process that occurs over time. You may not notice the signs of burnout at first, but they get worse and worse as time goes on. Now, this may be a no-brainer for you, but ADHD symptoms can contribute to the formation of burnout, and burnout can, in turn, make ADHD symptoms worse. Let's discuss some of the factors related to ADHD that impact burnout.

The first thing I'm gonna mention is weaker emotional inhibition. Now, with ADHD, you have impairments in executive functioning, which does relate to your ability to regulate emotions, especially things like frustration, irritability, and anxiety. These intense emotions can increase stress and accelerate burnout.

The second is hyperfocus and overcommitment. So, women with ADHD can hyperfocus on tasks, leading to overworking and neglecting self-care, which does speed up burnout. The next is executive dysfunction. So, when you have ADHD, you have difficulties with organization, planning, and time management, which can create a sense of constant overwhelm, making it harder to pace yourself and avoid burnout.

Number four is impulsivity and poor boundaries. Impulsivity can lead to overpromising or taking on too many responsibilities, which can increase stress and emotional fatigue. And number five is sleep issues. Many people with ADHD struggle with sleep regulation, which worsens emotional regulation and resilience, making burnout way more likely. Hopefully, this gives you some clarity on the reciprocal nature that can occur between ADHD and burnout. It's not a fun time.

However, the great news is that you don't necessarily need to learn specific strategies for burnout. The things that you're already working on with your ADHD can be applied to burnout as well. Now let's get into some Dr. J hot takes on how to manage burnout.

First, we all need to acknowledge that there are both personal and systemic issues that can lead to burnout. We all know the world we are living in, and typically, the circumstances of this world encourage us to work like 12 jobs. Now that doesn't mean that you should give up. You have power, and there are things that you can do right now to change the system. We have to cope with the parameters that exist today so that we can actually make it to that brighter tomorrow. My first hot take is to be curious about your burnout.

This is where mindfulness comes in. Are you not getting enough sleep? Do you need a new hobby or an outlet to express yourself? Is your boss a jerk? Do you have too many household chores that are piling up? Do you have no friends? Whatever it is, I really want you to think deeply about this topic. If you want to avoid or eliminate burnout, you have to first know the variables that create burnout for you. Once you have an understanding of your burnout, then you can create specific targets that make sense to you.

Be careful of negative thinking when you're in this process. So, for example, while you're reviewing what contributes to your burnout, you may notice that you only get four hours of sleep per night. You may think, "Yeah, getting more sleep isn't going to change the fact that I hate my job." You're right. It's not. However, getting more sleep allows you to cope with that hate way more effectively. In fact, if you got good sleep for a month, you may end up not hating your job. Instead, maybe you just dislike it. And now you have enough energy to go and look for a new one. So you can have your Jerry Maguire moment and peace out.

Hot take number two is to be OK with quote unquote meets expectations. I'll explain this hot take with a story. I had a female patient who was really career-focused and always looking for the next promotion. So much so that her personal life fell completely apart. It was like ninth level of Dante's Inferno type of bad. She was up at 5 a.m., at work by 7 a.m., and was still responding to emails and text messages at 9 p.m. It was too much.

Now, story time break. If you're in a situation where your job feels extremely precarious to you, this might not make sense. You know your circumstances. I'm just a doctor on the internet giving general information. You might have a specific situation that needs to be tailored to you. However, with this patient, in terms of being curious about her burnout, I asked if she was required to respond to text messages at 9 p.m. She said, well, "I don't have to, but you know..." and then she went on a long-winded emotionalization.

For those of you who don't know, emotionalization is a term that I made up for when you're presenting emotions as though they are facts or logic. Basically, she was saying that "Everyone does it therefore I have to." Everyone doing it does not make it a work requirement. Everyone doing it simply means that no one has any boundaries, and if we had boundaries, perhaps we would not be responding to text messages at 9 p.m.

Another story time break. I have also suggested to people that when they find themselves in these unspoken cultures, meaning nobody said it, but somehow everybody's doing it, make them say it out loud. Ask your boss if it's a requirement to answer messages in the evening. In all likelihood, they're probably gonna say no. Please understand that some companies and people will allow you to be complicit in your own demise. Meaning that if you don't say anything, they're not gonna bring it up.

And again, remember what I said in the first story time break. If you're in a situation where you can't engage in this type of behavior, I understand. Sometimes it be like that. Back to the story. This was a person who had just received a promotion about six months ago and was shooting for fives across the board on her evaluation. So, I introduced the idea of simply meeting expectations. If I'm expected and required to work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I will do exactly that.

She began to leave work on time and stopped responding to messages late in the evening, outside of work emergencies that she chose. When she did that, she had more time to socialize, exercise, and everything else she wanted in her life. And as a consequence, her life began to meet expectations. Boundaries can go a long way.

Hot take number three is to reduce screen time and get a real hobby. There is research that supports that social media addiction does have a significant negative effect on burnout. Those with ADHD have increased vulnerability to being addicted to digital media. Additionally, digital media has an effect on later ADHD symptom levels, sometimes due to the indirect effect that it has on, for example, your sleep and social relations. This is not me telling you to denounce all social media, but you definitely need to diversify.

If somebody told you that they had one drink or one serving of potato chips, you wouldn't blink an eye. However, if they said that they were drinking all night or in every free moment, you would see that as problematic. The same is true for social media use. If all you're doing with your free time is scrolling, it's outside of the zone where it can be good for you. Get a few more hobbies and limit your social media use because overdoing it will only lead to more problems for you in the future. This is your cue to pick up a new hobby. I don't care what it is. It can be reading, gardening, crocheting, really anything. Just do something else with those two opposable thumbs.

My final hot take is gentle movement. I see this as being outside of any exercise that you would do for a goal like losing weight or gaining muscle. There is research to support that activities like qi-gong, yoga, and walking, especially in nature, lead to a reduction in stress and burnout. These are activities that you can do in as little as five minutes. So, there's really no logical reason to not implement them into your daily or weekly habits.

You may not be able to change your job, at least not immediately, but these are habits that if you're able to implement them, they can reduce the load on you. That's it for "ADHD and." If you have any more questions about burnout, let me know in the comments. I know that sometimes it can feel impossible to meet expectations in life, but what has been proven time and time again is that with support, we can do almost anything.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please check out "ADHD and perfectionism," where I explain how the need for things to be perfect can be a challenge for some women with ADHD. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode of "ADHD And.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.

"ADHD and" is produced by Tara Drinks and edited by Alyssa Shea. Our video producer is Calvin Knie. Samiah Adams is our production manager. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Our audio engineer and music composer is Justin D. Wright. Our Executive Directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Dr. J.