Change Your Brain Every Day - Coping With ADHD and Trying to Notice What You Like More Than Dislike

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Dr Daniel Amen and Tana Amen give advice on helping maintain focus and happiness in individuals with ADHD.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your 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 nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are in our happiness challenge and we're talking about secret number six, which is notice what you like about others more than what you don't like within acceptable boundaries and the question is am i reinforcing behaviors i like or behaviors i don't like but before we get started i have a review I want to read. This is from Gaiman Fun Penguin. Super energetic podcast and awesome info. Just found your podcast and learning from all the info you share. Love Tana's passion and thank you for sharing what you say to your daughter. Life is not fair and that is what it's what we do to be healthy. I enjoy how calm Dr.

Amen is. Can you get into more parenting tips also looking forward to more great shows? Thank you. So it's fun. Well, there's another one I wanted to read as well. Overcoming ADD. I love Tana Amen's no nonsense approach to nutrition. And listening to the podcast has taught me many valuable lessons to help my brain, my life, especially when it comes to dealing with my ADD. We should probably spend more time talking about ADD. It's just such a common issue for a lot of people who listen to the podcast. So let's transition into that. People have ADD, notice what they don't like more than what they like. And I've learned about this. Hold on, because we talked about ACE scores. Did you know if you have

chronic childhood trauma, it affects your frontal lobes, makes them sleepier. Means more likely to be diagnosed with ABV. And if you have children who have ABV, you have adult trauma. Oh, when I had Caitlin. Caitlin's awesome. She is awesome. But as a child, hyperactive, restless, impulsive, I'm like, where are you going? That's so funny. And now she's got a couple of kids like that. Always trying to get away.

And you know, with her kids, the old one and the younger one, You got to keep your eyes on them all the time. Oh, they terrify me. Terrify me. That's what makes your limbic brain hyperactive. So when I had Caitlin and she was my third, there was never a time I could have her out of my eyesight. I remember one day she was in the back seat i was in the front seat she was strapped in and when i parked she got out of her car seat

opened the door and ran across the parking lot right as i got and i'm like and so think about what that does to your nervous system yeah if you like your child right right if you don't like him it's a different story but i liked her and i knew i would be in deep trouble if she died and so um i had so many episodes raising a hyperactive child where as an adult my trauma brain was just on fire because you have to what and some of you out there who have any of you children you know exactly what i'm talking about that's funny because i had the opposite experience i i can't relate to it at all mine was so overly cautious about everything like terrified yeah she was terrified yeah but no not even my grandmother oh she's terrifying not caitlin when she was young i mean now she's awesome

and she's good mom and all that but um i was chronically stressed and And I remember whenever I'd go to the mall, she'd always try to get away from me. I mean, I would hold her hand. And for those watching on video, I would hold her hand and I'd take my pinky and wrap it around her wrist because I'm like, I need a good grip. Didn't you put her on a leash one time? No, because I wrote a column in the Daily Republic, the local newspaper. Oh, I see. In Fairfield. And so whenever I went to the mall, people recognized me.

Right. And I just couldn't deal with, Dr. Amen, I love you. Why is your child on a leash? I just, I couldn't deal with that. So what I used to do is put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out. And she would like, look at her shoes and look at me, give me that sour face. And I'm like, deal with it. Because I'm here to have a good time. I'm not here to chase you.

It's like, where are you going? We're being together. I remember one time we were at a picnic and I didn't have my eyes on her for like 30 seconds. And she's literally headed toward the street. And I had to run at a dead sprint to get her so she wouldn't hurt herself and never had those issues I had the opposite Chloe wanted to be carrying it everywhere but see how easy things like this activate your nervous system so you don't notice what you like more than what you don't like and it was a conscious effort. That's like a survival. You're always in survival mode.

And parents who have ADD children, it reshapes. That sounds exhausting. It's totally exhausting. I mean, just when the grandkids are over, I'm exhausted. I adore them. And I'm exhausted when they leave because I'm so scared. I'm constantly terrified because they have no fear. None.

You have to watch all the time, which resets your nervous system and now you begin to notice what's wrong because of that. I see accidents everywhere. And also, people with ADD because they have sleepy frontal lobes,

when you notice something you like, it's nice. And it raises oxytocin and probably a little bit of serotonin. When you notice what you hate, it raises dopamine. So people with ADD often use negativity as a stimulant. It was very early in my career. And I was seeing Betty a couple of times a week. Loved her. But she started every session with how she was going to violently, gruesomely kill herself.

I was always off balance with her because I don't want her to kill herself. I used to have the belief that if somebody killed themselves, then I was a failure. I realized I can't control what other people do. I can be really helpful. But, you know, as we often say, sometimes the illness wins. Anyways, with Betty, I was just always anxious until one day, and I'd scanned her. She had really low frontal lobe function.

And she came in and she started the how i'm going to kill myself and i don't recommend psychiatrists do this unless you really know someone very well and i went okay you need to stop that i said you're no more going to kill yourself than I am. You have five children. You love them. You know, if you kill yourself, you've just gifted them a 500% increased chance of killing themselves. You use that horror, those horrible thoughts. It's a stimulant. You stimulating yourself with those visualizations. So interesting. And she like took a step back. She's like, she's paying me.

I'm basically telling her to stop talking about suicide. And she goes, I do that. I notice what's wrong about myself. I notice what's wrong about myself. I noticed what's wrong about my kids. And I had no idea that it was because I was using it as a stimulant. And over the next year, she just got so much better. We, of course, work to balance her brain. But bad thoughts can be a bad habit.

Yeah. Bad thoughts can be a bad habit. And you break bad habits by noticing them, by being curious, by seeing what triggers them, what cues them, and try to understand the reward. The reward for her was unconscious, was biochemical, if you will, and then come up with a new routine. So when I think about suicide, I really don't want to die because I'm not gifting that to my children.

Let me do something else. And the thing she did was notice what she liked about other people more than what she did. I think that's why I love exercise so much. And I discovered that when I was a kid because it stimulates my brain. Exercise has been shown when you, especially intense exercise for people

who have sleepy brains, right? To release those chemicals, to, to increase blood flow to the brain, to make you feel happier. And figuring that out for myself was one of the most important things that I've done. And I've, I've heard other people with ADD say the same thing. Lots of them. And it's one of the things we tell our patients is intense exercise, short bouts of intense exercise can really help.

And you know, one has to wonder if your, quote, ADD didn't come from the chronic stress you experienced as a child that made your frontal lobes sleepier. That, you know, just as you said, people with high scores have an activated limbic brain, emotional brain, but sleepy frontal lobes. Anyways, we hope you find this helpful. Again, your homework is, you know, whether you're listening to this at work or at home, is the next person you come in contact with. Say something nice to them. Notice what you like more than what you don't. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode.

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