Episode 47 - ADHD and Hormones: How Your Menstrual Cycle Affects ADHD Symptoms with Adele Wimsett of Harmonise You

🐚 Topics covered

• Adele's journey to specializing in women's health and ADHD
• The significant connection between hormonal fluctuations and ADHD traits in women
• How different phases of the menstrual cycle can affect neurodivergent women differently
• The impact of major hormonal transitions like pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause on ADHD
• Why neurodivergent women are at higher risk for conditions like PMDD and postnatal depression
• The role of estrogen and progesterone in managing ADHD symptoms
• Practical strategies for managing ADHD symptoms throughout your cycle
• The importance of blood sugar balance, gut health, and nervous system regulation
• How to advocate for yourself in a healthcare system that often overlooks female ADHD
• Finding community and acceptance as a neurodivergent woman

About Adele 

Adele Wimsett is a women's health practitioner and cyclical living guide who specializes in supporting ADHD women to understand how their hormones affect their traits. Having co-authored the book "Essential Feminine Wisdom," she is passionate about educating women on how to harness the power of their cyclical nature. From menarche to menopause, Adele bridges the woo and the science, supporting women to balance their hormones naturally and navigate their ADHD traits throughout their monthly and life cycles.

After spending 20 years working in youth justice services with a focus on special educational needs, Adele began her journey into women's health when her own period disappeared despite following "healthy" lifestyle practices. Her diagnosis with ADHD as an adult led her to discover the significant yet under-researched connection between hormones and ADHD traits in women. Through her practice, she helps women create ADHD-friendly lifestyles that work with their natural hormonal fluctuations rather than against them.

Where to find Adele 

Website: https://harmoniseyou.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harmoniseyou

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harmoniseyou/

More about Iris

💬Come say ‘Hi’ on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cycleseeds/

🎓Check out our training

https://www.instagram.com/hormone.cycle.coach.training/ https://cycle-seeds.mykajabi.com/hhcc-20242025

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the episode about ADHD and hormones with Adele Wimsett
• 1:01 Explanation of Adele's background and expertise
• 2:10 Beginning of interview with Adele Wimsett
• 2:35 Adele's journey from youth justice to women's health practitioner
• 4:48 Adele's personal ADHD diagnosis experience
• 6:30 Iris shares her own recent ADHD diagnosis
• 7:19 The compassion and self-understanding that comes with diagnosis
• 8:31 Acknowledging the grief some women experience with late diagnosis
• 9:27 Discussion of rejection sensitivity dysphoria in ADHD women
• 10:44 How menstrual cycle and ADHD are connected
• 12:16 Explanation of how hormones affect neurotransmitters
• 13:06 Gender bias in ADHD research and diagnosis
• 14:07 Benefits of cycle awareness for ADHD management
• 15:03 How ADHD symptoms fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle
• 15:47 Understanding estrogen and progesterone effects on ADHD
• 18:10 Discussing pregnancy and postpartum impacts on ADHD
• 20:50 Advocating for yourself in healthcare settings
• 21:56 What needs to change in how the medical system handles female ADHD
• 23:20 Acknowledging privilege in ADHD management strategies
• 25:23 Practical tips for managing ADHD with your cycle
• 27:53 Giving up the pursuit of neurotypical consistency
• 29:08 Creating an ADHD-friendly environment
• 31:10 Parenting while neurodivergent
• 32:14 Reparenting ourselves while parenting
• 33:46 Additional challenges for neurodivergent mothers
• 37:14 Adele's final wisdom: find your people and community
• 39:41 Episode wrap-up and how to connect with Iris

Transcript

[00:00:00] Iris Josephina: As someone with ADHD, this episode was so incredibly validating and useful for me, and I hope that everyone who is listening who is neurodiverse or Suspecting that they are neurodiverse or have ADHD, I hope this is a nourishing balm to your soul. I had the honor to sit down with Adele from Harmonize You and we talked about the impact of our hormones on ADHD throughout our monthly and life seasons and cycles.

[00:00:37] Iris Josephina: Adele is a women's health practitioner and cyclical living guide. And having co authored the book Essential Feminine Wisdom, she is passionate about educating women and girls on how to harness the power of their cyclical nature. From menarche to menopause, Adele bridges the woo and the science, supporting women to balance their hormones naturally, and is passionate about speaking on all things menstrual education.

[00:01:01] Iris Josephina: Adele's niche within the women's health arena is specializing in supporting ADHD women to understand how their hormones affect their traits. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. Enjoy listening. You're listening to the podcast of Iris Josephina.

[00:01:22] Iris Josephina: If you're passionate about exploring the menstrual cycle, cyclical living, body wisdom, personal growth, spirituality, and running a business in alignment with your natural cycles, you're in the right place. I'm Iris. I'm an entrepreneur, functional hormone specialist, trainer, and coach, and I'm on a mission To share insights, fun facts, and inspiration I discover along the way as I run my business and walk my own path on earth.

