Accommodations Are Valid

What if the thing you’ve been trying hardest to correct is simply part of how you’re built?

Today, our Therapist Corner section is exploring neurodivergent accommodations, while we look into ADHD brain science and the courage it takes to stop shrinking yourself to match expectations that were never designed with you in mind.

Today’s Quick Overview:

🔬 Science Spotlight: ADHD brains enter sleep-like states…
🗣 Therapist Corner: Asking for neurodivergent accommodations…
📰 Mental Health News: Brain fog myths; stigma shifts…
🫂 Community Voices: Different was never less…

Let's practice naming what you're experiencing without judgment:

This week, did you catch yourself and rename something even once? Did it feel different to use kinder, more accurate language? Changing how you talk to yourself doesn't fix everything, but it makes everything else a little easier to handle.

Different was never the same as less, but many of us learned to apologize for not matching expectations. How often does this happen for you?

How My Brain Works Best Guide

You don't need a diagnosis to know what helps you function; you just need a way to put it into words. This free one-page How My Brain Works Best guide helps you map out what you look like when you're doing well, what overload actually looks like for you, and what the people in your life can do to support you without guessing. Keep it for yourself, or share parts of it with someone who wants to show up for you well.

Asking for Neurodivergent Accommodations: What You Actually Need

Answered by: Alli Hammond

If you're neurodivergent, you're likely to be well aware of the impacts and challenges this may have on your life. But do you have the right arrangements and accommodations in place to best support your needs?

Maybe you struggle to ask for accommodations because you see it as "a sign of weakness," or you're afraid of being labelled as a "burden" or someone who's "just being difficult."

Yet, for neuroatypical people, social obstacles often exist because society is primarily built around neurotypical ways of thinking, behaving, and processing the world.

So asking for legitimate support or adaptations is neither being unreasonable, an admission of failure, nor asking for special treatment; it's about giving you access to equality in order to enable your neurodivergent brain to function.

Some Common Neurodivergent Accommodation Needs

How to Identify Your Specific Needs

You might be confused about what you're allowed to ask for, and this might be one of the reasons you've never asked.

Workplace policies can be a helpful place to improve your understanding of what you might be entitled to. For example, there is likely to be information that will help you in the following policies:

These policies will cover the reasonable adjustments you can expect to be made to support you. Once you're aware of the accommodations you're entitled to, decide which ones you feel would make a difference to your productivity and wellbeing.

For example, a resolution to feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated by working in a large open-plan office, or you might require a flexible work space and arrangement where you can work in a quiet room alongside remote working.

How to Communicate Accommodation Requests Clearly

Once you've identified what you need, the next step is to communicate it clearly. The most effective way to do this is to state clearly and simply what you need, without minimizing or over-explaining it. These examples might help to give you an idea of how to communicate effectively:

Navigating Accommodation Denials or Resistance

It's important to acknowledge that, unfortunately, some settings are more accommodation-friendly than others. You might also have had experience in the past where you've been denied adjustments. Hesitation is understandable.

If accommodations are denied, it can leave you feeling dismissed, frustrated, or unsure of what to do next. Legally, neurodivergent employees are entitled to reasonable accommodations under workplace equality and disability legislation, particularly where difficulties have a substantial impact on day-to-day functioning. This may mean:

At the same time, every workplace is different, so not every request will be considered "reasonable," so advocacy might also involve negotiation through exploring alternative adjustments that meet both your needs and the organisation's limitations.

A gentle reminder: you are navigating a world largely designed around neurotypical ways of thinking and working, and that can be exhausting at times, so it's important to remember that needing accommodations is not asking for "special treatment"—it is asking for reasonable support that allows you to work, contribute, and thrive as your authentic self.

Alli Hammond is an integrative counsellor and registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). She works with adults navigating life's emotional challenges, including bereavement, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. With a gentle, compassionate approach, Alli offers a calm and supportive space where clients can feel heard, accepted, and supported in making sense of their inner world. Find her through the links below:

Personal Website | Read Her Blog | Psychology Today | BACP.

The 3pm Crash Isn't From Your Sleep

You eat clean. You hydrate. You take the magnesium.

So why does your head still feel like wet cement by mid-afternoon?

Check your snack drawer.

Most "healthy" beef sticks are quietly working against you — hydrogenated oils, MSG, and inflammatory seed oils linked to fatigue, mood dips, and the exact foggy thinking you've been blaming on bad sleep. Your gut takes the hit first. And since roughly 90% of your serotonin is made there, your brain feels it next.

That's why we started recommending Paleovalley's 100% Grass Fed Beef Sticks.

Naturally fermented (real probiotics — the kind that survive your stomach acid), made from beef raised on regenerative American family farms. No sugar. No MSG. No nitrates. No soy. No seed oils. Just 6g of slow-burning protein that keeps blood sugar steady and your head clear from your 9am meeting through dinner.

Why Daily Wellness readers are switching:

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P.S. Keep a stash in your bag, your car, and your desk drawer. The 3pm version of you will thank the 9am version of you.

