TikTok Creative Dr. Sasha Hamdani Is Making ADHD Information Accessible
Dr. Sasha Hamdani, a board-certified psychiatrist and mental health expert, is TikTok’s resident advocate for all things ADHD. As app scrolling became a pasttime for many during the pandemic, she saw an opportunity to educate. Today, with almost 1 million followers, her goal to share accurate and accessible information is being realized right in front of us.
In her interview with Her Agenda, Dr. Sasha discussed her journey to becoming a content creator, her thoughts on the importance of self-diagnosis, and her mission to make mental health care more accessible through her book and app.
“It was COVID and things were really boring,” she said, explaining what drew her to TikTok. “I was getting a lot of videos fed to me about psychiatry and I was like, ooh, that’s bad information, that kind of started me creating videos to like comment on those videos and to put out better information.”
When asked about the prevalence of misinformation and self-diagnosis on social media, she offered a nuanced perspective. “I think that self-diagnosis is actually important. It’s an important part of your self-discovery,” she said. “The part that I have the biggest problem with is when people try to treat themselves because without a definitive diagnosis, because there’s some people that are absolutely convinced they have ADHD, could not be anything else.”
She also emphasized the importance of seeking professional help and getting a formal diagnosis. In her interview, she also addressed common misconceptions about ADHD, such as the belief that it only affects children or that it is overdiagnosed. “There’s not more of it. There is not more. It’s just that people are noticing it more and talking about it more,” she explained.
In addition to her TikTok presence, Dr. Hamdani has authored a book titled “Self-care for People with ADHD” and developed an app, FocusGenie, to help people manage their ADHD symptoms. “The book is quite literally just these tiny little, it’s like each paragraph is like two paragraphs long. Each chapter is two paragraphs long. It’s digestible chunks of something you can do right in this moment to help with your ADHD,” she said.
For her app, Dr. Sasha shared her vision for its future. “What I’m hoping is that we find a way to incorporate AI into it and start to utilize that as a tool for people who suffer from executive dysfunction,” she said.
Dr. Sasha opened up about how motherhood has changed her, saying, “I think it changed every part of me.” She credited her children with teaching her better emotional regulation and serving as her “beta testers” for her creative projects.
Looking ahead, she expressed her desire to bring her message to an even wider audience. “I think I would like to be able to put [my work] into either TV or film in some capacity, cause I will never do a podcast, never in a thousand years,” she said. “But I feel like that would be a very cool medium to be able to convey that information just because, I don’t know, I haven’t seen a lot of like a specific ADHD documentary and especially ADHD in women.”
With her dedication to providing accurate information, her commitment to making mental health care accessible, and her creative vision, Dr. Sasha Hamdani is poised to continue making a significant impact in the lives of those seeking to better understand and manage their mental health.
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You can find Dr. Sasha on TikTok and Instagram; you can also learn more about her practice here. Find here app, FocusGenie here.