[00:01:50] Iris Josephina: Here, you'll hear my personal stories, guest interviews, and vulnerable shares from clients and students. Most people know me from Instagram, where you can find me under at CycleSeeds, or they have been a coaching client or student in one of my courses. I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into today's episode.

[00:02:10] Iris Josephina: Yeah. So Adele, welcome! Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Me too. Because the topic that we'll be talking about is very, very close to my heart. And before we. Dive a little bit deeper in it. I'm just curious about your story and how you started specializing in the menstrual cycle and ADHD.

[00:02:35] Adele Wimsett: Okay, so my background in a previous life, I spent 20 years working on in youth justice services. And one of my, I was in quite a senior role there and one of my lead areas was special educational needs. So I had a really good understanding of neurodiversity, which was largely based around boys at that point.

[00:02:56] Adele Wimsett: And I used to joke, you know, I worked with a lot of mental health professionals and people say ADHD and I ADHD but I've been so successful, I say in inverted commas, I never really looked into it and it wasn't really a thing that sat with females particularly So alongside that career, my hobby and passion was women's health and understanding health.

[00:03:20] Adele Wimsett: So I was doing all the things, right? I was doing the aggressive fasting, the fasted exercising, the raw vegan diet. I was doing all these things. And then my period vanished and I was like, Oh, that can't be a good sign. But at the time I thought, one less thing to worry about. Yeah. There was this niggle and I was like, okay, I need to understand this.

[00:03:41] Adele Wimsett: So I've always had quite a strong feminist value base. I specialized in female offending and very passionate about supporting females with complex needs. And so I began my journey of understanding, well, if I'm doing all this stuff, why am I not well, where's my body saying something's not working? And so I began to understand gender bias.

[00:04:03] Adele Wimsett: That exists in medicine and lifestyle advice around what we should be doing to be well. And I was furious. And so, that combined with other factors, I took the decision to leave that career and I wanted to retrain. So I spent some years really researching women's health and understanding the role that hormones play in everything and set up my own clinic.

[00:04:26] Adele Wimsett: Well, several years ago, ADHD was coming up. It was coming into my. My life more and more. So I went along to a talk where there was a psych and I spoke to him and he very quickly said, you know, you've got ADHD, right? And I was like, I sort of thought so. So within four weeks, I was diagnosed, which I'd really resist it.

[00:04:48] Adele Wimsett: So I was like, what's the point? I, I personally choose not to be medicated. It's not a path that I've chosen, but I know lots of women get, you know, lots of support from that. So I was like, well, what am I doing it for? But actually it ended up being one of the most validating experiences of my life. And from that, because hormones is my life, I said, okay, where's the research?

[00:05:09] Adele Wimsett: So because I, I say I bridge the science and the woo, that's my personality. I want the research and the data, but I really want to go there in the room and the energy and bring it all together. So I sought out the research, which did not take me very long because there's about three pieces of research that exist on ADHD and hormones.

[00:05:26] Adele Wimsett: And of course, I ignited my inner feminist digressional brain and just said, right. Come on, we need to provide that this is ridiculous the crossover between Hormones and ADHD traits in women is huge and yet no one's talking about it. So I've gathered everything that I could and combined my knowledge and experience of ADHD with the research I've done around how that's different in females and then brought in my knowledge of hormones and brought it together to provide a service to neurodivergent women to understand how their hormones affect their traits and what you can do about it.

[00:06:06] Iris Josephina: Thank you for sharing that. And this is so necessary. I got diagnosed earlier this year. I'm 33 now. Amazing. How was that experience for you? Very validating. Like you, like you mentioned, it's like, Oh, it's all of a sudden everything starts falling into place. Like all the things that were so strange or weird or I couldn't get a grip on.

[00:06:30] Iris Josephina: My entire life started to like fall into place. And I was like, Oh, okay. That's why I responded in that situation like that. Oh, that's why I'm like this. That's why I do that. That's why I'm absolutely not doing that. 

[00:06:41] Adele Wimsett: So it's so powerful, isn't it? And I think the biggest take I got, I personally got, and this isn't everyone's experience, but I got was the self compassion and kindness I was able to offer myself.

[00:06:54] Adele Wimsett: I literally felt, Oh my God. Hey, that's how I felt because I'd found so many things in life really fucking hard 

[00:07:03] and 

[00:07:04] Adele Wimsett: I couldn't understand why. So though I'd achieved this perception of a level of its success, I'd had to work crazy hard in a way that I didn't see other people having to do with all my strategies and subconscious ways of coping in this world.

[00:07:19] Adele Wimsett: And then I think probably entering into perimenopausal years. The lid starts coming off a little bit because of our lovely hormones, right? And I think that's so lovely that you had that experience of validation. And I see it like this unraveling. You're 

[00:07:34] constantly like, 

[00:07:34] Adele Wimsett: oh, that's why I do that. That's why I do that.

