Pursuit of Wellness - Dr. Amen Pt. 2: ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Raising Mentally Tough Kids & How To Fight Negative Thinking

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Ep. #84 On today’s episode Dr. Amen joins us for a part two discussion. We deep dive into the brain’s complex world, sparked by my own brain scan results. We cover everything from discussing Borderline Personality Disorder and ADHD, to the game-changing effects of specific strategies for squashing automatic negative thoughts. With his new book coming out soon, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, we discuss parenting techniques alongside tips for fertility and for pregnant mothers. Protecting our kid’s cognitive future has never been more important or difficult, and Dr. Amen provides tips for bolstering mental strength. Join us for a journey of discovery and empowerment that'll change the way you think about brain health. For Mari’s Newsletter click here! Leave Me a Message - click here! For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Dr. Amen’s Instagram click here! To pre-order Dr. Amen’s new book click here! Show Links: EP. 24: Dr. Daniel Amen On How To Reverse The Effects of Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol, and Fame Raising Mentally Strong Kids by Dr. Daniel Amen The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child by Tana Amen Loving What Is by Byron Katie Sponsored By: Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to sundaysfordogs.com/POW or use code POW at checkout Use code POW15 for 15% off your first purchase at kosterina.com Right now, Chomps is offering our listeners 20% off your first order and free shipping when you go to Chomps.com/POW

We're poisoning children's brains. We're poisoning them with ultra-processed foods. We're poisoning them by giving them gadgets that steal their dopamine levels. And the longer you can keep them away, the better their brain? Welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. I am so freaking excited for today's episode. This is one of my favorite guests of all time. Back for a part two, Dr. Daniel Amen. He is a brain doctor and a very well-known brain doctor. He works on many celebrities you guys may know, Justin Bieber, Bella Hadid, Miley Cyrus, and also people like me. Dr. Amen is a physical adult and child psychiatrist and founder of Amen Clinics, which has the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry totaling more than 200,000 brain scans

on patients from 155 different countries. If you haven't listened to part one with Dr. Amen yet, I highly recommend you do. That episode really, really blew up. We talked a lot about alcohol and the impact it can have on the brain, drugs, marijuana. It was a really in-depth conversation. This is a continuation of that original conversation and a deeper dive. We talked about completely different topics today. I really think you guys are going to enjoy it. After our last episode, I actually went to Amen Clinics. They invited me in in Newport Beach and I got my brain scanned. And I have to say, the full breakdown is going to be on YouTube, but we also discussed it in today's episode. That brain scan truthfully changed my life. You know, I feel like we all have understandings about our struggles and maybe

negative thought patterns, but this was really solid evidence for me of what is going on in my brain and the impact things have had on my brain over time. It was a really surprising discovery. So highly recommend you guys keep listening to hear that piece because I think it'll be helpful to so many people. We also talk a lot about parenting in this episode. So if you are a parent or you would like to be a parent in the future and want to make sure you are, you know, raising really strong, emotionally sound kids, this is a really good one for you. Some things we discussed today, we talk about hypervigilance. We also talk about ADHD and tools you can use to manage ADHD or things you can do if you have a partner with ADHD. Autism and vaccines. We also talk about creating strong children and what to do if you have a child who's on social media. We also talk about things like diet coke and the effects that that can have

on the brain. We also, of course, everyone's going to make fun of me, talk about fertility and pregnancy. I feel like I'm bringing it up in every episode lately and just bear with me guys, it's what I'm going through, so I can't help but ask about it. So I hope you guys don't mind. We also just talk about really tangible tools for negative thought patterns and how you can break that in your life. I know for me personally, I'm someone who leans on the side of being a bit more depressed and anxious. So to have a tool that helps me manage that is so helpful. Dr. Amen is releasing a new book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love and Logic to Grow Confident, Kind and Responsible and Resilient Children. It releases on March 26. So we talk about that as well. Without further ado, let's talk to Dr. Amen. Dr. Amen, welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast.

Thank you so much for helping me spread this message of brain health, mental strength. Mental strength. We're going to talk all about that today. You're back for part two, because your first episode with me really blew up online. I'm not sure if you were even aware of that. But our video together, I think it's over 2 million views. People were freaking out. I mean, I think specifically the alcohol topic really blew up. So I'm really excited to have you back. Also, after we spoke, I came down to your clinic in Orange County and you scanned my brain. It was a long process. I think I was there the whole day and we actually filmed it for YouTube, but I don't know that everyone's watched the YouTube. So I really want to go through the results and also kind of like what I've done since then to improve because I was just watching the

video and I was kind of like struggling then more than I am now so I'd love to discuss I know you brought in the scam so excited to because you know that's what really started my journey was I started looking at the brain and then I'm like, oh, I don't like mine. Can I make it better? And what are those things I've been obsessed with for the last 33 years or so? And the exciting news is you can make your brain better. But how do you know unless you look, right? With your scan, was it low in activity or was it high in activity? And once you know, you can target treatment specifically for you. And you had a really interesting brain, healthy in many ways, except way too busy, which makes you worried and rigid. And if things don't go a certain way, you get upset. It's like you have a little mouse on an exercise wheel in your head and the mouse can't get off the wheel over and over and over. And calming that down can just

help you be happy and the person you really want to be. I remember sitting down with you and seeing the scan and having you point out the active areas and what was going on was such a sort of like, aha moment for me, because I was aware of my negative thought habits. And I was aware of sort of the struggles that I've had, but to see it and have that validation almost, I was able to take a deep breath and take it from there. Like it really was so eye-opening for me to have this physical analysis of what's actually happening. And I know we talked about my borderline personality diagnosis, and I had a lot of questions about this because now I don't meet the characteristics necessary for BPD. And I know that you spoke about BPD sort of being just like a name for PTSD or trauma. Can you talk us through that a little bit?

