Tag: ADHD

a photo of deer in a greenspace next to a walkway Christine’s Own Travel Advice Mostly Worked For Her
ADHD · fitness · self care · traveling

Christine’s Own Travel Advice Mostly Worked For Her

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

I am happy to report that my plans to take very good care of myself worked VERY well on my way to Victoria for my conference.

I packed good snacks, I made sure to buy breakfast in the airport, I moved the things I planned to do on the plane to the top of my backpack, and I walked around a fair bit and did a little meditation in the airport to ensure that I was as unfrazzled as possible when I got on the plane.

Once I was in my seat, I put my papers, markers, and water bottle in the pouch on the seat ahead of me and made myself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space.

After take-off, I made a loose plan of how I wanted to spend my time and set my repeat timer so I didn’t feel like any task was going to go on forever.

The timer will let me choose a length of time to work and a length of time to rest and how many times to repeat the cycle. It’s really handy, especially since my ADHD brain will sometimes refuse to start something – even something fun – if it feels like it will take a lot of time. Setting a timer creates an escape hatch and makes it easier to start.

So I alternated between reading, drawing, writing, and taking notes on some YouTube videos I had downloaded and took breaks for snacks, for stretching, for napping, and for meditating.

a drawing of overlapping ovals, each filled with a pattern, in black ink on a white index card. The card is resting on a seatback table on an airplane.
Here’s one of my drawings from the plane. image description: a drawing of overlapping circles with about half of them filled in with patterns on an index card drawn in black ink. The card is resting on an airplane table and a marker and my grey pencilcase is nearby.

The flight to Calgary for my stopover felt pretty fast but I did have one recurring annoyance because of time math.

If I were to write it as a story problem, it would go like this.

The first part of Christine’s trip is a 6h 20min flight to Calgary where she will have a 1h 5min wait before her flight to Victoria. If her initial flight from St. John’s to Calgary leaves 1h late but the pilot says that the flight will only take 5h 30mins, will she make her connecting flight?

And yeah, the math works out but when you factor in me wondering if I had misheard the pilot, and my concern that I had miscalculated time difference (Is this a factor? no. Could I shake the concern loose? also no), I ended up with a low-key worry that I was going to miss my connecting flight and my arrangements to share a cab from the airport in Victoria were going to get jumbled.

I eventually realized I could ask the flight attendant and I felt better after that but the brainloop was irksome in the meantime.

I made the second flight, got to Victoria just a little late, had lunch with my storytelling friends (Hi to Cindy, Shelah, and Brigitte!) and got to campus feeling pretty damn good.

The conference was great – I heard some marvellous stories, took some terrific workshops, and I was thrilled with how my workshop and my story performance was received.*

On Sunday, I was heading back home via Ottawa. I was relaxed and looking forward to getting home and I got to chatting with different storytelling friends in the airport (Hi Colette and Gail!) and didn’t really give much thought to the practicalities of the trip.

Actually, I kind of forgot my ‘take good care of yourself’ strategy.

In fact, even the need for it slipped my mind.

So, when I started to feel a bit twitchy a little ways into the flight and then I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure how long we had been in the air, I realized that I needed a plan or I was going to drive myself and my seatmate bananas before we landed in Ottawa.

I did my best to calculate how long we had left in the flight and I set my repeat timer.

And, once again, I alternated between reading, listening to podcasts/videos, napping, writing, and meditating. I made sure to eat at regular intervals, to drink lots of water, and to do a bit of stretching.

This worked out pretty well, just not as well as it had on the way up and the flight felt loooooong.

Once I landed in Ottawa, I opted to walk around and stay standing for the hour or so wait so I could burn off some of the energy I built up sitting on the plane.

I did the same timer trick for the last part of my flight – with a few more nap/meditation times because it was late at night (my flight was supposed to arrive at 12:48am and actually got in at 1:30am) – and I made sure to have lots of water and a substantial snack so I could head right to bed when I got home instead of having to make time to eat.

Even though it was a relatively short flight, it did drag a bit because of the late hour and we got in at 1:30am it took forever to get off the plane and get my luggage so it was almost 2:30am before I got home.**

Why am I including those details?

Because the time of day makes it hard to tell how effective my strategy was on the way home.

I think, once you are up into the wee hours traveling, you kind of have to surrender to a certain amount of off-kilter feeling, no matter what you do.