[00:07:38] Adele Wimsett: You start to, it's like you start to meet yourself in a really deep way. And yeah, 

[00:07:43] Iris Josephina: just give yourself that compassion. Yeah, I'm, I, I love that you say that because it's, It's such an inner landing journey. Like for me, it's like every experience is like a landing in myself, which also helps my surroundings understand me better.

[00:08:02] Iris Josephina: And my relationship has grown so deep and so much and so beautifully. So I'm just really grateful that I. Yeah, I've got this knowledge about myself now, 

[00:08:16] Adele Wimsett: and I think it's also really important probably at this point for anyone listening to this, if they're going, well, that's not my experience. I want to really acknowledge that for some women, it can be a really painful experience to get that diagnosis, particularly if they don't have the support around them.

[00:08:31] Adele Wimsett: Quite often I see women. struggling with their partners who are saying stuff doesn't exist, of course you don't have this, you're looking for a label, you're looking for an excuse. So women are holding this by themselves and sometimes the diagnosis, it can bring up a grief if women look back and go, oh my goodness, what could have been had this been picked up?

[00:08:50] Adele Wimsett: And we look at, look at it through that lens, which can be quite a painful journey for women to go through, particularly if they're not well So I just want to acknowledge that as well. Whilst we're like, it was amazing that actually for some women, it's not that experience. 

[00:09:03] Iris Josephina: Yeah. for bringing that up. And I, I personally did experience some of that grief, like, Oh, like, Oh my goodness.

[00:09:11] Iris Josephina: Like what could have been for me as a little girl, you know, all this, all the struggles that I had, like maybe they could have been prevented or would have been different. So I definitely. I definitely can see that and, and feel that. 

[00:09:27] Adele Wimsett: And I think, you know, with women and girls, there's the element of reduction sensitivity dysphoria, which does not get spoken about enough.

[00:09:37] Adele Wimsett: And for me personally, that is the most debilitating part of my ADHD. I hate that bit. I would never swap my brain for a neurotypical brain at all. I love what it does for me, but that bit I hate it is so debilitating. And as a little girl. That feeling, I used to describe it like a bomb of a million pins going off inside me.

[00:09:57] Adele Wimsett: And I used to sit there and smile when all I wanted to do was fall apart. It's so painful. So I think this is something, I'm not saying boys do have it, but it's much more prevalent and powerful in girls. And when we're managing ADHD in females, it's looking at, with boys, we look at managing the behavior.

[00:10:15] Adele Wimsett: With girls, we look at how she feels about herself. What stories has she learned about herself that we take through with us, that narrative, that inner critic, which shows up really loudly at different times in our cycle, right? So yeah, there's different layers, lots of layers to this. 

[00:10:31] Iris Josephina: Yeah, definitely. And if you had to speak about how the menstrual cycle and ADHD are connected, how would you describe that?

[00:10:44] Adele Wimsett: So it's not a causal factor. I think this is where some of the confusion can come. We're not saying, Oh my gosh, your hormones are out. Therefore you have ADHD. It's not about that. It's about acknowledging that the two. influence each other significantly, and it can be really difficult to unpick what is what.

[00:11:03] Adele Wimsett: Particularly, for example, we're seeing a lot of women diagnosed in perimenopause at the moment. While some ADHD traits are very similar to some of the emotional mental side of perimenopause, as we go through this very natural normal hormone deficiency we start to see these things come up. So there was one study done by the Journal of Psychiatry that showed ADHD women are at much greater risk of conditions like PMDD.

[00:11:31] Adele Wimsett: So in the normal population, it's about 28 percent and in the ADHD population, it's about 45%. So we know that, and this study also showed that we're much greater risk of postnatal depression, much more likely to have a more challenging perimenopause. Okay. So we, there's this one study that's showing us that there is this link and there's.

[00:11:53] Adele Wimsett: Tons. I see so many of you through my clinic who anecdotally would be saying, yeah, this is my experience. And so we know that we're at greater risk of those challenges. We know that the hormones play a significant role on neurotransmitters. ADHD, no one can really decide what causes ADHD. There's so much misunderstood or unknown about it.

[00:12:16] Adele Wimsett: But we believe that dopamine, our neurotransmitters play a role in this. So is it that we don't produce enough? Is it that we detoxify it too quickly? But either way, our brain is like seeking out this dopamine hit all the time. Now we know that That hormones, for example, estrogen, sensitizes dopamine. So, it blows my mind to think we're completely ignoring that fact.

[00:12:44] Adele Wimsett: And I think we have to acknowledge here that gender bias. You know, I mentioned this in being across the board with medical and health advice. And it's so stark in ADHD. Because basically everything we know about ADHD is based on naughty little white boys. And that does not take in. The female experience at all, you know, and our hormones play a huge role.

