#77: Shiny Object Syndrome in Midlife: Is It ADHD, Hormones, or Both?

Is it ADHD? Is it menopause? Is it just… you?

If you're a woman in midlife who's suddenly drowning in ideas, can't finish the thing you just started, and keeps getting pulled down rabbit holes you didn't plan to go down — first of all, you are not alone. And second — there's actually a really good explanation for what's happening.

This episode is inspired by a question from a listener in our Dream Studio community. We're talking about shiny object syndrome — what it is, why your brain does it, and why it might be getting louder in this season of your life. 

We cover the brain science (I promise to keep it interesting), the ADHD and hormonal layers that nobody's connecting for you, and real strategies for managing the distraction without losing the creative spark that makes you, you. 

And we wrap it up with a conversation about play. What it looks like when you're 50, not five. Why it's so uncomfortable at first. And why making a playdate with yourself — or someone who gets you — might be the thing your dream has needed all along.

3 key takeaways from this episode:

1. Shiny object syndrome is your brain scanning for dopamine — not a sign that something is wrong with you.
2. The drop in estrogen during menopause takes dopamine with it — and that's why so many women in midlife are suddenly flooded with ideas they can't catch, focus they can't find, and a brain that feels like it belongs to someone else.
3. Play isn't something you earn after the real work is done. It's actually how your brain breathes life into your dreams — and most of us have forgotten how to do it.

Resources mentioned: 

CHADD — chadd.org 

Episode 49: Is It ADHD or Menopause? (And What It Means for Breast Cancer Survivors) 

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Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

