Jay Shetty Podcast#1 BRAIN EXPERT: “If I Had ADHD, This is EXACTLY What I’d Do!” #1 Trick to Focus NOW (pt.1)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
30 min read · 6,389 words- 0:00 – 1:15
Intro
- JSJay Shetty
How do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. They can't sit still.
- SPSpeaker
Psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Amen says--
- DADr. Daniel Amen
One pioneering psychiatrist says that feeling better starts with understanding your brain. 90% of mothers work outside the house. When they have untreated ADD, they often look depressed, and they get on something like Lexapro, which actually makes them more ADD, happier, but more distracted, happier, less focused, happier, more impulsive. You eliminate gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes, and sweeteners, and 70% of the kids lost their ADD.
- JSJay Shetty
No way. If someone's sitting here thinking, "I'm not going to achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD," what would you say to them?
- SPSpeaker
The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.
- JSJay Shetty
Jay Shetty.
- SPSpeaker
The one, the only Jay Shetty. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
I want to
- 1:15 – 3:45
Why Is ADD Becoming So Common Today?
- JSJay Shetty
start pretty direct. Why does it seem like everyone today has ADHD?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
A lot of people do, but our society is dramatically elevating it. When you think of the gadgets that steal our attention, the ultra-processed foods that our brain really doesn't like, the chronic stress, it's like, what's the simple answer? And the simple answer is let me medicate you and you'll focus better, but not for long. And so as our society has taken more medication, we have not gotten healthier. So I think for people who really have ADD or ADHD, and I use those terms interchangeably because the way we diagnose people, it used to be ADD and by a vote of people, they changed it to ADHD, which I think was actually a big mistake. It's always been there, right? You can actually look in the Old Testament and you go, "These people had ADD." The real ADD is genetic. You get it from your mom or dad. You can see it in your people. You can see it in your ancestors. And left untreated, they're very serious problems. So if I think somebody really has ADD and that medicine would help them, they always go, "What are the side effects?" Always tell them, "Your appetite will be less. Take it too late in the day, you may have trouble sleeping. Um, sometimes people get headaches or tummy aches. Those almost always go away. If you're prone to tics, you may have more tics." But I want them to ask the other question is what are the side effects of not taking appropriate treatment for ADD? And it's things like school failure and drug abuse and incarceration, divorce, bankruptcy. I'm so happy we're talking about it because this is a really serious issue because if you go to places like prison, there's a high percentage of people who have untreated ADD that did not have proper focus or impulse control.
- 3:45 – 5:37
Is ADHD Overdiagnosed or Underdiagnosed?
- JSJay Shetty
So would you say that is ADHD being overdiagnosed?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
I think it's overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed.
- JSJay Shetty
What do you mean?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Overdiagnosed o-overall because people see this as the simple answer. Underdiagnosed, especially in people who are not hyperactive or females because we still have gender bias in this country. If you have a little boy and he's not doing well in school, you get really worried because you realize it's-- he's going to have to take care of a family someday. For a girl, if she's not doing as well, well, you think maybe she's not that smart and you hope she marries somebody nice, which is completely irrational given that we now have three generations of women who are in the workforce here in California. 90% of mothers work outside the house, and when they have untreated ADD, they often look depressed and they get on something like Lexapro on an SSRI, which actually makes them more ADD, but now they don't care that they're more ADD because serotonin, we'll talk about it, they counterbalance each other. So serotonin is the neurotransmitter, happiness of flexibility, dopamine more the neurotransmitter, focus, motivation. Let's follow through and get this done. And when one goes up, so serotonin goes up, someone puts you on an SSRI, dopamine goes down, and so happier but more distracted, happier, less focused, happier, more impulsive.
