On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Dr. Daniel Amen: Struggling to focus, Stay Organized, or Feeling Overwhelmed by Your to-do List? ADHD Could Be Quietly Running Your Life (THIS is what to DO!)

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Do you often forget things or lose track of time? Do you find it hard to stay focused on everyday tasks? Today, Jay reunites with the ever-popular Dr. Daniel Amen, a pioneering psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist, to unravel one of the most misunderstood mental health topics today: ADHD. With society bombarded by endless distractions, overstimulation, and information overload, many are left questioning whether they truly have ADHD or are simply overwhelmed by the modern world. Dr. Amen cuts through the confusion by drawing from over three decades of clinical experience and brain imaging research. He clarifies that real ADHD is not a trend or a convenient label—it’s a genetic, neurological condition that can be identified through consistent behavioral patterns and even brain scans. What makes this conversation especially transformative is its focus on practical solutions and healing. Rather than defaulting to medication, Dr. Amen emphasizes a whole-brain, whole-body approach—starting with sleep, nutrition, and screen time. He cites compelling evidence showing how dietary changes and digital detoxes can significantly reduce symptoms in children. Jay and Dr. Amen also explore the emotional toll of untreated ADHD, including its links to addiction, depression, academic failure, and fractured relationships. Together, they challenge the stigma, revealing that ADHD is often both overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed, particularly in women and individuals without hyperactivity. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Naturally Improve Focus Without Medication How to Use Diet to Reduce ADHD Symptoms How to Identify the 7 Types of ADHD How to Reframe Negative Thoughts with Brain Training How to Create a Brain-Healthy Morning Routine How to Navigate ADHD in Romantic Relationships How to Advocate for ADHD Support in Schools and Work Your brain is not broken. By learning more about how your mind works, making intentional lifestyle shifts, and seeking the right tools, you can begin to show up in life with greater clarity, connection, and confidence.   With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.  What We Discuss: 01:15 Why Is ADD Becoming So Common Today? 03:45 Is ADHD Overdiagnosed or Underdiagnosed? 05:37 Key Behavior Patterns That Signal ADHD 09:40 Are You Born with ADHD or Can It Develop Later? 12:18 Why Some People Only Perform Well Under Stress 15:33 How Adult ADD Shows Up as Conflict-Seeking Behavior 21:43 What Really Causes ADHD? Genetics or Environment? 28:47 Can You Learn to Regulate Emotions with ADHD? 30:23 The Long-Term Impact of Untreated ADHD in Children 31:25 Should Alcohol Advertisements Be Banned? 35:07 How an Elimination Diet and Digital Detox Can Help Kids 37:16 Why Nutrition Plays a Critical Role in Managing ADHD 38:58 How ADHD Leads to Learned Helplessness 42:10 Can You Break the Cycle and Prevent Passing ADHD to Your Kids? 44:05 Why ADHD Is More Common in Men 46:40 How ADHD Affects the People Around You 48:20 How Proper Treatment Can Transform Your Life 54:45 Start with Simple Lifestyle Changes 56:03 What to Know About Dating Someone with ADHD 01:00:10 How Untreated ADD and Chronic Stress Can Lead to Illness 01:07:40 Why Winning an Argument with Your Partner Is Still Losing 01:10:35 The Power of Active Listening in Relationships 01:12:28 How to Navigate Life with a Parent Who Has ADD 01:15:12 Is ADHD Curable or Just Manageable? 01:16:25 The Long-Term Consequences of Untreated ADHD 01:17:42 Rethinking Brain and Mental Health as One 01:19:52 Practical Ways to Become More Organized 01:21:19 You’re Not Stuck with ADHD Episode Resources: Dr. Daniel Amen | TikTok Dr. Daniel Amen | Instagram Dr. Daniel Amen | Twitter Dr. Daniel Amen | LinkedIn Dr. Daniel Amen | Facebook Dr. Daniel Amen | Books Dr. Daniel Amen | Website Amen UniversitySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. You're never filling. You're telling yourself a story and you're actually avoiding what you should be doing. You got to get in. You got to get your hands dirty. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy.

I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. When we step beyond the edge of what we know... I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. I was dead for 11.5 minutes. ...and returned... It's a miracle I was brought back. Alive Again, a podcast about the strength of the human spirit.

Listen to Alive Again on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy. But to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, distractibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. They can't sit still.

Psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist, Dr. Daniel Amundsen. One pioneering psychiatrist says that feeling better starts with understanding your brain. 90% of mothers work outside the house. When they have untreated ADD, they often look depressed. And they get on something like Funxapro, 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 ADD. No way. Someone sitting here thinking, 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. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone who is frequent at the podcast more than any other guest. The most requested, the most often and someone that I'm grateful to have known for the last few years and become friends with. He's the person that I reach out to when I have a question around something I'm unsure about.

When I'm testing something, when I'm testing something, when I'm experimenting something. This is the person that I write to and say, hey, what do you think about this? I'm talking about none other than Dr. Daniel Eamon, physician, adult and child psychiatrist, and founder of Eamon Clinics, which has 11 US locations

and the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry with over 250,000 SPEC scans from 155 countries. Committed to revolutionizing brain health, Dr. Eamon also founded BrainMD, the Change Your Brain Foundation and Eamon University, which has trained thousands of medical and mental health professionals. A leading expert in brain and mental health, Dr. Eamonn has millions of followers, produced 17 national public television shows, garnered 300-plus million video views, and hosts the

Change Your Brain Everyday podcast. If you haven't subscribed, I highly recommend it. He's a 12-time New York Times bestselling author, and Dr. Eamon's highly anticipated new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, will be released in 2026. Please welcome back to On Purpose, one of our dearest friends of the show, Dr. Daniel Eamon. Daniel, it's great to have you here, as always.

