Weather Forecasting, ADHD and Emotional Regulation

Have you ever seen those Japanese prank videos where someone’s just walking along, minding their business, and suddenly, a whole crowd shows up out of nowhere, swarming them from both sides? The person panics, tries to move this way and that, boxed in with no exit, and certainly no time to process what just happened.

Sometimes, I imagine my emotions doing that.

I’m going about my day… and then, overwhelmingly… emotions flood in from all directions. Whether it’s frustration, anxiety, anger, sadness, or a mix of them all — loud and uninvited — they fill my body and mind before I can even throw up a hand to call time out. One moment the sky is clear, and then suddenly… an emotional storm breaks out.

Oh yes, this can happen with positive emotions too, like joy, excitement, awe. You know those dog-head-tilt videos that melt away every negative feeling in an instant? Wait… why were we angry again?

For many ADHDers, these shifts aren’t gradual. They can happen at a snap of a finger. One clear blue morning becomes thunderous and flooded before we even sense the clouds forming. Scientists actually call this “emotional flooding.” One message left on “read.” One awkward comment in a meeting. One tiny misplaced detail. And boom — downpour.

If this feels familiar and you have ADHD… welcome! you’re in good company.

Emotional Regulation, Executive Function and Adult ADHD

Over the past decade, research has confirmed what many of us already knew deep in our bones: that ADHD isn’t just about attention. It’s also about the shadowy figure lurking behind the scenes, competing to call the shots, affecting our whole body without warning — our emotions (Barkley, 2015; Soler-Gutiérrez et al, 2023).

We live in emotional fast lanes, where the brakes don’t always work, the steering can be delayed, and the roads are sometimes foggy. What society often labels as “too sensitive,” “overreacting,” or “immature” is actually a neurological difference in how our brains process, regulate, and recover from emotions.

A well known buzz word to describe this phenomenon is emotional dysregulation. And while that can sound pathological and heavy, maybe it’s not about what’s broken. Maybe our emotional weather system is just more responsive, quick to shift with changes in pressure, sensitive to subtleties others might miss.

And that sensitive nature? It’s part of what makes us creative, intuitive, and deeply aware.

Emotional regulation relies heavily on executive functions, which is the brain’s command center for focus, planning, memory, and impulse control. These systems already work differently in ADHD, which means emotional triggers can overwhelm and flood the system before we even know what’s happening.

In real life, emotional dysregulation might look like:

• Big reactions to “small” things

• Getting hijacked mid-task by a wave of feeling

• Not being able to calm down, no matter how much we want to

• Saying or doing something we regret, then spiralling into shame

• Feeling shut down during conflict

• Processing everything hours later, when it’s “too late”

This isn’t a flaw in our character.

It’s not about willpower.

It’s how our brain is wired.

Recent studies (Soler‑Gutiérrez et al, 2023; Albesisi & Overton, 2023) estimate that 34–70% of adults with ADHD experience emotional regulation difficulties, which are often tied to reduced quality of life, strained relationships, and chronic overwhelm.

You’re not making it up. You’re not exaggerating. You’re not broken.

What you can do is get curious. Below are a few research-backed ideas you can explore. As always, these aren’t prescriptions. Just gentle, adaptable experiments you can try, shift, or make your own.

We’ll start with ”forecasting” by noticing early emotional weather signals. Then explore anchors to support you during the eye of the emotional “storms”. And finally, we’ll touch on long-term practices to make the emotional climate more manageable over time.

Watching the Skies — Emotional Forecasting

Every storm has a rhythm. A shift in the wind. A sudden stillness. A heaviness in the air.

Our emotional world can work the same way too if we get curious. Forecasting means noticing the signs before the downpour. It’s not about controlling the weather. It’s about preparing for it by checking in, staying curious, and gently equipping yourself with what you need.

Here are a few forecasting experiments you can trial, adapt, and make your own:

• Forecast check-ins: Pause once or twice a day to notice your internal weather. What’s the atmosphere like? Clear, cloudy, rumbling? What sensations do you feel in your body? (Tension, restlessness, fatigue?) You can jot this down or just take a mental snapshot.