Yeah, I've never been a fan of borderline personality disorder. It means you're really messed up and I'm not likely to help you. And I'm like, now I actually debated Otto Kernberg, who is one of the psychiatrists involved in really making it a diagnosis. And I'm like, how do you know unless you look what's underneath that diagnosis. And often there's increased activity in the scenario called the anterior cingulate gyrus. I think of it as the brain's gear shifter. And when it works too hard, as it does in your case, you just have trouble shifting. And you end up stuck in these loops, sometimes problems in the left temporal lobe, which can give you mood instability, irritability, sometimes temper problems, and problems with low activity in the prefrontal cortex.

Now, you actually don't have that. But that's where some very serious impulse control issues can happen. And if you know what's going on, so one, you get rid of the stigma attached to it and start balancing what's underneath it. And there's trauma with you. And we actually saw this trauma pattern in your brain it's called the diamond plus pattern and when you do therapy like EMDR which I'm a huge fan of it calms down the diamond and so if you're holding trauma if your brain is holding trauma, you can't be happy. When I met my wife, I really liked her, still really like her.

Beautiful, smart. She had a lot of trauma in her childhood. She actually wrote a book about it called The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. And she had that trauma pattern. I realized, okay, I like you. You're going to be my person if you choose me back. And my first gift to her, which she thought was weird, was 10 sessions of EMDR.

Because, of course, if I'm going to date you, I'm going to scan you. Like within three weeks of meeting her, I'm like, hey, you haven't seen the clinic. Don't you want to come see the clinic? The first naked part of her I wanted to see was her brain. Because ultimately, you know, it's going to make me happy or crazy how her brain works, right? And she ended up gone for two years. But it's why we don't fight. Because we don't trigger each other because we sort of work through the triggers.

So, okay, I was trying to remember that you explained that to me in our session, the lit up part of the brain, it's that diamond shape. That's so interesting to me. And you saw that on mine quite prevalently. What causes that to light up? It's the unpredictability that's hard. It causes your brain to like always have to watch because you never know what's going to happen. And so your emotional brain starts to work too hard and it can give you all sorts of trouble. As you guys know, I have two dogs, Arnold and Lulu, the loves of my life. And I am super

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bottles. Too many extra virgin olive oils are in plastic. You should never, ever, ever buy extra virgin olive oil in plastic. It allows the light, which is the enemy of good olive oil and can leak microplastics into your oil. You guys can use code POW15 for 15% off your first purchase at costarina.com, K-O-S-T-E-R-I-n-a dot com use code pow15 they are also available nationwide at whole foods crate and barrel and select sprouts locations is that also known as hypervigilance yes. And we talked about solutions for that type of thinking because it really was running my life back then. And I still have moments, you know, it's still sort of my autopilot response. We talked about a tool called killing the ants, A-N-T-S, which also

stands for automatic negative thoughts, right? You bet. Can you talk us through that? Because that was very, very helpful for me. That really reframed the way I think. So I coined that term, I don't know, more than 30 years ago. I had a really hard day at work. I had four suicidal patients, which is a psychiatrist a lot in one day. Two teenagers who ran away from home and two couples who hated each other.

And so I came home and I was tired, but I came home to an ant infestation in my kitchen and nobody was there. And I'm cleaning up these ants and I'm thinking ants and you know as a medical student you're always using acronyms and mnemonics to just try to remember stuff and so I think in that way and I'm killing the ants and I'm like and automatic negative thoughts my patients are infested and so the next day at work I bought a brought a can of ant spray and I put it on my coffee table. And I'm like, I'm going to teach you to kill the ants. And I had an eight-year-old patient because I'm also a child psychiatrist, an eight-year-old patient who had a panic disorder. And I taught him how to not believe every stupid thing he thinks.

And three weeks later, he came in. I'm like, how are you doing? He said, it's an ant ghost town in my head. I was so happy. And so ant spray is obviously poisonous. So I ended up going to Pier 39 in San Francisco. There's a puppet store. They're a very famous puppet store.

