591: How to Manage ADHD Naturally – A Psychiatrist’s Guide to Focus, Sleep and Emotional Regulation | Sasha Hamdani, MD

Sasha Hamdani (0:00)

What up, everybody?

Max Lugavere (0:00)

It's episode 591 of The Genius Life. Let's go.

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to The Genius Life. I'm your host, Max Lugavere. ADHD is usually thought of as a problem with attention, but what if that's only a small part of the picture? Today, I'm joined by psychiatrist, Dr. Sasha Hamdani, and we get into what ADHD actually looks like in the brain and in everyday life, including procrastination, motivation, emotional regulation, sensitivity to rejection, and why so many people with ADHD struggle with sleep. We also talk about what you can do about ADHD without medication, from exercise, diet, sleep, behavioral strategies, and designing your environment around the way that your brain actually works, to when medication may genuinely be useful, including options beyond traditional stimulants. We get into why people with ADHD can suddenly come alive under novelty or a deadline, why your best ideas might hit you the moment your head hits the pillow, and some surprisingly simple strategies for shutting your brain down at night. Dr. Hamdani is also the author of the new book Too Sensitive, so we explore rejection-sensitive dysphoria, emotional sensitivity, and how to keep those traits from running your life. This is a super practical conversation for anybody with ADHD or anybody who's ever wondered whether their brain simply operates a little differently. And hey, I can cop to that. Mine certainly does. So listen through all the way to the end. You're not going to want to miss a beat. And if you enjoy The Genius Life, please make sure that you're following or subscribed wherever you listen. And if you get value from the show, please consider leaving a rating and review on your podcast app of choice. You can leave one on the Apple Podcast app, on Spotify, you name it. We'd greatly appreciate it. It takes seconds to do, and it's a free way to support. Now, with all that out of the way, here's episode 591 of Dr. Sasha Hamdani. Let's rock. Sasha Hamdani, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Sasha Hamdani (2:02)

Thank you so much. I'm good.

Max Lugavere (2:04)

It's great to have you. Just before we started rolling, I was learning a little bit more about your backstory and how you'd been a long-time listener of the show. So that's so cool.

Sasha Hamdani (2:12)

Yeah, for a while, five-plus years.

Max Lugavere (2:16)

Yeah. I'm just curious how you got first turned on to it.

Sasha Hamdani (2:21)

I was being fed a lot of dementia content online, and my grandfather passed from dementia, and I was his full-time caretaker for a while in between med school and residency. So that's just an area of personal interest, and I'm just constantly following research or other areas and other media sources that provide good balanced information, and anything that provides relatability in that, because it's so isolating.

Max Lugavere (2:54)

It's so incredibly isolating. Well, that's an honor to hear. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Yeah.

I'm truly excited to have you out and to celebrate your new book, Too Sensitive.

Sasha Hamdani (3:04)

Yeah.

Max Lugavere (3:04)

It's a really cool topic. I feel like we live in times where, yeah, I don't know if it's just that we're collectively, where we seem more sensitive than we've ever been, or it's just that the stimuli is more aggravating, more irritating, more inflammatory than it's ever been. What do you make of this complex milieu that we have seemingly inherited?

Sasha Hamdani (3:27)

I don't think it's either. I don't think it's either. I think that we live in a world where, from the emotionally sensitive side, the world is hard right now.

It's just a difficult place to be. I think people, just in general, they look at emotional sensitivity as a huge liability and a weakness, and it's so people have to stuff it down. I think people probably always been as emotionally sensitive, but no one's really talked about that, or talked about how a highly emotionally sensitive person is wired differently, or talked about the incredible strengths in emotional sensitivity. So I, neither.

Max Lugavere (4:04)

There's this tenor of heightened sensitivity, at least on social media.

But I don't know if it's like what direction, is it like just the fact that the rage bait is ever more in our faces, ever more present than it has been in the past. Legacy media has always had that if it bleeds, it leads mandate.

Sasha Hamdani (4:24)

I've never heard that. That's true though. Yeah, it's true.

Max Lugavere (4:27)

I mean, I'm coming from a background of like, working in media many years ago at this point. But yeah, I mean, whether they are cognizant of it or not, like the legacy media has long exploited our negativity bias.