Hi there and welcome to another episode of all the things ADHD the podcast by to Gen X women who are diagnosed with ADHD and other neuro divergences in our middle life. Today, we're going to continue the conversation around movement and exercise and what works for us and what doesn't and how all of that is. Okay, so we're going to join us mid conversation where I am going to start by talking about my aversion to almost all team sports name is going to talk about her aversion to martial arts. And we're just going to, he said, continue this conversation. So thank you for listening. As always, I am ready writing on Twitter. Amy is did you want on Twitter, our email addresses all the things adhd@gmail.com. And our website is all the things ADHD calm. Thanks so much for listening. And I hope you enjoy the conclusion of our conversation around movement and exercise. I couldn't do like team sports where we had to work together for something, right? Like, like a soccer team or a baseball team. Right? Like swimming. You were on a team, but it was still just you. Right? Nobody was relying on me. Right? You know, maybe on a relay but even then, right, like I just as long as I got in there and swam, I was pretty confident in my ability to at least do two laps. Right? No, but But again, it's it's the it's, it's I was always just awkward and had poor hand eye coordination and all of that. And so like, I would be so stressed out on a soccer team, because I was like, I get a screw up and everybody's gonna be mad at me.
That chaos to me like a soccer team feels like chaos, because you're all just running around on a field that's like basketball feels like chaos. To me. I play team sports. I like team sports where there is a net between me and the other team. Like I like doubles badminton, and I like okay, volleyball, right? Like, these are sports where I'm working with a team, but nobody from the other team is going to jump up and smack a ball out of my hands because like, okay, yeah, I can't do that. But I like I like working with other people on a volleyball team. Everybody has their own position and you learn from plays and that, you know, it's competitive. There's another team that you're playing against, but within your own team, it's about how well can you execute this thing that you plan not that other people are going to jump on? Right? Yeah, and try to enjoy you don't get interrupted in the middle of your own play. You screw it up yourself, but nobody's gonna come from the other team and wreck your play for you, which just allows me to enjoy a little bit more both the competition and the the team aspect. But some people love like elbows out. Oh, yeah. combat sports. So.
So my one exception to my no team sports is water polo.
How are we even friends? Oh, man, water polo. Because so when we would do summer league swimming,
we would.
Summer swim team was a joke, right? Like summer swim team, you didn't train very hard. So our coaches would always tell us, you have to do all the other aquatic sports that the summer league does, too. And especially for us, we had to do synchronized swimming as well. So I did synchronized swimming, which Oh my god, that's so hard. It is so hard, which is why they made us do it. And that was okay for team as well. Right? Like that was we were working. It's kind of like that, but we were working together. We had our own space, but nobody was gonna attack us. Right? Yeah, like, yeah, I'm like water polo, for example. But bc water polo was that perfect balance of like, I was secure enough in my own swimming skills that I didn't get anxious about it. And so it was like, I knew I couldn't shoot, I couldn't shoot oh my gosh, I could be they used to joke I could be in the net with a ball and still not be like, yeah, then it would end up behind us. Like it was just, it was comical. It became a joke. Put out was so aggressive, so aggressive. It was just like, all of the anger that I had been socialized not to express in any way shape, or form because reasons, which we could unpack it another one, but like, you know, every single ounce of anger and aggression and frustration that I had ever felt in my entire life. All of a sudden I was on in the pool playing water polo. And it was just like, I went into beast mode.
It was just nice. Yeah, that's amazing. Oh, yeah, kid is like that. My Yeah, my kid does karate was on the suggestion of their father who also used to do karate, and the two of them, like, since Elin was quite small, like they've been the ones that engage in roughhousing because they are both very strong. People with skulls made out of rocks and joints that don't slide weird. So like sometimes I get caught in the middle and you know, my kid will be like, fake trying to fight me and I'll be like, Don't don't don't you're gonna hurt me and like Tamayo for the other. You're gonna dislocate something in your mother. She's I pray like when somebody comes too close to me even like the sort of like fake wrestling or like just arm punching, good natured sparring, like Tom's always pretending to use kickboxing moves on me and I like freeze, because my body is so fragile. My joints are so fragile, that I completely panic. Like, I don't have any of that kind of aggression, because like, anybody comes towards me, and I'm not like, I'm gonna hit you, and it's gonna feel great. I'm just like, please don't break me. Right. So. Yeah, and I love that.
