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ADHD Chatter PodcastADHD Chatter Podcast

Harvard Academic Shares Exciting New Research After Testing 50,000 Brains - Wynford Dore

Does your brain feel like it’s got 10 highly caffeinated squirrels running around in there? Do you wish you could calm those racing thoughts and reduce overwhelm? Todays guest is Wynford Dore.

Wynford DoreguestAlex Partridgehost
Jan 21, 20251h 17mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:07

    Trailer

    1. WD

      People with neurodiversity are hopelessly disorganized. If your mind is like your desk and it's full of junk, you've got no space to organize

    2. AP

      Wynford Dore is a Harvard-educated ADHD advocate Who has dedicated his life to understanding the ADHD mind

    3. WD

      His research on the brain has helped thousands of neurodivergents regain control of their life You know, all of the symptoms of neurodiversity are to do with when the brain has run out of mental capacity. Now we know what we know about the cerebellum, we can think about mental health in exactly the same way as we can think about physical health.

    4. AP

      Mm.

    5. WD

      Do the right things, stimulate it in the right way, you can grow your brain. You can increase your mental capacity and strength. Isn't that a brilliant solution to anxiety, to depression, to ADHD symptoms? If a child has got, say, poor auditory processing, when they're listening in class, after 10 minutes, they've done a thousand times as much work as the other children in the class will do all day. But if we thought of these children as vast potential instead of ADHD, what an insult.

    6. AP

      Where does the cerebellum fit into the conversation of ADHD?

    7. WD

      To change the cerebellum, you have to do two things. One, you have to

  2. 1:07 – 1:26

    Dedication

    1. AP

      This episode is dedicated to anyone who has three different types of work days. Number one, you get absolutely nothing done. Number two, you get four hours of work done at a random time of the day, or number three, you get 40 hours of work done in four hours. [upbeat jingle]

  3. 1:26 – 3:48

    Tiimo advert

    1. AP

      No, your phone isn't solely to watch brilliant new episodes of ADHD Chatter. You can also download helpful apps on it too, like Tiimo app. Tiimo app is a perfectly tailored app designed specifically to help improve your organization. It's something I use every day to make my busy schedule manageable, and it works like a charm. Organizing a podcast, writing books, taking meetings, and running errands is so much to manage, you can end up getting overwhelmed and forgetting things. That is, if it weren't for the Tiimo app. And this is how. Tiimo is designed specifically to hack the neurodivergent way of thinking. We have a brain that might struggle with time agnosia, object permanence, memory cognitive load, task initiation anxiety, or procrastination. All things I also fall victim to. [whistle blows] That is the Add Read halftime whistle. Just a little more to go. The award-winning Tiimo app is the perfect life-hacking tool to help your time management and kick you up the bum when you need it most. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, then the Visual Planning Tiimo app is specifically designed to help your structuring, organizing, focusing, and goal setting. It has a visual timer providing a tangible and visual representation of time to help users pace themselves so you never miss a deadline ever again. It also has an efficient lock screen reminder service to alert those of you who are very out of sight, out of mind with your chores and afraid you might forget them. It brilliantly centers all of your tasks in one place to streamline your overflowing schedules and make them much more digestible and a lot less intimidating. And for those who find big tasks too overwhelming to even start, Tiimo breaks them down into more manageable subtasks to get the ball rolling. And if you think Tiimo won't improve your life, you're wrong. Without their sponsorship, we'd not be able to survive as a podcast, so in some ways, they already are. Back to the interview. Pleasure. I'm super excited, Wynford, to pick your brains and to hear about the vast amount of new research that you've done that are gonna help people with ADHD with perhaps the more slightly challenging aspects of the condition.

  4. 3:48 – 4:14

    ADHD item reveal

    1. AP

      Before we get into the meat of the episode, I ask all my guests to tell me an item that most represents-

    2. WD

      [laughs]

    3. AP

      ... ADHD in their life, and I'm gonna reveal yours now under this cloth.

    4. WD

      [laughs]

    5. AP

      Okay, not many-

    6. WD

      Mm

    7. AP

      ... went flying as I thought. It's, um, a load of Post-It Notes.

    8. WD

      Yes.

    9. AP

      Yeah, so-

    10. WD

      That's embarrassing. [laughs]

    11. AP

      [laughs] Desperate to tell us now, are you? We'll, we'll, we'll save it, but Wynford,

  5. 4:14 – 7:02

    What role has ADHD and Dyslexia played in your life?

    1. AP

      what role has ADHD and dyslexia played in your life?

    2. WD

      It came on my radar because my oldest daughter, I've got four children, the oldest one absolutely struggled at school, and she had the same teachers as my other three children. She had the same nurturing and same support. She actually seemed very intelligent, but it wasn't long before the teachers were saying, "She can't read. She's not learning." And it wasn't long before her, her younger sister had overtaken her. So this was q- quite a few decades ago, and of course, the, the understanding about ADHD and dyslexia just wasn't developed then. So I had to struggle to find specialists for her, and eventually I found some specialists, and the best help they could give her at that time was to say, "She's got to learn to live with her problems." Um, uh, uh, I found a, a specialist in New York that was, that was quite eccentric, but a wonderfully bright guy. I flew her to New York, and he had ... He was doing some good work, but there was no published research. So I flew his clinic to one of my schools in Leamington Spa, a pr- private school, and we did a study. So I, I started to learn about the neuroscience of what he was doing. He didn't want to work with me because I'm not a, a medic.

    3. AP

      Mm.

    4. WD

      Um, but about a second after he told me that, I decided I had to do the research for myself. The clue that he gave me, which was priceless, and I'll always be grateful to him for, he taught me that the cerebellum is probably linked to the root cause of all of the symptoms. So my next job was to look for- A professor who specialized in the cerebellum. Well, there was two that came up quickly. One was Professor Jeremy Schmahmann at Harvard Medical School, and I've had several meetings with him and learned such a lot from him. But there was a professor then at Sheffield University called Professor Rod Nicholson. He became my mentor, and this was twenty-five years ago, Alex. He's my mentor to this day. In fact, he's coming to see me again tomorrow. Because he, he started teaching the world specifically that the cerebellum was the root cause of learning issues. So that was the, the jour-- and by the way, my daughter reads and writes and-

    5. AP

      Mm.

    6. WD

      And concentrates, and she's got a, an amazing brain to this day.

    7. AP

      So you've, you've seen the, um, inadequacies of dyslexia and ADHD and, and how much of a negative effect that can have on someone's life.

  6. 7:02 – 8:46

    The affect of the Dyslexia and ADHD inadequacies on someone’s life

    1. WD

      Absolutely. Mm.

    2. AP

      What do you think are the long-term consequences or costs on someone's self-esteem of those inadequacies at an early age?

    3. WD

      Oh, it, it, it's impossible to measure. I, I don't blame teachers. In fact, I'm a big fan of teachers, as you can imagine. Uh, but the education system revolves around creating great teaching, and we in the Western world are so blessed having fantastic teachers. They're capable. They're passionate. They're enthusiastic. They work long hours and so on. But what doesn't happen is that we address at all the neurological limitations. If someone hasn't got the ability to take in information visually or auditorily, then they're not gonna learn in the standard way. Now, we know if we jump to what happens after school, we, we, we, we learn about billionaires and so many successful entrepreneurs. They don't read very much, but boy, are they clever. But for every one of those, there's probably another hundred that underachieve. Some sadly end up in prison. Some tragically commit suicide. Some have huge amounts of mental health issues because the stress of living in a modern world where you don't find concentration easy, where you're not naturally a completer-finisher, where naturally you don't read very much, and all of the other-

    4. AP

      Mm.

    5. WD

      Negative symptoms, that is so harmful. You know, mental health issues today is so under-underresourced. A-and so, you know, we hear of, of people waiting for years to have just a diagnosis, and what good's a diagnosis? Doesn't actually lead you a step closer to solving the problem.

