445 BITESIZE | Is It ADHD—or Is Your Nervous System Stuck in Fight-or-Flight?

Kristen Carder (0:00)

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Hey, what's up? This is Kristen Carder, and you are listening to a bite size episode of the I Have ADHD Podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated, and ready to roll. This little episode is one of my favorite clips from the podcast. It's perfect if you're not in the mood for a full hour long listen, because let's be real, some of us ADHDers just don't have the patience for all of that. But if you are a diehard listener, think of this as your mid-week pick me up. It's Thursday, y'all. Friday is right around the corner. If you love this clip, check out the show notes for a link to the full episode. And remember, my friend, drink your water, take your meds, grab a snack.

Now let's get rolling. Let's go ahead and talk about regulation. And you were very clear to make the point as we were kind of just chatting before recording, that we're not talking about emotional regulation, we're talking about nervous system regulation. And I would love for you to define for my audience, what's the difference between the two and why does it matter?

Jenna Free (3:16)

Yes, some people might think it's semantics, but I think language is so important to know what you're really working on. Because emotional regulation, if you look up the definition, is like you don't have control over your emotions. So it's the outpouring of feelings that's the problem.

But when we look at nervous system regulation, it's like the emotions is a symptom of something deeper, which is the nervous system feeling unsafe. So if people are working on emotional regulation, they might look at like, let me not be so reactive. I shouldn't be feeling so much. I should be not as upset on the surface, where that is just five dominoes away from the core of the problem, which is your nervous system is in fight or flight. So when I work with people, we talk about nervous system regulation, I just think it's clearer in our mind, what am I actually doing here? What am I trying to do? I'm not trying to fake calm more often. I'm not trying to hold my emotions back. I'm actually trying to heal the central thing that's causing me to be more reactive. Because of course, if your system feels unsafe, something I would tell everyone is in this work, you really want to start seeing yourself for what you are, which is a very primal animal. We love to think, oh, we're humans, we're so complex and interesting. You are an interesting person, but we are still just little animals afraid and trying to make ourselves feel safe.