[00:13:06] Adele Wimsett: And I actually believe my approach to working with women is say, let's sort your hormones out. And then you will know exactly what you're dealing with the ADHD trait, and you'll be able to create this ADHD lifestyle for yourself around your cycle. So to me, it's fundamental to understanding your ADHD as a woman.

[00:13:29] Iris Josephina: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And it's been, it's been my experience too. I started to live according to my cycle before I knew I had ADHD. And then I started reading books about ADHD. And then I was like, hold on a minute. This is something that I really relate to. And then it started to unravel. And when I got my diagnosis, I was like, okay, there is really some non negotiables.

[00:13:57] Iris Josephina: When it comes to my menstrual cycle that I just have to do, otherwise everything else falls apart. So, I love that you, you work that way, and I think, I 

[00:14:07] Adele Wimsett: think you have to, and I think, you know, there's sometimes this misunderstanding, once you start to apply menstrual cycle awareness. That suddenly you're not going to have these fluctuations.

[00:14:17] Adele Wimsett: Suddenly everything's going to be fine and we're going to turn into men and be consistent throughout the month. It's like, well I'm resting so I should be fine. But I think it's that actually, no, we're just making space for the stickiness of it. We're making space for those big emotions, for that overwhelm.

[00:14:31] Adele Wimsett: When our strategies aren't working that work at other times, we're creating the space so we're not trying to push through and end up completely feeling like we're going to fall apart. It's just, it's a, it's a feminine model of creating an ADHD friendly lifestyle, right? 

[00:14:47] Iris Josephina: Yeah, for sure. And for people who are listening and maybe are thinking like, oh, maybe I have ADHD, like, can you speak to what people may or can experience throughout their menstrual cycle if they also have ADHD?

[00:15:03] Iris Josephina: It's 

[00:15:03] Adele Wimsett: really interesting because they say if you've met one person with ADHD, you've met one person with ADHD because it can show up so differently. So we know in women, it tends to be more inattentive type traits, which is one of the reasons it gets missed. I'm combined type. So that includes the hyperactive element as well, but this tends to show up through my speech.

[00:15:23] Adele Wimsett: I speak very quickly. I think it's my brain think that, that, that hyperness is very inside. I'm not jumping around a room necessarily. Maybe I do occasionally, but you know, that general hyperness is inward. So it's about, usually we can start to see, I'm going to need to backpedal a little bit about looking at estrogen and progesterone to just explain those.

[00:15:47] Adele Wimsett: So I call estrogen, the sexy party girl of the hormone world. Okay. So when she's there in her Goldilocks amount, she is. Juicy. She makes us feel good. She makes us want to socialize. She's sensitizing those dopamine. She's lifting that serotonin. So our mood is brighter, right? We're on it. Our cognitive function, our executive function, which is the big issue in ADHD.

[00:16:10] Adele Wimsett: We're good. So this is the first half of the cycle, right? From when we stop bleeding right through to just after ovulation. We're riding this wave if we're in balance with our oestrogen and then if we've ovulated and obviously only if we've ovulated we get progesterone who's like the zen yoga chick right she comes in and goes calm yourself down oestrogen because too much partying makes us feel crap right so we don't want too much oestrogen she comes in to balance it out now this Can be problematic for some neurodivergent women.

[00:16:40] Adele Wimsett: I think they're starting now to be a narrative that Neurodivergent women can't cope with progesterone. That's not true It's it's so individual some women will find that as that progesterone starts to rise We've been enjoying the high of the estrogen and she comes in. It's like you're raining on my parade Suddenly we're not getting that beautiful high and coping so that blue teal phase can feel really really long Okay, so that is one of the things that we can see there with neurodivergent women, which is quite a challenge.

[00:17:12] Adele Wimsett: It might not be severe enough for PMDD, although, as I said, we know that we're at greater risk of that. So it's really starting to understand your fluctuation with how you're responding to estrogen and progesterone. But it's likely to be. that in that luteal phase, so that bit leading up to your period, it's really challenging.

[00:17:33] Adele Wimsett: The things that you can normally do with your certain strategies that you may be conscious of or unconscious of suddenly aren't working. We go into that overwhelm. The, you know, we're forgetting everything. We can't remember what we're saying. Whatever the traits are for you, they really blow up in that phase.

[00:17:52] Adele Wimsett: And then what happens, of course, we go into our bleed, our lovely Easter starts to rise again around day three, and we go, well, I was just having a bad week. You know, and this is one of the reasons I think there can be such a delay in diagnoses. For us is because we're in that cycle month after month, year after year, until we're like decades along.

[00:18:10] Adele Wimsett: Right. And then we're like, actually, I think there might be something going on here. You know, we just, especially if we're not tracking, I'm sure lots of people listening to a podcast are, but you know, really starting to see how things are, if that is your pattern, I would really. look further into that in terms of your traits.

