 Hi, I'm George Kau and I'm really excited to be here with Tina Hart. Tina, just want to say hi. Thank you for being here Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I think we're going to share some things that are going to be really really helpful for People with teenagers in their life or and also adults who are Dealing with ADHD or other executive function issues. Let me just share briefly what your bio is and then we'll get into this conversation. So Tina boneheart has 30 years of experience working with teenagers and their families in the mental health field For the past eight years. She has focused on working with students who have ADHD and anxiety so that they can become more productive and enjoy learning and also in the past year so Tina you've also been working with some adults and You know, you work with some of my own clients who found great benefit from it. Anyway, I'm gonna have you share some things that you shared with our group that they found really helpful, but Should we start with the executive function? What is executive function? I think I think a lot of us have heard that term And we have an idea that okay, you know executive function We need it to all function well in our work in our lives But what is it really it was so helpful when you shared that that chart with us and I'd love for you to Share that again here. All right. Well, let me just go ahead and Share my screen and show you the the graphic that I made. Yes. So Russell Barclay Who's now retired started the idea of executive function and he had like 13 separate ones that he created and Then Thomas Brown at Yale University. He's a professor of psychiatry further that research and brought out this idea of clusters of executive function and the idea is is that executive function are all of the Ways that our frontal lobe Manages our learning our work our organization and our emotion our memory and so Thomas Brown put it in this format, which I really like because it Kind of anytime something is containerized It makes it easier for me to remember and work with yeah, and so this this is what he has done Okay, so that executive function lives in the frontal lobe behind your forehead and You also have the amygdala, which is a Triangle shaped Land at the top of your spine in the very back of your brain. Some people like to call that the reptilian brain Yes, right. Yeah, and so Your brain the energy in your brain works like a Coin that's either heads or tails the energy is either in the amygdala or it's in the frontal lobe But it can't be in both That's why if you're really upset and you take a test You can't show what you know on the test because your amygdala is firing and the energy is back there and fight flight Freeze response instead of in your frontal lobe where you're accessing memory and synthesizing information and writing or Writing down what you know So the important thing to know about executive function to begin with is that if your brain is calm You'll be able to access these much easier So the other thing that Thomas says is that This is a continuous process of attention That involves all six clusters So some people think well if I just get started then everything's good or if I just put in a lot of effort then things are good But what the way Thomas Brown explains it is is that that we really kind of need a continuous Function of all six of these clusters so that we can have our highest level of productivity. Yeah So I thought that's that's Kind of encouraging and daunting at the same time Yes, of course, but the The hope is that we can we can actually plan and work on these things Is that right or or to be aware of how these things are are supported and and not supported? Absolutely because our brain has neuroplasticity. We are not stuck with any Executive skill weaknesses we can continue even The best time to do it is before the age of 26 when your brain is fully developed Even after the age of 35 and we start cognitive decline we can still continue to strengthen and work with our executive function I mean, I heard somewhere that New York Sort of the brain cells continue It's showing my age the brain cells continue Developing until the until the last day of your life on earth I mean, right, isn't that right like like it's the neuroplasticity from what I from what I've read somewhere My brain needs some help is is actually throughout the one's whole life Yeah, the neuroplasticity is it isn't It isn't actually Generating new brain cells as much as it's creating new neuro pathways between that's right. Okay. Okay. There we go And so you're able to create new What happens with executive function and like when people say to me Oh, I want you to help me strengthen my executive function well, what it means to strengthen an Executive function is that you've worked with it enough and you've created a new pattern For habit and so it actually habit bypasses the executive function and it goes it just goes into a like a little Neural pathway that's already been Blazed for how to get started or how to focus or how to manage your effort or how to how to That's why meditation works for emotion So I thought what I would do is just kind of go over each of these clusters and explain them in a little more detail So that