5 Quick Tips to Reduce Anxiety With ADHD
Escape the worry spiral, increase calm, and build resilience with ADHD
This article not only helps delineate the differences between anxiety and ADHD, it gives very good suggestions on how to work with anxiety.
– JE
If you are someone who lives with anxiety, then you understand the persistent and often self-defeating cycle of catastrophizing, what-ifs, and negative self-talk. If you add attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) into the mix, these patterns are intensified because of the natural challenges with executive functioning skills that come with a neurodivergent brain. It’s just tougher to manage the strong emotions before they take over and leave you dysregulated and overwhelmed.
Despite misdiagnoses, ADHD differs significantly from anxiety. At its core, anxiety is an overestimation of a problem and an underestimation of the personal resources someone has to deal with it. While people with ADHD wrestle with organization, prioritization, productivity, working memory issues, and other executive-function challenges, those with anxiety struggle more with compulsive, obsessive, or perfectionistic behaviors; psychosomatic ailments; and debilitating specific phobias. Issues related to food, housing, or job insecurity; systemic racism; or trauma further intensify anxiety.
Credit: Sharon Saline Psy.D.