Change Your Brain Every Day - Stop Believing These ADHD Myths: Get the Real Deal, with Dr. Steven Storage

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Traditional psychiatry claims there are just three types of ADHD—what if there are actually seven? In this enlightening guest featured episode, Amen Clinics psychiatrist Dr. Steven Storage takes the mic to expose the surprising science behind ADHD, including how brain scans reveal very different types of the condition. And how you might be getting the wrong treatment if you don’t know your type. From inattentive and over-focused types to the explosive “Ring of Fire” type, you’ll learn how ADHD can show up in unexpected ways… and how to tailor treatment for real results. Whether you're a parent, a patient, or simply know someone with ADHD (and most of us do), this episode will change the way you think about this misunderstood condition.

There are different types of ADHD and not all treatment fits every single person. We have identified seven different types of ADD and treatment isn't the same for each type. So type one is classic ADD. Someone who's inattentive, someone who's hyperactive, and someone who's impulsive. All at the same time. Type two is inattentive ADD and this is a type that gets missed a lot, especially in girls. The third type is over focused ADHD. It's not that the person can't focus it's that the person has a hard time controlling their focus. Fourth type of ADHD is temporal lobe. They're really important for mood regulation. The fifth type is limbic ADD,

and this is a person who feels depressed, sad, not motivated. The sixth type, ring of fire ADD. It looks like their brain is literally on fire. The final type, anxious ADD. This is a person who is nervous, who's tense, and that anxiety gets in the way of their ability to focus. So there's no way that a one-size-fits-all treatment is going to work. With that, let's talk about treatments. Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse.

Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Are you struggling with anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking, past emotional trauma, ADHD or brain fog and don't know where to turn? Are your relationships a mess and you don't know why? Have you had a brain injury, concussion or just don't feel the same after COVID? Is your memory worse than it was 10 years ago? Or do you have a parent or grandparent with dementia and want to work on prevention? Yes, prevention is possible, but the sooner you start, the better.

prevention is possible. But the sooner you start, the better. For 35 years, we've been changing people's brains and their lives using brain-spec imaging and a personalized natural approach to brain and mental health care. And we have some of the best published outcomes anywhere. Welcome back to the Change Your Brain Everyday podcast. As you may notice, I am not Daniel Amon. I am Dr. Stephen Storridge. I'm one of the psychiatrists at Amon Clinics. I've been part of Amon clinics for about four years. I'm one of the associate medical directors here. And I am a child adolescent and adult psychiatrist

who sees a little bit of everything. But today we're gonna be talking mostly about ADHD. Some of the myths around ADHD. How do you manage ADHD effectively? What is ADHD in the first place? And I'm excited to share that with you guys today. So what is ADHD? Many people have heard of it,

but not everyone understands it well. It stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It used to be called ADD, attention deficit disorder. Now it's called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And there's multiple types, but in traditional psychiatry, there's really only three types that are described. Inattentive ADHD, that's the person who has a hard time focusing, doesn't stay on task,

mind is wandering, they're in a conversation and they realize that they haven't been listening for the last three minutes. They meet someone and forget their name instantly. Then there's hyperactive impulsive ADHD. That's a person who's restless, fidgety, blurt things out, might have really big feelings and big emotions, might have a hard time waiting their turn, for example. And then there's a combined type. Those are the classic three types of ADHD that are described.

It turns out there's way more than three types. In our research, we have identified seven different types of ADD. And it's very important to differentiate what type of ADD a person has because treatment isn't the same for each type. So, those of you who have been affected by ADHD may know of someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD, and then they get a standard treatment for ADHD, and they don't do well. And there's others who get a treatment for ADHD, and don't do well. Right. And there's others who get a treatment

for ADHD and overnight their life changes. They feel like they can think clearly, they can focus and they can lock in. And so the difference is there are different types of ADHD and not all treatment fits every single person. So I mentioned seven types, and this is based on actual brain imaging research. So just a word on that. Classically, when you go in to get a diagnosis for something like ADHD, it's gonna be based solely on symptoms. You're gonna tell the doctor,

I'm having a hard time with paying attention. I tend to be hyperactive. I tend to be impulsive. And you'll possibly walk away with a diagnosis of ADHD and a very standard treatment. The issue is the seven different types of ADHD present differently in the brain and certain treatments aren't going to work for certain types. So I'll give you an example. So type one is classic ADD. And this would be most classically thought of as the combined type ADHD, someone who's inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive all at the same time.

