Is ADHD a Disorder? Tracy Otsuka Challenges Old Labels (Part 2)

In Part 2, Tracy Otsuka digs into ADHD with candor and science, pulling apart the “disorder” narrative and replacing it with a focus on strengths, interests and purpose. 
 
We also walk the tightrope between ADHD and bipolar disorder where misdiagnoses often happen in college. Racing thoughts, impulsivity, and sleepless nights can mimic hypomania, but context matters: dorm food, lost structure, no movement, and constant stress create a similar picture of poor mental health. Tracy asks why isn’t a full biopsychosocial lens—sleep, exercise, nutrition, social connection, purpose—considered when diagnosing young women struggling with their mental health? 
 
If your mornings start with negative self-talk like “Who doesn’t like me?” or “Who did I upset?” you’re not alone—and you’re not stuck—you may be experiencing rejection sensitive dysphoria. We talk through neuroplasticity, and the questions and old stories we tell ourselves and the power of “slow dopamine.” Tracy shares how mindfulness and a healthy daily routine solves 75% of the ADHD equation and how removing friction turns workouts into medication-grade focus without side effects and, again, neuroplasticity is the key.

The final takeaway is a compass you can use for the new year: follow your internal rudder. Positive emotion signals alignment; negative emotion signals a course correction. You’re the best expert on you. If this conversation resonated, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a review so others can find us. Your story might be the evidence someone else needs to hear.

Transcript

Sponsor & Safety Note

Janine 0:00

This episode is brought to you by the Soar with Tapping app, created by expert EFT coach and friend of the show, Amy Vincze. If you're navigating anxiety, trauma, or just trying to feel more grounded, tapping is a powerful science-backed tool that can help calm your nervous system and gently release the emotional weight you've been carrying. Amy's guided sessions in the app make it very simple to start healing right from your phone. Visit the Sore with Tapping app in Apple or Google Play Stores and start your journey towards freedom.

Tracy’s Mission: Not A Disorder

Janine 0:43

Welcome to Bipolar She. I'm your host, Janine Noel. The content of this show may include suicide or suicidal ideation. If you're ever in need of immediate support, please dial 988, a suicide and crisis lifeline. Welcome back to my double episode with Tracy Otsuka. Tracy is host of the podcast ADHD for smart ass women with a library of 365 episodes. She is author of the best-selling book ADHD for Smart Ass Women, How to Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain. Tracy is also creator of your ADHD brain and A-OK Academy, and most recently the A-OK Mind app to get your brain performing at its best. We pick up where we left off with Tracy's fierce determination to not categorize ADHD as a disorder which can make one feel helpless and not live one's life to its fullest. We talk about ADHD at puberty and how it can hit during college and how those symptoms are sometimes similar to bipolar disorder. We talk about rejection sensitive dysmorphia, neuroplasticity, and how a community of ADHD women can highlight the brilliance of all. And now on with the show.

Tracy 2:10

Janine, though, you are so kind and warm and lovely and open that I bet no one ever says anything nasty about you.

Janine 2:22

I don't know. I haven't been looking.

Learned Helplessness And Identity

Tracy 2:25

Good, don't look, don't look, but I bet you that's true. Versus I got out there and really took a stand and I pissed people off that want to believe ADHD is a disorder. They want to believe that. So a lot of women, especially with trauma, they get stuck in learned helplessness. And think about it. If you are a young child and everyone in your life, your teachers, your parents, your coaches, they are all telling you, your friends, they are all telling you, you are doing it wrong. You can't do it this way. It's, you know, this is not the right way. At some point, you're either going to get so angry that you're going to say, I'm going to prove you wrong.

Tracy 3:04

Or if you are more kind of gentle and sweet and sensitive, you might say, okay, well, screw it. I can't do anything right. So I'm not going to do it at all. Tell me what to do. What do you want me to do? And they are going to live their life like that, right? Where everybody else is telling you what to do. Well, you know what happens then? And this is very common with ADHD. You are not living your life. You are living their life. And I don't know a better prescription for unhappiness than that. And so again, you don't even know who you are. It's that identity issue.

Tracy 3:37

And I'm seeing it less and less because it's becoming much more acceptable to see ADHD as, okay, well, these are the things we struggle with. I don't believe ADHD is a, what did they say, a superpower. I believe that there are certain traits that we have that can be superpowers if developed. But if you told me, Tracy, you could have everything you have now going on in your brain, but you would also have brilliant working memory. Are you kidding me? I would take that in a heartbeat.

