Already at a 6? My Dyslexia and ADHD Stimulation Meter

Do you ever wake up and your brain's already running hot? Nothing's even happened yet, no emails, no coffee, and you're already sitting at a six out of ten. I had one of those this morning, and I still can't fully tell you why. It's Stephen from the Truth About Dyslexia. Let's get into it. Okay, so this one's a bit different because this episode only exists because of a listener.

Nika left a comment on Spotify on the Time versus Stimulation episode. That one went out back in August, and she asked me two questions. So first of all, thank you, Nika. Comments like that are rocket fuel for me. To be honest, I was buzzing when I saw it. Her first question was about the bookcase door.

If you missed that one, I wanted a bookcase door. Like in Batman, you pull a book and the door swings open, and I can't build anything. I mean it. I swapped the door on the little fridge in my office from one side to the other once, and I felt like a master builder for about a week. So what I did, and this is the bit Nika picked up on, is I built the website before I built the door. Just a page with the dream on it and a form, and about 50 people filled it in.

50 people wanting a door that didn't exist yet. That's the short version. The long version deserves its own episode, and I'll do one, I promise. Because building the picture first and finding the how later is a very dyslexic way to start something. Her second question, though, she said the time and stimulation rating really resonated, and could I go deeper on it? So that's today.

Quick recap for anyone who didn't hear the first one. I reckon there are two dials running in our heads all day. Dial one is stimulation. How much is going on in your head and your body right now? I rate it out of 10. Too low and we go hunting: phones, snacks, a new project, all that cheap fuel I talked about in the dopamine episode.

Too high and it's just as bad. Sometimes worse. You get scattered and wired and you can't land on anything. Dial two is time. Are you right here, present in the room, or are you off in the future, five years out, building castles? And in that first episode, I kind of made up the four boxes on the fly mid-podcast, which is very me.

I literally said, You're going to have to imagine this. I'm coming up with it right now. And then I sort of wandered off to talk about Matthew McConaughey and never really finished the thought, so let's finish it. First, the stimulation meter, because more and more I'm seeing this in my own life. Some mornings I wake up and I'm a three or a four, clear-headed, calm, lovely. Other mornings I wake up and I'm already on a six before I've done a single thing, and a six first thing in the morning is never a good sign for me because the day only adds to it.

Meetings add to it, coffee adds to it, messages add to it. So by lunch I'm an eight and wondering why I feel like I've been hit by a bus. And the honest answer is sometimes I don't know why. It can be bad sleep, it can be something I ate, it can be stress I haven't even clocked yet. Sometimes it's just there. Two things I've changed recently, and I want to share them because they've made a real difference.

One, I've just hit one month sober, which I'm really proud of, and my Oura Ring is tracking so much better. My sleep's better, and most mornings now I'm waking up a couple of points lower than I used to just from that. Two, in the last few weeks, if I wake up and my stimulation's already high, I've been laying off the Vyvanse that day because adding a stimulant to a brain that's already running hot doesn't help me. It just pushes me into overload. Now that's me. I'm not a doctor.

If you're on meds, talk to yours before you change anything. But the point is I'm checking the dial first and then deciding. Now, the time dial. And here's something I didn't really talk about last time. This morning I wasn't in the now and I wasn't in the future. I was stuck in between, kind of phasing back and forth between the two.

I'd think about all the stuff I had to do today, and my brain would go, Does any of this even matter for what I actually want to do in the future? And then it goes, Well, what do I want in the future? And then it goes, What's happening with AI? What's happening with the world? What's going on with all of this crazy stuff? And then it zips back to my to-do list and back out again, all of it at once.

And that's when overwhelm hits. That spot between the now and the future, for me, is like a big heavy blanket. You can't see properly under it, and you've got to be really careful in there because if you add stimulation on top of that, the overwhelm gets,well, it gets overwhelming. I know that sounds a bit daft, but you know what I mean. It snowballs. So step one is just noticing, Oh, I'm phasing.

I'm under the blanket. Okay, the four boxes. Let me go through them properly this time. Picture a graph, stimulation going up the side, low at the bottom and high at the top, time going across from right now on one side to the future on the other. Box one, overstimulated and lost in the future. This is the one that gets me.

You end up doing nothing. You just sit there in fear or in worry, running every possible future in your head and not moving at all. Lots going on, zero getting done. Box two, understimulated and in the future. This one surprised me a bit when I really thought about it. Sometimes it feels a bit lazy, like I'm drifting, but honestly, a lot of the time it's a really good place.

When I'm calm and I'm thinking about the future, I see things I don't normally see. Ideas join up. I'd say this is my best box for planning. Box three, overstimulated and stuck in the now. That's usually anxiety and worry for me, heart going, jumping between tabs. Everything feels urgent and nothing is.