  7. 8:46 – 14:53

    What exactly is the cerebellum?

    1. AP

      You mentioned the cerebellum earlier.

    2. WD

      Yes.

    3. AP

      And I feel like the cerebellum is gonna be a big part of this episode.

    4. WD

      Absolutely.

    5. AP

      But where does the cerebellum fit into the conversation of ADHD? What exactly is it, and how important is it in the understanding of-

    6. WD

      Oh-

    7. AP

      Neurodiverse conditions?

    8. WD

      Can we go into the bit of neuroscience?

    9. AP

      Yeah, for sure. Go for it.

    10. WD

      So the cerebellum is a bit like a room full of computer coders. All the things we do in life, if we do them repeatedly, need to become automatized so that they become effortless, even quite complex things like social skills. You know, we-- you're, you're asking me questions now, and I'm thinking, "What's relevant to Alex's audience?" So in the background is a social skill happening. What is pertinent for me to bring out in words and language that's relevant to, to the audience that A-A-Alex got as his followers? Driving a car is a skill. Moving your eyes so you can read, turning sound waves that go into your ears into thoughts that you comprehend is a process, and all of those are either fully automatized or not. So if you've got skills that fully automatize, do you know what? Life is easy. It's such a lot of fun 'cause everything is easy. But for those with learning issues, often, often they're very much brighter than average. But along with that often comes a limitation in the development of some key skills, and that's what the cerebellum does. We can go into it deeper if-- later if you want about why it happens and what you can do about it. But if part of the cerebellar cerebellum responsible, say for, for eye movement, if that isn't fully developed, your eyes are going to always be a bit jumpy when you're trying to read. So reading becomes very hard work. Now, in a school situation, teachers assume you can't read, you can't be very bright, and that's often the very opposite of the truth. It's simply a skill that hasn't been fully developed because the bit, the coder in the cerebellum that's responsible for those fine motor skills has not finished off the job.

    11. AP

      Mm-hmm.

    12. WD

      So you've got jumpy eye movements, so your eyes are sometimes going backwards instead of forwards, sometimes up instead of straight along the line. So for some, the words move. For some, they jump words. But it means that such a huge amount of work has to take place in their thinking brain, unscrambling the words. So someone that struggles with reading, they'll be trying to read. They'll be working very hard, probably about 100 times harder than anybody else in the room, trying to read. The letters are jumping around. They-- eventually, they go, "Oh, I think I know what that word is," and they move on to the next word. Where do they store that word? In their thinking brain. What happens in their thinking brain now? Their thinking brain gets really busy trying to control their eye movement because they haven't got an automatized skill to do that automatically for them. So their thinking brain becomes full of stuff that shouldn't be there. They get to the end of the sentence, and they have to reread it because all the words they've taken in have been scrubbed. Then people think that they're thick or stupid or lazy, and they're the opposite of all of those. The absolute opposite. So the impact it has on their self-esteem very early on becomes huge. It was for my own daughter. You know, she was seeing her younger sister effortlessly reading, getting good marks, getting picked for the school team for this and that, getting all her spellings right, and she never did. Imagine what that does to her self-esteem.

    13. AP

      What do you think the, uh, the long-term mental health costs are just for someone in that situation-

    14. WD

      Horrific

    15. AP

      ... where they s- where they see other people just gliding by-

    16. WD

      Horrific

    17. AP

      ... apparently with ease, but they're not.

    18. WD

      Horrific. In o- obviously, uh, uh, parents have a huge impact. Teachers have a huge impact. If a teacher has got a class of 30 and has got three or four children that are struggling with reading, they simply do not have the time to help that child overcome these issues and find coping strategies to deal with them, so that child tends to get left behind, and if you get left behind when you're five, six, seven, eight, nine, it's very likely that you'll go right th- through that and underachieve the whole of your life. So by the time you're going through puberty, 13, 14, 15, you're beginning to think that, "Life hasn't got any hope for me. I'm stupid. I'm thick," and that becomes a, a, a psychological belief, self-belief, which is hugely harmful. So I, I have this thrill of working with, with very often not just with children, but with adults and proving to them, and I'd like to show you that one day, adults can sort out their eye tracking at any age. In fact, I was giving a talk in Southampton a while back, and a lady came up to me at the end, and she said, uh, "I'm 82. Um, I wanna read and write before I die." So I started to say, "Well, what I'm gonna ask you to do is probably a bit risky because it involves exercise." And she said, "Look, young man," thank you, "the pain that I have not being able to do the things that everybody else finds easy-

    19. AP

      Mm

    20. WD

      ... is horrific, and whatever pain I'm feeling now is worse than the pain I could possibly feel if I do some exercises that, that, uh, that I struggle with." So she said, "Can I do it?" Well, it wasn't-- It was, uh, just three months later, she was on breakfast television, uh-

    21. AP

      [laughs]

    22. WD

      ... showing the first letters she'd written in her life. I mean, that was life-changing. But she'd been in mental institutions during her life, so the impact for her going through that. Was she intelligent? Hugely intelligent. Two years after that, she was reading and writing in three languages, so the intelligence had been there for all of her 80 years. So what happens early on has an enormous impact on the self-esteem, the skills they have, the careers they can follow, and so on.

  8. 14:53 – 22:09

    How does the cerebellum appear differently in a Neurotypical compared to a Neurodiverse person?

    1. AP

      The cerebellum, the, the part of the brain that you've just mentioned, the, the one that we're sort of trying to train-

    2. WD

      Yeah

    3. AP

      ... before the training happens-

    4. WD

      Mm-hmm

    5. AP

      ... before we do any of these exercises, how does it look in a neurotypical compared to a neurodiverse person?

    6. WD

      Well, a neurotypical person will have fairly even development of different parts of the cerebellum, so you'll be probably pretty good at music, pretty good at art, pretty good at expressing your feelings, pretty good at sport, and pretty good at, uh, you know, you'll be pretty good. But with neurodiversity, you will get an eccentricity. In other words, you'll probably be hugely good at some things but fallen badly behind in other things, and the trouble is we live in a world where, where it's the negatives that are focused on and especially in the school system. You know, all of the wonderful things that, that, that I see neurodiverse people having are not focused on typically in the school system. It's all the negative things that are focused on. So if you get eccentricity, you're gonna get some, you're gonna get some things. You know, the brighter you are, the more likely it is, as r- as Ned Halliwell says, "If you've got a Ferrari engine, you actually need everything else from the Ferrari, or there's gonna be some things go wrong."

    7. AP

      And if, if a child has these eccentricities and they don't have the sort of stereotypical normal traits and metrics that we judge children on, how do you make a child who is slightly out of the norm not feel broken?

    8. WD

      That's ax- generally, that's pretty easy because you haven't gotta look far before you find some element of creativity, thinking outside the box, determination to make things happen, the ability to solve problems that other people can't solve. They're making connections that others can't, and that's what I call intelligence. So the ability to make connections is always, always comes up in, in children with, that are n- sorry, nearly always comes up in children that are neurodiverse, and at some point, we perhaps we should discuss where does that come from.