Working Memory Fears And Inconsistency

Tracy 4:08

Because my biggest fear is, you know, I've learned a lot over the last 10 years, but I forget a lot. And, you know, certainly when this book came out, you know, my biggest fear was someone was going to ask me like a basic question and I wouldn't remember it. I wouldn't remember the numbers. Or there's like a part of my brain where I know the answer, but I can't access it. And so it takes me some time. This is why I know I don't have, you know, dementia, because it does ultimately come to me. But there's always that fear, right? Because I'm putting myself out there and then, oh my gosh, she's not going to know what she's talking about because I can't remember. So I know it in my gut, I know it in every fiber of my being, but I'm not good at expressing it. And that happens a lot. But I have learned to just kind of say, okay, well, this is, you know, like just a second ago, I started talking about something. I'm like, I don't know where the hell I'm going. Well, this is what ADHD looks like. Our brains work so fast that we can't then access. It's why you probably see me here, like writing, I'll write things down so I remember to, you know, to get into it.

Janine 5:15

I think you mentioned a publicist said, don't worry about it. It usually comes to you.

Nervous System, Puberty, And Memory

Tracy 5:22

Well, she's the one who noticed that, okay, you keep saying this, but if you can just, and what it is, is it's nervous system dysregulation, right? We just kind of work at this heightened level. And so when I get even a little bit anxious, my executive functions don't work as well. I can't, you know, my memory's worse than it normally is. Yet there are certain things, certain things that happened earlier in my life before puberty, I can remember perfectly. You know, things like all the lyrics to certain songs. But anything after puberty, anything after eighth grade, I can't even remember one line of a chorus of a song that I really loved. So it's really interesting, you know. I mean, I, well, you talk about acting. So when I was younger before eighth grade, I was the lead in all the English-speaking plays, but also the German-speaking plays. After eighth grade, I could no longer do it. And I always wondered why. Like, how could that even be? Well, it's estrogen and dopamine.

Tracy 6:30

So my brain, and and one time I was on Ritalin, the first time I took it, and I was trying to memorize a speech that I was supposed to give. And I couldn't memorize it. I was like, I'm just gonna need notes. I can't do this. And I popped that one Ritalin, I got in my car, I'm driving home. I well, we kind of live close to each other. So I my psychiatrist was in Berkeley, and I just went to Costco, which was right there, I think, in Berkeley too. And then I got in my car up to Sonoma County. So that was quite a drive. I don't know, maybe an hour and 15 minutes, maybe. And I literally went through that speech five times and I nailed it. The medication never worked again. So I know there is something in my brain that, you know, if I could find the right medication, if I could find the right whatever, it's all in there. It's just, and that's part of ADHD, that consistent inconsistency. We don't ever really know. Okay, when is my brilliant brain going to show up versus my not so brilliant brain?

Environment, Interviews, And Performance

Tracy 7:30

A big thing for me is when I feel comfortable, right? Again, that's environment, right? I know that when I'm talking to you, it doesn't mean it won't happen here, but I know that when I'm talking to you, there is something about you that is first of all, you're very different than I am in terms of you don't speak really fast, you're very measured, that's why you went to Dartmouth and I didn't. And you're you seem somewhat linear, but you're also very calm. And so your calm is what it's just a good environment for me. Versus if I am, let's say, being interviewed by someone who, you know, is just really fast and there's there's no relationship, and I just feel like, oh, you know, I'm on. That's when I struggle the most. But not always, which is what makes it kind of anxiety-producing, right? You never quite know, okay, how's this gonna go? Sometimes really, really well, sometimes not so well, but I've just learned to say, you know what? That's just my brain. And so instead of hiding it, this is kind of along with what you're saying about, you know, not hiding our disorder, but really being open about it and showing people this is what it looks like, you know, for my ADHD, so that they can have a better understanding. It's not that, you know, I'm stupid, I don't know what it is that I'm talking about. It's just that sometimes my brain doesn't cooperate.

Janine 8:58

You have worked very hard to normalize ADHD, which I think is fantastic. And I just I have to interject. I don't know how calm I am because I have two, I have two cheat sheets up here of questions to ask because I was feeling the same way, like, oh my God, this is all gonna go. Because my brain has slowed down. Some of it is medication, definitely. Some of it is age, but I'm like, oh, I love that little person.