I still remember all the years ago when I launched my podcast. You came on the first ever year. We used to record from my apartment in Hollywood, if you remember. And I'm just so grateful that you did such a consistent guest. I opened one of my books with an experience on the way to the podcast, seeing a homeless person. And I'm like, I wonder what his brain looks like. I have to know that.

I love you. Thank you. I'm honored to be back. I always love our conversations. I want to start pretty direct. Why does it seem like everyone today has a DHT? A lot of people do, but our society is dramatically elevating it.

When you think of the gadgets that steal our attention, the ultra processed 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 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, do your appetite will be less, take too late in the day, you may have trouble sleeping. Sometimes people get headaches or tummy aches, those almost always go away. If you're prone to tics, you may have more tics.

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.

What do you mean? Overdiagnosed 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 a 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.

percent 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 happiness of flexibility, dopamine more than 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 hundred thousand 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, schoolwork, 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 them 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 Cs and Ds 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. 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 your prefrontal cortex, so we'll talk about that, the front part of your brain, the front third of your brain, largest in humans and 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 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 into 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 really liked 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 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 told you my first wife had ADD, which means 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 distractibility, 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 are 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 because I hear everything that's in the house. So short attention span enough for everything, easily distracted, disorganized. So it's hard for them. It's not natural for them.

If you look at their rooms, their desk, their book bags, their filing cabinets and time, they're often late. And I like to be early. I'm like, 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 ADDs, last minute, last minute. And I used to fight.

I'm like, no, we need to go. And then I just started lying. It's like the flight is at noon when really it was at one o'clock and because her organization wasn't such, she didn't really catch on. How much of that is training? Like I feel like I grew up with a mom who is very meticulous with time. So my mum 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. Could have been because her brain was busy in the front and she also gave that to you. 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 level of stress in ADD, ADHD families is very high because of the distract ability, 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. And it makes them stressed because they're 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. When I first started imaging, it was on an ADD woman. So I went into a lecture on brain-specced imaging in my hospital in April 1991, and I walked out, and I had a new patient. Her name was Sandy, and she was 44, and she was beautiful and underemployed. She had an IQ of 144, and she was 44 and she was beautiful and underemployed. She had an IQ of 144 and she was a lap tech.

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. I'm like, ADD, ADD, ADD. She had an eight-year-old son that had ADD. I'm like, I think you have ADD and she's like, oh, adults can't have it. 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? Because I've just learned about this new technology and I scanned her twice once at rest, once when she did a concentration task 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 because I already knew the diagnosis. She 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 dopamine 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. And I experienced this. It was that poking. It's like, we're going on a vacation. Why are we having a problem?

And activating their frontal lobes, 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 function in your frontal lobes. 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,

I wish I hadn't done that. So they actually live with a lot of regret. And your prefrontal 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 strengthening it is critical to your humanity. Did you know that sociopaths have 10% less volume in their prefrontal 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 o'clock. Taking 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. Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Hamler.

Maren Morris is here. You came out of a marriage, you came out of quote unquote country music, and you had a huge growth spurt from what I can tell. I realized I was expanding and growing at a really fast pace. And yes, you could throw motherhood and the postpartum thing, learning about myself. There were a lot of like identity crises going on, but I realized like, I can't look back and slow down for people.

I want to set my own pace and I will sacrifice my comfort to move at the pace that I have worked really hard to move at. Literally everything that could change in your life happened in like five years for me. And, you know, it was a slow burn. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? What we have all been waiting for. Sarah Jessica Parker is here, and she is sharing stories from the very beginning, like the time she forgot we filmed the pilot episode. I remember some things about shooting the pilot. Right, I have some memories I can fill you in.

And that you're gonna fill me in. Yes, but then you forgot about it in the very long time they took to pick us up. I completely forgot about it. And she long time they took to pick us up. And she reveals what she thought when she read the script for Sex and the City the very first time. He said he wrote this like I was in his head in some way, which I found really interesting. And does she think Carrie is too good for Mr. Big? She had inexplicable feelings. It is the human being that can't explain to her friends why somebody that might

be beneath her is dictating the hunt. You can't miss this. Listen to Are You a Charlotte? on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shout out to my thick thighs will save lives. Clearly. Save lives. I'm a strong believer that there has to be at least one thick thigh in every relationship. Like it's personally why I don't really go for guys who have the same body type as me because it's like playing a xylophone when you're cuddling, you know?

Bone on bone hurts. Wait a second, Evie, that was the hottest thing you've ever said. Can we please ignore? It's the realest. That was not the hottest thing you've ever said. Trust me please ignore that? It's the realest. That was not the hottest thing you've ever said. Trust me. For me, as the thickums one, yes, it was. Okay, okay. Touche.

Thank you very much. You know, queers love to date people who look exactly like them. Everybody's looking for that twindrome, but I need somebody to balance me out. I'll be there like weird massage chair in the back with all my knuckles and elbows and they'll be like my memory foam bed, you know? We balance. Honestly, the bigger the build, the better. I want to feel petite. Please. I love a man with thighs. I love a man with arms. A little belly. I've been super into the little like, bitty boys right now with a little belly. You put that little belly out. Hey! That's what you're supposed to have. High key.

