Dr. Sasha Hamdani: Why Disciplined Women Fall Apart (It's Not Anxiety, It's ADHD)

I was diagnosed with ADHD at seven and spent the next twenty years on medication before taking myself off everything in 2021. For most of that time I thought ADHD just meant I couldn't focus. Nobody ever told me the part actually running my life was emotional regulation. Dr. Sasha Hamdani is a psychiatrist and ADHD specialist who has ADHD herself. She explains why ADHD is a regulation disorder rather than an attention disorder, why the diagnostic criteria were built by studying hyperactive little boys and how that leaves women misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression, and what is happening in your amygdala when one small criticism floods you for hours. We get into rejection sensitivity, procrastination, perfectionism, sleep, caffeine and ADHD medication, and I share for the first time that my six-year-old son was just diagnosed. Timestamps: 0:00 - Trailer/Intro 1:00 - Welcome to the Empower Podcast 1:45 - Diagnosed with ADHD at seven, Ritalin and an eating disorder 2:50 - What we miss when we call ADHD an attention problem 3:40 - Dr. Sasha Hamdani on ADHD as a regulation disorder 4:15 - Her own ADHD diagnosis and the "vitamin" her parents gave her 5:30 - Finding out at seventeen that it was ADHD medication 7:00 - Why ADHD medication alone doesn't treat ADHD 8:20 - Relearning how to sleep, eat and function with an ADHD brain 9:30 - Dopamine dysregulation in the ADHD brain explained simply 10:40 - Why the ADHD criteria were built on hyperactive little boys 11:10 - Why inattentive girls and daydreamers get missed 11:50 - Emotional regulation is the biggest piece of ADHD 13:00 - Emotional dysregulation, entrepreneurship and feeling like you're drowning 13:40 - Why ADHD in women gets misdiagnosed as anxiety or depression 14:50 - Lexapro, Wellbutrin and being medicated for the wrong thing 16:00 - Europe added emotional regulation to the ADHD criteria in 2019 19:50 - Why adult women are the hardest group to diagnose with ADHD 20:40 - What a proper ADHD assessment actually looks like 22:40 - The three types of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive, combined 23:20 - Compensatory behaviours and how to ask women the right questions 23:50 - Is ADHD over-diagnosed or under-diagnosed 24:40 - Advice for parents scared to get their child evaluated for ADHD 26:10 - Sharing my six-year-old son's ADHD diagnosis 27:20 - ADHD tools in the toolkit and matching the tool to the child 28:00 - The nighttime zoomies and channelling hyperactivity 29:40 - Emotional regulation tools and repairing after you snap 31:40 - How to talk to a partner or child in high emotional dysregulation 32:20 - Emotional sensitivity as a neurological phenomenon 38:20 - Why criticism and tone changes hit so hard: the amygdala 39:00 - The frontal lobe delay and realising two hours too late 40:00 - How to slow the amygdala down in real time 41:20 - Delaying your response and writing it down instead 44:50 - Fight, flight and freeze in conflict, and why you shut down 47:20 - ADHD procrastination and the emotion hiding underneath it 49:30 - Why tiny tasks feel impossible: novelty and urgency 52:00 - Perfectionism, fear of rejection and feeling paralysed 54:00 - Done is better than perfect 55:20 - Working out for your brain, not your appearance 57:30 - Food, the Mediterranean diet and net progress over rigidity 1:02:00 - Sleep, delayed melatonin onset and why it's non-negotiable with ADHD 1:03:50 - Sleep tracking and the hormonal overlay across your cycle 1:05:10 - The second wind and revenge bedtime procrastination 1:06:00 - Caffeine and ADHD: why it isn't a substitute for treatment 1:07:00 - Cutting caffeine for 12 weeks and what changed 1:07:40 - How to decide whether ADHD medication is right for you 1:10:30 - How to come off ADHD medication safely 1:11:30 - Creatine, supplements and brain health 1:12:40 - ADHD misinformation on social media and who to trust 1:14:50 - Dr. Hamdani's book Too Sensitive and the emotional sensitivity spectrum 1:18:00 - What empowerment means to Dr. Sasha Hamdani Follow Dr. Sasha Hamdani: Website: https://www.drhamdanimd.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepsychdoctormd TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thepsychdoctormd YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thepsychdoctormd Book: Too Sensitive, available anywhere books are sold Thank you to our sponsors: Freestyle Diapers: EWG-verified, fragrance-free diapers with 7-layer skin protection, tested against 1,500+ chemicals of concern, so you know exactly what's sitting against your baby's skin.30% off your first three months, bringing them down to $49/month: https://freestyle.world/ with code EMPWR Ella Ola: A tasteless, colorless multivitamin powder for kids 4 to 11 that you can mix into anything they're already eating without them ever knowing it's there.20% off your first purchase, applied automatically: https://ellaola.com/samcfit Rula: Finding a therapist who actually takes your insurance shouldn't be the hardest part of getting help, and Rula makes it abo