But, I do think that I felt better than I would have if I had just tried to forge ahead through my travel without any distress-management plans.

However, I have to note that the disrupted sleep on Sunday night/Monday morning really left me feeling out of sorts for the rest of the week and I was decidedly out of sorts until the weekend.

That’s why I am writing and posting this a whole week later – I just couldn’t make my brain behave last week and I am grateful to @samanthabrennan for posting in my place on Tuesday past.

Overall, I think my lessons here are that making a plan and taking good care of myself really helps me travel with less fluster. AND that I should try to avoid flights that arrive in the very early hours of the morning.

a photo of the bright horizon at sunset taken from a plane window with a plane wing in the foreground
I took this shortly after we left Ottawa. image description: A photo taken from a airplane window of the bright horizon at sunset. There is a dark area at the bottom, a stripe of red, then a stripe of orange, then lighter blue, then darker blue. In the foreground you can see the plane’s wing illuminated by one of the plane’s lights. It creates a great contrast to the dark in the middle of the image and the bright natural colours on the horizon.

*I taught an 1.5h workshop on how storytelling builds empathy and I performed a story about doing a tarot reading that asked, “What advice would my Dad give me?”

**Many thanks to the valiant Steve for picking me up at that late hour when he had to work in the morning!

a photo of the author telling a story on stage. Christine hopes to follow her own advice
ADHD · advice · self care · stretching · traveling

Christine hopes to follow her own advice

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

By the time this post goes live, I’ll be on a plane on my way to BC for the Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada conference.

I’m looking forward to the conference and to seeing my friends and telling/talking about stories for DAYS but I always feel apprehensive before I travel.

I’m not afraid to fly or anything like that. It’s the disrupted schedule, the lack of control over my day, the eating at weird times, the crowds of people, the change in time zones…that’s what gets me.

And all of that is fairly unavoidable.

BUT

Then I remembered that the last time the conference was in BC my travel schedule was waaaaaaaay worse and I was miserable on the way up but I actually did ok on the way home.

And, sure, part of it was the fact that I was on my way home but, after the frustrating trip on the way there, I had decided to take really good care of myself on the return trip and it made a huge difference.

So, what did ‘taking really good care of myself’ mean in that context?

  1. I brought some really filling snacks so I had a bit more control over when I ate.
  2. I made sure to keep my water bottle full.
  3. I did stretches and yoga frequently and did some walking in each airport.*
  4. I meditated a fair bit on the plane (and listened to my favourite cello music)
  5. I planned something to do for each hour of the trip (I didn’t have to do it but having a plan made me less fidgety and irritated.)

And that plan seems really appealing to me right now.

In fact, once I thought about it, I immediately started feeling better about the long trip and I could focus more on the fun that awaits me on the other end.

So, let’s see how my plan works out, hey?

I’ll update you later tomorrow.

*Yes, I always *could* stretch or walk at any point but this was me being proactively deliberate about it.

Hip, Hip… OK. Christine’s upcoming experiment
ADHD · fitness · mobility · stretching · yoga

Hip, Hip… OK. Christine’s upcoming experiment

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

My hips are very cranky lately and instead of just being annoyed most of the time and stretching when I think of it, I have decided to actually try to make them happier by doing some targeted exercises and stretches and the like.

Yes, I know that a problem with my hips is not an isolated thing – I probably have a whole series of cranky muscles that need some kind attention – but I also know that my brain loves falling into the trap of ‘if I can’t do everything, I won’t do anything’ so I have decided to start by focusing on my hips.

And since I also know that my brain gets easily bored exercise routines, I have decided that ‘focusing on my hips’ means ‘trying all kinds of different videos to see which ones my hips like best.

So, here is my ‘happier hips’ experiment:

Try each of these videos once over the next two weeks and see which ones we (me and my hips) like best.

Updates will follow as events warrant.