And when you look at brain imaging, specifically SPECT imaging, the type of imaging we do at Amon clinics, stands for a bunch of stuff we don't need to get into, but it is a scan that is looking at blood flow in the brain. So it's looking at where blood is actually going. And the reason you care about blood flow is blood flow tells you about activity level. So if there's a part of the brain that's extremely active,

it gets more blood flow. If there's a part of the brain that is sleepy or underactive, it gets less blood flow. If there's a part of the brain that is sleepy or under active, it gets less blood flow. And so the seven different types have different blood flow patterns. So I'll go through some of them. Hopefully you have enough attention to bear with me. The first is classic ADD. And so that would be more, most similar to combined type ADHD. And that would look like someone who's inattentive, someone who's hyperactive, and someone who's impulsive, all at the same time.

And the way that that tends to show up on a SPECT scan is reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex. So the prefrontal cortex, it's the very front of our brain, right behind our forehead, and that little region is our executive center. It's our command center. It helps us with focus, with planning, with impulse control. It helps us think about what we're going to say before we say it. It helps us play out the tape before we do something so that we can think about long-term consequences and not immediate rewards. It helps us self-regulate. And so when that part of the brain is sleepy, we have a harder time doing those things. We also have other strengths, right? So there's

good things about ADD. When you have a sleepy prefrontal cortex, you can be very creative. You can think outside the box. You have the capacity to actually be very intuitive because you're constantly scanning the environment and taking a lot of information in. So it's not all challenges, but there are challenges. So that's type one. Type two is inattentive ADD. And this is a type that gets missed a lot, especially in girls. So inattentive ADD presents as being more distractible, having a hard time staying on track, feeling spacey, sometimes having

lower energy. And so if you think about a classroom setting, who's the kid that's going to get spotted? Is it the hyperactive impulsive kid with ADHD? Or the inattentive person with ADHD? It's the hyperactive impulsive kid because that tends to be the child who might be creating a problem for the teacher. And so they get identified and they get treated. Whereas the person who's daydreaming in the corner might not. But that person is suffering too, because of their challenges with focus,

they may not be performing at the level that they could in school. And it's not because they're not smart, it's because they are unable to see clearly. Like similar to a child who needs to wear glasses at the front of a classroom who doesn't have their glasses on that day. It's not that they are less intelligent that day, it's that they literally can't focus on what is being taught.

And it's the same for inattentive ADD. But for a child who has undiagnosed, untreated inattentive ADD and is constantly getting negative feedback about their performance, but is not being brought to care because they're not creating a problem necessarily, that chips away at self-esteem. And then you end up seeing things like depression, anxiety down the road. The way that inattentive ADHD tends to show up is actually similar to classic ADHD on a scan that is, and that would be sleepiness in the prefrontal cortex as well. The third type is over-focused ADHD, which might sound like a paradox, right? Over-focused attention deficit. Here's what happens with over-focused ADHD.

It's not that the person can't focus. It's that the person has a hard time controlling their focus, controlling what it is that they need to focus on. So actually they're better than anyone in the world at being able to hyper-focus, lock in when it's important to them, when they're interested. Think of a child who is playing video games for four hours and you're calling their name 16 times and they don't even hear you.

That is over-focused. But when it's time to do math homework, two minutes feels like two hours. So that would be an example of someone who is hyper-focusing on some things and having a hard time shifting, which ultimately leads to attention deficits in many areas of life.