    9. AP

      Where does it come from? [laughs]

    10. WD

      [laughs] It's interesting you ask that. You can trace almost every example of neurodiversity back to some very early childhood trauma. So it can be trauma in the womb. It can be trauma at birth. It can be trauma soon after birth, and sometimes, of course, it's because of neglect and poor nurturing. But very often, it's nothing to do with that. Very often, it's, it's incidents that happen in the womb or emotional experiences that m- that the mum has. S- there's always a trauma. So when you have a trauma at the very early stage, that can do a number of things. First of all, it can stunt the development of a part of the cerebellum. So if you c- cerebellum, room full of computer coders. Each coder has a different role to play, so I'll give an, just an example or two of that. So if, if a child is brilliant at music, then the coder responsible for all things auditory and sound and so on will be- Itself very capable. A child might be brilliant at maths. Well, all of the logic in maths is coded up by another coder. So the weaknesses and strengths are going to show up as in- increased levels of density of gray matter in different parts of the cerebellum. So that, we don't know why, but trauma at very early stages will stunt the development of growth. In other words, there'll be l- lower levels of density of gray matter in a part of the cerebellum. It often means that the, the, the brain in its development has focused more on other areas, potentially because that was an urgent need at the time. So trauma can often stunt the development of the cerebellum, which has implications for y- your, your attributes, your skills, or lack of them later on in life. But it can also force you to develop a degree of genius. So if a baby or a very young child has to solve problems that his brain isn't equipped to solve, it's having to think outside the box. It's having to take risks that it normally wouldn't have to take, through no fault of its own, and very often through no fault of or inadequacy of the parents either. But if a baby has to deal with things that his bro- brain hasn't been programmed to deal with, it starts having to use the traits that will show right through their life. So the ability to think outside the box, the ability to solve problems, the preparedness to take risks often will be forced on a young baby or a young child. And so that's, so that's, that's the second thing. First thing is cerebellum stunted development in some part. Second thing is a degree of genius will show. The third thing, of course, is you may well create some triggers, some PTSD-type triggers. They may, may not be categorized as that, but some huge sensitivities, and that's another part of the brain called the amygdala that, that works on that. So often people that go through, not all, but often people that go through life with ADHD symptoms often have a tendency for PTSD, a tendency for anxiety, a tendency to, to ha- to find difficult things amplified out of all proportion. All of those things are what can happen with an early childhood trauma.

    11. AP

      Hmm. I just wanna pick up on something you said a minute ago. You said really early trauma within the womb.

    12. WD

      Yeah.

    13. AP

      What behavior causes trauma that early on? Is it something the parents are doing?

    14. WD

      Well, you know, for instance, if the mother is ill. Had a, a case last week, the mother's father was murdered whilst she was pregnant with her child, so you can imagine the stress on the mother. Well, that transfers. Did the mother do anything wrong? Absolutely not, but the child will have, will have suffered. Sometimes if it's the cord round the neck at birth or, or a, a, an emergency cesarean. A baby's brain right from in the womb h- is programmed to deal with all of the things that normally come up. So if something happens that the baby's brain hasn't been programmed to deal with, all of this, of course, is in the unconscious mind 'cause their conscious mind isn't working, but if something comes up that they haven't been programmed to deal with, that is effectively a trauma. I'm using the word trauma in the kind of neurological sense. These events, many of these events people wouldn't call a trauma. They'd be, they'd be, uh, adverse experiences in another, in, in another form.

    15. AP

      I wanna get onto what we do know and what the new studies are showing us about the brain. But with regards to the science and what we do know about the brain-

    16. WD

      Mm.

  9. 22:09 – 24:56

    The scientific unknowns surrounding the cerebellum, dyslexia and ADHD

    1. AP

      Before we get onto that, what do we not know about-

    2. WD

      Mm

    3. AP

      ... the brain, um, a- and the cerebellum, dyslexia, ADHD? What is still a mystery in the c- in the scientific community?

    4. WD

      Well, we, we don't know what we don't know. What we do know is there's an amazing amount of a incredible neuroscience out there that's taking decades to reach [chuckles] the people that could do something useful with it, and that, that's, that's what I'm making my job, is to let's unearth this neuroscience. I don't know why it's not getting there. Now, to me, I, I see neuroscientists as people that make awesome pieces of a jigsaw. They're brilliant at making pieces of the jigsaw. They do it in a huge amount of detail. They know everything about that piece of jigsaw, but they're no good at doing the jigsaw. And until you put those pieces of jigsaw together, you don't understand the problem, assess it, find a way of rectifying it and monitoring it. You know, the... So, so all I've been this last 25 years, Alex, is, is I just do jigsaws. And I go to different neuroscientists, and I go, "Ooh, wow, that fits with that. Ooh, that makes sense. That fits with that." And it isn't long, if, it wasn't long before a brilliant picture was emerging. Wow. Why isn't this reaching people? That was 25 years ago, and you can criticize me all you like 'cause I deserve it. I still am failing to get the enormous opportunities that exist for people with neurodiversity. I really feel... Can I say something that I really feel? I'm not... It might be a bit too much for some people. I believe that the neuroscience is there, that if it was adopted and delivered to those that need it, I think at least 80% of what we describe as, uh, uh, as neurodiverse symptoms could be addressed very effectively and permanently.

    5. AP

      Hmm.

    6. WD

      So to me, I get excited when I meet people with ADHD symptoms 'cause they are always interesting. Sometimes if they're very young-

    7. AP

      Mm

    8. WD

      ... and at school, and they've, they're having a negative experience, but if they survive that and they get to the workplace, usually employers are thrilled to have somebody that thinks outside the box. Teachers can't cope with it. They want you to teach, be taught, and learn, and answer all your tests and exam questions in the same way Kids with ADHD don't, don't wanna do that. They wanna solve it their way. So they're interesting. They're interesting to talk to. They're wonderful in the workplace, but you do have to have that nurturing going on so they don't lose everything-

    9. AP

      Mm

    10. WD

      ... because their mental health suffers from being so totally misunderstood.

    11. AP

      Mm. And if someone's listening who relates to that and, and they have the traits that you associate with ADHD, um, and they're interested in the cerebellum,

  10. 24:56 – 27:45

    How important is the cerebellum's role in the ADHD brain

    1. AP

      how important is the cerebellum in creating these traits that we associate with ADHD, and what can we do to change that?

    2. WD

      Okay. There's, there's a few questions buried there. First of all, what, what is the cerebellum? It's, it's, it's, it, it's near our brain stem. It's actually only 10% of the volume. It was for many, many years, until quite recently, it wasn't thought to be that important. Neuroscientists, doctors all knew, uh, it's to do with balance and coordination of the gross motor skills of the body. Yep, that's true, but that's only a small proportion of its overall work. So for many years when they did brain imaging, you've heard of MRI imaging, often MRI imaging would cut off the cerebellum. Then Professor Schmahmann at Harvard University said, "Hey, what? This is ... We're missing something important here. This might only be small. It's only 10% of the volume of the brain, but it's close to three quarters, 75%, of all our brain cells." It is the brain within the brain. It is masterminding all of the connections that make life easy or not, a- as the case may be. So it's hugely important, and it's developing rapidly up to about the age of seven. So it's involved with, you know, those, those computer coders are busy learning how to talk, learning how to crawl, learning how to walk, learning how to develop social skills, learning how to interact with people, learning how to play sport. That's when the cerebellum is busy. The cerebellum is busy turning all of our thoughts. So you imagine when you're learning to ride a bike.

    3. AP

      Mm.

    4. WD

      You're learning to ride a bike. You've watched everybody else. You know what to do. It's obvious what y- you've got to do, and you get on the bike and you fall off. You're thinking very, very hard at this point, and the harder you think about how to pedal, how to balance, how hard to lean over, oh, my goodness, the processing is so involved, you keep falling off. But what those coders are now doing in the cerebellum, they're looking at what you're thinking, what you're trying to do. They're looking at the mistakes you're making, and they're creating a program and debugging a program that eventually ends up as a completely perfect program that you don't have to think about, and it parks it up here in the cortex, and then you can ride. In fact, you can only ride a two-wheel bike when you don't have to think about it because the processing speed when you have to think is about 100,000 times slower than it is when it's up in the cortex. So that's how important the cerebellum is. All of those things that you're natural at are because the part of the cerebellum responsible for developing that process or skill is itself highly developed.

  11. 27:45 – 33:33

    How to train your cerebellum

    1. AP

      So I guess the next question is what can someone do to train the cerebellum to, to beef it up?

