ADHD & the Olympics

Picture this: you’re a top athlete like Simone Biles or Michael Phelps, juggling the pressures of the Olympics while managing ADHD. What if we told you that stimulant medications don’t give these athletes an unfair edge, but rather, they help direct their focus? On today’s episode of Hypercast, we dive into this hot topic, debunking myths and shedding light on how ADHD medication really works. You’ll hear about the controversial restrictions on these medications in the Olympics and the public stigma athletes face. We’re here to set the record straight, emphasizing that these athletes’ strengths, like hyperfocus, contribute to their stunning performances.

Melissa's Contact:
Email: melissa@likemindcoaching.com
www.likemindcoaching.com

Brianna's Contact:
Email: info@understandingadhd.ca
www.understandingADHD.ca

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Chapters

• 0:00 ADHD, Olympics, and Medication
• 8:46 ADHD, Olympics, and Stigma
• 22:26 Embracing Neurodiversity Through Hypercast

Transcript

Melissa: 0:00

Hi, there you're listening to Hypercast, an ADHD podcast. I'm Melissa, an ADHD coach and advocate.

Brianna: 0:08

Hi, I'm Brianna, an ADHD coach and soon-to-be therapist. We are here to explore all things ADHD from unexpected challenges to unique strengths.

Melissa: 0:16

Join us as we share insights and strategies that empower you to live your best ADHD life.

Brianna: 0:21

Ready? Let's dive into today's episode to ADHD.

Melissa: 0:32

Live Ready. Let's dive into today's episode. Hi, welcome to Hypercast. Welcome to Hypercast, Brianna. What are we talking about?

Brianna: 0:36

today. Okay, the Summer Olympics have just started, Paris 2024, so we're talking about the Olympics today.

Melissa: 0:42

Today's topic is important because we're in the middle of the Summer Olympics, but why it's also important is that there are several very popular Olympians that also have ADHD.

Brianna: 0:52

Simone Biles is one of my favorite people. I follow her religiously.

Melissa: 0:57

So, Brianna, you brought this topic up because something was really really ruffling your feathers.

Brianna: 1:03

The reason I wanted to talk about this today. Besides, the Olympics are very exciting and there are some top athletes who have ADHD, so it makes it relevant for this podcast is the restrictions surrounding medication and performance enhancing drugs and things like that. And I was surprised to find that stimulant medication for ADHD was on the list, and they claim that it was performance enhancing because attention and focus improve performance, which, yeah, that's how that works. But it demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of what ADHD is and how stimulant medication is used to treat it, because stimulant medication doesn't give you attention and focus. If it did, we would be cured.

Melissa: 1:47

I think there are a lot of people that think that as soon as they get diagnosed and they get put on a stimulant medication, that it will cure them. It will cure them of this disease. That is holding them back. That is not exactly how ADHD medication works at all.

Brianna: 2:03

Not even remotely exactly how ADHD medication works at all Not even remotely. Briefly, in the simplest terms as possible, because this is complex stuff. Basically, the ADHD brain lacks dopamine. Dopamine controls the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex controls executive functions. So things like task management, time management, organization, decision making, things like that. Adhd is misnamed. We don't have a deficit of attention. Sometimes we can hyper focus, and those of us with ADHD will know that when you get into a hyper focus it's like 8, 10, 12 hours of you hyper fixating on one specific thing, right? So all that stimulant medication does is provide our brains with more dopamine to allow us to choose where to apply that focus. Remember that decision-making part of the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. So when you give it more dopamine, all it does is allows you where to direct your focus, not increase or decrease it.

Melissa: 3:05

That's not how it works A lot of this. The medication situation with the Olympics conversation came up in 2016. There was a group of Russian hackers that hacked the IOC and WADA, which is the group that does all the drug testing for the Olympics, and they found the records for Simone Biles and found out that she had been taking Ritalin for a long time and had received an exception for the Olympic Games For what?