- 5:37 – 9:40
Key Behavior Patterns That Signal ADHD
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, and I think that's what so many people are feeling today, where they naturally feel a sense of brain fog. They're overwhelmed with information. I was reading somewhere that we now consume seventy-two gigabytes of information per day, which someone had translated to reading a hundred thousand words every single day, which when you think about thatThat is so overwhelming. So how do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
So you look for patterns of behavior over time. So the hallmark features of ADD or ADHD, the first one is short attention span. It's really hard to focus, but not for everything, and this is what fools people. It's short attention span for regular routine everyday things, schoolwork, homework, paperwork, chores, the things that make life work. And if you have a half an hour of homework, parents will often say, "It takes him or her two hours to do, and I have to structure their time." That's very common. But for things that are new, novel, highly stimulating or frightening, people with ADD can pay attention just fine because they have their own intrinsic dopamine. And what I find is love is a drug. Love is dopamine. So say you're getting all Cs and Ds except one A, and the A, whether it's in history or whatever, it's because you love the teacher or you love the subject. But it's not this one thing we should be looking at, it's the pattern of your attention span over time. The second is they're easily distracted, and what that means is they see too much, they hear too much, they taste too much, they smell too much. So they're constantly distracted by the world coming at them. The brain is really good at suppressing unnecessary noises or unnecessary thoughts. But when your prefrontal cortex, so we'll talk about that, the front part of your brain, the front third of your brain, largest in humans than any other animal by far, when it's sleepy, it can't sort of suppress the noise. I grew up three houses from the freeway [chuckles] in Southern California. Had lots of noise. But I never heard it-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... because my brain went, "Oh, you don't need to listen to that," so it would suppress it.
- JSJay Shetty
So someone who has ADHD-
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Can't suppress it.
- JSJay Shetty
Interesting.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
And so the world comes at them too much, and you, you see it with the clothes they wear. They hate seams, and they hate tags because their body feels it. So I've been married twice. Both of my wives have ADD of one form or another. And the first time when I got married, I went... It's like right after I got married, I went to my closet to get a shirt, and I noticed the tag was cut out of my shirt, and I'm like, "That's weird." And then I looked at all of my shirts, and all of the tags were out, and I felt violated. And I went into the living room with the shirt [chuckles] and I'm like, "Why is my shirt missing the tag?" She goes, "Oh, don't you hate tags?" Like, "I hate tags." "Oh, I thought you really liked that I cut them all out for you." And I'm like, "I've never felt a tag in my life. Please don't damage my clothing." [laughs]
- 9:40 – 12:18
Are You Born with ADHD or Can It Develop Later?
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] That's, yeah, that's fascinating to me, so because I can relate to what you said. I'm very unaffected by outside noise, and definitely my brain creates the same boundary that you said yours does, where I could be in a really noisy environment, but I can go totally internal if I'm focused on something. Now, does that mean that we're born with ADHD, or can we train attention?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Well, we can train attention, but ADHD I'm talking about is what you're born with, what you see it in your mom, you see it in your dad. I have, I told you my first wife had ADD, which means th-three of my children have it, so I know more about this than I want to. And if you think of distractibility, what does an orgasm require? Focus. You have to pay attention to the feeling long enough in order to have an orgasm. And so if that becomes really hard, well, that's a problem for both the person and their partner because their partner will like, "Oh, she doesn't love me," or, "I'm not enough," when it has nothing to do with that. It's just they're easily distracted. People with sort of the real ADD, they need white noise at night. And I'm like, "It's the middle of winter. It's Washington, D.C. The fan is on." [imitates fan] Like, "Why is the fan on?" It's like, "Oh, I need the noise or I won't be able to sleep 'cause I hear everything that's in the house." So short attention span, not for everything, easily distracted, disorganized. So it's hard for them. It's not natural for them if you look at their rooms, their desks, their book bags, their filing cabinets. And time, they're often late. And I like to be early. I'm like, if I have, if I have a flight, I'm there two hours early because my brain thinks of all the things that could go wrong on the way to the airport, and the flight's important to me. People with ADD, it's last minute, last minute, and I used to fight. I'm like, "NoWe need to go.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- DADr. Daniel Amen
And, and then I just started lying. It's like [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- DADr. Daniel Amen
The fli- the flight is at noon, uh, when really it was at 1:00. And because her organization wasn't such, she didn't really catch on
- 12:18 – 15:33
Why Some People Only Perform Well Under Stress
- DADr. Daniel Amen
[laughs] to the-
- JSJay Shetty
How, how much of that is training? Like, I feel like I grew up with a mum who is very man- meticulous with time, so my mum trained me to always believe that if you're not early, you're late. And so I also live in a world that you do, which is I'm always at the airport early, I'm always making sure of anything that could go wrong. Security could take a bit longer. There's so many other things. That, to me, I've always felt came because I had a mum who was super organized, and I've inherited that by watching her. Even now, like, my mum trained me how to make sure we locked all the doors at night and, you know, we didn't grow up in a really safe area, so there was this very hyper attention to make sure. So I'm very good at that, and how much-
- DADr. Daniel Amen
But it could've been because her brain-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... was busy in the front, and she also gave that to you.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Right? So some of it is training, but if she had ADD, she wouldn't give-
- JSJay Shetty
Right
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... that to you, and you would often be chronically stressed-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... because she wouldn't get you to school on time.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Or she wouldn't be there on time to pick you up, or it's really important you have a soccer practice and you're late. The, the level of stress in ADD, ADHD families is very high because of the distractibility, the disorganization, and the fourth one is procrastination. They don't do things until someone's mad at them to get it done. They need stress in order to get stuff done, and that just makes everybody around them stressed.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Uh, and it makes them stressed because, you know, they're often late because they actually don't start getting ready until it's like, [gasps] "Oh my God, I'm late," and then they always show up, like, either right on time flustered or 10 minutes late, always apologizing.
