Domino · ADHD Harmony™

Domino

I found the domino. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I guess I should have read it more carefully.

Week 2 — Your Biological Foundation

Completed on 2/1/2026

Your Responses

Describe your typical day in terms of energy. When do you feel sharp? When do you crash? What does 'normal' feel like for you right now?

I wake with a start and a sense of dread. I feel exhausted, but know I need to get out of bed and get going. During the week I go to the gym for some cardio. I get to the office and putz around on my phone for about 30 minutes while I drink my cup of coffee, take my morning meds, and try to clear my head. I dread looking at my email and feel really overwhelmed. but I do it anyway. I flag ones I need to get back to and hope i remember to do so. I am usually able to stay on track until about 1 or 2pm. My mind begins to wander and unless I am something I cant drill into, the rest of the day is shot. Unless of course, I have a meeting. I usually leave the office about 4:30pm but now that tax season is here, it will probably be around 6. I'm spent and spend the evening eating something for dinner and reading or putzing around on my phone.

Let's talk sleep—the real version. What time do you actually go to bed? Fall asleep? Wake up? How do you feel when you wake?

I go to bed about 8:30pm - 9:00pm. Really depends on the day, how long it takes to fall asleep. Really no rhyme or reason, unless I forget to take my nighttime meds, then it takes forever. I wake at least once a night to adjust my cpap. It is a pain in the ass, but I know i am fucked for sleeping if I don't use it. Plus I have my wife that wakes me to tell me i am snoring. Quite often I obsess about what is still on my plate and what shit I have to deal with the next day. then when I wake before my alarm, I know falling back to sleep is a waste of time. I get out of bed between 4am and 4:30am.

How much are you actually moving? Not the gym membership you're paying for—the movement that's actually happening.

I hit the gym pretty much Monday through Friday. I do 45 min of cardio. I skipped today. Not sure why, although it is really fucking cold outside. But I had to leave the office for something else. still did not do the gym today.

What does your eating actually look like? First meal of the day, the afternoon slump snacks, the evening choices.

In the morning i have a few cups of coffee and some hopefully healthy cake. After morning prayers, I hope i am eating plain nonfat yogurt and some cheerios (maybe with some nuts). Lunch is whatever is leftover from the night before. Rarely is it meat; most always parve or dairy. Dinner is whatever I can find that does not take too long. I do most of the cooking, even though my wife is home and could do it.

Of the three pillars—SLEEP, MOVEMENT, NUTRITION—which one feels like the biggest disaster right now? Why?

Definitely sleep. movement and nutrition are in my control. Cant say i am happy with them, but I know I can control them. Sleep thought, I am lost. I try to deal with all of them. but I really cant seem to control when I fall asleep or wake in the middle of the night.

What have you already tried to fix your biology? What worked temporarily? What failed? What do you keep starting and stopping?

I take my meds to help calm and focus. I do the cardio and I don't do the best eating, but I am working on improving that. It is hard not to cheat when eating and then remember to get back on track.

Here's the hard question: What is your current biological state COSTING you? In your work, your relationships, your goals, your self-image?

My mind wanders a lot and I get really short tempered with people. I do my best to hide it, but it does come out and it is worse than if I just went with the flow to begin with. I swallow a lot of what I want to say. i always put everyone's feelings ahead of my own. I'm big I can take it. What is it costing me? My self esteem, self respect, and working towards discovering who i really am.

Imagine you woke up tomorrow with just 20% more energy and clarity. Not perfect—just noticeably better. What would change? What would become possible?

I think with more engery and a clearer head, I would feel a lot better about facing my day and getting shit done that I know I need to do rather than waiting until the last minute.

For each pillar, what's the SMALLEST change you could actually see yourself doing this week? Not the ideal—the real.

Sleep, the one small thing I could do is meditate or journal before bed. I guess a brain dump.

Movement, the one small thing I could do is add some weight training or mindful movement

Nutrition - I could not buy junk food and when i want to snack have a piece of fruit

Personalized Insights

Your Biological Wake-Up Call

THE MIRROR

You wake with dread. Not curiosity, not anticipation—dread. You described your mornings as "exhausted but have to get going." Your afternoons as "the rest of the day is shot." Your evenings as "spent."

Here's what I see underneath your answers: You're managing, not living. You go to the gym. You get through your emails. You cook dinner even when your wife could do it. You show up for everyone—clients, family, obligations. And you do it all while running on a biology that's barely keeping you upright.

You said you swallow what you want to say. You put everyone's feelings ahead of your own. "I'm big, I can take it."

But here's the thing you're avoiding: You're not taking it. You're absorbing it. And it's costing you the one person you keep putting last—yourself.