    2. WD

      Well, when my daughter attempted to take her life, that was the very question I put to Professor, uh, Professor Nicholson up in Sheffield, and he said, "Well, nobody's ever done it." He said, "Unless you wanna take drugs." I said, "No, I, I don't want to give her drugs. I, I'm sure there must be a way of naturally, permanently developing the cerebellum." And he said, "Well," he said, "Th- this is just a hunch." He said, "I think it's anything you do repetitively, and I think you've got to involve the, the, uh, vestibular system, the balance organ." So I said, "What do you mean? Do two exercises challenging the cerebellum and s- stimulating the vestibular?" He said, "Probably," and that was enough. You know, within months I'd taken on literally hundreds of staff all researching how to do this, and in our first cohort we had over 40,000 people, all with 40,000 different brains, would you believe, needing completely personalized ways of stimulating their cerebellum and the s- the stimulation that works. It's, it's a combination of two exercises. We've not tried to ... Obviously, we've not tried to patent this because it's too important for the world, but if you make someone do some difficult vestibular stimulation, and that's spinning round, jumping up and down, going from side to side. Those are all different types of vestibular balance stimulation. You've got to do that at the same time as challenging the cerebellum. In other words, getting the cerebellum to do something that it doesn't normally have to do. In other words, it's got no automaticity. So the one that caught me out for a long time, uh, an exercise which we built into our program was I had to stand on one leg, shut my eyes, and put my head on one shoulder. That took me weeks to sort out. But when I was doing that, what I was doing was I wasn't just improving complex balance. I was actually developing the very bit of the cerebellum that learns. So those same circuits that control balance and coordination also act as learning circuits. They're actually the fundamental piece of the coder's work to learn whatever it is. You know, I, I ... When I came to your studio today-

    3. AP

      Mm

    4. WD

      ... I, if I had to come again, I'd walk straight here. I wouldn't have to ring you up and say, "Alex, where are you, mate?" Uh, uh, b- because I'll have learnt it. Tonight, actually, during my REM sleep, my rapid eye movement sleep tonight, all of the things I learnt, all of the sensory inputs become coordinated by the cerebellum and turned into a memory that will last And that's the role of the cerebellum. So improving your balance coordination actually improves your ability to learn all sorts-

    5. AP

      Mm

    6. WD

      ... of different skills and processes.

    7. AP

      And if someone starts doing these exercises, say the one you've just mentioned, standing on one leg, closing your eyes, tilting your head to the side, doing all those threes- things simultaneously, how often does one have to do something like that and over what timeframe would you expect to see a difference to your cognitive ability?

    8. WD

      [laughs] That's a good question. Well, everybody's brain is different. Different parts of the cerebellum are developed at different paces, therefore, the, the sensory stimulation you need has to be enough so you notice it, but not too much that causes you a problem, causes you to be nauseous or whatever. So, so everybody's program, I'm afraid, has to be totally individualized. I would love to create a one-size-fits-all that suits everybody's brain, but everybody's brain is totally different and so therefore, you have to customize it and you have to move it, you have to adjust it every day so that you're always optimally stimulating the different parts of the cerebellum so that the density of gray matter increases.

    9. AP

      Mm.

    10. WD

      What was interesting, I, I, only a few years ago now, Nature, years after I started this research, Nature published an article saying that if you combine stimulation to the vestibular and an exercise that challenges the cerebellum, you multiply stem cells in the cerebellum and in the hippocampus. The two key junction boxes that causes us to learn in the brain are flooded with stem cells. How exciting is that? I couldn't sleep for days when I heard that because it explained why we were doing so successfully what we were doing.

    11. AP

      Go back a bit there. What, what are you combine- combining the exercise with to create that new effect?

    12. WD

      To, to, to change the cerebellum, you have to do two things. One, you have to, to stimulate your vestibular system and you must be doing something that's forcing your balance organ to work. So that's why I gave the example of standing-

    13. AP

      Mm

    14. WD

      ... on one leg is, is a, is a classic example. Um, there, there's various different things you can do. You can jump up and down and be turning around in a circle. There's different types of stimulation and different people need different things. So the vestibular system seems to increase the neuroplasticity. We're collecting a lot of evidence on that. It certainly appears to be the case. The, the Nature article suggests it is the case, and the challenge to the cerebellum says, okay, we've got neuroplasticity, we've got all the key elements, we've got the stem cells, we've got everything we need to make important new connections in this all-important part of the brain, the cerebellum. So that combination of two exercises creates the cere- creates the, the neuroplasticity and gives the stimuli to change the-

    15. AP

      Mm

    16. WD

      ... very part of the brain that is the mastermind for developing and learning.

    17. AP

      Mm.

  12. 33:33 – 35:41

    The connection between intelligence and the cerebellum

    1. AP

      And all of the cerebellums that you've studied, have you noticed the connection between the cerebellum and intelligence?

    2. WD

      Ah, that's an interesting question. I think the world has got intelligence totally wrong. In fact, I, I started a new examination board for a while. I didn't know what to do when my daughter attempted to take her life, so I bought some schools. I bought a school at the time initially. I started an examination board because I said the world isn't measuring intelligence properly. We're actually measuring regurgitation in the main. Regurgitation is not intelligence at all. A- a- and I started this research into the brain, but it wasn't long before I realized that what we were calling or what we are thinking of as intelligence, and we still do to this day, if someone does really well in exams, you know, uh, there's some wonderful research in America on, on the valedictorian, uh, c- c- candidates who had huge success in school. Typically, they have very poor success in life, very average. They do okay, but it's the kids that had the neurodiversity suddenly become the hugely creative ones in life. How crazy is that? So we've got an education system that prizes itself on how many exams can we get these children to pass, and we ignore the creativity. Employers, of course, they realize, "I want someone that can solve problems. I want someone that can think outside the box. I want someone that can be so obsessed with something, they see the things that nobody else sees." And what are they doing? They're making connections that others people don't make. So if you have an education system that's all about training you to regurgitate, it doesn't encourage creativity at all. In fact, it's the opposite. It discourages-

    3. AP

      Mm

    4. WD

      ... creativity. Fortunately, the, the folk- the kids with, with neurodiversity, with ADHD symptoms and so on, in the main, they're, they're so determined to do it their way that they do it their way. But we do kill an awful lot of creativity. But to me, the bottom line is making connections that others don't make is the true sign of intelligence.

  13. 35:41 – 43:12

    How many people have you tested and what are the tests to find out more about the cerebellum and their ADHD?

    1. AP

      I'm fascinated about the, the tests that you've done on people, uh, to, to understand the cerebellum.

    2. WD

      Yeah.

    3. AP

      How many people have you tested and what are the tests to find out more about the cerebellum and ADHD?

    4. WD

      We've, we've tested well over 50,000. I, you know, I've, I've lost track now of, of how many we've tested. But there are some, there are some very good tests that measure, for instance, mental capacity, measure things like auditory working memory, auditory processing speed, visual working memory, visual processing speed, um, your reaction time, your response time. So there's a number of measures there that you can use that, uh, and, and, and, um, psychologists and neuroscientists around the world use these all the time. We've built them into games so reliably and quickly and effortlessly, you can actually see where someone's strengths are and where their limitations are, and it's reliable. So- There's an awful lot of people that still think that ADHD is just a fad. No, it's not. You can actually do neurological tests and say categorically whether someone's got a neurological reason why reading is hard work or concentration is hard work. So you remember I said that the processing speed of the, the, the cortex is about 100,000 times faster than the thinking brain. So folk with neurodiversity have got some things that they don't do naturally that they have to work hard at, and when they're doing that, it's 100,000 times slower than up here. That's why you fall off your bike. That's why you can't concentrate for long. So if a child has got, say, poor auditory processing, when they're listening in class, after 10 minutes, they've done a thousand times as much work as the other children in the class will do all day. So no wonder they're exhausted. No wonder they can't concentrate. No wonder they're looking out of the window or fiddling with their pencil and distracting others. These aren't choices that they have. So I just wanna make clear, there are undeniable neurological measures, neurological reasons why neurodiversity exists. So if anybody still thinks, be it a parent or a teacher or whoever, that this is just naughty boy or naughty girl syndrome, look at the science, because you will very quickly change your mind and realize these children don't have a choice. They're behaving the way they are because they are wired to behave the way they are.

