Stress Awareness Month April 2025: Understanding Stress Responses in Autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia
- Sarah Hardy
- Apr 2
- 4 min read
As April is Stress Awareness Month it's a great time to reflect on how stress affects our daily lives and to find healthier ways to cope.
But when we talk about stress, we often overlook how neurodivergent people—including those with Autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia—experience and respond to stress in uniquely challenging ways.
For neurodivergent individuals, stress responses can be heightened or atypical. This is often misunderstood by others, and even by the individual themselves, leading to frustration, overwhelm, or shame.
Recognising these differences is crucial to developing effective coping strategies.
Let’s break down how stress commonly shows up for Autistic, ADHD, and Dyslexic individuals, and why understanding these differences matters.
Autism and Stress Responses
People with Autism can often be more susceptible to stress due to:
🔹 Sensory Overload: Bright lights, loud noises, crowded spaces, or strong smells can quickly trigger a fight, flight, or freeze response. What seems like a minor inconvenience to others can feel unbearable for someone with heightened sensory processing.
🔹 Unexpected Changes: Routines and predictability can be incredibly comforting. Changes—especially unplanned ones—can cause acute stress, leading to meltdowns or shutdowns.
🔹 Social Interactions: Navigating social rules, masking, or dealing with misunderstandings can be exhausting and stressful. The pressure to fit in or communicate “correctly” can leave someone feeling depleted.
Some Common Stress Responses: Shutdowns, meltdowns, withdrawal, increased rigidity, repetitive behaviours, or feeling emotionally numb.
Key Insight: Stress in autistic individuals can often be linked to sensory processing and social overwhelm. Recognising this can help reduce misunderstandings and stigma.
ADHD and Stress Responses
People with ADHD often face chronic stress due to:
🔹 Executive Dysfunction: Struggling to prioritise, plan, and organise tasks can create a constant low-level stress that builds up over time. Feeling like you’re always “behind” can be exhausting.
🔹 Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD): Experiencing intense emotional pain from perceived rejection or criticism, even when it’s not intended. This can lead to a heightened stress response and overthinking.
🔹 Time Blindness: Difficulty understanding or managing time can lead to last-minute stress, missed deadlines, or procrastination-fueled panic.
Some Common Stress Responses: Emotional outbursts, impulsivity, avoidance, hyperfocus (as a coping mechanism), restlessness, or complete overwhelm.
Key Insight: ADHDers often feel like they’re failing at tasks others seem to manage easily, which creates a harmful cycle of stress and self-criticism.
Dyslexia and Stress Responses
For people with Dyslexia, stress often arises from:
🔹 Reading & Writing Challenges: Tasks that seem straightforward for others can be exhausting and frustrating. This is especially true in high-pressure environments like school or work.
🔹 Performance Anxiety: Struggling to meet expectations—whether personal or external—can lead to chronic stress, especially if accommodations are not available.
🔹 Memory & Processing Difficulties: Difficulty recalling or processing information quickly, particularly under pressure, can trigger stress and feelings of inadequacy.
Some Common Stress Responses: Avoidance, fatigue, frustration, mental exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, or a strong desire to hide struggles from others.
Key Insight: Stress responses in dyslexic individuals often relate to feeling misunderstood or underestimated, particularly in learning or work environments.
Why Understanding These Differences Matters
Stress awareness isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
Recognising how Autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia impact stress responses allows us to:
✅ Develop more compassionate strategies for managing stress.
✅ Reduce shame and self-blame by understanding where these stress reactions come from.
✅ Create more inclusive environments that support neurodivergent people’s needs.
✅ Adapt our responses to better suit individual experiences and challenges.
It’s not just about managing stress—it’s about understanding it. And when we understand, we can create more meaningful, effective support.
Take a moment to consider your own experiences with stress
Try not to focus on what’s “supposed” to be stressful.
Be completely honest about what feels challenging for you—not what others find difficult, or what society labels as “normal” stressors. Your experience is valid, even if it doesn’t match anyone else’s.
What situations or environments trigger your stress the most?(e.g., sudden changes, sensory overload, time pressure, social interactions)
How does your body respond to stress?(e.g., tension, fatigue, restlessness, emotional overwhelm)
What habits or coping mechanisms do you notice when you’re feeling stressed?(e.g., avoiding tasks, hyper-focusing, shutting down, using humour as a shield)
What helps you feel calm or grounded when stress is high?(e.g., sensory breaks, quiet time, lists, gentle movement, reassurance from trusted people)
When was the last time you felt completely at ease? What was different about that environment or situation?
There’s no right or wrong answer here. Understanding your own stress responses is the key to creating supportive strategies that work for you.
Coming Next: How to Support Yourself and Others Through Stress
Understanding how stress manifests is the first step. But how do we adapt and support ourselves or others when stress hits?
In my next post, I’ll cover practical strategies for managing stress as a neurodivergent person, and how to offer meaningful support to the people in your life who may be struggling.
Stay tuned for Part 2: Adapting and Supporting Neurodivergent People Through Stress.