And I got an ant puppet and then an ant eater puppet. And I used to play with the kids about not believing every stupid thing you think. And so the exercise is so simple. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. Yeah. And there are actually nine different types of ants. So identify what type of ant, fortune telling, mind reading, guilt beating, all or nothing thinking, focusing on the negative, blame, whatever. So write it down, identify the different types of stinking thinking patterns or ant species and then talk back to it like you don't have to believe everything you think i

remember the first time i was on television i was so nervous i had written an article in parade magazine called how to get out of your own way we had 10 000 letters to our office so this is like before email and cnn heard about it and they invited me on their show so i flew to los angeles and i'm in the green room waiting to go on and my hands are sweaty i start having trouble breathing and i'm like i have to leave And then the voice in my head started laughing at me and said, you treat people who have this problem. What do you tell them to do? Don't leave. And so this is really helpful for anybody who has a panic disorder. Number one, don't leave. Because if I would have laughed, I would have never done television again. And I've been on TV thousands

of times. Don't leave. Second thing is breathe. And there's a very specific breathing pattern that'll almost immediately calm down a panic attack. And the third thing, write down what you're thinking. I'm going to forget my name. I wrote down, I'm going to forget my name. I'm going to stutter. Two million people are going to think you're an idiot. So I wrote that down. And you're going to forget your name. Fortune telling.

So write down the type of ant it is. And then talk back to it. And play with it. I don't know if you've ever seen a cat play with a mouse. But they don't just eat the mouse. What they do is they scare it to death. And then they eat it. Anyways, play with the thought.

So you're going to forget your name. Fortune telling. And I wrote, probably not. I've never forgotten my name. But if I do, I have my driver's license in my wallet. You're going to stutter. Fortune telling, probably not. I usually don't stutter.

But if I do, all the stutters that are watching can identify with me. And then three, two million people are going to think you're an idiot. I wrote, probably so. And then I wrote these three numbers, 18, 40, 60, which is a rule I teach all of my patients, the 18, 40, 60 rule. It says when you're 18, you worry about what everybody's thinking of you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about you. And when you're 60, realize nobody has been thinking about you at all. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves, not you. So even as public figures, yes, of course we get hate, but they're not really thinking about us.

They're thinking about themselves. Oh, I love that. And then I went on TV and i wasn't great but i wasn't terrible and and you still did it and i still did it i feel like the most powerful part about the ant killing exercise is simply getting the thought out there because when you say it out loud or write it down you kind of realize how ridiculous it is like i remember sitting in your office and you were like, you know, what's your main aunt? And I immediately was like, oh, then no one likes me. And you were like, I invited you here. I like you. Fi was in the room. She goes, I like you, you know, and I sort of start realizing how silly it sounds. And then you really have the ability to argue with yourself. Whereas if you keep it in your head, it just

remains there isolated and you almost come in your head, it just remains there isolated and you almost come up with reasons why it could be true. I did the same thing. I had a speaking engagement three days ago and I suddenly started getting obsessed about the fact that I was going to fall on the stage and I've never fallen before. And I was like, I can't even go down this rabbit hole right now because it will become my obsession. and I quickly just got it out, you know? So I really think this is such a powerful tool. And I love the work of Byron Katie. She has a book I love called Loving What Is. And I've completely adopted the five questions she teaches people. So I'm going to fall or I'll forget my name. Write it down, identify it, and then here are the five questions. Is it true? I'm going to fall or I'll forget my name. Write it down, identify it, and then here are the five questions.

Is it true? I'm going to forget my name. No. And even if I said yes, so I'm going to fall. Yes. The second question, is it absolutely true? With 100% certainty. Of course not.

You've never fallen. The third question is how does it make you feel anxious, freaked out? So you're realizing it's my thoughts that freak me out. The fourth question is how would I feel if I didn't have the thought, excited to do the speech? And the last one, my favorite one, is take the original thought that tortures you and flip it to the opposite. I'm not going to fall. And then go, do I have any evidence I'm not going to fall? Yeah, like hundreds of pieces of evidence that I usually don't fall. And then meditate on the opposite of the thought that bothers you. And it just frees you. But too often we have this very mean bully in our heads and we would never treat our friends

the way we treat ourselves. Because quite frankly, if we did, we would have no friends. And so learning how to be kind and firm, right? We're going to talk about my new book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids. And those are the two words of great parents. They're firm and they're kind. And if you want to be a mentally strong, want to raise mentally strong kids, you have to be mentally strong yourself, right? Every day we are modeling health or we're

modeling illness to those we care about. Yeah, I feel like we almost need to parent ourselves. Every time I catch myself having a negative thought, it really feels like I'm having to reparent myself. And I'm sure it has so much to do with the way we grow up, the way our parents talk to us. I mean, you and your wife are obviously very in the know when it comes to the brain and how we should talk to ourselves. But many of our generation, our parents weren't taught those skills. So I feel like it's going to be interesting to see the way that my generation raises our children with the awareness that we have now, but also with the environment that we have with social media. It's scary. I want to actually skip down to that. I want to ask you, your new book comes out soon. I want to read the subject

line you had under the title, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, How to Combine the Power of Neuroscience with Love Logic to Grow Confident, Kind, Responsible, and Resilient Children and Young Adults. What do you feel like is the biggest issue with children's brain development in the environment that we're in right now? We're poisoning children's brains. We're poisoning them with ultra-processed foods. Parents, for example, think orange juice is a health food when it's really liquid sugar. It's not good for kids. We're poisoning them by giving them gadgets that steal their dopamine levels. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends they don't even see screens until they're three. And the longer you can keep them away, the better their brain develops. So you have these two areas in your brain.

