A self-exploration questionnaire for understanding your sensory preferences and how they shape your nervous system regulation, day to day. Includes practical tools and tips.
For women and gender diverse individuals 18+ · ADHD diagnosed, exploring, or simply curious about how your nervous system works
© 2026 ADHD and Her · Personal use only · Not for redistribution
Welcome. Before we dive in, a few things worth knowing so you can get the most from this experience.
This is an educational and self-exploration resource created by Shelley L'Green, an Occupational Therapist (AHPRA registered). It is designed to support self-awareness and understanding of sensory preferences in the context of ADHD and nervous system regulation.
It is not a clinical assessment, diagnostic tool, or substitute for professional advice. Using this tool does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and Shelley. If you are experiencing significant distress, please seek support from a qualified health professional.
This tool is designed for adults aged 18 and over who identify as women or gender diverse, who have a diagnosis of ADHD, are exploring the possibility of ADHD, or who are simply curious about how their sensory system and nervous system work together. It uses affirming, non-pathologising language throughout. A separate edition for younger ages is in development.
This tool runs entirely on your device. Your responses are not collected, stored, or transmitted to ADHD and Her or anyone else. To help you return to your results, your answers are automatically saved to your own browser's storage and can be encoded in a shareable URL. This data never leaves your device and is not accessible to ADHD and Her. Clearing your browser data will remove saved answers.
This tool involves paying attention to your body and nervous system. If that ever feels overwhelming, it is completely fine to pause and return when you are ready. This tool is not intended for use during a mental health crisis.
Take two minutes to watch this before you start. It will frame everything that follows.
This tool is a space for honest self-exploration. Not a test, not a diagnosis, not a measure of how well you are coping. Whatever you discover here is useful information about your nervous system. There is nothing here to pass or fail.
This is an invitation to explore how your nervous system works, with curiosity, not judgment. There are no right or wrong answers here. Everything you notice is useful information.
If you have ever felt too much, not enough, or just wired differently to the people around you, you are not imagining it. Research consistently shows that people with ADHD experience the sensory world differently than average. This can show up as being more easily overwhelmed by sensory input, needing more of it to feel alert and focused, or both at the same time. Understanding how your nervous system takes in and responds to sensory input is genuinely useful - and it is one of the most accessible places to start. It is not the whole picture. Sleep, stress, relationships, hormones, and emotional load all shape your nervous system too. But sensory input is something you can actually do something about, day to day. This questionnaire is a starting point.
For each statement below, choose how often it applies to you. There are no right answers, just honest ones.
Use this guide when answering:
Answer based on how you generally experience life, not just today. If it varies with your hormonal cycle or stress levels, go with your most common experience.
How your skin and body registers touch including its type, texture, temperature, and predictability. Tactile differences are often present from early childhood and frequently misread as behavioural difficulties.
I am very particular about clothing. Tags, seams, fabrics, or fit can make a garment completely unwearable for me.
Unexpected touch from others, even in affectionate contexts, can feel jarring, intrusive, or unpleasant.
I love certain textures and seek them out, like soft blankets, smooth surfaces, or fidget tools, for comfort and focus.
Temperature sensitivity is significant for me. I am often too hot or too cold when others seem comfortable, and it affects my mood and focus.
How your brain registers and responds to sound, including its volume, frequency, predictability, and meaning. Sound sensitivity is one of the most commonly reported sensory experiences for people with ADHD.
I need background noise or music to concentrate. Silence feels uncomfortable or distracting.
I am easily startled by sudden sounds and it takes me time to settle afterwards.
Certain sounds (chewing, tapping, high-pitched tones) cause me strong irritation or even physical discomfort, beyond what others seem to experience.
In noisy environments (open offices, restaurants, parties), I struggle to filter background noise and find conversations exhausting.
How your brain processes visual information including brightness, contrast, movement, and visual clutter. Visual sensitivity is often underestimated as a source of fatigue and overwhelm.
Bright lights, especially fluorescent or overhead lights, quickly make me feel overstimulated, irritable, or fatigued.
I am drawn to visually stimulating environments: bright colours, lots of activity, interesting things to look at.
Clutter or visual mess in my environment makes it difficult for me to think clearly or feel calm.
I notice visual details that others miss (patterns, small changes in a room, facial expressions), often before I am consciously aware of it.
