Dr. Daniel Amen: Struggling to focus, Stay Organized, or Feeling Overwhelmed by Your to-do List? ADHD Could Be Quietly Running Your Life (THIS is what to DO!) | On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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IBM, let's create. How do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?

Short attention span, destructibility, disorganization.

impulsivity and hyperactivity they can't sit still psychiatrists and clinical neuroscientist doctor Daniel Amon is one pionering psychiatrist says that feeling better starts with understanding your brain to 90 % of mothers work outside the house when they have untreated ADD they often look depressed and they get on on something like Voxapro, which actually makes them more ADD or happier, but more distracted, happier, less focused, happier, more impulsive.

You eliminate gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes, and sweeteners.

70 % of the kids lost their ADD.

No way. Someone's sitting here thinking, well, I'm not going to achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD.

What would you say to them?

The number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Shetty.

He won the only Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed.

Today's guest is someone who has frequented the podcast more than any other guest. The most requested, the most often, and someone that I'm grateful to have known for the last few years and become friends with.

He's the person that I reach out to when I have a question around something I'm unsure about, when I'm testing something, when I'm experimenting something.

This is the person that I write to and say, hey, what do you think about this?

I'm talking about none other than Dr. Daniel Amen, physician, adult and child psychiatrist, and founder of Amen Clinics, which has 11 US locations and the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry with over 250 ,000 SPECT scans from 155 countries.

Committed to revolutionizing brain health, Dr. Amen also founded BrainMD, the Change Your Brain Foundation, and Amen University, which has trained thousands of medical and mental health professionals.

A leading expert in brain and mental health, Dr. Amen has millions of followers, produced produced 17 national public television shows, garnered 300 -plus million video views, and hosts the Change Your Brain Everyday podcast. If you haven't subscribed, I highly recommend it.

He's a 12 -time New York Times bestselling author, and Dr. Amon's highly anticipated new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, will be released in 2026.

Please welcome back to On On Purpose, one of our dearest friends of the show, Dr. Daniel Amen.

Daniel, it's great to have you here as always.

I still remember all the years ago when I launched my podcast, you came on the first ever year.

We used to record from my apartment in Hollywood, if you remember.

And I'm just so grateful that you did such a consistent guest. I opened one of my books with an experience on the way to the podcast, seeing a homeless person.

And I'm like, I wonder what his brain looks like.

I love you. Thank you.

I'm honored to be back.

I always love our conversations.

I want to start pretty direct.

Why does it seem like everyone today has ADHD?

A lot of people do, but our society is dramatically elevating it.

When you think of the gadgets that steal our attention, the ultra -processed foods that our brain really doesn't like, the chronic stress.

It's like, what's the simple answer?

And the simple answer is, let me medicate you.

And you'll focus better, but not for long.

And so, as our society has taken more medication, we have not gotten healthier.

So, I think for people who really have ADD or ADHD, and I use those terms interchangeably, because the way we diagnose people, it used to be ADD and by a vote of people, they changed it to ADHD, which I think was actually a big mistake.

stake. It's always been there, right?

You can actually look in the Old Testament and you go, these people had ADD.

The real ADD is genetic.

You get it from your mom or dad.

You can see it in your people.

You can see it in your ancestors.

And left untreated, they're very serious problems. So if I think somebody really has ADD and that medicine would help them, they always go, what are the side effects, always tell them.

Your appetite will be less.

If you take too late in the day, you may have trouble sleeping.

Sometimes people get headaches or tummy aches.

Those almost always go away.

If you're prone to tics, you may have more tics.

But I want them to ask the other question is, what are the side effects of not taking appropriate treatment for ADD?

And it's things like school failure and drug abuse and incarceration, divorce, bankruptcy.

I'm so happy we're talking about it because this is a really serious issue because if you go to places like prison, there's a high percentage of people who have untreated ADD that did not have proper focus or impulse control.

So would you say that, is ADHD being over -diagnosed?

I think it's over -diagnosed and under -diagnosed.

What do you mean? Over -diagnosed overall, because people see this as the simple answer.

Under -diagnosed, especially in people who are not hyperactive or females, because we still have gender bias in this country.

if you have a little boy and he's not doing well in school, you get really worried because you realize he's going to have to take care of a family someday.

For a girl, if she's not doing as well, well, you think maybe she's not that smart and you hope she marries somebody nice, which is completely irrational given that we now have three generations of women who are in the workforce here in California, 90 % of mothers work outside the house.

And when they have untreated ADD, they often look depressed and they get on something like Lexapro on an SSRI, which actually makes them more ADD, but now they don't care that they're more ADD.

Because serotonin, we'll talk about it.

They counterbalance each other.

So serotonin is the neurotransmitter of happiness, of flexibility.

Dopamine is more the neurotransmitter of focus, motivation.

Let's follow through and get this done.

And when one goes up, so serotonin goes up, someone puts you on an SSRI, dopamine goes down.

And so, happier, but more distracted, happier less focused happier more impulsive yeah and i think that's what so many people are feeling today where they naturally feel a sense of brain fog they're overwhelmed with information i was reading somewhere that we now consume 72 gigabytes of information per day which someone had translated to reading 100 ,000 words every single day, which when you think about that, that is so overwhelming.

So how do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?

So you look for patterns of behavior over time.

So the hallmark features of ADD or ADHD.

The first one is short attention span.

It's really hard to focus, but not for everything.

And this is what fools people.

It's short attention span for regular, routine, everyday things, schoolwork, homework, paperwork, chores, the things that make life work.

And if you have a half an hour of homework, parents will often say it takes him or her two hours to do.

And I have to structure their time.

That's very common. But for things that are new, novel, highly stimulating, or frightening, people with ADD can pay attention just fine because they have their own intrinsic dopamine.

And what I find is love is a drug.

Love is dopamine. So say you're getting all C's and D's except one A, and the A, whether it's in history or whatever, it's because you love the teacher or you love the subject.

But it's not this one thing we should be looking at.

It's the pattern of your attention span over time.

The second is they're easily distracted.

And what that means is they see too much, they hear too much, they taste too much, they smell too much. So they're constantly distracted by the world coming at them.

The brain is really good at suppressing unnecessary noises or unnecessary thoughts.

But when your prefrontal cortex, so we'll talk about that, the front part of your brain, the front third of your brain, largest in humans and any other animal by far.

When it's sleepy, it can't sort of suppress the noise.

I grew up three houses from the freeway in Southern California and lots of noise, but I never heard it because my brain went, oh, you don't need to listen to that.

So it would suppress it.

So someone who has ADHD can't suppress it.

Interesting. And so the world comes at them too much. And you see it with the clothes they wear.

They hate seams and they hate tags because their body feels it.

So I've been married twice.

Both of my wives have ADD of one form or another.

And the first time when I got married, I went, it's like right after I got married, I went into my closet to get a shirt.

And I noticed the tag was cut out of my shirt.

And I'm like, that's weird. And then I looked at all of my shirts and all of the tags were out and I felt violated.