- JSJay Shetty
And that's different from people who perform well under stress. This is someone who needs stress to-
- DADr. Daniel Amen
In order to perform
- JSJay Shetty
... in order to perform. Yeah.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Right. If your child's struggling in school, make sure they're not taking their iPad to bed. So often it's because kids are sleep deprived, they look like they have ADD because parents are really not properly supervising the kids. You eliminate gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes, and sweeteners. 70% of the kids lost their ADD.
- JSJay Shetty
No way.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
So the first thing is not, "Let me give you this drug." In my mind, the first thing is do a digital detox and do an elimination diet, and do it for a month. Food is so important. If they really have ADD or ADHD, they're gonna have it three months from now or four months from now. Let's do this and see, because I think if someone really has ADD, withholding medicine is like withholding glasses from someone who can't see, and that's neglect. When I first started imaging,
- 15:33 – 21:43
How Adult ADD Shows Up as Conflict-Seeking Behavior
- DADr. Daniel Amen
it was on an ADD woman. So I went into a lecture on brain SPECT imaging in my hospital in April 1991, and I walked out and I had a new patient, and her name was Sandy, and she was 44, and she was beautiful and underemployed. She had an IQ of 144 and she was a lab tech. And she was in the hospital because she had a suicide attempt the night before in an impulsive act when she and her husband had a fight. And I'm like, "ADD, ADD, ADD." She had an eight-year-old son that had ADD, and I'm like, "I think you have ADD." And she's like, "Oh, adults can't have it." Thinking to myself, but not saying it 'cause I don't have ADD, it's like, "I'm the doctor. [laughs] Adults totally can have ADD." [laughs] And I said, "Can I scan you? 'Cause I've just learned about this new technology," and I scanned her twice, once at rest, once when she did a concentration task. And when she tried to concentrate, the front part of her brain shut down rather than what it should have done was turn on. And I put the... This is why I love imaging. I put the scans on her hospital table, and I was explaining to them and she started to cry, and she said, "You mean it's not my fault?" And that's the moment I got hooked on imaging, 'cause I already knew the diagnosis. She, it immediately evaporated shame. And then she's like, "All right. Let's talk about adult ADD." And she had all of the things, including the impulse control issues, but because she was so bright, she didn't bring enough negative attention to herself and never had gotten the help. And after I treated her, she finished college. She stopped picking on her husband. Because another trait that a lot of people don't understand is they become negative seeking, conflict seeking, and excitement seeking, and those are all dopamine-driven behavior. So if you have a low level of dopamine, well, if you pick a fight with someone, now all of a sudden there's some excitement going on. If you jump out of an airplane, that has a whole bunch of dopamine [laughs] associated with it. But, and I experienced this. It was that poking. It's like, "We're going on vacation. Why are we having a problem?" AndActivating their frontal lobes, they're less negative. And I'm just publishing a study on negativity bias, so I'm very interested in are you positive, are you negative? Now, unbridled positive thinking is a disaster. You die early. But negative thinking, you actually have low function in your frontal lobes, and many of the ADD people I see tend to see the glass as half empty, and that wears on them. So, so if we hi- highlight the short attention span, not for everything, disorganization, procrastination, impulse control, it's like the brake in their brain is vulnerable, and they say things often that you shouldn't say. It's like the inside voice gets out. They do things that it's like, "Mm, wish I hadn't done that." So they actually live with a lot of regret. And your prefrontal cortex is called the executive part of the brain because it's like the boss at work. It's involved in focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, empathy, learning from the mistakes you make. And when it's sleeping, you have all those problems which just describes ADD. And, um, strengthening that is critical to your humanity. Did you know that sociopaths have 10% less volume in their prefrontal cortex? So they're a little less human, if you will.