    5. AP

      Say you fast-forward 50 years from now.

    6. WD

      Oh.

    7. AP

      What, what research do you think would have been done on the cerebellum that might shed light on ADHD? In other words, if budget wasn't an issue, if you had all the resources in the world, what research would you like to do on the cerebellum today?

    8. WD

      Well, I'm, I'm beginning to work with a very famous UK university that they came to me saying, "We've been watching your research." Uh, and one of the things I want to do is to do some fMRI studies. Because if you show with pictures, this is what's happening in the mind of a child or an adult with ADHD, and this is what you can do that just takes a matter of weeks, and you change the fundamental neurological processing in the brain. It becomes much calmer. It becomes much more structured, much more organized. Motions are far calmer. So that's the kind of research that could be done given unlimited budgets, uh, and, and time. So I-- look, I live with the dream that we will change the way we look at people with neurodiversity. If we were totally logical and sensible about it, we would look at them, we would look at all of these symptoms and say, "Hey, they've got this huge flag saying massive potential. Come and discover it," instead of focusing on all of their negatives. You know, the wonderful Ned Halliwell that you did an amazing interview with just recently, uh, Alex, he, he's been pushing this idea of vast for a long time, and I, I can see why. He's saying all the people that come to him, they're hugely talented in most cases. Not always, but nearly every case, hugely talented, yet they've been slammed down, hammered down in their, in their s- school life. Some, fortunately, they emerge into adult life and discover their true potential. But if we thought of these children as vast potential instead of ADHD, what an insult. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Disorder. And these are the people that are brightest and the best. These are the people that, that are changing the world, and yet we, we insult them with a term like ADHD.

    9. AP

      Hmm.

    10. WD

      You know, I, I, I agree with Ned. I wanna ban the term. I wanna call everybody vast. I, I even got a different acronym to him. My acronym is Varied Attention Stunning Talent.

    11. AP

      [laughs]

    12. WD

      And that's, that's ... So that's my dream. That's my vision of where we've gotta get this, and we've, we've, we've gotta do it in the next decade. Too many are struggling. Too many commit suicide. Too many end up with mental health issues and that ends up in dementia. If a brain is whirring 100,000 times harder than it should, of course it's gonna wear out early.

    13. AP

      It is sad, isn't it? You know, you see, you get a child, young child getting diagnosed, and they might be brilliant. They might be creative, resourceful at home, doing amazing things, and they get a diagnosis. They go on the internet, and they read that they're disordered at a young age. I mean, it's heartbreaking.

    14. WD

      It, it is. It's, it's a disgrace, and it's because the education system has not kept up with neuroscientists. Neuroscience around this has been there for many years, and the, the cerebellum, when I, when I first started working on the cerebellum 25 years ago, there was only two professors that I could find that were really focused on it. Now there are loads, and, and if you look, you know, look at the graph of what's happened with research papers, the research papers ha- have just gone up exponentially in the last 15 years. More and more people are realizing, do you know what? The cerebellum has got the clue to mental health. We, when we use the term mental health, we think of it in a negative light. When we use the term physical health, immediately we're thinking, "Let's do some more exercises. Let's eat properly, and we will get stronger." And you can actually get stronger far more than you naturally would have done if you hadn't taken the trouble to go to the gym a lot and eat a lot of healthy food. So we've got the concept that physical health can be enhanced. When we think about mental health, it's totally different. We assume that, oh, you know, there, there's a, there's a glass ceiling. Whatever we're born with, that's the best it's gonna be, and what will probably happen is we'll have various mental health issues, a bit of depression, a bit of anxiety, a bit of ADHD, and that mental health goes down. In other words, we've got no vision of the upside potential. Now we know what we know about the cerebellum, we can think about mental health in exactly the same way as we can think about physical health. Do the right things. Stimulate it in the right way. You can grow your brain. You can become more intelligent. You can increase your mental capacity and strength. To the point that you can feel on top of what life is throwing at you. Isn't that a brilliant-

    15. AP

      Hmm

    16. WD

      ... solution to anxiety, to depression, to ADHD symptoms? You know, all of the symptoms of neurodiversity are to do with when the brain has run out of mental capacity to do whatever it is properly, so you're not a natural

  14. 43:12 – 45:26

    Can an injured cerebellum cause ADHD

    1. WD

      at it.

    2. AP

      If we can take steps to flex, improve our cerebellum, can it work the other way? For example, if we had an accident, a head injury, and the cerebellum is injured, can it cause traits that we associate with ADHD?

    3. WD

      It, it will cause different traits. I mean, the, the, the whole development process is, is like laying bricks. There's layer upon layer upon layer up of, of, of, of skill and competence and processes. So it-- So, so that's a process that you can replicate, and you can plug the gaps if there's been a m- a missing element. So autism, for instance, it's far more complex than ADHD, and sometimes you've got to put in several layers of new development because several layers of development have missed out. But in the case of injury, road traffic accidents or sporting injuries or whatever, then that, that's a different scenario, and is it possible to repair it? Yes, it is because the brain naturally is very good at finding other parts of the brain that can replicate the, the, the, the-- replicate the, the, the processes that originally carried out, were carried out there. So it's really useful to have high levels of neuroplasticity if you're trying to do that. So we, we are working now, in fact, with the, the, um, Medicare in America is, is, uh, Medicare Part B is funding people and seniors to do the program to recover balance, recover memory, and recover all aspects of cognition and confidence. So that is, that is already happening. So is it possible to repair later on? Yes. I didn't believe it was, but my mentor at Sheffield said, "I'm doing a research study on it," and he's published it. It's, it's fantastic-

    4. AP

      Mm

    5. WD

      ... what he was achieve-- what, what he was achieving. So recovery is possible. If we wanted to do a study on road traffic accidents, we'd need twenty accidents, all with exactly the same twenty injuries so that we can do a study. That's probably not gonna happen anytime soon. Is it theoretically possible? Absolutely.

    6. AP

      Hmm. No, it's fascinating, and I wanna talk about some truly shocking new findings-

    7. WD

      Hmm

    8. AP

      ... that have come up in some new research.

  15. 45:26 – 54:24

    ADHD item explanation

    1. AP

      But first, Wynford, I wanna draw attention back to your ADHD item-

    2. WD

      [laughs]

    3. AP

      ... just quickly and find out what the explanation is for your Post-it notes.

    4. WD

      Oh, Alex, it's so embarrassing.

    5. AP

      [laughs]

    6. WD

      But this isn't just me. Folk that are highly creative, if you've got a fire hose of ideas coming to you, you know, every phone conversation you have, every discussion you have triggers a load more of that, that fire hose just pouring ideas. Where does it go in? It goes into this thinking brain, which easily gets full. You have to do something with it. So if you're ADHD and you've got a big fire hose, you need Post-it notes. Thank God for Post-it notes.

    7. AP

      Mm.

