ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast

What Actually Helps You?

This ADHD Awareness Month, I’m putting real experiences, community and practical support at the heart of the conversation. Join live conversations, podcast events and opportunities to share what actually helps you. Add your name to my event waitlist as well!

Visit the Events page to see what’s happening and get involved.

_________________________________________

What if the burnout, the guilt and the relentless doing weren't signs that you were failing, but signs that the playbook you'd been given was never designed for you in the first place?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Meghan French Dunbar, bestselling author, business anthropologist and founder of Conscious Company Magazine, the first nationally distributed print magazine in the US focusing on impact-driven business.

Meghan's book, This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success, is a USA Today bestseller and Next Big Idea Club selection. She works with companies including Coach, John Deere, Torani and Kate Spade on leadership and culture strategy, writes for Forbes, Fast Company and Inc, and hosts the podcast Unbehaved. She was diagnosed with ADHD four years ago, and this conversation made a lot of sense of a lot of things.

We talk about purpose burnout, motherhood, identity, joy and what it actually looks like to build a life and career around meaning rather than productivity. Meghan is warm, honest and brilliantly funny, and this is one of those conversations that leaves you feeling both validated and quietly ready to do something differently.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at ⁠http://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen⁠ and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

In this episode, we cover:

How Meghan's ADHD diagnosis four years ago reframed her entire career and the relentless curiosity that drove it

Why she burnt out running her own organisation, resigned from it, and spent two years rebuilding from the ground up

The difference between social success and soul success, and the three elements the most fulfilled leaders Meghan interviewed all had in common

Why sustained leadership is about the quality of your being, not the quantity of your doing

The six key predictors of burnout, and why ADHD makes several of them almost inevitable without the right support

What the broaden and build theory tells us about joy, and why nurturing it is not indulgent but a genuine performance strategy

The joy trip: what it is, why Meghan introduced it into her family and what it has given her every year since

Why ADHD women are often the outliers who model a different way of working, and why that matters for everyone around them

What enough looks like, and why deciding that with your partner is one of the most radical acts available to us

Why autonomy is the non-negotiable for so many neurodivergent entrepreneurs

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Meghan French Dunbar

02:00 - What drives Meghan's passion for business, impact and entrepreneurship

05:00 - How her ADHD diagnosis reframed decades of relentless curiosity

08:00 - Burning out as founder, resigning in 2020 and two years of rebuilding

12:00 - What the outliers taught her: soul success, purpose and quality of life

16:00 - Sustained leadership: why quality of being beats quantity of doing

19:00 - The practical foundations: sleep, movement, joy and professional support

22:00 - Why younger generations are already rewriting the playbook

25:00 - The joy trip: how it started, what it involves and why it changed everything

31:00 - The broaden and build theory: the science behind why joy makes you better at everything

35:00 - Modeling a different way for other women

38:00 - What Meghan's working life looks like now, and what enough means to her

42:00 - Autonomy, ADHD and why working for yourself so often becomes the answe

Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠

Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here

Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Visit Meghan's website: meghanfrenchdunbar.com

Connect with Meghan on Instagram

Connect with Meghan on LinkedIn

Subscribe to Meghan's Substack: Unbehaved

Listen to Meghan's podcast: Unbehaved

Watch Meghan's TEDx talk

Get Meghan's book: This Isn't Working: How Working Women Can Overcome Stress, Guilt, and Overload to Find True Success

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

Understood.org's The ADHD Channel for Women features three shows hosted by three different hosts, unpacking a different side of life with ADHD. They cover everything from sex, dating, and relationships to deep dives into where neurodivergence meets the biggest news stories, like how a newly discovered gene variant could change the way we treat ADHD. There's also an ADHD coach who answers listeners' questions.

Check out The ADHD Channel for Women ⁠here

This episode from The ADHD Channel for Women is called 'I’ve never felt like a good woman...' You'll hear a complex conversation about ADHD, femininity, gender, and why talking about the hard stuff is important.

Cate sits down with Rae Jacobson, host of Understood.org’s Hyperfocus podcast, journalist, and a producer on this show. They talk about something they’ve both struggled to name: the collision between ADHD, femininity, and gender expression. They dig into what it felt like to watch other girls “get it.” The tidiness. The calm. The effortlessness. All things that executive dysfunction made feel out of reach.

They talk about the pressure to be nurturing, organized, and endlessly available — and what happens when your brain doesn’t cooperate with any of it. And they look at the research on outcomes for women and girls with ADHD."

