If you have trouble with prioritizing, decision making, or figuring out what to do next, the shower principle might help.

This kind of executive dysfunction can show up for lots of different reasons. For someone with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), it might look like difficulty organizing information or maintaining the right level of stimulation to stay engaged in planning. An autistic person might need more predictability and processing time to make planning decisions. Someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) may find themselves stuck in a loop trying to find the One Best Answer. Grief, burnout, chronic illness, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), can all affect executive functioning as well, making planning, prioritization, and task initiation much harder than they used to be. 

So here is my 3-step-shower-principle-informed-strategy that helps make it easier to plan and prioritize!

There are myriad ways to address executive dysfunction, including psychiatry, occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy. This week, we are focusing on mental health therapy, executive function coaching, and how they can help address executive dysfunction.

The number of Google searches for “executive dysfunction” has increased by over 300% over the last 5 years. Increased awareness sometimes leads to increased misunderstanding; so let’s get into what executive functioning means, why people may struggle with it, and why we are hearing about it more frequently. What is executive function and executive dysfunction? What support is available?

Some people get to adulthood as natural intuitive eaters, but for most of us, it’s not that easy. Diet culture is often a huge barrier to intuitive eating, and it’s definitely the intuitive eating challenge that is easiest to find information about. As a fat person who was a teen in the 90s and early 2000s, weight stigma and fatphobia have historically had an impact on the way that I ate and cared for myself, and if you are in the same boat, you are very much not alone.