    8. WD

      And you scribble something down because it's freeing up a bit of memory in your thinking brain, and so Post-it notes are an extension of my whole crazy thinking brain across my desk. I often get to the end of the week on a Saturday morning when the phones have stopped ringing. I go through my Post-it notes, and, you know, half of them, I can't even read them. They were great at the time. I got something out of my thinking brain to give me enough space to focus on the next s- shiny object I wanted to focus on. So Post-it notes, if you see a lot of Post-it notes, especially if they're random-

    9. AP

      Hmm

    10. WD

      ... you've probably got some, some neurodiverse symptoms there. The organized people, of course, the accountants and the lawyers and the civil servants and the teachers and so on, they'll have collected their few ideas [chuckles] in a structured book, an action list, which they will systematically go down. Do you know how many times I have tried to create a systematized action list in my life? It's, it's, it's ridiculous. I've never had-- I'm useless at running businesses, so I always find people that are structured and organized. So I've never had, for instance, a management meeting two weeks running. Never in my life. I've always had to, we need a management meeting, so we have a management meeting, get the team together and have a lovely time. Right, we'll have another one next Tuesday. There's always a reason why that doesn't happen. So the structure in my life is absurd, but fortunately, I've got an amazing team. They understand that, so they just use me as a fire hose of ideas, and they discard some, and they use the others. But my desk is-- Post-it notes on my desk are just a trai-- reflection of that endless stream of ideas that I've got no capacity for. We've only got room for about seven things in our thinking brain. Now, as we get older, that goes down. So if you get the eighth thing come along, it goes on a Post-it note and the ninth and the tenth and the eleventh, and they're all over my desk randomly. Nothing like as tidy as your wonderful-

    11. AP

      [laughs] I relate to that a lot. Um, I've tried buying notebooks and writing ideas down or using an electronic calendar, but as soon as it's in the calendar or the notebook, it gets shut, and it gets forgotten about. I have this huge whiteboard now, I've mentioned this quite a few times, on my desk, um, and things that come into my mind, similar to your Post-it notes, they go on the whiteboard. And, um, not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than putting it in a notebook which gets shut, and therefore-

    12. WD

      Yeah

    13. AP

      ... that note ceases to exist in my mind, and it gets forgotten about. How many of your no- your Post-it notes do you actually action or how, how, and how-- what percentage of them just kind of float off into the ether? [chuckles]

    14. WD

      My housekeeper always takes the Post-it notes out of my bin in case I've missed them-

    15. AP

      [laughs]

    16. WD

      ... and thrown them away accidentally when she empties my bin-

    17. AP

      Hmm

    18. WD

      ... twice a week. Um, I would say of the ones I write down, probably less than half I actually action. It's a bit embarrassing

    19. AP

      Do you think the ones you don't action, do you think that's a sign that they probably weren't a good fit for your brain anyway?

    20. WD

      Well, what, what folk with neurodiversity do, they're always reprioritizing. Always. Always. Most of them don't know what they're doing in a day. They wake up in the morning, and they decide what they're doing when they get downstairs. A- and so there's a lot of reprioritization going on, and they're very good at it. We're very good at it because as you get a new idea, you just rank that somewhere. Ooh, I've gotta do that now. I had one this morning. I had ... Can I just mention what it is? We're, we're, we're talking about doing retreats for people because, because there's some w- there's some wonderful retreats out there. And, uh, I was talking to my son, and, uh, he was saying, um, "Look, I, I had a- agoraphobia," and he said, "People with agoraphobia don't wanna go to retreats." So I said, "Right. Great." So suddenly, you know, I'd been looking at anxiety and ADHD and, and divorce and all sorts of wonderful ideas, high-functioning anxiety, got a whole long list of ideas. Suddenly, agoraphobia went to the top of the list, and it's still there now. And that to me is a burning issue. On the train down, on the train back, I will be obsessed with how do we reach people w- through a virtual retreat with agoraphobia because they, they can't go and see therapists. They don't even wanna leave the house to see their doctor. They think they're gonna die. It's a terrible condition. So that was one example of, today's example of what went the top of my list of priorities, and of course everything else gets pushed down the list. What was really important yesterday is now ranking third or fourth in my list. [laughs]

    21. AP

      It's the unpredictability I find with, with when something is gonna pop to the top of that priority list. Um, you know, I could be working in my office, and I decide I want a cup of coffee.

    22. WD

      Mm.

    23. AP

      A cup of coffee is now at the top.

    24. WD

      Yep.

    25. AP

      So I go into the kitchen, I put the kettle on, but then I see a parcel that got delivered in the morning.

    26. WD

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    27. AP

      Suddenly that parcel is now above the coffee.

    28. WD

      Yeah.

    29. AP

      The coffee gets forgotten about.

    30. WD

      Yeah.

  16. 54:24 – 1:00:01

    How to create urgency to beat overwhelm paralysis

    1. AP

      How can you, 'cause this is something I've struggled with, how can you create, replicate that urgency? How can you create a artificial deadline in for, in order for you to get over that procrastination hump, for order, for you to cut through that overwhelm paralysis?

    2. WD

      The only way of doing that successfully, you can do it artificially of course with notepads and all sorts and reminders and a secretary badgering you what to do, but if you want to do it naturally, the only way that I've found you can do it is by freeing up space in your thinking brain, freeing up your prefrontal cortex. Until that's free, you're going to be constantly overwhelmed. This is where overwhelm is. This is your mental capacity. If this is full, it's full. You've run out of mental capacity. You're not gonna feel on top of what life is throwing at you. You've got nowhere to organize. You've got nowhere to make quality decisions. You've got nowhere to control your emotions. You've got nowhere to control your impulsivity and your inhibitory control, so, you know, the, the leg shakers.

    3. AP

      Is that stimming? Is that-

    4. WD

      It's, it's ... Yeah. Yes. It's lack of inhibitory control, and where's that? That's in the prefrontal cortex in the, in the exec- It's one of the executive functions. And so all of these symptoms are cl- So organization, we haven't touched on that. Sometimes folk with neurodiversity are hopelessly disorganized. You only organize in your mind if you've got space in your mind. If your mind is like your desk and it's full of junk, you've got no space to organize. You've got room for one thing if you're lucky. To organize, you need space for several things, and you can rank them in order, and you can position them, a- a- and, and, and so on.

    5. AP

      I'm convinced that with ADHD, it, it's ... The effort needs to go into working on your self-awareness and building up a understanding of what you're genuinely passionate-

    6. WD

      Yeah

    7. AP

      ... about, 'cause I think when someone with ADHD discovers that-

    8. WD

      Yeah

    9. AP

      ... then they can be- become world-beating-

    10. WD

      Exactly

    11. AP

      ... world-class at. Um, I discovered it with this podcast-

    12. WD

      Yeah

    13. AP

      ... and I think the podcast is doing well. But other things in my life, like, you don't wanna see my flat. [laughs] You know, it's a, it's a genuine state. [laughs] Um, I can't clean my clothes most days. But something that I'm pa- passionate about, um, it can go well, and I genuinely believe that's the case with so many people with ADHD, is they just haven't figured out what their true intrinsic motivations are.

    14. WD

      Well, if, if you, if you ... But if your thinking brain is pretty full, you've only got room for one thing.

    15. AP

      Mm.

    16. WD

      It's the most important that's gonna get there and have all the priority. And that, I suspect, explains an awful lot in our lives.

    17. AP

      Mm. Wynford, I wanna do the ... This is fascinating, by the way. Tru- truly fascinating. I wanna do the washing machine of woes, which is the-

    18. WD

      [laughs]

    19. AP

      ... ADHD agony aunt section. Um, every week I ask my Instagram community for a ADHD woe of theirs, and I put it in the washing machine because my item is the washing machine because I always leave my clothes in the machine. And I ask everyone, "Do you leave your laundry in the machine?"

    20. WD

      I don't know.

    21. AP

      Okay. [laughs] I've never had that answer before. You don't know.

    22. WD

      No, my housekeeper does it.

    23. AP

      Oh, of course, yes. I thought you-

    24. WD

      So I, I wouldn't know.

    25. AP

      Fair. No, don't worry then. Not, not a relevant question then. God, that's, that's the hack, isn't it? Like, hire a, a house cleaner. You can afford it, I guess.