Listen to high key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now back to the discussion. Do we know what causes ADHD? It's genetic. People are not producing enough dopamine. And the medicines we use like Ritalin or Adderall, they increase the availability of dopamine.

Now the problem is, is if you don't really have it, what you have is societally induced ADHD, the medicine will disrupt you and make you worse. And early on, I realized when I scan people, because 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 and healed the seven types. And so can I talk about the type? That I was just about to ask my next question. You're already, you're already one step

ahead of me. So let me ask you. So type one is the classic. Because most people think of ADHD, short attention span, distractibility, 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 you 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. Amon, I loved your column. Why is your child on a leash? So what I used to do with Caitlin is put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out. Because 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 not worried about her eternal soul. And I adore her and she's 37 now. And Haven is just like her, which is 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? Because it's genetic and I'm like, it's not me. I do everything early. Now written 42 books, every one of them has been handed in early.

And her mom goes, it's not me. But then I was so grateful because 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. because 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 ADDD. It was very helpful for me.

So that's type one. That's type one, classic. Type two is inattentive ADD, short attention span, distractibility, disorganized, procrastinate, but they're not impulsive and more common in girls. They're organized, procrastinate, but they're not impulsive. And more common in girls, they're not hyperactive. In fact, they can be a little bit hypoactive. And those first two types were described in the DSM when they first created this diagnostic category in 1980. I described the next five types. The third one is over-focused 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 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, which I think is such an interesting one, is temporal lobe ADD. They have problems in one or both of their temporal lobes, often goes with learning problems, but mood instability, irritability, temper problems. One of my first great cases was Chris. He's 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 all the other medicines and I'm like, I'm scanning you. And he had left temporal problem, which goes with violence. I put him on an anti-convulsant and anti-seizure medicine, became the sweetest kid. And then he still had trouble concentrating. So then after I got the temporal lobe right, I gave him a stimulant, masterful. I mean, this kid just did phenomenally well.

And then the ring of fire, that's the 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. And 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 Ritalin 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. And my daughter Caitlin, when I put her on Ritalin, because 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. 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 to stimulate on board. 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 hothead. 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 as 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 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. 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 were 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? 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 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 ultra processed 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.

It's an antidepressant. It'll treat your PTSD and it's increased. Psychosis to emergency rooms, 300%. It is not innocuous. Now, might it become 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, benzos are innocuous, they're mommy little helper. We know benzos are highly addictive and increase the risk of dementia. The early 90s, alcohol is good for your heart, you should drink, that'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 lobes, now you drink, you have sleepier frontal lobes, still not a good thing. And then pain is the fifth vital sign, right? The Purdue Pharmaceuticals came out with, 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 Cory 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 1,000 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 JAMA 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. 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 add type test.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 sleep deprived. 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, cause 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 it's 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 Warrior's 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 them like, look, if they really have ADD or ADHD, they're gonna have it three months from now or four 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, et cetera, 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 gluteomorphins, 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 caseomorphins. And it's why we love pizza. If you think of gluten and dairy, right? It's pizza. 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 fifties, you know, we grew 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 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 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 showed 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. But he was way famous before then because he coined this term learned helplessness. 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 she 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

what would my life have been like if someone would have noticed this, if I would have been treated. Now, you don't give her an antidepressant for that. You 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? Have 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 think so, but we're starting at such a disadvantage. 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 the eggs you'll ever have, whatever you do in life turns on or off certain genes, making illness more or less likely. 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, because his sperm really matters, to be as healthy as possible. I read in the National Institute of Mental Health, they found that 5.4% of adult men and 3.2% of adult women have ADHD. Why do you believe that ADHD is more common in men?

Well, it is more common in men. Because? Men have sleepier frontal lobes than women. So I published the world's largest imaging study on gender and looked at the difference in 46,000 patients, difference between male brains and female brains. Females have much stronger, much more active prefrontal cortex. Men have sleepier prefrontal cortex. And what's the one statistic that identifies that?

Who goes to jail? Men. 14 times more than females. So they have a relative dopamine deficit compared to females. But girls still have it. And when left untreated, it just devastates their lives. And how you can diagnose it in a teenage girl is just look at their love pattern.

It's they get all excited about falling in love, dopamine burst. After it wears off, right, it's like don't get married in the next two months because you never really know. After the dopamine wears off, the cocaine effect wears off, they start picking on their partner and they start fighting. And so new love fighting, and then they break up and there's lots of drama around breaking up and they get suicidal sometimes, and then they fall in love again. And then they pick on their new person,

and then they break up and they, lots of drama around it. And if you see that pattern repeatedly, screen them for ADHD, very important. How does ADHD show up differently for men and women? So men tend to be more hyperactive. Women tend to have more the inattentive type. Women also tend to have the over-focused type more. Men, the temporal lobe type, because the temporal lobe type can be in part born out of a concussion or a head injury. And you know, people have ADD have way more concussions and accidents.

And the reason for that is the shorter attention span and impulse control issues. I think as I'm sitting here listening to you and trying to understand just how even the way you broke down the seven types of ADHD, you start to think about how ADHD doesn't just affect an individual's focus and attention and performance at school. As you rightly said earlier, it starts to affect your relationships, right? If you have a parent, and I want to talk about all of these independently, if you have a parent that has ADHD and they have passed or haven't passed it onto you, that has an impact on you.

