ADHD Impulse Control Is About Friction, Not Trying Harder

0:00 Welcome to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you're a regular listener, you might have heard me talk about the ADHD channel for women on my feed recently. I wanted to share another episode that I think you might enjoy. The ADHD channel for women is from our friends at understood.org, a nonprofit helping millions of people navigate neurodivergence.

0:21 It features three shows with three different hosts who each unpack different aspects of life with ADHD. They cover the sex dating relationships, deeper dives about where neurodivergence and the biggest news stories meet, like how a newly discovered gene variant could change how we treat ADHD. And then there's an ADHD coach who you're going to hear from today.

0:42 The episode that I'm about to play for you is about ADHD and impulse control. And about how the science behind why willpower can prevail when we have ADHD. I thought it was an interesting topic. I think we talk about willpower and dopamine and ADHD a lot. I liked what they said about adding friction, but this is something that's super, super important.

1:03 And they also really spoke well about uh just how difficult it can be to take the advice of doing something later when every single cell in your body is saying, No, I want to do this now, I want to buy this thing now, I want to shift over to this more fun activity now, but that hyper focus and that mean we get from it can be really, really difficult to manage.

1:26 So I thought it was a really interesting conversation and they really got into it, which was awesome.

1:31 Self-control is no substitute for wisdom, but with that in mind, what we do need is like skill in deploying self-control, and then maybe to accompany it a bit of insight into what we actually want to deploy self-control for. We need it to be our best selves in the company of loved ones and to stop and smell the flowers when we are tempted to overachieve.

1:54 That's Dr. Polaris Coy. They're an assistant professor of practical philosophy at the University of Turku. And their research focuses on ADHD and neurodiversity, specifically self-control and decision making, and asking the question of how biology and social environments shape our agency, decisions, and control.

2:13 So today Polaris and I are talking about impulsivity in relationships and how self-control can impact everything from our self-esteem to stability in intimate relationships. Hi everybody, and welcome back to Sorry I Missed This, the show where we talk about all things ADHD and its connection to relationships, intimacy, sex, communication, and more.

2:32 As always, it's me, your host, Kate Osborne. Now, it is important to mention that not everyone with ADHD experiences impulsivity, and impulsivity looks different in kids than adults, and from person to person when it comes to the lived experience of ADHD. But it is true that when impulsivity is in play, it can be hard to build systems and structures for because, well, it's impulsive, and that has a real impact on the way that we navigate through relationships.

3:02 Impulsivity has always been something that I never really thought was part of my ADHD experience. I thought, oh, well, I think before I speak, and I'm really good at, you know, not getting up and wandering around at the least moment of boredom. And then I learned about things like compulsive shopping, and then I learned about things like gambling and a lot of ways that impulsivity can show up in the lives of adults with ADHD that don't look like the traditional ways that we often discuss impulsivity.

3:32 But those types of impulsivity, self-control around buying things, self-control around saying the most hurtful thing possible when you're in an argument, those kind of things can have a real impact on relationships. And when I heard about the work that Polaris Coy was doing, I was so fascinated because their work is literally around self-control and decision making, and how people with ADHD often struggle with those things and how impulsive decision making is a very different thing than thinking things through.

4:01 But so many people with ADHD also live with choice paralysis. And so then we can sort of rely on impulsive decision making because it can be so overwhelming to try and sit down and think through every possible scenario and outcome. Because living with ADHD is really hard and it's really complex and it's really nuanced.

4:16 So without further ado, welcome to the show. Dr. Polaris Coy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

4:27 Thanks so much for having me. It's such a pleasure.

4:29 Polaris, one of the things that I'm really curious about is just how we talk about impulse control and ADHD. And there is this assumption around ADHD that ADHD just basically equals poor self-control. So where does that come from?