0:22

Hello my friend. Welcome back to the Distracted Dreamer podcast. I'm your host Carlene, and I am really glad that you're here today because this episode came straight from one of you. So a member in my Dream Studio community, she wanted to learn more about our desire for novelty. You know, when things are new and exciting. And she described something I think a lot of us know very well. She called it shiny object syndrome, and that pull toward the new thing, that exciting idea. The rabbit hole. You didn't plan to go down, but somehow it's three hours later and you've completely forgotten what you were originally doing. Yeah. Does that sound familiar? Well, I just want you to know you are not alone. So today that is where we are going. We are going to talk about what shiny object syndrome actually is and why your brain does this. What's happening underneath it, especially if you have a DHD or you're navigating midlife and hormonal changes. And most importantly, how to work with it instead of against yourself. And we are going to talk about play, which I know sounds fun until you realize most of us have absolutely no idea how to play anymore, but we're gonna get there. But right now I wanna start off by talking about shiny object syndrome. So what is it really? Well, it's that thing where you're in the middle of something, a project or a task, a plan you were genuinely excited about, and then something new just appears, just a different idea. Uh, it might be an interesting article or a completely unrelated thought that suddenly feels more urgent and more exciting than the thing that you are doing and off you go. Right? Sometimes it's. 20 minutes. Sometimes you look up and it's been three hours and you're deep in a YouTube tutorial for something. You have no memory of deciding to learn. And for people with A DHD, this is often called affectionately or not shiny object syndrome, and it's one of the most misunderstood things about how the A DHD brain works, because this isn't random and it's not a lack of willpower, and it's not that you're easily bored or you can't be disciplined. It's your brain doing exactly what it was wired to do. Let's talk about what's actually happening in your brain, because here's the thing about creativity and attention. They're not one thing happening in one spot of your brain. It's actually a team effort between three networks that are constantly talking to each other. So let's talk about these three networks in your brain that are working together. The first one is called the default mode network. This is your idea generator. It's most active when your mind is wandering like in the shower or when you're on a walk, or maybe right before you fall asleep. And what it's doing is it's pulling from memory and imagination and future thinking. It's the part of your brain that makes unexpected connections. If you're someone who gets your best ideas, when you're not trying to have them like in the shower, that's your default mode network doing its thing. Okay? The second network is your executive functioning network. Think of this as the editor, so it lives in the prefrontal cortex. Or the frontal lobe, and it's right behind your forehead. This is what evaluates your ideas and organizes them and decides what's actually worth acting on. And without it, you'd have an endless stream of ideas and no follow through With it, you can move from inspiration to intentionally taking action. Okay, and then. There's the third one that matters most for our conversation today. It's called the Salience Network. Think of it as a switchboard. Its entire job is deciding what deserves your attention right now in what doesn't. It's toggling constantly between the idea mode and the focus mode, and here's the important takeaway. Creativity is idea generation, plus idea selection, plus attention switching. So when all three networks are working together smoothly, it feels like you're in flow. And when they're not working, it looks like distraction. Now, here's where novelty comes in. When something new appears, that fresh idea, an interesting distraction, a shiny object, your brain's reward system fires up and releases dopamine. And here's the thing, most people get wrong about dopamine. It's not just about pleasure. Dopamine is about anticipation. And anticipation is the pleasure. It's the feeling of, oh, this could be so exciting before you even know if it is. It's that motivation. It's the pull. It's the, this might change everything feeling. So when a shiny object appears, your brain releases dopamine flags it as important, and your focus shifts. And the thing you were working on, it suddenly feels harder and slower and less rewarding. Not because it is, but because it's no longer new. That new thing wins. That's shiny object syndrome. Your brain is constantly scanning for new opportunities, for faster rewards, for less effort, for more payoff. And that's not a flaw of yours personally. That's your brain being efficient. The problem isn't that it happens. The problem is when we have no strategy for what to do when it does happen. Okay, that's what's going on in your brain when something new appears. And right now I wanna just shift and talk about why this hits different for A DHD Brains and women in midlife. And I just wanna be clear, I'm not a doctor and none of this is medical advice, but I do want to talk about why this conversation matters, especially for this community. For A DHD brains, the dopamine system, it works differently. It tends to be lower in dopamine or have a more sluggish dopamine response, which means the brain is working even harder to find that stimulation, to find that pleasure. So novelty. It isn't a distraction, it's fuel. It literally wakes the system up in a way that routine can't. For women in midlife, there's another layer to this. As estrogen drops during menopause and perimenopause, dopamine drops with it. Estrogen helps regulate dopamine. When estrogen falls. And it doesn't gently drift down. It literally crashes. You feel it? Take my word for it. That's the brain fog. That's the scattered focus. And it's also the flood of ideas that like you can't catch'em. And it's also the forgetting, you know, why you walked into the room. So we are actually seeing more a DHD diagnosis in midlife women than ever before. And the question everyone's asking is, was it always there and missed? Is it the hormonal shift mimicking A DHD, or is it both? Now, I don't have the answer to that, and that's a great question for your doctor, and if you've been personally wondering about that, please have that conversation. And remember, you deserve to be taken seriously. I am going to link to Chad in the show notes. They're a great resource for A DHD information. And if you wanna go deeper on the estrogen and dopamine connection, go back and listen to episode 49. It's, it's all in there. And what I will say is this, whether it's a DHD, hormonal or both. The experience of feeling flooded with ideas and afraid that you'll forget them feeling frustrated that you can't pursue them all, and feeling down on yourself for it. That experience is real and it deserves a real response. We are now going to shift into how to manage. The whole shiny object syndrome distraction because it doesn't have to be a distraction. We know why this happens. Now, what do you actually do when the shiny object shows up and your three tabs deep and you can't remember what you started. So the first thing that you wanna do is. You wanna capture it? Don't, don't chase it, just capture it. The fear of losing a good idea, it's real, and