We built a self-care space to battle burnout. Here's what we included.

Hello brains. Welcome to my charging station where I go when I need to recharge. I'll show you around and at the end of the video I'll explain why this is the key to it all. Come on in.

I'm still very excited. This is still very new to me that I can like walk in here because the first thing that I did to create this charging station for myself was to make space for it. I partnered with Cass from Clutterbug to tackle our doom room. There was so much clutter in here. It was a mess. You can see that video here. But that's not the point of this video.

video is I am convinced now that everyone with ADHD or autism or both should have a charging station. Anybody who gets depleted on a regular basis and needs to recharge should have a charging station. We have charging stations for our phones. literally everything else that runs out of batteries. like why not a charging station for ourselves? So yeah, first we

made space for it. One of the things that we had to do to make space for it is get rid of anything that like would make it so we can't walk in here, right? But Cass took it a step further and she had us get rid of everything that was a project basically like everything that we would look at and be like, I need to take care of that. I have not taken care of that yet. Which was a lot of things. So, I'm really happy to say that this room is now free of unfinished projects and it's a place where my partner and I can go to recharge. — So, you know, it's been a couple weeks, actually more than a couple weeks since we got this space finished and I had some space, some time to actually recharge. And this space has been amazing. This space is awesome. This is really becoming a sanctuary in here. — Once we took this space back from the clutter, this was the space we had. And so, this is the space we used. Um, if I

did not have an extra room to do it, I might have put together a backpack as a charging station or a corner of a room. And that's my charging station. Because we had an entire room, I'm really excited at all of the different chargers I was able to put in my charging station. So, let me show you what those were. So, a couple questions that we thought of when considering our charging station and how to set it up for ourselves in terms of choosing chargers. Um, it was both like, how long do we have to recharge and what type of recharging do we need? We're both really, really busy right now and we have a young child. So, I'll speak for myself. I needed chargers that if I dipped in and only had five minutes to recharge, I could recharge in that five minutes. But, I also wanted something where if I did have a longer stretch of time, I could take advantage of that, too. Right now, that's a lot of physical recharging. I am physically depleted a lot as a mom of a very young child who I am still breastfeeding. I am dehydrated. I am exhausted. Um, my body hurts. For Rough, it's more mental recharging that he needs. He needs to be able to turn his brain off. That was one thing that we had to think about is like what types of chargers do we need? And the second thing we had to think about is like where do we put them? I'll show you. I'll show you where I put mine and what those chargers are.