Yeah, and that's, I mean, for. For me, it was, it was the again, like you were saying about volleyball. But for me, water polo was like, I knew I could swim. And so that I didn't have to think about whereas like all other sports, I have to think about running, and I'm not good at running. And I have to think about catching and I'm really not good at catching and, uh, you know, I think about a lot and think about the strategy, whereas waterpolo it was like, I can swim, right? This is the thing I can do. I don't need to worry about the swimming part. And now and I don't really have to know how to catch a ball. Right? Because it's supposed to just fall in front of me. Right? So I can I can and swim with it. And trying to take it away from someone. And so I could focus on that sort of strategy. Right and focus on some I can feel someone coming out my side and I know what to do, or I'm going to go after this person. So it was it was like it was just enough.
Yeah, you know where the right kind of stuff. And what you're not thinking while you're doing that is you're not constantly checking your imaginary 1990s Fitbit and going like have I had enough active minutes and burned enough
calories? Right? waterproof. Try out.
Your trial on your was that like the Iron Man tie? Yes. The Iron Man, the Timex Iron Man, that's what it was? Yeah. But you're not because I can take all the joy out of it. Now that's true exercise into a chore. Right. So you were talking in our episodes of nutrition and eating about how, when there's a diet plan that you have to follow, that's prescriptive. It just makes you really angry and opposition, right? Yeah. And I think movement can be like that to where you're like, you know, My watch is always telling me you have 250 steps left in this hour. And I'm only supposed to do 250 I'm like, stop judging me watch. I did 18 kilometer run an hour ago, right. And now you want to move again, fuck off. Like I just get irrationally angry. But like, there's certain movement practices that can be quite intense and sort of cognitively demanding at the same time that you just you do that. It's fun while you're doing it. Like I actually have freaky hand eye coordination. I'm really good at throwing and catching.
Okay, wow, wouldn't expect
because I'm super clumsy. It's the math. They love the math. Like, I just yeah, that I love for me, like I will throw like a baseball back and forth with anybody. I will do that until I become conscious that I can't actually lift my arm above the shoulder anymore, because I'm so mentally absorbed in trying to get the shots to go where I want them to go and make a catch. I become so absorbed in my enjoyment of the activity that I will not notice that like, oh, tomorrow, I'm not going to be able to shampoo my hair. Right? Like it I actually have to experience a dysfunction in my arm to be like, Oh,
how long have we been throwing a ball? My arm hurts.
Right and like that's the kind of blew my practice I wish all of us could indulgent is where we actually have fun. Like, it doesn't have to be a chore. And like, when I do those things, it reminds me that the life of the mind is not the only part of my life. Yeah, right. Like it doesn't have to be I don't like live or die on the quality of the piece of feedback. I wrote on a peer review I had to do for some journal submission that sometimes it's okay to live inside my body and focus on like, trying to get the right curve on the Frisbee. Yeah, it goes high enough that my kid has to jump for it, but not so high that they have to chase it down the street.
Right But there it goes on
here that goes on the roof like but to get lost in that sort of focus on moving the body can really bring like a nice not just like the physical tiredness and remind you that you're hungry and stuff, but also this kind of emotional balance where you're like, oh, like everything doesn't happen between my ears, like there are other parts of me as well and I'm a whole person and then can help us be less sort of paranoid and anxious and, and you know, all those sort of cognitive tricks that we play on ourselves to make ourselves unhappier than we need to be because we over focus on the things that we think we should be doing. And that we're not doing as well or the things that we have deficits in like sitting still and writing my book this summer, right? You can be so wrapped up in all those areas where you think that you're failing that sometimes it's getting out of your chair, and engaging a movement practice that you enjoy, like can remind you to that's not your whole life.
Yeah, right. So when what so when I went to university, I stopped swimming. Like I swam for half a year and was like, I know this is not It's not the same I can't I'm not that educated. But what I did start doing this is you might think, like, okay, like you're young and an undergrad, and it's true, but what I sort of replaced it with was going out and dancing.