They're so interesting. They're called the nucleus accumbens. But basically, they're little pleasure buttons in the brain. And whenever something good happens, we produce a little bit of dopamine and it helps us feel happy and motivated. But these gadgets and the ultra-processed foods cause us to produce dopamine much more quickly, much more intensely, and ultimately it wears out the pleasure centers in your brain, needing us to have more and more excitement in order to feel anything at all. So we're seeing the incidence of depression, especially in teenage girls,

skyrocket. There's a brand new study that's just terrifying. 54, 5-4% of teenage girls report being persistently sad. 32% have thought of killing themselves, 24% have planned to kill themselves, and 13% have actually tried. These are statistics unlike anything in human history. And so you have to sort of unpack it. It's like why? What's different is the low quality food and food producers know this right the most expensive aisles in the grocery store are the bottom two shelves which are the shelves kids can see and grab and then parents go oh sure you can have this without ever reading the label, which is just insane, right? Your brain, so it's

2% of your body's weight. It uses 20 to 30% of the calories you consume. You feed children a fast food, ultra processed food diet, and it's going to damage their brain. And then if you combine that with the toxic products we put on our body, it's another whole issue. You know, why do, you know, teenage boys have low levels of testosterone? Testosterone has been over the decades been decreasing, decreasing low testosterone, less motivation, less strength, less happy mood. I think it's because of the toxic products we put on kids' bodies. I often say the dermatologists won. They made us afraid of the sun. And all the sunscreens, they've actually in the last year or two

pulled a couple of them off the market because they had cancer-causing chemicals in them. And it's like, oh my goodness, from toxic social media, which creates a toxic level of self-absorption, which is so hard for people and it really disconnects you from real people in your life to the toxic food, toxic products. And then you have to add the news because the news is no longer the news. And lots of families have the news on for hours every day, even though it's the same negative stuff on repeat. The news is, news is just not the news anymore. It's like an ant fest. Yeah. It's to sell copper underwear and pharmaceutical drugs.

And I'm just horrified because the negativity. If you watch the news in the morning, you're 27% less happy in the afternoon. I mean, that's a big deal. So all these toxic inputs that were given to kids. And if you want to raise mentally strong kids, you have to be mentally strong yourself. So watch the products you put on your body. There's an app I like called Think Dirty, lets you scan your personal products to tell you on a scale of one to ten how quickly they're killing you. And so I shaved with Barbasol for many years.

It's nine. And I'm like, no. And so now I shave with something called Kiss My Face and it's a two. Because I love myself. Like, why would I ever put something toxic on my body? And people go, oh, but it's a habit. It's like, well, break it if it's not good for you. Once you're aware of the toxins in products,

it's actually terrifying because you can't escape them. I feel like the Ubers have air fresheners. The second I get in an Uber and I smell that artificial smell, I like want to get out. I open all the windows because I get a headache immediately. Products, perfume, candles, even the bathrooms here for me, when the fragrances are on, it overwhelms me. I have so many questions for you in terms of kids' brain development. Do you think there's anything that's happening during the mother's pregnancy that's having an impact on the baby's brain development?

Like if a pregnant mother's using toxic products or eating processed food. Of course. Is that baby like set up? In fact, the really horrifying thing is it's way before pregnancy. I mean, we know, for example, if teenage boys smoke cigarettes or vape, they've just increased the risk of their children having ADHD. So, and it's even worse for females because when a little girl is born, she's born with all of the eggs she'll ever have so when her mother was carrying her she's actually carrying her baby and her grand babies because the little girl is born with all

of the eggs she'll ever have and there's a term i coined many years ago called brain reserve. So brain reserve is the extra function, tissue you have to deal with whatever stress comes your way. So, for example, take two people, put them in a car accident, same forces, same angles, everything's the same. One of them walks away unharmed. The other one's permanently disabled. Why? It depends on the brain they brought into the accident. And so our brain reserve, it happens, how was the health of our parents before they even got together? How was the health of mom during pregnancy what toxic products was she putting in her body what toxic food what toxic thoughts right because carrying that stress from um an

unpredictable childhood really does matter and and then what happened to that baby throughout his or her life, whether it's falls, bad food, infections. Now with COVID, we know COVID changes the brain. If you get COVID in the next six months, you have a 25% increased risk of having a new onset psychiatric illness because it creates inflammation in the brain. So there are all these things that I know it might sound terrifying to people, but the good news is you're not stuck with the brain you have, right? We already talked about yours. You think it's already better from when I scanned you because you love your brain and you've been better to your brain. And that's the good news is you can make it better and I can prove it. I'm always getting asked, how do you get enough protein in with your snacks? And my number one

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chomps.com slash pow. Go to chomps.com slash pow to see all the delicious flavors and get 20% off your first order and free shipping. That's chomps.com slash pow pow don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you during pregnancy i've heard that there's some foods you can eat to enhance your fetus's brain is that true like i've heard salmon roe can be beneficial so clearly there are foods you can eat that will decrease healthy development right um whether it's sugar foods that quickly turn to sugar foods with pesticides um okay so if that's true they're foods clearly you can eat that will enhance the baby's brain uh organic blueberries i'm a huge fan of the polyphenols in organic blueberries i make my family every night brain healthy hot chocolate and the rock cow because it's made with organic unsweetened almond milk raw cacao and stevia

tastes amazing it's good for me and good for my family so raw cacao can be helpful and anything with high levels of healthy fat because 60% of the solid weight of our brain is fat. And so I'm completely not a fan of low-fat diets. Now, bad fat, stay away from that. But healthy fat, whether it's from healthy fish, and you have to be careful with fish because of the mercury content in fish so low mercury healthy fish salmon would be one of them but make it wild salmon avocados nuts seeds and then you should be taking an omega-3 fatty acid supplement. How do heavy metals impact the brain? I've seen a lot of studies about this.

