ADHD Sugar Addiction and a GP's UNIQUE guidance on ADHD
Dopamine sensitivity and sugar addiction are familiar traits of ADHD. Perhaps using sugar to self-medicate, re-energise, or dopamine-seek may be a pattern you relate to?
If so, you'll want to listen to this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing, with guest Dr. Nicole Avena, a research neuroscientist and nutrition, diet, and addiction expert. Her research focuses on nutrition during early life and pregnancy and women’s health. She has done groundbreaking work developing models to characterize food addiction and the dangers of excess sugar intake.
Dr Avena's latest book, Sugarless, covers the latest science on sugar addiction and how to overcome it. On this episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, Dr Avena and Kate talk about:
- The link between sugar addiction and dopamine-seeking brains
- The effects of dopamine released by sugar consumption on the brain
- How sugar affects your body and your health
- Parenting and teaching our kids nutritional choices and consuming processed sugar
- Having a susceptible dopamine system
- Our busy society doesn't lend itself to healthy eating
You hear me talking about an integrative and more holistic healthcare approach a lot on the Podcast, so I'm delighted to welcome Dr Gemma Newman (The Plant Power Doctor), a best-selling author, podcast host, and GP who embraces this approach with her patients.
Although Gemma is a medical GP, she's also interested in holistic health, plant-based nutrition, and lifestyle medicine.
Gemma's second book, Get Well, Stay Well: The Six Healing Health Habits Everyone Should Know , combines medicine, psychology, and nutrition. It provides simple, actionable tips and a unique wellness template to help you transform your life.
On this episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, Gemma and Kate speak about:
- The role of functional medicine and ADHD
- How to talk to your GP regarding an ADHD diagnosis
- Self-compassion as a neurodivergent person
- Gemma's journey to spiritual practice, holistic and functional health
- Emotional Freedom Technique or Tapping and the many benefits for ADHD
- How does our emotional and spiritual wellbeing impact our physical health
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm Kate Moore Youssef, and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids, and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.
Kate Moore Youssef:After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.
Kate Moore Youssef:In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.
Kate Moore Youssef:Here's today's episode.
Kate Moore Youssef:So hi everyone.
Kate Moore Youssef:Welcome back to another episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm Kate Moyuseff, your host, and this is a summer mashup episode where I am bringing to you two fantastic guests from past seasons and bringing them together so you can really gain more of their insights, more of their wisdom.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I'm excited to bring to you today two fantastic guests.
Kate Moore Youssef:One is Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Nicole Avina.
Kate Moore Youssef:Now, Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Avina is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and she's also a visiting professor of health psychology at Princeton University.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she's written fantastic books.
Kate Moore Youssef:Books.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she is a research neuroscientist and nutrition, diet and addiction expert.
Kate Moore Youssef:And her latest book is called Sugarless and covers the latest science on a sugar addiction and how to overcome it.
Kate Moore Youssef:I really wanted to get Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Ravina on the podcast because we can understand the link between sugar addiction, dopamine sensitivity and adhd, and we discuss it in the full podcast.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I wanted to share with you today her clip.
Kate Moore Youssef:Here's Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Nicole Avina.
Kate Moore Youssef:You talk about this actually in the book with regards to sugar versus Cocaine.
Kate Moore Youssef:And we've got something in our brains called, I'm going to hope I pronounce this right, Endogenous opioid system.
Kate Moore Youssef:And that is our pleasure response.
Kate Moore Youssef:And when you I hear the word opioid, that is like serious addiction.
Kate Moore Youssef:So would you say that certain brains have a propensity for sugar addiction?
Dr. Nicole Avina:Absolutely, absolutely.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And that's what we've seen through the research.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so what is most likely happening is that there are people who are just born with a genetic predisposition to be sensitive to these dopaminergic stimulants.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So that could be just due to pure genetics of, you know, hereditary components, or it could be due to the fact that, you know, things were going on while they were in utero or in early life that, you know, could help to explain that or make those alterations in the brain.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And I think that's really what's happening in many cases these days is that people are being born at this higher risk, essentially.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And normally that would probably be okay.
Dr. Nicole Avina:But we are in a situation where we have all of these dopaminergic stimuli all the time.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And, you know, it's.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's the food, right?
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's, you know, we have our highly processed foods with these exorbitant amounts of sugar in them that are going to cause this release of dopamine in the brain when you eat them.