I love dancing in my under,
I know, when I just I was like, for like, five straight years, three or four times a week, you would just go out. And I mean, we weren't even really drinking, we just went out. And we went
out to drink. I couldn't without the cover charge for stuff. But my boyfriend at the time, was fairly good looking in a sort of golf sort of sense. And I was awfully cute in a golf sort of sense. And we had VIP pins for a lot of places in Toronto, and well, we just get in for free because we would just dance all night, we just dance all night. I mean, it wasn't as healthy as it might be today to do that. Because all of those bars were full of smoke at the tops. If you overall we would like come home and you'd have to take your clothes off like in the bathroom. Because if you put them into your bedroom, your whole bedroom would smell like an adult. I didn't know I always had long hair,
hair, but for a long time I had long hair and just like you'd fall into bed and fall over your face. You'd be like, Oh, god, oh, wow. Yeah, but but I mean, but that was that was an I was in Sherbrooke. So it wasn't nearly as expensive as Toronto but I mean, we were regulars at this one bar. And like, they didn't they in charge cover but you had to pay to check your coat. right because it was in winter. And but they we got we got free drink. Because we were there all the time. Like we we we moved when we moved out, we moved off campus and into like, in there, we picked a place to make sure that we could walk there on a regular basis. Right, where are we gonna live within walking distance of my mouth? Like it just asked me to go dancing. That's it. Yeah, I need and I would actually do that. I would there would be some nights where I couldn't sleep. And I would just get up, get dressed and walk to the bar to go dancing. And they'd be like, Hey, what's up? And I'm like, are you here with what you know? I'm like, nope, this year dancer like, great. Alright, see?
You know, a movement practice is something that makes you feel better in your body.
Yeah. And yeah, when I feel so good on the dance floor all the time, like, I'm sure I looked like a frickin, you know, weirdo. But I'd be like, edit Ray's just like the time of my life or whatever. I didn't care. It did not care. And really still don't actually and I go to a wedding and like I get on the dance floor. Like the only social acceptable socially acceptable way for a 40 year old to dance anymore is to just get invited to know it's I mean, what are we supposed to do? No, that's true.
That's right. Like, yeah, all these night. It's about the music as old data people are old. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you want to be the old that old these night. It's gonna be me. Yeah, no, dancing is great dancing in your house also is great if that's the thing that you like to do. gardening is a great movement practice. Like if that's what floats your boat, right? Like, there are all kinds of ways that that we can move. And I think often neurodivergent people find that there are a lot of barriers to move in practices, they want to engage either requires a lot of equipment that needs to be managed, even if that's just like a running bra and your knee braces, and you're just like, oh, like the barrier, the beginning is too high. And I'm not going to do it or like, I would like to get a I would like to do yoga at home. But when I have to like get all my mat out and stuff. And then I have to like find a video I want to do now I got decision fatigue already, I'm not going to do it. You know, so maybe you want to sign up for a class that takes place outside of your house. Because you know, you'll go if you've paid money for a number of sessions, or like, just maybe you think like, I want to do this at home because it's too stressful to leave. Or maybe like I don't really like exercising because I have some gym class trauma. So I'm just going to you know, wear my street clothes when I go for five kilometer walks, because I don't want to call it exercising because that out I like I think all of that is perfectly fine. Or to be like, no, I used to be like a varsity athlete. And now I want to join the most competitive public League of over 40 volleyball players or what have you, like, if that's your jam, you're super competitive, like do that too, right? I think so much of our culture around movement now is very moralistic, like you have to do this right for your body. And it just turns it into another sort of prescriptive chore that most of us don't really respond well to. And like requires sort of like, you gotta track your calories, you got to track your activities, you need to track your steps, you're gonna like go do this many times a week or like, it doesn't count. And I think since so many of us struggle with executive function and planning and feelings of being behind on everything all the time and feeling really coerced by stuff, it would be really nice if we could allow ourselves to have movement practices that we can pick up and put down when we want that feel pleasurable, rather than shoulds. Right want to choose instead of shoulds because we're much more likely to follow through with them. And I know in my own life, those periods of time when I have not been able To move as much my mental health suffers. Yeah, right? Like and I don't mean move like run half marathons I mean move like, like three kilometers of walking or like 7000 steps a day. Like if I don't if I don't get that for several weeks in a row because of whatever circumstance, like I really suffer, I get a lot more anxious. I don't sleep as well. I get these weird aches and pains. I mean, that could just because I'm middle aged. It's like, why do I hurt today? Today? Is it my back? Is it my neck is dead? I moved too much yesterday, and I move not enough yesterday. Did I just sleep a little weird last night? Did I just like suddenly age 10%? More overnight? I don't know when I'm falling apart. Right. But like, I am really like sympathetic to this, like, you know, you should and you got to eat your mat and get to have your snacks as far before you go and you got to get this special shirt. And if it's not out of the laundry, then don't go to like recreation league to makes you want to be good. You have to find your like membership pin that you have to wear. It's like oh my god, some of that's too hard. Right? Yeah. But a movement practice doesn't have to be any of those things. If you don't want it to be.