[00:18:31] Iris Josephina: Yeah. Beautiful. And as you were saying that, I was also thinking, because I haven't heard much about it because you spoke about perimenopause, you spoke about postpartum, but obviously in pregnancy, progesterone stays extremely high as well. Have you worked with women who I have a very hard time with the first part of pregnancy 

[00:18:51] Adele Wimsett: as well.

[00:18:53] Adele Wimsett: Absolutely. It's a really important point. Thank you. So what the pattern tends to be, and of course we're all really unique, is that the first part of pregnancy can be quite tough, particularly for women who've chosen to be medicated come off of that. They're obviously having to adapt to that. But equally, as you say, that rising progesterone can be really challenging.

[00:19:13] Adele Wimsett: In fact, quite often there can be really, really low mood. like quite severe. but then that estrogen starts to soar, you know, and she becomes, you know, all consuming during pregnancy, right? When riding that estrogen glow generally, and lots of neurodivergent women or ADHD women find that actually it's the time of their lives because their traits seem to go.

[00:19:39] Adele Wimsett: for a lot of it. That was certainly my experience, even though I wasn't aware of that. I loved being pregnant. I loved how I felt, you know? So, but of course then the vulnerability comes and this is where I just want so much to change in healthcare with women's hormones generally and how we manage this.

[00:19:55] Adele Wimsett: But you know, those first couple of days after pregnancy, our estrogen can drop by up to a thousand times. I mean, that's huge. And then we wonder why women get upset. You know, we've suddenly pushed this human being out of our body. All this oestrogen has just like jumped ship and left us. We're absolutely exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.

[00:20:16] Adele Wimsett: And then we go, Oh, do you think she needs some antidepressants? And it's like, actually, let's look at what's going on for her hormonally and see if there's something we can support there. But we're just not there yet. But definitely, I would say to, to ADHD women, you're going to have to advocate for yourself with how things are now.

[00:20:34] Adele Wimsett: And speaking to health care providers, speaking to support and saying that I recognize this could be a potentially vulnerable time for me because of the hormonal deficiency I'm going to suddenly experience. This is what I need. This is what I need in that space. It's not going to be necessarily what a neurotypical woman needs.

[00:20:50] Adele Wimsett: It's going to be, this is what I need. And I think something I see in our community is. this fear to express that because we've spent our lives trying to meet neurotypical expectations. Yeah. You know, and there has to be this surrender to the acceptance that we don't function like that. And that's not failing because so often our trades are misconstrued as character flaws and we get judged on that.

[00:21:14] Adele Wimsett: And we're so deceptive. We pick up on everyone's nonverbal communication. So we see the way people are looking at us. We see the way our behavior is. Making other people feel and it makes us mask. It makes us hide all of that and shut it down. So then it becomes really difficult to articulate what we need.

[00:21:33] Yeah. 

[00:21:36] Iris Josephina: Yeah. And you spoke earlier already about how the system is not really supporting women and girls with ADHD. How, how do you see that could be better? Like what, what do you wish for all of us? 

[00:21:56] Adele Wimsett: I mean, the hope at the moment is. That we're not tolerating and, you know, but it's coming from the ground up.

[00:22:05] Adele Wimsett: It's women who are saying, this isn't right. You know, for example, we know medication works better at different times of cycle, depending on the hormones. You know, why are we just not standard in how we are having these conversations? So I would love. That it was recognized at the top and, you know, included that so much more research was invested in this, that the female experience was included in assessment and treatment and support and the hormones were an integral part of that management plan.

[00:22:35] Adele Wimsett: That would be my dream that for anyone who has. an ADHD diagnosis and is receiving support through a psych or some other kind of route that hormones are being discussed throughout that and being managed. And then giving us the permission to adapt our life around that to make an ADHD friendly lifestyle for ourselves.

[00:23:00] Iris Josephina: Yeah. I love that. Especially if people are like employed in the general like society, like you and I, we work for ourselves. We can like create our own work life and adapt that to our lifestyle, but not everybody has that opportunity. 

[00:23:20] Adele Wimsett: And I think that's something really important to manage because it is a privilege.

[00:23:25] Adele Wimsett: There's so much I managed my ADHD. I have, I was diagnosed with quite severe combined type. And the reason I feel I'm able to operate like I am is I have a really robust health plan in place for myself. That really balances my hormones. I'm looking at my insulin. I'm looking at my adrenals and my cortisol.

[00:23:45] Adele Wimsett: I'm looking at how I'm nourishing my body. I've got tailored supplementation. There is non negotiable time for myself every single day. I have to move my body. I have to have a support network. I've got an amazing husband who just totally gets it and supports me. You know, I'm very privileged. I do a job that I.

[00:24:04] Adele Wimsett: love I'm so passionate about and is constantly feeding my need to know more and why it keeps me so engaged. So there are so many factors there that make this okay. But that's not lots of other women's experiences, you know, particularly if you're like boxed into this 9 to 5 and finding no passion and what it is that you're doing and you don't have people around you or you don't have the resources to be able to invest.