If you're dating someone, you were talking about your first two wives. When you're dating someone who has ADHD, that has an impact on you. If you have ADHD and you're dating someone who doesn't, that has an impact on you and them. It starts to impact all areas of life. And because we have such a limited understanding of it, we can get frustrated when someone clips out our labels or we can get frustrated when someone clips out our labels, or we can get upset when someone is always late and we say, oh, you don't care about me, you're always late. Like it can actually start to become more emotional than it is just biological,

chemical and physical. It's biological for sure that it gives you psychological effects and for sure, that it gives you psychological effects. And the chronic stress damages your immune system for you and the people who love you. Clearly social. I think one of the reasons for divorce is untreated ADD. I think it's often the hidden cause. And it's spiritual because you just believe you're less than, that God, however you see God, doesn't care about you.

What do we do with that feeling? Because that's the feeling for people who have ADHD and they feel they're failing at life, they feel they're underperforming, they feel like they're not going to succeed. But earlier you were saying to me, actually some of the greatest CEOs of big companies are people with ADHD. But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine.

My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. And return. I clinically died.

The heart stopped beating. Which I was. Dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple, to find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable.

To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen

to your favorite shows. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls

from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist, and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hi, I'm Radhida Vlukya, and I am the host of a really good cry podcast. And I had the opportunity to talk to Davy Brown. Davy Brown is one of the most sought after wellness educators and through her signature

blend of advanced meditation, breathwork, metaphysical physiology, spiritual psychology and holistic trauma informed facilitation. Davy has touched the lives of countless students including renowned artists, athletes and executives of global corporations. But anything can be used as a tool of avoidance. With women, any kind of thing where there might be this underlying edge of self-sacrifice as martyrdom, if you're never filling, you're telling yourself a story and you're actually avoiding what you should be doing. Your life at the end of it is still going to be a sum of your experiences.

And so you got to get in, you got to get your hands dirty. Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. So walk me through, if 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? You're responsible to get it treated.

Because with treatment, you can be amazing because you often have the ability to see things other people don't see. people don't see. And it's the undisciplined mind that creates so much trouble. So, you know, at AMN clinics, we want to look at your brain, of course. We want to get it healthy. And we get it healthy, whether it's diet, supplements, exercise, medicine, whatever tools we have. A lot of people do really well with neurofeedback, where you can actually measure the electrical activity in your brain, and then through exercises strengthen it. So I like neurofeedback a lot,

but then you also have to reprogram your mind. And I talk about killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness. And people who have ADD often have a high negativity bias. And so learning to direct your thoughts in a positive, in a helpful way, absolutely critical to overcome it. The first exercise I do with all of my patients, but particularly my ADD patients, called the one page miracle, on one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, what do you want? Like with Tana, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship.

Don't always feel it. I get rude thoughts that show up, but I don't say them. Why? Because I inhibit them because they don't fit. Most people in life don't do this exercise, which I find crazy. What do you want your work or school? What do you want for your money? What do you want for your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual? What do you want? We put it on one paper. And then the question always becomes, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? So that's what your prefrontal cortex does, right?

It sets goals and helps you continue to achieve them, despite the obstacles that you have. So I remember I'm in college and I wanna go to medical school and I took organic chemistry and I got a 42 on my first test. And I'm like, okay, this is gonna be an obstacle, get a tutor.

And I ended up obviously going to medical school, but it's your pre- if it's low, you get a 42 and then you give up. So you don't have that persistence. But the first step always is what do you want? Is my behavior getting me what I want? And they often come into my office and they go, Dr. Eamon, I'm brutally honest. And in my mind, I'm like, Oh, they have ADD. And then I'm like, but that's usually not helpful. Relationships require tact.

They require forethought. Jerry Seinfeld once said, the brain is a sneaky organ. We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear, but when you have ADD, your inside voice gets out when it can be hurtful. So that's the first step. Know what you want. And then is my behavior getting me what I want? And if my behavior is not getting me what I want,

is my brain, could my brain be better? And therefore that relates to the treatment. Because I think a lot of people are waking up every day and they're thinking kind of like what you said, that learned helplessness. They're like, well, I'm eating right, and I am working out and I am trying to be motivated. Or maybe if I don't make it to the workout every day,

I'm really trying, but every time I try, I just lose motivation and I lose energy. Is that something you hear quite often? I do. And that's why we scan people twice. Once at rest, once when they concentrate and if their brain drops with activity, it's like, okay, we have to treat this and you know, we can try to treat it with supplements and I like them a lot. I own BrainMD and I want to support you. People who take EPA fish oil, omega-3 fatty acids helps with ADD, also helps with mood. There are five studies with saffron, the spice saffron, as effective as Ritalin in some studies.

That's amazing. And it helps 25 randomized controlled trials that saffron helps with depression, compared to antidepressants. So I love saffron. I've been eating saffron since I was a kid because it's in the Indian diet as a very staple thing. Right. And there's lore in India. If you're too happy, you must have had saffron, omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, pycnogenol, which is from pine bark, has been found to be helpful.

So I start based on your type. Okay. Here are the supplements, let's get your diet right. And then if those things don't work, then I think, well, we should consider medication. Yeah. I'm so glad that you're so clear on that. I know whenever there's a new discovery, I'm always texting you going, what do you think about this? And what do you think about that? Because I appreciate your perspective because it's not coming from an opinion

and it's not coming from a single case. And as I'm listening to you today, what I really take away is that everything is so specific and everything is so individual and personal. It's not like, like you were saying, like some medication could actually be brilliant and you said even miraculous for someone's brain. But if it's a different type of brain, it doesn't work that well. But we have this one size fits all model that we keep rolling out.