it creates anxiety and it can make everything worse that you're trying to accomplish. When a shiny thought shows up, give it a home without going down the rabbit hole. Send yourself a quick voice memo or make a note on your phone or a sticky note. Just say I see you shiny object, and I'm not gonna lose you, and I'm going to come back to you and then actually come back to what you were doing before that shiny object appeared. The second thing is to name what just happened. And this one sounds simple, but it's really, really powerful. When you notice the pull, just say it out loud or in your head and say, oh, shiny object. Got it? Name it. As soon as you recognize it, because naming it creates just enough space between the impulse and the action that you can make a choice. Now, sometimes this isn't always possible, but more often than not, you can do this. Name it and make a decision that you're going to save it someplace where you can go back to it or make a conscious decision that you want to stop what you're doing and you do want to pay attention to the shiny object, but also make a commitment to get back to what you were doing and set a timer. So the second part of this is naming what happens so that you can make a decision, so the distraction doesn't make the decision for you. Okay? The third thing is to use the interest to fuel a task, not to derail one. If you are genuinely losing steam on something and novelty is calling, ask yourself, is there a way to bring something new into what I'm working on? Is there a different approach? Is there a different environment I can go to? Is there a different time of day I could do this? Sometimes the brain doesn't need a new thing, it just needs a fresh angle on the current thing. Okay. And fourth, and this is the one I really want to sit with, is to schedule time for the shiny object. What if, instead of fighting the pole toward novelty, you gave it a legitimate place in your week? A window of time that is specifically for exploring and experimenting and playing with ideas. No agenda, no deliverable. Just permission to make time for it. And that brings us to the part of the conversation that I am most excited about today. I wanna ask you something, and I want you to be really honest with yourself. When is the last time that you played not relaxed, not scrolled, not decompressed in front of the tv played. For most of us, especially women who've spent decades being responsible people and caregiving and the ones that are holding everything together, play feels foreign, frivolous, even like something you earn after all the real work is done. But here's the thing, the real work is never done. And if you keep waiting to give yourself permission to play. You're going to be waiting a very long time. Now, play as an adult, it looks different than it did when we were kids. When we were little. Play was instinctive. You just did it. No one had to schedule it or justify it. You picked up the crayons, you made up the game, you climbed the thing. As adults, we've trained that out of ourselves. We need a reason. We need a goal. We need it to be productive somehow. But what if we tried something different? Here's how I think about play now. It's anything you do with curiosity and no attachment to the outcome. And you know what? Play is crucial for your dreams. Play lets you experiment and dabble and explore your dreams with no hidden agenda. Play allows you to simply be in it. So think of play as the active part of your dreams. Not in a productive way, but in a way where your dream is no longer the thing in your head. When you play, you breathe life into that dream. It might look like pulling out watercolors with zero intention of producing anything worth keeping. It might look like trying a completely new recipe just to see what happens. It might look like spending an afternoon rearranging a room or maybe taking a drive with no destination. Imagine that. What about writing something that you're never gonna show anyone? Or maybe learning the first 30 seconds of a song on an instrument you haven't touched in years. It doesn't have to feel like play it first. In fact, for a lot of us, the first few times that we try this, it's gonna feel uncomfortable. We're gonna keep waiting for the point. We're gonna keep wanting to make it useful. And that discomfort, that's actually worth noticing because it tells you how far you've gotten from your own sense of joy. Now, can we tap into our younger selves here? I think yes, we can, and not to become who we were, but to remember something we knew then. That we've since forgotten that exploring something just because it interests you is enough of a reason. So here's a practical idea, and I know it's gonna sound a little counterintuitive. Schedule your play. I know. I know scheduling play kind of takes the spontaneity out of it and spontaneity is kind of the whole point. But here's my argument. If you don't put it on the calendar, it doesn't happen because life fills every unprotected space. Your to-do list expands. Someone needs something and play, which feels like the least urgent thing. It gets bumped again and again. So what if you made a play date with yourself? Block an hour or even 30 minutes. Call it whatever you need to call it on your calendar, so you'll actually keep it. And use that time to play with one of those ideas that's been living on your captured lists. Not to build it or not to plan it, just to touch it to see what it feels like to find out if it still excites you when you give it a little room. Or, and this is one of my personal favorites, is make a play date with someone else. Find a friend who also has an idea. She's been sitting on. Swap ideas. Play with each other's concepts. Brainstorm together. There's something about doing it with another person that makes it feel more real, more fun, and a lot less self-indulgent. Remember, play isn't wasted time. It's how you find out what actually matters to you. It's how you access parts of your brain that went quiet during all those years of being the responsible one. And it's how you practice trusting yourself again, because play requires you to follow your curiosity without knowing where it leads. And that's not nothing. That is everything my friend. And here's where I want to leave you today. Your desire for novelty isn't a problem. It isn't your enemy. It's not a sign that something is wrong with you, and you do not need to white knuckle your way through it. What you need is to understand it. You name it, work with it, and give it a legitimate place in your life. Not just as a distraction that derails you, but as the creative energy that moves you forward. That's what it's there for. And play. Please play, even if it's just 30 minutes this week, even if it feels awkward and pointless At first, give yourself permission to follow your curiosity, and remember, you're not too old to play. You're not too busy to play and you are absolutely not too serious for this. And you know what? I wanna know what dream or idea you are going to play with this week. Click the link in the show notes to send me a text or voicemail. I read and reply to every single one. And remember, you are wired for wonder in this season. This is a really good time to remember that, and thank you so much for being here today. And if this episode spoke to you, please share it with someone who needs permission to chase a few shiny things. And as always, I will be here next week to welcome you into the next episode. Until then, bye for now.

Carlene 19:18

Oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.