This week’s episode is sponsored by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit dedicated to empowering the millions of people with learning and thinking differences, such as ADHD and dyslexia.

For all things ADHD Women's Wellbeing, including the podcast, resources and events, head here: www.adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠Visit the Events page⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

If you've ever felt shame about what you eat, how you forget to eat, or why your safe foods feel so necessary, this episode is going to be a genuine relief.

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm delighted to welcome back Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas, clinical neuroscientist, applied microbiologist, nutrition researcher, Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University and Senior Lecturer at the University of West London.

Miguel has just published his brilliant new book, ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Gut-Brain Health, published by Jessica Kingsley/Hachette. His research has appeared in leading journals including the BMJ and BMC Psychiatry, and his work is known for translating complex science into something genuinely human and accessible.

This is one of those conversations that covers a huge amount of ground while never once feeling overwhelming. We talk about why the ADHD brain is wired for resilience and what that actually costs us, why the gut-brain connection matters so much for neurodivergent people, how to approach nutrition with compassion rather than perfectionism, and why your safe foods are not something to be ashamed of. We also get into the language of science, why terms like comorbidity matter, and how researchers like Miguel are slowly shifting the field towards a more neuroaffirmative approach.

Advertisement⏐Try AG1 now at ⁠http://drinkag1.com/adhdwomen⁠ and get £20 off your first order + 5 AG1 Travel Packs for on the go, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, and the Welcome Kit for FREE. No risk with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Find all details about the health benefits in the link. Study results are on file with AG1, 2023.

In this episode, we cover:

Why compassion and kindness are at the heart of Miguel's approach to ADHD, nutrition and the nervous system

How the ADHD nervous system forms in high alert, and what that means for resilience and hypervigilance

Why ADHD is far more than a dopamine deficiency, and how hormones, gut bacteria and the nervous system are all part of the picture

The gut-brain axis and why looking after your gut has a direct impact on your ADHD brain

Why the language of science still creates problems, including terms like comorbidity and healthy cohort, and how researchers are starting to push back

How to read ADHD Body and Mind in whichever way works for your brain, whether that's cover to cover or jumping straight to chapter nine

Why understanding the why behind your ADHD behaviours is the keystone to change, even when it doesn't fix things overnight

Miguel's approach to nutrition: keep your safe foods, add rather than subtract, and never shame what nourishes you

Why safe foods are doing an important job for your nervous system, and why being pushed out of your comfort zone too quickly never lasts

The circle approach to expanding your diet gently, starting from your anchors and building outward

Why a hot bath is an act of self-compassion backed by neuroscience, and why you don't need to get into cold water to support your nervous system

The self-kindness toolkit at the end of the book and what it covers

Chapters:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas back to the podcast

02:00 - What's at the heart of ADHD Body and Mind, and why compassion comes first

05:00 - Why the ADHD nervous system is wired for hypervigilance and resilience

08:00 - ADHD as more than dopamine: hormones, gut bacteria and the full picture

11:00 - The neuroaffirmative lens in academic research and why language matters

15:00 - How the gut-brain axis connects to ADHD and emotional regulation

19:00 - The awareness and repetition model: why understanding the why is the keystone

23:00 - Nutrition without perfectionism: how to approach food with kindness

27:00 - Safe foods, anchors and adding rather than subtracting

32:00 - The circle approach: expanding your diet gently from the inside out

37:00 - The ADHD cookery school: creativity, condiments and cooking without recipes

42:00 - Hot baths, cold water and why softness is sometimes the braver choice

46:00 - The self-kindness toolkit and what the book offers neurodivergent readers and clinicians

Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠

Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠

Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Visit Miguel's website

Connect with Miguel on Instagram

Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn

Get Miguel's book: ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Gut-Brain Health

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach, author of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?

This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. ⁠⁠Visit the Events page⁠⁠ to see what’s happening and get involved.

If you've ever wondered why some days feel manageable and others feel completely impossible, even when nothing has obviously changed, your nervous system is trying to tell you something.

Welcome to this week's More Yourself Monday episode. Today I'm sharing a clip from one of my workshops on the nervous system, polyvagal theory and how understanding both can genuinely change the way you move through your days with ADHD.

This is not a clinical lecture. This is a simple, accessible explanation of why your nervous system behaves the way it does, what the polyvagal ladder actually means in real life, and how you can start to work with your nervous system rather than against it. I also introduce the concept of glimmers, those small micro moments of safety and joy that can shift your entire day when you learn to notice and actively seek them out.

The full workshop is available on my website, and the link is below.

