#1 BRAIN EXPERT: “If I Had ADHD, This is EXACTLY What I’d Do!” #1 Trick to Focus NOW (pt.1)

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,

distractability disorganization

impulsivity, and hyperactivity. They

can't sit still. Psychiatrist and

clinical neuroscientist Dr. Daniel

Ammon. One pioneering psychiatrist says

that feeling better starts with

understanding your brain. And 90% of

mothers work outside the house. When

they have untreated

ADD, they often look depressed and they

get on something like Flexipro, which

actually makes them more ADD, 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 ADB. 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, J Shetty. J Shetty, the one,

the only J Shetty.

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

ultrarocessed 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. 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.

Take it too late in the day, you may

have trouble sleeping." Um, sometimes

people get headaches or tummy aches.

Those almost always go away. If you're

prone to ticks, you may have more ticks.

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 overdiagnosed? I think

it's overdiagnosed

and underdiagnosed.

overdiagnosed o overall because people

see this as the simple answer.

Underdiagnosed 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 her

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

more the neurotransmitter 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 a

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, school

work, 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

you're preffrontal cortex, so we'll talk

about that. The front part of your

brain, the front third of your brain,

largest in humans than 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 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 to 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'd really like

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."

That's Yeah, that's fascinating to me.

So, 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 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, they 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 distractability,

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're easily

distracted. People with sort of the real

ADD, 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 cuz I hear everything that's in

the house. So, short attention span, not

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 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 ADD, it's 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 1:00. And because her

organization wasn't such, she didn't

really catch on to 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 you know 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 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 there on time to pick

you up or it's really important you have

a soccer practice and you're late. the

the level of stress in ADD ADHD families

is very high because of the

distractability, the disorganization.

And the fourth one is procrastination.

They don't do things 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. Uh, and it makes them stress

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. Right. If your child's struggling

in school, make sure they're not taking

their iPad to bed. So often it's because

kids are sleepdeprived. They look like

they have ADD because parents are really

not properly supervising the kids. 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. Food is so

important. If they really have ADD or

ADHD, they're going to have it 3 months

from now or four months from now. Let's

do this

and see because I think if someone

really has ADD, withholding medicine is

like withholding glasses from someone

who can't see. And that's neglect. When

I first started imaging, it was on an

ADD woman. So, I went into a lecture on

brain spec imaging in my hospital in

April 1991. And I walked out and I had a

new patient. and her name was Sandy and

she was 44 and she was beautiful and

undermployed. 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, I think you have ADD. And

she's like, oh, adults can't have it.

And 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?" Cuz

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 cuz I already knew the

diagnosis.

She it 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, 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 dopamined

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. But 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 loes,

they're less negative. And I'm just

publishing a study on negativity bias.

So, I'm very interested in are you

positive or are you negative? Now,

unbridled positive thinking is a

disaster. You die early. But negative

thinking, you actually have low function

in your frontal loes. And many of 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 wish I hadn't done that. So they

actually live with a lot of regret. And

your preffrontal 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 um strengthening it

is critical to your humanity.

Did you know that sociopaths have 10%

less volume in their preffrontal cortex?

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 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 and making it public

policy. California, you can't start

school in the morning before 8:00.

Taking the 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. Do

we know what causes ADHD? It's genetic.

people are not producing

enough dopamine and the medicines we use

like rolin or aderall they increase the

availability of dopamine now the problem

is is if you don't really have it what

you have is society induced ADHD the

medicine will disrupt you and make you

worse and early on I realized when I

scanned people cuz 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 seeing heal the seven types.