Dr. Nicole Avina:That's like the release of dopamine that you would get if you smoked a cigarette or used morphine or used a drug.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And I think that for many people, that is what can be really compromising for them, because it's not something that you can just.
Dr. Nicole Avina:When we talk about an addiction, I think it's so important that we remember that addiction is not a moral failing.
Dr. Nicole Avina:You don't have control, and it's a brain condition.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And when we don't have that ability to just say, stop.
Dr. Nicole Avina:We don't want to use this or do that, it can really, really make it so much more difficult for people to change their behaviors.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think we don't give enough credit to the fact that sugar is absolutely everywhere.
Kate Moore Youssef:You can't go anywhere gas stations, supermarkets, corner shops, anywhere you're with your kids, for sure that there is sugar being sold.
Kate Moore Youssef:And, you know, we're trying really hard here in the UK to remove sugar from, like, the checkout tills and make it further away in the supermarket aisles.
Kate Moore Youssef:All these little things that we can try and hack our brain or trick our brain.
Kate Moore Youssef:But if, you know, you've got an addiction to tobacco or to drugs or to, you know, alcohol, and we're going through that process of trying to get clean.
Kate Moore Youssef:We can try and avoid those areas, those triggers, those, you know, and not go into shops where there's alcohol or restaurants or bars or, you know, anywhere that sells tobacco.
Kate Moore Youssef:But with sugar, it's just there constantly on, you know, TV advertisement.
Kate Moore Youssef:We go to the movies, all of these places.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so what do you think?
Kate Moore Youssef:I mean, are we getting worse as a society?
Kate Moore Youssef:Have we picked that peak?
Kate Moore Youssef:Where do you think it's going?
Dr. Nicole Avina:Yeah, I mean, it's very similar.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's probably worse in the US for sure, in terms of the pervasiveness of sugar.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's interesting when I talk about this, to People, I will often give the analogy of we have a little bit of sugar kind of sprinkled in pretty much everything.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's a little bit here, a little bit there.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Could you imagine if we had a little bit of cocaine in some of these products and a little bit over here altogether?
Dr. Nicole Avina:Yeah, it adds up, and it means something, and it's damaging our health.
Dr. Nicole Avina:But what we're seeing is that with sugar, for some reason, it kind of gets a pass, and people just sort of say, oh, well, let's just let the kids have a candy, or let them have.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's not taken very seriously, and it wouldn't be an issue if the kids weren't getting sugar all day long from basically everything that they're consuming because there's so much added sugar all over the place.
Dr. Nicole Avina:I think that we are at the point where people are starting to step back and look at the situation and realize, like you had just said, you know, you can't go anywhere without having sugar thrown in your face.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Without it just, you know, you can't even go to the gas station.
Dr. Nicole Avina:You can't even go, you know, to the.
Dr. Nicole Avina:The store to pick up, like, you know, office supplies without being offered, you know, candy bars.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so I think that we are now starting to see that people are really starting to get concerned, because what's happening is that so many young people, especially children, are developing things like type 2 diabetes, like fatty liver disease, and these are conditions that you used to only see in very sick adults.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It comes back to the dopamine.
Dr. Nicole Avina:I think that there are certain individuals who have a very highly sensitive dopamine system where, you know, something can excite them a lot.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Right.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And something that, for example, you know, sugar.
Dr. Nicole Avina:We've done lots of studies looking at sugar and dopamine, but one study in particular that stands out with respect to this question has to do with a study that we did where we gave the rats that were in our studies sugar to consume, and the control group just had healthy food, and then we gave them all an injection of amphetamine, which is a dopaminergic drug.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And when we looked at the dopamine levels, the rats that had been eating sugar showed a greater dopamine release in response to amphetamine.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so this really just shows that the sugar can prime the dopamine system to then become overactivated in response to a stimuli.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So if a child has lots of sweets and then they're at a party where there's, like, chaos and excitement, like, that can trigger them, then to have this exaggerated response.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And I think for some individuals, they are able to then, you know, have some control and be able to calm themselves down.
Dr. Nicole Avina:But for many, that's not the case.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And it's not something that when we're talking about neurochemical release in the brain and these biological things happening, sometimes when you say, okay, you need to calm down, like, that's just not going to work.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Right.