Why do we even get to make these big claims of something being innocuous or something being the perfect cure or alcohol is good for your heart or everything that you've been mentioning? Well, you just have to follow the money. How is it legal to say that? I think a lot of it is driven by the alcohol industry, the marijuana industry, and now, you know, all of these billionaires investing in mushrooms and psilocybin.

And I'm like a huge fan of Lion's Mane. And we make something called smart mushrooms, but you have to be very careful with something that disrupts someone's brain and someone's mind. And for some people it can be helpful for other people, it's a nightmare. And I'm like first do no harm. Right.

So the first thing if you're depressed or you have PTSD is let's get your diet right and let's get you to exercise and not believe every stupid thing you think and take omega three fatty acids or if you have PTSD, EMDR. I'm a huge fan of psychotherapy called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's like first do no harm. Let's make sure we're doing the simple things first. I really wanted to talk to you today about dating someone with ADHD.

Our community asks us so many questions about dating, marriage, being in a relationship. And as I'm listening to you today, it's very evident that sometimes our issue with our partners is because of their ADHD. As I'm listening to you today, it's very evident that sometimes our issue with our partners is because of their ADHD. And if you're coming from a family where you didn't have that, now someone being late or now someone being disorganized or now someone overthinking kind of causes you an issue with how you like life to function. The amount of people that say to me like, oh, you know, he just never wants to organize

a trip or, you know, she's always late, or whatever it may be. That's very common to hear. If you're dating someone, or in your case, married to someone with ADHD, what should you be prepared for, and what should you be thinking about? So Tana has said publicly she has ADHD. We actually did a PBS show, Healing ADD,

and she talked about it, and our first date, like I had no show, Healing ADD, and she talked about it. Our first date, like I had no idea she had ADD, but when she described her mom, she was classic ADHD, and Tana just thought it was an excuse to fail. Oh, this person has ADD. And then she realized that her over-exercising, the pot of coffee every day that's like, oh no, I do have this. She's not as organized as I am and never met a rapper she actually wanted to throw away.

I remember being irritated about the rapper. Then I thought I had this very interesting vision, is I saw the counter clean without her there. And I got really sad. And so I'm like, that's just not worth the fight. Throw the wrapper away. And she's so awesome in so many ways. And she has the anxious ADD type.

So she's always on time. So that's not an issue. And we hire people that organize her and it just is fine. But if she wasn't as kind as she was, if she didn't love me, yeah, I wouldn't be with her. I was with Dean Ornish. Do you know Dean Ornish? I know the name.

He's an internist, but he's written a lot of work on diet and health. And he wrote this one book called Love and Survival. And it's one of my favorite books I ever read. And as I was with him, I was like a little kid, excited to talk to him. And as I was with him, I was like a little kid excited to talk to him. And because with my first wife, I mean, you can have all the ADD things, but if there's not love, it's not worth it. And I read in his book, he said he talked, there was a study from the Cleveland

Clinic and they asked 10,000 men one question, does your wife show you her love? Right, and you can interpret it anyway. And I remember reading it at like 10 o'clock at night because I was reading myself to sleep, and I woke up with crushing chest pain. And I'm like, this relationship is killing me. This is so important when you're with someone. The issue is really not do they have ADD or not.

It's do they fit or not? And are they willing to get help or not? Like if you date one of my kids for more than six months, I'm scanning you. It's just like you're not in my mind, you're not even dating until I see your brain. That's amazing. Because if you have ADD or you played football and you have concussions, I want you to be serious

about taking care of it. Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors. Made for This Mountain is a podcast that exists to empower listeners to rise above their struggles, next moment, let's this is my mountain. This is the struggle. This is the thing that's in front of me. You can't make that mountain move without actually diving into it. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to conquer the things that once felt impossible and step boldly into the best version of yourself to awaken the unstoppable strength that's

inside of us all. So tune into the podcast, focus on your emotional wellbeing and climb your personal mountain. Because it's impossible for you to be the most authentic you. It's impossible for you to love you fully if all you're doing is living to please people. Your mountain is that.

Listen to Made for This Mountain on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chafkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain.

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. It's your girl, T.S. Madison, coming to you live and in color from the Outlaws podcast. On this week's episode, we're talking to none other than Chaperone and Sasha Colby.

And let me tell you, no topping is off limits, honey. We talk about the lovers, the haters, and the creator. I worked at Scooter's Coffee drive-through kiosk. And you are from the Midwest. and the creator. I worked at Scooter's Coffee Drive-Thru Kiosk. And you are from the Midwest. Mm-hmm. And in the Midwest, they told you, well, just be humble. Like, you've heard this countless times.

You too, right? Oh, yeah. It's very, like, big in Hawaii. Mine was, I think, wrapped up in, like, Christian guilt. Oh, yeah. We definitely had, like, some Jehovah's Witness guilt there. Yeah. Wait, were you a Jehovah's Witness?

Yeah. So you were a Jehovah's Witness? Yeah. So you were Jehovah's Witness? I grew up that, yeah. My family still is. Hey. Or no, bye. Listen, she may have been working the drive-through in 2020, but she's the name on everybody's lips now, honey.

Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. And back to our episode. T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. And back to our episode. Yeah. So wait, they come over to dinner, you press a button, the wall opens up, there's like this surgical scanner. Oh no, I send them to the clinic.