*The sponsors featured in our newsletter have been carefully vetted and approved by our team, as we only partner with organizations whose products or services align with our mission to support your mental wellbeing. We personally review each partner to ensure they offer genuine value and can positively impact your life, and we'll never promote anything we wouldn't use ourselves. Your trust is our priority, so if you ever have questions about our partners or feedback about your experience, please reach out to us directly.

ADHD Brains Slip Into Sleep-Like States While Awake

Read the Study

The Research: Researchers at Monash University measured sleep-like brain activity in adults with ADHD and neurotypical adults during a sustained attention task.

People with ADHD experienced more frequent episodes of sleep-like brain activity while awake, linked directly to more attention lapses, more errors, slower reactions, and greater feelings of sleepiness.

Why It Matters: When someone with ADHD loses focus or makes careless errors, the assumption is usually that they're not trying hard enough. This research points to something else: their brain is briefly entering a sleep-like state while they're fully awake.

You can't willpower your way out of a brain state shift. The lapse isn't a choice. It's also why ADHD symptoms tend to get worse during boring or repetitive tasks. Understimulating work gives the brain less reason to stay alert.

Try It Today: Adding stimulation during monotonous work isn't procrastination. Background music, movement breaks, standing while working, these give the brain enough input to stay alert. Breaking long tasks into shorter chunks helps too, since sleep-like activity builds up over sustained attention.

And if you feel tired despite sleeping enough, that fatigue may be coming from the brain repeatedly entering sleep-like states during the day.

I can show up today as exactly who I am, not a quieter or more palatable version of myself, because the ways I am different from what the world expects are not deficits to be corrected. They are simply part of how I'm built.

Think of one way that being different from the people around you has given you a perspective, a skill, or a way of seeing that someone who fits the mold more easily might never have developed.

It's okay to stop translating yourself into a version that's easier for others to receive. You were not built wrong. You were built differently, and that is not the same thing.

Write down one way you are different from what your environment, family, or culture expected of you. Then write this underneath it: this is not a flaw. It's a feature I've been taught to apologize for. You don't have to celebrate it today if that feels like too much. Just practice not calling it a problem.

"The Birthday Nobody Remembered and How I Handled It"

Shared by Aiden

Last year, I woke up on my birthday and checked my phone. There were no texts or calls. I figured people were sleeping in or would reach out later.

By noon, still nothing from anybody. Not my parents, not my siblings, not even my best friend. My social media didn't have birthday notifications turned on, so that explained most people. But my family? My close friends? They knew.

I spent the whole day waiting. Kept checking my phone. Considered posting something just so people would realize, but that felt pathetic. Like I was forcing people to acknowledge me.

By evening, I was sitting alone in my apartment with no plans and no messages. I ordered pizza and sat there trying not to cry about something that felt stupid to be upset about. It's just a birthday. I'm a grown adult. But it hurt. It felt like I could disappear and nobody would notice.

Around 9 PM, my mom called. She'd been at a work thing all day and just realized. My best friend texted an hour later, with the same kind of reasoning. Forgot, so sorry, let's celebrate soon. I said it was fine. I was lying.

Here's what I took from it: people forget things. It doesn't mean they don't care. But if a birthday matters to you, it's okay to say so, it’s okay to remind people. It's not pathetic to want to be acknowledged. This year, I'm not waiting around hoping. I'm planning something and inviting people.

Share Your Story

Have a mental health journey you'd like to share with our community? Reply back to this email. All submissions are anonymized and edited for length with your approval before publication. Each published story receives a $10 donation to the mental health charity of your choice.

Evening Reset: Notice, Write, Settle

Picture a tree growing at an angle on a hillside, bent by years of wind into a shape no other tree around it shares. It doesn't grow straight the way trees in flat ground do. But it is no less rooted, no less alive, no less essential to the hillside it anchors. Its particular shape is the result of everything it has lived through. Tonight, let yourself be that tree, shaped by your own conditions, rooted in your own ground, not lesser for growing the way you grew.

Spend three minutes writing: Where have I been treating my differences as something to overcome rather than something to understand, and what would change if I approached them with curiosity instead of correction?

Close your notebook and ask yourself: Where did I mask or minimize something true about myself today to make others more comfortable? When did my difference turn out to be exactly what was needed? What is one thing about how I'm wired that I could hold with a little more respect tomorrow than I did today?

"I am different, not less." — Temple Grandin

Different was never the same as less. That equation was always wrong.

Book: How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe

Read: How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe

Jessica McCabe spent years losing things, failing to finish projects, and feeling like she was working harder than everyone around her while still falling behind. After hitting rock bottom at thirty-two, she went looking for what actually works for ADHD brains and built a whole approach around it. The core idea is simple: stop trying to fix your brain and start working with how it actually functions. The book covers practical strategies like putting goals somewhere visible, managing less so you can do more, building a realistic sense of how long things actually take, and learning to name emotions before they take over. Written by someone with ADHD for people with ADHD, it's designed to be accessible, shame-free, and actually readable if long books aren't your thing.

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Coming Monday: Sound you can't hear might be making you uneasy. Infrasound below 20 Hz raises cortisol and increases irritability without you ever consciously detecting it.

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