Your ADHD didn't
get worse.
Your hormones changed.
A new book from Dr. Jolene Brighten, author of Beyond the Pill and Is This Normal? Written for every woman who's been told her ADHD is just anxiety, burnout, or bad time management.
- Your ADHD symptoms got worse in your late 30s and no one could tell you why.
- The week before your period, you can't finish a sentence, let alone a project.
- You got diagnosed with anxiety, depression, or burnout before anyone looked at ADHD.
- You mask so well at work that no one believes you're struggling until you crash at home.
- Perimenopause hit and your focus, memory, and mood fell off a cliff.
Every hormonal transition you navigate without this information is another round of symptoms that get dismissed, misattributed, or managed with the wrong tools.
It's not you. It's your hormones. And there's a reason no one told you.
I've trusted and referred people to Dr. Jolene Brighten for years. It's rare to find someone who truly understands, has lived it, and can navigate complex health systems with this level of clarity. Within her is a medicine woman, a warrior with a heart for collective good. This book is timely and deeply needed for ADHD women and girls, who are so often misunderstood and dismissed. Jolene bridges the gap between brain and body, drawing on her clinical and functional work to show the interconnectedness of hormones and health across significant hormonal transitions.
Dr. Jolene Brighten brings a timely, much-needed lens to women’s brain health, connecting hormones, immunity, and cognition in a way that many women will recognize immediately. With clarity and warmth, she speaks to the real shifts in mood, focus, and mental clarity that can arise across hormonal transitions, and offers a supportive path forward for anyone seeking better answers.
Why does ADHD feel manageable one week and then impossible the next? For millions of women, the answer has been hiding in plain sight. In this illuminating book, Dr. Jolene Brighten uncovers the overlooked connection between hormones and the ADHD brain, explaining why symptoms intensify across the cycle, after childbirth, and during perimenopause. Blending rigorous science with real-world insight, she offers women something they’ve long been denied: a framework that makes their experience make sense and an actionable path forward to gain greater stability, clarity, and control of their symptoms.
You are part of something bigger
This is not just a book that will help you work with your hormones. It is a chance to be part of something bigger: a growing movement of women who are done blaming themselves for struggles that were never properly studied, recognized, or treated in women.
When enough women show up early, momentum builds. And momentum changes what gets funded, what gets covered, what gets researched, and what kinds of stories are finally taken seriously.
If you have ever thought, Why does everything feel harder for me than it seems to for everyone else? If you have ever felt like you can do hard things but not basic things, like you are always behind, always overwhelmed, always trying harder than anyone realizes just to keep up, this is for you.
In supporting this book, you are helping send a message that has been overdue for far too long: women with ADHD are real, our struggles are real, and for too long we have been given care built around how ADHD shows up in boys, then expected to squeeze ourselves into a model that was never designed for our lives, our bodies, or our needs.
For too long, women have been told their symptoms were stress, anxiety, personality flaws, or a failure to get it together. We were told to try harder. Get a planner. Be more organized. Be less emotional. Be less messy. Be easier to handle.
But women with ADHD were not failing.
We were being failed.
- Failed by a medical system that was not built to recognize how ADHD actually shows up in women.
- Failed by years of research centered on boys.
- Failed by a culture that turned a neurodevelopmental condition into a character judgment.
What so many women needed was never more shame. They needed recognition, support, accommodations, and care that actually fit their lives.
That is why your pre-order matters.
Because every early order helps this message travel farther. It helps this book reach more women who are still wondering why they cannot stay on top of things, why everything feels harder than it should, why they look fine on the outside but feel like they are barely holding it together underneath.
It helps more women see themselves sooner, seek help sooner, and get answers sooner. It helps build the kind of momentum that is harder for the medical system to ignore and harder for our culture to dismiss.
This is more than a book.
It is about helping create a world where fewer women spend years believing they are lazy, dramatic, disorganized, too sensitive, too much, or simply bad at life, when what they really needed was to be understood and supported.
Your pre-order helps make that change louder, more visible, and harder to push aside.
And when enough women move together, people pay attention.
That is how change starts.
Not when we wait quietly to be taken seriously. When we show up and make it impossible not to.
So, let's be "too loud," and let's talk "too much" about the women who have been waiting far too long to be seen, understood, and properly cared for.
Because as an AuDHD woman, I am not waiting any longer for the world to decide we matter.
We matter now.
And together, we will help build the change women everywhere need, so future generations are met with recognition instead of shame, support instead of criticism, and answers instead of confusion.