A video called ‘7 Tight Hip Stretches’ from the Ask Dr Jo YouTube channel. The still image shows Dr. Jo, a woman with light skin whose brown hair is pulled back in a bun, sitting on a mat on the floor with her hands on the mat behind her. Her right leg is bent at the knee with her foot on the floor and her left leg is bent with her knee facing the camera and her left foot on her right knee. She is facing the camera and she is mid-sentence.
a short YouTube video called ‘Tight Hips? You’re not alone’ from the Yoga with DJ channel. In the still image a person in a grey tank top and black shorts. with black framed glasses with their hair in a bun on top of their head sits on a black yoga mat with the soles of their feet touching each other and their knees pointed to the sides of the mat (butterfly pose), and they are using their hands to push downwards on their knees. There are shelves of plants behind them and their yoga mat is on light-coloured parquet flooring.
a video called ‘Gentle Yoga for Tight Hips’ from Yoga with Adriene. In the still image, Adriene, a woman with long dark hair and a happy expression is wearing back leggings and a black tshirt as she sits on a yoga mat that is divided long ways into two shades of green. Her hands are resting behind her on the mat and she is leaned back slightly. Her left foot is on the floor and her left knee is bent (pointed toward the ceiling) Her right leg is bent, her right foot is resting on her left leg, and her right knee is pointing away from the viewer. Her dog Benji is sleeping in front of her but near the back wall and a table with a plant and a decorative item on it is behind her to her right.
a video called ‘Hip CARs//For IT Band Syndrom, Piriformis Syndrome etc’ from Tom Morrison. The left hand side of the image is red with text reading ‘What is The Best Hip Mobility Drill Ever!?and the right shows Tom Morrison, a man with long hair wearing a black shirt and dark pants and a woman in a black shirt and grey capri leggings with her blonde hair in a high ponytail standing next to the frame of a machine at the gym. She is holding on to the frame and tipping her leg to one side to stretch her hips.
another Yoga with Adriene video. This one is called ‘Hip Mobility – Open Your Hips – 13 Minute Yoga practice and there’s still image shows her lying on her back on a light green yoga mat and she is wearing a one piece exercise suit that is both a tank top and leggings. She is making the figure 4 position with her legs. Her right leg is bent with the knee pointing away from the viewer and her right ankle is resting on her left thigh as she pulls her left thigh toward her with her hands .
This video from Oscar Moves is called ‘Give Me 4 Minutes. I’ll Fix Your Tight Hips.’ Still image is divided into halves. On the left, he is wearing a dark shirt and shorts and he is pushing down on his right leg near the knee with both hands. On the right side, he is wearing a green shirt and dark shorts and he is sitting with the souls of his feet together and his knees pointing out to either side in butterfly position and he looks relaxed.

PS- The YouTube algorithm tossed another Tom Morrison hip video at me just now ( about an hour before the post goes live) so I’m going to include that too: https://youtube.com/shorts/56aOHZq2JKI?si=rfSRHcZFuMZBICAe

A drawing of a shiny gold star against a green background that is decorated with black spirals Go Team 2026: Be kind to yourself about frustration, please.
ADHD · advice · Go Team · goals · habits · motivation · self care

Go Team 2026: Be kind to yourself about frustration, please.

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

Hey Team,

I am solidly in the messy, frustrating middle of so many projects right now – fitness and otherwise.

And it is taking a lot of effort to keep working away at stuff instead of ditching everything and starting over.

The middle of any project is rarely fun but it can be especially dreadful for those of us with ADHD. The novelty has worn off, there’s a lot of trial and error, and everything seems very, very dull.

My brain really wants me to

  • start some new stories instead of working on ones that need revising.
  • try some new exercises instead of sticking with my walking/yoga/mobility routine.
  • buy new containers to store stuff instead of decluttering (decluttering = so many choices to make -ugh!)
  • try some new drawing techniques instead of improving my current skills.
  • invent different workshops and projects instead of finishing and promoting the ones I am already working on. 
  •  (don’t even get me started on my volunteer projects!)

But despite the noise my brain is making about this, I know that starting something new – in any category- will only be temporarily fun.

Pretty soon that new, fun thing will be at the messy middle stage and I’ll be annoyed all over again.

And, even though my brain has doubts, I know that I will REALLY enjoy when I finally finish something, when I can feel a difference in my body or my mind, and when I can see some of the progress I have made.

The only way to get to that real enjoyment is to keep inching everything forward, to add fun and novelty where I can, and to keep reminding myself that it is extra fun to actually finish something – even if that time feels very far away at the moment.

So, Team, even allowing for ADHD-related intensity, I’m pretty sure that ‘Why is the middle so annoying?’ is a pretty common feeling.