Calac shelf. This is definitely inspired by Cass. Basically, we measured and then went, "Hey, a Callax shelf would fit here. That would be great. " And we can put labels. Blankets. Blankets tend to There's something about a blanket. Like if I'm under a blanket, I immediately start recharging. Clean clothes. I am really like taxed actually by wearing pants. I like them. I like to wear pants. I like jeans, but there is a point at which I can't handle it. And I'm like, I need to know pants. And so I included clean clothes. I included like shorts and stuff. There's a duvet cuz I have a guest bed and so like I need to be able to sleep in here sometimes get more sleep. Heating pads. Heating pads are a really big thing for me. Massagey things. I used to be a massage therapist and one of the things that I learned when I was training is that a 1-hour massage has the same stress relieving benefits of a 2-day vacation. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that an hour of getting a massage recharges me faster than an hour of literally anything else. Unfortunately, like going to get a massage is um more time than I have right now. So, I have this like shiatsu massager. So, like if I have 5 minutes to recharge, this is what my go-to is. This is what's going to recharge me the fastest. I have other heating pads and stuff in there, but like that massage thing is the best. If I have more time to recharge, getting to do a puzzle like is a really great way for me to recharge. So, I have puzzles in here. If I have even more time, I've got my thousand piece puzzle. Haven't had this much time yet, but I look forward to the day. If I have a little physical energy, but I need like to mentally recharge, then being able to do some knitting or crocheting in this case is really helpful for me. I figured while I've got this charging station, I might as well like be able to charge anything. So, I've got like cables and batteries. I need to get more batteries. I go through so many batteries now that I have a child. Sensory. So, sometimes what helps me recharge is just to like let off a little stress. So, like having sensory things is really helpful. This guy, you see these? I don't want to do this. I'm going to mess up my hair. But these are like little massage balls. If what needs to recharge is my feet because they are hurting after a long day. This is amazing. Like it's like a tennis ball, but it works a little bit better where you step on it. They're called yoga tuneup balls. Oh, I'll show you actually one way to use them real quick. You just put them behind your shoulders. You just lean against the wall. This next one I didn't include originally, but then I did because I realized that sometimes I need to recharge and I have my baby around. So now I have a baby bin to keep her distracted so that I can recharge. baby card. She can touch things and learn words and she likes puppets. This is amazing. This keeps her busy. Like little baby Abacus. More baby stuff. She actually likes to climb into the entire bin. I also have some practical things in here. Like this is for dirty clothes because if I'm changing into clean clothes, I need a place to put the dirty clothes. So, I have a bin for that. And then when I need to do laundry or whatever, like I just take the whole bin upstairs. I didn't include a bin for snacks, although that is definitely something that can help with recharging. Food is important to help you recharge. Mostly because I eat with my kid and we are doing a pretty good job right now of having regular meals, especially since we're getting help from services like Every Plate. This episode is sponsored by Every Plate. Every Plate makes cooking easier on my executive function and my time because it does a lot of the steps for me. I just choose what looks good from their menu. And then Every Plate plans, shops for, and delivers all the ingredients right to my door. Even better, it's affordable. So, it's not just cheaper than takeout, it's cheaper than groceries. I'll share my promo code in a sec, but the cool thing is that Every Plate is under $7 per meal after the exclusive offer ends. I made spiced chickpea rice bowls. I've been wanting to try more vegetarian dishes. It's really flavorful. It's really good, and I would be proud to serve this to my family. Something I like about every recipe that I've tried so far is that I've learned new skills. I learned how to cook rice in a pot. make a sauce. It's a lot easier than I thought. So, I feel like it's not just making it easier for me to feed myself and my family right now. It'll also make it easier in the future as well because I'm building up the skills that I need to be able to do that. And the recipe cards are really ADHD friendly. They make it clear what ingredients they've sent you, what ingredients you're going to need on hand. Things like cooking oil, salt, pepper, butter. Once I needed mayonnaise, I was like, "Do we have mayonnaise? " Easily able to check. They have pictures for the different steps. Some of the words are bolded, so if it's something that you really need to be aware of, they bold it. They color code it. This is like super helpful. I found it really error tolerant. There are definitely times where in a recipe that I found online, I would have made a mistake. Um, and in this case, I didn't. It turned out amazingly. Every Plate has delicious meals that truly make your life easier. You can try it by using my code howto ADHDYT50@ everyplate. com for 50% off your first box and 10% off for a month or you can click on my link in the description below. Pillows. Pillow cases are already on the pillows. And oh, I'm really proud of this sheets. I labeled them so that I don't have to think about it. I'm all about efficiency in here. Bolster. One of the things that does help me recharge is restorative yoga. So, if I have time to do it, I probably don't want to mess with bins or whatever. Again, I want to make it like fast and easy. So, I can just grab these and go. My yoga mat's usually in here. It is currently in the car. I might need an extra yoga mat so that I don't leave it in the car and then not have it. But I do have an exercise mat and exercise equipment. Exercise equipment might seem like a weird thing to have in a charging station, but hear me out. I have a lot of physical demands on me, which is why I'm so physically depleted right now, carrying my daughter up and downstairs and nursing and all of these things. Working out makes it so that it doesn't take as much energy. if I am stronger, if I have better endurance, I'm not going to run out of batteries as quickly if I have greater endurance because I'm also nursing. Like, I feel like I drink a lake a day. I'm constantly dehydrated. Um, I have a water station as well. This is part of my sensory thing, my yoga swing. So, some days what I need to do to recharge is just to flip upside down. So, like that helps with that or just swing a little bit. So, yeah, this is my charging station.

For me, it's turning off my brain because of what I do for a living. It's very cognitively active and I just want to shut off my brain for a while. And so, I get to do that in different ways depending on how much time I have. If I've got a lot of time, the gaming computer or I can work on creative projects or whatever. If you know this may be a 8 hour session of No Man's Sky or Stardw Valley or whatever, I just I get to have fun. But if I only have a little bit of time, it's a quiet space, I can do some mindfulness, chill out, maybe do some light movement or whatever, or I can go take a shower cuz that's nice and calming, especially if I put some nice oils and soaps and it smells really great. It's fantastic. But if I have very little time, we have the closet. I can just roll that and it's so silent. Often at the end of a week, I'll buy some booster packs of magic. And I will just open them, catalog them, and sort them into their respective bins. And it just it's calming and chill for me to have 15, 20 minutes to just do that. Stereotype about autism, repetitive counting, sorting tasks. But, you know, in my case, it's true. I will admit I have a weird fascination with rolling this thing in and out because the casters are so awesome. For those of you who understand home improvement stuff, you know there is a real big difference between cheap casters and good casters. And these are good casters. So, I get to just roll that in and out and it just feels weirdly satisfying. And I get to just put it away. Our home is open design, very modern and cool. But what that means is aside from the doors to the house and the bathroom doors, this is the only door in the house. Being able to close it and lock it if people see

the door closed and it doesn't immediately move, then I'm in here trying to recharge. And that way I can be the best partner I can be, the best dad I can be, cuz you know, nobody gets water from an empty well. It's been funny like since creating this charging station, like people naturally gravitate toward it. We end up hanging out in here a lot and like if we have guests over, this is kind of the first place everybody gravitates toward. Have you ever like tried plugging in