    26. WD

      I don't. I, I've never had to look in the washing machine for my clothes. I don't know. It's magic. They just ... They're always in my wardrobe and drawers. I-

    27. AP

      They just appear, yeah.

    28. WD

      I do put dirty washing in the washing basket.

    29. AP

      And then it just, you know-

    30. WD

      I don't know how it gets back.

  17. 1:00:01 – 1:03:10

    The ADHD agony aunt (The washing machine of woes)

    1. AP

      Wynford-

    2. WD

      I wanna-

    3. AP

      ... I wanna read the woe that's in the washing machine this week. Someone has asked, "My daughter has low self-esteem due to below average-

    4. WD

      Mm

    5. AP

      ... exam results. She's bright in other ways, but exams aren't for her. What's the best way to deal with a situation like this when she's still got many years of the school system to go through?"

    6. WD

      Wow, that's a beautiful question, and I feel really sorry for her daughter. But let me talk you through what's going on. Why has she done badly in exams? One of the problems when you've got any form of neurodiversity is the thinking brain is full of stuff that should be. But that, this is the, this is the working table w- for your, for your working memory. So in other words, if this is full, it's really hard for you to find space to, to go and search in your mind to bring back the information you need to pass an exam. So many people with neurodiversity, they'll go through the exam, and they'll be uptight, "Oh, no. I know this. I know this," and they walk out of the exam, and they remember it, but they don't get scored for it. And bear in mind, they're not getting scores for their creativity, which is cruel and unfair, but they're only getting scores for their regurgitation, and that's not their best skill. So that's the first thing. Children with neurodiversity don't get scored properly 'cause their memory recall isn't as good as it should be. Do they know it? Very often, yes. Not always, but very often they do. But very often they don't actually get it down on paper, so they don't get, don't get s- scored for it. So that's the first thing. But the next point is an interesting one. Self-esteem, confidence I see as neurological, not psychological. So if whatever you're doing requires, uh, a lot of thinking brain activity, the busier this is, the lower your self-esteem is. So we, if you take think of athletes, wherein then, then when they're in the zone, they are not thinking at all, and they're at their highest confidence. Their skills are automatized. They're consistent. They're precise. They're in the zone. That means they're not having to think about anything. But those with neurodiversity have got some skills they need to use all the time, so their thinking brain is constantly full of stuff that shouldn't be there. The more that's happening here, the lower your confidence is, and conversely the same. When you develop the cerebellum, when you get rid of the conscious compensation processes that are taking place there, and you free up capacity, self-esteem goes up.

    7. AP

      Mm.

    8. WD

      We've just done a wonderful study up in the north of England at, in Sefton Borough Council. The, the results have just been analyzed. Uh, all these children that did the program, their b- self-belief, their confidence, their happiness went through the roof because we were freeing up space in their prefrontal cortex. So there is hope for her daughter. She, A, she probably knows it. B, she's probably very much brighter than anyone's giving her credit for. C, there's logic as to why her self-esteem is low.

    9. AP

      That's brilliant. I mean, I'm ... No doubt that's gonna be so reassuring for them-

    10. WD

      Mm

    11. AP

      ... to hear.

  18. 1:03:10 – 1:07:03

    What are most shocking findings that you have done in search for more information about what ADHD actually is?

    1. AP

      What are some of the biggest studies, Wynford, um, most shocking findings that you or other scientists have done in search for more information on what actually is ADHD?

    2. WD

      What is ADHD? A- ADHD are symptoms that are created by underdevelopment of the cerebellum. I mean, I, I, I totally disagree with the whole diagnosis process. We've got a diagnosis process that focuses on the negative, all the negatives, and it's totally unbalanced, totally cruel, totally unfair, and doesn't take anybody forward. The best it does is say, "Do you know what? You qualify for some medication." Okay, I'm not against medication because some absolutely need it, but it doesn't take them one step closer to the root cause, and we now know what the root cause is and what we can do about it to find this potential. You know, I, I, I dream, I pray for the day when we stop using ADHD, and we start using Ned's term VAST, and we treat these people properly, and we put them through a c- school process where we get rid of the negative things that are a challenge, and we focus and develop all of the positive things. We would treat them with huge respect. At the moment, ADHD, "Oh, no, he's got ADHD." We should be saying, "He's got VAST potential." Same child, just a different attitude and a much more realistic attitude. So what is, to answer your question, well, what is called ADHD is underdevelopment of the cerebellum that limits the development of key skills and processes and gets labeled in a totally inappropriate, totally negative way.

    3. AP

      So do you take ADHD seriously as a diagnosis?

    4. WD

      Um, not really because I would say some people are just so bright, they're so nurtured and supported at, at school and so on, that, that there is more emphasis. So there's an awful lot of folk with obvious ADHD symptoms. Look at my desk. Look at, look at people's desk with loads of Post-it notes and messy desks. There's a lot of it about, and, and, and it just depends on which experts have you been taken to, which school did you go to. Did your parents badly want you to be labeled or not? So there's all sorts of variables. So it is not a consistent diagnosis. The numbers are going up, but I think that's largely driven by the fact that teachers are quite happy to see children with medication because it dumbs down their creativity, takes them to a lower level so they're more manageable. Doesn't do anything to encourage their creativity. So I think there's all sorts of dynamics going on. I think it was, it was a concept that was developed way before the neuroscience was understood. It needs tearing up now and starting again. Let's, let's just have a positive approach. Don't call it diagnosis. You know, i- if, if someone is in Mensa, you don't call it a diagnosis. They qualify to be in Mensa. I want folk to be qualifying to be described as VAST potential.

    5. AP

      Can we go back to your daughter?

    6. WD

      Yeah.

    7. AP

      You mentioned that she's now free from some of her dyslexia.

    8. WD

      Well, for instance, she, sh- she, she would've been diagnosed as ADHD and dyslexic and possibly even slightly autistic, I don't know. But within months, she was reading and writing. We didn't have to teach her. All we did was make the connections in the cerebellum so the cerebellum could naturally finish off the skills. Her problem was severe eye tracking, terrible eye tracking, and that's the case with many who struggle with reading. High intelligence, struggling with one particular skill. We sorted that out. She's been able to read and write ever since with no more teaching. This isn't teacher's fault. It isn't parent's fault. It's a neurological limitation caused by some trauma very early on in life.

  19. 1:07:03 – 1:09:38

    Why are 3% not affected by these exercises?

    1. AP

      You know what? We had a pre-chat before today. Um, uh, I, I think you mentioned that 97% of people that uptake, partake in your- cerebellum exercises, they see improvements in their outcomes

    2. WD

      Oh, absolutely

    3. AP

      The 3% that are not affected by them, why do you think that is?

    4. WD

      Well, do we wanna focus on the 3% or the 97%? Um, there are all sorts of other things going wrong. We have a full analysis of anybody that's clearly doing the exercises and not making, not making the progress. So there's, there are other sort of forms of general developmental delay which can stop the fundamentals taking place, and very often it is that folk have improved, but not enough to be taken out of the ca- the diagnosis they originally had. And of course, we've got no control, no complete control over whether they're doing the exercises and activities properly. You know, if they do it in a school, the teachers are supervising them, and more and more schools are thinking, "This is a really good idea to repair the holes in the buckets before we try filling the buckets." So the, uh, when it's in school, it, it, we've got more reliable results.

    5. AP

      Who have you been working with, and what have they taught you about ADHD that you didn't already know?