Dr. Nicole Avina:We have to wait for the neurochemicals to restore themselves into the proper balance.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So I really think that that's what's happening, and I think it's happening a lot these days to lots of children, lots of adults, because, again, we are setting ourselves up for this by our diet.
Dr. Nicole Avina:When we're eating a diet that, you know, even things that are healthy these days, like a granola bar, for example, you can have what's marketed to be a, you know, a protein bar or a healthy granola bar as a snack and think that you're doing something good for your health.
Dr. Nicole Avina:But the reality is you're binging on sugar.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Even if you have a small little piece of a bar, there's a lot of sugar in those.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so you don't have to consume this enormous volume of food for it to be a sugar binge.
Dr. Nicole Avina:There's enough sugar concentrated into small amounts of food that most people are binging on it all day long and they don't even realize it.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And that binge is spiking your dopamine system.
Dr. Nicole Avina:That's then going to make it such that when you encounter a stressor or you encounter something else later on, you're going to be sensitive to it and you're going to react in a way that you probably wouldn't have if your dopamine system wasn't so dysregulated by the sugar.
Kate Moore Youssef:You know, there's so many parents that listen to this podcast, and we just don't know what the right thing to do is the wrong.
Kate Moore Youssef:And, yeah, I just wondered what your advice was.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Yeah, no, it's such an important question.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And, you know, I can relate.
Dr. Nicole Avina:I'm a parent, too.
Dr. Nicole Avina:I have two daughters, 15 and 8.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And, you know, I think that for me, the best thing is to really give them those foundational skills so that they can make proper, healthy choices.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so I think that having them exposed to some of these things so that they can learn to set their own limits is important.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Because if you go that direction where you say, no, we're not allowed to have any of this, and we're not having any of it in our home and avoided it at all costs, then I think you do run the risk of the kids not knowing how to act when they are around it.
Dr. Nicole Avina:Right.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So when they go over their friend's house, then they just go crazy and have tons and tons of candy because they finally get access to it.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So what I think is an option that works for the teens, especially in kids, is focusing more on the immediate effects of having too much sugar.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So knowing that, hey, you know what, if you're going to eat all these candies, it's actually going to cause inflammation and that's going to give you brain fog and you're not going to be able to do as well on your tests that you have at school.
Dr. Nicole Avina:You're not going to think as clearly.
Dr. Nicole Avina:It's going to make it more difficult for you.
Dr. Nicole Avina:If you didn't have all those sugars, you would have much more clear thought.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And then also about the energy of, oh yeah, if you think you're eating these sugars and this is going to help you to have energy, it's actually the opposite.
Dr. Nicole Avina:You're going to have this sugar crash.
Dr. Nicole Avina:So then when it's time to play sports after school, you're going to not perform as well as you would if you had had healthier food to eat.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And kind of really just tuning them into this idea that, yeah, there are long term effects, but what about the short term things?
Dr. Nicole Avina:Just right now, like how you're going to feel like if you eat all of these sweets and put these things in your body, you actually are not going to feel as good right now as you would if you didn't.
Dr. Nicole Avina:You get that high from the sugar, from the dopam, but that goes away in an instant and then you get the low, you get the crash.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And so you're living in the crash.
Dr. Nicole Avina:And I think when you position it that way, it can make a difference because then they start to see the immediacy of it and, you know, want to live in the moment.
Kate Moore Youssef:And in this next clip we have the fantastic Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Gemma Newman.
Kate Moore Youssef:You may follow her on Instagram.
Kate Moore Youssef:She is the plant power doctor.
Kate Moore Youssef:If you follow her, you'll understand that she is a medical gp, but she's also interested in holistic health, plant based nutrition and lifestyle medicine.
Kate Moore Youssef:And in her practice, she has come to understand that the body, the mind, the soul are not separate.
Kate Moore Youssef:And only by addressing the root causes of stress and disconnection can we truly heal from the inside out.
Kate Moore Youssef:I was absolutely delighted to have Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Gemma Newman on the podcast because she has written fantastic books and her book, get well, Stay well, the Six Healing Health Habits Everyone Should Know is out now.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it combines medicine, psychology and nutrition.
Kate Moore Youssef:And we really delve into the understanding of this alongside adhd, so we can find these tools and these practices that can help us feel and stay well from the inside.
Kate Moore Youssef:Here's my conversation with Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Gemma Newman and I wonder, you know, as a doctor yourself, like, what would you say to women who do, who are suspecting that they've probably had ADHD and or autism for most of their lives and they want to go and speak?