4:45 Long story short, does ADHD have to do with difficulties in self-control? Yes. Then again, when you look at the broad spectrum of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, we are not a monolith. So you're going to see people who struggle a lot with self-control. You're also going to see people who have it paradoxically under control, at least to a pretty nice extent.

5:13 A diagnosis is not going to determine your capabilities, at least not the diagnosis alone. Instead, it's going to alter what's going to work for you. When we go about regulating our behavior in motivational conflicts where we need self-control, you want to do one thing, but you're also tempted to do another.

5:32 There's a bunch of things that we could do to help regulate how we behave. And one of them is, you know, just the counting to 10 or just trying really hard not to give in to the temptation. But there's also more indirect things we could do, smarter things we could do, including, for example, minimizing exposure to the tempting things or teaming up with a friend, which is going to help us regulate where our attention goes.

6:00 I love that everybody is doing body doubling these days. It's so efficient for most people. Yes. And all of these strategies that we could do to control ourselves.

6:09 Yeah. Well, and and that's what's interesting to me about self-control. Because I growing up, one of the reasons why I think my ADHD was missed for so long was because I am like pathologically self-controlled. Like you go to the art museum and you really want to touch the statue, but like, no, we can't.

6:26 And you and like I have to really overcome that. And so I built a lot of systems. I built a lot of um ways of being in my own life that are absolutely based around that. Like, I know I'm going to feel these urges. I know that I'm going to struggle with these impulse control, but I can't and I mustn't.

6:46 Or like another place where I see it show up a lot is just in how people react in intimacy. Like they don't want to like make the loud noise, or they don't want to like react like viscerally because there's this like shame around like, oh, I have to be self-controlled at all times and I can't lose track of myself.

7:02 So it's interesting how that shows up in relationships.

7:04 Yeah. Self-control isn't always a great thing. You know, we can use it to uh repress ourselves, if we can use it to inhibit ourselves from doing things that we have every right to do and that that are not going to, you know, hurt anybody or cause any major damage and so forth. Self-control is no substitute for wisdom.

7:24 But uh with that in mind, what we do need is like skill in deploying self-control, and then maybe to accompany it a bit of insight into what we actually want to deploy self-control for. We need it to be our best selves in the company of loved ones. And sometimes we need self-control, you know, to stop and smell the flowers when we are sort of tempted to go and try to overachieve the profundity of the way that impulse control can impact relationships and intimacy and just, you know, life parentheses general is really, really big.

8:00 So, what do you think is like the first step that someone can take if they are noticing places where impulse control is hindering their ability to live a satisfying life?

8:13 So, one of the things that I think people should do is uh develop their own set of rules of thumb. When it comes to doing things at scale and seeing like what works for most people, that's where where science comes in. But you can experiment on yourself for free. So thinking in terms of can you come up with ways to simplify these situations?

8:38 It can look like cognitive change. So looking at things from a different perspective. One thing that I've done, uh, just to give you an example, is that my big problem often in doing the kind of work that I do, which requires sustained focus and like staying on the project for really long periods of time, is that I get ideas.

8:59 I want to run with the new ideas. And uh I used to be in this place where you know I had a zillion underdone projects and nothing finished. Um, and one of the rules of thumb that really helped me change that, it's going to sound really silly. But that's like how personal these are because it's going to sound really silly.

9:19 But one of these uh heuristics that really helps me is telling myself, I don't need this right now. And I can write it down for future reference, but it's like asking myself, do I need this right now? Uh hand on heart, do I need this right now? But it's really all about looking at uh what's enabling you and what's undermining you.

9:41 So, for example, in my case, one big undermining thing is that I get so excited about so many things. And that's a richness, but it's also a major barrier to getting anything done. And it's also a major barrier in relationships because then I get excited about a bunch of things that don't necessarily include the thing that a person dear to me is currently talking about.

10:05 Uh so which is not which is not a good look in relationships when you're like, well, can you stop talking? Like, I need to look at that bird. Like I was interested in what you were saying like five seconds ago, but I'm not anymore. Sorry. Like, that's not you you do want to like uh become better at that, uh, because you don't want to be on the other side of that equation.