Smell and taste are closely linked sensory systems that affect appetite, food choices, social comfort, and how safe an environment feels. Both are deeply connected to emotion and memory - which is why a particular smell can shift how your body feels almost instantly.
Certain smells are intensely unpleasant for me, such as cleaning products, perfume, or food smells, and can quickly shift my mood or make me feel unwell.
I use scent intentionally to regulate my mood (candles, essential oils, a particular perfume) because smell has a powerful effect on how I feel.
I have a very limited range of foods I find tolerable. Textures or tastes that others barely notice can be genuinely distressing for me.
I seek out strong flavours or unusual food textures like very spicy, sour, or crunchy foods, and find them satisfying or energising.
The vestibular system lives in your inner ear and detects movement, head position, and balance. It is deeply connected to alertness, attention, and emotional regulation, making it one of the most influential sensory systems for nervous system state.
I feel most focused or calm when I am moving: rocking, bouncing, pacing, or swinging.
I crave fast, thrilling movement like roller coasters, spinning, running or dancing, and it feels regulating rather than scary.
Unexpected movement (a sudden jolt in the car, turbulence, an elevator stopping abruptly) makes me feel anxious or disoriented.
I feel motion sick easily (cars, boats, screens with moving images) and prefer stillness and predictability.
Proprioception tells your brain where your body is in space. It is activated by deep pressure, muscle resistance, and heavy work. Alongside vestibular input and interoception, it is one of the most reliable and accessible inputs for supporting nervous system regulation.
I love the feeling of tight clothing, weighted blankets, deep pressure massage, or being wrapped up. It feels calming.
I bump into things, misjudge distances, or feel clumsy, as though I cannot quite locate my body in space.
Light touch (a tag in a shirt, someone brushing past me) is far more uncomfortable than firm, expected pressure.
I use heavy work such as carrying bags, pushing furniture, or intense exercise to feel grounded and calm.
Interoception is your ability to sense what is happening inside your body: hunger, thirst, heartbeat, temperature, the need to use the bathroom, and emotional feelings in the body. It is considered foundational to nervous system regulation.
I need strong physical sensations (intense exercise, very hot baths, spicy food) to feel present in my body.
I often don't notice I am hungry, thirsty, or tired until it becomes extreme (I forget to eat, or I crash suddenly).
Physical sensations in my body (heartbeat, stomach feelings, breathing) can quickly feel alarming or overwhelming.
I feel my emotions very intensely as physical sensations (tight chest, sick stomach, hot face) before I even name the feeling.
This domain acknowledges that social environments carry sensory load. Other people's energy, facial expressions, emotional tone, and the demands of masking are all processed by and felt in your nervous system, often registering as physical sensations before you have named what is happening. Some nervous systems find social environments depleting; others find them activating and regulating.
After a period of masking or performing in social situations, I need significant time alone to recover. I am often more depleted than the situation "should" warrant.
Busy, unpredictable social environments (parties, crowded spaces, group events) feel more overwhelming than others seem to find them.
Being around other people - even casually, in the background - helps me feel more alert, engaged, or energised. Solitude for long periods leaves me flat or unsettled.
I naturally gravitate toward busy or social environments - cafés, shared spaces, being around others - rather than quiet or solitary ones.
⏱ 8–10 min read
Before your tools and tips, three short reads will help your results make much more sense. You do not need to memorise any of it. Just let it land.
Most of us have felt it. That agitated, can't-settle feeling when everything is too loud and too much. Or the heaviness that makes getting off the couch feel genuinely impossible - not lazy, just completely flat. Your nervous system was doing something specific in both of those moments. This framework puts words to it.
Your nervous system moves between three energy states throughout the day. This is not dysregulation. It is how the nervous system is designed.
The first is your optimal energy zone - inside your window of capacity. You feel like yourself here. Present, grounded, focused, connected, and safe. Able to think and respond without everything feeling like effort.
The second is a high-energy, hyperactivated state - above your window. Your body is on alert. Chest tight, jaw clenched, thoughts running fast. Your nervous system is mobilising for action. It has sensed demand or threat and is preparing you to meet it.
The third is a low-energy, hypoactivated state - below your window. Your body is pulling back. Numb, flat, foggy, fatigued, and disconnected. Conserving energy as protection. Your system does this for a reason.
Moving between all three states is normal - multiple times a day. The problem is not the states themselves. It is getting stuck outside your window for too long, or finding yourself tipping outside it more quickly and more often than feels manageable. Staying activated long after the threat or demand has passed. Or dropping into that low, flat place and not being able to climb back out.
