Change Your Brain Every Day - 5 Defining Symptoms of ADD

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

Although not everyone with ADD exhibits quite the same behavior, there are 5 hallmark symptoms attributed to attention deficit disorder. Do you have any of these symptoms? In the first episode of a series on subtyping the 7 different types of ADD, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen dive deep into an analysis of exactly what defines someone with ADD.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome to ADD Brain Type Week. We're so excited for this week. Tana and I often say we know more about ADD than we want to know. And we are going to explore the seven different types of ADD at work, at school, and the impact at home. So stay with us. It's going to be fun and fascinating.

I want to start with a, with a testimonial. This is from my YouTube channel, but it's about our podcast. So again, Daniel and Tana, well-spoken. Thank you for the real tangible help you have to offer lay persons and professionals from your experiences,

as well as your educated intelligence, proven studies using the original medicine given to all. Like first responders are taught how to break the tunnel vision, panic, and anxiety. I really like that. So that's from Laura Louise Doctor. So ADD. Yes.

I knew nothing about it before I went to medical school. I thought it was just a joke. But growing up, I sort of had an ADD brother who was so active, beat me up all the time. And he would get out of the house sometimes, and my mother would find him in the gutter on the street. When she put him in the corner, he would actually start taking the wallpaper off the street. When she put him in the corner, he would actually start taking the

wallpaper off the walls. And he didn't do that well in school. In fact, because of him, I had to change high schools because we were going to a college prep school, Crespi, in the San Fernando Valley. And he wasn't doing really well. So my mom, after my freshman year, carted me off to Birmingham High School, which I was like so okay with because they actually had girls there. But ADD affects at least 10% of the population. And if you have ADD, it affects probably 30 percent more. Right. Because it affects the people in your life. Because it affects their husbands, their wives, their teachers, their bosses, the police.

Right. Yeah. I wonder what the percentage of ADD is with the criminal population in jails. It's very high. It's like 25%, up to 50% in some studies. But also when you look at head trauma, it's also very high. Yeah, yeah. And so it's one of the unknown reasons why people's lives don't go the way they had hoped. But talking about the types, I think that part might confuse some people because there are different types. And I think that's really important because not everyone behaves the same on

ADD. And I think that confuses people. And I think that's where we start going. It's nonsense, right? So I know when you scanned me, I had a little bit of like sort of sleepy frontal lobes, but they weren't extreme, like someone like my mom.

But my behavior was not typical for someone with classic ADD. So that's where you start going, hmm, how come some people behave very classic? Some people have some traits, but not everything. So do you remember our first date? And I guess it's about 70% through the date. You looked at me and you go, you think I have ADD, don't you? Because I was drinking like almost two pots of coffee a day.

I work in a trauma unit. I got up at four o'clock in the morning to work out. But see, to me, getting up at four o'clock in the morning to work out was a health, like I thought I was, that was a good thing. Right. So I'm not saying I graduated top of my class. I mean, I could do all the other stuff where, you know, I did really well in school. I had all these other things that I was doing that, you know, financially I was fine. I was actually more than fine. So I wasn't late paying bills. You know what I mean? All these other things, these classic traits that people have, I didn't have. Yeah. No, you have anxious ADD, but waiting in line. Oh no. No, I'm not patient with other people, especially people

with ADD. I'm not patient at all. So is that a sign of ADD? Or being organized. No, I'm very organized with what I want to be organized with. Right. But everything else, you're not. But I don't care. So before we get into the types, let's spend this first podcast just talking about what ADD is. And you brought it up on the imaging work we do, but also, lots of other people have found that it's basically lower activity in the prefrontal

cortex when you try to concentrate. Also goes with lower basal ganglia activity, which usually means lower anxiety. And it goes with lower cerebellar activity, especially when you try to concentrate. And the hallmark symptoms of ADD that applies to all of the types, short attention span. That's why it's called attention deficit disorder, but not for everything. It's short attention span for regular routine, everyday things, schoolwork, homework, paperwork, chores. And the thing that fools people, and this is often why it has a bad reputation, for things that are new, novel, highly interesting, stimulating, or frightening, people with ADD can pay attention just fine. So those things have their own internal dopamine.

Yeah, but college isn't new. And so- But if you are driven to be at the top of your class, then that's the dopamine that causes you to perform. But when it comes to closing a cabinet door- Yeah, but I'll go back and close it. Or putting- Or get back around to it. Or putting a wrapper away, it's like you don't really even see those things.