you can understand it the most hopeful thing about the executive function though is to remember We all have weaknesses in some areas You know and people with ADHD have more weaknesses than others It's on a continuum of severity So you may see yourself in a lot of these and think oh my gosh, maybe I'm ADHD Well, it doesn't matter if you are not as long if you're functioning as well as you want to be There isn't any reason to seek a diagnosis if however, you see these things and you're like this is exactly Why I'm having such a hard time Then it might be helpful to seek a diagnosis, but it isn't necessary because everybody has Some executive function weaknesses. That's just the way it is. Yeah, and and when you mentioned ADHD Folks have weaknesses. They also have some strengths, right? Like oh they have incredible strings. Yeah, they're great They're creative out of the box thinkers. They're 300 percent more likely to be entrepreneurs than the average person. Yeah Yay us and and they and they They're creative. They're charming. They are Very smart There is The area of the brain That had holds intelligence in the area of the brain that holds the executive function are two different areas Okay, so when people think oh well if you're ADHD, you must not be very smart. That's just categorically untrue Okay That's good. So let so let's look at this first one. Great. Oh the last thing I wanted to say in the intro Is that if one cluster tends to show improvement? It has a global effect so that all of them improve a tiny bit. Oh, that's great And that came straight from dr. Brown's research So the activating we're starting on the top left hand corner and we're going to be moving across to the top three And then we'll go to the next stage For the next three. So the first stage is called activation and activation is about Organizing prioritizing and activating to work So one of the biggest difficulties for people who have weaknesses in the activation area is that they have an incredible difficulty getting started It's their primary complaint and Procrastination and resolving the procrastination is usually their main goal so many wait until the task reaches emergency proportion and They have immediate future consequences to do the task and some very bright and quick people can live like that their whole life They might irritate others in their life But they're able to stay up pull all nighters and get things done anyway For other people they can't they have recurrent failure to pay attention to enough detail and poor predictive skills on How long something will take and they just can't do it, you know Predicting how long something will take is one of those things that we we all have to learn so much about throughout our career Yeah, it's such a hard thing to learn and for some people who have are more moderate to severe ADHD They just won't learn it. So they they need to just give themselves more time than the average bear and and make peace with it Yeah So another thing that you'll see with people who have weakness in the activation area is they'll have a to-do list that's like long enough to Take two to three months and they'll tell you they're gonna get it done in a week And it's again. It's the not predicting how long things take And it's having a very creative bright fast-moving mind that can have create way more ideas and generate more ideas than you could possibly do When we can all think of people like that, maybe ourselves Yes, and so that's why I'm a big proponent of the rule of three Trying to accomplish no more than three things a week and no more than three tiny tasks a day to reach those three goals Yeah, and then you have then you're able to corral it a bit and it makes your prioritizing easier my gosh If we finish the three, it's like great at least I've done the three today That's right. Yeah, that's right And then you can feel good about it and it doesn't feel like you still have an avalanche of work to do and get so discouraged that you stop So next we have focus This is the area that most people think of with a with ADHD people they think well They just can't focus they have a hard time focusing or they're they're impetuous But the truth is when their brain is activated by a high interest or by a tight deadline They can focus better than neurotypical people. They have a capacity to hyper focus Which means that they can do it longer harder with more vitality than most people can the downside of hyper focus is that it can sometimes wear you out wear you out so much that you take several days off and then you lose consistency and And hyper focus is also something that you can't necessarily will to happen it is a certain mixture of Lighting up of the brain that happens that causes that flow to go And so just like you teach all your clients don't wait on the flow Don't wait on that hyper focus go ahead and do it do work consistently and if it comes It's a bonus is definitely an agreement with the research here on executive function. Okay, that's interesting Now the hyper focus is it also losing track of time. Does that happen? Yes. Yes, you get into such a flow state That you people somebody could even be talking to you and you wouldn't even hear on interesting. Okay The common complaint and the