[00:24:29] Adele Wimsett: in your health in the way that you want to, you know, everyone can move, everyone can breathe, everyone can do, you know, some of these things, but maybe that's not, I just want to acknowledge that isn't available to everybody. And so that begins the journey of having to go, okay, I need to change them. 

[00:24:48] Yeah.

[00:24:49] Iris Josephina: And do you have any easy, like easily accessible tips or recommendations for people with menstrual cycles who have? ADHD or who are recently diagnosed and really have like no idea where to start. You mentioned earlier your insulin already. I love that because it's, it's, it's the one thing that helped me so much, like managing my blood sugar and keeping it balanced was like a game changer for every single aspect of my menstrual cycle, but also my ADHD.

[00:25:23] Adele Wimsett: Honestly, I feel like, I mean, that's where I start with most women. Regardless of whether they're neuro divergent or not. And it's an absolute game changer. So studies show that A DHD people are much more at risk of type two diabetes than neurotypical people. We don't really understand why. I think there's lots of factors that affect how we eat.

[00:25:48] Adele Wimsett: Dopamine comes with sugar, right? We love that. Yeah. Lots of a d ADHD people find it, really don't enjoy cooking. There's too many steps involved. It's boring. We don't realize we're hungry until we can eat a small child. Like we have lots of things coming into play when it comes to food that just are additional challenges.

[00:26:06] Adele Wimsett: So I think that plays a role with some of it, but who knows? There's so much we don't know about it at the minute. So balancing your blood sugars, reducing inflammation in your body and your lifestyle is a big one. Really working on your gut. We have a definite link between the health of the gut and Because when inflammation comes through the gut, it actually binds with dopamine and serotonin in the brain, causing it to be inactive.

[00:26:31] Adele Wimsett: So that's obviously really important for us. And of course, like, loving on those adrenals. You know, I'm a big fan of breath work. It's quite active. We tend to find it quite challenging to meditate. So, but doing the breath work is such a beautiful way. It's free and it's there for everybody. And for me, the biggest thing, one of the biggest things that I do in clinic with women is Tracking your traits against your hormonal overflow because when you have that written down, it's so powerful and you can use that as a tool to advocate for yourself, to learn about yourself and to apply to your life.

[00:27:06] Adele Wimsett: So there is for any woman who's kind of feeling, Oh my gosh, I've got it's like feeling like a victim to it. But. It's not, there's so much you can do to be an empowered, take an empowered approach to managing symptoms is nothing's going to take it away, but it can make it so much more manageable and we're very prone to perfectionism, giving yourself a break.

[00:27:30] Adele Wimsett: To go, I'm going to aim for an 80 20, and if today I'm drinking the coke and eating the cake, then I'm going to give myself permission to do that guilt free. But what I find is, because you then realise how crap that makes you feel, you do want to do that less and less and less, right? Because the other stuff's making you feel so good.

[00:27:47] Adele Wimsett: And we're thrill seekers, we like to feel good. Yeah, this is so 

[00:27:50] relatable, 

[00:27:53] Iris Josephina: yeah. I'm just like giggling and laughing when you're speaking because I'm like, yep, that's, that's my life. That's my experience. 

[00:28:02] Adele Wimsett: Yeah. And I think we beat ourselves up that we struggle with consistency. We're like, right, everything's changing, clean the cupboards.

[00:28:10] Adele Wimsett: This is what we're doing. Then we're rolling, right? We're going to go, this is done. And then three days later, we're like in the corner going, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed. I can't implement any of this. And we go back to those behaviors. So the way that I work with everyone is acknowledge that. It doesn't work for us so we're going to do this in a real, a way that really embeds the change so it just becomes what you do and if you don't do it every day it doesn't matter because what we do is we mess up one day and then we go that's it then that didn't work and that's not the case we just got to just give ourselves that 

[00:28:39] Iris Josephina: grace.

[00:28:41] Iris Josephina: Yeah, that's beautiful. I think for me, that was the, one of the biggest life changers to give myself permission and accept that consistency is just never going to be my thing in that way. 

[00:28:56] Adele Wimsett: And there's so many things you can do like, you know, like for me, I mean, if you could see, like, I'm looking at my kitchen now, as we sit here, my kitchen does not look like the Instagram worthy kitchens.

[00:29:08] Adele Wimsett: It's not like that because I need everything out. Otherwise I'm not going to use it. 

[00:29:13] Iris Josephina: Yes. 

[00:29:14] Adele Wimsett: I'm happy with that. You know, if I put my Nutribullet or my food processor in the cupboard, I'm not going to go out and use it because I can't, there's too many steps involved. It's boring. I don't want to do that, but it's there.