- JSJay Shetty
Even 10% has that impact?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
10%. It's huge, and this is why you should never let a child hit a soccer ball with their forehead. It's just so stupid. And, like, I'm not a huge fan of allowing kids to play tackle football because it's more likely to damage the part of them that is the boss. And people who have ADD are often executives of their own companies because they don't work well often with other [laughs] people, and so they're entrepreneurial. And some wildly famous people have said they had ADD, like the person who started JetBlue, he was public with that. It can look false. It can be masquerade. You have ADD because your parents gave you an iPhone when you were a year old, and I think we're wising up that's not a good thing to do. But still, children should not have smartphones until they're 15, 16. Social media, Australia banned social media under 16. I think that's so-
- JSJay Shetty
30, yeah
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... great, right?
- JSJay Shetty
I agree.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Taking the neuroscience and making it public policy. California, you can't start school in the morning before 8:00, taking the... what we know with neuroscience. Kids who get just an hour less sleep have a higher incidence of depression and suicide. So all right. Cut out the zero periods. I love that, neuroscience and then public policy.
- 21:43 – 28:47
What Really Causes ADHD? Genetics or Environment?
- JSJay Shetty
Do we know what causes ADHD?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
It's genetic. People are not producing enough dopamine. And the medicines we use, like Ritalin or Adderall, they increase the availability of dopamine. Now, the problem is, is if you don't really have it, what you have is societally induced ADHD, the medicine will disrupt you and make you worse. And early on, I realized when I scan people, 'cause I've scanned 30,000 or 40,000 people who have ADD of one type or another, it's not one thing. Early on I'm like, "Oh, it's seven different things." And so my book-
- JSJay Shetty
Yes
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... Healing ADD, I talk about see and heal the seven types. And so can I talk about the types?
- JSJay Shetty
That I was just about to... That was my next question. You are, you're already, you're already one step ahead of me, so let me, let me ask you.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
So I, so let me, so type one is the classic. It's what's most people think of ADHD, short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. They can't sit still. And one of my kids, when she was born, w- we thought she was gonna be a boy because in her mother's womb she was so active. And the lore is the more active a baby is inside their mother, the more likely they are to be a boy. She wasn't. When I held her older sister, we could watch movies. She'd sit on my lap. She was just calm. Her sister, when you tried to hold her, was like trying to hold a live salmon. She's so wiggly. And then I take her to the mall. She would've been one of those children on the little yellow leashes, the Big Bird leashes in the mall. But I wrote a column in the local newspaper, so when I went to the mall, people recognized me.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- DADr. Daniel Amen
It's like, "Oh, Dr. Amen, I loved your column. Why is your child on a leash?"
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- DADr. Daniel Amen
So what I used to do [laughs] with Caitlin is put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out. 'Cause she's like, "Where are you going?" And I remember just holding her hand, I'd take my little pinky and wrap it around her wrist because... And I had spiritual problems because of this child. We would go to church, and I don't know why Catholics take children into church rather thanYou know, send them to children's church. But anyways, she was so active and blurting out, and I'm like the only child psychiatrist in the county, and if my child is the worst one [chuckles] that's bad for business. So I used to take her out and threaten her life, and now I'm worried about her eternal soul. And I adore her, and she's 37 now. And Haven is just like her, which is, you know, my six-year-old granddaughter is just like her [chuckles] . It's genetic. And when we first got her diagnosed, the doctor, who was really great, looked at me and then looked at her mother and goes, "So who has this?" 'Cause it's genetic. And I'm like, "It's not me. I do everything early." I've now written 42 books. Every one of them has been handed in early. And her mom goes, "It's not me." But then I was so grateful 'cause it took her, like, 12 years to get through college, and she just... she asked her this one question. This is o- a great adult ADD question, 'cause she was still in college at the time. She goes, "How do you study?" She goes, "Oh, I can never study at home. I get so distracted. I go inside my little car, underneath a streetlamp. No kids, no noise, nothing. There I can study." And the doctor goes, "You have ADD." [chuckles] It was very helpful for me and for her.