And I went into the living room with the shirt and I'm like, why is my shirt missing the tag?

She goes, oh, don't you hate tags?

Like I hate tags. I thought you really liked that.

I cut them all out for you.

And I'm like, I've never felt a tag in my life.

please don't damage my clothing.

Yeah, that's fascinating to me because I can relate to what you said.

I'm very unaffected by outside noise and definitely my brain creates the same boundary that you said yours does, where I could be in a really noisy environment, but I can go totally internal if I'm focused on something.

Now, does that mean that we're born with ADHD or can we we train attention?

Well, we can train attention, but ADHD I'm talking about is what you're born with, what you see it in your mom, you see it in your dad.

I have, I told you my first wife had ADD, which means three of my children have it.

So I know more about this than I want to.

And if you think of distractibility, what does an orgasm require?

Focus. You have to pay attention to the feeling long enough in order to have an orgasm.

And so if that becomes really hard, well, that's a problem for both the person and their partner, because their partner will like, oh, she doesn't love me, or I'm not enough.

When it has nothing to do with that, it's just they are easily distracted.

People with the real AVD, they need white noise at night.

And I'm like, it's the middle of winter, it's Washington, DC, the fan is on.

like, why is the fan on?

It's like, oh, I need the noise or I won't be able to sleep because I hear everything that's in the house.

So, short attention span enough for everything, easily distracted, disorganized.

So, it's hard for them.

It's not natural for them.

If you look at their rooms, their desks, their book bags, their filing cabinets, and time, they're often often late and i like to be early i'm like if i have if i have a flight i'm there two hours early because my brain thinks of all the things that could go wrong on the way to the airport and the flight's important to me people with adds last minute last minute and i used to fight i'm like no we need to go and and then I just started lying it's like the flight is at noon uh when really it was at one o 'clock and because her organization wasn't such she didn't really catch on how much of that is training like

I feel like I grew up with a mom who is very meticulous with time so my mom trained me to always believe that if you're not early you're late and so I also live in a world that you do, which is I'm always at the airport early.

I'm always making sure of anything that could go wrong.

Security could take a bit longer.

There's so many other things.

That to me, I've always felt came because I had a mom who was super organized.

And I've inherited that by watching her.

Even now, like my mom trained me how to make sure we locked all the doors at night.

And we didn't grow up in a really safe area.

So there was this very hyper attention to make sure.

So I'm very good at that.

And how much - But it could have been because her brain was busy in the front and she also gave that to you.

Yeah. Right? So some of it is training, but if she had ADD, she wouldn't give that to you.

And you would often be chronically stressed because she wouldn't get you to school on time, or she wouldn't be be there on time to pick you up, or it's really important you have a soccer practice and you're late.

The level of stress in ADD, ADHD families is very high because of the distractibility, the disorganization.

And the fourth one is procrastination.

They don't do things until until someone's mad at them to get it done.

They need stress in order to get stuff done.

And that just makes everybody around them stressed.

And it makes them stressed because, you know, they're often late because they actually don't start getting ready until it's like, oh my God, I'm late.

And then they always show up like either right on time, flustered, or 10 minutes late, always apologizing.

And that's different from people who perform well under stress.

This is someone who needs stress.

In order to perform.

In order to perform, yeah.

When I first started imaging, it was on an ADD woman.

So I went into a lecture on brain specked imaging in my hospital in April 1991.

And I walked out and I had a new patient.

Her name was Sandy and she was 44.

And she was beautiful and underemployed.

She had an IQ of 144 and she was a lap tech. and she was in the hospital because she had a suicide attempt the night before in an impulsive act when she and her husband had a fight and I'm like, ADD, ADD, ADD she had an 8 year old son that had ADD and I'm like, oh thank you, I have ADD and she's like, oh adults can't have it, thinking to myself but not saying it because I don't have ADD it's like, I'm the doctor adults totally can have ADD and I said can I scan you?

because I've just learned about this new technology.

And I scanned her twice, once at rest, once when she did a concentration task.

And when she tried to concentrate, the front part of her brain shut down rather than what it should have done was turn on.

And I put the, this is why I love imaging.

I put the scans on her hospital table and I was explaining to them and she started to cry.

And she said, you mean it's not my fault.

And that's the moment I got hooked on imaging because I already knew the diagnosis.

She immediately evaporated shame.

And then she's like, all right, let's talk about adult ADD.

And she had all of the things, including the impulse control issues.

shoes. But because she was so bright, she didn't bring enough negative attention to herself and never gotten the help.

And after I treated her, she finished college, she stopped picking on her husband.

Because another trait that a lot of people don't understand is they become negative seeking, conflict seeking, and excitement seeking.

And those are all dopamine driven behavior.

So if you have a low level of dopamine, well, if you pick a fight with someone, now all of a sudden there's some excitement going on.

If you jump out of an airplane, that has a whole bunch of dopamine associated with it.

And I experienced this.

It was that poking.

It's like, we're going on vacation.

Why are we having a problem?

And activating their frontal lobes, they're less negative and I'm just publishing a study on negativity bias so I'm very interested in are you positive are you negative now unbridled positive thinking is a disaster you die early but negative thinking you actually have low function in your frontal lobes and many of the The ADD people I see tend to see the glass as half empty, and that wears on them.

So if we highlight the short attention span, not for everything, disorganization, procrastination, impulse control, it's like the break in their brain is vulnerable, and they say things often that you shouldn't say.

It's like the inside voice gets out.

They do things that it's like, hmm, wish I hadn't done that.

So they actually live with a lot of regret.

And your prefrontal cortex is called the executive part of the brain because it's like the boss at work.

It's involved in focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, Empathy, learning from the mistakes you make.

And when it's sleepy, you have all those problems, which just describes ADD.

And strengthening it is critical to your humanity.

Did you know that sociopaths have 10 % less volume in their prefrontal cortex?

techs. So they're a little less human, if you will.

Even 10 % has that impact.

10%. It's huge. And this is why you should never let a child hit a soccer ball with their forehead.

It's just so stupid.

And like, I'm not a huge fan of allowing kids to play tackle football, because it's more more likely to damage the part of them that is the boss.

And people who have ADD are often executives of their own companies because they don't work well often with other people.

And so they're entrepreneurial.

And some wildly famous people have said they had ADD, like the person who started JetBlue.

He was public. with that.

It can look false. It can be masquerade.

You have ADD because your parents gave you an iPhone when you were a year old.

And I think we're wising up that's not a good thing to do, but still children should not have smartphones until they're 15, 16.

Social media, Australia banned social media under 16.

I think that's so great, right?

Taking the neuroscience Neuroscience and making it public policy.

California, you can't start school in the morning before 8 o 'clock.

Taking what we know with neuroscience, kids who get just an hour less sleep have a higher incidence of depression and suicide.

So, all right, cut out the zero periods.

I love that. Neuroscience and then public policy.

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Now back to the discussion.

Do we know what causes ADHD?

It's genetic. People are not producing enough dopamine.