The other way that over-focused ADHD shows up is getting stuck on thoughts, looping on things, feeling rigid, change is really hard to accept. If there's a plan and it doesn't go according to plan or something has to get canceled, that doesn't sit well with a person with over-focused ADHD. They can be obsessive, they can ruminate, and they can essentially feel like there's a hamster running on a wheel in their brain. And the way it shows up on a spec scan

is a specific part of the brain that lights up, and it's called the anterior cingulate gyrus, which again, sounds very fancy, but it's not that fancy. It's a part of the brain where my fingers would intersect, this little stretch of tissue. And you can think of it as the brain's gear shifter, if anyone remembers driving a stick shift, gear shift. And so when that part of the brain heats up,

our gear shifter gets stuck and we have a hard time shifting. And so that can show up clear as day on a spec scan gear shifter gets stuck and we have a hard time shifting. And so that can show up clear as day on a spec scan for someone with this type of ADHD. And the treatment is different than traditional ADHD. So for the first two, I talked about classic and inattentive waking up the prefrontal cortex is going to be very effective, right? Things that increase dopamine and norepinephrine, those are essentially the fuel for the prefrontal

cortex. That's going to be really helpful for classic and inattentive ADHD. For over-focus, you might need to do that, but you also need to get that gear shifter unstuck. And that tends to be achieved by things like increasing serotonin. And hopefully you guys know enough about Amon Clinics to know that we're not approaching those goals just through medications.

Medications can help, but it's not the only way. And we'll talk about that later on in the podcast. The fourth type of ADHD is temporal lobe ADHD. That's where a part of the brain on the sides, right by the temples, hence the name temporal, gets involved. And you can think of the temporal lobes as being something like the temper lobes, they're really important for mood regulation. And I think in pictures and analogies, so here's the analogy that I used to remember that. If you imagine that you're at a bowling alley and you're holding a bowling ball, the bowling ball would represent whatever you're holding onto emotionally in that moment. The temporal lobes on the sides are sort of like the bumpers

or the guard rails that you can put up for kids when they're bowling or adults who don't know how to bowl. And when they're up, bowling's pretty easy. You don't need to try. You can close your eyes and you're gonna hit pins. But when they're down, it's way harder to contain that bowling ball. And so, if the bowling ball represents frustration, now it looks like

anger and rage. If it's sadness, we're in a depression and we're stuck in it, we can't get out. Anxiety, panic, stress, overwhelm, could be any one of those things or all of them. And so, for a person with temporal lobe ADD, they're going to have more mood instability. They're going to have a harder time regulating their mood in addition to the focus challenges. And then the other thing that the temporal lobes are really important for is memory. A very important structure of the brain called the hippocampus, which is the main memory center of our brain, it lives in the temporal lobes. So if the temporal lobes get sleepy, oftentimes memory does too. And we can see more

forgetfulness. A lot of people with ADHD deal with forgetfulness, but there's a distinction. So with temporal lobe ADHD, the forgetfulness is because the file, the memory file is not in the filing cabinet. Whereas with other types of ADHD, the file is somewhere, but it's scattered among other files and we have a hard time retrieving it. So a lot of people with ADHD deal with forgetfulness. With temporal lobe ADHD, it's even harder to retrieve the memory file.

The next type of ADHD, the fifth type is limbic ADD. And this is a person who feels depressed, sad. They're not motivated. They have a lot of automatic negative thoughts or AN or ants as Dr. Amon might call them. They have a lot of core negative beliefs about themselves. They aren't really enjoying things the way that they used to. They look depressed. And as part of that, they also have a very hard time focusing. It turns out that depressed brains send less blood to the prefrontal cortex. So when we're feeling down, when we're feeling sad, when we're feeling depressed, that part

of our brain deactivates and it's harder to focus. And with limbic ADD, another part of the brain steals the show and lights up. And that's called the thalamus. And it's deep inside the brain. It's the emotional gatekeeper to our brain. And when it lights up, it steals activity from other parts of our brain and makes it harder for us to lock in and focus. Healing takes a team.