Brianna: 3:31

Why it doesn't give you a competitive advantage. The competitive advantage is already built in. Everyone in their sports has a competitive advantage. Simone Biles, she's built for that sport, and same with Michael Phelps he's built for that sport, and same with Michael Phelps he's built for that sport. Right. And then our brains are just built to focus on something that we love. And having medication isn't blood doping or any of the other things that you can take that would actually improve your performance physically, build your muscles or whatever. It is something that we need to function most of the time and they think that there's something wrong with that or something wrong with us, or that we shouldn't have that advantage.

Melissa: 4:15

I don't know what their logic and reasoning is I don't get it. One of the things that was for me, as someone with ADHD that was off-putting was the public outcry. Of course we know there's a lot of stigma around ADHD medication, but as soon as the public found out it became like shame on her. There's no way she can be afflicted with this, because she's very successful at what she does.

Brianna: 4:37

Exactly the thing they don't want to see us succeed the people who want to keep us down. We are a minority, we are disabled, and they don't want to see us as anything other than broken or pathologize us or fix us, or that we need help, right. They don't want to see us being successful because our brains are so different from theirs and they'd have to admit and acknowledge that there are advantages, and they don't want to there are advantages and they don't want to.

Melissa: 5:09

Well, adhd has a bunch of disadvantages that make it really hard to jump over that hurdle of doing the thing consistently, because an athlete at this level requires not just a little bit of consistency, that's like a lifetime of consistency and the amount of attention that requires is a lot. You can see Simone Biles. She always sets a goalpost for herself. She's not competing against anyone but herself, she's just.

Melissa: 5:29

I want to get better because I want to, which is amazing, and I have a feeling that's part of what keeps her motivated is that she says, oh, this is that one goal that I haven't reached yet. It's her internal challenge to meet that thing. She just does what she needs to do to make sure she can challenge herself and beat herself at the next world championships or the next Olympics. I wanted to go back to something that you were saying before. Why so? Why are these athletes so good? Why can someone with ADHD be such a good athlete? Because we're awesome. Is that a good enough answer? You mentioned advantages. We do have advantages. One of those things is hyperfocus. Absolutely Every time I see an athlete, champion or not, they're just in their zone the benefits of their neurodiversity to step above and go a little bit further, and that is so cool to see.

Brianna: 6:22

Yeah, absolutely, it's interest. Interest motivates us, challenge urgency, competition motivates us. So anything where there is a competition or that there is some challenge to overcome, that's automatically going to attract a bunch of people with ADHD. And the other thing about sport or exercise that attracts people with ADHD is it is medicating.

Brianna: 6:44

There have been studies that demonstrate that exercise has almost the same impact on the brain that stimulant medication has, because what does your body release when you exercise? Dopamine. So the same thing stimulant medication releases dopamine. Exercise releases dopamine. And that's why you see in these really high level athletes that they go undiagnosed until they're like mid-30s, when their career is over, and then their life falls apart. Because they have been self-medicating through high level, high intensity exercise. They've been giving their brains the dopamine that it needs in order to focus, in order to pursue their dreams, and then all of a sudden they can't manage their lives. They can't like, when they quit their sport and they're not doing that high level, intensity exercise every day, then they can't manage their lives. They can't figure out what to eat, how to get out of bed in the morning, because all of a sudden their brain isn't getting that high level of dopamine anymore. So obviously you can see that exercise and sport and high level sport would be very attractive to ADHD brains.

Melissa: 7:47

There was a point in Michael Phelps' career where he was on top of everything. He was training like six, eight hours a day in the pool and then he went through an Olympic Games. He stopped training as hard after the Olympics and then things started falling apart for him. He's mentioned before that depression really came in and it was eating at him.

Brianna: 8:08

That's why I was so appalled to see that stimulant medication was banned and I understand that it is abused in some circles, like college students, for example, tend to take stimulant medication because they think that it will help them focus and get their work done and things like that. But realistically, if you don't have ADHD and you're taking stimulant medication, it's a little bit more dopamine in your brain. It's not really doing that much. And I know that there have been some stories from some of my friends where they've tried a stimulant at a party once and it was oh, it's such a fun party drug and they just sit in a corner and answer their emails and stuff like that.