Don't really care. And before you really decided you wanted to do well in school, you struggled early on. No, actually, as a young child, I did. As a young child. But until I was in like third, fourth grade, then it started to get better. Right. But now part of it was the chaos. I was very young. And I was very young. I was the youngest in my class. Was the chaos. And that's a very important point. The children who are the youngest in their classes. My birthday was the cutoff. Actually have a much higher incidence of ADD.

Why? Because if you think about it, you know, say, so you started when you were four and a half. Yeah, my birthday was December 1st. It was the cutoff. They're often kids in your class who are five and a half. Oh, no, they were like a year older than us. Almost six. Yeah.

So they're 20% older than you are. Right. They've had more development. And their brains have been more developed. And so that all by itself increases the chances that you'll be diagnosed with ADD and on medication. So we are often, I are often like start kids late. The later you can start them, the better they will actually do in school, in sports, with friends, and so on.

But let me finish how we diagnose this. Short attention span, but not for everything. And I've known you for over 13 years. If you are really interested, your attention span is great. If you are bored, it's terrible. Well, I don't want to do it. You won't do any good. The second one is a short attention span, easily distracted.

And people who have ADD tend to see too much. They tend to hear too much. They tend to feel too much. They can even tend to taste too much and become sensitive with what they eat. But they have trouble sort of decreasing the noise around them to stay focused on what they're doing. It's like the world comes at them too fast. Is that why we sometimes like to blast rock music when we study? Yes, because it's decreasing the other noise. It's also why they often like to sleep with fans at night.

It's why they sleep with a mask at night. And sometimes, and this is going to sound strange, it's actually why sometimes people with ADD have trouble having orgasms. Why? Because what does an orgasm require? Attention. Interesting. Freedom of distraction. So you can focus on the feeling. So you've given me ADD. I sleep with a mask because you keep your light on reading. Just FYI. All right. Short attention span. We have to finish. Short attention span.

Easily distracted. And these are the kids who have sensory overload often. And so as little kids, they're taking their clothes off all the time. They hate tags. Michael Jordan, who said he had. But I still do that when I walk in the door. I'm like, ah! I need to get into something that does not really-

Michael Jordan, actually, for Hanes, helped market tagless t-shirts. Yeah, I despise the feeling of clothes. Because, you know- Still. We think he had ADD when he was a student, and probably still does. But, so- Clothes feel like a straitjacket. Clothes does. But so clothes bother them.

Tags bother them. Seams and socks bother them. They're just more sensitive. I'm just having a hard time with some of these being a label for ADD. To me, some of them seem like common sense. It's all, you have to put it all together. And it has to interfere with your life. Short attention span, distractibility, disorganization.

So space, you do better when someone helps you organize. You just do. I mean, to say anything besides that. But I do fine when someone's not. All right. I actually don't know what to say to that, except I've lived with you for a long time. And often they're disorganized for time. They don't get how long things will take with them. So they tend to do things at the last minute. That's not me. I'm the opposite. But that's because you have a subtype we're going to talk about called anxious, ADD. And then procrastination is very common. They put things off until someone's mad at them to get it done. That was not me either. And impulse control.

They'll often say things or do things. That's not me unless I'm in traffic. Or lying. Which means they're often not good at listening. So they'll interrupt you frequently. And the moment is what matters to them, not five moments from now or 10 moments from now. It's now. And that means they're spontaneous, which can be a really great thing.

But it can also get them into trouble where it's like, oh, I didn't really need to say that or I didn't really need to do that. And... So I have a question then. So can it be that people who are not quote unquote or diagnosed with ADD have ADD moments? Because there are a lot of times you say silly things and you're like, it's like almost a joke in our house.

You sometimes say things, you're like, can people have ADD moments? All of us have ADD moments, right? It's if these five traits, short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, procrastination, and impulse control issues if they really are the story of your life and they interfere with your life. So all of us, especially with social media and all the distractions in our society, have a short attention span and are easily distracted. But it's having these five symptoms over a long period of time that interfere with your ability in relationships, with your ability at work, your ability to manage your internal life. That's when we say you have ADD.

And when I first started our brain imaging work, cause I thought ADD, well actually for a long time, we've known that was at least two things. It's the classic time where you have those five symptoms plus you're hyperactive or you have those symptoms and you're never hyperactive. So we call that initially ADD with hyperactivity or ADD without hyperactivity. When I started looking at scans in 1991, I went, whoa, it's way more complicated than that. So stay with us and we're going to begin to explain the seven types of ADD.

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