Change Your Brain Every Day - ADD Ring of Fire Anxiety - What Supplements Can Help Calm & Focus The Brain

Episode Date: March 17, 2017

This episode is a continuation of our four part Healing ADD coaching call where we've answered a wide variety of questions on ADD.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

Okay. My 17-year-old son with anxiety, ADD, ring of fire anxiety types. GABA helps anxiety, but attention support and 5-HTP is not helping concentration. Is there a better combo to try? I really want to stick with the supplements, but he's frustrated and wants to try meds. We did try Adderall last summer, but it made his anxiety worse. Is there a prescription that would help if we need to go? I think you need to go after this one. That's not my expertise. Okay. Anxious ADD. It's totally your expertise. No, no, no. I'm saying the combination of medicines for ring of fire. I know that there's a specific way to do this, and I am very good at knowing what I'm good at and what I'm not. So clinically, when I see a ring of fire and anxiety, I think of raising GABA and 5-HTP and L-tyrosine at the same time. So I think it's usually due to lower levels of GABA, serotonin, and L-tyrosine.

And so I might think of Neuralink, one of our products actually developed it for this reason. And I never will advertise any of the supplements for medical conditions because of FTC constraints. So let me just say that. But let me tell you what I would do clinically and what I do clinically in my office. If I have the ring of fire with an anxious kid, I'll use Neuralink, try that for a couple of months, and then I might add focus and energy or a little bit of Adderall or Ritalin to it after I've calmed things down. So the dose for Neuralink is usually four twice a day, but you have to do it for a bit. That helps settle things down, can help with focus. And if the focus is not enough, I'll add a little bit of focus and energy

or I'll add a little bit of Ritalin or a little bit of Adderall to be helpful. What do you think of intense exercise for those kids? I think exercise is just good for everything. The other thing with Ring of Fire is sometimes I think of allergies with Ring of Fire. I've seen that a lot, haven't you? Some of our best testimonials come from putting people on elimination diets, which is why in Healing ADD at Home in 30 Days, you and I talked for four videos on diet and that elimination diet, which quite honestly, I think that's the way you should live. I think you should eliminate things that could hurt you and eat things that help you.

So you want to know what I had for breakfast this morning? So I had an avocado with garlic salt because I like that. And I had a whole big group of fresh cut veggies. So broccoli and bell peppers and celery and so on. But there's not any protein in that. So I had half a chicken breast and I just took it with me on the way to work. We often need dinner foods for breakfast. It's just how we are in our house. But that's an elimination diet. And I don't feel deprived for two seconds. Or you could have a shake with protein powder, water, blueberries, some green stuff.

So it's interesting because Chloe, our 12-year-old, so I have great recipes because I don't want her to feel like she's being deprived because we've changed the way we eat radically in our house over the last decade. So it's like I have recipes for pancakes that are not real pancakes. I mean, they don't have flour in them. I've got recipes for so many cool things. And she won't eat that because in her mind, she still feels like even the blended strawberries, which are strawberries, that's all they are, is blended strawberries for the sauce. She won't eat it.

Because first of all, I think I gave birth to an Eskimo because this kid wants raw fish all the time. But she can't, in her mind, eat carbs for breakfast for school. And that actually didn't come from us. She figured out that she starts to feel hungry and shaky and she can't focus. And I'm like, you need to come talk at one of our, you know, one of our events. Because I keep trying to tell people, don't give your kids carbs for breakfast. You need to give them protein. She eats salmon and avocados for breakfast.

She eats eggs. She eats avocados with eggs. I mean, that's her breakfast. That's what she eats. So whenever I see the ring of fire, it's one of the first things I think of is putting people on an elimination diet. And the reason for it is I think the ring of fire, there's just a lot of activity in the brain

and it could be inflammation. And that can come from an allergic response to things your body doesn't like. Don't you often, if it doesn't get better, recommend checking for things like Lyme and just knowing what else might be going on or no? I do. Okay. Absolutely do. I just heard that. In fact, that little boy who had the panda syndrome also had Lyme. That's what I thought I heard. All right. Question number four from Elaine. When asked if I am organized, I never know how to answer. Working in an office or hosting a charity event,

every detail is organized and runs smoothly. At home, I will organize myself into chaos and not remember where I put something. I am forgetful and messy. I feel you, sister. I remember her by seeing. And so things are all over the place. So I ask you, am I organized or not? It depends on who you ask. And so if it's important to you, I mean, it's such an ADD thing that people have ADD, are focused and organized when they have great desire to be focused and organized. And if it doesn't really make that much difference to them, or there's just not the love and the drive. So when you're at a charity event, somebody's watching you.