    6. WD

      Well, Ne- Ned has been quite an inspiration. I met Ned over 20 years ago, and, uh, actually worked with his wife and son, which he's gone public on. Uh, and, and he taught me a lot a- about the traditional beliefs, but of course, he's cynical towards the tr- traditional beliefs, and of course, now he, he, he wants to see far more natural solutions being added into the mix. He's n- He obviously is a psychiatrist. He's not against medication, but he is saying more and more of his clients are saying, "We don't want medication. We want to find a natural solution." He has taught me ... I- In fact, he pointed out to me initially, and he's taught me the, in great detail, the, the awesome nature of the positives of those with ADHD. So I've learnt a, a lot from Ned. I've learnt a lot from, from Jeremy Schmahmann. He's done some amazing r- research about, about the ... And it was his work that led me to understand exactly how I believe all of the symptoms of neurodiversity can be explained by the cerebellum and the impact that has o- on our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex. So Rod Nicholson, Jeremy Schmahmann-

    7. AP

      Mm

    8. WD

      ... those are my ... And Ned Hallowell, those have been my biggest mentors.

  20. 1:09:38 – 1:11:57

    What have your studies taught you about ADHD that our audience might be shocked by

    1. AP

      A lot of our listeners, they will, they'll, they'll have digested, consumed a lot of the traditional-

    2. WD

      Yeah

    3. AP

      ... information on ADHD that's out there.

    4. WD

      Yeah.

    5. AP

      Is there anything that you've learnt that our listeners might be shocked to hear about ADHD?

    6. WD

      Well, I think they'll be shocked to hear many of the things we've shared tonight because if you look at, if you th- look at the neuroscience of what's happening, it fits together. Guess why? Because it works. It does explain the root cause. It does explain that if you develop the cerebellum, all of these symptoms start to subside. We're never gonna get a rid- rid of the huge creativity, nor do we want to, of course. We want to let that blossom and flourish, but we do get rid of many of the limitations. We do particularly get rid of the limitations in the prefrontal cortex, which gives you more organization. It gives you a bit more peace. It gives you a bit more control over your emotions and impulsivity. So all of these things fit together. The sh- biggest shock to me is, has been why hasn't this reached the educational establishment? Why hasn't somebody in government level taken this up and said, "Do you know what? The impact at the economic level is huge"? My focus is, of course, the impact at the human level, the individual's level. But at government level, they should also be hugely impressed by the fact that, that if we did this to our school population, the transformational in the cost of educating, in the level of unemployment, in the level of mental health issues, would be transformed. You know, man- if you can create mental strength, why wouldn't you? You know, we've got a mental health service that's fantastic. It works very, very hard. We haven't got enough resources. I'm a, I'm a, a director of a charity, a big charity in America, and the, the statistics on the number of children self-harming, the number of children committing suicide, the m- number of children that are missing school through, through high levels of anxiety, is scary. It's got so much worse in this last few years. Why is nobody looking outside of the box? Why aren't educationalists talking to neuroscientists and saying, "Can't you do something about this?" The answers are there. The explanation is clear. It's just the word isn't getting to people.

  21. 1:11:57 – 1:15:35

    Is a person with ADHD keeping all of their strengths and losing their downsides a realistic outcome?

    1. AP

      If we, if we do these exercises, we work on the cerebellum, is it possible to just see a downtick in the negative traits that we associate with ADHD without the positives being affected? In other words, i- is it a realistic prospect for somebody to keep all of the positives of ADHD s- while simultaneously losing all the negatives?

    2. WD

      Absolutely. We, we, we don't increase the creativity, but we do increase the mental capacity so that you can use it more. You can structure your output more. You can do more with it. You can be more organized. We don't need to increase the fundamental creativity. The perceived intelligence will go up because you'll be able to use it far more. So whether it's in exams because your memory recall is improved and you control your emotions, you don't get so worked up, you don't get so anxious walking into exams, you're feeling on top of it because you've got more mental capacity. So you will come across as being more en- mo- more eloquent, more m- more educated because your regurgitation will be better. So no, don't expect that we're gonna create creativity. That's already there in those with neurodiversity. We just allow it, allow it to flourish and to be used.

    3. AP

      And ultimately, Wynford, why was it important for you to come on here today and talk about ADHD?

    4. WD

      Because I watched my own daughter suffer, and I've meant, met countless other families whose children have suffered. I meet people. I s- I know, you know, walking here, I had to walk around several people in the street who are homeless. Nearly all of those have got signs of neurodiversity. So the pain that I see people in, the pain I see families in, it's not the t- t- what the child has to go through at school, what the adult has to go through during life is bad enough, but the family is also affected. Parents of a child with neurodiversity lose sleep. They feel guilty. I still feel guilty that I haven't done everything I could for my own daughter, and she's now 50 years of age. I still feel it. So it, it affects the whole of their lives. I want her, and I want everyone like her, to have the richest possible life. So that's why I came on here today, and thank you. You reach a lot of people, and, and I, I sincerely hope that what I've shared today is gonna make sense, is going to encourage some to say, "Do you know what? I'm gonna be a warrior parent. The education authority may not have picked up on this yet. Maybe it'll take another generation. Who knows?" I hope it doesn't. The last generation suffered needlessly, because this has been around for more than a generation. So if parents are listening to this, be a warrior parent. Don't delegate to the school, hoping they're going to find the problem, find the solution, and apply it. They haven't got the time. They haven't got the resources, and in many cases, they're not even a- allowed to, to even think about it, let alone do it. So I'm afraid it's, for now, it's gonna be warrior parents, but eventually there'll be enough warrior parents who'll be having influence on policy and changing those policies. When that happens, my job will be done, but not until.

    5. AP

      Hmm. No, it's truly interesting, Wynford, and thank you for coming on. And, um, I think it's important to share and to look at it with a different perspective.

    6. WD

      Mm.

    7. AP

      Because it might just plant the seed in-

    8. WD

      Mm

    9. AP

      ... the listener, who can then go away and implement what you're saying, and just look at the whole situation through a fresh perspective.

  22. 1:15:35 – 1:17:47

    A letter from the previous guest

    1. WD

      Mm.

    2. AP

      We have a closing tradition, Wynford.

    3. WD

      Yeah.

    4. AP

      And that is for me to deliver a letter from the previous guest.

    5. WD

      Ah.

    6. AP

      The previous guest wrote three rules to live by.

    7. WD

      Yes.

    8. AP

      I'm going to deliver it to you, and if you could be so kind as to read them out.

    9. WD

      Three rules to live by. Know yourself and nurture your potential. Find something you are passionate about and engage fully. Love that too. Surround yourself with people who you trust and you can be yourself with. Wow, those, that's amazing. Who was that? It's amazing.

    10. AP

      I think, 95% sure that was Jo Perkins, who is a psychologist.

    11. WD

      Wow. Wow, that's deep and brilliant advice. Know yourself and nurture your potential. Well, we've talked tonight about the fact that there is huge potential. Every symptom of ADHD is an absolute sign that there can be growth and development take place in the brain, which will show as your hidden potential. So many people are told, "Oh, you've got potential." Nobody ever says, "And this is where it's hiding, and this is what you've gotta do to find it." Well, I'm hoping tonight those two questions will be answered. The next one, find something you are passionate about and engage fully. That's finding a purpose. Oh, that's a thrill. V- far too few people in this life have a purpose. When you've got a purpose, you know why you're on this planet. Oh, it makes a difference. And of course, folk with ADHD, in the, in the main, they are more inclined than others, the neurotypical, to have a purpose, to have a passion, and commit to it.

    12. AP

      Mm.

    13. WD

      So that's great advice. And surround yourself with people who you trust and you can be yourself with. Well, if anyone's cynical about ADHD, they, they're not welcome in my house. It's a true problem-

    14. AP

      Mm

    15. WD

      ... with an amazing solution, and amazing potential, amazing opportunities.

    16. AP

      Absolutely. And I'll ask you if you're kind enough to write your rules to live by-

    17. WD

      Okay

    18. AP

      ... after this. One on every Post-It Note. [laughs]

    19. WD

      [laughs] That's 100.

    20. AP

      Wynford, thank you so much.

    21. WD

      Alex, thank you. You're an amazing host. Thank you. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 1:17:47

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