focus area for people is that they have a hard time Focusing long enough to complete necessary tasks because of excessive distract ability and so everybody has distractibility that's normal and natural But if you have a a chronic or severe difficulty with screening out distractions, it can cause problems in your jobs driving And in social relationships Okay, so those are the three areas the number one killer In ADHD teenagers and young adults is car accidents So I either recommend that kiddos Put off driving until they're a little older or that they Consider using medication to keep themselves safe Yeah, or consider doing Uber or Lyft Exactly public transit. Yes public transit. Yes, absolutely. Yes So then we'll move on to effort Effort is regulating alertness sustaining effort and processing speed So many people who have this as an executive Weakness will end up becoming so drowsy they can barely keep their eyes open when they sit quietly for a long period of time and They also have a hard time driving long distances Without also having the tendency to fall asleep at the wheel Their brain just kind of has a tendency to go to sleep when they are calm and quiet, right? And it doesn't necessarily have to do with sleep. Sometimes it is a lot of people Deprived, yeah, yeah, they're sleep-deprived or they have a still have a lot of Hyperactivity of them and they might not have enough exercise to burn that out and that causes sleep problems at night But this is something that dr. Brown has noticed across the board with people who have issues with their effort as they have a really hard time regulating alertness One of the things that I recommend to some of my clients who have issues with this is to get a standing death Yeah, okay, because it is my it reminds your brain that you're awake If you're not sitting The They have the biggest difficulty staying alert If there isn't any motor activity, right? Yeah, if there's no social feedback, right or if there's no cognitive feedback and so this is why feedback Cognitive feedback. Yeah, what does that mean? That means that If if you like if you play a video game and you're thinking about the strategy you're gonna do Yes, the video game gives you back cognitive feedback about what to do next. Yeah, but if you're doing research to write a blog post Yeah, you're nobody's giving you anything back Maybe an occasional surprise in the research, but not enough to really sustain Got it. So in other words get bored easily Not just bored. It's literally the brain goes sleepy. Okay. Yeah, I think I have some of that too. I have I It's because I know this doesn't turn into a therapy session for me But just to share with people like I I have a hard time reading books. I'm just reading. Yeah Our articles are okay for me, but literally I can't read it's been like this all my life I can't read more than a page or two before I start getting sleepy Right and what I would recommend to somebody who wants to learn how to read books like that is to listen to it on Audio and read it out loud at the same time. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, I could totally do audio books I can't I can't read words on the screen. It's hard for me. Yeah So in this idea of Regulating alertness, this is why co-working sessions work so well Ah, and and and you're the one to introduce me to focus mate Which I'm so grateful because it's foundational in both my productivity in my life and in and a lot of my students That I work with and a lot of the adults I've told about it And it's because you get social feedback you look up and you see there's somebody working and You facilitate co-working sessions for for your clients Yeah, yeah, and one and my accountability group. I provide five a week. Wow Yeah, I switched I used to do a week I switched to five because of the pandemic and all the online and remote learning It's just really hard for kids to get started Yeah, and hard for them to focus and to also regulate their alertness inspiring that's cool very good so Processing speed is another thing that happens in this so there's regulating alertness. They're sustaining the effort past 20 minutes The most the people who have the most weakness in effort can't sustain it in 20 minutes And so you just create 20-minute work sessions Okay, the average neurotypical person usually can't sustain effort past 45 minutes. So It's okay. If you're anywhere between 20 and 45 minutes, you just pay attention to yourself Accept where you're at and create your study sessions or your work sessions around that and then when you're ready And only when you're ready you can start adding on two to three minutes at a time So inch this is so this is so interesting because I feel like I have I have this weakness because I feel like I have to like Stretch almost every five to ten minutes because I get I get bored. I mean within my own work I'm like, okay. Yeah, I got come back So this is really this is fascinating So so in other words, everybody has different strengths like it's almost like there's these meters for each one of these Right, it's like everybody has a different level of ease and everybody has a different level of creating either a conscious or unconscious Accommodation or adaptation to it. Yes Right, right. Like