Very bad. Lead. And it's common. And if you don't have good detoxification pathways, you can really have a buildup of arsenic and mercury and lead. Mercury is a known neurotoxin, which is why it's really a good idea to not give kids vaccines with mercury in them. So mercury-free vaccines.

Like, oh, but it's so little. But, oh, you're giving kids like 60 vaccines. It's like you want them to be mercury fee free is it linked to autism or is that not true um there's some evidence it is most of the There is a gene, environmental interaction that I'm absolutely convinced is causing autism. And I have vaccine-damaged brains. And so I vaccinated all of my kids, but I did it in a slow, really thoughtful way. And when they tried to give hepatitis B vaccine to one of my newborn grandchildren out of fit, it's like, okay, how do you get hepatitis B from IV needles or irresponsible sexual activity? I'm like, let's worry about that later. We're not going to worry about,

we're not going to challenge a brand new baby's immune system. And so I think of myself as a thoughtful vaxxer, not like, oh, let's have a party and let's give all the children COVID-19 vaccines when children don't die from COVID vaccine. So we probably don't want to go there. No, I appreciate you saying that. I want us to be thoughtful about what you put in your body from the products you put in your bodies to the medicines, because vaccines are medicines, you put in your body, is there enough research? Has it been around for decades? Let's be cautious. Let's talk about ADHD. I had a lot of handling ADHD with or without Adderall or Ritalin? Are there things we can do in our lifestyle or food or habits that can help with ADHD? is real and when it is left untreated, it has bad consequences. And when we talk about medicine, you always want to know what are the side effects of medications like Ritalin.

But you also want to ask the question, well, what are the side effects of not treating ADHD? So the hallmark symptoms are short attention span, but not for everything. It's short attention span for regular routine, everyday things, schoolwork, homework, paperwork, chores, the things that sort of make life work. But for things that are new, novel, highly stimulating, interesting, or frightening, people with AD need to pay attention just fine and that often fools people the second one is they're easily distracted it's like the world comes at them too fast they see too much they hear too much they sense too much like they hate scenes and tags. My first wife had ADD or ADHD. And just so people know, that's the same thing. In 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association has their diagnostic Bible,

was called attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity. 1987, they revised it to ADHD. And I hated that change because they basically sort of threw out all the non-hyperactive people who had ADD anyways distractibility see too much feel too much sense too much hate tags so as little kids are always taking off their clothes and i was gonna say my first wife we got married when i was a second year medical student i walked into my closet one day and someone had cut out all the tags in my shirts and i felt violated because i never felt a tag in my life and i took the shirt out into the living room and i'm like, do you know who cut out the tags in my, she goes, you had tags in your shirt, don't they? Don't you hate that? I thought you'd be so happy

with me. I'm like, never felt a tag. Please don't cut up my clothes. I'm like, I sort of knew this was not going to work really well. The third one is they tend to be disorganized for time and space. So their space tends to be a bit of a mess. They organize by the pile system, pile here, pile there, pile, pile everywhere. They tend to procrastinate. They don't do things until someone's mad at them to get it done. And they tend to have impulse control issues, say things probably they shouldn't say, do things they shouldn't do. So if you have those symptoms and they persist, right? All of us have ADD days, right? If you didn't sleep well, you had too much alcohol, whatever. But if it's sort of the story of your life,

there are things you can do to make it worse, processed foods, not sleeping, video games, excessive screen time, so not exercising. So the first thing, if you have someone who has ADD, it's focus on getting their diet healthy how about caffeine caffeine will help them in the short run but then they'll end up being addicted to it they'll actually have withdrawal i'm not a huge fan of caffeine okay um there's some nutrients uh like magnesium can help. Zinc can help.

Omega-3 fatty acids can help. So I often recommend in my writings, I have a book called Healing ADD, See and Heal the Seven Types. Because what I realize is not one thing. Give everybody Ritalin, two of the seven types get better and five of them get worse, which is why Ritalin is controversial. Because when it works, it can literally take kids from Cs and Ds hating themselves to As and Bs getting into the university they want to get into. So I'm a fan. Typically, I first will go a natural route, changing their diet, giving them nutrients. But if it doesn't work, I will use the medicine or recommend the medicine because left untreated, there are serious problems with addiction, school failure, relationship failure, bankruptcy, and so on. And it's personal to me. I said my first wife had it. My daughter, Caitlin, is public. I talk about her, embarrass her all the time, love her dearly. but she was hyperactive from before birth uh she was so active inside

her mother's womb we thought she was going to be a boy but she wasn't and i i could hold her sister watch a movie with her sister older sister and it's just we just had this close pond and caitlin holding her at a year old was like trying to hold a live salmon that's so wiggly and i wrote a column on the local newspaper i lived so whenever i went out i got recognized and if that wasn't the case she would have been on one of those little yellow leashes in the mall but because i was recognized and I was embarrassed by it I used to put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out oh my gosh and going to church with her it was so awful um and if you're the child psychiatrist in a community and your child is the worst behaved, it's just a bad thing. Not a good look.