And the medicines we use like Ritalin or Adderall, they increase the availability of dopamine.

Now, the problem is, is if you don't really have it, what you have is societal italy induced adhd the medicine will disrupt you and make you worse and early on i realize when i scan people because i've scanned 30 or 40 000 people who have add of one type or another it's not one thing early on i'm like oh it's seven different things and so my book healing add i talk about, see, and heal the seven types.

And so can I talk about the type?

That I was just about to ask my next question.

You're already one step ahead of me.

So let me ask you. So type one is the classic.

It's what most people think of ADHD, short attention span, destructibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.

They can't sit still.

And one of my kids, when she was born, we thought she was going to be a boy Because in her mother's womb, she was so active.

And the lower is, the more active a baby is inside their mother, the more likely they are to be a boy.

She wasn't. When I held her older sister, we could watch movies.

She'd sit on my lap.

She was just calm. Her sister, when you tried to hold her, was like trying to hold a live salmon. She was so wiggly.

And then I'd take her to the mall.

She would have been one of those children on the little yellow leashes, the big bird leashes in the mall.

But I wrote a column in the local newspaper.

So when I went to the mall, people recognized me.

It's like, Dr. Amen, I loved your column.

Why is your child on a leash?

So what I used to do with Caitlin is put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out.

Because she's like, where are you going?

And I remember just holding her hand.

I'd take my little pinky and wrap it around her wrist because, and I had spiritual problems because of this child.

We would go to church and I don't know why Catholics take children into church rather than, you know, send them to children's church. But anyways, she was so active and blurting out.

And I'm like the only child psychiatrist in the county.

And if my child is the worst one, that's bad for business.

So, I used to take her out and threaten her life and not worry about her eternal soul.

And I adore her, and she's 37 now.

And Haven is just like her, which is my six -year -old granddaughter, is just like her.

It's genetic. And when we first got her diagnosed, the doctor, who was really great, looked at me and then looked at her mother and goes, so who has this?

Because it's genetic.

And I'm like, it's not me.

I do everything early.

I've now written 42 books.

Every one of them has been handed in early.

And her mom goes, it's not me.

But then I was so grateful because it took her like 12 years to get through college.

And she just asked her this one question.

This is a great adult AVD question because she was still in college at the time.

She goes, how do you study?

She goes, oh, I can never study at home.

I get so distracted.

I go inside my little car, underneath a street lamp.

No kids, no noise, nothing.

There I can study. And the doctor goes, you have ADD.

It was very helpful for me.

So that's type 1. That's type 1, classic.

Type 2 is inattentive ADD, short attention span, distractibility, disorganized, procrastinate, but they're not impulsive.

and more common in girls.

They're not hyperactive.

In fact, they can be a little bit hypoactive.

And those first two types were described in the DSM when they first created this diagnostic category in 1980.

I described the next five types.

The third one is over -focused ADD, where the problem is not so much you can't concentrate, trait.

It's you can't shift your attention, that you get stuck.

And if you can't shift your attention, you cannot pay attention.

But it's a different mechanism.

And I found this to be particularly true in children and grandchildren of alcoholics.

And they tend to be argumentative, oppositional, worry.

If things don't go their way, they get upset.

And on the surface, as they appear selfish, they're really not selfish.

They're just not flexible.

And stimulants tend to make them more worried and more upset.

Type four is called limbic ADD.

It's where their emotional brain is too busy.

And it's sort of like ADD plus mild depression, and the glass is always half empty for them.

Type 5, which I think is such an interesting one, is temporal lobe ADD.

They have problems in one or both of their temporal lobes, often goes with learning problems, but mood instability, irritability, temper problems. One of my first great cases was Chris.

He's his third psychiatric hospitalization.

This time, he took a pencil and put it in the neck of of one of his classmates.

Stimulants made him hallucinate, all the other medicines, and I'm like, I'm scanning you.

And he had left temporal lobe problem, which goes with violence.

I put him on an anti -convulsant, an anti -seizure medicine, became the sweetest kid.

And then he still had trouble concentrating, so then after I got the temporal lobe right, I gave him a stimulant, masterful.

I mean, this kid just did phenomenally well.

and then the ring of fire that's what i may be most known for the problem is not low activity it's too much activity please don't give them a stimulant because they can become violent aggressive actually use a supplement to calm things down in their brain very effective and then the last one's anxious add where they're really anxious and so they tend to be early to things, but disorganized, distracted, and so on.

So knowing the type, and that's why Ritalin has a bad reputation.

For the right brain, it's miraculous.

For the wrong brain, it's a nightmare.

A lot of people who have ADHD say they feel emotions much more strongly and deeply.

Can they start to regulate their emotions?

Is there a way to do that?

Or is that medication?

Well, and sometimes with the medicine, they don't like it because it feels like it suppresses their emotion.

And my daughter, Caitlin, when I put her on Ritalin, because she was hyperactive, and then she was dramatically less hyperactive.

But I found I had to titrate the dose down because I could see it putting a lid on her personality, which is not what you want to do.

And so often you want to work with someone who's really knowledgeable to titrate the dose up and down effectively.

If you're a baseball player, so just thinking of athletes, the medicine gives you a better batting average.

If you're a linebacker in football, you might be a little bit less aggressive because you're more thoughtful, right?

So if you want to play with abandon, you probably don't want a stimulant.

on board. I find for some of my professional athletes, they're just much more focused and less likely to get technical fouls because they're not a hothead.

And when you see the world like I see it, and you're watching someone have a meltdown on the court, I'm like, I wonder what's going on in that person's brain, right?

Rather than just judge them as bad.

I haven't scanned Draymond Green, but I want to.

I saw a study that found that children with untreated ADHD are nearly twice as likely to develop an alcohol use disorder or other substance abuse problem.

Why is that? Because of the lack of impulse control.

And they don't like how they feel, right?

If you've been told every day to settle down or you brought negative attention to yourself over time, time it activates your emotional brain, and you want to settle it down, and you don't have good forethought or good impulse control, and you're more likely to drink.

And it's just so prevalent.

Plus, with society, during the Super Bowl, there were 30 beer commercials, and the rest of them more jack -in -the -boxes, right?

So it's like we're just being flooded with these awful messages that take people who have ADD, make them more ADD, and then they engage in habits that aren't helpful.

Do you think there should be a ban on alcohol advertisements as much as there is obviously on smoking?

Yeah, it's not a health food.

I mean, the American Cancer Society came out three years ago and said, you shouldn't drink because it increases your risk of seven different types of cancer.

The Surgeon General last year said we should put cancer warning label signs on alcohol.

I think when you just look at our society from the digital addictions and social social media and technology to the bad food, the ultra -processed food that so many people, that's 80 or 90 % of their diet, to marijuana's innocuous, which is a complete lie.

Alcohol is a health food, no, and now the big new thing is psilocybin, it's a great medicine, it's an antidepressant, it'll treat your PTSD, and it's increased.

slow psychosis to emergency rooms, 300%.