THE COST

You wrote that your current state is costing you "self-esteem, self-respect, and working towards discovering who I really am."

Let me make that concrete.

Daily: Every morning you wake in dread is a morning you start in deficit. Every afternoon that's "shot" is 3-4 hours of your life you won't get back. Every evening spent "putzing on your phone" because you're too depleted to do anything else—that's time stolen from the person you're trying to become.

Weekly: That's 15-20 hours of lost clarity. 5 mornings of dread. 5 evenings of depletion.

Yearly: 50 weeks of this pattern. A thousand mornings waking exhausted. A thousand evenings too spent to invest in yourself.

In your Commitment Letter, you wrote: "At the end of the day I am still me. But a me that I don't want to be."

And your Big Rocks? Better communication skills. More self-confidence.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: You cannot communicate from your best self when your nervous system is in survival mode. You cannot build self-confidence when you're white-knuckling through every afternoon. You're trying to become someone new while running hardware that keeps defaulting to the same exhausted patterns.

That short temper you try to hide? That's not a character flaw—that's a depleted prefrontal cortex. The swallowing, the people-pleasing, the "I can take it"? That's what happens when you have no energy reserves left for boundaries.

You're not stuck as "the me I don't want to be." You're exhausted into that version of yourself.

THE FIRST DOMINO: SLEEP

You already know this. You said it yourself: "Definitely sleep. Movement and nutrition are in my control... Sleep though, I am lost."

You're not lost. You're stuck in a loop.

Here's what's happening: You go to bed at 8:30. Good. But you lie there obsessing about "what's still on my plate and what shit I have to deal with tomorrow." Your brain never winds down. Your CPAP wakes you. Your wife wakes you. You wake before your alarm knowing sleep is over.

You're in bed 7-8 hours. You're sleeping maybe 5-6 hours of actual restorative sleep. And that gap is destroying everything downstream.

Why sleep is your first domino:

- Your 1-2pm crash? Sleep-deprived executive function failure

- Your short temper? Amygdala hijack from under-recovered brain

- Your inability to "discover who you really are"? You can't access your higher self when your biology is fighting to survive

Fix your sleep quality—not quantity—and your afternoons come back. Your patience comes back. Your capacity to change comes back.

THE SEQUENCE

FIRST DOMINO — SLEEP (Weeks 2-3):

You said your smallest change would be to "meditate or journal before bed. A brain dump."

That's exactly right. The rumination is killing your sleep quality. Get tomorrow's worries OUT of your head and ONTO paper before your head hits the pillow. This isn't optional—this is the difference between 6 hours of survival sleep and 6 hours of recovery sleep.

SECOND PRIORITY — NUTRITION (Add Week 4):

That "hopefully healthy cake" with coffee? That's a blood sugar spike followed by a crash—timed perfectly to compound your afternoon fog. When sleep improves, swap that for protein first. Your afternoons will thank you.

THIRD PRIORITY — MOVEMENT (Layer Week 5):

You're already doing cardio 5 days a week. That's solid. The upgrade is the mindful movement you mentioned—something that regulates your nervous system, not just burns calories.

You don't need to fix everything. Fix the sleep. Everything else gets easier from there.

THE IDENTITY BRIDGE

You said with 20% more energy and clarity, you'd "feel a lot better about facing my day and getting shit done rather than waiting until the last minute."

That person exists. They're not more disciplined than you—they just have a biology that supports their ambitions instead of sabotaging them.

Every night you do a brain dump instead of lying there ruminating, you're casting a vote for that person. Not the result—the identity. The person who faces their day without dread. The person who has energy left for self-discovery. The person who doesn't have to swallow everything because they finally have the capacity for boundaries.

Weeks 1-2 require willpower. Weeks 3-4, it becomes habit. By Week 5-6, it becomes who you are.

THE 5-MINUTE TRUTH

Here's what I've learned: Half my days I have no motivation. But I trained myself to just start. Within 5 minutes, resistance disappears.

For you, the 5 minutes that matter most happen at night. When you're lying in bed and your brain starts spinning about tomorrow—that's your moment. That's when you either reach for the journal or you let the rumination win.

You don't have to feel ready. You just have to start writing.

THE COMMITMENT QUESTION

You've seen the infographics. You understand the biology. The only question left:

Will you do the brain dump tonight, or will you lie there rehearsing tomorrow's problems and wake up in dread again?

The me you want to become is on the other side of that one decision. Made tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after that.

You said you're hoping there's "a way out of this." There is. It starts with one small act of putting yourself first—before the rumination, before the dread, before one more day of being the you that you don't want to be.

Tonight. Journal. Brain dump. Then sleep.

That's it. That's the first domino.

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