No, right? No. And that's, it's, I think that that's one of the things that I have to kind of schedule it for me, I have to schedule it and have another reason. Yeah, other than like, I'm just gonna like the coaching,
right? Well, I'm gonna go coach, and I'm going to move well in coaching. But really, I'm not here to move I'm here to coach. And the move being is just as a nice externality to that your staffing, right? They call that strategy stacking, which is something that you know, you're going to do, but you do something else simultaneously, that you wish you would do more, but somehow we're not managing, right? Yeah. So you know, you're going to coach and if you know that, while you're coaching, you're going to be walking around and moving and getting exercise that way, then that's a great solution for you. Right, exact stacking those things. And for me, like I always managed to like, it was a bit of a struggle at the start of the pandemic when I was working from home because I would get most of my stuff in a given day that didn't have a run in it by walking to work, which
Exactly,
yes, walking back, and then like going to my various classrooms on campus would get me another three or 4000 steps in the day. So I wasn't exercising, it was just the pattern of my day was in order to get to work, it was going to have to do almost three kilometers of walking. And then when that structure was gone, and also it was the middle of winter, right? So it's not like oh, it's beautiful. I want to go outside and have a walk to nowhere for nothing yet, right?
We put on 27 layers of clothing and come in with an eyelashes and my nostrils. Like though Yeah, and come
back why nothing has any meaning right? And the less defined reason to do it, the less you're going to find reason to do it, right. Like stalking is a is a great option. Some of us just like to be super spontaneous. Like now I work from home and I have to do these runs in the weather. Like we were discussing before we started recording, it's getting really hot, and I crumble in the heat like I,
I you know, I do too. I do too.
I like I get heat exhaustion. Like I get the thing where I stop sweating. And I start shivering, right? Oh, like it's bad. It's bad for me. And then I get faint, and I get nauseous and all this stuff and stuff to be really careful around the heater. So now since we're working from home, and I run right over like yesterday, I had to do a five kilometer run. And I did it like before 10am because it was going to be too hot. So that was in my work day. But then in the evening when I would have run. I did some work instead, right? So I had was at liberty to sort of just stick my exercise in, where it made the most sense for my body to stick it in. Right. Yeah, it wasn't a plan. But they're people like to have things like I have signed up for tap dancing lessons. And it's, you know, let's say, I wish I could sign up for tap dancing lessons. I've signed up for tap dancing lessons, and it's 10 weeks for $200. And it's just it's not any 10 weeks, it's these 10 weeks. And if I don't go I've lost the money, right? But then you make it a priority. But other people really get oppositional when they sign up for stuff like that. Some people just want to be like, No, I'm gonna pay a gym, a flat fee per month, and it's gonna be a 24 hour gym. So if I can't sleep at three in the morning, I'm gonna go and if I only go twice a month, then I probably made my money back, right. So some people want a little bit more structure, right around their activity. Some people want less structure. Some people want their activities to not look like exercise activities, right? But just like informal movement practices, some people want to be like, I'm going to take dance lessons, because that's an artistic form of expression that's meaningful to me. But it turns out, that's exercise as well. Or some people are like, I want to play a competitive sport, right? or other people like I want to learn like karate, just because I'm interested in having more control over how I move my body in space. But it turns out, I don't want to fight anybody. But it turns out that's like a really great way to get strong. Right? Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of ways to do it. Right. And it's okay to say that we like some ways more than others, because I know another thing that ADHD people really struggle with, is denying our own knowledge of what we think because mostly, we've been told that what we like is wrong, right? Like No, you have to you can't drop out of this because like everybody does the sport. No, you can't just do that thing. You can't sit in a laundry basket and read all day. Like No, that's not appropriate. Like I know that's what you say you want to do, but you're wrong. Right. So yeah, like how many of us are pretty Assisting and like doing hot yoga that we don't like? Because we think that we're supposed to like it or we join team sports because like must be good for us because we hate people. Right? And this will help us like, Yeah, no, nobody's enjoying that. So I give you permission listeners to enjoy your movement practices and if you don't abandon them quit.