- JSJay Shetty
So that's Type 1?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
That's Type 1, classic. Type 2 is inattentive ADD. Short attention span, distractibility, disorganized, procrastinate, but they're not impulsive. And more common in girls. They're not hyperactive. In fact, they can be a little bit hypoactive. And those first two types were described in the DSM when they first created this diagnostic category in 1980. I described the next five types. The third one is overfocused ADD, where the problem is not so much you can't concentrate, it's you can't shift your attention.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
That you get stuck. And if you can't shift your attention, you cannot pay attention. But it's a different mechanism, and I found this to be particularly true in children and grandchildren of alcoholics. And they tend to be argumentative, oppositional, worry. If things don't go their way, they get upset. And on the surface, they appear selfish. They're really not selfish, they're just not flexible. And stimulants tend to make them more worried and more upset. Type 4 is called limbic ADD. It's where their emotional brain is too busy, and it's sort of like ADD plus mild depression, and the glass is always half empty for them. Type 5, which I think is such an interesting one, is temporal lobe ADD. They have problems in one or both of their temporal lobes, often goes with learning problems, but mood instability, irritability, temper problems. One of my first great cases was Chris. He... it's his third psychiatric hospitalization. This time, he took a pencil and put it in the neck of one of his classmates. Stimulants made him hallucinate, uh, all the other medicines, and I'm like, "I'm scanning you." And he had left temporal lobe problem, which goes with violence. I put him on an anticonvulsant, an anti-seizure medicine, became the sweetest kid. And then he still had trouble concentrating, so then after I'd got the temporal lobe right, I gave him a stimulant. Masterful. I mean, this kid just did phenomenally well. And then the ring of fire, that's the one I may be most known for. The problem is not low activity, it's too much activity. Please don't give them a stimulant because they can become violent and aggressive. I actually use a supplement to calm things down in their brain. Very effective. And then the last one's anxious ADD, where they're really anxious, and so they tend to be early to things, but disorganized, distracted, and so on. So knowing the type-
- JSJay Shetty
Yes
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... and that's why Ritalin has a bad reputation. For the right brain, it's miraculous. For the wrong brain, it's a
- 28:47 – 30:23
Can You Learn to Regulate Emotions with ADHD?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
nightmare.
- JSJay Shetty
A lot of people who have ADHD say they feel emotions much more strongly and deeply. Can they start to regulate their emotions? Is there a way to do that, or is that medication?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Well, and sometimes with the medicine they don't like it because it feels like it suppresses their emotions.
- JSJay Shetty
Interesting.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
And my daughter Caitlin, when I put her on Ritalin, 'cause she was hyperactive, and then she was dramatically less hyperactive. But I found I had to titrate the dose down because I could see it putting a lid on her personality, which is not what you wanna do. And so often you wanna work with someone who's really knowledgeable to titrate the dose up and down effectively. If you're a baseball player, so just thinking of athletes, the medicine gives you a better batting average. If you're a linebacker in football, you might be a little bit less aggressive [chuckles] because you're more thoughtful.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Right? So if you wanna play with abandon, you probably don't want a stimulant on board. But I find for some of my professional athletes, they're just much more focused and less likely to get technical fouls and because they're not a hothead. And when you see the world like I see it, and you're watching, you know, someone have a meltdown on the court, I'm like, "I wonder what's going on in that person's brain?"
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Right? Rather than just judge them.... is bad. I haven't scanned Draymond Green, but I want to. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
I saw a
- 30:23 – 31:25
The Long-Term Impact of Untreated ADHD in Children
- JSJay Shetty
study that found that children with untreated ADHD are nearly twice as likely to develop an alcohol use disorder or other substance abuse problem. Why is that?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Because of the lack of impulse control, and they don't like how they feel, right? If you've been told every day to settle down or you brought negative attention to yourself, over time, it activates your emotional brain, and you wanna settle it down, and you don't have good forethought or good impulse control, and you're more likely to drink. And it's just so prevalent. Plus, with society, during the Super Bowl, there were 30 beer commercials, and the rest of them were Jack in the Box, right? [laughs] So it's like we, we're just being flooded with these awful messages that take people who have ADD, make them more ADD, and then they engage in habits that aren't
- 31:25 – 35:07
Should Alcohol Advertisements Be Banned?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
helpful.
