There is a specific week of the month where everything becomes harder. Not harder the way Monday is harder than Friday. A different kind of harder — where tasks that were manageable seven days ago now require effort that feels unreasonable, where you lose your keys three times before 10am. If you have ADHD, that week is not a coincidence. It is your dopamine system responding to a hormonal signal nobody told you about.

I have always had a lot of fears. And since a young age I have been adamant about overcoming them. Not tiptoeing around them. Collecting them. Every time I collect one — every time I do the thing and survive it — something happens that still astounds me. How easy the second time is. How there is almost literally no stopping me. I always thought this was a mindset. It is not a mindset. It is fear extinction — and the female brain is specifically, hormonally primed for it at particular points in the cycle. Here is the science behind the thing that has helped me most.