Yeah. No, and that's a big, that's actually something that I've I've tried to instill in my own kids, right? Where if it's, if it's especially early on when they were really young, like, I'm like, if you're not, we had a rule growing up, but if you signed up for it, you did the full season. Right? Whatever the season was. I was like, I do not have the energy to fight with my children over doing a whole season. If they are literally miserable. Like, again, depending like when Oh God, I Oh, do you remember me tweeting about my son's soccer nightmares? Like when I had the coach's soccer team? Yeah. What was it, but like he was he would sit on the sideline and like, play in the dirt and find bugs, right? And I'd be like, I'm coaching the soccer team. And I
have like, I am doing more on this soccer team. Yeah, son is doing all this. Yeah.
But it was only like six or eight, six weeks or something. I was like, okay, we can just push through for six weeks. And then, you know, I love soccer. I want to do it again. And I'm like, let's talk again next year. Okay. Um, but, you know, they're, they're also the, so I, I'm sort of, I was I've been kind of like, Okay, well, let's, depending on how long it is, but you know, I am free to help you bail. Right? Right. Like, it's okay. Right? It's okay to be like, this actually makes me miserable. I am terrible at it. I don't like the people here. You know, I am anxious going to it, and I'm anxious coming home from it. And it's like, why am I Why would I make you do that? Like, I like, my, my daughter loves ballet. And my son loves to swim. And I want them to try other things. But like, at the end of the day, you know, I told my daughter this. I'm like, I know you love to dance. And I don't mind because at one point, she was dancing and swimming, it was just too much. And she felt super bad because she wanted to quit swimming. Right? And she didn't want to let me down. And I said, sweetie, I said, I watch you when you're on stage dancing. And I said, You're you light up, you light up on that stage when you dance. I never see you light up like that when you're on behind the blocks or at the pool. Right? Like you enjoy it. Right? Like it's fine. So she doesn't actively hate it. Right? But, you know, but you don't love it. And right, and if swimming is, is inhibiting your ability to do the thing that you actually really love to do, then we're gonna stop the thing. That's not as as fun. Yeah, great. Why not? Right, like, it's, it's fine. You know, it helps. I'm one of the coaches. So like, because they have like cancellation fees. And so they don't worry, you don't have a cancellation fee. But yeah, but, you know, I was just like, if this is making you miserable, then we're not going to do it.
Yeah. You don't want to sour people, like, especially kids, you don't want to sour them on movement. Right? Right. Because you're forcing them into an activity they don't enjoy. Like, and maybe some of us have had that experience as well. Well, yeah, say I spent like most of my young adulthood like maybe up until I was about 30. probably thinking that I could not exercise I would not go to a gym I would not ever try running I wouldn't play on any teams because my experiences in elementary school those stupid participation Canada fitness test stuff. Oh my god, the fitness test, right? Like because my husband was telling me about how you know, he just missed getting like the super highest like Platinum or whatever one year because in the chin up bar fell down while he was doing his hold and that he held on because this is who he is, he did not let go of the chin up bar when it fell off the wall. So when he fell to the ground, hit his head on the floor, he then knocked himself out with the chin up bar on his forehead because he had not released his grip on it. And he'd only held for as long as he would have got gold. Right? And they were like, well, you can redo it, you know, once your concussion heals. And he's so mad that he missed the very highest achievement. And that was like he's like, what do you get? I was like, participant he's like there was a participant I was like, yeah,
oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Cuz he'd never seen it the participant badge, right? I was like, it's pretty much all gray. And it's a failure. So yeah, in it. Right. But like what I learned through movement practices as a child was that I was too clumsy and other children did not want to play on teams with me. And also that everybody could run faster and farther than me that people could do more push ups that people could hold themselves up on the chin up bar, and that I couldn't do any of those things. And so for a long time, it was very traumatic for me to contemplate even throwing a baseball with people, right. Yeah. Because I've had such bad such negative experiences with people telling me how awful I was that all that stuff and how I was weak and I should just try harder and like there was a lot of areas In my life where people were telling me I should try harder and I was like, so demoralized that I went years and years and years, like without exercising and I think that's a tragedy when we do that to children that we make them think that only people in the top 5% of athletic ability deserve to play sports or can be considered to be athletic. Yeah, nevermind athletes, right. So I opted out of all that for a very, very long time to my sort of detriment. And it turns out, I'm actually pretty strong, right? Yeah. Like, it turns out, I can do it. I can ride a bike forever. I can like run half marathons. I am freaky accurate with a softball and I'm a pretty good volleyball player. And I'm a very active person with like an A plus resting heart rate, right. But I that was not anything I could ever have believed about myself, from my experiences with physical education as again. So if our friends out there are clumsy, distracted, hyperactive, spacey, neurodivergent people have similar traumas from elementary and high school. I say to you, it's a lie. It's it is a lie. I will start over.