Regulation is not about staying inside your window all the time. It is the ability to move between states with more awareness - and to notice when you have been stuck somewhere longer than you would like.
Note: fawn responses - appeasing, people-pleasing, or over-accommodating to reduce perceived threat - can appear in either state. They are the nervous system trying to create safety through behaviour rather than fight, flight, or shutdown.
For women with ADHD, moving between states and finding the way back is often more pronounced. The ADHD nervous system is not broken, but it is wired differently. The same neurological differences that affect attention and executive function also affect how quickly sensory and emotional input shifts the system outside its window.
Hormones compound this further. Oestrogen supports dopamine availability in the brain. For women with ADHD, whose dopamine regulation is already different, a drop in oestrogen means a drop in dopamine too. This is why the week before menstruation and perimenopause can feel so significant: it is not just one system under strain, it is two. Sensory sensitivity increases, the window narrows, and executive function becomes harder still. What feels manageable on a Tuesday in the first half of your cycle can feel genuinely overwhelming on the same Tuesday the week before your period. This is not fragility. It is physiology. The tools and tips section covers cycle-specific supports in detail.
This is also why understanding your sensory preferences is not just interesting - it is practical.
1 This tool uses the term "window of capacity," adapted by Linda Thai from Dan Siegel's window of tolerance concept. Capacity feels more accurate for this context - it is dynamic, not fixed. See lindathai.com
This is not a diagnosis. It is a map. Your patterns are not problems. They are information about what your nervous system needs.
Before your tools, there are a few short pages worth reading. They will help your results make sense - and make it much easier to know which tools to reach for, and when.
⏱ 2 min read
Understanding your sensory preferences can guide how you respond to your nervous system in two different ways. They are not separate things. They work together over time.
When you notice your nervous system has shifted - or is starting to shift - your sensory environment may be part of what contributed to that. It may not be the only factor, and sometimes it will not be the main one. But it is often a thread worth pulling. Your sensory preferences can also point you toward what might help you shift back. This is not a formula. Your interoceptive signals, the context you are in, and how much energy, time, and practical access you have in the moment all matter too.
The tools and tips in the previous section serve both layers. Some are in-the-moment tools you can reach for when you notice a state shift. Others are proactive practices and environmental adjustments that reduce the load your nervous system carries day to day. Both matter.
Discharge and then settle a high-energy, reactive nervous system.
Gently activate a flat, foggy, or disconnected nervous system and build energy to re-engage.
Your window of capacity is not fixed. With awareness and the right conditions, it can widen over time. This is the deeper work, and it goes beyond sensory tools alone.
Understanding your sensory preferences can help you design your environment and daily life in ways that keep your nervous system better resourced from the start. A nervous system that begins each day with less cumulative load has more capacity to draw on when things get hard.
Sensory awareness is one thread. The four areas below reflect other inputs that also shape your window of capacity over time.
Lighting, sound, texture, and space - shaped around your sensory preferences
Movement, nutrition, sleep, sunlight, connection, and community
Examining the narratives that keep the window narrow and updating them over time
Structures that reduce the daily demand on your nervous system
An occupational therapist who understands ADHD and sensory processing can help you go deeper - exploring your results in the context of your actual life, environment, relationships, and daily demands.
In the next section, you'll see what some of these tools look like in real life.
You've just mapped the theory. Now here's what it looks like in real life. In this video, I share my own go-to tools for both up-regulation and down-regulation - grounded in my specific sensory preferences. Not a prescription for you, just a real example of what it can look like when you are getting to know your sensory preferences and exploring shifting nervous system states.
As you watch, notice what resonates. You might find yourself thinking "I do something similar" or "I've never tried that but it makes sense for me." Both are useful. Bring those observations into your toolkit on the next page.
Use this space to record your insights. Fill it in digitally and save, or print it to keep somewhere accessible: in a journal, on the fridge, or to share with someone who supports you.
Completed on
💾 Fill in your answers below, then download your full results and toolkit as a PDF from the final page. Your answers are not stored anywhere - download before closing this tab.
Tip: To identify your state, pause and notice your feelings, thoughts, behaviours, and sensations in the moment. High energy, activated, reactive, or overwhelmed - you are likely in a hyperactivated state, above your window. Low energy, flat, numb, or foggy - you are likely in a hypoactivated state, below your window.