we figure it out how to cope. Yeah, like when you say I have to stretch about every five minutes. Well, that would be a motor Yes Accommodation. Yeah, I need you know that if you move your body, then you're able to engage your brain. Yes. Yes. Yes Yeah, it's the brain is is with all of its interesting complexities We are driven toward health and we are driven toward wholeness. And so we create all the time These accommodations for ourselves that we don't even know we're doing and if we can And if we can realize them and just increase them a tiny bit or just encourage it or just celebrate it It'll it'll even go faster. What about people who fidget like people who like are moving their legs all the time Is that part of The accommodation or is that something else? Maybe that's something else Yeah, it could be it could be hyperactivity. I mean what you'll see in a hyperactive Person is as in their boyhood, they might be like climbing the walls, but by the time they're 25 They're jiggling their knees so hard it moves the table it a little bit, you know Or or they they have some sort of a little, you know Hyper motor activity like they'll touch their thumb until the fingernail doesn't grow or they'll do some small thing Because they they unconsciously become more socialized so that they aren't you know all over the place anymore That's right. Um, but that might be a little different than the effort. Okay. Okay. Uh, the effort area. Sorry, my Go out here. So let's move on to emotion. Yeah, because this is a big one Managing frustrations and modulating emotions. Yeah, what's here in the beginning. Um, when they were identifying Executive function, they didn't they didn't include emotion as part of it. Huh? Um, the Russell Barkley his big thing was that um being able to inhibit your own behavior was the most important thing And so Thomas Brown is the guy who brought emotion on board and and looked at his at how important it is and the thing is is that If you have a weakness in the emotion area of your executive function Then you are going to Have a low threshold for frustration Interesting. Okay So that looks like a short fuse, you know, you get angry easily or it looks like irritability Yes, or and this is my own. I'm adding this isn't from Thomas Brown But I see this in myself and in my clients a lot Is a really low patience Right threshold. Yeah, so it's like I don't want to learn that, you know, or I don't want to do that or that doesn't work for me Um, and it's because they feel fearful that they won't be able to do it or yes Or they are flooded with emotion. Yeah and with technology these days. That's you know, it's very prevalent and with our changing world because You know somebody with a low frustration tolerance May have put a ton of effort into learning how to use their iPhone 10 Right and then their iPhone 12 comes out and it's like starting over and it's extremely frustrating. Right. Right. Um So that some people with weaknesses in this area also have a chronic difficulty regulating emotional experience and talking about their feelings So they won't even know what they're feeling interesting and so um a lot of A lot of my students Need just basic emotional literacy like I teach them what their feelings are and how to recognize their feelings So this is so this is so important. I feel like We don't learn that in school. I mean, this is incredible. I feel like I've had to learn that a lot over the years myself because I also was Easily frustrated when I was younger and didn't know how to describe Didn't know what I was feeling and so this is this is very interesting Yes, this is actually one of my favorite parts being a former therapist. Yeah Because it's a part of my wheel house and I enjoy it a lot And it's part of what I see people Being able to go from being mad at themselves to being able to accept themselves once they can identify and express emotion Yes, yes And so many people also describe who have a weakness in this area um That they they have an emotional flooding And it feels like that there's no space left in their brain except for that emotion And sometimes people will lose entire days Not just a day or not just an hour but entire days to a big emotional distraction. Yeah, right, right So that would look like a breakup Yeah, oh, oh, yeah big big events like that, you know, yeah Yeah, or even failing a test. Yeah, sure, of course Or embarrassment. Yeah having a fight with a parent right, right So many also describe themselves as overly sensitive and react too intensely to criticism Um I don't see that I do think that they're sensitive A lot of of of my kiddos are very sensitive But I don't think that they react too intensely to criticism in light of they have been overly criticized Most of their life because they weren't neurotypical Okay But half of all people with ADHD have coexisting diagnosis of ADHD depression or other learning disability So since it is at the halfway mark, uh, if you all if you See a lot of executive weaknesses on here for yourself And you know, you also deal with those other things treatment will take you to the halfway mark Uh, medication will take you to the 50 percent mark of curing this stuff And then you're able to have a good solid base to continue