Kate Moore Youssef:Because I get these messages all the time and they say, I'm very curious, I think, or, my child's just been diagnosed and I'm seeing a lot of the same traits in my child.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I often have to say to them, I think you need to make an appointment with your gp, because that's really where it begins.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I'm also very aware that a lot of GPs who aren't so well versed in all of this, they can be dismissed.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it kind of.
Kate Moore Youssef:And the trauma, they've had so much trauma through their life and that sets them back even more.
Kate Moore Youssef:Is there any advice that you could give the listeners if they are wanting to go to their GP with potential ADHD diagnosis?
Dr. Gemma Newman:Yeah, I think my main piece of advice is to be gentle with yourself.
Dr. Gemma Newman:You've probably experienced all sorts of things in your life that you're only just starting to piece together and it can feel like quite a vulnerable time.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And so with anything like this, getting a diagnosis can be helpful because it gives you a pathway, again, as I mentioned earlier, pathway towards self compassion.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Your GP may not be an expert in ADHD or the diagnosis of autism, but they will be able to refer you to people who are.
Dr. Gemma Newman:That being said, I don't know what it's like in your region, but where I work, there are horrendous, absolutely shocking waiting lists.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And so, again, it's another hurdle and it's another piece of the puzzle that is going to take longer for you to put together, unless you have the emotional and financial bandwidth to seek private diagnosis.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And many of my patients have done that.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Many are still waiting for NHS diagnosis.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Many have decided to go and see a specialist privately.
Dr. Gemma Newman:What I would say is that it's highly unlikely that if you found information online or you've had a journey with perhaps one of your own children and you started to piece all these patterns together, it's highly unlikely that you would be wrong.
Dr. Gemma Newman:It's very rare for Somebody to decide, I'm going to diagnose myself with ADHD or autism and not be correct.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So I think, again, it's about being kind to yourself and understanding that, you know, there are people out there who may become quite cynical, say, oh, everyone's getting a diagnosis these days, and everybody's a little bit on the spectrum.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And, you know, try not to.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Try not to take it personally when people say things like that.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Again, just accept that, you know, there's still a lot to be learned and there's a lot of ignorance around it, but to be compassionate with where you are in that journey that you're facing and know that being able to get support, perhaps from people around you is helpful as well.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And as you've rightly said, Kate, books like mine, they can provide a kind of a framework for you to just start to provide a little bit of love for yourself when you're going through these hard times and these hard realizations.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Because when you look after your mind and body, it makes that sensitive nature a little bit more resilient to the pressures of life.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So regardless of whether you can get your diagnosis or when you can get your diagnosis, these things are really useful regardless, because they can give you that time and space and accountability and honesty that you're going to need when you sort of start embarking on these things.
Kate Moore Youssef:Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I do try and tell people that, yes, it can be very important to get that diagnosis if you are seeking medication, but a lot of people, you know, aren't interested in that medication.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Ruth.
Kate Moore Youssef:It may really, really help and it may not.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so I always say, from a lifestyle perspective, if you are waiting for the NHS and you are on that very long waiting list, start empowering yourself, educating yourself, making those small changes, looking at where maybe your ADHD has shown up.
Kate Moore Youssef:And, you know, I said at the beginning, we often have a lifetime of migraines, ibs, there's been some form of inflammation in the body.
Kate Moore Youssef:Whether or not that's because there's been so much stress in our body, because we've not understood ourselves or we've not been able to cope with life that's been presented to us, we've been told it has to be done in one way.
Kate Moore Youssef:We have to work these hours, we have to be educated like this, we have to keep our home.
Kate Moore Youssef:And very often it's the women, because from a societal perspective, we've been told that this is the way we should be doing things.
Kate Moore Youssef:And as time is evolving, we're recognizing that we can break outside of these conformities, these boxes.
Kate Moore Youssef:And very often when the ADHD diagnosis comes, it gives a lot of women this new chapter, this new offering an opportunity to see life differently and to begin new chapters.
Kate Moore Youssef:And maybe it's a career change, maybe it's recognizing that where they're living, their boundaries, who, who, you know, the people pleasing, the over giving, all these different aspects, you know, all the compounding factors, that isn't just what we put in our body, which I think is vital, but it's the emotions that we're absorbing and what we're absorbing from around us that if we can release them, it, it does feel, it feels lighter.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think it impacts our body, you know, whether it's from a chronic pain perspective or chronic fatigue.