[00:29:25] Adele Wimsett: I will use it every day and I will remember to use it because I can see it. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. So it's about, you know, part of this acceptance. That's okay. Isn't that my house is never going to look like a show home. I don't want it to. It's my home and I want it easy for me. for my life.

[00:29:41] Adele Wimsett: And I think there's so many, you know, that's just a silly example, but that depth of acceptance. of this is what I need and things become so much easier when we do that. 

[00:29:52] Iris Josephina: Yeah, they definitely do. I have this this app, it's called me plus on my phone and it's a habit tracker, but it also reminds you of all the things that you need to do.

[00:30:03] Iris Josephina: So if I need to, like, clean my room or clean my bathroom. I will never do it if nobody tells me to, or if I'm like right before my period and I'm like, okay, now it's like completely done and I have to do it. So this habit tracker tells me like, Hey, your bathroom, is it still like clean? Maybe take a look at that.

[00:30:23] Iris Josephina: I'm 

[00:30:24] Adele Wimsett: like, 

[00:30:24] Iris Josephina: Hey, 

[00:30:25] Adele Wimsett: maybe I should clean that. We have this, Jake, I run a group. We have a group called ADH Divas. Which is attached to this lovely community, which is so nice, and we're often sharing things on the edge of that. And it's like, you know, if someone wasn't coming around to visit my house, I'd probably never clean it.

[00:30:42] Adele Wimsett: Yes, but one thing that we do is, we've 

[00:30:45] been able to

[00:30:51] Adele Wimsett: mull stuff, maybe stuff that we've grown up being told we're really messy, we're really chaotic, we're really disorganized. I'm actually really organized, but in my way. Yeah, you know, I send my mom over the edge, she looks, she's like, Oh my gosh, how are you doing something like this? It's all under control, don't worry.

[00:31:10] Iris Josephina: Yeah, for me, it's the same. I feel really organized and other people would say like, why are you doing it in that way? And I'm like, because it works. So, um, it works. 

[00:31:20] Adele Wimsett: Yeah, and you know, just really simple things like that. My little girl, we're a totally neurodivergent family. She has a little plastic list she just flicks off every morning that she works haemophagically.

[00:31:30] Adele Wimsett: Clean teeth, make bed, get dressed. And it looks so basic, but it works. Instead of me all morning having to say, Have you done this? I say, Oh, I forgot. Oh, I forgot. She's just like that. And it just creates this peace that would otherwise be really stressful. So, it's finding these little tiny things that can just alleviate.

[00:31:48] Adele Wimsett: So much stress and, you know, that annihilates our adrenals with all these micro stresses each day. If we can just find ways to go, okay, I can clear that, we can do that. It just helps to find that space away from the overwhelm. 

[00:32:03] Iris Josephina: That's beautiful. I love how you described what you do with your little girl 

[00:32:08] Adele Wimsett: and 

[00:32:08] Iris Josephina: how you can give her probably such a different experience than you have when you were younger.

[00:32:14] Adele Wimsett: I think there's so many of us trying to parent whilst reparenting ourselves. I think that's a lot of work. The, like I'm going a bit deep here, but like a lot of the sole purpose of my generation is to break patterns and to rewrite the narrative. And that's, you know, really challenging because it's bringing that awareness to yourself and how things were so different then.

[00:32:39] Adele Wimsett: You know, when I was a child and trying to not instill that in my own daughters, you know, trying to find a different way and acceptance of that. And so it's an interesting process. 

[00:32:52] Iris Josephina: Yeah, I can't imagine that. And I'm really looking forward to that too. Like I'm in my preconception journey right now, and I'm really looking forward to that.

[00:33:02] Iris Josephina: But I'm also aware like it's going to bring up so much. And it's like you said, I said, you said it so beautifully. It's a re parenting of ourselves while parenting. That's actually how I envision parenthood. Yeah, like really. 

[00:33:17] Adele Wimsett: Yeah, it really is. And yeah, it's constantly trying to be in that state of reflection.

[00:33:23] Adele Wimsett: Being conscious it's, it can be quite exhausting, but also, it sounds really cliche, but like really rewarding for it. I laugh, I mean talk, bring it back to sort of a DH. ADHD is that can be a time again for women. The lid comes off, they've coached really well, and suddenly they have children. And you're not able to devote that time to yourself or that space in the same way.

[00:33:46] Adele Wimsett: And it can be quite challenging. So again, really working with your partner around how do you create space for yourself? Because I don't think, you know, as a society, we're really rubbish at honoring the mother, right? Anyway. Yeah. You know? 

[00:34:02] Iris Josephina: Yeah, for sure. And. I feel especially with a neurodivergent mom, like they need even more support.

[00:34:12] Iris Josephina: Absolutely. And there is already barely any support. So I definitely agree with that. We should focus on changing that. And I have lists like ready how I want to do that. And I already informed my family how it's going to be, because I really would want to give birth in the Netherlands with my family around, because I cannot.