Tracy 9:29

But what if we we double down on that, right? Because even that, and and you know, I think where people get upset at me is that I just can't help be the biggest optimist. And that's usually kind of an ADHD quality. And I believe that my biggest mission in life is to deliver hope to people who feel like they're lacking in hope. And so even that, because I can relate to that, like everything is slowing down, things were easier even after puberty. Like when I was, you know, I got through law school, graduate law school. I don't know that I could do that today. But there's so much more wisdom and knowledge that I have today that I didn't have then, that I don't know, maybe I'm still ahead, you know.

Optimism, Hope, And Aging Brains

Janine 10:14

My attitude is okay, if you can't remember anything, just make sure each day you show up and you're nice. Yeah. And you won't leave anything to to question, just one day at a time.

Tracy 10:29

And and I think today that's even more important. Yeah, right? Even more needed.

Janine 10:34

Yeah, absolutely. How else do we go on? Yeah, it's interesting that you know, if someone is confused or not sure what they have, the ADHD traits, they are really similar to bipolar. But I also, you've been outspoken about the bipolar issue too, with women getting misdiagnosed, being put on bipolar meds, becoming suicidal, having it be so far from who they actually are. And so I find I find that interesting. But at the same time, that like intensity, impulsivity, like racing thoughts, a lot of it does come off as hypomania. There's a similarity there. So it's been interesting to listen to your ideas about that and misdiagnosis.

ADHD Vs Bipolar: Overlap And Risk

Tracy 11:23

Well, and it's crazy to me that so I think it was Roberto Olivardia, I think that's his name. He's a, I think he teaches at Harvard, and he really knows ADHD and bipolar disorder. And his comment is if you have ADHD, excuse me, if you have bipolar disorder, you should, especially since 70% of people with bipolar disorder have ADHD, you should absolutely be tested for ADHD. And as you said, you kind of think of as ADHD as a lesser than bipolar disorder. So before you give someone lithium, why wouldn't you check it out? And especially where I have heard these stories over and over again is young women in college.

Tracy 12:09

So it's common knowledge that when you go to college and you have ADHD, your first year is usually a shit show, unless you already know then what you're super interested in. Like I almost flunked out of college. And I had a lot of scaffolding, you know, from my parents before I left. I was very sheltered. And so all of a sudden I go to college, and not only do I have to go to school and get good grades, but I have to make sure I'm fed, I have to make sure that my laundry is done, I have to create this whole new social group. I mean, a lot of times that is really a struggle for women with ADHD. So if they start getting really anxious and they start getting depressed, so depressed that they become suicidal, I just don't understand. If you end up in a hospital, why wouldn't you look at ADHD as well as bipolar disorder since the symptoms are so similar? Because I have heard stories of, and I say women because that's who I work with. I'm sure there are male stories too, but I don't know. There's something about certain mental health challenges, like borderline personality disorder, right? That's one that just always seems to be hoisted on women, yet men are diagnosed with, you know, PTSD.

Tracy 13:25

So I just don't, I don't know why you wouldn't be more careful. And maybe I should share a story about one of the women that she was on our podcast long ago, but it's always stuck with me. And so she is an example exactly of what I was talking about. You know, she was 18, she started college, she was a huge, I think she was really into martial arts before she went to college.

Janine 13:49

Oh, I listened to that episode. Yeah.

College Stressors And Misdiagnosis

Tracy 13:52

She quit exercising. So she was this extreme athlete, like she lived for it, quit exercising. And, you know, again, she had to do everything for herself. And she came from a family where there was a lot of scaffolding. She gained a lot of weight. And then she became really depressed. And her doctor, it didn't start out with bipolar disorder. They put her on an antidepressant for depression. But what that antidepressant did is it made her hyperactive, it made her sleepless, and then the doctor just labeled her as bipolar. And then she became suicidal and she was hospitalized. And I think she was hospitalized, I think it was for at least a year, you know? Oh wow. And then years later, you know, she got herself out of that. And then years later, but she, you know, she obviously she couldn't be on that antidepressant and certainly couldn't be on lithium. That made it so much worse. But years later, she began researching ADHD for her boyfriend. And that's when she realized, oh my gosh, this it wasn't, you know, bipolar disorder. I have ADHD.

Janine 14:58

Wow.

Tracy 14:58

Now she got back to exercising. She's now a what do you call it?