It is not innocuous.

Now, might it become a good treatment?

I don't know, but I feel like I've seen this party before, right?

One of the big benefits of being 70 is you've seen lots of things.

The early 80s, benzos are innocuous.

They're mommy little helper.

We know benzos are highly addictive and increase the risk of So dementia, the early 90s, alcohol is good for your heart.

You should drink. It's a lie.

You shouldn't drink.

It increases your risk of stupidity and cancer, right?

And if you're ADD and you have sleepy frontal lobes, now you drink, you have sleepier frontal lobes.

Still not a good thing.

And then pain is the fifth vital sign, right?

Purdue Pharmaceuticals came out with, let's get more people to take opiates And came out with these campaigns and spent billions of dollars on marketing, and it was a disaster.

And then the whole marijuana is innocuous.

During not this presidential campaign, the last one, Joe Biden was debating, and they asked him, should the federal government legalize marijuana?

And he said, no, I don't think there's enough research. And Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, shames him on national television, and he said, man, are you high?

Like, the science is settled.

Well, as more places legalize it, the science is getting settled.

It's bad for us, right?

If you use as a teenager, it increases anxiety, depression, psychosis, and suicide in your 20s.

I published a study on 1 ,000 marijuana users.

Every area of the brain is lower in blood flow.

And I got so much grief for it.

And two months ago, in JAMA psychiatry, on 1 ,000 marijuana users, the memory and learning centers are lower in blood flow and activity.

This is not good. innocuous.

It's all these lies that then increase the expression of ADD.

And so how do you know?

You look at someone's history over time, right?

All of us have ADD moments, but that's not ADD.

Having ADD is these hallmark symptoms have followed you most of your life.

So for parents who are listening right now, and they're starting to see a young child maybe have one of the types or some of the symptoms, what would you encourage them to do?

You know, I have a free online test called addtypetest .com.

They could take that.

For people, if you've been struggling and it's like you really believe it's not just environmental, right?

I mean, the first thing, if your child's struggling in school, make sure they're not taking their iPad to bed so often it's because kids are sleep deprived they look like they have add because parents are really not properly supervising the kids do a digital detox and then i have to say this because there's this great study published in the lancet replicated that when you put kids on an elimination diet so what does that mean you eliminate gluten dairy corn soy artificial dyes and sweeteners, 70 % of the kids lost their ADD.

No way. So the first thing is not, let me give you this drug.

In my mind, the first thing is do a digital detox and do an elimination diet and do it for a month.

And it's like, oh, I can't do that.

It's like, it's not that hard. My wife, Tana, wrote a cookbook, Healing ADD at Home Through Food or The Brain Warrior's Way.

That's her big cookbook.

It's been reprinted like 53 times.

I'm so proud of her.

And find foods the kids love that love them back.

Food is so important.

Do that first. And I always tell, I'm like, look, if they really have ADD or ADHD, they're going to have it three months from now or four months from now.

Let's do this and see.

I have an online course called healing ADD at home in 30 days.

And it's basically, before you give the medicine, do these things first. And it's so helpful.

Why does changing our diet affect ADHD?

Why does removing gluten, removing processed foods, et cetera, why does that impact it?

your brain is 2 % about your body's weight.

It uses 20 to 30 % of the calories you consume.

And so if you have a fast food diet, you're likely to have a fast food mind.

And both gluten and dairy, when they go to your stomach, when it mixes with stomach acid, it turns into something called gluteomorphins, which work on the heroin centers or the opiate centers of your brain.

And it just sort of spaces you out.

For milk, it's caseomorphins.

And it's why we love pizza.

If you think of gluten and dairy, right, it's pizza.

But it's also why you feel spacey afterwards.

And too often, what do we feed kids?

Like when I was growing up, it was Frosted Flakes.

or Pop -Tarts or a muffin or donuts.

And if you get a sugar burst, well, a half an hour later, your brain is walking in mud.

And yet that's what we feed children in the morning.

ADD kids who have protein in the morning, their medicine works longer throughout the day.

And so in the 50s, we grow up with bacon and eggs and much better than the processed cereals.

I love your thoughts on how to do it before we get to medicine, before we get to medication, looking at technology, looking at our diet, and that way you could potentially save yourself from having to go down the medicine route.

Right. And then parents who are generally resistant to the idea of medicine and perhaps more so than they should be.

Because I think if someone really has ADD, withholding medicine is like withholding glasses from someone who can't see.

And that's neglect.

And we're in this society, right?

The more educated you are, it's like, oh no, I'd never give my child medicine.

And then all of a sudden you see they're failing in school And if you struggle in school, you begin to hang out with the other kids who are struggling, which may not be ultimately in their best interest. If you haven't been diagnosed by the time you're 10, odds are your self -esteem has been negatively impacted because people have said repeatedly to you, you're smarter than this.

You could do better than this.

Try harder. But what I showed on the scans, when they try to concentrate, their brain drops in activity.

In fact, the harder they try, the worse it gets.

Why is that? Because their brain is turning off when it should be turning on.

The frontal lobe, as you were saying.

Their frontal lobe.

If you don't have enough dopamine to keep your frontal lobe engaged, it sort of withers with effort.

And what does that teach you to give up?

It's this idea of learned helplessness.

There's a psychologist who's really famous, Marty Seligman.

You probably know of him because he's famous for positive psychology.

He helped start that movement.

But he was way famous before then because he coined this term, learned helplessness.

With depression, it's like you try and it doesn't work.

You try and it doesn't work.

And then you say to hell with it and you stop trying.

And that happens with so many people who have ADD.

In fact, when I diagnose and treat an adult woman, a common scenario, she brings her hyperactive son to me.

And I'm like, where did this come from?

And say it comes from the mom.

And then I treat her.

she gets dramatically better and then she gets depressed because she starts thinking about what would my life have been like if someone would have noticed this if I would have been treated now that's you don't give her an antidepressant for that you like do grief work with her and like okay but now you know so your son doesn't have to go through this and you don't want to argue with the past. You want to look forward. Have you seen people break the cycle as we're talking about it's genetically passed down?

Have you seen your parents?

Have you seen that be possible?

Is it possible to break the cycle completely so that you don't pass it on?

I think so, but we're starting at such a disadvantage.

And as I think, because my real passion in life is to to create a brain health revolution.

And where would that start?

It has to start with kids before they have babies.

Because when that mother was born, she was born with all of the eggs in her ovaries she will ever have. And so if we're gonna help her children be healthier, we have to get to her when she's a child And help her make really good decisions when she's a teenager.

And too often, parents go, oh, I don't have control.

And they abdicate their parental role over teenagers on who they hang out with and what they eat.

And, you know, we're not drinking together and we're not smoking pot together.

And, you know, like all the insanity that's going on in our society today.

I think we have to get to their ovaries early because if you're born with all of the eggs you'll ever have, whatever you do in life turns on or off certain genes, making illness more or less likely.

in you, yes, but also your babies and grandbabies.