And so I would take her out of church and threaten her life and then realized this girl's never going to go back to church because she's going to attach it to, you know, stress. Yeah. to you know stress yeah and and so when she was four she ended up on medicine because i'd done all the other things and it just helped her tremendously but the big add story in my life is her older sister always sweet um just a lovely human being but i I'm going to cry when I say this. I never thought she was very smart. And it breaks my heart. But she had the inattentive type of ADD. And in high school, so I had her tested in third grade

because I'm like, something's not right. And the psychologist basically told me, not in these words, but I know how to read tests, is she's not very smart. But she'll be okay, because she works so hard that she'll overcome her learning challenges. And in eighth grade, she won a Presidential Scholar Award, not for academics, but for effort.

And in 10th grade, she fell apart. She was staying up every night until 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning to get her homework done. And I was really worried about her. And one night she came to me and she said, this is 2 o'clock in the morning. She's crying. She's studying genetics of all things she said i don't understand it i will never be as smart as my friends and it just broke my heart so the next day i scanned her because i'm helping all of these people and someone i love virtually more than anybody in the world is struggling.

And she had an ADD brain. She had that classic ADD brain. And I'm like, tomorrow I'm going to give you some medicine and I'm going to scan you again. And she goes, medicine? I'm not going to take medicine. I'm not like Caitlin, her sister. And I'm a child psychiatrist. I know how to get my way with children. I'm like, Caitlin, her sister. And I'm a child psychiatrist. I know how to get my way with children.

I'm like, what'll it take? A phone in my room. I'm like, maybe you're smarter than I am. And when I scanned her on 10 milligrams of Ritalin, her brain normalized. And I'm like, oh my goodness. And I'm like, so you want the medicine or not? Because I showed her. She goes, dad, I felt it almost immediately. And a week later, I took her out to dinner and I'm like, so what do you think?

She's like, oh my God, dad, you can't believe the difference. She said in class, an hour class seemed like it would go by eight. It seemed like it was eight hours long and I was always lost and I was very religious. I'm like, what? She said, I was praying to God that the teacher would not call on me in class. And now that same class seems like it goes by in 20 minutes. And I raise my hand because I can participate. And I think I'm going to be a geneticist. I'm like, what? And three months later, got her her report card she had straight A's that was the first time she'd ever gotten straight A's and the next 10 years she got straight A's she got into

the University of Edinburgh's veterinarian school one of the best veterinarian schools in the world. And if I wouldn't have looked, if I would have missed that diagnosis, I would have condemned her to a life of mediocrity. And I hate that. And many of the women, when I diagnose them, usually they bring in their boys because their boys are acting up in school. And I'm like, yeah, he has ADD. Where does it come from? Because virtually it's almost always genetic unless they've had a concussion or some toxin.

I'm like, they bring me to the mind. It's like, oh, where is it coming from? Mom's side, dad side. And when I diagnose women in their 30s or 40s and they get treated for it, they get better. But then some of them actually get depressed because they start mourning the loss of what could have been if somebody would have recognized it when they were 8 or 10 or 12. I appreciate you giving that angle. I think my husband and I could relate in a lot of ways. He is, I mean, I don't know if you've met him,

but he is classic ADHD, pretty bad ADHD. And I was diagnosed with ADD as well in high school, but mine went unnoticed because I was so shy and quiet. No one would have ever have known that I wasn't paying attention. And I don't know that both of us ever really found a good fix. We didn't have a Dr. Amen in our lives back then. So both of us struggled academically the whole way through college. And luckily, we found health and fitness and we were able to build our company together and find something we're so passionate about. But what advice would you give someone like me who's married to someone with ADHD or a parent with a child with ADHD? How do you stay patient? How do you support them? What tips would would you give go to the doctor with them

because people who have ad ad or adhd they're often disorganized in their head and so it's hard for them to go to fill out the paperwork to be consistent and it's a family problem um yeah in my book healing add there's a whole chapter on the games add people play and the first game they play is let's have a problem uh so that sort of conflict seeking behavior can be so stressful on their partners. I have this funny story. I just haven't thought about it for years. I had this couple I was seeing, and he had terrible ADHD. And the wife, he's like 6'4", red hair, big beard, and his wife's like 5 feet maybe.

And she sits down and she goes, he's going to kill me. And I'm like, so now I'm really paying attention. I'm like, what? It's like he scares me. I think, what do you mean? He hides behind the walls at home. And as she walks down the hallway, he'll jump in front of her just to see her. But that's the sort of excitement

seeking conflict seeking chaos i put him on medicine and then i walked out i was going to lunch and i saw he had two dogs in the back of his truck and he was torturing the dogs he was teasing the dogs i'm like why are you teasing the dogs? And he goes, oh, they love it. And clearly they didn't love it. And so I'm thinking I'm going to raise his medicine just to, you know, in one day I'm going to save this woman's life and these dogs' lives. But it's that conflict seeking behavior. Often moms will say, if we have a bad morning at home, my child has a good day at school. And if we have a good morning at home, we have a bad day at school. So I talk about it in Raising Mentally Strong Kids is don't be your kid's Ritalin.