At Amon Clinics, we have over 50 specialists from psychiatrists to integrative medicine doctors, nutritionists and therapists all working together to help you thrive. Visit AimanClinics.com. The sixth type, and if you're still paying attention, you may not have ADHD. Just kidding. You may be really interested and hyper-focused. Ring of fire, ADD. So it sounds dramatic because it can present pretty dramatically.

When you look at a scan for someone with ring of fire, ADD, it looks like their brain is literally on fire. You see increased activity throughout multiple regions of the brain, so much so that that level of activity is like a freeway during a rush hour in the background with big rigs honking their horns. And that's what a person is holding on to at all times. So you can imagine that this person is probably going to deal with intense emotions. They often have high levels of sensitivity. They

often are very sensitive to rejection. They might present as oppositional, automatic nose. I'm not going to do that. Butting heads with authority figures. And on top of all that, difficulty with focusing, self-regulation, hyperactivity, more commonly seen in kids, the ring of fire ADHD type. And so the final type, anxious ADD, the name kind of says it all. This is a person who is nervous, who's tense, who's afraid of failure, who's timid. A lot of times they'll have physical symptoms of anxiety. And that anxiety gets in the way of their ability to focus because if you've got a brain

that's racing, it's really hard to corral it. And the way that that shows up on a spec scan is deep in the brain, there's two little structures called the basal ganglia, and they are our brains fight or flight centers. And so when they heat up, we feel like we're in a perpetual state of fight or flight. But again, think of that as background noise that distracts the prefrontal cortex from doing its job. So as I hope you can gather, even if you don't remember the details, seven different types, all quite different, all biologically different. So, there's no way that a one-size-fits-all treatment is going to work. It'll work sometimes if it happens to match with the type of ADHD you

happen to have, but you can't really know the type of ADHD you have unless you look and spend time looking at the brain. So with that, let's talk about treatments because ultimately we all want to optimize the health of our brain. This is not about fixing the ADHD brain. ADHD as a sidebar, in my opinion, is unfortunately named attention deficit hyperactivity disorder sounds like something you don't want to catch. And in my mind, it's not a disorder. That doesn't mean there aren't challenges that come with it. I think it's more true

to say it's a different way of being wired. And I say that because one out of eight people has ADHD. So just because seven out of eight don't doesn't mean that the one out of eight have a disorder. And oftentimes, the reason that we have symptoms in ADHD is that there's a mismatch between the way our brain is wired and the environmental expectations that are around us. So what do I mean by that? Where does ADHD even come from? It's genetic mostly, it's 70 to 90% genetic, which means it's been passed down through generations. And usually things are only passed down through generations if they provide some kind of survival advantage for a species.

So if you think about human beings in ancient times, imagine the tribe member that has ADHD, what are they doing? They're scanning the environment. They're detecting danger before danger finds the tribe. Survival advantage. They are dopamine seeking. So they go out on a hunt and they don't come back unless they come back with an animal.

Survival advantage. So take that same brain and sit it down at a desk and tell it to study for eight hours. It's a mismatch between wiring and environment. So one thing I want people to know is that knowing how you're wired matters because one day, we may have a choice to be able to match our environment with how we're wired. So personally, my job is great. I have ADHD, I may or may not have said that at the beginning.

My job is great for having ADHD because I get to do interesting things every day. I get to meet different people every day. I get to think about something complex and interesting to me, which is the brain. No treatment plan is the same. So I have to be creative in that way. And I have to switch gears all the time.

And that keeps my brain engaged. If I were an accountant, this is no disrespect to accountants. I don't even fully know what you do. But what I imagine an accountant to do, I don't think my brain would thrive. So matching brain to environment can unlock a lot of strength. But in the meantime, when you're a kid

or an adolescent or you're in college, you don't necessarily get to choose your environment. So what it becomes is how do I shape my brain to be able to milk everything I possibly can out of this moment in my life so that when I get to a point where I do have a choice, I have lots of choices and I can match my wiring up to my environment.