That's how we decrease the incidence is we get mom and dad, because his sperm really matters, to be as healthy as possible.

I read in the National Institute of Mental Health, they found that 5 .4 % of adult men men and 3 .2 % of adult women have ADHD.

Why do you believe that ADHD is more common in men?

Well, it is more common in men.

Because? Men have sleepier frontal lobes than women.

So, I published the world's largest imaging study on gender and looked at the difference in 46 ,000 patients, difference between male brains and female brains.

Females have much stronger, much more active prefrontal cortex. Men have sleepier prefrontal cortex. And what's the one statistic that identifies that?

Who goes to jail? Men.

14 times more than females.

So they have a relative dopamine deficit compared compared to females.

But girls still have it.

And when left untreated, it just devastates their lives.

And how you can diagnose it in a teenage girl is just look at their love pattern.

They get all excited about falling in love, dopamine burst. After it wears off, right?

It's like, don't get married in the next two months because you never really know.

After the dopamine wears off, the cocaine effect wears off, they start picking on their partner and they start fighting.

And so, new love, fighting, and then they break up and there's lots of drama around breaking up and they get suicidal sometimes.

And then they fall in love again.

And then they pick on their new person and then they break up and lots of drama around it.

And if you see that pattern repeatedly, screen them for ADD.

Very important. How does ADHD show up differently for men and women?

So men tend to be more hyperactive.

Women tend to have more of the inattentive type.

Women also tend to have the over -focused type more.

Men, the temporal lobe type, because the temporal lobe type can be in part born out of a concussion or a head injury, And, you know, people have ADD, have way more concussions and accidents.

And the reason for that is the shorter attention span and impulse control issues.

I think as I'm sitting here listening to you and trying to understand just how, even the way you broke down the seven types of ADHD, you start to think about how ADHD doesn't just affect an individual's focus and attention and performance at school.

As you rightly said earlier, it starts to affect your relationships, right?

If you have a parent, and I want to talk about all of these independently, if you have a parent that has ADHD and they have passed or haven't passed it on to you, that has an impact on you.

If you're dating someone, you were talking about your first two wives, when you're dating someone who has ADHD, that has an impact on you.

If you have ADHD and you're dating someone who doesn't, that has an impact on you and them.

It starts to impact all areas of life.

And because we have such a limited understanding of it, we can get frustrated when someone clips out our labels or we can get upset when someone is always late and we say, oh, you don't care about me.

You're always late.

Like it can actually start to become more emotional than it is just biological, chemical, and physical.

It's biological, for sure, that it gives you psychological effects.

And the chronic stress damages your immune system for you and the people who love you.

Clearly social. I think one of the reasons for divorce is untreated ADD.

I think it's often the hidden cause.

laws and it's spiritual because you just believe you're less than, that God, however you see God, doesn't care about you.

What do we do with that feeling?

Because that's the feeling for people who have ADHD and they feel they're failing at life.

They feel they're underperforming.

They feel like they're not going to succeed.

But earlier you were saying to me, actually, some of of the greatest CEOs of big companies of people with ADHD.

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Now let's dive back in.

So walk me through if someone's sitting here thinking, well, I'm not going to achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD.

What would you say to them?

You're responsible to get it treated because with treatment, you can be amazing because you often have the ability to see things other people don't see.

And it's the undisciplined mind that creates so much trouble.

So, you know, at Amen Clinics, we want to look at your brain, of course.

of course, we want to get it healthy.

And we get it healthy, whether it's diet, supplements, exercise, medicine, whatever tools we have. A lot of people do really well with neurofeedback, where you can actually measure the electrical activity in your brain, and then through exercises, strengthen it.

So I like neurofeedback a lot.

But then you also have to reprogram your mind.

And I talk about killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness, and people who have ADD often have a high negativity bias.

And so learning to direct your thoughts in a positive, in a helpful, in a hopeful way, absolutely critical to overcome it.

The first exercise I do with all of my patients, but particularly my ADD patients, is called the one -page miracle.

On one piece of paper, or write down what you want.

Relationships, what do you want?

Like with Tana, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship.

Don't always feel it.

I get rude thoughts that show up, but I don't say them.

Why? Because I inhibit them because they don't fit.

Most people in life don't do this exercise, which I find crazy.

What do you want your work or school?

What do you want for your money?

What do you want for your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual health?

What do you want? We put it on one paper.

And then the question always becomes, does it fit?

Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life?

So that's what your prefrontal cortex does, right?

It sets goals and helps you continue to achieve them despite the obstacles that you have. So I remember I'm in college, and I want to go to medical school, and I took organic chemistry, and I got a 42 on my first test. And I'm like, okay, this is going to be an obstacle.

Get a tutor. And I ended up obviously going to medical school.

But if it's low, you get a 42, and then you give up.

You don't have that persistence.

But the first step always is what do you want?

Is my behavior getting me what I want?

And they often come into my office and they go, Dr. Amen, I'm brutally honest. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, they have ADD.

And then I'm like, but that's usually not helpful.

Relationships require tact.

They require forethought.

Jerry Seinfeld once said, the brain is a sneaky organ.

We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear.

But when you have ADD, your inside voice gets out when it can be hurtful.

So that's the first step.

Know what you want, and then is my behavior getting me what I want?

And if my behavior is not getting me what I want, is my brain, could my brain be better?

And therefore, that leads to the treatment.

Because I think a lot of people are waking up every day and they're thinking kind of like what you said, that learned helplessness.

They're like, well, I'm eating right and I am working out and I am trying to be motivated or maybe even I don't make it to the workout every day.

I'm really trying, but every time I try, I just lose motivation and I lose energy.

Is that something you hear quite often?

I do. And that's why we scan people twice, once at rest, once when they they concentrate, and if their brain drops with activity, it's like, okay, we have to treat this.

And we can try to treat it with supplements, and I like them a lot.

I own BrainMD, and I want to support you.

People who take EPA fish oil, omega -3 fatty acids, helps with ADD, also helps with mood.

There are five studies with saffron, the spice saffron, as effective as ritalin in some studies.

That's amazing. And it helps 25 randomized controlled trials that saffron helps with depression compared to antidepressants.

So I love saffron. I've been eating saffron since I was a kid because it's in the Indian diet as a very staple thing.

Right. And there's lore in India.

If you're too happy, you must have had saffron.

Omega -3 fatty acids, B vitamins, pycnogenol, which is from pine bark, has been found to be helpful.

So I start based on your type.

Okay, here are the supplements.

Let's get your diet right.

And then if those things don't work, then I think, well, we should consider medication.

medication yeah i'm so glad that you're so clear on that i know whenever there's a new discovery i'm always texting you going what do you think about this what do you think about that because i appreciate your perspective because it's not coming from an opinion and it's not coming from a single case and as i'm listening to you today what i really take away is that everything is so specific and everything is so individual and personal it's not like like you were saying like some medication could actually be brilliant.

And you said even miraculous for someone's brain, but if it's a different type of brain, it doesn't work that well.

But we have this one size fits all model that we keep rolling out.