I thought you might have an undercover clinic, like a bat cave in your house. And like, you just do that. Sort of like the movie Meet the Parents. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That's brilliant. I've heard a lot of people say to me, and I love your example that you just gave about the rapper, because I think I've had friends who've gone through that

where they're like, I believe you love me, but I just feel like you don't care, because you aren't on time, because you don't do the dishes. But then you do it sometimes. You do it when it suits you, or you do it for your friends, but not me. Because they have more dopamine. Right, so yeah, talk to me about that,

because you could see your partner who's able to organize dinner for your friends, but then when it comes to you, they can't set a date. In a way, it almost sounds like they're pushing on a wound. And one of the things I learned, and I actually learned it from Tana, she grew up in a crazy home. Her ACE score, do you know the ACE adverse childhood experiences?

On a scale of 0-10, how many bad things happened to you as a kid? If you have four or more, it's like physical, emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, watching your mother being abused, being raised with someone who goes to jail, has a mental illness and addiction. So if you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top 10 leading causes of death.

If you have six or more, you die 20 years earlier, 10 as an eight. And we adopted both of our nieces who were nines. And when you see untreated ADD, you see it throughout both of their families, right? Untreated ADD can go with trauma. And her earliest memory, or one of them, is her mom and grandmother falling to the floor because her uncle was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. And so it was because her other uncle was involved in the drug deal. So anyways, he goes to jail, gets clean,

and she goes to a seminar. She had thyroid cancer in her drug deal. So anyways, he goes to jail, gets clean, and she goes to a seminar. She had thyroid cancer in her 20s. So chronic stress from untreated ADD and childhood trauma increases your cancer risk. So she gets cancer when she's 25. She goes to Hawaii. He's teaching a seminar for Jack Canfield, and he asks her, how much responsibility do you

want for your station in life right now? And she goes, I have cancer. It's not my fault. He goes, I didn't ask you about fault. I asked you about responsibility, which is just your ability to respond to the situation. And in that moment, she got clarity. It's like, I want 100% responsibility. And often when I'm with Tana, if we're fussing, which is very rare for us, I'm like, what can I do to make this better? Because as soon as I go, you're not doing this and you're not doing that, I think it's touching on a wound

I have. But I want to be powerful. And being powerful is, so what can I do to make this better? Because I know, and I ask all my patients this. I'm like, they're fighting with their wife and I'm like, or their mom. I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy? And they're like, what? Because they expect me to just listen and buy into the bullshit.

And I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy? Oh, what do you do that makes your wife yell at you? And I do that purposefully because the next question is what do you do to make your mom smile? And I know if I become condescending, if I become critical, if I notice what's wrong, I'm not going to get back what I want. And I collect penguins. Did I ever tell you why I collect penguins? No. It's crazy actually.

It's good to know. I have like a thousand of them. And I live my life with why I collect penguins. So I adopted three of my kids. My oldest was hard for me, argumentative, oppositional. So he has the over-focused ADD, like classic. And I was in training at the time to be a child psychiatrist and I went to my mentor and I'm like, I am not having any fun as a dad. So he was the first child I had and she goes, you need to spend more time

with him. And so I took him to a place called Sea Life Park, which is in Hawaii. Um, it's like Sea World or Marine World, Northern California. And we had a great day. I took him to the whale show and that was fun and the dolphins and the sea lions. And at the end of the day, grabs my shirt and he goes, I want to see fat Freddy. And I'm like, who's fat Freddy? He's like, Penguin dad, don't you know anything? And that was our interactions. And so at the end of the day, went to the last show, the Fat Freddy show. He's a tiny,

humble penguin, chubby Fat Freddy. And he comes out onto the stage, climbs the ladder to a high dive, goes to the end of the board, bounces and jumps in the water. I'm like, whoa. He gets out, bowls with his nose, counts with his flipper, jumps through a hoop of fire. I'm just mesmerized by this little bird.

Then at the end of the show, the trainer asked Freddie to go get something. And he went and got it and brought it right back. And in my mind, I went, damn, I asked this kid to get something for me. He wants to have a discussion for like 20 minutes and then he doesn't want to do it. I knew my son was smarter than the penguin. So I went up to the trainer and I said, how'd you get Freddie to do all these really cool things? And she said, unlike parents, she looked at my son and then looked at me, she said, unlike parents,

whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug and I give him a fish. And even though my son didn't like raw fish, it totally worked with my daughter Chloe. She loved sushi from the time she was six months old. I realized that whenever he did what I wanted him to do, I didn't pay any attention to him at all because I was busy. But when he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a ton of attention. Cause I didn't want to raise bad kids. So I was inadvertently teaching him to be bad in order to get my attention.

So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself, notice what you like more than what you don't. Notice what you like more than what you don't. And so if you're only noticing what you don't like, well, if you're with a partner who has ADD, that's the story of their life that people have noticed what they haven't liked. If you love someone and I love my kids that have ADD and I love love my wife. Notice what you, it feeds. So good, yeah. That's so good.

What a great story and what a great lesson. I mean, that resonates so strongly and it's so different to positive thinking. Because I think people think, well, that means I'm just letting them get away with all the bad stuff. And it's like, no, it's just just you're also making really clear that I notice, I validate, I acknowledge all this amazing behavior.