So that when I talk about ADHD treatment, again, it's not about fixing a brain, it's about molding, optimizing strengths, mitigating challenges so that you can get the most out of your life. So a lot of psychiatrists jump straight to medications and for treating ADHD and in no way, shape or form in my anti-medication medications have a role.

They can be helpful, but they're not the only thing. So let's talk about natural treatments first, which is usually where I recommend people start. And there's three pillars to brain health, and it's really hard to build a healthy brain without these three pillars being in place. Those are sleep, exercise, and nutrition. The basics, the things that we all know about on some level,

but the things that very few of us get totally right. So for sleep, three main tips that I suggest to people, and this varies a little bit by age, but wake up at around the same time every day, try to get sun on your face, only be in bed if you're sleeping or doing things that are only supposed to be in bed,

turn off screens an hour before you're supposed to go to bed. It turns out that light from a screen, our brain doesn't really know how to differentiate that from light from the sun. So you can fall asleep scrolling, but you're not gonna get into deep sleep. And those would be the main sleep tips, making sure you're getting an get into deep sleep. And those would be the main sleep tips, making sure you're getting an adequate amount of sleep.

We all have slightly different sleep needs, but developing brains need more than adult brains. Exercise. So as little as 20 minutes of cardio, like good cardio, high intensity, heart pounding, sweating, wouldn't really wanna have a conversation with someone. So those 20 minutes of that, four days a week in adolescence and young adults and older adults too,

has been shown to be one of the most effective treatments for ADHD. Why? When your heart's pounding and you're breathing, you're getting more blood and more oxygen into your brain, including that prefrontal cortex. So you're perking it up. You're also increasing endorphins and serotonin. And serotonin calms down some of those regions that we talked about that can be active in certain types of ADHD. So there are a few things that

help every type of ADHD. Exercise is one of those things. Every single type can be benefited by the type of exercise I just described. It's all about sticking to it though, right? And not relying on motivation, but being like, I'm doing this because I want to achieve this goal and I'm showing up to do it every day, even if I don't feel like doing it. Because most days you won't feel like doing it. If we're being honest, nutrition, three main things that I tell my patients to try their best to avoid and this is not about being scared of food, it's not about being extreme around

anything. But the three things that tend to worsen ADHD symptoms are, you might be able to guess, sugar, refined sugar in particular. So added sugars, juice, sodas, candy, gluten, especially in the US, breads, pastas and cereals. Gl gluten tends to increase inflammation in most people and that can be problematic. Think of inflammation this way, on a scan, on a spec scan. If there's a sleepy part of the brain, inflammation makes it sleepier.

And if there's a hot part of the brain, inflammation makes it hotter. So it takes whatever it is that we're dealing with and makes it hotter. So it takes whatever it is that we're dealing with and makes it more extreme. So sugar does that, gluten does that, processed foods. How do you know if a food's processed? Read the label. If you can't pronounce an ingredient,

put it back on the shelf. If you couldn't buy that same ingredient at the grocery store that you're in, put it back on the shelf. Processed foods generally are foods that have been significantly altered from their original form. And then there's additives and preservatives and dyes and all the stuff that we don't need. And then a good diet would be, you know, this is going to be a little bit different for different people, depending on what your unique

needs are. And obviously talk to your own provider. But generally speaking, Mediterranean style diet that leans paleo. And so by that, I mean plenty of protein. Best breakfast in the world for someone with ADHD, probably something like a couple of eggs, avocado and some blueberries. Worst breakfast in the world, a bowl of sugary cereal. So, lean protein, definitely a very important ingredient. And you want to start your day

off with protein. Healthy fats, the brain is roughly 60% fat after you take the water out. Don't do that to your own brain though. So avocado, nuts, seeds, coconut, stuff like that. Fruits and vegetables. Ideally, people are eating the rainbow of colors every day and not from a bag of Skittles. Some fruits are really high in sugar. And so, you know, we want to be like moderate with that,