Yeah, I mean, I swam, I was out by the time I hit high school. I was a distance swimmer. I was training full on distance. Wow. Yeah. No, I was not open water. But like 800 408 Yeah. And, and I couldn't pass any of the fitness tests.
Oh, what? Yeah,
I so here's so here's what I finally hit you. Well, no, I mean, I couldn't do it. You know, because I'm all I'm all lower body. Right. I'm
all about me, too. Yeah. Otherwise,
yeah. Um, but also, like, just I, you know, I could leg press Like, I could like press the whole leg machine and then have somebody leaning on it because I couldn't go to failure with just get like, there was a bunch of us girls who were like that. I could do incline setups with a 25 pound plate on my chest that we'd that's what he had to do.
telling us about that. Yeah, yeah. I think and I was like, What
and then I would sneeze and like cry because ABS hurts so friggin much I but, but again, it was one of those things where so I was I took to the water really naturally. And, and the same thing happened with my I was a backstroker. And I was always get out of the water doing backstroke, like hyperventilating, I was just dying, and not in a good way. And it wasn't until I was 16 years old, and had been there backstroker forever, that my coach said, well, when do you breathe? When you swim backstroke? I said, a library that went out every stroke. And he's like, Oh, my God, are you kidding me? Well, I've ever told me any otherwise, right? Nobody. And it was it was the same thing with running. Nobody had ever taught me how to breathe. Right? And so like, I would die when I would run because I'd be like,
because I just like breathe in and out every single one. There was no breathing matter. I like I'm gonna faint now. We just try to imagine that I'm like, I'm getting lightheaded.
Yeah, but, but like, but again, it's, it's, it's this idea. And now I teach. I teach my swimmers now I'm like, I'm gonna teach you how to breathe. Yeah, I was like, No, this is important. This is really important. And by the time I learned how to breathe, and it only took me till later to figure out that like, like, I wasn't breathing properly when I ran and by then my knees were shot. So I was like, lads, and my feet are my feet are flat. My knees are I'm not neat. I floating kneecaps, like I'm not really made for running anyways, like it's your base or the pool.
For like, a less weight bearing environment.
Oh, yeah. Well, no, I'm, I'm the person and this has nothing to do with the ADHD but like, I my last year swimming and so basically my senior year of high school, I I tried to I decided I was going to be a good breaststroker because I'm terrible at breaststroke. I can't as I my knees, my knees turn into my feet trunnion that's not the that's not the like. So I decided I was going to do it and get it be a good breaststroker and try so I could do my my I am which is all four strokes. So my other strokes were solid, and I was a distance swimmer. So I did closing speed, which breaststroke was so bad. My son teases me he's like I'm already faster than you and I'm like, a low bar. Yeah. And so one day in practice after I'd been really trying to work my breaststroke kick, I did a flip turn in my knees locked. Yeah, and I was like, Oh, this isn't great. So I ended up having to go to physiotherapy. And they like my legs are at such an angle at the knee which they shouldn't be at any angle at all but they're essentially within me that like he drew the angle and called all over over all the other physio therapists to be like that's a great feeling. Look at Oh yeah, no, yeah, no, basically it was like that and then whenever I go to like proper running shoe stores like the really like the running like it'd be like the running room in Canada, but they've got ones like that down here in the States. You go to Place where they take the running shoes really seriously. And they say okay, no walk across the store so we can see Oh, yeah, no, they're all like the cold they're friends and they're like this what is I'm like yeah and I'm like terrible ankles I've always had weak ankles I bad knees I've and I just I'm like this mystery of like how I can't even walk at all apparently given like my physiognomy of how my like lower body is put together, but it was really good for South kick.