In this episode, we cover:

What it means to feel grounded, connected and safe in your nervous system, and why so many of us rarely get there

A simple explanation of polyvagal theory and why it matters so much for neurodivergent people

The three states of the polyvagal ladder: ventral vagal, sympathetic and dorsal vagal, and what each one feels like from the inside

Why the ADHD brain so often operates in fight or flight mode, and what that costs us over time

What the dorsal vagal shutdown state feels like, and why it shows up as fatigue, numbness and withdrawal

The window of tolerance: what it is, what opens and closes it, and why ADHD narrows it

The difference between hyper arousal and hypo arousal, and why each needs a different response

What glimmers are and why they matter as much as knowing your triggers

How to identify your own personal glimmers and actively harness them across the day

Why regulating your own nervous system is not selfish but has a ripple effect on everyone around you

The role of co-regulation and why our nervous system state affects the people we live and work with

Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠

Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠

Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Get the full nervous system and polyvagal theory workshop series here with a 10% discount for Podcast listeners

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ADHD Awareness Month 2026: What Actually Helps?This October, I'm putting community, real experiences and practical support at the heart of ADHD Awareness Month. There are live conversations, Instagram Lives, podcast events and ways for you to share what actually helps in your own life. Visit the Events page to see what’s happening and get involved.

Content note: This episode contains references to suicide and family bereavement. If you are struggling, please reach out to a trusted support resource.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. You can also check out the Campaign Against Living Miserably here

What if the traits you've spent a lifetime apologising for are actually the source of your greatest ability?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Laura Day, New York Times bestselling author, teacher and intuitive consultant who has spent four decades working with individuals and some of the world's largest companies to help them identify and achieve their goals.

Laura's new book, The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future, is the book she describes as an ADHD manual — a practical, evidence-informed framework for building the scaffolding that helps neurodivergent brains thrive. With two New York Times bestsellers to her name and a 40-year teaching community, Laura is also someone who has lived with ADHD her entire life, and this conversation is one of the most honest, warm and genuinely surprising I have had on the podcast.

We talk about Laura's childhood in a household where neurodivergence was everywhere but unnamed, why girls of her generation were never allowed to act out and what that suppression cost them, how she built a career advising billion-dollar companies using her intuitive mind, and why the ADHD brain is uniquely suited to intuition, just not always in the way we expect.

In this episode, we cover:

Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11, and why girls of her generation were never treated

Growing up in a household where neurodivergence showed up in multiple family members, often with devastating consequences

How Laura used survival, focus and necessity as her prosthetic scaffolding before she understood her own neurology

Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain, and how to make that work for you rather than against you

Why intuition is not something you tap into but something that is always downloading, and how to structure it usefully

The difference between the voice of fear and the voice of intuition, and why documentation matters more than belief

How Laura advises billion-dollar companies using intuitive methods, and why business and science do what works regardless of belief

Why Laura says you are your own worst intuitive, and why community-based intuitive practice is so powerful

The shame and blame pages: a research-backed tool for releasing what no longer serves you

Why doing just the next thing is one of the most powerful strategies for ADHD brains

How Laura built scaffolding for her household without knowing it was for neurodivergence

Why vulnerability is not a weakness but the source of extraordinary ability

The Prism: what it offers neurodivergent people and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome and introducing Laura Day

02:00 - Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11 and why girls weren't treated in her generation

05:00 - Growing up with neurodivergence all around her, and what it cost her family

08:00 - How she used her role as oldest child to create focus and structure

10:00 - Spatial difficulties, irritability and the compensations she built over decades

13:00 - Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain

16:00 - How intuition actually works and why it is always downloading

20:00 - Documenting intuition and building a feedback loop with the world

23:00 - How she works with billion-dollar companies and why they don't need to believe in it

27:00 - Social dynamics, masking and forgetting to say hello

31:00 - Emotional regulation, overstimulation and learning to step away rather than snap

35:00 - Generational patterns, self-awareness and raising neurodivergent children

40:00 - Just do the next thing: why this is the most powerful ADHD strategy

44:00 - The shame and blame pages and the research behind letting go

47:00 - The Prism: seven steps, and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual

50:00 - How to find Laura and join her teaching community

Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD Women's Wellbeing workshops and resources on my website ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Follow the podcast on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@adhd_womenswellbeing_pod⁠⁠⁠

Get my book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit (also available in ebook and audiobook) ⁠⁠⁠here

Join the More Yourself membership community ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠

Visit Laura's website: lauraday.com

Get Laura's new book: The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future, also available as an audiobook narrated by Laura herself

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices