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Jay Shetty PodcastJay Shetty Podcast

Dr. Amen: ''Rewire Your ADHD Brain to CRAVE Hard Work!'' Do This!

Do you often forget things or lose track of time? Do you find it hard to stay focused on everyday tasks? Today, Jay reunites with the ever-popular Dr. Daniel Amen, a pioneering psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist, to unravel one of the most misunderstood mental health topics today: ADHD. With society bombarded by endless distractions, overstimulation, and information overload, many are left questioning whether they truly have ADHD or are simply overwhelmed by the modern world. Dr. Amen cuts through the confusion by drawing from over three decades of clinical experience and brain imaging research. He clarifies that real ADHD is not a trend or a convenient label—it’s a genetic, neurological condition that can be identified through consistent behavioral patterns and even brain scans. What makes this conversation especially transformative is its focus on practical solutions and healing. Rather than defaulting to medication, Dr. Amen emphasizes a whole-brain, whole-body approach—starting with sleep, nutrition, and screen time. He cites compelling evidence showing how dietary changes and digital detoxes can significantly reduce symptoms in children. Jay and Dr. Amen also explore the emotional toll of untreated ADHD, including its links to addiction, depression, academic failure, and fractured relationships. Together, they challenge the stigma, revealing that ADHD is often both overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed, particularly in women and individuals without hyperactivity. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Naturally Improve Focus Without Medication How to Use Diet to Reduce ADHD Symptoms How to Identify the 7 Types of ADHD How to Reframe Negative Thoughts with Brain Training How to Create a Brain-Healthy Morning Routine How to Navigate ADHD in Romantic Relationships How to Advocate for ADHD Support in Schools and Work Your brain is not broken. By learning more about how your mind works, making intentional lifestyle shifts, and seeking the right tools, you can begin to show up in life with greater clarity, connection, and confidence. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:57 Why ADHD Is More Common in Men 03:32 How ADHD Affects the People Around You 05:10 How Proper Treatment Can Transform Your Life 10:58 Start with Simple Lifestyle Changes 13:36 What to Know About Dating Someone with ADHD 17:42 How Untreated ADD and Chronic Stress Can Lead to Illness 25:05 Why Winning an Argument with Your Partner Is Still Losing 28:07 The Power of Active Listening in Relationships 29:58 How to Navigate Life with a Parent Who Has ADD 32:44 Is ADHD Curable or Just Manageable? 33:57 The Long-Term Consequences of Untreated ADHD 34:20 Rethinking Brain and Mental Health as One 37:05 Practical Ways to Become More Organized Episode Resources: https://www.tiktok.com/@docamen https://www.instagram.com/doc_amen/ https://twitter.com/docamen https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdanielamen/ https://www.facebook.com/drdanielamen/ https://www.amazon.com/Daniel-G.-Amen/e/B004G3QFTW%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share https://danielamenmd.com/ https://www.amenuniversity.com/ https://www.instagram.com/jayshetty https://www.facebook.com/jayshetty/ https://x.com/jayshetty https://www.linkedin.com/in/shettyjay/ https://www.youtube.com/@JayShettyPodcast http://jayshetty.me

Dr. Daniel AmenguestJay Shettyhost
Jun 24, 202541mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:57

    Intro

    1. DA

      The first exercise I do with all of my patients, but particularly my ADD patients, is called the One Page Miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, what do you want? Like with Tana, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Don't always feel it. I get rude thoughts that show up, but I don't say them. Why? Because I inhibit them because they don't fit. Most people in life don't do this exercise, which I find crazy. What do you want in your work or school? What do you want for your money? What do you want for your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual? What do you want? We put it on one paper, and then the question always becomes, does it fit?

    2. JS

      The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

    3. DA

      Jay Shetty.

    4. JS

      The one, the only Jay Shetty. [laughs]

  2. 0:57 – 3:32

    Why ADHD Is More Common in Men

    1. JS

      I read in the National Institute of Mental Health they found that five point four percent of adult men and three point two percent of adult women have ADHD. Why do you believe that ADHD is more common in men?

    2. DA

      Well, it is more common in men.

    3. JS

      Because?

    4. DA

      Men have sleepier frontal lobes than women. So I published the world's largest imaging study on gender and looked at the difference in forty-six thousand patients, difference between male brains and female brains. Females have much stronger, much more active prefrontal cortex. Men have sleepier prefrontal cortex. And what's the one-

    5. JS

      What does that mean?

    6. DA

      ... statistic that identifies that? Who goes to jail? Men. Fourteen times more than females. So they have a relative dopamine deficit compared to females. But girls still have it, and when left untreated, it just devastates their lives. And how you can diagnose it in a teenage girl is just look at their love pattern. It's they get all excited about falling in love, dopamine burst. After it wears off, right, it's like don't get married in the next two months [laughs] because you never really know. After the dopamine wears off, the cocaine effect wears off, they start picking on their partner, and they start fighting. And so new love, fighting, and then they break up, and there's lots of drama around breaking up, and they get suicidal sometimes. And then they fall in love again, and then they pick on their new person, and then they break up, and they... Lots of drama around it. And if you see that pattern repeatedly, screen them for ADD. Very important.

    7. JS

      How does ADHD show up differently for men and women?

    8. DA

      So men tend to be more hyperactive. Women tend to have more the inattentive type. Women also tend to have the over-focused type more. Men, the temporal lobe type because the temporal lobe type can be in part born out of a concussion or a head injury. And you know, people who have ADD have way more concussions and accidents, and the reason for that is the shorter attention span and impulse control issues.

    9. JS

      I think as I'm s-sitting

  3. 3:32 – 5:10

    How ADHD Affects the People Around You

    1. JS

      here listening to you and trying to understand just how even the way you broke down the seven types of ADHD, you start to think about how ADHD doesn't just affect an individual's focus and attention and performance at school. As you rightly said earlier, it starts to affect your relationships, right? If you have a parent, and I wanna talk about all of these independently, if you have a parent that has ADHD, and they have passed or haven't passed it on to you, that has an impact on you. If you're dating someone, you were talking about your first two wives, when you're dating someone who has ADHD, that has an impact on you. If you have ADHD and you're dating someone who doesn't, that has an impact on you and them. It starts to impact all areas of life, and because we have such a limited understanding of it, we can get frustrated when someone clips out our labels or we can get-

    2. DA

      [laughs]

    3. JS

      ... upset when someone is always late, and we say, "Oh, you don't care about me, you're always late." Like, it can actually start to become more emotional than it is just biological, chemical, and physical.

    4. DA

      It's biological for sure.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. DA

      That it gives you psychological effects, and the chronic stress damages your immune system for you and the people who love you. Clearly social. I think one of the reasons for divorce is untreated ADD. I think it's often the hidden cause, and it's spiritual because you just believe you're less than.

    7. JS

      Mm.

    8. DA

      That God, however you see God, doesn't care

  4. 5:10 – 10:58

    How Proper Treatment Can Transform Your Life

    1. DA

      about you.

    2. JS

      What do we do with that feeling? Because that's the feeling for people who have ADHD, and they feel they're failing at life. They feel they're underperforming. They feel like they're not gonna succeed. But earlier, you were saying to me, actually, some of the greatest CEOs of big companies are people with ADHD. So walk me through, if someone's sitting here thinking, "Well, I'm not gonna achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD," what would you say to them?

    3. DA

      You're responsible to get it treated [laughs] because with treatment, you can be amazing because you often have the ability to see things other people don't see.

    4. JS

      Mm.

    5. DA

      And it's the undisciplined mind that creates so much trouble. So, you know, at Amen Clinics, we wanna look at your brain, of course.Want to get it healthy. And we get it healthy, whether it's diet, supplements, exercise, medicine, whatever tools we have. Um, a lot of people do really well with neurofeedback, where you can actually measure the electrical activity in your brain, and then through exercises, strengthen it. So I like neurofeedback a lot. But then you also have to reprogram your mind. And I talk about killing the ANTs, the Automatic Negative Thoughts that steal your happiness. And people who have ADD often have a high negativity bias. And so learning to direct your thoughts in a positive, in a helpful, in a hopeful way, absolutely critical to overcome it. The first exercise I do with all of my patients, but particularly my ADD patients, is called the One Page Miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, what do you want? Like with Tana, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Don't always feel it. I get rude thoughts that show up, but I don't say them. Why? Because I inhibit them because they don't fit. Most people in life don't do this exercise, which I find crazy. What do you want in your work or school? What do you want for your money? What do you want for your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual? What do you want? We put it on one paper, and then the question always becomes, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? So that's what your prefrontal cortex does, right? It sets goals and helps you continue to achieve them despite the obstacles that you have. So I remember I'm in college, and I want to go to medical school, and I took organic chemistry, and I got a [laughs] forty-two on my first test. And I'm like, "Okay, this is gonna be an obstacle. Get a tutor." And ended up obviously going to medical school. But it's your prefr- if it's low, you get a forty-two, and then you give up. So you don't have that persistence. But the first step always is what do you want? Is my behavior getting me what I want? And they often come into my office and they go, "Dr. Amen, I'm brutally honest." And in my mind I'm like, "Oh, they have ADD." And then I'm like, "But that's usually not helpful."

    6. JS

      Mm.

    7. DA

      Relationships require tact. They require forethought. Jerry Seinfeld once said, "The brain is a sneaky organ." We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. But when you have ADD, your inside voice gets out when it can be hurtful.

    8. JS

      Mm.

    9. DA

      So that's the first step.

    10. JS

      Yeah.

    11. DA

      Know what you want, and then is my behavior getting me what I want? And if my behavior's not getting me what I want, is my brain, could my brain be better?

    12. JS

      And therefore, that leads to the treatment. Because I think a lot of people are waking up every day, and they're thinking, kind of like what you said, that learned helplessness. They're like, "Well, I am eating right, and I am working out, and I am trying to be motivated," or, "Maybe even I don't make it to the workout every day. I'm really trying. But every time I try, I just lose motivation and I lose energy." Is that something you hear quite often?

    13. DA

      I do, and that's why we scan people twice, once at rest, once when they concentrate, and if their brain drops with activity, it's like, okay, we have to treat this.

    14. JS

      Mm.

    15. DA

      And, you know, we can try to treat it with supplements, and I like them a lot. I own BrainMD, and I wanna support you. People who take EPA fish oil, omega-3 fatty acids, helps with ADD, also helps with mood. There are five studies with saffron, the spice saffron, as effective as Ritalin in some studies.

    16. JS

      That's amazing. Wow.

    17. DA

      And it helps 25 randomized controlled trials that saffron helps with depression compared to antidepressants. So I love saffron. Um-

    18. JS

      I've been eating saffron since I was a kid 'cause it's in, in, it's in the Indian diet as a very staple thing.

    19. DA

      Right, and there's lore. In India, if you're too happy, you must have had saffron.

    20. JS

      [laughs]

    21. DA

      Omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, pycnogenol, which is from pine bark, has been found to be helpful. So I start based on your type. Okay, here are the supplements. Let's get your diet right. And then if those things don't work, then I think, well, we should consider medication.

  5. 10:58 – 13:36

    Start with Simple Lifestyle Changes

    1. JS

      Yeah. I'm so glad that you're so clear on that. I know whenever there's a new discovery, I'm always texting you going, "What do you think about this? And what do you think about that?" Because I appreciate your perspective because it's not coming from an opinion, and it's not coming from a single case. And as I'm listening to you today, what I really take away is that everything is so specific, and everything is so individual and personal. It's not like, like you were saying, like some medication could actually be brilliant, and you said even miraculous for someone's brain. But if it's a different type of brain, it doesn't work that well. But we have this one-size-fits-all model that we keep rolling out. Why do we even get to make these big claims of something being innocuous or something being the perfect cure, or alcohol is good for your heart, or everything that you've been mentioning?

    2. DA

      Well, you just have to follow the money.

    3. JS

      How is it legal to say that?

    4. DA

      I think a lot of it isDriven by the alcohol industry, the marijuana industry, and now, you know, all of these billionaires investing in mushrooms and psilocybin. And I'm, like, a huge fan of lion's mane, and we make something called smart mushrooms, but y- you have to be very careful with something that disrupts someone's brain and someone's mind. And for some people it can be helpful, for other people it's a nightmare.

    5. JS

      Yeah.

    6. DA

      And I'm, like, first do no harm, [laughs] right? And so the first thing if you're depressed or you have PTSD is let's get your diet right and let's get you to exercise and not believe every stupid thing you think and take omega-3 fatty acids, or if you have PTSD, EMDR. I'm a huge fan of a psychotherapy called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's like first do no harm. Let's make sure we're doing the simple things first. My oldest patient with ADD is 94, and I'm like, "Why are you in my office?" And she goes, "You helped my great-grandson. You helped my granddaughter. You helped my son. I've never been able to finish the paper in the morning. I wanna finish the paper." So that was our goal. You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. Think of it like glasses. But sometimes it's a maturational lag in, uh, brain development, and you can encourage it to go away or you can discourage it to go away.

    7. JS

      I really wanted to

  6. 13:36 – 17:42

    What to Know About Dating Someone with ADHD

    1. JS

      talk to you today about dating someone with ADHD. Our community asks us so many questions about dating, marriage, being in a relationship, and as I'm listening to you today, it's very evident that sometimes our issue with our partners is because of their ADHD. And if you're coming from a family where you didn't have that, now someone being late or now someone being disorganized or now someone overthinking kinda causes you an issue with how you like life to function. The amount of people that say to me, like, "Well, you know, he just never wants to organize a trip," or, "You know, she's always late," or whatever it may be, that's very common to hear. If you're dating someone or, in your case, married to someone with ADHD, what should you be prepared for, and what you should you be thinking about?

    2. DA

      So Tana has said publicly she has ADHD. We actually did a PBS show, Healing ADD, and she talked about it and our, our first date, like, I had no idea she had ADD. But when she described her mom, she's classic [laughs] ADHD, and Tana just thought it was an excuse to fail. "Oh, this person has ADD," and then she realized through her over-exercising, the pot of coffee every day that's like, "Oh, no, I do have this." And she's not as organized as I am and never met a wrapper she actually wanted to throw away. [laughs] And I remember being irritated about the wrapper, and then I thought I had this very interesting vision, is I saw the counter clean without her there, and I got really [laughs] sad. And so I'm like, "That's just not worth the fight."

    3. JS

      Mm.

    4. DA

      "Throw the wrapper away." And-

    5. JS

      Whoa

    6. DA

      ... um, she's so awesome in so many ways, and she has the anxious ADD type, so she's always on time, so that's not an issue and we hire people that organize her, and it just is fine. But if she wasn't as kind as she was, if she didn't love me, yeah, I wouldn't be with her.

    7. JS

      Yeah.

    8. DA

      I, I was, uh, with Dean Ornish. Do you know Dean Ornish?

    9. JS

      I know the name, but-

    10. DA

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

    11. JS

      Mm.

    12. DA

      And I read in his book, he said he talked... There was a study from the Cleveland Clinic, and they asked ten thousand men one question: "Does your wife show you her love?" Right? And you can interpret it any way, and I remember reading it at, like, ten o'clock at night 'cause I was reading myself to sleep, and I woke up with crushing chest pain, and I'm like, "This relationship is killing me."

    13. JS

      Mm.

    14. DA

      This is so important. When you're with someone, it... Th- the issue is really not do they have ADD or not, it's do they fit or not and are they willing to get help or not. Like, if you date one of my kids for more than six months, I'm scanning you. It's just like you're not, in my mind, you're not even dating until I see your brain.

    15. JS

      [laughs] That's amazing.

    16. DA

      Because if you have ADD or you played football [laughs] -

    17. JS

      Yeah

    18. DA

      ... and you have concussions, I want you to be serious about taking care of it.

    19. JS

      Yeah.

    20. DA

      Right?

    21. JS

      So, so wait, they come over to dinner, you press a button, the wall opens up.

    22. DA

      [laughs]

    23. JS

      There's, like, this surgical scanner.

    24. DA

      Oh, no, I send them to the clinic.

    25. JS

      [laughs] No, I thought you might have an undercover clinic, like a bat cave in your house-

    26. DA

      [laughs]

    27. JS

      ... and, like, you just, you know... that-

    28. DA

      Sort of like the movie Meet the Parents.

    29. JS

      Yeah, exactly.

    30. DA

      Do you remember that? [laughs]

  7. 17:42 – 25:05

    How Untreated ADD and Chronic Stress Can Lead to Illness

    1. JS

      brilliant. I, I've heard a lot of people say to me, and I love your example that you just gave about the wrapper, because I think I've, I've had friends who've gone through that, where they're like, "I believe you love me-But I just feel like you don't care because you aren't on time, because you don't do the dishes. But then you do it sometimes. You do it when it suits you, or you do it for your friends, but not me.

    2. DA

      Because they have more dopamine [laughs] .

    3. JS

      Right. So yeah, talk to me about that, because, like, you could see your, your, your partner who's, like, able to organize dinner for your friends, but then when it comes to you, they can't set a date.

    4. DA

      In a way, it almost sounds like they're pushing on a wound. And one of the things I learned, and I actually learned it from Tana, she grew up in a crazy home, so her ACE score... Do you know the ACE, Adverse Childhood Experiences? So on a scale of zero to ten, how many bad things happened to you as a kid? And if you have four or more, it's, like, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, watching your mother being abused, being raised with someone who goes to jail, has a mental illness, an addiction. So if you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the ten top ten leading causes of death. If you have six or more, you die twenty years earlier. Tana's an eight, and we adopted both of our nieces, who are nines. And when you see untreated ADD, you see it throughout both of their families, right? Untreated ADD can go with trauma. And her earliest memory, or one of them, is her mom and grandmother falling to the floor because her uncle was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. And so it was because her other uncle was involved in the drug deal. So anyways, he goes to jail, gets clean, and she goes to a seminar. She had thyroid cancer in her twenties. So chronic stress from untreated ADD and childhood trauma increases your cancer risk. So she gets cancer when she's twenty-five. She goes to Hawaii. He's teaching a seminar for Jack Canfield, and he asks her, "How much responsibility do you want for your station in life right now?" And she goes, "I have cancer. It's not my fault." He goes, "I didn't ask you about fault. I asked you about responsibility, which is just your ability to respond to the situation." And in that moment, she got clarity. It's like, "I want a hundred percent responsibility." And often, when I'm with Tana, if we're fussing, which is very rare for us, I'm like, "What can I do to make this better?" 'Cause as soon as I go, "You're not doing this, and you're not doing that," I think it's touching on a wound I have. But I want to be powerful, and being powerful is, "So what can I do to make this better?" 'Cause I know, and I ask all my patients this, I'm like... Like, they're fighting with their wife, and I'm like-- or their mom. I'm like, "So what do you do to make your mom crazy?" And they're like, "What?" 'Cause they, you know, they expect me to just listen and buy into the bullshit. [laughs] And I'm like, "So what do you do to make your mom crazy?" Or, "What do you do that makes your wife yell at you?" And I do that purposefully, because the next question is, "What do you do to make your mom smile?"

    5. JS

      Mm.

    6. DA

      And I know if I become condescending, if I become critical, if I notice what's wrong, I'm not gonna get back what I want.

    7. JS

      Mm.

    8. DA

      And I collect penguins. Did I ever tell you why I collect penguins?

    9. JS

      No.

    10. DA

      It's crazy, actually.

    11. JS

      It's good to know.

    12. DA

      I have, like, a thousand of them, and I live my life with why I collect penguins. So I adopted three of my kids. My oldest was hard for me, argumentative, oppositional, so he has the overfocused ADD, like classic. And I was in training at the time to be a child psychiatrist, and I went to my mentor and I'm like, "I am not having any fun as a dad." So he was the first child I had, and she goes, "You need to spend more time with him." And so I took him to a place called Sea Life Park-

    13. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DA

      Which is in, uh, Hawaii. Um, it's like SeaWorld or Marine World in Northern California. And we had a great day. I took him to the whale show, and that was fun, and the dolphins and the sea lions, and at the end of the day, he grabs my shirt and he goes, "I wanna see Fat Freddy." And I'm like, "Who's Fat Freddy?" He's like, "He's a penguin, Dad. Don't you know anything?" And that was our, [laughs] you know, interactions. And so at the end of the day, went to the last show, the Fat Freddy show. Um, he's a tiny Humboldt penguin, chubby, Fat Freddy, and he comes out onto the stage, climbs the ladder to a high dive, goes to the end of the board, bounces, and jumps in the water. And I'm like, "Whoa." And he gets out, bowls with his nose, counts with his flipper, jumps through a hoop of fire, and I'm just mesmerized by this little bird. And then at the end of the show, the trainer asked Freddy to go get something, and he went and got it and brought it right back. And in my mind, I went, "Damn, I asked this kid to get something for me. He wants to have a discussion for, like, twenty minutes, and then he doesn't wanna do it." I knew my son was smarter than the penguin. [laughs] So I went up to the trainer and I said, "How'd you get Freddy to do all these really cool things?" And she said, "Unlike parents..." She looked at my son and then looked at me. She went, "Unlike parents, whenever Freddy does anything like what I want him to do, I notice himI give him a hug, and I give him a fish. And even though my son didn't like raw fish, would've totally worked with my daughter, Chloe. She loved sushi from the time she was six months old. I realized that whenever he did what I wanted him to do, I didn't pay any attention to him at all 'cause I was busy. But when he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a ton of attention 'cause I didn't wanna raise bad kids. So I was inadvertently teaching him to be bad in order to get my attention.

    15. JS

      Wow.

    16. DA

      So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself, notice what you like more than what you don't. Notice what you like more than what you don't. And so if you're only noticing what you don't like, well, if you're with a partner who has ADD, that's the story of their life-

    17. JS

      Mm

    18. DA

      ... that people have noticed what they haven't liked.

    19. JS

      Mm.

    20. DA

      If you love someone, and I love my kids that have ADD, or I love my wife, notice what you... It, it feeds them.

    21. JS

      So good. Yeah.

  8. 25:05 – 28:07

    Why Winning an Argument with Your Partner Is Still Losing

    1. JS

      That's so good. What a great story, and what a, what a great lesson. I mean, that resonates so strongly, and, and it's so different to positive thinking. Because I think people think, "Well, that means I'm just letting them get away with all the bad stuff." And it's like, no, it's just you're also making really clear that I notice, I validate, I acknowledge all this amazing behavior. Because the truth is, what we're more often than not doing is we're keeping a scorecard, but it's of all their mistakes and all of our wins. So whenever we do do the dishes, we get a point. When that person doesn't do the dishes, [laughs] they lose a point. As opposed to if we are gonna keep score, we've gotta really take account of all the amazing things that person does, and be open to the fact that we also make mistakes. 'Cause I think it's really easy to think, like, I was giving that example to you that I've always been a stickler for time. But at one point, I had to ask myself, "Why am I making time the most important currency?" Because that's also my obsession. Time is not always the most important thing. Like, it is sometimes if I'm presenting at an event, if I'm gonna be on stage, if I've gotta meet a, a guest for a podcast, a client, time is of utmost importance. But when me and my wife are just going out to a friend's event that is a bit more casual, people are gonna show up between 7:00 and 8:00 PM, and I'm the guy trying to be there at 6:59, and I'm putting so much pressure on both of us, it's almost like it didn't really matter whether we turned up at 7:00 or 7:15 or 7:30. And I also had to give that up, right? So it's also, like, an acceptance that it's not like I'm perfect and that person's the one who's the wrong one all the time.

    2. DA

      And what has eternal value?

    3. JS

      Yeah.

    4. DA

      And you never wanna have to win an argument. If you have to win an argument-

    5. JS

      Yeah

    6. DA

      ... it's because you have low self-esteem. It's why do I have to beat my partner who I love, who, you know, when something good happens, I call her, or something bad happens, I call her.

    7. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. DA

      I need to nurture that, and the winning comes from a low self-esteem place, or it comes from an earlier gladiator place-

    9. JS

      Yeah

    10. DA

      ... that just has n- no business. I want Tana to win. If I have to win, then there's a deficit somewhere in me.

    11. JS

      Yeah. And I always say to people, "If you're fighting with your partner and you win, it means they lose. And because you're on the same team, that means you both just lost. And if you lost and they won, you're on the same team, you both just lost." So you either win together or you lose together because you're on the same team, so there is no win-lose scenario because you go to sleep with that person, you wake up next to that person, you have dinner and breakfast and lunch with that person. If you just won, you lost because you're sharing all the other time of the day with them.

  9. 28:07 – 29:58

    The Power of Active Listening in Relationships

    1. JS

      The o- I wanna flip it to the other side. What about someone who has ADHD and they're dating someone who doesn't? What advice would you give them to help? Because they might be being really harsh on themselves. They might feel misunderstood. What, what would you say to them?

    2. DA

      Well, I think communication's probably the most important thing. It's make sure you develop rituals of time. So because often people get so busy and they're behind that they don't make time, and I think bonding requires two things, time and a willingness to listen. And often the other person who doesn't have ADD feels like they're not being heard because the ADD person forgets things, and it's like, "No, I have to say this." And the other person feels diminished. And so having both people practice active listening, it's so magical. When they say something, don't say anything, or repeat back what you hear and then be quiet. Too often people just use too many words, and if you can practice, uh, [laughs] silence and giving... When someone says something, give it space, so if they wanna say more, they will, as opposed to jumping in too quickly. Communication is so important. And get dopamine from going, "What do you need? How can I help?" And often with ADD, because of the chaos that's in your head, you might not know.

  10. 29:58 – 32:44

    How to Navigate Life with a Parent Who Has ADD

    1. JS

      What would you say to someone who has a parent with ADHDAnd they're struggling with, and, you know, they're an adult, they have a parent who's got ADHD, they may be caring for them, helping-

    2. DA

      Well, they may have been embarrassed a lot [laughs]

    3. JS

      Right. Right

    4. DA

      ... 'cause you go to the restaurant and the person will just say the first thing that comes to their mind, which can be horrifying. My oldest patient with ADD is ninety-four, and I'm like, "Why are you in my office?" And she goes, "You helped my great-grandson. You helped my granddaughter. You helped my son. I've never been able to finish the paper in the morning. I wanna finish the paper." So that was our goal. And so I scanned her. She clearly had ADHD. And age doesn't make it better. [laughs] I think that's an important point. Age doesn't make it better. And I treated her, and she came back a month later, and she had this beautiful smile, and she said, "I read my first book."

    5. JS

      That's amazing.

    6. DA

      And c- I would just be encouraging and go, "We've learned so much about this. It's not a childhood disorder. It starts in childhood-

    7. JS

      Mm

    8. DA

      ... but it can impact the rest of your life."

    9. JS

      How should people talk to their bosses or their teachers, if parents are talking to teachers, about having ADHD? Because I imagine that's a tough conversation in the workplace, where your performance is being judged, your output's being judged, your productivity is being measured. How, how do you have that conversation in an effective way?

    10. DA

      So I think, I'm not sure I would have that conversation because it might make them look at you differently. Um-

    11. JS

      Sad that there's still that

    12. DA

      ... there is still that.

    13. JS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    14. DA

      Now, if you need accommodation, so it is federal law if you have a disability, and ADHD is considered a disability under federal law, your employer can give you accommodations, is required to give you accommodations. I think my first suggestion is see if you can get it treated without, just so you don't really have to have the conversation and have to have them look at you differently. But if you need it in order to keep that job, I'd absolutely talk about that. You'll need to get your doctor to write a note and request those accommodations. Happens all the time in colleges. All major colleges have disability resource centers.

    15. JS

      Great insight.

    16. DA

      Uh, one of my nieces is at UCLA. She gets extra time on tests. She gets notes. Uh, she gets a lot of help, which is rational.

    17. JS

      That's great insight. That's so helpful.

  11. 32:44 – 33:57

    Is ADHD Curable or Just Manageable?

    1. JS

      Uh, does ADHD ever go away, or is it only managed?

    2. DA

      Great question. In about half the cases, the kids who had ADHD, so the hyperactive form, were not. In their later teens, I often worry they've outgrown the hyperactivity but not the short attention span and impulsivity. But sometimes it's a maturational lag in, uh, brain development, and you can encourage it to go away or you can discourage it to go away. So you can encourage it to go away if there's regular exercise, if you teach kids not to believe every stupid thing they think, if you support them with omega-3 fatty acids and a healthy diet, and you don't just give them devices they want, right? If you wanna discourage it, so if you want them to, to make sure they have the ADD as they age, then feed them bad food, give them all the devices they want, let them watch endless hours of TV and play video games.

    3. JS

      Yeah. That's a great, great summary to help people set them up for what to do before medication.

  12. 33:57 – 34:20

    The Long-Term Consequences of Untreated ADHD

    1. JS

      And what are some of the long-term effects of leaving ADHD untreated?

    2. DA

      It's so sad because it's basically the big issues in our society, from school failure, drug abuse, uh, divorce, bankruptcy, incarceration, homelessness, and if we looked more at the brain, we'd go, "We can do a lot better."

    3. JS

      Yeah,

  13. 34:20 – 37:05

    Rethinking Brain and Mental Health as One

    1. JS

      and I think that's what the real hope is, that the world can start to take it seriously and take brain health seriously, right? If you had a hope for how we would shift the way we looked at ADHD in the brain, what, what would that be?

    2. DA

      So I have big ideas. When I went to the White House, my friend there said, "How big can you think?" The first thing I would do is rename the National Institute of Mental Health to the National Institute of Brain and Mental Health. Uh, get the brain involved. [laughs] Like, stop calling people mental. It shames people. It's stigmatizing. It's wrong. I declare the next ten years the decade of brain health and get really serious about what goes into children's minds. It needs to be curated to be appropriate and to be helpful.

    3. JS

      Who else's brain have you not scanned that you'd love to scan?

    4. DA

      Um, the president's. I wrote an op-ed piece in the LA Times in two thousand and eight on scanning presidential candidates. You know, if someone has the nuclear codes, don't we at least wanna know about-

    5. JS

      It's a great point

    6. DA

      ... the health of their brain? Like, the last election, I would've loved to scan both President Biden and now President Trump.

    7. JS

      What would you expect to see in both of theirs from your perception?