your phone and like half an hour later um you're like, "How is it still only at 3%. " And it's because it keeps charging, not charging, not charging. So, one of the things that I thought about with my charging station is how do I get to stay charging? like not have to be interrupted um and start depleting myself in the middle of trying to recharge? A couple ways. One is turning my phone to do not disturb, right? Cuz like if I'm in here and I'm trying to chill and I pick up my phone and like I keep getting notifications and dings and like people are texting me and I'm having to respond to things and I'm checking my Slack email. Well, now I'm doing work. I'm not recharging. I've started doing something that I used to use only as a productivity tool, but I'm realizing is actually more important when you're going to relax, which is the concept of the parking lot. Let's say you're sitting down to write a paper or something. And your brain's like, "Oh, shoot. Like, I got to call Steve and I got to order groceries and oh, right, like I got to fill out that paperwork for that therapist I'm supposed to start with on when is that? Thursday. Uh, I got to remember to do that. " So, all of the things that pop into your brain that you need to do, park them. Have a parking lot. have a place where you just write them down and you're like, "Cool. I said I was going to work on this thing. I'm not going to do this thing that just popped into my brain. Instead, I'm going to write it down and when I get to the end of my pomodoro or meeting workday, whatever, then I'm going to look at it and see if this is actually something that needs to be dealt with right away. " When you've got nothing going on, like that is when prospective memory is the most likely to kick in. And prospective memory is basically your remembered stuff that you intended to do. So, I have a parking lot in here. This is my parking lot. So, if while I'm in this room, I think of other things that I need to do, I write them down instead of going to do them. And that has been gamechanging for me. Lock the door um so that people don't come in and interrupt you if you have a room like this. And by the way, a lock on the door can also double for some people as a visual cue. In every other room of this

house, cats put visual cues that it was time to do whatever there was to do in that room. It's like I know that my stuff is in here and that I can relax, but like I'm not getting the visual cue that it's time to. So Cass had one idea. She suggested that I do a mural, like a big mural in the back of the closet that makes me want to walk in. And I ended up finding this really cool one that matches my painting here. I have used this for a long time as like my litmus test for how bad shape am I in? because it's like one of these forced perspective things where if I look at that bridge and it's like it looks really janky and like it's falling apart, I'm like I'm not doing well. But if it looks fun and like I want to run across it or maybe do cartwheels, I'm like I'm okay. I'm It's like my way of checking in on my own battery because I can't always tell if I'm doing okay. So, I got a similar thing for the closet that like makes me feel like I want to walk on it. That was hard to do. That was a project. If you want to do a wall mural, like a peel and stick wall mural, may I recommend Easy Hang. You need some peel and stick helper or it's not going to stick to the walls. I learned that the hard way. It's amazing like how much of a difference it really makes to be able to look around and see a visual cue that it's time to relax. The problem is that's in my closet, right? Like my closet now looks amazing. It's a very clear visual cue to relax. But when I come into this room, there wasn't really a good visual cue. And so I took some inspiration from places that are literally designed to help you relax, like hotels and spas. And I got a waffle bathrobe from IKEA. And I brought my soft slippers in. I decided to add some plants and some soft lighting. Can we get some soft lighting in here? Better already. I'm just I'm not going to finish the video. I'm like, "Oh, wait. No. I promised you I would tell you about the lighting. " So, to me, that was the most important thing in this space is that when I opened the door to it, I had the cue to relax. And this light ended up kind of being the cornerstone. Soft lighting. It's not the like big intense overhead light. It's the kind of light that tells me it's time to like curl up and read a book. And so now when I open this door, like that's what I see. Unfortunately, uh I relax so immediately that I forgot that those are actually live plants that I need to water. So, there is such a thing maybe as being too relaxed. I don't know. The plants are nice. I'm going to keep the plants. I did water them. They're doing better now. But maybe I need a cue that I should water my plants. So, yeah, that's my charging station. Now that we have this nice lighting and I'm getting all these cues that it's time to relax, I want to actually relax. Might be time to no pants. I'm going to go get some comfy shorts on and relax. But

before I do, to recap, if you want to try creating your own charging station, here are the steps that we followed. And you don't have to have a whole room for it. You can do it in whatever space you have available to you. One, clear the space. Make sure that there is room for your chargers to exist and you get rid of any like project like I need to do this thing type cues. Two, figure out some chargers, different types of chargers depending on what needs to be recharged as well as how long you have to recharge. Three, figure out how to stay recharging. And that's going to depend on you what your personal needs are. Some people can recharge with their phone on. I can't. Like I need mine on do not disturb. and four, add visual cues that it's time to relax. I hope this was helpful. Thank you to my brain advocates and all my Patreon brains for supporting the work that we do and making it so that hopefully we live better lives as people with ADHD. We're not just more productive, we're healthier, we're more relaxed, we are enjoying our lives a little bit more as well. If you like this, if it inspired some ideas for you, um please put a comment below. Um let us know what you liked about this video or if you have any ideas for what would help you recharge. Like, subscribe, click all the things, and I will see you next video. Bye, brains.