Why do we even get to make these big claims of something being innocuous or something being the perfect cure or alcohol is good for your heart or everything that you've been mentioning?

Well, you just have to follow the money.

How's it legal to say that?

A lot of it is driven by the alcohol industry, the marijuana industry, and now all of these billionaires investing in mushrooms and psilocybin.

And I'm like a huge fan of Lion's Mane.

And we make something called Smart Mushrooms. But you have to be very careful with something that disrupts someone's brain and someone's mind.

and for some people it can be helpful for other people it's a nightmare and I'm like first do no harm right so the first thing if you're depressed or you have PTSD is let's get your diet right and let's get you to exercise and not believe every stupid thing you think and take omega -3 fatty acids or if you have PTSD EMDR I'm a huge fan of psychotherapy called iMovement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

It's like first do no harm.

Let's make sure we're doing the simple things first. I really wanted to talk to you today about dating someone with ADHD.

Our community asks us so many questions about dating, marriage, being in a relationship.

And as I'm listening to you today, it's very evident that sometimes our issue with our partners is because of their ADHD.

ADHD and if you're coming from a family where you didn't have that, now someone being late or now someone being disorganized or now someone overthinking kind of causes you an issue with how you like life to function.

The amount of people that say to me like, oh, you know, he just never wants to organize a trip or, you know, she's always late or whatever it may be, that's very common to hear.

If you're dating someone or in your case, married to someone with ADHD, what What should you be prepared for and what should you be thinking about?

So Tana has said publicly she has ADHD.

We actually did a PBS show, Healing ADD, and she talked about it.

And our first date, like I had no idea she had ADD, but when she described her mom, she's classic ADHD.

And Tana just thought it was an excuse to fail.

Oh, this person has ADD.

And then she realized her overexercising the pot of coffee every day.

That's like, oh, no, I do have this.

And she's not as organized as I am and never met a rapper she actually wanted to throw away.

And I remember being irritated about the rapper.

And then I thought I had this very interesting vision is I saw the counter clean.

without her there. And I got really sad.

And so I'm like, that's just not worth the fight.

Throw the rapper away.

And she's so awesome in so many ways.

And she has the anxious ADD type, so she's always on time.

So that's not an issue, and we hire people that organize her.

And it's just fine.

If she wasn't as kind as she was, if she didn't love me, yeah, I wouldn't be with her.

Yeah. I was with Dean Ornish.

Do you know Dean Ornish?

I know the name. He's an internist, but he's written a lot of work on diet and health.

And he wrote this one book called Love and Survival.

And it's one of my favorite books I ever read.

And as I was with him, I was like a little kid, excited to talk to him.

Because with my first wife, I mean, you can have all the ADD things, but if there's not love, it's not worth it.

And I read in his book, he said he talked – there was a study from the Cleveland Clinic, and they asked 10 ,000 men one question.

Does your wife show you her love?

And you can interpret it any way.

And I remember reading it at like 10 o 'clock at night because I was reading myself to sleep.

And I woke up with crushing chest pain.

And I'm like, this relationship is killing me.

This is so important.

When you're with someone, the issue is really not do they have ADD or not.

It's do they fit or not?

And are they willing to get help or not?

Like if you date one of my kids for more than six months, I'm scanning you.

It's just like, you're not in my mind.

you're not even dating until I see your brain.

That's amazing. Because if you have ADD or you played football and you have concussions, I want you to be serious about taking care of it.

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body. Those words stunned me and I immediately called him back and we're now helping him and his family after a terrible accident.

I'm John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan.

Everybody who comes to our firm at their time of need is a somebody.

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report. And back to our episode.

Yeah. So wait, they come over to dinner, you press a button, the wall opens up.

There's like this surgical scan.

Oh no, I sent them to the clinic.

I thought you might have an undercover clinic, like a bat cave in your house.

And like, you just stood at that.

Sort of like the movie, Meet the Parents.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. That's brilliant.

I've heard a lot of people say to me, and I love your example that you just gave about the wrapper, because I think I've had friends who've gone through that where they're like, I believe you love me, but I just feel like you don't care because you aren't on time because you don't do the dishes.

But then you do it sometimes.

You do it when it suits you or you do it for your friends, but not me.

Because they have more dopamine.

Right. So yeah, talk to me about that because you could see your partner who's able to organize dinner for your friends, but then when it comes to you, they can't set a date.

in a way, it almost sounds like they're pushing on a wound.

And one of the things I learned, and I actually learned it from Tana, she grew up in a crazy home.

So her ACE score, do you know the ACE, Adverse Childhood Experiences?

So on a scale of 0 to 10, how many bad things happened to you as a kid?

And if you have four or more, it's like physical, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, watching your mother being abused, being raised with someone who goes to jail, has a mental illness and addiction.

So if you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top 10 leading causes of death.

If you have six or more, you die 20 years earlier.

Ten is an eight. And we adopted both of our nieces, who are nines.

And when you see untreated ADD, you see it throughout both of their families, right?

Untreated ADD can go with trauma.

And her earliest memory, or one of them, is her mom and grandmother falling to the floor because her uncle was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong.

And so it was because her other uncle was involved in the drug deal.

So anyways, he goes to jail, gets clean, and she goes to a seminar.

She had thyroid cancer in her twenties.

So chronic stress from untreated ADD and childhood trauma increases your cancer risk.

So she gets cancer when she's 25.

She goes to Hawaii.

He's teaching a seminar for Jack Canfield.

And he asks her, how much responsibility do you want for your station in life right now?

And she goes, I have cancer.

It's not my fault. He goes, I didn't ask you about fault.

I asked you about responsibility, which is just your ability to respond to the situation.

And in that moment, she got clarity.

It's like, I want 100 % responsibility.

responsibility and often when I'm with Tana if we're fussing which is very rare for us I'm like what can I do to make this better because as soon as I go you're not doing this and you're not doing that I think it's touching on a wound I have but I want to be powerful and being powerful is so what what can I do to make this better?

Because I know, and I ask all my patients this, I'm like, like they're fighting with their wife and I'm like, or their mom.

I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy?

And they're like, what?

Because they expect me to just listen and buy into the bullshit.

And I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy?

What do you do that makes your wife yell at you?

And I do that purposefully because the next question Jen, is what do you do to make your mom smile?

And I know if I become condescending, if I become critical, if I notice what's wrong, I'm not going to get back what I want.

And I collect penguins.

Did I ever tell you why I collect penguins?

No. It's crazy, actually.

It's good to know. I have like a thousand of them.

And I live my life with why I collect penguins.

So I adopted three of my kids.

My oldest was hard for me, argumentative, oppositional.

So he has the over -focused ADD, like classic.

And I was in training at the time to be a child psychiatrist and I went to my mentor and I'm like, I am not having any fun as a dad.

So he was the first child I had and she goes, you need to spend more time with him.

And so I took him to a place called Sea Life Park, which is in Hawaii.

It's like Sea World or Marine World, Northern California.