Box four, understimulated and stuck in the now. That's lethargy. You just don't want to do anything. Couch, phone, hours gone, and then there's the blanket in the middle. When you're phasing between now and future, which I talked about before, none of these boxes are good or bad as such. They're just where you are.

The trick is knowing which one you're in. And actually, side note, box two is where the bookcase door came from. Now that I think about it, we were sitting at the pub with our neighbours, January, sunny, nothing on, nice and calm, and we were just dreaming up goals for the year. That's low stimulation, looking at the future, box two. And that's when I said it out loud, I want a bookcase door. It's that Matthew McConaughey thing from Green Lights again.

You shoot the arrow and you let the target find it. I had no idea about the how, none. I just shot the arrow from the right box. If I'd tried to plan that door on a Monday morning, sitting at an eight, I reckon I'd have talked myself out of it by lunch. Ha. Anyway, where was I?

Let me paint you a picture. Meet Gus. Gus paints the white lines on rugby fields. Great job, eh? Outdoors, a bit of a craft to it, nobody bothers him. Gus is dyslexic, probably a bit of ADHD in there too.

Never got checked, so Gus wakes up on a Tuesday, slept badly, the neighbor's dog was going off at three, and he's already a six. Doesn't know it, mind you. Nobody's ever told him there's a dial. He has two coffees because he's tired. Now he's a seven. And at about seven in the morning, standing in the kitchen, Gus decides this is the day he's going to sort out his whole life.

Five-year plan. Start his own line marking business. Maybe buy a second truck. Maybe move to Tauranga. By ten o'clock he's lying on the couch, hasn't left the house, and he feels terrible. Box one.

Overstimulated, lost in the future, frozen. And here's the bit that matters. Gus's dad used to call him a dreamer, not in a nice way. Always got big ideas, never finishes anything. So when Gus ends up on that couch, that's the story that plays. See, dad was right.

Useless. But two weeks later, it's a Sunday arvo. Slept well, went for a walk. He's maybe a four, and he sits on the deck with a notepad, and the whole business plan just falls out of him. Clear as day. Three steps, done in an hour.

Same Gus, same brain, same dream, different box. He's not a dreamer who can't finish. He was planning from the wrong box. Quick one, Aroha. She's a dental hygienist. Sunday afternoon, nothing on, and she's at about a two, box four, understimulated, stuck in the now.

She picks up her phone at one o'clock and it's suddenly five, and she feels flat as a pancake. Then she beats herself up for wasting the day, which funnily enough doesn't add any energy at all. What Aroha needed wasn't a lecture, it was a small lift, a walk, some music, ring a mate, something to get her from a two to a four or a five so her brain had something to work with. Now, your numbers won't be the same as mine. That's really important. For me, overstimulated is roughly a seven or an eight and up.

Understimulated is maybe a one to a three, sometimes a four, where I'm just bored out of my brain. Which means my happy place might only be a little window, like a five, a six, maybe a seven on a good day. That's not a big window, is it? And I think this is where ADHD makes it messy. And then you throw dyslexia on top, which I reckon adds all the future visions, all those big clear pictures of what could be, and it all gets a bit tangled. And it's tiring.

You're constantly learning about yourself and nudging yourself back into that window. To be honest, it's a lifelong mission. I don't think you ever finish it. I certainly haven't. So here's what I'd try this week. One, rate yourself first thing before you pick up your phone, just a number out of 10.

That's it. You'll be surprised how often you wake up higher than you thought. Two, ask where you are on the time dial. Am I here? Am I off in the future? Or am I phasing in between, under the blanket?

Three, match the job to the box. If you're calm and thinking ahead, that's your planning time. Use it. If you're high and wired, don't plan your life. Just do the next small thing in front of you. Tick one thing off.

You know, if you're flat and stuck, give yourself a small lift first. And if you're under the blanket, slow down and drink some water before you do anything else. And four, put it on the wall. Seriously, draw the four boxes on a bit of paper and stick it somewhere you'll see it every morning. You know how we are, out of sight, out of mind. If it's on the wall, it stays front of mind.

That will 100% help you. If you want to go deeper on this stuff, come and join us in Right Brain Resetters. That's rightbrainresetters. com. It's where I share the tools that are actually working for me, and you get a bunch of people who think like you do. And if you haven't grabbed the book yet, Dyslexia and ADHD Explained from the Inside: What I Wish They'd Told Me, it's on Amazon.

Nika, thanks again for the question, and if you've got one, leave a comment on Spotify. I do read them, clearly. If this helped, send it to someone who wakes up already at a six. Have an epic rest of your day, and I'll be back next week.