So that no other little girl has to sit through a parent-teacher conference and hear, "She's smart, but…"
ADHD isn't static.
Your hormones are driving it.
Estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol don't just affect your cycle. They affect dopamine, norepinephrine, and the executive function networks your ADHD brain already taxes. When those hormones fluctuate, and they fluctuate every month and again during pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause, your ADHD symptoms fluctuate with them.
Women get diagnosed late, misdiagnosed, or undertreated because the hormonal dimension has been ignored. Most ADHD research was done on boys. Most ADHD medication studies were done on men. The advice you've been given assumes a brain that doesn't cycle.
I wrote this book to give you the framework I use with my patients. I call it the ADHD-Hormone Profile. It helps you identify which hormonal system is driving your symptoms so you can work with your biology instead of fighting it.
What you'll finally understand
-
01
Your ADHD-Hormone Profile
A framework to identify which hormonal system is driving your specific symptoms. No more guessing why this month feels impossible and last month was fine.
-
02
What to eat when your hormones are the problem
A 14-day reset meal plan built for the neurodivergent nervous system, not a generic anti-inflammatory template.
-
03
Whether HRT is right for your neurodivergent brain
The research, the options, and the conversation to have with your doctor, even if they've never considered the question.
-
04
Movement and sleep that work with your ADHD
Protocols built around how ADHD brains actually function, not how they're supposed to.
-
05
Tools to stop the emotional flooding before it starts
Nervous system regulation grounded in clinical research, not willpower and affirmations.
Pre-Order from the retailer of your choice
Pre-ordering from the retailer that works for you helps this book reach more women. Choosing "Local Bookstore" supports an independent shop near you through Bookshop.org.
Dr. Jolene Brighten
From the author of the books that changed how women understand their bodies
Is This Normal? and Beyond the Pill rewrote how hundreds of thousands of women understand their hormones. Here's what readers are saying.
YOU HAVE TO GET THIS BOOK
Whether you are on birth control, getting off birth control, considering birth control or have ever taken birth control: I 100% recommend you getting this book and reading (and give a copy to your daughter)! I seriously learned so much and I wish I would of read this years ago!
This is all the answers I have been worried and curious about over the years of taking birth control that my doctor never gave me answers to!
She talks all about hormones and birth control and how they effect everything in your body (gut health, brain, thyroid, liver, etc). She explains all the symptoms people experience, what they mean, and how to fix them! She isn’t “pro” using birth control, but she explains the cold hard facts. And what I like is she doesn’t represent anyone who still wants to use birth control after learning about it, and she explains how to support your body while on it. Knowledge is power! She explains how to support your body ON birth control, OFF birth control and coming off birth control!
Everything You Needed to Know
Is This Normal is chock full of everything you wished you knew about your body, and it's never too late to learn! The book answers all the questions we didn't know were or were not normal about our bodies and provides scientific education, checklists, quizzes, and practical steps to investigate and improve your bodily woes. The patient stories bring a sense of relatability to know that we are not alone. Dr. Brighten shares her expertise using plain English for us non-medical readers and adds her unique brand of humor and personality that makes learning more fun! Because of Dr. Brighten sharing her expertise, I have been able to grab control of my health and advocate for myself!
This book is so much more than just about birth control. It gives you protocols for staying healthy while you are on the pill. Or if like me you’re at the age you need to come off the pill how to best support your hormone balance. There is info on thyroid issues, gut health, acne, the lowdown on hormones and so much more. It gives you the tools to take back control of your health. I’m buying copies for friends and my own doctor. It’s that good. Get yours today. Dr Brighten is amazing!!
Advance praise for ADHD and Women
Advance copies go out to clinicians, authors, and creators in the ADHD and women's health community this summer. Check back — the early praise will land here as it comes in.
Questions, answered
When will my book ship?
Can I pre-order if I'm outside the US?
Is there an audiobook or e-book?
Can I buy copies for my clinic, team, event, or book club?
Is this book for me if I've never been diagnosed with ADHD?
What if I've already read Is This Normal? or Beyond the Pill?
Buying 10+ copies for your team, clinic, event, or book club?
Bulk orders through our special-orders partner come with volume pricing, optional inscribed copies, and delivery to your venue or distribution list. Every bulk copy ships through an approved bookseller, which means it counts toward the book's first-week sales.
Pre-order ADHD and Women before October 6
There's a woman in your life who has spent years wondering if she's just broken. Maybe it's you. She isn't broken, and she deserves to know why. Pre-order now and help me put this book in her hands.
Pre-Order Now