10:26 Of course, the physical temptations, in a way, they can be among the most straightforward things to regulate if you have access to regulating your space, because then you can allow them in your space or leave them in the store, and that's already helping quite a bit. And then now people are going to say, but Polaris, uh, I can run down to the store or I can order Uber Eats.

10:50 Yes, you can, but it's at least adding a little bit of friction between you and the thing that you're trying to uh quit. That's really all we can do with the strategies. We can add a bit of friction between ourselves and the thing that we are trying to uh forego in order to do something that matters more to us.

11:10 Well, what is so particularly interesting to me about this whole conversation is kind of honing in on that sense of urgency. Because the sense of urgency, for me at least, it is one of the most uncomfortable parts of my ADHD. Because I will wait, like, wake up at three o'clock in the morning and be like, if I don't buy a new pair of blue jeans right now, I'm gonna die.

11:35 Like, and we see that kind of sense of urgency mixed with impulse control really doing a lot of damage in a lot of ADHD lives. Like, we see people with ADHD struggling with like financial issues because they're like impulsively buying stuff, compulsive shopping. We see like gambling issues and that kind of thing because of that sense of urgency.

11:58 This is a true story. I got a DM from a guy the other day who was like, I need advice on getting tattoos because I keep getting tattoos because I have the idea and then I go get a tattoo and then I regret the tattoo. Do you have any advice? Do you have any thoughts on how just uncomfortable that sense of urgency can get when our brain kind of latches onto this like, this is gonna be the thing or this is gonna be the idea that like changes my life?

12:24 That's yeah, that is something that I personally really struggle with too.

12:28 Yeah, I think that's one of the main things that neurotypical people, when they try to give advice to us, uh, get wrong the most. I never had a gambling problem, but I uh will happily admit to playing far too many computer games, uh, including on time that was supposed to be for something else. And there is this sense of urgency, like I need to do this game right now, I can't wait until work is done.

12:51 And then, you know, the neurotypical advice is like, you know, just wait until you've you're done with the stuff of the day.

12:56 And it's like what do you mean just wait?

13:01 It's it's not adjust, it's not adjust. It's like it's one of the hardest things. So, what we need to do instead, and this is actually something which is interesting because it's also to an extent true of the typicals. I think we just have it amplified. Um, is that we really need to play with out of sight, out of mind.

13:22 We need to find a new oof shiny that is more aligned with our purpose to distract ourselves away from the previous one. And this is all something that was already learned back in the 60s. So uh you might have heard of the marshmallow experiments, where small children were asked to wait in the room along with the marshmallow, and uh if they if they succeed in waiting without eating it, then they get to when the experimenter comes back.

13:52 And there's been a lot of subsequent research, and um, you know, some parts of that have been criticized. But the thing that keeps replicating is uh what they already found out in the 60s, which is uh that people wait that the children wait better if the reward is not visible. So if the reward is visible, they just eat it, right?

14:11 They see marshmallow, they eat marshmallow. But if it's not visible, uh then it's easier to wait. And similarly, like what we can do is we can try to shape our circumstances such that uh the temptations are just not available. I think every ADHDer should have a good uh, you know, um website blocker app on their computer that just helps them uh block any websites that are their typical problems during predetermined periods of time.

14:42 Again, it's about adding frictions. So can you, you know, circumvent your website blocker by booting your whole entire laptop? Probably. Are you actually going to go through that trouble? At least not every time. So it's got it's going to help. Uh, and that's the way these things go. Like, because it's about our inner desires and motivation, there's just no silver bullet solutions.

15:06 We can do incremental improvement here, incremental improvement there, and it's going to add up over time.