Because the truth is, what we're more often than not doing is we're keeping a scorecard, but it's of all their mistakes and all of our wins. So whenever we do do the dishes, we get a point. When that person doesn't do the dishes, they lose a point. As opposed to if we are going to keep score, we've got to really take account of all the amazing things that person does and be open to the fact that we also make mistakes. Cause I think it's really easy to think, like I was giving that example to you

that I've always been a stickler for time. But at one point I had to ask myself, why am I making time the most important currency, because that's also my obsession. Time is not always the most important thing. Like it is sometimes if I'm presenting at an event, if I'm going to be on stage, if I've got to meet a guest for a podcast, a client, time is of utmost importance. But when me and my wife are just going out to a friend's event that is a bit more casual, people are going to show up between seven and 8 PM and I'm the guy trying to

be there at 6.59 and I'm putting so much pressure on both of us. It's almost like it didn't really matter whether we turned up at seven or 7.15 or 7.30 and I also had to give that up. Right. So it's also like an acceptance that it's not like I'm perfect and that person's the one who's the wrong one. And what has eternal value and you never want to have to win an argument. If you have to win an argument, it's because you have low self-esteem.

It's why do I have to be my partner who I love, who, you know, when something good happens, I call her or something bad happens, I call her. I need to nurture that and the winning comes from a low self-esteem place or it comes from an earlier gladiator place that just has no business. I want Tana to win. If I have to win, then there's a deficit somewhere in me. Yeah. And I always say to people, if you're fine with your partner and you win, it means they lose and because you're on the same team, that means you both just lost.

And if you lost and they won, you're on the same team, you both just lost. So you either win together or you lose together because you're on the same team. So there is no win-lose scenario because you go to sleep with that person. You wake up next to that person. You have dinner and breakfast and lunch with that person. If you just won, you lost because you're sharing all the other time of the day with them. I want to flip it to the other side. What about someone who has ADHD and they're dating someone who doesn't.

What advice would you give them to help because they might be being really harsh on themselves. They might feel misunderstood. What would you say to them? Well, I think communication is probably the most important thing. It's make sure you develop rituals of time. Because often people get so busy and they're behind that they don't make time. And I think bonding requires two things, time and a willingness to listen.

And often the other person who doesn't have ADD feels like they're not being heard because the ADD person forgets things and it's like, no, I have to say this. And the other person feels diminished. And so, having both people practice active listening, it's so magical when they say something, don't say anything, or repeat back what you hear, and then be quiet. Too often, people just use too many words. And if you can practice silence and giving when someone says something, give it space. So if they want to say more, they will, as opposed to jumping in too quickly. Communication is so important and get dopamine from going, what do you need? How can I help? And often with ADD, because of the chaos that's in your head, you might not know.

What would you say to someone who has a parent with ADHD and they're struggling with, and you know, they're an adult, they have a parent who's got ADHD, they may be caring for them. Well, they've been embarrassed a lot, right? Cause you go to the restaurant and the person will just say the first thing that comes to their mind, which can be horrifying. My oldest patient with ADD is 94. And I'm like, why are you in my office? And she goes, you helped my great grandson, you helped my granddaughter,

you helped my son. I've never been able to finish the paper in the morning. I want to finish the paper." So that was our goal. And so I scanned her. She clearly had ADHD and age doesn't make it better. I think that's an important point. Age doesn't make it better. And I treated her and she came back a month later and she had this beautiful smile and she said, I read my first book. That's amazing. And I would just be encouraging and go, we've learned so much about this. It's not a childhood disorder. It starts in childhood, but it can impact the rest of your life.

How should people talk to their bosses or their teachers if parents are talking to teachers about having ADHD? Because I imagine that's a tough conversation in the workplace where your performance is being judged, your output's being judged, your productivity is being measured. How do you have that conversation in an effective way? So I think, I'm not sure I would have that conversation

because it might make them look at you differently. It's sad that there's still that. There is still that. Yeah. Now, if you need accommodation, so it is federal law. If you have a disability and ADHD is considered a disability under federal law, your employer can give you accommodations, is required to give you accommodations. I think my first suggestion is see if you can get it

treated without, just so you don't really have to have the conversation and have to have them look at you differently, but if you need it in order to keep that job, I'd actually talk about that. You'll need to get your doctor to write a note and request those accommodations. Happens all the time in colleges. All major colleges have disability resource centers.

Great. One of my nieces is at UCLA. She gets extra time on tests. She gets notes. She gets a lot of help, which is rational. That's great, and so that's so helpful. Does ADHD ever go away or is it only managed? Great question.

In about half the cases, the kids who had ADHD, so the hyperactive form, were not in their later teens. I often worry they've outgrown the hyperactivity, but not the short attention span and impulsivity. But sometimes it's a maturational lag in brain development. And you can encourage it to go away or you can discourage it to go away. So you can encourage it to go away

if there's regular exercise. If you teach kids not to believe every stupid thing they think, if you support them with omega-3 fatty acids and a healthy diet, and you don't just give them devices they want, right? If you wanna discourage it, so if you want them to make sure they have the ADD as they age, then feed them bad food, give them all the devices they want,

let them watch endless hours of TV and play video games. Yeah, that's a great summary to help people set them up for what to do before medication. And what are some of the long-term effects of leaving ADHD untreated? It's so sad, because it's basically the big issues in our society, from school failure, drug abuse, divorce, bankruptcy, incarceration, homelessness. And if we'd looked more at the brain, we'd go, we can do a lot better. Yeah, and I think that's what the real hope is that the world can start to take it seriously and take brain health seriously, right? If you had a hope for how we would shift the way we looked at ADHD in the brain,

what would that be? So I have big ideas. When I went to the white house, my friend there said, how big can you think? The first thing I would do is rename the National Institute of Mental Health to the National Institute of Brain and Mental Health. I'd get the brain involved, like stop calling people mental, it shames people, it's stigmatizing, it's wrong. I declare the next 10 years, the decade of brain health, and get really serious about what goes into children's minds.