[00:34:34] Iris Josephina: Even begin to think about being on my own with my partner, it was like a way flying and then me alone with a child, you know, no, no, no. Yeah. 

[00:34:47] Adele Wimsett: I love that you're kind of putting this, this is the plan. These are my non negotiables. These are my boundaries. This is, this is how that's going to be. Yeah. 

[00:34:54] Iris Josephina: Yeah. I would have done 

[00:34:55] Adele Wimsett: things so differently.

[00:34:56] Iris Josephina: You know, and of course we need to be open for change and not like stick to like the plan because. As a mom in birth, like after things can shift and change and you never know how it's going to be, then still having this knowledge and this like boundary set up, it can really help you stay centered. I feel if you don't have that and you just fall into it and didn't think about anything.

[00:35:26] Iris Josephina: I think it's way harder. Especially as a neurodivergent person. Yeah, we love a plan. We do. We need to have a plan. 

[00:35:34] Adele Wimsett: It's one of 

[00:35:35] the hardest 

[00:35:35] Adele Wimsett: things I've found about childbirth. How long is this going to take? Because if we haven't done this Just give me this, and if you just give me this It's going to go on, we don't know.

[00:35:46] Adele Wimsett: That is so jarring to me. We need to know. When this is going to happen, and then I'm fine, I can sink into it, like, no ending, it's so like, Oh my gosh, I've just got to sit and wait. How do we do that?

[00:36:02] Iris Josephina: I think I've never, like, really spoken to anybody specifically, like, neurodivergent on having given birth. So that's an interesting thing to hear. Yeah. Yeah. It was. 

[00:36:15] Adele Wimsett: And actually, everything that I thought I needed during birth wasn't that at all. I remember writing this plan with my first child and I was like, oh, you don't want anyone speaking to you.

[00:36:25] Adele Wimsett: You want to be really silent. And the midwife then listened to that and wasn't speaking 

[00:36:29] to anyone.

[00:36:38] Adele Wimsett: That was, you know, if I knew what I knew now about myself, and I think that's part of the beauty of the diagnosis, is I love self discovery. I want to know about myself. I want to understand all of that. And I feel like the more space we can create for that exploration, the easier it gets. 

[00:36:55] Iris Josephina: Yeah. 

[00:36:55] Adele Wimsett: To exist.

[00:36:58] Iris Josephina: Yeah, that's beautiful. And if you had to, like, Drop some more like drops of wisdom that you'd like to share with our listeners who may have ADHD. What would that be? 

[00:37:14] Adele Wimsett: I think find your people, find your people, find community, stop trying to take advice. That works really well for people who don't have the same brain as you.

[00:37:26] I think 

[00:37:27] Adele Wimsett: that it's surrendering to that acceptance or Being able to create a life for you. And as I mentioned earlier, I know some of that comes with privilege, but some of it comes with time. You know, and putting these things in place. We're not, don't tend to be very patient people. But being able to first bring awareness that X, Y and Z aren't working for you in your life because of this.

[00:37:51] Adele Wimsett: You believe in yourself, that you're the best person to know what you need and to create that change. Don't suffer alone. There's lots of us out here. There's lots of community. You know, find your people. 

[00:38:05] Iris Josephina: Yeah, thank you. And I totally agree with that. Like, speaking with people who have ADHD or who are neurodivergent, it's like, It's exciting to me because I don't have to explain myself.

[00:38:18] Iris Josephina: I don't have to like see like, Oh, how are people are going to respond? Just like I can walk in. I can be me. They are there themselves. And it's, yeah, it's so empowering. So thank you for, for doing what you do and creating this space for people as well. Yeah. So. Where can people find you if they're interested in working with you or becoming a part of your community?

[00:38:43] Iris Josephina: What's the best way to connect with you? 

[00:38:45] Adele Wimsett: I like to hang out on Instagram as Harmonize You. I really love the Instagram community. I've met so many. Oh, that's how we connected, right? Yeah. So many amazing women through that space. On my website, harmonizeyou. co. uk, you can find information about my clinic and I've got.

[00:39:02] Adele Wimsett: Podcasts on different, you know, different information and resources available. So there's some free resources on there as well. So yeah, just reach out, connect. I love speaking to women about their experiences. So yeah, please do get in touch. 

[00:39:17] Iris Josephina: I'll add all your information to show notes so people can find it easily.

[00:39:21] Iris Josephina: And I just want to thank you again for coming on, sharing your wisdom, having this conversation with me and yeah, just keep doing this work because we need it. Very, very much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Okay, this wraps up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Want to know more about me?

[00:39:41] Iris Josephina: The best way to reach me is via at CycleSeeds on Instagram. And if you heard something today and you think, Oh my God, wow, I learned something new. Feel free to share the podcast on your social media and tag me or leave a review or rating. In this way, you help me reach more people like you. Thank you so much.