And so, can I talk about the type? That

I was just about to ask my next

question. You you're already you're

already one step ahead of me. So, let me

let me ask you. So, type one is the

classic most people think of ADHD. short

attention span, distractability,

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 lore 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 he tried

to hold her was like trying to hold a

live salmon. She's so wiggly. And then I

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. Ammon, I loved your column. Why is

your child on a leash? So, what I used

to do with Kaitlyn is put her in her

stroller and tie her shoes together so

she couldn't get out cuz she's like,

"Where are you going?" And I remember

just holding her hand. I 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 now I'm worried

about her eternal soul. and I adore her

and she's 37 now and Haven is just like

her, which is, you know, 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

cuz it's genetic." And I'm like, "It's

not me. I do everything early." now

written 42 books. Every one of them's

been handed in early. And her mom goes,

"It's not me." But then I was so

grateful cuz it took her like 12 years

to get through college. And she just she

asked her this one question. This is a

great adult ADD question cuz 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 and for her

that's type one that's type one classic

type two is inattentive ADD

short attention span distractability

disorganized procrastinate but they're

not impulsive and more common in girls

they're not hyperactive in fact they can

a little bit hypo active. And those

first two types were described in the

DSM when they first created this

diagnostic category in 1980. I describe

the next five types. The third one is

overfocused ADD where the problem is not

so much you can't concentrate,

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 a

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, 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 five I think

is such an interesting one is temporal

lobe ADD. They have problems in one or

both of their temporal loes. Often goes

with learning problems, but mood

instability irritability temper

problems. One of my first great cases

was Chris. He his third psychiatric

hospitalization. This time he took a

pencil and put it in the neck of one of

his classmates. Stimulants made him

hallucinate uh all the other medicines.

And I'm like, I'm scanning you. And he

had left problem. which goes with

violence. I put him on an

anti-combulsant, an anti-seizure

medicine, became the sweetest kid. And

then he still had trouble concentrating.

So then after I got the temporal

override, I gave him a stimulant.

Masterful. I mean, this kid just did

phenomenally

well. And then the ring of fire, that's

one 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 and aggressive. Actually use a

supplement to calm things down in their

brain. Very effective. Then the last

one's anxious ADD where they're really

anxious and so they tend to be early to

things but disorganized, distracted, so

on. So knowing the type and that's why

rolin 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 emotions

interesting And my daughter Caitlyn when

I put her on rolin cuz 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. But 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

hotthead. And when you see the world

like I see it and you're watching, you

know, 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 is 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've brought negative attention to

yourself over 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

were Jack in the Box, right? So, it's

like we 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? Like,

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 alcohol cancer warning label signs

on alcohol. I think when you just look

at our society from the digital

addictions and social media and

technology to the bad food, the

ultrarocessed food that so many people

that's 80 or 90% of their diet to

marijuana is innocuous which is a

complete lie. Alcohol is a health food.

No. And now the big new thing is

psilocybin. It's great medicine. And

it's an anti-depressant. It'll treat

your PTSD

and it's increased

psychosis to emergency rooms 300%.

It is not innocuous. Now, might it

become a 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, benzo are

innocuous. their mommy little helper. We

know benzo are highly addictive and

increased the risk of 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

loes, now you drink, you have sleepier

frontal loes, still not a good thing.

And then pain is the fifth vital sign,

right? The Purdue Pharmaceuticals came

out with let's 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 Cy 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 a thousand

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

Jamama psychiatry

on a thousand marijuana users the memory

and learning centers are lower in blood

flow and activity. This is not

innocuous.

It's all these lies that then increase

the expression of ADD. And so you know

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 addypetest.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 sleepdeprived 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 I was

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 Warriors 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 3 months from

now or 4 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 them medicine,

do these things first. And it's so

helpful. Why does changing our diet

affect ADHD? Why does removing gluten,

removing processed foods, etc. 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

glutiomorphins

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

quomorphins

and it's why we love pizza. If you think

of gluten and dairy, right, it's pizza.

Um, 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,

you know, 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, like

before we get to medication. looking at

technology, looking at our diet and 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 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 show

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 the frontal lobe turning on

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. Uh but he was way famous

before then because he coined this term

learned helplessness. And with

depression, it's like you try and it

doesn't work. 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,

uh, 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 anti-depressant 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 if

you saw in your parents have you seen

that be possible is it possible to break

the cycle completely so that you don't

pass it on you know I I think so but

we're starting at such a disadvantage

age. And you know, as I think because

you know, my real passion in life is 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 going to 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. So

that's how we decrease the incidence is

we get mom and dad cuz his sperm really

matters to be as healthy as possible.

[Music]

If you love this episode, you'll enjoy

my interview with Dr. Daniel Aemon on

how to change your life by changing your

brain. If we want a healthy 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.