Kate Moore Youssef:We hear about this fibromyalgia.
Kate Moore Youssef:I think you would agree that the mind has a huge impact on what's going on in our body and being able to address that emotionally.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I love that you've done all the psychology and compassion focused therapy.
Kate Moore Youssef:Tell me a little bit about.
Kate Moore Youssef:I mean, we've both got an interest in tapping.
Kate Moore Youssef:Do you bring that into your GP practice?
Kate Moore Youssef:Do you teach people that?
Kate Moore Youssef:Is that something that you do for yourself and what do you think about that?
Kate Moore Youssef:Because I know that some people think it's still a bit woo woo, but I personally think it's incredibly helpful.
Dr. Gemma Newman:No, you're right, I think it can be extremely helpful and I've actually included it in the book, which I forgot to mention, there's a chapter here where I've included emotional freedom technique tapping.
Dr. Gemma Newman:I do include it in my practice from time to time and I can direct people to it if they're interested in the book as well.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And having said that, it's always nice to have an official practitioner to take the time to really go through it with you and help you come up with the most useful scripts for you.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So I suppose just to give people a background, it's a lovely combination of physical therapy and psychological scripts combined.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So the tapping is essentially a way to activate your parasympathetic nervous system and your psychology by just very simply tapping on a few different body parts which are related to the meridians of the body, interestingly.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So that's bringing in some yangsheng, some Chinese wellness medicine if you like, but also more traditional Western style psychology scripts that will help you to perhaps reframe what you're currently experiencing.
Dr. Gemma Newman: was actually invented in the: Dr. Gemma Newman:And yeah, I do.
Dr. Gemma Newman:It's great.
Kate Moore Youssef:I have lots of tapping videos on my, my website and on my Vimeo.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Oh good.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I always direct people to it.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I know that obviously you being a doctor, you like science backed evidence as well, to blend it.
Kate Moore Youssef:And there's an amazing woman in Australia called Dr.
Kate Moore Youssef:Peter Stapleton and she's got a website, I think it's called Evidence Backed eft, Science Backed eft.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she's done lots of clinical trials to be able to show that when we do some tapping we're able to help ourselves, whether it's with regards to maybe going through cancer treatment like helping with the symptoms of chemotherapy.
Kate Moore Youssef:It can be pain, chronic pain, migraines.
Kate Moore Youssef:She's done on trauma, I mean, so many different things.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I think what she is brought to the world, which is vital, is to show that actually it really can work.
Kate Moore Youssef:And she's done these trials.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I like to be able to bring what she does into the equation so people don't think it's just sort of strange tapping and then, you know, not quite understanding it.
Kate Moore Youssef:But I've always, from the minute I got diagnosed with adhd, I'd already trained in tapping and I couldn't work out why I found it so powerful because I knew my nervous system was always heightened, it was always on this sort of sympathetic mode, I would call it.
Kate Moore Youssef:I never felt like I was in parasympathetic and I couldn't work out why the tapping helped.
Kate Moore Youssef:So it was so efficient and effective.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I really do believe that tapping can be incredibly helpful for people with adhd.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I've used it, you know, myself, a lot of my clients now, my children.
Kate Moore Youssef:And so anyone who is in that kind of heightened state with anxiety or they can feel, you know, the cortisol, the stress response rising.
Kate Moore Youssef:And I always say just try a little bit of tapping just to kind of calm things down.
Kate Moore Youssef:And it can be great with things like self doubt, confidence, confusion, overthinking, all the things that potentially in our ADHD brains all over the place, it just kind of settles things down.
Kate Moore Youssef:So I love that you being a doctor can really kind of advocate for it as well.
Kate Moore Youssef:It makes me very happy.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Oh, thank you, Kate.
Dr. Gemma Newman:I'm glad.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And it's wonderful to hear how much it's helped you.
Dr. Gemma Newman:That's one of the things that I wanted for the book.
Dr. Gemma Newman:It's interesting you mentioned about rates of things like fibromyalgia, chronic pain.
Dr. Gemma Newman:There are so many chronic illnesses that are on the rise, especially in younger women than Ever before and again, I think very often it's that disconnect between our emotional world and our physical world.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And I think the society that we're living in, there are so many pressures on us as well.