And we had a great day.

I took him to the whale show and that was fun and the dolphins and the sea lions.

And at the end of the day, he grabs my shirt and he goes, I want to see Fat Freddy.

And I'm like, who's Fat Freddy?

He's like, it's Penguin, Dad.

Don't you know anything?

And that was our interactions.

And so at the end of the day, I went to the last show, Fat Freddy show.

He's a tiny, humble penguin, chubby, Fat Freddy.

And he comes out onto the stage, climbs the ladder to a high dive, goes to the end of the board, bounces and jumps in the water.

And I'm like, whoa.

And he gets out, bowls with his nose, counts with his flipper, jumps through a hoop of fire.

And I'm just mesmerized by this little bird. And then at the end of the show, the trainer asked Freddy to go get something and he went and got it and brought it right back.

And in my mind, I went, damn, I asked this kid to get something for me.

He wants to have a discussion for like 20 minutes and then he doesn't want to do it.

I knew my son was smarter than the penguin.

So I went up to the trainer and I said, how'd you get Freddy to do all these really cool things?

And she said, unlike parents, she looked at my son and then looked at me.

Unlike parents, Whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him.

I give him a hug and I give him a fish.

And even though my son didn't like raw fish, what had totally worked with my daughter Chloe, she loved sushi from the time she was six months old.

I realized that whenever he did what I wanted him to do, I didn't pay any attention to him at all because I was busy.

But when he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a ton of attention because I didn't want to raise bad kids.

So I was inadvertently teaching him to be bad in order to get my attention.

So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself, notice what you like more than what you don't.

Notice what you like more than what you don't.

And so if you're only noticing what you don't like, well, if you're with a partner who has ADD, that's the story of their life that people have noticed what they haven't liked.

If you love someone and I love my kids that have ADD or I love my wife, notice what you, it feeds.

So good. Yeah, that's so good.

What a great story and what a great lesson.

and I mean, that resonates so strongly.

And it's so different to positive thinking, because I think people think, well, that means I'm just letting them get away with all the bad stuff.

And it's like, no, it's just, you're also making really clear that I notice, I validate, I acknowledge all this amazing behavior because the truth is what we're more often than not doing is is we're keeping a scorecard, but it's of all their mistakes and all of our wins.

So whenever we do do the dishes, we get a point.

When that person doesn't do the dishes, they lose a point.

As opposed to if we are going to keep score, we've got to really take account of all the amazing things that person does and be open to the fact that we also make mistakes.

Because I think it's really easy to think, like I was giving that example to you, that I've always always been a stickler for time.

But at one point I had to ask myself, why am I making time the most important currency?

Because that's also my obsession.

Time is not always the most important thing.

Like it is sometimes if I'm presenting at an event, if I'm going to be on stage, if I've got to meet a guest for a podcast, a client, time is of utmost importance.

But when me and my wife are just going out to a friend's event that is a bit more casual, people are going going to show up between 7 and 8 PM and I'm the guy trying to be there at 6 .59 and I'm putting so much pressure on both of us, it's almost like it didn't really matter whether we turned up at 7 or 7 .15 or 7 .30.

And I also had to give that up, right?

So it's also like an acceptance that it's not like I'm perfect and that person's the one who's the wrong one all the time.

And what has eternal value?

And you never want to have to win an argument.

If you have to win In an argument, it's because you have low self -esteem.

It's why do I have to beat my partner who I love, who when something good happens, I call her or something bad happens, I call her.

I need to nurture that and the winning comes from a low self -esteem place or comes from an earlier gladiator place that just has no business.

I want Tana to win.

If I have to win, then there's a deficit somewhere in me.

Yeah. And I always say to people, if you're fighting with your partner and you win, it means they lose.

And because you're on the same team, that means you both just lost. And if you lost and they won, you're on the same team, you both just lost. So you either win win together or you lose together because you're on the same team.

So there is no win -lose scenario because you go to sleep with that person, you wake up next to that person, you have dinner and breakfast and lunch with that person.

If you just won, you lost because you're sharing all the other time of the day with them.

I want to flip it to the other side.

What about someone who has ADHD ADHD and they're dating someone who doesn't, what advice would you give them to help?

Because they might be being really harsh on themselves.

They might feel misunderstood.

What would you say to them?

Well, I think communication is probably the most important thing.

It's make sure you develop rituals of time.

Because often people get so busy and they're behind that they don't make time.

And I think bonding requires two things, time and a willingness to listen.

And often the other person who doesn't have ADD feels like they're not being heard because the ADD person forgets things.

And it's like, no, I have to say this.

And the other person feels diminished.

And so having both people practice active listening, it's so magical when they say something, don't say anything, or repeat back what you hear, and then be quiet.

Too often, people just use too many words.

And if you can practice silence and giving, when someone says something, give it space.

So if they want to say more, they will, as opposed to jumping in too quickly.

Communication is so so important.

And get dopamine from going, what do you need?

How can I help? And often with ADD because of the chaos that's in your head, you might not know.

What would you say to someone who has a parent with ADHD and they're struggling with, and they're an adult, they have a parent who's got ADHD, they may be caring for them.

Embarrassed a lot, right?

Because you go to at the restaurant.

And the person will just say the first thing that comes to their mind, which can be horrifying.

My oldest patient with ADD is 94.

And I'm like, why are you in my office?

And she goes, you helped my great grandson, you helped my granddaughter, you helped my son.

I've never been able to finish the paper in the morning.

I want to finish the paper.

So that was was our goal.

And so I scanned her.

She clearly had ADHD.

And age doesn't make it better.

I think that's an important point.

Age doesn't make it better.

And I treated her. And she came back a month later.

And she had this beautiful smile.

And she said, I read my first book.

That's amazing. And I would just be encouraging and go, we've learned so much about this.

It's not not a childhood disorder.

It starts in childhood, but it can impact the rest of your life.

How should people talk to their bosses or their teachers, if parents are talking to teachers, about having ADHD?

Because I imagine that's a tough conversation in the workplace where your performance is being judged, your output's being judged, your productivity is being measured.

How do you have that conversation in an effective way?

So I think I'm not sure I would have that conversation because it might make them look at you differently.

Sad that there's still that.

There is still that.

Now, if you need accommodation, so it is federal law if you have a disability and ADHD is considered a disability under federal law, your employer can give you accommodations, is required to give you accommodations.

accommodations i think my first suggestion is see if you can get it treated without just so you don't really have to have the conversation i have to have them look at you differently but if you need it in order to keep that job i'd actually talk about that you'll need to get your doctor to write a note and request those accommodations happens all the time in colleges all major Major colleges have disability resource centers.

Great insight. One of my nieces is at UCLA.

She gets extra time on tests.

She gets notes. She gets a lot of help, which is rational.

That's great insight.

That's so helpful. Does ADHD ever go away, or is it only managed?

Great question. In about half the cases, the kids who had ADHD, so the hyperactive form, were not.

In their later teens, I often worry they've outgrown the hyperactivity, but not the short attention span and impulsivity.

