A Doctor with ADHD Shares How to Thrive With the Diagnosis

When most people think of someone with ADHD, they probably imagine a young boy struggling to pay attention in class. But if you buy into that stereotype, you are missing a whole community—yes, including adults—who are living and thriving with the condition. That community has taken to social media to reframe current understandings of ADHD. And at the helm of that internet-based work is ADHD expert and psychiatrist Dr. Sasha Hamdani.

On a recent episode of the Men’s Health Instagram Live show Friday Sessions, Dr. Hamdani sat down with c0-host Dr. Drew Ramsey to talk about tools that men who are living with ADHD can use to thrive. Dr. Hamdani, who lives with ADHD herself, recently came out with a book called Self-Care for People With ADHD which details 100-plus exercises for daily de-stressing, regular recharging, and reframing ADHD.

You may know Dr. Hamdani as @thepsychdoctormd on Instagram where she has amassed more than 290,000 followers by candidly discussing ADHD symptoms, treatment, and coping skills. Dr. Hamdani says she was first inspired to use social media as a means of mental health awareness after seeing the impact so-called “diagnosis” videos were having on her patients.

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“[My patients] would hold up their phone…and be like, ‘This video means I have ADHD,'” she told Dr. Ramsey on Friday Sessions. It was inaccurate. “So I originally started [posting on social media] to put out some counter-information and I really didn’t expect anyone else to see it.”

Some may find it ironic that Dr. Hamdani uses a medium often critiqued for damaging mental health to spread awareness of ADHD. But she rejects the idea that social media is inherently mind-numbingly problematic.

“Social media is your cultivated space. It’s what you make of it,” she said. “If you’re filling this [space] with garbage and if you’re filling it with stuff that doesn’t serve you and if you’re not regulating the time that you’re on it, it could be harmful for you. It could be something where you are getting in this perpetual state of FOMO, you’re comparing yourself to others, it’s negatively impacting your mental health, and shortening your attention span [because] you’re constantly searching for these minuscule hits of dopamine. But if you’re using it intermittently or you’re using it as a way to decompress or if you’re using it to seek out information…then I think that it could be a tool.”

To make her work most useful to as many people as possible, Dr. Hamdani works with her social network to put out information they are seeking, creating a “repository of information.” Now, that wealth of information extends into her new book, which she describes as everything she wishes someone would have told her when she was first diagnosed with ADHD.

“These are just things to help you regulate your emotional systems and regulate your physical symptoms so you can get from Point A to Point B a little bit easier,” she said of the exercises and coping skills in her book.

Some of those management techniques include simple self-care practices. When it comes to tips for those living with ADHD, Dr. Hamdani has some self-care tools she uses first-hand to soothe her symptoms.

“I love weighted blankets. I love deep breathing,” she said. “This is probably ridiculous, but I actually did not know how to deep breathe until residency.”

Along with self-care tactics, there are clinical treatments for ADHD, which can (and should) work in tandem with self-care practices. Dr. Hamdani explained that there are two modes of management for ADHD symptoms: behavioral therapy and medication.

“Really, your best chance of success is if you are utilizing both of those,” she said. “What I have told a lot of my patients [when it comes to medication] is that you’re using this as a tool so that in the future, if you’re optimizing that behavioral management, there’s a chance that you won’t need the medication in the future. Some people do and some people don’t. It’s so highly dependent on what your presentation is.”

While men are much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than women, Dr. Hamdani says myths about presentation still prevent some men from getting diagnosed.

“With ADHD, you don’t have to be hyperactive,” she said. “You can have the inattentive symptoms as the predominant symptom. A lot of times, people with ADHD—and especially men with ADHD—aren’t even looked at because they are not hyperactive.”

According to Dr. Hamdani, if you have difficulty focusing, completing tasks, or experience problems with emotional dysregulation, you may benefit from talking with your doctor about ADHD.

To learn more from Dr. Hamdani, pick up her book Self-Care for People With ADHD or watch the full Friday Sessions conversation below.