Janine 15:02

An MMA , mixed martial arts. Yes. She's now an MMA, which is so ADHD, right? For a woman who's doing that. But um again, you know, I think so much of it can be mismanagement of energy and environment. And if you think about college, you're not getting as much sleep, you're under more stress than you normally have been. You're eating dorm food, right? So your blood sugar is going all over the place. You know, maybe hormones are changing because you're, you know, 18 years old, right? And then you've got the lack of movement, you've got no structure, overstimulation, and then giving yourself no recovery time. Like it makes sense that you would have mental health challenges. Absolutely. And that's a time when mood disorders show up too. So this is confusing things. Right. It does make parsing this out difficult.

Biopsychosocial Lens For Stability

Tracy 15:54

Yeah. And I do believe, of course, that I don't care what you do, when you have someone who's suicidal, you have to do whatever you can to stabilize, right? And so I absolutely understand what doctors are up against, but I think there's just this, instead of looking at, well, it's the biopsychosocial, right? The biology part, looking at, okay, are you exercising? Are you sleeping? You know, what does your social structure look like? Do you have a lot of connection in your life? Like all of the, are you doing, are you studying the right thing? Or are you like Tracy, where you decide that, oh, you're my dad's a dentist, so I'm gonna be a dentist because they're gonna call me Dr. Otsuka. Literally, that was the only reason I even cared about being a dentist. And then I got there, and you are now with the best people, you know. So you're not the smartest one anymore. You actually have to study and now and you don't know how to study. So it again, it's this whole identity thing, right? I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I know I can't do that.

Tracy 16:58

So I think all of those things play into each other and come together. And I know that when you went through this, nobody even really knew, right? You said nobody talked about mental health versus, oh my gosh. So I have a child, I have two kids. My son is 23, Marcus, he's the one who started all this, ADHD and dyslexia, and does struggle, not anymore, but did with depression. And then I have a daughter who just turned 27, and all of them are talking about mental health. You know, everybody they know at one time or another has had a therapist, and you know, they talk to each other about it, and the guys do too. So I just think it's just so much more healthy than, you know, thinking you're the only one that's struggling with these things.

Generational Stigma And Community

Janine 17:44

It is. It's so much more healthy, but you may notice this as well in the ADHD community. There's sort of this older population where it's still very hard to talk about any sort of diagnosis like that, right? There's like this 50 and up age group where we're still really nervous to go towards those subjects. So I like, I am really grateful for that work and you know, the younger generations, but at the same time, there's still a handful of us.

Tracy 18:12

More than a handful, yeah, because honestly, they haven't heard my work. If they heard my work, and I think that's what happens, you know, they've gone their whole life just thinking they're defective and they don't even know what their strengths are, they people often cannot see it for themselves. And, you know, that's kind of what I feel like is my mission is I can see your brilliance before you can see it in yourself. And if I can put you in a community where you start seeing the brilliance in everyone else, then all of a sudden you can turn the lens around and say, okay, well, wait a minute. If this woman's brilliant and this woman and this woman, and I'm here, then I there must be something about me too. And then be motivated to go look for it. Because, you know, it's it's always there.

RSD Patterns And Rewiring

Janine 18:59

There's a few more questions I have for you. And I guess I'm just taking things that apply to my life right now. But rejection sensitive dysphoria, you're talking, you seem to be talking a little bit more of that about it on your podcast. It's something that I realize I've really struggled with. Like when I was in grad school, I would wake up every morning and I would think, okay, who have I pissed off? Who doesn't like me? Who doesn't like me? What you know, and that was my like first feeling every day. Who doesn't like me? Who doesn't? And now I see it, I just see it every day.

Tracy 19:33

It's a horrible way to wake up. I mean, that poor girl, you know.

Janine 19:37

Right. And I still I I do it right now with a new job, and I just worry my little head off. You know, that people are thinking things. Oh my god, that text message I sent, it had the wrong exclamation point. And you know what I mean? Like, like, why did I do that? And I really struggle with that. I know other people do as well, that not and some of Have ADHD, but I would love to let that go in my life. And perhaps the other topic is neuroplasticity, this kind of hot buzzword these days. So I guess how do I get myself out of RSD and find some neuroplasticity within my brain?