It needs to be curated to be appropriate and to be helpful. Who else's brain have you not scanned that you'd love to scan? The presidents. I wrote an op ed piece in the LA Times in 2008 on scanning presidential candidates. You know, if someone has the nuclear codes, don't we at least want to know about the health of their brain? Like the last election, I would have loved to scan both President Biden and now President Trump.

What would you expect to see in both of these from your perception? I think with President Biden, there were clear cognitive issues. Well, I don't think I'd see a healthy brain. President Trump, I'm much more curious. Now, I know I get a lot of hate for this, but I'm very interested in resilience. For someone who was the most popular person,

or one of them in the world before he ran for president, right? The apprentice had gone for 14 seasons and he was beloved by so many people and then he was demonized. And then he was falsely accused, he was impeached, he was tempted assassination, indictments, convictions. And it's like, how do you show up every day, right? You and I off the podcast, we're talking about worldwide shame, and how some people just causes

them to disappear. Well, he didn't disappear. And, you know, he's still fighting every day. So I'm really interested. I'm not sure I've seen a brain quite like. Elon Musk would be interesting. I've scanned many high profile geniuses. I got to scan Muhammad Ali, which at what point on his journey was that later. And so you could clearly see the damage. I have lots of really fascinating scanners.

Dr. Dhani Lehman, I've got a few more questions that I want to leave people with to summarize some of our conversation today to really leave them feeling energized, positive, hopeful about their journey with ADHD, whether they have it individually or they have it through someone that they love in their life. And the first question is for those who do have ADHD, what are some great hacks for someone struggling with ADHD to be more organized, to be better? What would you suggest for them? What can they do? So the first thing when you get up, try to do some form of exercise. Cause that will help turn your brain on.

Why does that, why does exercise help turn the brain? Cause it increases serotonin, but also increases dopamine and it increases blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. For those people who live in colder climates, get a light box, a light box with 10,000 lux. So that's the intensity has been found not only to help seasonal Get a light box, a light box with 10,000 lux. So that's the intensity has been found not only to help seasonal depression, it helps with focus, memory, energy, and it will help promote sleep.

Make sleep a priority. Too often when you have ADHD, you're more awake at night. Our society, we have bias against night owls. So morning larks, our society's geared to praise them and often find a job that fits your circadian rhythm, but sleep is a priority. And if you snore, get checked for sleep apnea. Sleep is a priority. And if you snore, get checked for sleep apnea. So kids who snore, sleep apnea may be the cause

of their ADHD that is treatable. And what's the most important thing that someone with ADHD needs to hear? You are not stuck with the brain you have, you can make it better. Think of it like glasses, right? People, you remember I told you about Sandy and showing her scans and she starts to cry and I'm like having ADD is like people need glasses. They're not dumb, crazy or stupid. Their eyeballs are shaped funny. We wear glasses to focus.

People have ADD, are not dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their frontal lobes just don't turn on when they need to. And the medicine or supplements or neurofeedback helps turn it on. So you can focus and be who you really are when your brain works right. People go, I don't want to take medicine because I don't want to be someone different. It's like, but don't. Do you want to be who you are when your brain is fully functioning?

I want to be who I am when my brain is fully online. As always, Dr. Daniel Eamon, I appreciate our conversation so much. I get, I feel like whenever I'm with you, I learn to see everything so differently and deeply and as a 360 degree view. I think we're so used to in our society to see one aspect of something or have a very limited understanding of the different issues that we see. And whenever I speak to you, I feel like, oh, wow, I have the much more broader contextual view of it. And I want everyone at home who's listening or watching, whether you're on a walk, whether you're at the gym, Dr. Daniel Lehmann has one of his books, which is called Healing ADD,

the breakthrough program that allows you to see and heal the seven types of ADD that we discussed in today's episode. So I highly recommend the book if you don't already have it. And of course, if you don't follow Dr. Daniel Lehmann on all forms of social media, TikTok, Instagram, the podcast, as I mentioned earlier, make sure you do subscribe. And Dr. Daniel Lehmann, we are so happy that you came on for our fifth time. If you haven't seen the episodes before, make sure you go back and listen and watch. You can search Dr. Daniel Lehmann and Jay Shetty or Dr. Daniel Lehmann on purpose. And any last words, Dr. Daniel Lehmann, anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask you about

or anything that is on your mind or heart right now. I'm just so grateful for you. You know, I love the idea that we can train our brains that focus on what you want way more than what you don't want. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr Daniel Amon 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. A lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week I would buy two cups of banana pudding but the price has gone up so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market

to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chaston. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler,

Maren Morris is here. You came out of a marriage, you came out of quote unquote country music, and you had a huge growth spurt from what I can tell. I was expanding and growing at a really fast pace. And yes, you could throw motherhood and the postpartum thing, learning about myself. There were a lot of like identity crises going on,

but I realized like I can't look back and slow down for people. and the postpartum thing, learning about myself. There were a lot of identity crises going on, but I realized I can't look back and slow down for people. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to Hi, Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Audley.

We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am HiKey going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to HiKey on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.