- JSJay Shetty
Do you think there should be a ban on alcohol advertisements as much as there is obviously on smoking, like?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Yeah, it's not a health food. I mean, the American Cancer Society came out three years ago and said you shouldn't drink because it increases your risk of seven different types of cancer. The surgeon general last year said we should put alcohol cancer warning label signs on alcohol. I think when you just look at our society from the digital addictions and social media and technology to the bad food, the ultra-processed food that so many people, that's 80% or 90% of their diet, to marijuana's innocuous, which is a complete lie. Alcohol is a health food, no. And now the big new thing is psilocybin. It's great medicine. It's an antidepressant. It'll treat your PTSD, and it's increased psychosis to emergency rooms 300%. It is not innocuous. Now, might it become a, a good treatment? I don't know. But I feel like I've seen this party before, right? One of the big benefits of being 70 is you've seen [laughs] lots of things. The early '80s, benzos are innocuous. They're mommy little helper. We know benzos are highly addictive and increase the risk of dementia. The early '90s, alcohol is good for your heart. You should drink. That's a lie. You shouldn't drink. It increases your risk of stupidity and cancer, right? And if you're ADD and you have sleepy frontal lobes, now you drink, you have sleepier frontal lobes still, not a good thing. And then pain is the fifth vital sign, right? The Purdue Pharmaceuticals came out with, "Let's, let's get more people to take opiates," and came out with these campaigns and spent billions of dollars on marketing, and it was a disaster. And then the whole marijuana is innocuous. During, not this presidential campaign, the last one, Joe Biden was debating, and they asked him, "Should the federal government legalize marijuana?" And he said, "No, I don't think there's enough research." And Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, shames him on national television, and he said, "Man, are you high?" Like the science is settled. Well, as more places legalize it, the science is getting settled. It's bad for us, right? If you use as a teenager, it increases anxiety, depression, psychosis, and suicide into your 20s. I published a study on 1,000 marijuana users. Every area of the brain is lower in blood flow, and I got so much grief for it. And two months ago, in JAMA Psychiatry, on 1,000 marijuana users, the memory and learning centers are lower in blood flow and activity. This is not innocuous. It's all these lies that then increase the expression of ADD. And so, you know, how do you know? You look at someone's history over time, right? All of us have ADD moments, but that's not ADD.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Having ADD is these hallmark symptoms have followed you most of
- 35:07 – 37:16
How an Elimination Diet and Digital Detox Can Help Kids
- DADr. Daniel Amen
your life.
- JSJay Shetty
So for parents who are listening right now and they're starting to see a young child maybe have one of the types or some of the symptoms, what would you encourage them to do?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
You know, I have a free online test called addtypetest.com. They could take that. For people, if you've been struggling and it's like you really believe it's not just environmental, right? I mean, the first thing, if your child's struggling in school, make sure they're not taking their iPad to bed. So often it's because kids are sleep deprived, they look like they have ADD because parents are really not properly supervising. The kids do a digital detox. And then I have to say this 'cause there's this great study published in The Lancet, replicated, that when you put kids on an elimination diet... So what does that mean? You eliminate gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes, and sweeteners. 70% of the kids lost their ADD.
- JSJay Shetty
No way.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
So the first thing is not, "Let me give you this drug." In my mind, the first thing is do a digital detox.And do an elimination diet, and do it for a month. And it's like, "Oh, I can't do that." It's like, it's not that hard. My wife Tana wrote a cookbook, Healing ADD at Home Through Food or The Brain Warrior's Way. That's her big cookbook. It's been reprinted like 53 times. I'm so proud of her. And find foods the kids love that love them back. Food is so important. Do that first. And I always tell, I'm like, "Look, if they really have ADD or ADHD, they're gonna have it three months from now or four months from now. Let's do this-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... and see." I have an online course called Healing ADD at Home in 30 Days, and it's basically before you give them medicine, do these things first, and it's so helpful.
