I have a complicated relationship with stress. I’ve suffered burnout and been hospitalised in the past due to work related stress. Since getting diagnosed with ADHD the picture of how best to manage that stress has become clearer, and I thought it would be worth sharing some thoughts here.
You would think that looking for ways to reduce your levels of stress would be good advice. There’s likely hundreds, if not thousands of articles out there about how you can slow down, wind down, just breeeeeeeeathe…. For most, that’s probably some good advice.
But if you’ve got ADHD – and you’re operating at a senior level in advertising or marketing? It gets a little more complicated.
Because for us ADHDers with Big Brilliant Brains and a talent for coming alive when the world is burning down around us, what we actually need is the right amount of stress.
And if there’s something I see time and again working with people in this sector: the ones who’ve made it to the top often got there because of their relationship with stress. They thrive in chaos. They do their best work under the gun. They come alive in a pitch. The pressure isn’t what breaks them: it’s what makes them.
But that only gets you so far. And if you’re an ADHDer with more on the line than just a big pitch, you’re going to need to know how to manage yourself.
The Yerkes-Dodson Law (bear with me — this is actually useful)
In 1908, psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson discovered something that sounds obvious but has enormous practical implications: performance and arousal follow an inverted U-curve.
Too little stress? You’re sluggish, distracted, disengaged. Not enough on the line.
Too much stress? You’re overwhelmed, reactive, making poor decisions. Your thinking narrows. Your creativity tanks.
But in the middle, that sweet spot of just enough arousal? You’re sharp, focused, switched on. You’re performing at your best.
Here’s where it gets interesting for ADHD brains specifically.
Most people with ADHD are chronically under-aroused as a default state. Our nervous systems often don’t run hot enough to lock in and perform. We need stimulation: Interest, novelty, urgency, challenge, something at stake to get into that optimal zone on the curve.
Which means that the amount of pressure that tips a neurotypical colleague into anxiety is, for an ADHD brain, often the precise moment it comes alive.
That pitch with 48 hours to go? Buckle up kids, you’re about to witness greatness…
The brief everyone said was impossible? You sorted it.
The client emergency no one else wanted to manage? You were in your element.
This isn’t a coping mechanism. It’s neurology.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is what happens when you get more senior.
The advertising and marketing industry is genuinely brutal right now. AI is rewriting the economics. Clients are more demanding and less loyal. Margins are shrinking. The pace isn’t letting up… if anything, it’s accelerating – with so many people now being expected to handle more and more.
And as a senior figure, the nature of your stress has fundamentally changed.
It’s no longer the acute, contained, solvable kind. It’s no longer: here’s a problem, here’s a deadline, here is where your brain can excel.
It’s the chronic, ambient, always-on kind. Responsibility for a team. For a P&L. For people’s livelihoods. For a company’s reputation. It doesn’t switch off at the end of the day. There’s no finished product, no sign-off moment, no dopamine hit of completion.
And ADHD brains, it turns out, handle chronic stress particularly poorly.
Where acute stress can be rocket fuel for an ADHD nervous system, chronic stress is corrosive. Cortisol dysregulation, emotional reactivity, sleep disruption, executive function breakdown. The very strengths that got you to this level start to erode.
What looks like leadership fatigue is often something more specific than that.
ADHD burnout is no joke. Believe me.
I’m not going to tell you to meditate more or take a bath (though I’m not against either).
What I will say is this: understanding your own curve is one of the most useful things you can do.
Where does stress start to help you? What conditions bring out your sharpest thinking? And equally – where does it tip over into sheer panic? What are the early warning signs that you’ve gone past your optimal zone?
For senior advertising and marketing leaders with ADHD, the work is often about rebuilding access to acute challenge while managing down the chronic load. That means intentional structure, not just good intentions. Delegation as a genuine strategy, not an aspiration. And being honest with yourself about what you’re actually carrying.
The people I work with in this sector are not short of ambition or capability. They’re often running on a stress load their nervous system was never designed to sustain indefinitely.
Stress Awareness Month is a good time to ask not just “how do I have less stress?”… but “what kind of stress am I under, and is my brain built for it?”
There’s a reason so many high performers in advertising and creative industries are neurodivergent. The environment, historically, has suited how their brains work.
It’s just worth making sure it still does.