Gratitude can help you improve your mood but it doesn't activate action. Desire does. Keeping a desire diary can be more helpful if you're feeling stuck or lost in your life.

Not every person who has trouble focusing and finishing tasks has ADHD. Chronic stress is known to impair executive function, and affects far more people than ADHD does.

People who are prone to burnout tend to be people who are better at offering support than receiving it.

If you spend most of your time caring for others, it's especially important that you allow other people take care of you in your downtime.

I have a PhD in well-being neuroscience.

Something that isn't talked about enough is how important it is to ask directly for help all the time. Don't wait til you "really need it". Make it a habit to tell people how they can make your life better.

Actively build that community around you.

I have to say it's a wild ride moving from academia straight into startup territory.

I've decided to run my first Understanding Burnout course as a live, online event instead of pre-recording so I can learn more about what resonates with people.

It'll be a $30 event posted to Eventbrite in the coming days & I'll be sharing more info here.

On the upside, drugs only hit buttons that already exist in your brain. So there's a way to trigger it through experience.

They exist, they're just mostly illegal.

It's extremely easy to burnout if you feel like you are working alone.

If you're a burnt out writer or artist- consider how often you work & connect with others that value your work? Who share your experiences? Who you can get support from?

Burnout takes longer to recover from than people realize. And if you return to the same work/activity where you've burned out previously, it's likely to come back unless there have been changes to how you work & how rewarding it is.

So it's normal to burn out really fast again after returning.

ADHD and burnout have a lot in common. In fact, most ADHD symptoms can also be caused by burnout, and both are related to reward processing.

Finding ways to make your life more enjoyable is beneficial for both.

Here's the paper that led to this outcome.

It was originally published as a commissioned report for the Aus Dept of Health in Dec 2022, and finally got published in a peer reviewed journal earlier this year.

This is a direct result of my publication on the accessibility of Better Access mental healthcare services in Australia!

Australians can now access FREE mental healthcare because of my research!

I used to be so disconnected from my purpose that I didn't even really believe in it - I thought you could pick anything and make it your purpose.

Now I am guiding people through their desires in a way that feels like their purpose is undeniable.

You have to move with what feels right.

You know someone is on the right path for themselves when they absolutely, fully light up about an idea.

Keep following that fire. It's where everything thrives.

It's a bit concerning how the lack of will/drive to work on disinteresting and pointless work has become associated with neurodiversity.

NTs have a lot to learn from trans, ADHD, ASD folx about authenticity & self expression.

Censorship pushes people to use euphemisms more, and euphemisms obscure communication.

I've been wanting to use the word intimate to describe recent experiences, but the word is so often used as a sexual euphemism that using it for its original meaning risks miscommunication.

I am angry about how sexualised physical intimacy is. We become touch starved because we default to an assumption that physical touch implies sexual intent, and consent is violated so often that we can't take the risk of implying sexual intent.

Touch is healing and we've been cut off.

The world is craving intimacy while remaining terrified of it.

I think burnout has a lot to do with the tendency to settle for things. We're constantly told the change we need is too much or over the top. To tackle burnout we need to work *with* people not against them.

Coping strategies are essential, but at some point, we need to address the cause of stress that people are having to cope with, so that we can move past coping and towards thriving.

The majority of mental health interventions are stuck in what I like to call 'cope culture'.

Meaning, the emphasis is on coping with existing problems and getting by by relaxing, looking on the bright side, etc.

I want to help people move past that point, so they can focus on living.

The true goal of my work is to help move people from a state of languishing (where they lack fulfilment) to a state of flourishing (where they are excelling) mentally.

Or put another way, move people from a state of coping to a state of thriving.

Mental health apps tend to have high downloads and low ongoing use. I'm trying to design one that has enough of a social component to sustain ongoing use.

Spending today finalizing my YWCA grant application to build a digital platform that combines positive psych with a social platform to help empower women & NBs to form authentic supportive relationships

I know this might sound a bit silly, but you don't need to fight burnout. Work with it. It's telling you something. All this talk of pushing through makes people treat burnout as an obstacle to tackled. It's just the messenger.

Your body is trying to communicate with you. Listen to it.

If you need some support, feel free to dm me.

I see you. Vent out whatever you need to. The world isn't very nice right now. But there is always a way out. Storms pass.

Usually my birthday kinda stresses me out because I feel pressure to include everyone in some form of celebration but this year I didn't plan anything.

The people who are closest to me right now self-organised & I'd say this is the most cared for I've felt on my bday as an adult.

Now they've booked the restaurant I was going to request for dinner before I got the chance to tell them that's where I wanted to go.