I Worked From Home For A Year Before Coronavirus—But Here Are 6 Things I Needed to Switch Up | apartment therapy
There’s wisdom in here for any time our lives feel disrupted. As someone who also worked from home pre-pandemic, I can attest it’s not business as usual. I too found myself engaging in funny brain hacks like moving to my office couch with my laptop for a change of scenery. I instituted a Screen Time limit to block me from checking news apps too much. Most of all, I acknowledged the need for more patience with myself. This pandemic is one of those times that can make even the most put-together person feel scattered. For those of us with ADHD, our symptoms might get worse than usual. It’s part of the deal right now, and we can’t hold ourselves to exact business-as-usual standards.
To Make Yourself Calmer and Happier, Try Grounding Yourself in Your Body. | Gretchen Rubin
A few weeks ago I shared a list of grounding techniques from Black Girl, Lost Keys. I’m sharing these too because grounding techniques are super important, especially for us ADHDers.
My reflux flared up recently and though I blamed it on too much stress, beer, and spicy food, a bit of internet research revealed another likely contributor: eating too fast. Do you ever find yourself eating so fast you hardly notice you’re eating at all? Not good.
Then I read somewhere that loss of taste and smell could be an early COVID-19 symptom. Anxious soul that I am, I started checking in with myself on the regular: can I still taste my food? And yes, I did have to ask!
The combined effect here was very interesting. I spent more meals chewing slowly and making a point of noticing the flavors in my food. I forced myself to set my fork down between bites and only pick it up once my mouth was empty.
How much I’d been missing!
I often get so caught up in the whirlwind of my thoughts, I forget to notice the physical world around me. This makes it hard to acknowledge and appreciate experiences like my morning coffee or a good meal. I find myself wanting more because I didn’t fully register it the first time. And we all know about ADHD and the problem of more.
These days, slowing down and grounding myself in my senses has felt more vital than ever. I’ve found myself needing time to decompress in my backyard hammock. Craving more time on my yoga mat. I’m working on tasting my food more fully and sipping my drinks more slowly. It’s a great balm for the anxiety and lack of direction I’ve felt at various times during this pandemic.
Destination addiction | becoming minimalist
Oh, this has definitely been me 😬
Timeline for Training | Vicki Hoefle
I just said this to my seven-year-old the other day. He was complaining about having to sort his own laundry. Traditionally I’d asked him to bring his laundry to a central location on washing day. I’d combine it with ours and wash everything, then he’d put it away at the end. Now I asked him to sort while I did some other chores nearby.
When he doesn’t want to do a new chore he’ll often complain he “isn’t used to” doing it or doesn’t “feel comfortable.” I remind him that’s fine but practice is the only way. In the case of the laundry, I told him a story about my freshman year at a private university. After my first week I went down to the laundry room and found it full of mothers. That’s right: more than one mom stood there wrinkling her nose and tossing her son’s nasty socks into the washer.
As the child of a mother who had long since stopped washing my clothes for me, I found this appalling and embarrassing — if these kids even had the good sense to be embarrassed.
“By the time you turn 18,” I told my son on laundry day, “you need to know how to live on your own: take care of your clothes, your home, your body, your money. And it’s way too much to learn all at once the week before your 18th birthday. That’s why I’m trying to teach you little by little, so you don’t get overwhelmed.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, a friend told me they were realizing how far behind they’d fallen in training their children. The kids, they said, had no work ethic for doing chores around the house. I suspect many parents encountered this because so many of us were spending so much time outside the house. If nothing else, this is a good time to enlist the kids for help maintaining the household.
That’s not to say it’s easy or convenient. Even as an adult working in an office, I often preferred to do work myself rather than delegate it. Better to know it’s done right and done on my timeline. It’s not easy delegating to kids either. However, the messes and frustration do pay off.
And for kids with ADHD, this is even more important. They need us to teach them the skills not only to do the work, but to manage the unique challenges ADHD brings to the table.
How to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half | Living Well Spending Less
I’m interested to know if you’ve tried any of the strategies in this post and if so, how you’ve fared. For many years I resisted the idea of stockpiling, couponing, and sale shopping. It’s just harder to make that work with ADHD. I was willing to pay slightly more to avoid food waste. I made a list of meals I wanted to cook for the upcoming week, then assembled my grocery list based on my menu.
That’s all changed now. My pandemic lifestyle has forced me to focus much more on availability and long-term supply. When I see an opportunity to get my favorite peanut butter or a big box of Cheerios, I buy enough not to have to worry about it for several weeks. I don’t let pantry supplies get low because I know I might need time to figure out how to restock in-demand items. I’ve been getting produce from local growers and restaurants, forcing me to cook based on what’s available rather than buy ingredients based on what I want to cook. Nothing is as simple as a quick trip to the grocery store anymore.
In a way, I think I’m benefiting from this challenge. It’s also been a cognitive drain. I’m interested to see how many new habits stick around when and if things return to normal. I certainly hope people who have newly developed interest in local agriculture and sustainable meat consumption will continue those attitudes.
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