List the tools that actually work for you, not the ones you think should work.
Understanding your sensory preferences is the beginning. What you do with that understanding, over time and in the context of your real life, is where things start to change.
What you have built today
A map of your unique sensory preferences across eight systems
A personalised set of up-regulation and down-regulation tools
An understanding of how your sensory preferences affect your nervous system state - and what to do when it shifts
A sensory toolkit worksheet to return to and build on over time
Save your results
Download your full results, tools and toolkit as a PDF.
Your complete personalised guide - results, education, tools and worksheet. Best saved on desktop.
This is just the beginning.
This tool is one part of a growing library of resources for women with ADHD who want to understand their nervous system - and actually use that understanding in everyday life. New tools, guides, and resources are on the way. The best place to stay across what's coming is Instagram.
Follow @adhd.and.her →© 2026 Shelley L'Green, ADHD and Her (adhdandher.com.au). All rights reserved. Licensed for personal use only. It may not be reproduced, distributed, resold, or shared in any form without written permission from the author.
This tool draws on the following frameworks, research, and clinical resources.
Cortese, S., Ferrin, M., Brandeis, D., et al. (2025). Sensory processing in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder compared with control populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2025.03.015
Bijlenga, D., Tansella-De Ruijter, I. E., Scheepstra, K. A., Kooij, J. J. S., & Pfaff, D. W. (2023). Emotional and sensory dysregulation as a possible missing link in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A review. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 17, 1118937. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1118937
Grinblat, N., & Rosenblum, S. (2022). Work participation, sensory processing and sleep quality in adults with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder. Work, 73, 1235–1244.
Valera, E. M., Faraone, S. V., Murray, K. E., & Seidman, L. J. (2021). Sensory modulation disorder and its neural circuitry in adults with ADHD: A pilot study. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 15(2), 930–940. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-020-00302-w
Dunn, W. (1997). The impact of sensory processing abilities on the daily lives of young children and their families: A conceptual model. Infants and Young Children, 9(4), 23–35.
Dunn, W. (2007). Supporting children to participate successfully in everyday life by using sensory processing knowledge. Infants and Young Children, 20(2), 84–101.
Pfeiffer, B., May-Benson, T. A., & Bodison, S. C. (2018). State of the science of sensory integration research with children and youth. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(1), 7201170010.
Kranowitz, C. S. (2022). The out-of-sync child: Recognizing and coping with sensory processing differences (3rd ed.). TarcherPerigee.
Ayres, A. J. (1972). Sensory integration and learning disorders. Western Psychological Services.
Craig, A. D. (2002). How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(8), 655–666. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn894
Mahler, K. (2017). Interoception: The eighth sensory system. AAPC Publishing.
Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Thai, L. (n.d.). Window of capacity. Retrieved from lindathai.com
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton.
Quinn, P. O., & Madhoo, M. (2014). A review of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in women and girls: Uncovering this hidden diagnosis. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.4088/PCC.13r01596
Dorani, D., Bijlenga, D., Beekman, A. T. F., van Someren, E. J. W., & Kooij, J. J. S. (2021). Prevalence of hormone-related mood disorder symptoms in women with ADHD. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 133, 10–15.
Osianlis, E., Thomas, E. H. X., Jenkins, L. M., & Gurvich, C. (2025). ADHD and sex hormones in females: A systematic review. Journal of Attention Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547251332319
Robison, M., Reimherr, F. W., Marchant, B., Faraone, S. V., Adler, L. A., & West, S. A. (2018). Reproductive steroids and ADHD symptoms across the menstrual cycle. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 88, 105–114.
ASI Wise Sensory Project. (2026, March 5). Research: ADHD and sensory processing. sensoryproject.org
ASI Wise Sensory Project. Research corner: Sensory integration evidence base. sensoryproject.org/research-corner
This tool is for educational and self-exploration purposes only. It is not a clinical assessment and does not replace professional diagnosis, therapeutic support, or medical advice. If you are experiencing significant distress, please reach out to a qualified health professional.
This resource was created by Shelley L'Green, Occupational Therapist (AHPRA registered). In line with AHPRA advertising guidelines, no claims are made that this tool will diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. The content draws on peer-reviewed research, established occupational therapy frameworks, and the published work of recognised practitioners. This tool does not constitute professional advice and does not establish a therapeutic relationship. For full terms, see adhdandher.com.au.