In fact, being annoyed with any part of any process seems pretty common.

You might be annoyed with the details required to get started or the details required to finish up.

You might find the middle incredibly tedious.

The unknowns at the beginning might get on your nerves.

Figuring out the last few steps might be frustrating.

All of it makes sense and it is all perfectly ok.

Sure, your frustration might lead you to use a slightly different approach or it could mean you need a little break or need a little more support.

But none of those feelings of frustration automatically suggest that this project isn’t for you.*

And when they arise, you can remind yourself that they are part of your process and then find a way to forge ahead – perhaps slowly, perhaps after a break, perhaps with a little more fun added to the mix.

I’m not saying that it is easy to do that, just that it is possible. 

And your effort will be worth it. 

In fact, speaking of effort, here’s our gold star for our efforts today – no matter which part of the process we are in right now. 

Go Team Us!

PS – Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please.  

*Meanwhile, if every part of the project is frustrating every single time, then it may be time to consider whether the project is a good fit overall.

Moving more makes Christine want to move more – go figure!
challenge · dogs · fitness · walking

Moving more makes Christine want to move more – go figure!

Christine Hennebury2 Comments

Khalee and I have been working on a walking challenge – The Great Sniffari 2026 – and I chose for us to walk 21km over the first 10 days of May.

Often when I try to take photo of Khalee, she steps out of the way. This time she kind of photobombed my photo of this fallen tree with the roots exposed and a ‘witch broom’ tangle of branches on it. Image description: a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, wearing a jaunty green bandana with cartoon bugs on it. She is looking to the right in the photo and her neck is foreshortened because of the angle so she looks a little squished. Behind her is a fallen tree with the roots exposed.

The challenge seemed like it would be fairly easy at the outset – a small extra effort on top of our usual walks – but things went a bit awry and I realized last Thursday that I was going to have to do a bit of a push to finish on time.

So on Thursday we walked 2.78km, on Friday we did 2.81, Saturday was 3km which technically brought us to the end of our challenge.* (In fact, we only needed .29km on Saturday to finish.)

I say technically because I didn’t realize the settings in the app wouldn’t carry over from my other, year-long, challenge and the Sniffari was pulling Apple Health step data.

I didn’t actually want to include steps from things like walking around the house or the grocery store but because they automatically uploaded at the end of each day, I didn’t realize they were being rolled into my total and I was surprised to find out that I was finished.

Once I figured out why I had finished a day early, I calculated my actual distances and then added extra amounts to my daily walks for the next few days to match the way I wanted things to play out.

No matter the details of the challenge, on Saturday I realized something important.

These longer walks were making me feel great.

I mean, I generally enjoy going for a walk – even when I have to drag myself out for them – but this was a different kind of enjoyment.

I was starting to feel those kind of intangible benefits I get when I exercise regularly – a looser feeling in my hips, a certain ease of movement, an overall feeling of wellbeing – after only 3 days of extra effort.

That seemed kind of quick but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in its proverbial mouth here. Instead, I decided to keep building momentum.

So, on Sunday, we walked 4.42km and, on Monday, we walked 4.08km, and it felt purposeful, straightforward, and kind of tiring – but in a good way.

And, on top of that, all of this extra movement seems to have flipped a mental switch for me and I have found myself doing a bit more yoga, a few more strength training exercises, taking a few extra trips up the stairs, and adding mobility exercises while I am doing things around the house.

So, it seems that, like the title says, moving more makes me want to move more.

And I like it!

Of course, I know that this has happened to me before – I’ve gotten into an exercise routine, started to feel the effects, been enjoying myself, and then something has gone sideways and I lost momentum or had to change gears.

So, I have told myself to keep an eye out for when that happens and in the meantime I am developing some backup plans.

I’ll let you know how it all goes, obviously. 🙂

a photo of a dog next to a small river
a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, standing next to a river on a bright, sunny day. She is sort of side on and she’s facing the left side of the photo. She has a harness and leash on. She’s standing on dried grass and mud, the river next to her is filled with brownish red rocks and there are trees and more dried grass and mud on the other side of the river.
Sometimes A Vague Goal Is Pretty Useful
ADHD · goals

Sometimes A Vague Goal Is Pretty Useful

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Do I owe you a thinky post about World Creativity Day? Yes, yes, I do. Alas, last week was made of chaos, headaches, and migraines and it did not get done. I have safely emerged from that maelstrom but I am writing this on Monday and my solo storytelling show is tonight and my focus keeps wandering from my thinky post. Since I would prefer that my brain stay in one piece, I am writing about something else today and I will get back to the creativity one soon.

