ADHD and the Juice Obsession

Why We Need Things to Feel Electric to Engage

May 03, 2025

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I call it the juice. That electric, visceral spark that makes something feel urgent, alive, magnetic. The kind of charge that kicks my brain into gear and reminds me I’m here. But the term didn’t come from a neuroscience textbook. It came from my Grandad.

He used to refer to petrol as “juice.” I remember sitting beside him on long drives as a child, him muttering things like, “Let’s hope we’ve got enough juice to get up this hill.” And it stuck. That tension—between running on empty and chasing the next burst of energy—felt so familiar. Looking back, I wonder now if he had ADHD too. He never filled up the tank until the warning light had practically begged him. I recognise that pattern in myself and in so many of my clients: waiting until the very last second, not out of laziness, but because the urgency finally gives us enough fuel to act.

ADHD runs in families. It’s genetically linked, and while it often gets missed in older generations, the patterns leave traces. My Grandad may not have known the word for it, but I suspect he knew the feeling—the constant search for something to make the moment matter.

So when I say we’re chasing the juice, I don’t just mean stimulation. I mean that thing that says: Yes, now. Let’s go.

That particular kind of pull that happens in the ADHD brain. A spark. A hit. A sense that this thing, right now, has energy. It’s what I’ve come to call the juice—that electric, visceral charge that makes something feel real, alive, worth caring about. It’s not a want. It’s a need. Without it, many of us feel foggy, restless, vaguely disconnected from ourselves. With it, we come alive.

So why are our brains are so thirsty for the juice?

The Dopamine Landscape: Why We Crave Charge

ADHD is often described as a dopamine deficiency condition, but that’s a bit simplistic. It’s not that we don’t have dopamine—it’s that our dopamine transmission system is inefficient. That means we need stronger, more emotionally engaging stimuli to experience the same level of satisfaction or focus that others might get from something routine or neutral.

So we chase the juice.

The new idea at midnight that has to be outlined before morning.
The deep 3am voice note to a friend after a surge of insight.
The spontaneous project that lights us up… even if it derails everything else.

It’s not impulsivity. It’s our neurochemistry trying to feel something real enough to stick.

Neuroscientifically, this ties to the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, which plays a central role in motivation, reward anticipation, and emotional drive. In ADHD, this pathway often underperforms under typical circumstances—so the brain turns to novelty, urgency, risk, or intimacy to spark it into action.

Why “Boring” Feels Like Pain

For many ADHDers, boredom isn’t neutral—it’s distressing. In fMRI studies, people with ADHD show increased activity in brain regions associated with distress and avoidance when exposed to low-stimulation tasks (e.g., monotony, repetition, detail work).

What might feel like calm to a neurotypical brain can feel like psychological suffocation to us. And so we seek friction, not because we like chaos, but because our brains are trying to regulate.

The Nervous System Angle: Juice = State Shift

Here’s where it gets deeper.

When the brain doesn’t register enough stimulation to activate engagement, the nervous system can enter a kind of freeze-light—not full shutdown, but not alive either. This in-between state is what I often hear clients describe as “floating,” “stuck,” or “dead behind the eyes.”

The juice gives us a state shift. A jolt of energy. A clear sense of self. Suddenly, we’re in it.

This is why people with ADHD might:

Crave intense conversations.
Interrupt with excitement.
Confess something vulnerable out of the blue.
Need music, coffee, or movement to feel ready.

We’re not being dramatic. We’re trying to enter our bodies.

When Juice Becomes a Trap

The shadow side of this pattern is that we can begin to conflate emotional intensity with aliveness. And when that happens, we may:

Sabotage stable relationships for something that feels more charged.
Quit a job or burn down a project just to feel a fresh start.
Confuse anxiety or urgency for meaning.

This is especially true in relationships. I've seen it in clients who only feel secure when there's drama, or who interpret emotional calm as disconnection. I've felt it myself—reaching for connection with people who activated something in me, even when it wasn't healthy.

Without enough internal juice, we sometimes turn to chaos to create it externally.

So What’s the Antidote?

The goal isn’t to eliminate our need for stimulation—it’s to make friends with it, to channel it, and to learn what kind of juice actually nourishes us.

Here are some practices I use and share with clients:

1. Map Your Real Juice vs. False Fire

Step 1: Reflect on recent activities that felt energising, expansive, or calming. These are your “real juice” sources. Write them down.
Step 2: Contrast them with activities that gave you a high but left you drained, anxious, or guilty afterwards. These are signs of “false fire.”
Step 3: Ask yourself: Was I grounded or frantic during that task? Did it nourish me or leave me depleted?
Step 4: Create two columns—“Real Juice” and “False Fire”—and start mapping what falls where. This helps you become aware of patterns that support or sabotage your nervous system.

2. Build Stimulation Routines

Step 1: Choose a few sensory inputs that you enjoy—such as music, lighting, or movement.
Step 2: Start your day with 5–10 minutes of sensory activation—e.g., play upbeat music, open the blinds for light exposure, or stretch.
Step 3: Before any dull or mentally taxing task, “prime” your nervous system—put on a scent you like, do a few jumping jacks, or use a coloured light.
Step 4: Repeat this consistently. Over time, your brain starts linking stimulation with readiness and productivity.

3. Create Micro-Charge Moments

Step 1: Identify common routines that feel flat (e.g., replying to emails, writing reports).
Step 2: Inject small shifts—use voice notes instead of typing, change your scenery, or light a candle at your desk.
Step 3: Let yourself feel something during the task—add humour, vulnerability, or creativity.
Step 4: Notice how novelty and emotional expression sustain energy without needing chaos.

4. Use Embodied Anchors

Step 1: Choose one or two body-based tools: e.g., Emotional Freedom Technique tapping, cold face splashes, shaking, dancing, or humming.
Step 2: Schedule short regulation check-ins—e.g., every 90 minutes, take 3–5 minutes to use one of these tools.
Step 3: Don’t wait until overwhelm hits. Instead, proactively use these practices to stay in balance.
Step 4: Track how your body feels before and after. These anchors help access your “real juice” by gently summoning presence and regulation.

The ADHD brain doesn’t want drama—it wants connection. It doesn’t need chaos—it needs vitality. Juice is what reminds us we’re here. But the trick is learning to tell the difference between what energises and what erodes.

There’s a quiet kind of thrill that comes not from chasing intensity, but from creating it intentionally. The soft buzz of a morning playlist, the charge in sharing something real with someone safe, the sparkle in a task made playful just enough to spark engagement. This is what sustainable juice feels like—less like lightning, more like firelight.

And maybe the most radical act is not just following the spark, but building a life that feeds it regularly, so we’re not always running on empty and searching for the next hill to climb.

Because it’s not wrong to want things to feel alive. It’s just time we stopped burning out to get there.

Paid subscribers can scroll down to the Rewire Your Stress Response: An EFT (Tapping) Toolkit for Resetting the Nervous System

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