like grapes and mango, pineapple, and then complex carbs. So things that we eat that our body has to really work at to digest so that our blood sugar goes up slowly and comes down slowly, as opposed to spikes and drops. Spikes and drops, detrimental to ADHD. That's a good way to rev your brain up and then crash. And we all, those of us with ADHD know what an ADHD crash looks like. Not pleasant. So examples of complex carbs, sweet potatoes, wild rice, quinoa, millet are some of my favorites. And if you can get those things dialed in, sleep, exercise, nutrition, there's research to show that up to 70 plus percent of people

with ADHD will experience significant symptom reduction just by locking that stuff in. Supplements can also be very, very helpful for ADHD. I won't get into details there, but if you do want to learn more about supplements, and it's a whole body of research, you could check out my Instagram page at dr.stevenstorage. Also same handle on TikTok. You can also check out Dr. Amon's content, which I assume you're already doing. And then you could also read Dr. Amon's book Healing ADD,

which goes into the seven different types and supplements that are useful for each type in addition to other treatment recommendations. So what about medication? You know, let's say people have tried diet, exercise, sleep, supplements, maybe even other things. They've tried ADHD coaching, behavioral therapies, neurofeedback, and they're still noticing challenges related to their ADHD symptoms. A big question comes up to medicate or not to medicate. And I think a better question is how much are the ADHD symptoms getting in the way of someone living their best life?

Because ultimately it's a personalized decision about whether to start medication. And every decision in life has pros and cons. And with medication, I'm thinking about it if someone has tried a lot of other things, and they're still experiencing distress related to their ADHD symptoms, or functional impairment. And what could functional impairment look like? It could look like someone in school falling off their developmental trajectory, right? Like they're not keeping up, they're failing classes, even though they're bright. As I said earlier, ADHD and intelligence, separate entities, right? They don't have anything to do with each other. But if you're falling off and you are feeling really bad

about yourself, I mean, that has long-term implications. So that's an example of functional impairment. Or maybe it's a person who, because of their sleepy prefrontal cortex, they do things that are really impulsive and they get themselves into trouble and maybe suddenly they're dealing with addictive patterns of behavior because they're chasing dopamine. That would also be an example of both distress and functional impairment. So when we're making a decision about whether to try a medication, it's number one, what else has been tried? What natural things have been tried? Number two, how are you doing?

And if it feels like you're not living your best life, sometimes a medication can be helpful. The key though is to choose the right medication. And the key there is to know what type of ADHD you're treating. So the most common medication that people think about with ADHD are the stimulants. So things like Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, Concerta, the way that this class of medicines work

is they increase dopamine and norepinephrine, which as I mentioned earlier are sort of like the gas, the fuel for the prefrontal cortex. So you take a medicine like Ritalin or Adderall or Vyvan's, it transiently increases dopamine and norepinephrine, fuels the prefrontal cortex, and the holes or the sleepy areas that you would see on a spec scan go away. And so the person is able to access that part of the brain and focus, lock in, have a good break pedal, et cetera. The interesting thing though about the stimulants is that's only going to help if the type of ADHD you have is related to having a sleepy prefrontal cortex.

What happens when you give that same stimulant to someone with let's say overanxious ADHD and overanxious ADHD, the prefrontal cortex might look okay. But it's those basal ganglia, those anxiety centers, those fight or flight centers that are raging away deep inside the brain. If you had a stimulant to that, that can be like lighter fluid on a fire and that background noise is even louder. So this is a person who takes the stimulant and they've heard success stories and other people like, oh, it changed my life overnight. I'm able to really focus. They take it and they're jittery and they can't eat

and they can't sleep and they feel really anxious and their focus is no better and they feel wired. It doesn't work for everyone. And so overanxious ADHD stimulants tend to not be the first go-to. Overfocused ADHD, sometimes stimulants aren't the right place to start. Ring of fire ADHD, sometimes stimulants are not

the right place to start. They may eventually be part of a treatment plan, but usually not the place to begin. Parents worry a lot, understandably. I'm a dad, so I get it. Parents worry a lot and grapple a lot with the decision about whether they should start a medication in their child. And a couple things that may be reassuring to know. Number one, treated

