I want to talk about cognitive offloading or Brain Dumping as we seem to hear a lot about from ADHD coaches. I’m going to post a piece my wife and co founder wrote to our university mentor as part of our effort to get a clinical study to be undertaken to back up what we think we already know, verbal brain dumping is beneficial to people experiencing overwhelm. I won’t post the entire peer reviewed essay my wife (Christina Forster) wrote but I’ll post an excerpt.

Speaking Aloud as an Externalisation Strategy for Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by persistent difficulties with attention regulation, working memory, executive functioning, and inhibitory control (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2022). Many individuals with ADHD develop compensatory strategies to manage cognitive overload, including writing lists, using digital reminders, and verbally expressing thoughts before they are forgotten. Although written “brain dumping” is commonly recommended, emerging evidence suggests that speaking thoughts aloud may offer unique cognitive benefits for some individuals with ADHD by reducing working memory demands, strengthening encoding, and supporting self-regulation.

One of the primary cognitive impairments associated with ADHD involves deficits in working memory and executive functioning. Executive functions enable individuals to organise information, prioritise tasks, inhibit distractions, and manipulate information held in working memory (Diamond, 2013). Because working memory capacity is often reduced in ADHD, internally maintaining multiple thoughts simultaneously can become cognitively overwhelming. Externalising thoughts through speech may temporarily reduce this cognitive load by transferring information from internal processing into the external environment, allowing attention to be redirected toward higher order thinking rather than remembering information.

A growing body of research supports the role of self-directed speech in executive functioning. Self-directed speech refers to talking to oneself either overtly or internally to guide behaviour, organise actions, and regulate attention. Benfield and Cole (2026) found that adults reporting higher levels of ADHD-like behaviours also reported significantly greater use of self-directed speech than individuals with fewer ADHD traits. Rather than representing maladaptive behaviour, the authors proposed that self-talk may function as a compensatory cognitive strategy that assists individuals in organising thoughts and maintaining task focus. These findings support the idea that verbalising thoughts is not merely a symptom associated with ADHD but may serve an adaptive self-regulatory purpose.

• This topic was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by DRay. Reason: formatting