working on the habit forming right and all the other Executive skill strengths that you need So moving on to memory. Yes. Yeah, we have just a few minutes and I just want to make sure we yeah Yeah, so I'll try to just buzz through these two pretty quick here Memory utilizing memory working memory and assessing recall the most important thing to learn about this to know about this executive function Is that if you have a working memory? Deficit or weakness Then you are going to have a hard time Keeping two things in mind at one time Even if you set up Templates and even if you set up systems for yourself, you may forget those Systems and templates without a visual reminder. Ah, okay So if you don't do anything else for your memory What I would encourage you to do is to get in the habit of writing things down. Oh, yeah Using it as a visual memory so that And telling people that you have social conversations with I'm not good with names, but I'll remember your story Things like that so that you let them know on the front end that this is a weakness for you And it's not a character fall. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's it's not a slight against them. Yes. Yes And then moving on to action. This is monitoring and self regulating action This is four areas that I want to just share with you real quick One is an Inhibition of action, which is just essentially stopping and thinking before you do something or speak The second one is monitoring yourself Which is developing and observing ego which you can do and just and and mindfulness meditation So that you can see yourself in your environment instead of of Not paying attention to cues other people are giving you and not changing your behaviors to get along better with others There's monitoring one's context in terms of what's appropriate when so that you know This context, it's okay to say this but this context. It's not Um and then taking action in appropriate ways So instead of freezing up if you start freezing up, what will you do? Well, I'll do a four breath reset and then I'll look up my template so that you know what you'll do if you start freezing up Wow, I I feel like I'm I've had to learn a lot grow a lot in that area as well That that those things that you've talked about and and I'm still learning what's appropriate and not appropriate And and very much, uh, you know not not being too impulsive But it's interesting because you said that a lot of adhc people Become entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is kind of an impulse. You know, there's that there's an impulsiveness there It's like, oh, yeah, I can do this like I'm going to do it right now You know kind of thing which and I think one of the reasons why um So many people with adhd are entrepreneurs is because the risk keeps your brain alive You know, it keeps it on Because it's it's the risk is high. It's much higher than being employed and getting a job from somebody again Very interesting very interesting. Wow Tina, this has been amazing. Um, I hope folks who are watching this feel um, whether it's for yourself or for um, a child a grandchild Needs nephew someone in your life a young adult or you know, like I said, whether it's for young adults and yourself I hope you feel some acceptance, you know, like more understanding of what might be happening if somebody is not Uh behaving the typical ways that most people behave perhaps um, so Tina you have you work with of course, you've been working with um teenagers young adults for for years now Um on helping them develop these habits you you actually work with a lot of high school students and college students to help them Actually mostly college students mostly college students to to help them Study better and kind of thrive in their academic environment. Yes And and then now you've uh, you know, you've worked with some of my clients And others to you know adults based, you know people of people who are 35 plus Or 25 plus who are needing some habit development in these areas and some improvement in these areas And right all the productivity audit And that a lot of my clients have found helpful. Do you want us to talk about that? Yes, so um a new thing that I that I Tested this past summer and it was well received and now i'm offering on a regular basis through my website You just go to my website at um coaching with heart hart.com I'll have the link below. Yeah, and there is a make an appointment tab So you just go in there and sign up for one It's a productivity audit. It lasts for 60 minutes and I have created a Google form that you fill out that has targeted questions Helping me do a shortcut assessment of which of these areas you might have some weaknesses or stuck areas in and then we create a very practical Actionable plan for you to immediately implement as soon as the session is over That's excellent. I love it and I like that might my clients who have signed up for that who've done that Found it incredibly helpful. Um, you know transformational for them for their work So I hope those those who are watching this will take you up on this and and while you have this available Um, I'll have the link below. Tina. Thank you so much for what you do. Thank you. I really appreciate it Yeah, thank you