You walked into the room and forgot why you were there. Again. You picked up your phone to do one thing and somehow ended up doing five others. You lost your train of thought mid-sentence, missed a step in a task you’ve done a hundred times, and spent the rest of the day quietly wondering what’s wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you, but your nervous system might be making this a lot harder than it has to be.
Jenna gets into all of it here. Why ADHD working memory struggles are so real, what’s really happening in your brain when you can’t hold onto a thought, and why regulation, not another app or list, is where the change happens.
When your ADHD brain is in fight or flight, your prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for attention and short-term information holding, takes a hit. Cortisol actively degrades working memory performance. So if you’re already dealing with ADHD and forgetfulness as a baseline, stress and dysregulation are quietly making it worse every single day. The working memory problems you’re experiencing aren’t just about ADHD. Your nervous system is playing a much bigger role than you might realize.
Here’s what we cover:
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What ADHD working memory actually is and why it shows up as forgetting mid-task, losing your train of thought, and missing steps you didn’t mean to miss
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How the ADHD fight or flight response directly impacts the prefrontal cortex and makes memory worse in real time
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Why cortisol and ADHD nervous system dysregulation are a particularly brutal combination for remembering, focusing, and following through
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How ADHD all or nothing thinking creates a fear of forgetting that ironically causes you to forget more
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Why trying to hold every thought, task, and idea in your head at once is working against you
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The connection between ADHD and stress, survival mode, and why your brain prioritizes some things and drops others
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Practical regulation-based shifts, including slowing down, practicing presence, and embracing less, that improve working memory over time
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Why improving working memory in ADHD is about addressing what’s happening underneath
If you’ve ever felt like your memory is completely unreliable and you can’t figure out why, this episode will reframe what’s going on and give you somewhere real to start.
“Working memory struggles in ADHD are very real. But dysregulation makes them significantly worse. The solution isn’t apps or lists or trying to hold it all. The solution is regulating.”
If you’re working on ADHD nervous system dysregulation, grab Jenna’s free guide, The ADHD Regulation Guide.
And if you’re a therapist, counselor, coach, or occupational therapist interested in bringing this work to your clients, get on the waitlist for Jenna’s ADHD Regulation Method certification, launching in September.
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More about ADHD with Jenna Free
ADHD with Jenna Free is a podcast for adults with ADHD who are done surviving their symptoms and ready to start thriving with ADHD without the endless tips, hacks, and workarounds that have never really fixed anything.
Hosted by Jenna Free, a Canadian Certified Counselor (CCC) and ADHD therapist, this show exists to give you a completely different way of understanding ADHD in adults and the signs of ADHD in women. Because the reason you’re stuck, overwhelmed, and exhausted isn’t a lack of willpower, it’s that your brain is running in fight or flight. And once you understand that, everything changes.
This podcast covers the full experience of living with adult ADHD: the real science behind procrastination in ADHD and ADHD task paralysis, ADHD executive functioning strategies that work, why ADHD and perimenopause collide in ways no one talks about, and the honest, solution-focused conversations that most ADHD podcasts aren’t having. Jenna also shares her own story, what it looks like to go from chronically dysregulated to genuinely thriving, so you can see that this is possible for you.
This show gives women with ADHD, and anyone who has ever wondered whether ADHD can be diagnosed in adulthood, a path forward that isn’t about coping harder, but healing.
I’ll answer questions like:
Do I have ADHD?
What is ADHD task paralysis, and how do I get unstuck?
Why is my ADHD getting worse in my 40s?
What does ADHD and perimenopause do to your brain?
How do I manage ADHD emotional dysregulation without medication alone?
Why do I procrastinate so much with ADHD?
Why don’t ADHD tips and tricks ever work long-term?
What does it look like to thrive with ADHD
Can you heal ADHD symptoms without just white-knuckling through life?
What does nervous system regulation have to do with ADHD?
How do I stop feeling overwhelmed with ADHD?
If you’re an adult with ADHD who’s tired of the commiseration and ready for a show that believes your life can look completely different, you’re in the right place.