On Sunday evening, I made a list of things I wanted to have done by the end of this week. There were a few work tasks, a couple of household things, and, oddly enough, one rather vague item – become stronger. 

I don’t even really know where that last one came from but I found myself intrigued.

I mean, becoming stronger is an ongoing goal for me so this isn’t completely new but something felt different about having it on my list in that format.

Become stronger.

Become stronger. 

When I phrase it like that it’s not a list of exercises or a bunch of tasks or a potential goal, it’s an open loop. 

And my brain, the same one that fights with me about exercising or completing tasks*, is ALWAYS intrigued by an open loop and it starts in with the questions…

What does ‘become stronger’ mean?

How can I become stronger in a week?

What would that involve?

How will I know if I become stronger?

Why do I even want to become stronger?

Who do I want to consult on this?**

When can I get started?

See how quickly my brain dug in on this? It is totally invested in solving the mystery of how to become stronger this week. 

And I’m going to let it figure it out as we go. 

After all, I know that I can’t get a lot stronger in one week but that’s where the vagueness of ‘become stronger’ works out well. I don’t have to get a lot stronger, I just have to move the needle. 

And, in fact, when I got up Monday morning my brain was already reminding me that we had to work towards getting stronger today. 

So things are off to an interesting start!

A photo of a horse in the distance with a lot of field all around it.
This is what I got when I searched for ‘vague’ in the image library. I guess it’s accurate? The connection is value at least. Image description: a black and white photo of a dark-coloured horse (I think) on light-coloured ground that could be a field or snow or a beach. The horse is in the distance in the centre so it is very small relative to the size of the image overall. It is maybe 1/8 of the height of the image and 1/12 or the width.

PS – Today’s ‘become stronger’ activity turned out to be this 10 Minute Morning Workout to Boost Energy from MonikaFit.

Well, I won’t be able to get a lot stronger in one week but I will be able to

*Yes, I do often refer to my brain as separate from me, apparently it’s an ADHD thing.

**In this case the ‘who’ will be a combo of fitness people on YouTube and Instagram but I really wanted to get a who question in there so I phrased it as who instead of saying ‘What videos will I watch?’

a photo of the author's legs and there is a lot of snow in the background It’s a bit early for patio yoga but Christine gave it a go anyway.
fitness · health · snow · yoga

It’s a bit early for patio yoga but Christine gave it a go anyway.

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

And it was GREAT!

It was sunny here last Friday so my husband spend a bit of time shoveling snow off of our patio – mostly to have something to do outside.

When it was sunny and spring-ish on Saturday, we wanted to have the patio door open so I dug the screen door out of the shed and had the brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) to drag a few patio chairs out at the same time.

Now it was sunny and relatively warm and we had chairs on the patio so it suddenly felt like our outdoor space was available to us again.

Obviously, my next step was to drag out a mat and do some yoga outdoors.

Did it feel strange to be doing yoga outside with snowshovels in the background? I’ll let you interpret that for yourself.

a selfie of the author with the sun on her face, and two snowshovels in the background
Image description: a selfie of me (a middle-aged white woman with a round face and light brown hair that is pulled back by a cloth band that happens to contain earphones) in a dark pink hoodie with the sun shining on my face, smirking at the fact that I am doing yoga outdoors while there are still necessary snow shovels propped against my house.

Was it weird to be lying on my mat in the sunshine while the grass in my backyard was still mostly covered in snow?

Well, it felt weird enough to take a photo of it at least…

A person's leg and foot in black socks resting on a deck, with bare trees and a blue sky in the background.
Image description: a photo of my legs with the backyard full of snow visible in the background while propping myself up a little as I was lying on my mat on the patio. In the photo, I am lying on the ground with my right leg bent so the knee is toward the sky and the foot is on the ground. My left leg is bent so the outside of my foot is resting on the top of my right knee and my left knee is pointing to the left. You can see my blue yoga mat and part of the patio through the triangle formed by my legs. On my right is our patio mats, and more patio slats and beyond them you can see the railings, a whole bunch of snow, some leafless trees, the blue sky and our faded wooden fence.