Morning Rituals And Slow Dopamine

Tracy 20:22

So I think you're absolutely right. The beauty of ADHD is that whatever works for ADHD works even better for someone who's, I'll say more neurotypical, but let's say someone who doesn't have ADHD. And you can understand, and I don't know a lot about, you know, your childhood and you know what went on, but my sense is that you didn't feel entirely safe. And often you felt judged and not heard, right? Not understood. And so no matter what you did, you kind of always felt like it's not good enough. Uh, me being who I am is never going to be good enough. And so you can understand from that kind of, you know, that little girl brain feeling that way, you can understand where rejection-sensitive dysphoria comes from. And, you know, that's basically just that you are very sensitive to rejection and to criticism. So you kind of become hypersensitive. And from that, we develop these perfectionistic tendencies, right? Where, well, if it's perfect, then I'll be above reproach and nobody will ever judge me. But the problem is, is we don't get better through, so then we end up in our head a lot, right? Because no, it's not perfect enough, so I can't release it into the world. And that's why just the beauty of you saying, you know what, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna do this podcast. And then learning along the way and realizing that, oh my gosh, I didn't die. So that in itself, that's what builds confidence.

Tracy 21:58

And so I think with the rejection, and I have a whole, you know, in our our app, uh, you know, in the online app stores, there's a whole section on rejection sensitive dysphoria. And I have this whole worksheet on the things that that you can do to make it better. But a lot of it is just questioning, is that really true? You know, and putting that pause in so your brain does, because it sounds like that might have been what's what happened. You woke up in the morning and neuroplasticity, right? You had trained your brain that the first thing your brain does is goes and looks for everything that's wrong with you. Oh, and I my sense is that probably nobody felt that way about you. You know, maybe every once in a while you did something that, yeah, maybe if I could take it back, I would. But was that really true? That people were upset, you know, and and so this is the deal, Janine. I mean, we make, am I allowed to swear on this podcast? Yes, of course.

The Book, Science, And Mindfulness

Tracy 22:58

We make shit up all the time that ultimately is not true, right? We think someone's mad at us, and then we find out, oh no, no, they were just having a really bad day and they were grumpy. It had nothing to do with me. So because we make stuff up all the time that doesn't even prove to be true, why not make stuff up that actually serves us? So when you wake up in the morning and you start, you know, in your head, you know, this horrible thing that you supposedly did, well, what else could it mean? But I'm not perfect. Start looking for all whatever you focus on, it's gonna grow. So why don't we focus on the things that are gonna grow in a way that actually serves you? Because if you're looking for all the negative stuff, guess what? You're gonna find more negative stuff. But if you start your day looking for everything that is working in your life and everything that you're grateful for, I promise you, you are going to start seeing more of that. And if you start your morning like that, you've already primed your brain to go look for evidence of where other things have been working, right? So you'll be looking for that throughout the day, and then you're gonna find more evidence on the stuff that is working, you know, the stuff that you can be super grateful for. Because one of the other things our brains do is, you know, we get like um hijacked. And I can't remember what I was gonna say. Here we go.

Janine 24:31

I love this.

Neuroplasticity And Daily Movement

Two-Part Takeaway: Follow Your Rudder

Tracy 24:32

What was I gonna say? Our brains get hijacked. The other thing you were gonna say maybe I was just repeating myself, you know, that our brains get hijacked by I'm just thinking you wake up in the morning and you know, the first thing, and and can I say that I relate to this? So it's not like I'm some sort of Pollyanna. I literally will wake up, I'll say often, and at least once or twice a week, and I will literally feel like, ugh, this malaise. And I have to sit there and think about well, why? And I can't come up with any reason. So my go-to is always I know that 20 minutes, I work out about I have a morning ritual. I work out for 30 minutes. Lately it's been weights, and then we have two dogs. Right after that, I go on a walk with my husband. So I get nature, right? So I get the dopamine from the workout. And what we know from studies is 20-minute workout at 70% of your high heart rate is as effective as a dose of Adderall and a dose of Prozac together with no side effects. I can't seem to take medication because everything gives me side effects. So I get the dopamine from that, I get the dopamine from the workout, and then at least three times a week, and definitely on the weekend, I will read first thing. Instead of going on my phone, I got my phone out of my bedroom, and it's just amazing how these little things make such a difference. And in large part, it's because what we know about, you know, scrolling and what that is, it's slow dopamine, fast dopamine.