- 37:16 – 38:58
Why Nutrition Plays a Critical Role in Managing ADHD
- JSJay Shetty
Why does changing our diet affect ADHD? Why does removing gluten, removing processed foods, et cetera, why does that impact it?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Your brain is 2% about your body's weight. It uses 20% to 30% of the calories you consume. And so if you have a fast food diet, you're likely to have a fast food mind. And both gluten and dairy, when they go to your stomach, when it mixes with stomach acid, it turns into something called gluteomorphins, which work on the heroin centers or the opiate centers of your brain, and it just sort of spaces you out. For milk, it's casomorphins, and it's why we love pizza. If you think of gluten and dairy, right, it's pizza. Um-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... but it's also why you feel spacey afterwards. And too often, what do we feed kids? And like when I was growing up, it was Frosted Flakes or Pop-Tarts or a muffin or donuts. And if you get a sugar burst, well, a half an hour later, your brain is walking in mud, and yet that's what we feed children in the morning. ADD kids who have protein in the morning, their medicine works longer throughout the day.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
And so in the '50s, you know, we'd grow up with bacon and eggs, and much better than the processed cereals.
- 38:58 – 42:10
How ADHD Leads to Learned Helplessness
- JSJay Shetty
I love your thoughts on how to do it before we get to medicine, like before we get to medication, looking at technology, looking at our diet, and, and that way you could potentially save yourself from having to go down the medicine route.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Right. And then parents who are generally resistant to the idea of medicine, and perhaps more so than they should be. Because I think if someone really has ADD, withholding medicine is like withholding glasses from someone who can't see, and that's neglect. And we're, we're in this society, right, the more educated you are, it's like, "Oh no, I'd never give my child medicine." And then all of a sudden you see they're failing in school. And if you struggle in school, you begin to hang out with the other kids who are struggling, which may not be ultimately in their best interest. If you haven't been diagnosed by the time you're 10, odds are your self-esteem has been negatively impacted because people have said repeatedly to you, "You're smarter than this. You could do better than this. Try harder." But what I showed on the scans, when they try to concentrate, their brain drops in activity. In fact, the harder they try, the worse it gets.
- JSJay Shetty
Why is that?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
Because their brain is turning off when it should be-
- JSJay Shetty
The frontal lobe, as you were saying
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... turning on their frontal lobe. If you don't have enough dopamine to keep your frontal lobe engaged, it sort of withers with effort. And what does that teach you? To give up. It's this idea of learned helplessness. There's a psychologist who's really famous, Marty Seligman. You probably know of him because he's famous for positive psychology.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
He helped start that movement. Uh, but he was way famous before then because he coined this term learned helplessness. And with depression, it's like you try and it doesn't work, you try and it doesn't work, you try and it doesn't work, and then you say to hell with it and you stop trying.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
And that happens with so many people who have ADD. In fact, when I diagnose and treat an adult woman, a common scenario, uh, she brings her hyperactive son to me, and I'm like, "Where did this come from?" And say it comes from the mom, and then I treat her. She gets dramatically better, and then she gets depressed because she starts thinking about, "What would my life have been like-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... if someone would have noticed this, if I would have been treated?" Now, that's... You don't give her an antidepressant for that. You like do grief work-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... with her and like, "Okay, but now you know, so your son doesn't have to go through this, and you don't wanna argue with the past."
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
"You wanna look
- 42:10 – 44:32
Can You Break the Cycle and Prevent Passing ADHD to Your Kids?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
forward."
- JSJay Shetty
Have you seen people break the cycle? As we're talking about, it's genetically passed down if you saw it in your parents. Have you seen that be possible? Is it possible to break the cycle completely so that you don't pass it on?
- DADr. Daniel Amen
You know, I, I think so, but we're starting at such a disadvantage. AndYou know, is I think because, you know, my real passion in life is to create a brain health revolution and where would that start? It has to start with kids before they have babies because when that mother was born, she was born with all of the eggs in her ovaries she will ever have. And so if we're gonna help her children be healthier, we have to get to her when she's a child and help her make really good decisions when she's a teenager. And too often parents go, "Oh, I don't have control," and they abdicate their parental role over teenagers on who they hang out with and what they eat, and, you know, we're not drinking together, and we're not smoking pot together [laughs] and, you know, like all-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- DADr. Daniel Amen
... the insanity that's going on in our society today. I think we have to get to their ovaries early because if you're born with all of the eggs you'll ever have, whatever you do in life turns on or off certain genes, making illness more or less likely in you, yes, but also your babies and grandbabies. So that's how we decrease the incidence is we get mom and dad, 'cause his sperm really matters, to be as healthy as possible.
- SPSpeaker
[upbeat music] If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.
- DADr. Daniel Amen
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over 1,000 convicted felons and over 100 murderers, and their brains are very damaged
Episode duration: 44:32
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