But even though it felt kinda weird, it also felt great to be doing that slow, steady, focused movement in the bright sunlight and the fresh air.

Despite the snow, it felt like warm weather and more outdoor fun might be just around the (very long!) corner.

And if you saw this when you opened your eyes after Savasana, you might have believed it, too.

a photo of bare tree branches and blue sky
A photo of my view upwards from my yoga mat. Image description: a photo of bare tree branches with just a hint of growth on them with the bright blue sky in the background.

PS – Thanks to Steve for shoveling off the patio and setting this whole thing in motion.

a small painting of a happy gold star Go Team 2026: Pare It Down
ADHD · Go Team · habits · motivation · rest · self care

Go Team 2026: Pare It Down

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

Hey Team,

I don’t know about how things are going for you but my brain has been rather uncooperative for the past few weeks.

It differs from day-to-day – sometimes I can do what I planned, sometimes it feels like my ADHD meds aren’t working at all, and sometimes I feel like I get up in the morning, get spun around for a few hours, and then I’m dumped into 9:30 at night without any sense of what kept me feeling busy all day.

Needless to say, this has not been a fun experience at all.

And I think I could just wait out the tiredness, the frustration, and the brain fog if my capacity wasn’t all over the place. The fact that I can do some things with ease (and speed) and other things (that are normally straightforward) feel so difficult and convoluted that I either can’t get started or I end up moving so slowly that I get on my own nerves.

The worst thing is that I know the things I need to do to feel better, I am just having such a hard time making myself do them.

Now this is the part where some people would be saying “You just gotta push yourself. Try harder! This is just resistance.”

I’m voting no on that.

Sure, maybe there is some resistance in the mix of my challenges right now but pushing myself or telling myself to “just” try harder* is not going to be the solution.

Instead, when things are tough like this, what I always need to do is to figure out a way to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to do what I can when I can, and to rest when I need to – all while being very kind to myself about the process.

I don’t need to push myself or to try harder, I need to pare things down as much as I can.

And if you are struggling in any way right now, I invite you to do the same.

If you aren’t up to a full yoga practice, spend a few minutes in Savasana on your mat.

If you can’t write in your journal, do a little voice dictation into your phone or do some drawing in your notebook.

If you can’t tackle that big project, is there a smaller section that feels doable right now? Is there someone who can help you with it? Can you do anything to adjust your own or other people’s expectations around this project at the moment?

If you have been waiting to respond to an email until you have composed the perfect message, can you send a ‘Here’s a quick answer but I’ll get back to you in a few days with the details.’ type of message?

If you are having trouble eating the way you would like to, is there a quicker solution that keeps you fed and isn’t taxing on your brain? (Some ideas )

If you can’t stir yourself to go for a walk outside, can you walk in your living room?

If your strength training routine is beyond you at the moment, can you do some mobility exercises or leg lifts or some calisthenics instead?

You can see where I am going here, right?

When things are challenging but you know you will feel better if you take action, you don’t have to summon the energy to do the big version of something – you can do a smaller version. You can pare things down until that activity feels doable.

You can be kind to today-you and tomorrow-you at the same time by scaling your actions to match your current capacity.

And this applies at all times, not just when you are struggling. It’s ok – it’s ENCOURAGED – to meet yourself where you are rather than being annoyed with yourself for not being somewhere else.

So, Team, however today finds you, I wish you ease and I invite you to consider whether you need to reduce the pressure in any area of your life by paring things down.

And I’m offering you this gold star in celebration of your efforts to take good care of yourself.

Go Team Us!

a small painting of a happy gold star
Isn’t this a cheery star? I’m going to prop her up next to my computer. Image description: A small painting of a happy-faced gold star with lines in the bottom left that kind of make it look like she jumped into the middle of the white card she is drawn on. The card is propped up between the keys on my black computer keyboard.

*Christine shudders in neurodivergence. Never EVER tell someone with ADHD that they aren’t trying hard enough – you can’t see the effort they have to put in to focus their attention, corral their working memory, and try to get their executive functions to, you know, function. It’s exhausting and takes A LOT of effort – and that’s BEFORE they actually start the task.