Please know that like this is definitely linked with autism and with also like lesser with other forms of neuro divergence is weird. joints, really weird. joints, right. So stuff like Ehlers danlos Syndrome to right which is about like weird joints and weird collagen deficiencies or excesses right that produce like your super stretchy skin or you're really like double jointed elbows and fingers and weird locking knees and all that stuff like that's, those are, that's a kind of physical trait that is more heavily linked in the neurodivergent population than in the general population. Like I will tell you, frankly, that this morning, I was holding a hairbrush too tight and all my fingers locked me to smack them to get them to unlock because that's a really bad feeling when your fingers Yeah, lock in, like sort of backwards position, like very yucky. But they have like, doesn't that happen to people all the time, and it only happens to neurodivergent people I know. Yeah, so if it hurts, don't do it. People find something that works for you that you can enjoy. That doesn't feel like another obligation that you're going to let somebody down if you don't do it move because you love to move move. Because when you are doing the movement, you are enjoying it. And when you stop doing the movement, you enjoy the way your body feels, afterwards, right enjoy the mental clarity enjoy the physical tiredness instead of just the kind of emotional exhaustion that you may go to bed with, often right and and find whatever way to move that feels supportive to you. Nobody has the right to tell you what activities to do, or how much you should move or how little you should move or how you should stop moving so much, right? I give you permission listeners to start to listen to your own preferences here, you may have been the child that people really, really wanted to sit still. Right, and maybe you've spent your whole life practicing sitting still. And maybe every time you feel like you want to jump out of your chair and take the dog around the block to clear your head, you think you're not allowed to do that you are allowed to do that. Right? Yes, I give you permission we gives you permission the entire internet gives you permission. Right? So I we have been talked out of many of our own natural movement patterns. And we second guess ourselves, or it's layered over so much with this like moral obligation or this like diet culture bullshit or wellness culture bullshit, that the joy and happiness that we can find from engaging in physical activity is almost absent from our movement practices. And I wish we could find that again, I think it's remarkably therapeutic as well as enjoyable.
Well, and also to say that for those of us who are perhaps more enter it the inattentive and not hyperactive, who have heard our entire lives that were lazy. And so you think, Oh, I can't exercise are you beat yourself up? Because you think I'm just lazy? As we talked to just talked about, right? These things are these transitions are hard, right? It's sitting there. You know, I saw another meme, where it was like describing like, how it looks to somebody on the outside. Oh, my god, they're just sitting there. Why don't they go clean their room? Or why don't they go make dinner? And inside the ad she brains versus like, get up? Get up? Get up? I can't get up on such I'm so terrible, terrible get up even though I know I should get up and get dinner. And yeah, you know. And so I think sometimes in that same way that you didn't think you were athletic. Because of those messages. I think for a lot of us, we get into a shame cycle about always, you know about having trouble doing those things and saying like, Oh my god, I have to get up, I have to put on a suit. And then you don't do it. And then you feel like awful and say, Well, I'm just a lazy, you know, piece of shit or whatever, you know, like that, that we've been told, or people have said about us or, you know, we've seen people say about other people who have the same kind of behaviors and practice and so therefore they must think that way about us too. I think that that's been a really hard thing for me to unlearn as well, is that you know, despite being a distance swimmer and doing like every single after school activity and all of that, I would still be called lazy. And then so like once all of that stopped, right all once the routine was gone once it was just like you're on your own kid. And I didn't do anything. I thought oh, wow, I guess I am lazy.
I guess they were right all along. All right. All right. Like, I'll just sit here and feel that story of who you are. Right? And when you're young, when people tell you that story that becomes your story that you tell yourself, right, I guess I'm not a person who exercise I guess I'm like, really lazy, I guess I'm weak. Right? And it's really hard to because that makes you very insecure about your capacity to do those things. Even if you want to challenge that narrative, you think that you can't, because you think that it's true, right? And like, as you know, from like, those means telling you, you know, have to do it have to do it have to do it, that trying to shame ourselves into doing things never works, right. And I guess that's why we're trying to focus on the joy today, right? Like, to me, if I did it right now, like, I just like to stand up and, you know, do a couple of twists and with my arms over my head and stretch out my sides, because I always feel good. When I do that, I don't think I should get up and do my exercise, or my Fitbit is gonna beep at me for inactivity. And then I feel like I've failed at this thing like, this is this whole toxic stew of self judgment about all of my failings as a human being and an adult, right? Of course, you're not going to move if every time you think about movement, that's the narrative that comes up for you. Right?
Yes,
you don't move enough. And you're lazy. So you can't move. But you have to move. And now you're just like, I don't want to deal with this set of feelings.
It doesn't bring me joy, right? There's no joy here. There's no joy.