Melissa: 8:46

Like it doesn't give you a performance boost, it's not like all of a sudden they can do kickflips or something You're not talking about like steroids, that's going to pump up your muscles or it's going to all of a sudden just give you some sort of extreme mental edge. People think it will keep you awake or it'll be able to keep you going a little bit farther.

Brianna: 9:05

Yeah, that's the incorrect conception about stimulants coming back into the conversation. Okay, so ADHD hyperactivity is a part of it. Logically, you'd be like, oh, I don't want to give my hyperactive child a stimulant, that would make them crazy. But it has the opposite effect. It calms them down. It helps them focus. So a stimulant doesn't give energy. It's not caffeine or those energy drink type things. That's not what stimulant medication for ADHD does. It's not giving you more energy. It's not giving you more focus. All it's doing is allow you to direct your focus.

Brianna: 9:41

Yeah, so before you weren't committed to your sport which, as an Olympian, you're pretty committed to your sport it would allow you to choose to commit, but there's no competitive advantage. You're already committed. You sport. It would allow you to choose to commit, but there's no competitive advantage. You're already committed. You're already in the olympics. You were there. Yeah, make their drugs so they can do the rest of the stuff that they want to do, because it's not going to impact their sport. It's just going to impact if they're late to their event or getting out of bed in the morning or remembering to where the thing is or to bring their uniform or what. It's just the stuff surrounding the sport, not the sport itself that it's helping with, which is what it's designed to help with, which is what we need help with Absolutely.

Melissa: 10:21

What examples can we take being normal, everyday ADHDers from these athletes?

Brianna: 10:29

My first, number one biggest thing is that recess should be mandatory. Never take recess away as a punishment, because it is good for kids' brains, especially kids with ADHD. Exercise is the thing that you should be doing if you're feeling like your ADHD is kicking your butt that day. Go for a run, go for a walk, go to the gym, dance a little bit in your room. Dance is actually one of the best. I was recently studying this, reading a bunch of scientific articles, and dance has the highest amount of dopamine production of any sport.

Melissa: 11:06

One thing that I don't think we mentioned was we've said that exercise helps you if you have ADHD. So when you exercise for at least 20 minutes and have your heart rate at least 130 beats per minute or over for two to four hours after you've exercised, your symptoms will be better managed.

Brianna: 11:25

Which is deeply impressive and, honestly, if back to the Olympics again. Honestly, if they're doing their high level exercise and their symptoms are managed as a result of their exercise, why aren't you letting?

Melissa: 11:37

them take their drugs. To be honest with you, michael Phelps, for a really long time has been managing without medication and part of his regime for managing his ADHD has been through exercise. I don't remember which Olympic athlete.

Brianna: 11:48

But I was reading an interview where it's basically yeah, no, this is my medication, Sport is my medication, it's the common refrain Everything I've read about ADHD Olympians as children have Almost an identical story.

Melissa: 12:01

They were very active and family members said we need to do something with this energy and got them involved in the activity. That's exactly it.

Brianna: 12:10

This child needs exercise and throw them in the pool type of situation.

Melissa: 12:14

This child needs an outlet.

Brianna: 12:16

I was in so many sports. I was in gymnastics and swimming and soccer, and just I had an activity every single day of the week.

Melissa: 12:23

That's about right. I was a dancer and did theater and I was never idle. Do not leave an ADHD child idle. It is not good for them. Give them an outlet for their creativity and for their energy and if they're excited about something, let them get involved, because that is always good yeah absolutely.

Brianna: 12:43

I realize we completely skimmed over the scandal you were talking about. I have the tweet from Simone Biles after hacked and exposed was like. I have ADHD. I've taken medication for it since I was a kid. Please know I believe in clean sport and have always followed the rules and will continue to do so, as fair play is critical to sport and is very important to me. Why was that ever in question? Why was her first of all, her private medical record misinterpreted in the way it was? And then why was there ever a question? If they had the records, Clearly they'd approved it.

Melissa: 13:15

I'm sure there was a lot of speculation that she's Simone Biles and she's American and she's getting special treatment.