A clear plastic rectangular box with two stacks of index cards inside it Index Card Fitness Planning
ADHD · fitness · goals · planning · self care · trackers

Index Card Fitness Planning

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I think I have found a workaround for one of my most annoying fitness challenges and, oddly enough, it involves one of my favourite offices supplies – INDEX CARDS!

If you have been reading my posts for a while then you know that I find it difficult to set big picture fitness goals because I’m not sure what I want my endpoint to be.

I mean, I want to be stronger or have more ease in my movements (especially after the challenges of the last few years) but I don’t really have a way to measure that except for ‘feeling stronger’ or ‘feeling more ease.’

Both of those things sound good in principle but I know that my ADHD brain will send me into endless loops of ‘Was that enough?’ ‘Do I feel better or worse than yesterday?’ ‘Am I putting in the right effort here?’ and I won’t find much fun or much satisfaction in that whole process.

Meanwhile, though, I also don’t have a lot invested in more measurable things like being able to reach a particular speed when walking or lift a certain weight or do a specific number of reps. Those things don’t really resonate for me and I know that I will just get kind of meh about them over time.

And even though I understand intellectually that additional consistent exercise will be helpful, some part of my brain is not really buying into the idea and keeps insisting that effort today is not really going to add up to anything and I will just be wasting time that I could spend reading or writing or doing something fun.

But, at the same time, I know that I am wrong about that and I keep trying different ways to jumpstart a fitness plan.

Last week, I did some thinking about how I could encourage myself to take on a longer term exercise project that would let me see my efforts all along without having to choose some sort of specific result to work towards.

I want the process of exercising to be so routine that any results will just be a sort of by-product of the activity rather than being the point.

Eventually, I figured out that I could choose to commit to 100 workouts.

I wouldn’t have to pick a specific type of workout or a specific length of workout and I wouldn’t have to accomplish anything specific, I would just have to pick something and do it.

And even my somewhat-belligerent-on-this-topic brain has to admit that I will definitely see and feel some differences after 100 workouts.

Once I had decided on that number, I wanted to find a way to track it and maybe make some notes about the various workouts I tried.

And that’s when I came up with the index card solution.

I love index cards for notetaking, for planning, and for art so they are a very friendly material for me – which is a good start.

One of the reasons I enjoy using index cards for those things is the fact that they are relatively small so I can’t take on too much. That seems like a good approach for these workouts too.

Friendly and will prevent me from taking on too much? So far, so good!

The other benefit of index cards in this context is that if I write one index card per workout, I will be able to see those workouts adding up over time as I move toward my 100 card target.

So, here’s the plan I started late last week:

  • Open a brand new package of index cards and put them in a container that will hold the blank cards and the completed ones side-by-side.
  • Workout 100 times in the next six months.
  • Write about each individual workout on a separate card and keep it in the same case.
  • Watch my progress and feel good about the whole thing.

And it truly has been ‘so far so good’ – I have done four workouts* and filled out four cards and it feels manageable and useful.

In fact, I feel exactly like I hoped I would – that the index cards are the point of the whole thing and any results are just a bonus – and I think that’s a good sort of feeling for me to have about this project because it keeps my brain from looping about the specifics.

Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

*Next week’s post will be about how I chose what will count as a workout. 🙂

A photo of a dog on a leash on some pavement with a snowbank nearby Signs of Spring
ADHD · fitness · motivation · season transitions · Seasonal sadness · self care

Signs of Spring

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I actually like winter quite a bit.

I like snow. I like cosy evenings. I like the way the air smells. I like bundling up to go outside. I’m a big fan of sweaters. I like seeing light on the snow. I even like shovelling snow (up to a certain point!)

And even on the most basic level, I just like the variation from other seasons of the year.

But by the time February comes, it is wearing on me.

It really starts at the end of January when time seems to both stretch and contract so I have really long days but really short weeks and then I somehow get unceremoniously dumped into February.

February takes forever and it is always a big struggle for me. I have extra trouble figuring out my time, my projects, and my capacity. It’s almost like my ADHD meds don’t fully work that month and everything is especially difficult and frustrating.

For example, this year I had a plan to do two small things in February. I was going to do a wall set for one minute a day and I was going to add more vegetables to my lunch

I did pretty well with the lunch vegetables but the wall sit? That just went wrong.

