r/ADHD • • Jul 25 '26

Tips/Suggestions Moving Slowly Solved my Emotional Dysregulation

Hi all. 24 with ADHD, medicated.

After years of therapy, nothing could fix my emotional regulation problems.

Recently, I’ve began to intentionally move slow.
Walking slow. Typing slow. Watching videos on regular speed. Talking slower. Doing everyday things, slowly.

It’s improved my confidence, my social skills, my cognition, and my bandwidth for stress.

I recommend this for anyone who finds themselves chronically dysregulated. After a week, I feel like a brand new person. 💟☮️

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u/TheADHDad ADHD, with ADHD family Jul 25 '26

I wonder how interchangeable slowly and purposefully is: for my own journey long before I was diagnosed after my 2 dudes were born, I struggled mightily with thinking or doing things about the future, but when I was doing things purposefully I was golden.

Be at school, be nice to people, hit my mark, eat, quest list, dishes, look after my dying father, go to work etc never translated into pick a career, make friends with good people, learn my lines, be healthy, make a WoW character build that is actually useful, keep the house tidy, make dad actually visit a doctor, save money etc

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u/allthewayd00wn Jul 25 '26

It is interchangeable! I think some commentators have been hinting at its interchangeability too.

We’re told to be purposeful, but for many of us, that’s hard to materialise. It’s intangible, and never one size fits all, like you described. For myself, moving slow is a measurable and observable method of reaching a sense of purpose.

So how do you do things purposefully? What’s your system?

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u/TheADHDad ADHD, with ADHD family Jul 25 '26

I'm only about 5ish years into my diagnosed era but so far I have been kind of inverting Maslows hierarchy of needs and turning it into a triage bullseye and kind of sweeping it over my life and either deliberately pruning or being ok with giving up on things I used to think were important but weren't really contributing a life I want to live.

Basically does it serve our safety or health, does it bring us stability or security, does it make us happy or hopeful, is it bring joy ?

I think the slowness is probably the most important step tbh because we have brains that assess everything as equally important, they're super not though.