Brianna: 13:22

It frustrates me so much because this was back in 2016,. Right, so in 2024, there is still stigma that people face today, but there has been huge advances in terms of people are not ashamed to come out and say that they have ADHD. People are able to be more open about it. It's not treated like this, like pariah type situation, whereas back in 2016, I know it's hard to remember back that far, for especially for us with ADHD I'm having a hard time remembering the before times where I had to keep it a secret and people didn't know and obviously this coming out it's like the all the revenge porn stuff where it's like my body, my choice, and it's being like her private medical history is being taken away from her the choice to tell, the choice to have that be a private part of herself.

Melissa: 14:07

She is a very public figure that people have a lot of opinions on. If you look at the comment section on any YouTube video, it's she's a Black woman and they want to talk about her hair. She's this, so they want to talk about that because she's a woman or she's privileged. Everyone has speculation on what someone is like. The media's response is one thing, the public's response is another, and it's really disheartening to see a bunch of people just trying to tear this one woman down.

Melissa: 14:32

Then, after the last Olympics in Japan, about when she got the twisties and that she was a quitter. I feel like with each Olympics she's had to overcome. After the Worlds recently, when she had won her gold medal, she was asked you're very calm right now. This is the most calm I've ever seen you be. She goes yeah, I've been doing a lot of therapy and it was really great to see that she wasn't just being an advocate. She was like really outspoken about it, like just matter of fact, that mental health has been such a priority since the last Olympics. It's really good to see, in such a tense environment, that she's able to find peace in her mind, especially with an ADHD mind. This is why she is one of my idols.

Brianna: 15:13

First of all, I love the sport of gymnastics and I love to see women succeed in sport and be as stalled as their male competitors, so I love that about her. But realistically, it's the fact that she has ADHD and she is a role model and she is outspoken about her therapy and the medication as a result of the exposure, but she is not ashamed of it and I love having representation in the media. I love having representation in sport and it is so important for, especially for young girls young black girls to see someone successful who has ADHD and they might be struggling in the same way and it's still hugely underdiagnosed in girls. It's still hugely underdiagnosed in black people, in girls, it's still hugely underdiagnosed in Black people, and so Black girls getting diagnosed with ADHD is nearly impossible for them and to see a role model out there is super important.

Melissa: 16:12

I've seen multiple posts on ADHD subreddits of women of color saying I feel really lonely. I feel like I'm like the only one out here who's been diagnosed. It's really good to see someone who looks like you or is the same gender of you being actually being successful, because sometimes it's hard to feel like we can be successful just being women, being someone with ADHD, being someone of color, like all these things just another like another knock.

Brianna: 16:38

She's checking off all the minority boxes.

Melissa: 16:41

She's facing discrimination from every angle, I think for this Olympics. She's hitting that age thing too. Yeah, the ageism that's happened. She's not even 30. She's 27.

Melissa: 16:51

I actually watched Simone Biles' documentary that came out this week on Netflix and part of it addressed the mental issues she was having while in Japan, and a big part of it was that her family couldn't be there. It was the first time her parents weren't there in the audience to be part of her emotional support. There was barely any audience. This was because of COVID and then they were locked down in their rooms. There wasn't a lot of movement. It was like gymnastics all the time and then back to your room, and I'm sure that's another conversation. Yeah, I mean the impact.

Brianna: 17:25

COVID had on people with ADHD is a different topic, but yeah, it was intense.

Melissa: 17:31

There was part of the documentary where her mom was braiding her hair before competitions and she said that the Olympics in Japan was the first time in someone's entire life that her mom had not braided her hair before a meet, and there's something about these traditions and these rituals that we go through that are very comforting. Not having her emotional support team there, I'm sure it affected her a lot.

Brianna: 17:56

The rituals are very important for neurodivergent people, with autism, with ADHD. They need that structure, that ritual, that sameness. But also there's a lot of superstition in sport as well, so not having that ritual before could also have thrown you off your mental game. But yeah, the COVID thing was insane. How many women were diagnosed with ADHD or autism or something post-COVID? Because it broke down the structures, it broke down the rituals, it broke down every coping mechanism, everything that you have ever built in, whatever, and women who had been undiagnosed up until this point. All of a sudden, the world was on fire.

