If you have an ADHD or AuDHD brain, you have probably been told to try harder more times than you can count. Focus more. Forget less. Push through. None of that touches what is really going on, which is that your brain is built differently and has needs of its own.
I came back recently to an article by Dr Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and brain-imaging specialist, called Seven Ways to Optimise Your Brain and Your Life, taken from his book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. It is written for everyone, not for ADHD in particular. But reading it again, I kept noticing how much more each of these things matters when your brain is wired the way ours is.
So here are his seven ideas, rewritten in my own words and through an ADHD and AuDHD lens. None of it is medical advice. Think of it as seven small starting points. You do not need all seven. One is plenty to begin with.
1. Protect your brain
Protecting your brain means looking after the quiet basics that keep it running well: sleep, stress, and what you put into your body.
Sleep is often the first thing to slip when you have ADHD. The evening is when the house finally goes quiet and your mind feels free, so going to bed can feel like giving up the best part of the day. The late-night scroll feeds it. The ADHD or AuDHD brain finds it hard to put the phone down, and one more Instagram reel or YouTube video easily becomes another hour of lost sleep. The trouble is that short sleep makes the next day harder in all the ways that already feel hard: focus, memory, patience, mood.
Stress matters too. Long stretches of pressure wear on any brain, and an ADHD or AuDHD brain tends to let it build up quietly until it tips over into overwhelm. Noticing the build-up earlier is half the work.
Then there is what we lean on to cope. Many of us use caffeine to get going and a glass of wine to come down again. A little is usually fine. A lot tends to take more than it gives.
2. Feed your brain
What you eat changes how your brain feels, sometimes within the hour. When you have ADHD, a blood sugar crash does not just make you tired. It can take your focus and your patience down with it.
A breakfast with some protein in it, rather than sugar and white bread, tends to give a steadier morning. Many people notice the same at lunch. Lighter on the bread and pasta, and the afternoon dip is softer.
This is not about a perfect diet, which is its own kind of pressure. It is about noticing what leaves you clear and what leaves you foggy, then leaning towards the first.
3. Notice the ANTs
Dr Amen has a lovely phrase for the thoughts that drag us down: ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. They turn up on their own, uninvited, and they can colour a whole day before you have even noticed they are there.
A few common ones:
- Assuming you know someone is annoyed with you, with no real evidence.
- Predicting something will go badly before it has happened.
- Thinking in always and never.
- Drowning in I should have.
If a short reply or a flat look can send you spinning into they are angry with me, I have ruined everything, that is worth paying attention to. It is very common with ADHD and AuDHD, and it has a name: rejection sensitivity, or rejection sensitive dysphoria, as Dr William Dodson calls it. It all comes back to emotional regulation, which is harder when feelings run as fast and strong as ours do. You can get a sense of how much it affects you with my free Rejection Sensitivity Quiz.
The aim is not to never have these thoughts. It is to catch them, and to remember you do not have to believe every one. A thought is not a fact.
4. Keep your brain learning
Here is one where your wiring is an advantage. The ADHD or AuDHD brain loves novelty. New things light it up in a way that routine never quite manages.
Learning something new builds fresh connections in the brain, and a brain that keeps learning stays sharper for it. It does not have to be grand. A language, an instrument, a recipe, a corner of history you never understood at school.
Fifteen minutes a day, kept up, adds up to a surprising amount over a year. Pick something you genuinely find interesting, because interest is the fuel an ADHD or AuDHD brain runs on.
5. Stay connected
Dr Amen’s fifth point is about love and closeness. Warm, connected relationships are genuinely good for the brain, and being cut off from people is hard on it.
This one can be complicated when you have ADHD or AuDHD. A day spent masking, holding yourself together to look like everyone else, is exhausting, and the pull afterwards is often to retreat and see no one. A little of that is fine, but too much can tip into isolation, which only lowers your mood further.
The kind of connection that helps is the easy kind, where you can drop the mask and just be yourself. One person you can be your full self around does more good than a room full of people you cannot relax with. Protect that.
6. Find your “concert state”
Dr Amen describes a concert state: a relaxed body with a clear, sharp mind, the way you might feel at a really good concert. Calm and alert at the same time. For a busy ADHD or AuDHD brain that combination is gold, and it can be practised.
Slow belly breathing is the quickest way in. Breathe in so your stomach rises, out so it falls, slowly, only a handful of breaths a minute. It is hard to stay wound up while you are breathing like that.
He also suggests something he calls the One Page Miracle, which suits an ADHD or AuDHD brain well. On a single page, write down what you actually want in a few areas of your life: relationships, work, health, money. Then keep it somewhere you will see it every day. When things are out of sight they fall out of mind, so having your priorities in front of you helps you steer by them.
7. Get support early
Dr Amen’s last point is the one I see most often. People wait until they are at breaking point before they ask for help, when reaching out earlier would have cost them so much less.
There is no medal for white-knuckling it alone for years. Successful people are not the ones who never struggle. They are the ones who reach for the right support sooner.
If you have been managing on willpower and quietly running low, that is exactly the moment specialist coaching can help. Working with someone who understands the ADHD or AuDHD brain is not a last resort. It is one of the smarter early moves you can make.
None of this is about fixing yourself, because you are not broken. It is about working with your brain instead of against it.
You do not have to take on all seven. Choose the one that feels most like you and start there. Small changes, big difference.
Inspired by Dr Daniel Amen’s article Seven Ways to Optimise Your Brain and Your Life, drawn from his book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.
Considering 1:1 coaching?
If you are seriously considering one-to-one coaching for yourself, a Discovery Session is the place to start. It is a short conversation to see whether we would be a good fit to work together. Twenty minutes on Zoom, free.
Get the free guide, and join my weekly newsletter
Sign up and I will send you my free guide, 5 ADHD-Friendly Organisation Hacks (and how to make them stick), straight away. You will also join my weekly newsletter with practical strategies for adults with ADHD and AuDHD. Unsubscribe any time.
About Linda Fox
Linda Fox is an ICF-ACC credentialled adult ADHD coach (ADHD Life & Business Coach, CALC), coaching since 2000, with lived experience of ADHD herself. She works with entrepreneurs, legal and medical professionals, and others navigating demanding careers, helping them build practical strategies that fit how their brain actually works rather than fighting against it. UK-based, supporting clients with ADHD and AuDHD worldwide on Zoom.