• Storm scale: When emotions start stirring, give the moment a number (0–10) or a color (green = calm, yellow = unsettled, red = overwhelmed). Then check again 10 minutes later. Did the storm pass? Is it still building? Has it shifted?

The goal here isn’t to stop the storms. It’s to become a weather-watcher. Someone who knows when to pause, when to grab a raincoat, when to rest, and when to ride it out.

Anchoring in the Eye of the Emotional Storm

Once the storm is already happening, when you’re in the thick of it, and forecasting has passed. Now it’s about anchoring: calming your nervous system enough to stay afloat while the winds whip around you.

These practices are about finding touch points or grounding in the chaos. They don’t make emotions disappear, but they might give you something to hold onto until the wave softens.

A few research-backed anchoring experiments to trial and adapt:

• Slow, long exhales: Studies show that slowing your breathing, especially focusing on extended exhales, tells your nervous system it’s safe to slow down (Balban et al, 2023). Try inhaling for 4, exhaling for 6, repeating this 3–5 times. You don’t have to get it perfect, just practicing breathing on purpose.

• Sensory grounding: A splash of cold water on the face, stepping outside to feel the air and change in surroundings, holding a textured object. Any of these sensory “interruptions” can help anchor us back to the present and out of spiralling thoughts.

• Thought-story check: Next time when you notice your brain telling you “This is all ruined”, “I’m failing”, pause. That’s a story. Write it down. Then write two other possible stories. You don’t have to believe them, just offer your brain options. ADHD brains often default to black-and-white or catastrophic thinking, and gently widening the lens can shift the storm’s intensity.

Not all storms can be stopped. But sometimes, with even the smallest anchor, riding them out differently can become possible.

Long-Term Climate Shifts

While storms will always come and go, over time we can build rhythms and supports that make our internal “emotional” climate feel steadier.

Here are a few long-term areas worth experimenting with:

• Mindful awareness: Even a few minutes a day of breath-based mindfulness or emotional noticing can build regulation capacity over time (Nordby et al, 2024). It doesn’t have to be silent meditation — just a few seconds of intentional noticing, a stroll through the block, a change in sensory experiences.

• Sleep and rest: We all know that poor sleep is strongly tied to greater emotional reactivity in ADHD (Soler-Gutiérrez et al, 2023). Try a one-week wind-down experiment: lights dimmed, make it cozy and comfortable for you, same bedtime, no-pressure journaling. Observe any shifts.

• Gentle movement: Exercise and rhythmic activities (like walking, yoga, or even dancing in your kitchen!… it doesn’t have to be intense) have been linked to improved emotional balance in ADHD. Try noticing whether moving your body changes the pace of the “emotional” winds.

Closing & Becoming a Weather-Watcher

Living with ADHD can feel like standing inside a flask of unpredictable weather. There are sudden storms, bright breaks of light, windy moods, flooded focus.

We don’t control the forecast, but we can learn to read the skies.

We can learn what helps, what grounds us, what softens the impact.

And over time, we might even come to trust our inner landscape more.

So what’s one small experiment you’d like to try this week?

Tracking your forecast? Pausing to breathe in the middle of a storm? Trying a new anchor, or changing how you tell the story?

Just remember:

Every observation is a form of self-kindness.

Every storm we ride out adds to our wisdom.

And slowly, steadily — we might find that the skies aren’t just survivable, but full of nuance, color, and beauty… the kind only our uniquely perceptive brain knows how to see. 🧠✨🌻

#adhdandemotionalregulation

References

Albesisi S, & Overton, PG. (2023). Relationship betwen adhd-like traits and emotion dysregulation in the adult general population. Advances In Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Advance online publication. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1007/s41252-023-00381-y

Balban MY, et al. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895

Barkley, RA. (2015). Emotional dysregulation is a core component of ADHD. In RA Barkley (Ed), Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment (4th ed.), 81-115. The Guilford Press.

Nordby ES, et al. (2024). A blended intervention targeting emotion dysregulation in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Development and feasibility study. JMIR Formative Research, 8:e53931. doi: 10.2196/53931

Soler-Gutiérrez AM, Pérez-González JC, & Mayas J. (2023). Evidence of emotional dysregulation as a core symptom of adult ADHD: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 18(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280131