Dr. Asad Rafi

So these are the things that we're understanding more and more.

And they become so much more relatable for people away from that traditional model.

So we incorporate a lot of this understanding in our approach to assessment.

I think it's really important.

people start to understand that because they relate to it a lot more then.

How does that tie into stress and other necessities like sleep?

If we think about alexithymia and the concept of stress and how that might manifest, there's lots of

different elements to how stress presents, people may not be able to recognize it.

They might not be able to detect it or even process it, let alone communicate it.

If we look at stress physiologically, and we look at a physiological measure like heart rate variability, that's your heart's adaptability between consecutive beats.

And that correlates, it's probably the best, as I said, it's the best marker of stress that we currently have.

And for many people with ADHD that I see, we will ask this question.

If they track, you know, using wearable trackers, we'll often see that they have lower HRV, which indicates that your body is in a state of stress.

Where they get really confused often is, and we see this anecdotally, is they'll say, well, my phone's telling me that actually my metrics are really good, but I don't feel that way.

And I said, that probably reflects that delay that occurs due to interoception.

And they said, right, there's almost a lag of about a day or maybe even two days before that occurs.

So that's a really interesting finding that we're seeing on a regular basis.

So by looking at the metrics, you can almost predict what's happening or what's about to happen.

Women with ADHD, it's not just ADHD by itself.

And