The wall set was somehow both too big a task and two smaller task at once. It felt like I could fit it in anywhere in my day., That sounds like an upside but if I can fit it in anywhere in my day then I’ll end arguing with myself all day about when to do it.

I realized that it’s hard to do a wall sit when I have socks on because I end up, slipping on both the flooring and the carpet while trying to hold the position.

But I could never convince myself to put on my sneakers to do a one minute exercise.

In fact, February fills up my brain so much that the sneaker idea didn’t occur to me until more than halfway through the month.

And I never did convince myself to put the sneakers on.

I noticed this February pattern a few years ago, and I have tried a variety of solutions to cope with this annual bewilderment. Things have improved, but there is still a ways to go and I am hampered by the fact that I often can’t see things are going sideways until they have reached an annoying level of sideways-ness.

Anyway, as you can, imagine, I was really glad to see March.

I’m not saying that March 1 is magic but I’m not NOT saying that.

Once we switch to March, it feels like my brain takes a deep breath and suddenly there’s a bit more space to figure things out.

A photo of a few evergreens that are between the viewer and a fence in the background, the ground is all covered with snow
You can’t tell now, of course, but this is where a single spring flower grows and blooms each year. I love watching for it as spring goes on. Image description, a photo of the back of someone’s fence with snow on the ground and a few evergreen trees about halfway between the viewer and the fence.

And once the clocks change, I see even more of an improvement in my perspective, my overall mood, and in my capacity to make useful plans and to follow through on them.

So, I was thinking about all of those things last week and then I overheard a conversation some friends of mine were having at TKD.

(This had nothing to do with martial arts, it had to do with spring.)

One of my friends is a farmer (she also runs a farm-tech company) and she said that there had been signs of spring for weeks

She said that we probably hadn’t even noticed, but the signs are there – more birds are singing, there are probably more bugs showing up in our houses, and that there are lots of things going on underground that we won’t see for ages.

And when she said that I realized that not only had I heard more birds and seen more bugs, but the sun was feeling a bit warmer and the ground felt somehow different than it had two weeks before.

Recognizing all those things felt so great that I started looking for more signs.

And I noticed that the tips of the branches of the trees were looking a little thicker, like growth has started.

A photo of a few bare branches with the suggestion of buds at the tip
Doesn’t that kind of look like buds at the tip of those branches? I’m not sure at what point a bud can be officially called a bud but something is going on right there.. Image description: A photo of a couple of the branches of the lilac tree in my front yard. At the tips of the branches are the suggestion of buds, even if they’re not buds yet. The branches are in the very foreground and in the background, you can See snow on lawns a few people’s driveways and some of my neighbours houses in the background.

And something about how the snow is sitting on the ground has changed. Even though we had more snow over the weekend, there’s something different and somewhat spring-y about it.

See:

A photo of a dog on a leash on some pavement with a snowbank nearby
It felt so good and so cheering to take a stroll today. A photo of my dog Khalee on our street on a sunny somewhat springlike day. The sun is behind us and she is standing where she can be seen in the photo. You can only see me as a shadow, and you can see the shadow of the leash that I’m holding that she is on the other end of. Her shadow was visible too, of course. There’s a small snowbank nearby and she’s standing on some greyish asphalt. She is a light brown, medium size dog. She’s mostly facing away from the camera, but she’s turned back a bit probably wondering why I stopped walking.

Even the colour of the sky seems deeper recently. it’s not quite a spring or summer sky, but it’s getting there.

A photo of leafless trees in late winter
I love seeing that blue get stronger. A photo of several leafless trees and a couple of evergreens next to a fence with snow on the ground. The sky behind the trees is an almost spring colour of blue with a few long white clouds

So with things getting ready to shift outside, it’s no wonder that things are also shifting in my brain.

In the last week or so, I’ve noticed myself thinking a bit more long-term about exercise plans again.

And it feels far easier to get myself to go for a walk, to do some yoga, or to just move around in general.

I was on a writing retreat this past weekend and instead of sitting at a table to work I was motivated to sit on my yoga mat on the floor instead, working on my lap, on a low table, or on the floor itself. That felt like a huge improvement because I know how much more likely I am to move and stretch and take good care of myself while I’m working if I’m seated on the floor.

No, I’m not saying that I couldn’t do any of these things three weeks ago, but now that first step, the initiation of that task, is decidedly easier.

And I think THAT’S my favourite sign of spring.