Your Sensitivity Means You’re Cold-Blooded (And Why Your Environment Matters So Much)

The main point: a lot of us are essentially “cold-blooded” — meaning neurodivergent, ADHD-leaning, or simply sensory-sensitive — and our capacity to function hinges on the micro-environmental inputs we can control, so the real leverage is finding and installing your own “warm rocks.” I say this as someone who’s both lived it and coaches people through it: treating this as a physiological truth (think autonomic nervous system reactivity, interoceptive sensitivity, and increased allostatic load) reframes failures of willpower into predictable consequences of mismatched context and depleted executive function. Practically, that looks like environmental scaffolding and co-regulation strategies — noise-cancelling headphones, private rooms, scheduled solo sabbaticals, coaching that actually speaks our language — which reduce cognitive load, stabilize arousal regulation, and free up prefrontal resources for creativity and problem-solving. We unpack why school and many workplaces are “warm-blooded systems” expecting self-regulation, why that mismatch produces chronic survival mode for cold-blooded folks, and how compassionate, tailored interventions (behavioral scaffolds, rhythm-based routines, and targeted supports) create reproducible capacity. I also argue that coach–client pairing matters: a warm-blooded coach pushing platitudes won’t help a cold-blooded person, whereas a coach versed in neurodiversity and sensory modulation can provision the right hot-rock architecture. So, here’s my ask in jargon and plain English: identify one or two warm rocks this week, implement them (external supports + boundary engineering), and test the hypothesis that your environment, not your moral failing, is the variable you can change to feel better and do more.

Some of us are warm-blooded and some of us are cold-blooded, and if you’re cold-blooded, your surroundings decide a lot more about how you function than you’ve been told.

In this episode I talk about a conversation I had with my colleague and friend Elena that shifted something big for me. She shared the idea that people with ADHD are often “cold-blooded.” Like a lizard, they don’t regulate their own temperature, so their environment plays a huge role in how well they can think, create, cope, and feel okay. Warm-blooded people can move through a messy house, no sleep, a loud room, and a packed social event and still get on with their day. Cold-blooded people can’t, and most of us were raised in a warm-blooded world that expected us to act warm-blooded anyway.

I also share what this looked like for me at a recent international figure skating competition, why I couldn’t create the way I wanted to while I was there, and the “warm rocks” I’ve learned to put in place for myself, like alone time as an introvert and being coached by people who understand how I tick. When you know you’re cold-blooded, you can stop judging yourself for struggling and start giving yourself what you need.

Key Takeaways:

Cold-blooded people are deeply affected by their environment, and that’s not something you chose

Most sensitive people, neurodivergent people, and a lot of women are more cold-blooded than we realize

Pushing through a cold environment while pretending you’re warm drains a huge amount of energy

Warm rocks are the external supports that make the hard things easier: your space, your structure, your support, your alone time

Look at where you’re struggling and ask what warm rock would make it simpler

Pick one or two warm rocks, put them in your week, and see what happens

If you want help figuring out where your warm rocks need to be and what they could look like, book a discovery call. We’ll look at where you’re struggling, what support you need in place, and how to structure it so it works for the way you’re wired.

You are not the only one. I promise you that.

Links referenced in this episode:

https://amandahess.ca/bookacall

Takeaways:

1. I reframed my struggles through an ADHD “cold-blooded” metaphor — using thermoregulatory language and autonomic nervous system concepts to explain how environmental affordances and sensory gating impact executive functioning and creative capacity, which gives me permission to stop pathologizing myself.
2. We need to identify our “warm rocks” — concrete environmental and structural scaffolds that reduce allostatic load and optimize our cognitive bandwidth for sustained task performance.
3. I noticed that trying to perform high-demand tasks in a cold environment depletes my capacity, so we prioritize situational modifications like solitude, noise-cancelling headphones, or scheduled coaching to enhance sustained attention and creative output.
4. Because society expects warm-blooded norms, I argued for compassion and systemic accommodation: educational and workplace designs should integrate neurodiversity-informed ergonomics and predictable routines to prevent chronic regulatory overload.
5. I confess I use coaching as a personal hot rock — it’s targeted external scaffolding that recalibrates my inner homeostasis, reduces executive friction, and helps me translate aspirational goals into implementable micro-behaviors (no shame, just strategy).
6. Practical action step: we pick one or two warm rocks this week — experiment with environmental tweaks, temporal structuring, or social boundaries, then monitor shifts in productivity, mood, and perceived capacity to see what actually increases our regulatory resilience.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. amandahess.ca/bookacall