

S5 E16 - Untangling ADHD: Sports, Athletes & The Pressure to Be Perfect with Dr. Josephine Perry
🎧 ADHD in sport | performance anxiety | RED-S | perfectionism | coaching ADHD athletes
What happens when you’re great at something… but still don’t believe you are?
This week on ADHD Untangled, I’m joined by the brilliant Dr. Josephine Perry — sports psychologist, author of ADHD and Sport: Strategies for Success, and someone who knows how to bring the science to life without making it dry or clinical.
In this real, down-to-earth chat, we untangle:
- Why ADHD is so common in elite sport (and how many coaches still miss it)
- The link between ADHD, perfectionism, and performance anxiety
- What happens when our strengths (like hyperfocus and risk-taking) start to work against us
- RED-S, eating disorders, and how ADHD brains can get trapped in overtraining and under-fuelling
- Why punishment in sport (like taking away playtime or shouting at latecomers) doesn’t work for ADHDers
- And how movement should never be the thing we’re punished withholding — it’s the very thing that helps us regulate and thrive.
We also get personal about our own experiences — from overexercising and obsessive routines to the relief that came from understanding our brains and finally choosing meaningful work.
Whether you’re a coach, athlete, parent or just someone trying to figure out how ADHD fits into your world — this one’s full of real talk, relatable stories, and practical ways to start doing things differently.
🎯 Coaches — if you want to support your ADHD athletes without burning them out... listen to this.
💥 Athletes — if you’re tired of being told to just “try harder” or “stop fidgeting”... this is for you.
🧠ADHDers — if you’ve ever felt like you’re playing life in hard mode... welcome home.
Come as you are. And let’s get untangled.
Follow Josephine! https://www.instagram.com/josephineperry76
🎧 Let’s get untangled
ADHD COACHING
IT’S TIME TO TURN YOUR ADHD STRUGGLES INTO STRENGTHS AND SHOW UP IN THE WAY YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO!
Have you ever felt the need to change who you are in order to fit in?
me too!
And I’ve spent so many years hectically running around this world trying to be everything and everyone else but my true myself
Party girl, house wife, rebel, addict, yogi…. To name a few
Hoping that eventually, something would work and something would fix me and make me normal…
None of it ever did.
But two things in my life that have allowed me to live a more meaningful and authentic life and that is Yoga & My ADHD Diagnosis, which is why I am on a Mission to support as many individuals with ADHD to turn their struggle into strength with ADHD through Movement & ADHD Coaching.
Find out more about my coaching & training programmes below!
1-1 Coaching with Rosie
ADHD Certified Trainings
https://academy1.untangledco.com/home-page
The ADHD Movement Group Coaching
@adhd_untangled
untangledco.com