15:16 One of the things that I hear a lot is a lot of this conversation around, like, well, I have ADHD, so I can't. And I that can be really frustrating in relationships. That can be really frustrating just as someone who is like on a journey of, you know, self-improvement in some way. It seems like a lot of people sort of systematically underestimate their own self-regulation abilities.

15:39 So, can you talk a little bit about how that kind of works in terms of building those systems?

15:43 So that's one of the harmful aftermaths of this ego depletion theory has had in uh, you know, not just in self-help books, but also in like magazines and wherever like you see it all over the place. And I'm sure that a lot of listeners have heard about this idea that it's kind of like a muscle in the 60s, 70s.

16:04 Roy Baumeister, who is a social psychologist, he came up with this theory according to which self-control is a bit like a resource or a muscle that you sort of wear it out and then maybe it gets stronger, gets stronger in the long run. The evidence for that theory is uh mixed at best, and uh and that's going to mislead us in a way, because it's going to make us think that if I failed in self-control, then I need to just do it the same thing that I did, but with more effort.

16:34 And when that's not gonna work out, then it's going to look like I have a lot of evidence that this isn't just I'm just incapable, right? So instead of thinking about it that way, I'd like to suggest that people take a step back and look at their capabilities at regulating motivational conflicts uh from a bit of a broader perspective.

17:02 So a lot of people, when they think in terms of their self-control difficulties, they're only looking at the failures. But also, there is nobody who would always fail at self-control, and nobody who would always succeed in it. So it pays to look at where I am already doing a little bit better. Often when we think about self-control, we're thinking in terms of like work and study and fitness and productivity, but we need self-control wherever we have motivational conflicts.

17:34 So, for example, like, do I make this ask to my partner right now, or do I wait until a better moment? Or I don't know, speaking of personal experience, um, when uh you're an underslept parent of a small child who wakes you up 20 times in a night and your whole body is screaming, you just want to sleep and you still get up.

17:55 That takes a lot of self-control. I think that's really amazing. Like, how how can it be that we're capable of that kind of stuff? If you've been in that situation, you don't get to tell yourself that you don't have self-control. Uh-uh. You've got to have you gotta instead look at how is this situation different from the situations where I'm not doing so well and how could I change things around?

18:16 Knowing what you know about impulse control and self-control and all of those things, what would you change about the way that we talk about impulse control and we teach kids with ADHD how to like quote unquote behave?

18:33 Yeah, I would sort of shift the narrative away from thinking in terms of are you powerful or are you weak, are you a success or are you a failure? Like shift away from that, let go of that, and instead of that, think in terms of where am I enabled to deploy self-control? Uh, where are there barriers to my deploying self-control?

18:59 And those barriers and enabling factors, they can be something external, but they can also be something that's within you. Um, and being able to identify them, it's going to help you maybe devise ways to circumvent some of those barriers. And particularly, this is important because the self-blame and anxiety, and anxiety is such a typical problem uh for ADHDs, becomes this vicious circle where you're stressed and anxious because you have self-controlled problems, but that stress and anxiety in itself is going to make your executive functioning system uh work worse than it did before.

19:39 So, and which is going to create even more self-control difficulties. So, in a way, like um even though, like in the midst of that anxiety, sometimes what we really want to do most is hit the pedal and uh try to like get stuff done as much as possible. Uh, sometimes the best thing we can do for self-control is to take a step back and really like try to soot ourselves first.

20:05 Every instance of self-control starts with realizing that you need self-control in that situation, right? There's so many situations where we do something that we didn't mean to because we simply forgot or we weren't paying attention. So getting to that space of like paying attention is always the first step.

20:23 And this is one of the most important things, I guess, when it comes to uh thinking about self-control and ADHD, uh, that we often think that because ADHD is this, you know, heritable brain difference, uh, then it's whatever is associated with ADHD is going to accompany us for life. But the reality is very different, and particularly with self-control, uh, there's a lot of things that can change.

20:54 It's gonna take time and it's gonna be two steps forward, one step back. Um, but there is uh a journey there that can be taken.