Melissa: 18:34

Yeah, it puts you in a position of having to rebuild. How intense is that. How intense is that? We were talking about ritual and I'm having this image of Michael Phelps in my head. Have you ever seen Michael Phelps before?

Melissa: 18:46

Oh yeah, with his music and his shaking, he shakes his body out and he puts his noise-canceling headphones on. So it's just him and his world and that's part of his ritual to get started to go perform. That's just like an ADHD ritual to get out the door in a day. If you have a set thing that you do, that's exactly it.

Brianna: 19:06

I was just going to say there's a really popular ADHD hack going around right now which only works for Americans, because only you are this crazy where you don't take off your shoes. If you want to be productive and get stuff done, you don't take off your shoes, because your shoes mean you're like outside and you're productive.

Melissa: 19:21

That's been one of my personal hacks for 20 years. But the rest of the world doesn't wear shoes inside. Actually, that's not true. Do you have indoor shoes and you have outdoor shoes?

Brianna: 19:30

I do have indoor shoes and I put on my indoor shoes and I have, like I literally have called them the headphones of concentration, and I don't wear them for anything unless I'm trying to concentrate. I have a separate pair of headphones for if I want to play games or listen to music or something. That's awesome. Yeah, got a little off topic there towards the end. All right, let's sum this up. Today we talked about ADHD and the Olympics which are happening now. It's very exciting.

Brianna: 20:01

And we talked about our favorite role model, Simone Biles. We talked about the stigma and discrimination that she faced when she was outed against her will for having ADHD and being on medication, and we talked about how she reclaimed her power and became this outspoken role model for mental health and ADHD which the world desperately needs. We talked about the World Anti-Doping Agency and how the medical system in general has a misunderstanding of what stimulant medication is and does, but I'm sure they have their own reasons for banning it and for allowing it for therapeutic use only. And then we talked about how us non-Olympic athletes with ADHD can use exercise and sport to our advantage.

Melissa: 20:45

And maybe I will never get this wish fulfilled. But if an Olympic athlete listens to this, or if you know an Olympic athlete who is listening to this that has ADHD, we would really love more of you to say I have ADHD. We're not going to force you, but it's really good to see that people are stepping up and out and talking about it. But we wish you well, all of you in your endeavors at the Olympics and bring home many medals.

Brianna: 21:13

We are not doctors. We're not advocating for stimulant medication in any way beyond personal. So if you feel that stimulant medication is right for you, please consult with your doctor and they will be able to help support you through that process for sure. And if you are thinking about getting diagnosed same, see a psychiatrist or a doctor and someone specifically who knows about ADHD. They'll be able to support you through that process.

Melissa: 21:38

If you would like further support or resources, Brianna and I are both ADHD coaches. You can find me at like understandingADHDca.

Brianna: 21:56

Not only am I an ADHD coach, I am now interning as a therapist, so you can receive both services therapy and ADHD coaching at understandingADHDca.

Melissa: 22:10

That is so exciting. I'm so happy and proud of you. Thank you.

Brianna: 22:13

I should qualify and be very clear I am an intern. I am still a student, so this is part of my training.

Melissa: 22:25

But yeah, I offer those services now as well. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, bye, bye-bye.

Brianna: 22:35

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Hypercast, if you've enjoyed today's episode and want to stay connected, be sure to rate and subscribe, and check out the show notes for links to our social media and websites, whether you're seeking practical tips, heartfelt stories or just a sense of community.

Melissa: 22:48

Hypercast is here for you.

Brianna: 22:50

Remember you're not alone in your ADHD journey. Together, we can navigate the highs and lows with courage and compassion alone in your ADHD journey.

Melissa: 22:56

Together we can navigate the highs and lows with courage and compassion. So until next time, take care, stay curious and keep embracing your unique neurodiversity. Catch you on the next episode of Hypercast.