Because kids who have ADD, Caitlin was totally like that, they're masterful at like pushing your buttons and getting you to scream. Caitlin used to run up to her brother and kick him as hard as she could and then run away laughing. And if he didn't chase her, she'd go kick him again. Wow. I'm just thinking of Greg right now and the chaos that he loves to create in our lives. But it also has benefited us in a lot of ways because he's so passionate about what we do.

And they make often great CEOs. He's a fantastic CEO. As long as there's somebody to organize them. Because if they don't, the IRS gets involved in their life because they don't follow through and do the things that they need to do. That's why we have such a big team. Pay your taxes.

So if you can find someone you love to help you with organization and you're not opposing them, that will be helpful so much. And your brain's not so much of an ADD. I don't think so either. I would have diagnosed you more with an obsessive brain. And your problem with focus is not that you can't pay attention. It's that you cannot shift your attention, which sort of means you have trouble paying attention

because your brain is always locked into these loops. Absolutely. Yeah. And after you told me that, I definitely noticed it more and was able to address it from that lens. A little bit of a unique question when it comes to raising kids. How do you create mental toughness in a child who's born into a successful family do you get what i'm saying yeah um yeah i adopted my two nieces so i have six kids and three of them are adopted um and they grow up in chaos um don't do too much for them this is very important if you do too much for them. This is very important. If you do too much for them, you will steal their self-esteem. So when they give you a problem, Daddy, I'm bored. Don't go fix it for them.

Give it back to them. Always give it back to them. It's like, I wonder how you're going to solve that. And then shut up. Like successful parents talk way too much. It's like, let me teach you all the things that I've learned. No. Bonding, so important, requires two things.

Time, actual physical time. And so often successful people are busy. There's an exercise in the book I love so much called special time, 20 minutes a day, do something with your child, your child wants to do. And during that time, no commands, no questions, no directions. So powerful. If your parents are reasonable, that's the one thing children want from you is time and listening. And I teach people about active listening in the book.

So powerful. But then, and this is the love and logic part of it. I wrote the book with Dr. Charles Fay, who's the president of the Love and Logic Institute. You want to teach kids to be competent. And kids become competent when they solve their own problems. But if you have low self-esteem, you get self-esteem by solving their problems. Don't do that. So, for example, how I fell in love with Love and Logic is when Chloe, our 20-year-old, was six or seven. She was a hellion. And her mother was often mad at her.

But her mother was doing way too much for her. Like she had homework in second grade and her mother would sit with her. And I'm like, you've done second grade. She needs to do this. She read Parenting with Love and Logic. She took all of their online courses. She became certified to teach Love and Logic. And she announces to Chloe one night at dinner, sweetheart, I'm never going to ask you to do your homework again. I've done second grade. If you don't do it, you'll pay the consequences. Your teacher will be

mad at you. You won't go out to recess. And if you really don't do it, you'll make new friends when you repeat second grade. Whoa, Chloe like exploded. I never said I wasn't going to do it. I'm just not going to do it now. Ran off. 20 minutes later, came back. No one ever asked her to do her homework again. And she's finishing at Chapman University and gets great grades. And she's just completely responsible, right? But if she forgot her lunch, nobody brought it to her. It's on her to bring your lunch to school. If she didn't bring her homework, nobody's bringing it to her.

It's on her. So help them be responsible by not rescuing them. Too often successful people rescue and they don't realize they're stealing the child self-esteem. And there's this great study out of Harvard where they looked at 454 inner city Boston school kids. And they followed them for 70 years looking at what goes with health success, self-esteem, addiction. The only thing that went with self-esteem was whether or not you worked as a child, whether or not you had chores at home, you had a paper route. When I was 10, I went to work at my dad's grocery store. It gives you a sense of competence. Yeah, I agree. I think having a sense of purpose and knowing that you are responsible for something makes you feel like you matter. I grew up in a town with a lot of

wealthy kids and I watched, I mean, I've watched them, the trajectory from fifth grade to now. And so many of the super successful kids that came from wealthy families end up depressed and not doing well because they just lack that purpose. And it makes me think, you know, I grew up having to pick myself up off the ground, which I'm so grateful for now. It's really built my character. But I think when I have children, Greg and I talk about like, how are we going to create that environment for them, you know, without giving them too much, because I'm sure it's tempting to want to swoop in and save your children. You love them so much, but you realize it's not love to do too much, because you want to create competent people. And the first step to raising mentally strong kids

is know what you want, right? I think it's the first step for everything in life. What's the goal? Like with my wife, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. I always want that. I don't always feel like it. Rude thoughts show up or impulsive actions show up in my head. And I'm like, does it fit? Does it fit the goals I have? And if I'm clear, my behavior follows.

With children, I want to be present. I want to be firm. I want to be kind because that's what the research says is best. And I want to raise responsible, resilient, mentally strong kids. So if that's the goal, all of my behaviors stem from the goal. And then the second thing is bonding. The third thing is guidelines, boundaries, rules. Like I think all families should have rules. Like we treat each other with respect. We put things away. We take out.

