Maladaptive Regulation: When Your Nervous System Tries to Help (and Hurts Instead)
How to reduce things like binge eating, scrolling and spending compulsively. WARNING: Talks of binge eating and disordered eating.
Ever found yourself scrolling, eating, shopping, or overthinking — even as a voice in your head says, “Stop doing this, it’s making it worse”?
That sense of being “out of control” isn’t a failure of willpower — it’s your body doing what it’s wired to do: seek relief, even if the relief makes things worse later.
I know I’ve been there with scrolling. I might be lying in bed thinking… I’m just going to scroll for a few minutes before bed (famous last words) and 2 hours later I’m watching a 10 step skin care routine of some random in Poughkeepsie.
I start realizing this is not helpful or even enjoyable, I’d like to put this down and go to sleep.. and I just can’t! I’ve been hooked.
Even worse is when I didn’t choose to start scrolling in the first place, on autopilot I’ve picked up my phone and here I am on TikTok and I don’t know how I got here.
(I will say this happens a lot less now but I’ve been there).
Why is this happening? Why can’t I choose to put the phone down or not pick it up?
When you’re dysregulated — anxious, restless, or overwhelmed — your nervous system will do anything it can to lower the tension.
It doesn’t care if the method is healthy. It just wants the discomfort to stop.
That’s why we scroll when we’re anxious, spend when we feel empty, or replay mistakes in our head to feel like we’re doing something about that embarrassing moment that is uncomfortable to think about.
These patterns are called maladaptive regulation — ways our system tries to self-soothe that only deepen the dysregulation over time.
It often goes like this:
Dysregulated → Do the thing to soothe → Feel relief → Shame or exhaustion → Feel worse → Repeat.
Scrolling is a common one but for years, my maladaptive regulation showed up as binge eating. I felt dysregulated in my body, I had some very all or nothing beliefs about food and weight and it all led to a system in fight or flight.
My body wasn’t just going to remain in fight or flight, it’ll do what it needs to do to calm itself and for me that resulted in going to the gas station and buying 3 bags of chips and 2 full sized chocolate bars and holing up in my room for the night.
Obviously this wasn’t helping, within 10 minutes I would feel way worse than I did before but it was the only way my system knew to cope (I also was a restricter and this of course added to the binge eating).
Later, my maladaptive regulation of choice (but not choice because these things aren’t conscious they are under our awareness) was rushing. If I was panicked and frantic enough it felt better, it felt like I was doing something about the fears and anxiety that was present (dysregualtion). It didn’t, it only ever made me feel worse.
But my conscious mind was not in on this whole charade. I didn’t know all of this was going on, I thought this was just the way I was.
I’m just addicted to food.
I’m just impatient and naturally in a rush.
When my conscious mind joined the party …
When I did become aware of dysregulation and what was going on, it opened a whole new door to solving problems that I thought were just who I was.
The goal isn’t to stop regulating and just white knuckle it, that never works. It is to start regulating on purpose (with your conscious mind leading the way).
For me this looked like:
Nervous system regulation: Slowing down and becoming familiar with what dysregulation felt like in my body
Thought and Belief regulation: Getting my beliefs about food and body out of black and white thinking and finding more peace and safety in balance.
Behavior regulation: I practiced acting in accordance with this belief shift, balanced and more sustainable. No more frantic go, go, go and then nothing. No more restrict and then binge.
This might sound oversimplified and that’s because it is. There is a lot of nuance, exploration and barriers to work through in all of these areas but it does work.
I have not binge ate for over 10 years and I know I never will again, it is gone.
I do not rush and that is not who I am, I am a sustainable entrepreneur who shows up every work day in a gentle and consistent way.
I still have ADHD and I am fully myself, I’m just have a nervous system that doesn’t think it’s always being chased by a bear.
Therefore I do not need binge eating, rushing, or scrolling like I used to.
This is possible for every ADHDer, and every person. If something feels compulsive (you have no choice in it) there is dysregulation present, and that is something we can work on!
The Typical ADHD Way
Most ADHDers are taught to manage symptoms with willpower, systems, or tools. But those don’t work if the nervous system is still trying to protect you by seeking unhelpful things to regulate you.
This week observe what maladaptive regulation is showing up for you, without judgement (I know that can be hard).
And when you are compulsively reaching for the food or your phone stop for even 5 seconds and ask, what is the dysregulation I’m feeling right now - what do you feel in your body? What are the thoughts and beliefs that are present right now?
This may shed a lot of light on what’s really going on - because it’s never about the food or the phone or the ruminating thoughts….
Want some next steps?
Option A — Free guide:
If this resonates, my free ADHD Regulation Guide will help you start recognizing dysregulation in real time — so you can start regulating on purpose.
Option B — Groups waitlist:
ADHD Regulation Groups are where we practice this together — learning to regulate on purpose, so you don’t need to keep using what hurts to feel better.