Yeah, thanks for helping me that narrative. And I'm going to release you into the wild now. But like, it's the same story for people who were always deemed to be too active, you know, like sitting still is supposed to be the ideal for them. And anytime they're like, my body really wants to move. They feel ashamed of themselves, right. That's not helpful, either.
Yeah. But I think another thing I think people with ADHD who want to move is, you know, we're with it's all the things right. And so it's like, I'm good to go. start lifting weights. And rather than start lifting weights,
you
really, really, really lift weights.
Yeah. And then you can't walk the next day, and you never learn
yourself. And then you're like, Oh, I guess I'm no good at lifting weights, because
I messed up, or do we do that? Because we have to make the grand gesture to obliterate the counter narrative that we've been fed, right? Like, you know, if I'm going to be an athlete, I'm going to go all in, and I'm going to run the fastest half marathon that anyone's ever run. But like, you know, it's like, it's not that I'm not an athlete, but I'm not good at this. Like I run really slow. But I run it's not like I'm going to prove them wrong. And it turns out, you know, there was a gold medalist inside the whole time. Well, there isn't right. There's not even a bronze medalist, I regularly finish in the bottom 30% of whatever race I happen to be in. Because that's not the story that I needed to change. It wasn't like You think I can't be a champion, I'm going to be a champion was like, You think I can do nothing? But I can do something. Right. And so yeah, you're right. There's this very all or nothing, ADHD tendency to be like, Okay, I'm gonna get healthy. So I'm gonna change my entire diet. And I'm also now the person that gets up at 6am. And also, I you know, workout with weights five days a week and do cardio eight days a week. I know, that's impossible. But one day, I'm gonna have to double up right, because I'm making a grand gesture.
Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. It's got to be it's, it's all or nothing, right? It's zero or 11. Right? I'm gonna, and you know, and then nothing sticks, right? And then nothing sticks and you hurt yourself. Or, you know, another thing that has happened to me with swimming is that I get super discouraged because it's like, I can't do the thing that I used to be able to do when I was 16. And not forced.
Many times Tom and I were just talking about that this morning about how you sort of imperil your own enjoyment and something when you are trying to run like you're still 17 right or you're trying to swim like you're still 16 you're not you know, you're not that sick you're never gonna be happy then because you're never going to be 16 again Yeah, so how time works even for people that's not how time works it
isn't isn't it fly I thought it was a flat circle that's on a told me Yeah, well, and you know,
speaking of time, Lee I have another appointment let me know that I need to make sure that I that
Oh, yes. Yay snackies
right instead of just like I can roll directly from one hour long meeting into a two hour meeting with like not going pee or having a snack or standing up or anything.
That's not true. No, no, I get it. I have to I have to go put grades in which is you know, dealing with spreadsheets and automated systems that I have to log into and click all the right buttons in exactly the right order that is not intuitive in any way shape or form. which is you know, should do after that Lee
is take the dog for a walk
so that you can go no movement. I get to go coach for two and a half hours.
Oh, there you go and get your like two miles of walking in.
I know it's outside again. It's stupid, stinky bubble and I'm so like, I've not been this excited to go coach for a while now.
I'm excited for you.
I just say, and it's and it's fun to torment the kids. I'm like a life. It's cold. And I'm just like, doesn't matter swim? No see everything from this Canadian.
I hope that some of our listeners are listening to this podcast while they are engaging in their favorite movement practices. Bernie Brown is always talking on her podcast of like, Well, some people are, you know, walking, when they listen to this, they told me or they're driving in their cars, or they're riding their bicycles. So if you can't write this down, right now, it's going to go in the show notes, right? So I'm like, oh, maybe people are using us to support their movement practice. And I like that a lot. Go for everybody.
And even if we're not, even if you're lying in bed, yeah, that's right, lying in bed. And the only movement you've been able to do is to grab your phone and press play.
That's okay, too. And the second move that you've been able to do is to reach across to your portion controlled bowl of Miss Vicky salts and malt mittigar chips or, or your or your or your protein shake. We support that. We support that that.
Well, thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Amy. This is a great conversation. I am ready writing on Twitter.
I am Did you walk on Twitter,
you can always email us at all the things adhd@gmail.com and we'll see you next time. Probably like three weeks from now, I guess. But whatever. Right? We'll probably end up being two episodes so
well. Who knows? Who knows we find out when I listen to them. Yeah, it's ADHD time. All right. Hi, everyone.
