I honestly can't remember the last time I had a bad day. But yesterday was the day. It didn't arrive with a bang. It crept in. I wanted to take it easy, do nothing for once, and within an hour the nothing turned into boredom. Out of that boredom I started snacking on stuff I knew would make me feel worse, and it did, almost instantly. Then I picked up my phone and started scrolling. Ten minutes in I was completely dopamine-depleted. Empty. Like someone had quietly unplugged me. So I did what I tell other people not to do. I reached for more of the same. I opened a video game. The last time I did that was December 2024. More than a year and a half ago. I didn't realize that until I was already sitting there like a zombie, not even enjoying it. Funny how the brain reaches for the exact habit it used to lean on when it's hurting. While I was sitting there feeling nothing, I looked at the community. It's been growing like crazy. Yesterday we hit number 9 in Discovery across the entire Skool platform!! I looked at the number and felt nothing. And for a split second i even thought, why am i even doing this? What's the point? Rationally I knew that was nonsense. I knew it in the moment. But knowing something does absolutely nothing for the way you feel when you're in it. You can be self-aware and still stuck. Awareness alone doesn't pull you out. So I stood up. I walked to the window and just stared outside for a while. I was thinking of two options. One was easy: crawl into bed, pull the curtains, and let the day get worse. Sink deeper into it. The other one I couldn't even see the end of. It just meant doing one thing, any thing. 2024 me would've picked option 1, but.. I just looked for the smallest possible action and DID IT. I walked over to my bed and grabbed my Eight Sleep, the mattress that regulates my temperature at night so I actually get deep sleep. Amazing thing by the way, even if it's stupidly expensive. Next to it was the filter. It had been sitting on my nightstand for three months. I kept walking past it, telling myself it was a whole job, that I'd get to it later. I finally swapped it. It took ten seconds. Ten seconds. And it gave me this tiny, real hit of dopamine.

Yesterday during the Cohort 3 Q&A we had a fascinating discussion about dopamine, procrastination, sleep, focus, social media, Netflix binges, gaming, and why we sometimes struggle to do the things we actually want to do. Multiple members shared that when they reduce the constant stimulation for a few days, they: - Sleep better - Feel calmer - Focus easier - Stop procrastinating as much - Feel more connected to themselves So I'm considering organizing a 3-Day Dopamine Detox Challenge for the ADHD Harmony community. We'd check in together each day and share wins, struggles, insights, and what changes when the noise disappears. I'm curious... Who would actually join? Let me know in the comments. What would be the hardest thing for you to give up for 3 days? 😅

My Thought of the Day....... I don't lose things. I place them in highly creative locations for future scavenger hunts.......bc I love scouring high and low when I am in a hurry...

I ride my bike nearly every day, sometimes fairly quickly and log the rides on a website, where you get a virtual crown if you’re the fastest from one village up the next, up the local hill or round to the shops and back. I have a reasonable collection of these and live in fear that someone (Mike) will steal them from me. Now in the big scheme of things, or even in a smudgy pencil sketch of things done with a fat, soft pencil, I am no actual athlete. I come mid table in my races and get beaten by people of my age fairly regularly. These stupid virtual crowns should mean nothing, but it feels like a painful blow when someone (Mike) takes them from me. I had my first CBT session the other day to help with depression and recurrent vivid, painful memories and we touched on this. How the notification that Mike has done it again hurts the very fabric of my being, tearing a hole in my self-belief, and wobbling my wobbly self esteem. We agreed that the virtual badges don’t mean anything, don’t reflect at all on the overall worth of a retired scientist with lots of publications*, nice dogs, lovely wife, happy, funny children. I was nodding in agreement, but 80% of my brain was simultaneously plotting how to steal some badges back. I don’t know whether today’s and yesterday’s bicycle rides have helped or hindered really. I’m absolutely knackered after going flat out. It sounds like a joke, but it feels like a serious issue. * lots of publications is a bit like lots of virtual crowns, being tangible evidence of success that don’t touch the surface of core inadequacy.

My grandfather was Greek and I had an idea that my grandmother was Scottish. I never met him and she wasn’t actually particularly Scottish, so my information was a bit sketchy. Anyway, one day at work a colleague asked me how they met and an idiotic story arrived, fully formed. “My grandmother was a wealthy heiress and was cruising around the Mediterranean on the family’s boat. Back in those days, there were no toilets on ships, so they had to pull into a little cove in Kephalonia and let her off to relieve herself in an olive grove. Just when she had finished and was pulling her pants up, my grandfather came round the corner with a small herd of goats, shouting ‘Oi! Get off my land!’, but then he noticed how attractive she was, they chatted and fell in love.” The colleague was understandably sceptical, but then I repeated the story to someone else and she came to me later and said she hadn’t believed it first time through, but on repetition, realised it must be true. There’s definitely something not right with my brain and poor Sarah probably still has this nonsense stored in the place where things that are definitely true are kept.