ADHD has better outcomes across the board than untreated ADHD. And by treated, it doesn't necessarily mean meds. It can mean natural treatments too. But if those have failed or not been successful enough, meds, people worry that medications are going to be addictive. And actually what the research shows is that if someone has untreated ADHD, they are far more likely to deal with challenges related to addiction down the road because their brain is trying to fill that void to chase that dopamine. And so they end up chasing it in ways

that might not be healthy. Whereas treated ADHD individuals are much less likely to deal with addiction later on in life. So the medication actually helps reduce the risk of addiction. Another thing people worry about is, well, what about long-term effects? What about long-term consequences, especially of medications like the stimulants? And the good news is these stimulants have been around for a long time, so we do have long-term data on them. And what the data shows is that these medications can be safe

when taken over the long term. So what about side effects of stimulant medications? Two main things to think about. One is that they can make people less hungry. And depending on the stimulant and how long it lasts, that can have a detrimental effect for some kids. There's ways to work with it and around it, but it is something to be aware of. Some kids on stimulants and adults on stimulants can feel less hungry. Another is stimulants can make it harder to fall asleep.

Many people who take a stimulant will actually sleep better because their brain feels more clear by the time they get to bed. But if you take a stimulant too late in the day, it would be like drinking an espresso potentially too late in the day. You're going to have a harder time falling asleep. So those tend to be the two main things to be looking for in terms of side effects to stimulants. One other thing much more rare is you want to make sure someone is in good cardiac health, like their heart is good. There's no substantial family history of heart issues. And if that is part of the history, make sure you tell the prescriber that ahead of time so that they can do additional testing if needed.

So the stimulants are one class of ADHD medications. What about non-stimulants? Okay, so that's the other branch. These are medicines that don't directly increase dopamine. They don't directly wake up the prefrontal cortex, but generally what they do is they have a calming effect on some of that background noise while also supporting the prefrontal cortex.

So these are medicines that tend to be better for things like overanxious, ADD, ring of fire ADD, as opposed to the more traditional types. And examples here are things like guanfacine, also known as intunev, clonidine. Both of those are in the same family. Those work by increasing norepinephrine in the front of the brain, but also calming the background. Pretty good for focus.

Better for restlessness and impulsivity and anxiety and those types of symptoms. The main side effects you see with these are, they are calming, but too much of that can make you feel tired. And they also can lower the blood pressure a bit. So for people who already have a low blood pressure, they may notice themselves feeling lightheaded

when they take a medication like this. There's also medications like adamoxetine or Stratera that works by also increasing norepinephrine to the front of the brain. Can be reasonably effective. And the main side effect tends to be gastrointestinal. People can feel a little nauseous with it and sometimes tired. And then lastly, bupropion or wellbutrin, which is actually an antidepressant, but it

works to increase dopamine and norepinephrine, not unlike a stimulant. And well, butrin or bupropion tends to be a pretty good option with limbic ADD in particular. So the person who's depressed and down and having a hard time focusing. Your brain matters. Amon Clinics helps people with brain scans and targeted treatment across 11 cities, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, D.C., Miami, New York, Seattle, Scottsdale, Los Angeles, Orange County, California, and San Francisco. Learn more at amonclinics.com. We talked about a lot today. We talked about what ADHD is and isn't. We talked about the seven different types, treatment options, both natural and medication. There's a lot more to get into.

And if you'd like to learn more about ADHD and what type of ADHD you may have, check out addtypetest.com. You'll have to brave through about 80 questions, but if you do, it'll probably give you a good idea of what type you have. It's not a substitute for a full evaluation. If you are interested in a full evaluation with one of our providers, you can go to amenclinics.com. We have multiple sites throughout the country.

You could also read about ADD with the Healing ADD Book by Dr. Eamon. And you're welcome to follow me on Instagram at at drstevenstorage. I mostly talk about ADD and ADHD. See you guys next time.