But sometimes it's a maturational lag in brain development, and you can encourage it to go away, or you can discourage it to go away.

So you can encourage it to go away if there's regular exercise, if you teach kids not to to believe every stupid thing they think, if you support them with omega -3 fatty acids and a healthy diet, and you don't just give them devices they want, right?

If you want to discourage it, so if you want them to make sure they have the ADD as they age, then feed them bad food, give them all the devices they want, let them watch endless hours of TV and play video games.

Yeah, that's a great summary to help people set them up for what to do before medication.

And what are some of the long -term effects of leaving ADHD untreated?

It's so sad because it's basically the big issues in our society from school failure, drug abuse, divorce, bankruptcy, incarceration, homelessness.

And if we looked more at the brain, we'd go, we can do a lot better.

Yeah, and I think that's what the real hope is, that the world can start to take it seriously and take brain health seriously, right?

If you had a hope for how we would shift the way we looked at ADHD in the brain, what would that be?

So I have big ideas.

When I went to the White House, my friend there said, how big can you think?

The first thing I would do is rename the National Institute of Mental Health to the National Institute of Brain and Mental Health.

I get the brain involved, like stop calling people mental, it shames people, it stigmatizes, it's wrong.

I declare the next 10 years, a decade of brain health and get really serious about what goes into children's minds.

It needs to be curated to be appropriate and to be helpful.

Who else's brain have you not scanned that you'd love to scan?

The presidents. I wrote an op -ed piece in the LA Times in 2008 on scanning presidential candidates.

If someone has the nuclear codes, don't we at least want to know about the health of their brain?

Like the last election, I would have loved to scan both President Biden and now President Trump.

What would you expect to see in both of this from your perception?

I think with President Biden, there were clear cognitive issues.

Well, I don't think I'd see a healthy brain.

President Trump, I'm much more curious.

Now, I know I'll get a lot of hate for this, but I'm very interested in resilience for someone who was the most popular person or one of them in the world before he ran for president, right?

The Apprentice had gone for 14 seasons.

And he was beloved by so many people.

And then he was demonized.

And then he was falsely accused.

He was impeached. He was tempted assassination, indictments, convictions.

And it's like, how do you show up every day?

You and I off the podcast were talking about worldwide shame and how some people just causes them to disappear.

Well, he didn't disappear.

And, you know, he's still fighting every day.

So, I'm really interested.

I'm not sure I've seen a brain quite like.

What about Elon Musk?

Elon Musk would be interesting.

I've scanned many high -profile geniuses.

I got to scan Muhammad Ali, which. At what point on his journey was that?

Later. And so you could clearly see the damage.

I have lots of really fascinating scans.

Dr. Daniel Lehman, I've got a few more questions that I want to leave people with to summarize some of our conversation today to really leave them feeling energized, positive, hopeful about their journey with ADHD, whether they have it individually or they have it through someone that they love in their life.

And the first question is, for those who do have ADHD, what are some great hacks for someone struggling with ADHD to be more organized, to be better?

What would you suggest for them?

What can they do? So the first thing when you get up, try to do some form of exercise because that will help turn your brain on.

Why does exercise help turn the brain on?

Because it increases serotonin, but also increases dopamine and it increases blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. For those people who live in colder climates, get a lightbox.

A lightbox with 10 ,000 lux, so that's the intensity, has been found not only to help seasonal depression, it helps with focus, memory, energy, and it will help promote sleep.

Make sleep a priority.

Too often, when you have ADHD, you're more awake at night.

Our society, we have bias against night owls.

So morning larks, our society is geared to praise them and often find a job that fits your circadian rhythm.

But sleep is a priority.

And if you snore, get checked for sleep apnea.

So kids who snore, sleep apnea may be the cause of their ADHD that is treatable.

And what's the most important thing that someone with ADHD needs to hear?

You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better.

Think of it like glasses, right?

People, you remember I told you about Sandy and showing her scans and she starts to cry.

And I'm like, having ADD is like, people need glasses.

They're not dumb, crazy, or stupid.

Their eyeballs are shaped funny.

We wear glasses to focus.

People have ADD, are not dumb, crazy, or stupid.

Their frontal lobes just don't turn on when they need to.

And the medicine or supplements or neurofeedback helps turn it on.

So you can focus and be who you really are when your brain works right.

People go, I don't want to take medicine because I don't want to be someone different.

It's like, but don't.

Do you want to be who you are when your brain is fully functioning?

I want to be who I am when my brain is fully online.

As always, Dr. Daniel Amen, I appreciate our conversation so much. I feel like whenever I'm with you, I learn to see everything so differently and deeply.

And as a 360 degree view, I think we're so used to in our society to see one aspect of something or have a very limited understanding of the different issues that we see.

And whenever I speak to you, I feel like, oh, wow, I have the much more broader contextual view of it.

And I want everyone at home who's listening or watching, whether you're on a walk, whether you're at the gym, Dr. Danny Naiman has one of his books, which is called Healing ADD, the breakthrough program that allows you to see and heal the seven types of ADD that we discussed in today's episode.

So I highly recommend the book if you don't already have it.

And of course, if you don't follow Dr. Daniel Amen on all forms of social media, TikTok, Instagram, the podcast, as I mentioned earlier, make sure you do subscribe.

And Dr. Daniel Amen, we are so happy that you came on for a fifth time.

If you haven't seen the episodes before, make sure you go back and listen and watch. You can search Dr. Daniel Amen and Jay Shetty or Dr. Daniel Amen on purpose.

And any last words, Dr. Daniel Amen, anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask you about or anything that is on your mind or heart right now?

I'm just so grateful for you.

You know, I love the idea that we can train our brains that focus on what you want way more than what you don't want.

Yeah, I love that. Thank you.

If you love this episode, you will enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.

If we want a healthy mind, mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.

You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.

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[Decoding ADHD: Dr. Daniel Amen on Brain Health, Genetics, and Holistic Treatment]-[Dr. Daniel Amen: Struggling to focus, Stay Organized, or Feeling Overwhelmed by Your to-do List? ADHD Could Be Quietly Running Your Life (THIS is what to DO!)]

📋 Summary

Understanding ADHD: Beyond the Label

The Biological Reality of ADHD

The Over-Diagnosis and Under-Diagnosis Paradox

Lifestyle and Environmental Factors

Treatment: First Do No Harm

Redefining Relationships and Self-Worth

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Decoding ADHD: Dr. Daniel Amen on Brain Health, Genetics, and Holistic Treatment]-[Dr. Daniel Amen: Struggling to focus, Stay Organized, or Feeling Overwhelmed by Your to-do List? ADHD Could Be Quietly Running Your Life (THIS is what to DO!)]

📋 Summary

Understanding ADHD: Beyond the Label

The Biological Reality of ADHD

The Over-Diagnosis and Under-Diagnosis Paradox

Lifestyle and Environmental Factors

Treatment: First Do No Harm

Redefining Relationships and Self-Worth

Conclusion

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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