    8. DA

      I think with President Biden, there were clear cognitive issues, where I don't think I'd see a healthy brain. President Trump, I'm much more curious. Now, I know I'll get a lot of hate for this, but I'm very interested in resilience. For someone who was the most popular person, or one of them, in the world before he ran for president, right? The Apprentice had gone for fourteen seasons and, and he was beloved by so many people, and then he was demonized, and then he was falsely accused. He was impeached. He was attempted assassinationIndictments, convictions and it's like how do you show up every day, right? You and I off the podcast were talking about worldwide shame and how some people it just causes them to disappear. Well, he didn't disappear. And, you know, he's still fighting every day. So I'm really interested.

    9. JS

      Curious, yeah.

    10. DA

      I'm not sure I've seen a brain [laughs] quite like-

    11. JS

      What about Elon Musk or?

    12. DA

      Man, Elon Musk would be interesting. I've scanned many high-profile geniuses. Uh, I got to scan Muhammad Ali, which, uh-

    13. JS

      At what point on his journey was that?

    14. DA

      Later. And so you could clearly see the damage. I have lots of really-

    15. JS

      Mm

    16. DA

      ... fascinating scans.

    17. JS

      Yeah.

  14. 37:05 – 41:46

    Practical Ways to Become More Organized

    1. JS

      Dr. Daniel Amen, I've got a few more questions that I wanna leave people with to summarize some of our conversation today to really leave them feeling energized, positive, hopeful about their journey with ADHD, whether they have it individually or they have it through someone that they love in their life. And the first question is for those who do have ADHD, what are some great hacks for someone struggling with ADHD to be more organized, to be better? What would you suggest for them? What they, what can they do?

    2. DA

      So the first thing when you get up, try to do some form of exercise 'cause that will help turn your brain on. And-

    3. JS

      Why does that, why does exercise help turn the brain on?

    4. DA

      'Cause it increases serotonin, but it also increases dopamine, and it increases blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. For those people who live in colder climates, get a light box. A light box with 10,000 lux, so that's the intensity, has been found not only to help seasonal depression, it helps with focus, memory, energy, and it will help promote sleep. Make sleep a priority. Too often when you have ADHD, you're more awake at night. You know, our society, we have bias against night owls, so morning larks, our society's geared to appraise them.

    5. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. DA

      And often find a job that fits your circadian rhythm, but sleep is a priority. And if you snore, get checked for sleep apnea. So kids who snore, sleep apnea may be the cause of their ADHD that is treatable.

    7. JS

      And what's the most important thing that someone with ADHD needs to hear?

    8. DA

      You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. Think of it like glasses, right? People ... You remember I told you about Sandy and showing her her scans, and she starts to cry. And I'm like, "Having ADD is like people need glasses. They're not dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their eyeballs are shaped funny." We wear glasses to focus. People who have ADD are not dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their frontal lobes just don't turn on when they need to, and the medicine or supplements or neurofeedback helps turn it on so you can focus and be who you really are when your brain works right. People go, "I don't wanna take medicine 'cause I don't wanna be someone different." It's like, but don't you wanna be who you are when your brain is fully functioning? I wanna be who I am when my brain is fully online.

    9. JS

      As always, Dr. Daniel Amen, I appreciate our conversation so much. I get ... I feel like whenever I'm with you, I learn to see everything so differently and deeply and as a 360-degree view. I think we're so used to in our society to see one aspect of something or have a very limited understanding of the different issues that we see. And whenever I speak to you, I feel like, oh, wow, I have the much more broader contextual view of it. And I want everyone at home who's listening or watching, whether you're on a walk, whether you're at the gym, uh, Dr. Daniel Amen has one of his books, which is called Healing ADD, the breakthrough program that allows you to see and heal the seven types of ADD that we discussed in today's episode. So I highly recommend the book if you don't already have it. And of course, if you don't follow Dr. Daniel Amen on all forms of social media, TikTok, Instagram, the podcast, as I mentioned earlier, make sure you do subscribe. And Dr. Daniel Amen, we are so happy that you came on for a fifth time. If you haven't seen the episodes before, make sure you go back and listen and watch. You can search Dr. Daniel Amen and Jay Shetty or Dr. Daniel Amen on purpose. And any last words, Dr. Daniel Amen? Anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask you about or anything that is on your mind or heart right now?

    10. DA

      I'm just so grateful for you. You know, I love the idea that we can train our brains.

    11. JS

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DA

      That focus on what you want way more than what you don't want.

    13. JS

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. If you loved this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain.

    14. DA

      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: 41:46

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