And there's passion. And you love that. And love is a drug. And this woman never met a cabinet door she actually wanted to close. I just don't care. I'm actually- Or a wrapper that she wanted to throw away. Okay, so I posted. I have to tell,

because Elaine, I can feel Elaine's pain. And here's what Elaine, you know, here's the thing. I'm actually quite happy with where I'm at in life. I've written eight books in seven years. Okay. That's pretty amazing. I'm going to, you know, neurosurgical ICU nurse. I graduated top of my class and I started looking back and I'm like, why can't I organize my closet? And then I realized something because I don't really care about it. Cause if I were focused on that, I wouldn't be focused on all these other things. I wouldn't be doing them well. Right. So I just don't care that much. So I posted a picture of my closet on Facebook. I'm like, and I really tried to connect with people. You know, it's like that doesn't make me

wrong. It doesn't make me worse than anybody else. It means I'm highly focused in these areas that matter to me. Being a mom, I'm dead serious about. Everything else will come second. You know, my community on Facebook, all the things I do, my speaking, I can rock my mission. I really don't care about my closet. So it really just matters, you know, what is important to you. Now, if you're married to somebody who does care. Yeah, then it's a problem. It's important to have a discussion.

But when I fell in love with this one. I'm very lucky. I knew she was not organized and I could make a big deal out of it at the expense of my relationship. Right. And it's, it's just not that big a deal. Now I'm not going to say I'm not irritated. I'll look at it and go, how come you can't see the rapper on the counter? Fortunately, he doesn't sit. Or he jokes with it. He jokes around. But, you know, I want to protect my relationship.

And so, you know, I think, you know, okay, she can put that away. But she won't. But if she wasn't here and I didn't have to deal with the rapper, I would be very sad. And so, you know, you're like, you're always weighing things. No, I'm really lucky in that. And I will say this. So I know that I'm really good at what I'm good at. So I don't use it as an excuse. I'm good at, I love, like you love your charities. I love working with people. I love speaking. I love doing my charity, you charity, what I do with churches and the Salvation Army and writing books. Not many people have written eight books in seven years. So that is what I'm good at. And I can make money doing that. And I can hire someone to pick

up my mess. So not everybody can. I know that. I'm just saying I've focused my energy on the things I'm good at and not, I don't spend my time focusing and fretting over the things I know I don't really care about. And then I'm not that good at, I just, I just don't, I refuse. So, but if you're having challenges and it's affecting your relationship, one, get your partner to watch the healing ADD videos or healing ADD, the PBS special Tana and I did that's part of this course. And sometimes hiring a professional organizer can be really helpful. Even just an intern. And then, but don't just hire them once. Hire them for like a year and every month,

just come over and help you until it becomes more natural. And before you were in my life, I actually just had an intern, like a kid that came and just helped me out with that because I figured that out a long time ago. So my point was focused on your strengths, not on your weaknesses. My whole point with that was not like, Oh, I have money. It was, I'm not, I'm sorry. It was because I'm excited. I'm super excited. My point with this was tap into your passion, tap into what you're really good at. That was what I was trying to get at. So yeah. Let's do the next one. Okay. Do you want to do it? I actually love this and want to use it as a testimonial. So go ahead and read it. Okay. So it's anonymous. I personally have

been doing the Healing ADD course online and I've seen a huge improvement in so many ways in my life. So thank you so much. I am now being led. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. I'm now being led to help my sister. On the questionnaire, the second ring of fire, temporal lobe, limbic, anxious, and over-focused.

On the questionnaire, she scored. Ring of fire, temporal lobe, limbic, anxious, and over focused. She has huge stress on her shoulders. She also is recovering from having an eating disorder and not changing food. Oh, and changing food is not an option at this stage. I thought I would try introducing supplements in what I hoped was the correct order after doing my research through your resources. It started well. I had her on omega-3s. Immediately, she noticed that she felt much calmer. Then I started her on GABA and 5-HTP. This is where things got complicated. At the same time, she started the 5-HTP. She started a homeopathic remedy called...

Melibdidum. Okay. For her urticaria, burning burning feeling under the skin she had developed a severe burning pain i really wanted to find some supplements that help her she's suffering greatly from her many add symptoms low energy depression like symptoms cyclical mood moodiness and worst is going to happen attitude irritability impulsivity exhaustion after periods of emotion and anger you want to tackle that or you want me to? Wow. There's a lot there.