It's like, no, I'm not doing your dishes. You did them. You made them. You do them. And I'm creating that sense of responsibility in them. Notice what you like about them way more than what you don't like about them. Supervise them. You know, your brain's not done until you're 25.

Your prefrontal cortex, that front third of your brain, the most human thoughtful part of your brain, focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, it's actually not finished developing until you're 25. And all of this nonsense about marijuana is innocuous, alcohol is a health food. Those lies are damaging the developing brain. Because if you send away, you know, a kid away to college and they're in a fraternity or sorority, it's nonstop drugs and alcohol. And so I'm actually not a fan of sending kids away because you take their underdeveloped frontal lobes and you put them in a fraternity where

everybody else has got underdeveloped frontal lobes. It's the prescription for trouble. Yeah, I can speak firsthand in saying it is a prescription for trouble, for sure. That's why my brain is a little bit bumpy. Really quick, give us your feelings on Diet Coke, because I feel like there's an obsession with Diet Coke being this healthy-for-you option when it comes to calorie counting. And what's your take on Diet Coke? Yeah, I used to think it was free but it's poison um sucralose or aspartame they disrupt the microbiome uh the hundred trillion bugs you have in your gut that

make neurotransmitters and digest your food and detoxify your body and support your immune system it's poison to you plus the research shows that if you're drinking diet coke you're more likely to be overweight you're more likely to have diabetes it's not your best friend with what i do because i grew up loving soda it just didn't love me back is i get sparkling water and there's a company i like called sweet leaf they make 10 different flavors of liquid stevia i like their chocolate um and i never suffer so you just have to find foods and drinks you love that love you back, right? I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. Well, I've been in bad relationships and I'm not doing that anymore. You know, I have the love of my life.

I love her. She loves me back. Well, I'm damn sure not doing it with food, right? I mean, I might love Rocky Road ice cream, but it makes it makes me fat depressed and feeble-minded so no i love that so much we before we wrap up we talk a lot about women's health on the show and we're talking a lot about fertility at the moment and i'm curious if brain health has an impact on fertility? Of course it does. Because you get your brain healthy, every other part of you becomes healthy, right?

You got to get your heart healthy because your heart supports blood flow, that supports your brain. You have to get your liver healthy because that supports detoxification and that supports your brain the healthier you are the more likely you are to get pregnant and this is hard for me because i'm the ceo of amen clinics and when new people come work for us they get brain healthy. And we have so many babies at the company. So much maternity leave.

But one of my favorite stories is when I was a young psychiatrist, I did a lot of hypnosis. I took a whole month elective in it. And I just loved it. So all my patients, I'd hypnotize them. And I actually ran groups on the ward for the nurses because I realized as an intern and a resident, if the nurses liked me, they would protect me and help me. So I've always been a fan of nurses, ended up marrying a nurse. Anyways, after I did a hypnosis session for the nurses, it was either weight or smoking, one of the nurses came up to me and said, I'm having a really hard time getting pregnant.

Can you help me? And she was really cute, so I was paying attention. And I realized every time after she had sex with her husband, she was stressed and would start to cry because she was mourning uh the fact that she couldn't have a baby so she her aunts were fortune telling this isn't going to work and making her sad and so i made her a hypnotic tape to play after they had sex to just relax her fallopian tubes. Because, you know, you have a uterus, fallopian tubes go to the ovaries,

help you get pregnant. And they're made of smooth muscle. And anytime you're stressed, this isn't going to work. It clamps the muscle down, making it less likely you're going to get pregnant. And so I made her that tape to relax her pelvic region, get rid of the ants, the bad thoughts. Two months later, she's pregnant. My gosh.

That was a mistake on my part to go home and go, you know, I helped this really pretty nurse get pregnant. But that's such good advice because, you know, I'm trying to get pregnant right now which is why i'm asking all these questions and it's something i've realized on the journey is the importance of creating a safe environment in my body and i am someone who tends to be a bit obsessive and i did get obsessive about conceiving and the goal of becoming pregnant kind of consumed my mind and my body and I feel like that was actually counterproductive to my goal so now I'm trying to let go a little bit and I love

that that method so it's really helpful well and I have an app called brain fit life that you might want to download their hypnosis audios on it And I would listen to either the peak performance one because it's the ultimate in peak performance or the anxiety one and just listen to it after you have sex so that you can put your body in a more relaxed, receptive environment. I love it. Dr. Amen, where can everyone find the new book? When does it come out? So it comes out March 26. I'm so excited.

People go to raisingmentallystrongkids.com. There's actually free gifts if you pre-order the book or order it in the first week. And they can find more about me, Doc Eamon, on Instagram and TikTok or at Eamon Clinics. Eamon, like the last word in a prayer, EamonClinics.com. Everyone should follow Doc Eamon on Instagram. It's really, really useful. You post great reels, really digestible information. I'm a huge fan and really enjoyed having you on the show. You've had such a big impact on my life. So I'm so

excited to share it with everyone else. Thank you so much. So great to see you again. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marilowelland.com. It will be linked in the show notes. This is a Wellness Out Loud production produced by Drake Peterson, Fiona Attucks, and Kelly Kyle.

This show is edited by Mike Fry, and our video is recorded by Luis Vargas. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Mari Fitness. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider-patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.