Tracy 26:11

We need slow dopamine. Slow dopamine is reading a book. It's kind of hard to get into it, but once you get into it, then you hyperfocus and you're locked in versus social media. You know, you start scrolling, you feel initially better, but 15 minutes later, I don't know anybody that feels better, right? Normally you feel worse. And I think so much of it is that if we can show ourselves that we actually have agency and we're in control of our brain. So we are doing these things that actually serve us, of course we're gonna have a better day than sitting in bed and scrolling and watching other people live their life and feeling bad about our life or just being depressed because nothing is good in the news anymore.

Janine 26:52

Because you brought up reading and books, I just want to say a few things about your best-selling book, ADHD for smart ass women, how to fall in love with your neurodivergent brain. I was really impressed with this, Tracy. I didn't know what the book would be. I thought it might be just more intuitive, memoir, and then I opened it and I was like, holy shit, there's a lot of research in here. This is really based in research.

Share And Support Closing

Tracy 27:20

Look what she's done. It's kind of amazing to me because honestly, I mean, this is an ADHD thing and maybe a little bit of the RSD too, right? That and perfectionism. I literally finished the book and I thought, this is crap. This is absolute crap. I'm so embarrassed. And it wasn't until I got the first review from it wasn't Publishers Weekly that I was like, oh my God, they don't think it's crap. They actually think it's good. And my editor, who, you know, part of the reason the science is so strong, because there were things that she said, Tracy, this research doesn't, I mean, she was so good about being really like what I was saying, we were backing it up. Because one of the things that I have done from the beginning is everything I do is grounded in science. This is not just, and and that's how I came to the conclusions I've come to as well. So, science, even though I don't have a science background, is very important to me.

Tracy 28:20

I'm not a woo-woo hippie-dippy, although I have come more onto the woo-woo hippie-dippy side as I see the science backing it up. So things like mindfulness. I think 75% of the ADHD puzzle is what you are saying to yourself. And if we can switch that, we can literally change our brain. So neuroplasticity, you know, things like working out. I used to work out in the evening, and it really, I guess, didn't do a whole lot for me. And when I realized that my brain struggles to start in the morning, and I see myself kind of as an airplane on a runway, and I have to get myself up off that runway. And what gets me off the runway is dopamine, I switched to working out first thing in the morning. And it was hard at first, but I kept going and I would do silly things like whatever I could do to remove the resistance. So if that meant I slept in my workout clothes, that's what I did. And I've now gotten to the point, I've changed my brain so much that there is never a thought, I don't care how cold the day is, there is never a thought in my brain that I'm not gonna work out because I don't really see the workout. It used to be like vanity. Now I see it as, well, I can't take medication. This is my medication. And so if I don't take this medication and I have to get on a podcast with you, I'm gonna bomb. It's not, it's not hard at all anymore because I have been able to change my brain.

Janine 29:42

Tracy, this has just been amazing. I love hearing you speak about this. I love how direct you are. I know how inspiring it is that you're just you're so open and honest about this. I don't like this question, but I'm gonna ask it. So today, just for today, what would be something you would like to leave with our listeners today? Two things.

Tracy 30:07

Again, this really applies to ADHD, but I think it applies to everyone. We all have this rudder inside of ourselves. And when we are moving in a direction that serves us, we feel positive emotion. When we are not, we feel negative emotion. So when whatever we're doing, if it generates positive emotion, do more of that. And whatever generates negative emotion, do less of that. I mean, it really is that simple. So, you know, we we go around looking for everybody else. What should I do? You know, we want everybody else to solve our problems, yet we are the most capable because they have information about them. And so they can advise us based on their information about them, but they don't have the same information we have about ourselves. And when we are doing the right thing, we feel good. And so if you are in a state where everything feels bad, I think you need to start coming back to yourself and looking for what is even the smallest thing. I go outside first thing in the morning and I just sit there for 10 minutes. Do I feel better after I do that? If you do, do more of that. Like it's that simple. And then the second thing, which kind of segues into it, is you are the best expert on you. I think with so many mental health challenges, we forget, I certainly did, we forget what it feels like to feel good. So just pay attention. You are the best expert on yourself. Really pay attention to how you feel.

Janine 31:47

Thank you for listening to our conversation. If anything resonated with you while I spoke to Tracy, please share this episode. I have a new iPhone, and seriously, I'm having trouble finding where to leave stars or write a review. But it's super easy to see the share icon with the little upwards arrow. So please do share any episode with someone who it may help. And as always, thank you for your support.