Dr. Gemma Newman:External pressures, ways that we have to conform which affect the way that we feel, and pressures.
Dr. Gemma Newman:I think just generally the world isn't very kind to people who are neurodiverse and the world is still not very accepting of difference, much as we like to think that we are.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And so I just think it's so important for us to feel understood and to feel as though we're accepted for who we are.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And yes, of course, there are even more financial pressures than ever before, which I think plays more of a part in it than people who are into wellness online like to admit.
Dr. Gemma Newman:You know, you can.
Dr. Gemma Newman:We can sort of do forgiveness letters and tapping and eat as healthier food as we can, but if we can't actually even afford to buy food and we can't afford to make rent and we can't afford.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Afford to live in a way that we want to live, that in itself is a huge stressor.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And that's something that is really hard because it's not something that a book or a program can take away.
Dr. Gemma Newman:But at the same time, it's why I wanted to share these messages, because everything in the book is free.
Dr. Gemma Newman:We don't have to spend out on expensive biohacking wellness tools.
Dr. Gemma Newman:It's literally all free, apart from your groceries, which you know you're always going to have to buy.
Kate Moore Youssef:We want to be able to feel empowered with our own health and to be able to make decisions based on knowledge and not what we have been told, you know, from through our family or through conditioning or through the society that we've been brought up in.
Kate Moore Youssef:It's being able to find these sort of.
Kate Moore Youssef:I know you've got the GLOVES framework and maybe you could talk about, about that, but just to give people that knowledge that they can make decisions and choose.
Kate Moore Youssef:Could you tell us what the GLOVES framework is and what really inspired that?
Dr. Gemma Newman:Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So I wanted to make it really memorable for people and I did that with an acronym and it turned into a framework.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So GLOVES stands for Gratitude, Love, Outside Veggies, Exercise and Sleep.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Gratitude, Love, Outside Veggies, Exercise and Sleep.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And in each of those sections, I build up a picture of why.
Dr. Gemma Newman:First up, I start with emotions, our emotional world and the power of gratitude, the power of love in all its forms, and how that can help us to feel a lot more connected with Others connected with our highest self, connected with our higher purpose, connected with the moment that we are now living in, connected with grief, connected even with things like shame, how we can navigate all of the emotions of the human experience and bring us back to that place of gratitude.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So there is an awful lot that's covered in that first two chapters when it comes to staying well or getting well.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And then of course, the more traditional aspects of lifestyle medicine also come into play.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So nutrition has a role.
Dr. Gemma Newman:I included some recipes, also exercise.
Dr. Gemma Newman:I included some active relaxation as well, which I think is important for people with neurodivergence as well to consider.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So qigong is included in the book as well.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And sleep, again, something that many ADHDers may struggle with is something that I've included.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Not just why it's important and you know, all of the things that can make people nervous about not getting enough sleep, but also real practical tips to help them get more of it.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And also discuss insomnia in general.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So it's really broad.
Dr. Gemma Newman:The outside chapter also was really important to me because I wanted to really emphasize what we under emphasize in society and that's our connection with nature, because we are nature and it's something that we really disconnected from, I think in the modern world and can drive huge elements of our mental and physical health.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So yeah, so.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So it's the framework that I've used and people can make their own personal template based on all of the aspects of those six pieces of the framework.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And I made it super simple because I know how important it is to really make things accessible and just being able to take that first step.
Dr. Gemma Newman:So there's just literally a three point plan that people can make at the end of the book, which I'm actually most proud of because I think sometimes it's so easy, especially you know, with adhd.
Dr. Gemma Newman:Some people may really struggle to get through the whole book because it's a chunky book, but it's hopefully easy to access.
Dr. Gemma Newman:But being able to put their own plan into place and come back to it I think is also really important.
Dr. Gemma Newman:And you know, the understanding as well that you won't necessarily always stick to the intention at the beginning of the plan, but there's a plan for not sticking to the intention too.
Kate Moore Youssef:So yeah, I really hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
Kate Moore Youssef:If you did and it resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you could share on your platforms or maybe leave a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Kate Moore Youssef:And please do check out my website ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk for for lots of free resources and paid for workshops.
Kate Moore Youssef:I'm uploading new things all the time and I would absolutely love to see you there.
Kate Moore Youssef:Take care and see you for the next episode.