21:03 A lot of the kind of literature around adult ADHD, especially, seems to kind of hone in on that kind of unconscious isn't the right word, but that kind of just you grow up a little bit, you know, you develop more inhibitory controls. And so for some people, their ADHD symptoms improve. And so there is kind of this misnomer that, you know, like ADHD disappears, you know, on your 18th birthday, the ADHD fairy comes and takes it away.

21:32 But in reality, what we are seeing is whether or not people even know that they have ADHD. They are building these systems and they are building these structures, and those are the things that are sort of improving their circumstances and their situation. So their ADHD isn't impacting them as much.

21:48 Exactly. Regardless of whether we are ADHDers or not, we're going to through our life learn to handle ourselves better. It's not something where we need to wait for some. Something biologically to shift in our brains. Like that seems to be the narrative, right? That's not that's not really how it works.

22:08 The way our brains change, the way um neuroplasticity works, is our brains start to process information differently in response to stimuli, in response to our lives changing. Uh, so it's really we need to like start developing strategies and start shaping our lives to be ones that look like the lives we want to lead.

22:32 I've talked very openly on the show before about like I I was a compulsive shopper for a while. Like I destroyed my finances and it was impacting my life and my relationships and all of these different things. Like my brain will work over time, whether it's like buying something or like choosing like an impulsive action.

22:52 It will be like, no, no, no, this is the thing that's gonna, it's really gonna help. It's really gonna help. It's really gonna help. And so I can like talk myself into doing something that is actually a hindrance.

23:02 I think it's something that is just part of being human that we make up these stories that are only true part of the time. And those stories can be empowering, but it can also be uh enabling things that shouldn't be enabled. And I think here again, you know, coming up with ways to put a little bit of friction between yourself and the action, uh, it's going to create that space where it's at least possible for you to like start reconsidering and creating that in a way that's not contingent on you uh being able to say no to yourself.

23:41 Or again, sources of boosting, enabling for the things that we want to get around to actually starting and doing. There's nothing wrong with leaving your art supplies on the table if you're, you know, if people who live with you are fine with it, obviously. You're going to maybe want to leave out the things that you want to be using uh regularly, uh, and then hide the things in the closet that you want to be using less regularly.

24:05 Also, cognitively, we can add friction by making it a bit of a game with ourselves. I was chatting with a journalist who is also an ADHD error, uh, and she was asking me about Polaris. I've tried to pick up running at least 20 times, but I just can't make myself a runner. I was like listening to that, and I was like, you know, by your own admission, you've gone for a run at least 20 times in your life.

24:33 Like by my book, that's a runner.

24:36 Yeah.

24:37 This like cycle of self-blame becomes almost a tick that we are we just keep uh you know seeing the negative instead of seeing the positive, and and like just looking at the different side of the equation sometimes can make us see like a world of opportunities.

24:53 All right, Dr. Polariskoi, thank you so much for being on the show. Your work is fascinating. You are an incredible human. I think you are so cool and so awesome. I'm so grateful.

25:03 You know, I'm a big fan.

25:04 Thank you so much for being here.

25:06 Thank you for having me. It's been great.

25:13 Thank you for listening. Anything mentioned in the episode will be linked in the show notes with more resources. Have a question, comment, burning story you'd like to share? Email us at sorry I missed this at understood.org. This show is brought to you by understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

25:35 If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org slash gift. Sorry I missed this is produced by Jessamine Molly and edited by Jesse DeMartino. Video is produced by Calvin Kenny, our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright. Production support provided by Andrew Rector. Brianna Berry is our production director, Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

25:54 From understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Koshir, and Jordan Davidson. And I'm your host, Kate Osborne. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you again soon.

26:16 That was an episode of the ADHD Channel for Women from understood.org. To listen, search for the ADHD Channel for Women in your podcast app. That is the ADHD Channel for Women.