But it's common. Why don't you start? I have some things to add. What's going on with your sister is really common. And as we talked about, Tana has more than one type. It's common to have more than one type. And sometimes it takes a little time. When it is ring of fire, temporal lobe, limbic, anxious, and

over-focused, what I imagine that I would see in her brain is her brain is just lit up. And we often see that pattern in people who have serious stress and sometimes even post-traumatic stress disorder. And a lot of people use marijuana, alcohol, things to settle their brains down. We're not a fan, but we understand why. And for all these types combined, I would just focus on working on the ring of fire type because with the ring of fire type, everything's up, increased, and you can have symptoms of being sad. You can have symptoms of being anxious. You can have symptoms of having trouble focused, being over-focused. actually like the plan. So I like raising serotonin, raising GABA, and raising L-tyrosine. So just talk about some supplements for a bit. Theanine is actually really great from green tea because what it does is it helps you focus and relaxes you. I have a fun story.

Did I tell you the Brendan story? Yeah. So a friend of ours, Brendan Bouchard, who's a fairly famous teacher, who's a friend of ours, he went to see Oprah and he was feeling really anxious because he was trying to get to do online courses for Oprah. So it's like a big deal. And he was feeling really anxious and he's like, I need some theanine. And in his bag, he had one of our products called Brain Boost on the go, which is what I created actually. So I would drink water and also give me something to help me focus and calm me down. And he had one. And so he put it in some water and drank it. And all of a sudden he felt really calm, but really clear. Met with Oprah.

He was really happy. She was really happy. And now he has an online course. Your Best Self, something like that. And he was like really thrilled. So we love natural ways to heal the brain. But if your sister is really suffering and it's complicated, she has a lot of stress and a lot of emotion. So think about getting her to

one of the clinics. Also think about if you can't get to one of the clinics and everybody on this call, if you can't get to one of the clinics, you're going to have a phone appointment with one of the docs, you know, half an hour is $200200, an hour is $400. And that would be money really well spent. Pretty soon, we're actually going to have coaches that you can talk to online, a program we're going to launch February 16th. So we'll send out a notice to our fans and family and so on. So that would be another thing. So to actually go through, because on calls like that, since we don't know you and we haven't evaluated, we can't say you should take this. But one of our team members who actually hears your personal story could say, here's something to think about. Now, over the phone, they won't prescribe you medication and I'll never let them because you have to have a face-to-face contact. That's the law. That's good medical practice. But at least you could get some high-level thoughts.

So I just, and I know we have a lot of questions that we want to be able to get to, but it reminds me. So getting a little bit personal, but when I met you coming from a very stressful situation, but also a very stressful situation, but also a very stressful background, which I was really good at hiding, I thought. So I had this really good wall up and I almost canceled my first date with Daniel when I found out he was a psychiatrist because I did not want to be psychoanalyzed. And then he didn't try to psychoanalyze me. He just scanned me and then figured it all out in like three minutes, which really, really annoyed me. Totally annoyed me. But the point being, and it was really hard for me to start talking about it

with people. And I will say that when I did start sharing my story with my community, it's incredibly healing because pain shared is pain divided. But when there's that stacking, okay, so I grew up with a lot of trauma, a lot of drama, lousy food. I was sick all the time. I mean, I could go on and on. Head injury. I had head injury. Right. I had cancer. I mean, there was so many things going on, really bad divorce. And so this stacking that occurs, okay, I had food allergies I did not know about. Nobody bothered checking. And so these things that begin to stack, when no one checks and they go unchecked for a long time, pretty soon I was on nine medications. And no one thinks about how that's affecting their brain. So things like eating disorders or OCD or ring of fire. And what I figured out, I mean,

when I got that scan, it really irritated me because I felt so naked when someone was looking at my brain. That was sort of weird. But it was really a relief because it's like, oh, okay, there it is. It's like, there's no running, there's no hiding from that. That's real. And it was systematic for me. As soon as I see something, it's like, I need to make, I need to do something with it. So it's systematic. It's like, what do I do? And I just started doing some research and like systematically, it was like peeling back the layers of an onion and one thing at a time. And it took a little time. It was not like overnight, but my next scan was radically different because now I realized, okay, I need to do what I can do to start sleeping. I need to do what I can do to get rid of the food allergies.

I need to do what I can do to heal the brain injury. And it was just one thing after the other. Meditation became critical. I've always used exercise as my drug, but I had to stop exercising so hard. So I had to start balancing things. And that's what I want to go away with is that stacking that your sister's going through. It has an effect, but when you can start unstacking it systematically, it makes a difference. That was good. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.