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

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:29Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have.

• 3:00Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. How do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?

• 3:17Daniel Amen?

  Short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity that can't sit still.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Amen says...

• 3:29Speaker 03

  One pioneering psychiatrist says that feeling better starts with understanding your brain.

• 3:33Daniel Amen?

  Ninety percent 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. Seventy percent of the kids lost their ADD.

• 4:05Jay Shetty?

  No way. Someone sitting here thinking, "I'm not going to achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD," what would you say to them?

• 4:15Speaker 04

  The number one health and wellness podcast.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 4:23Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone who has frequented the podcast more than any other guest, the most requested, the most often, and someone that I'm grateful to have known for the last few years and become friends with. He's the person that I reach out to when I have a question around something I'm unsure about, when I'm testing something, when I'm experimenting something. This is the person that I write to and say, "Hey, what do you think about this?" I'm talking about none other than Dr. Daniel Amen, physician, adult and child psychiatrist, and founder of Amen Clinics, which has 11

• 5:03Jay Shetty?

  US locations and the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry with over 250,000 spec scans from 155 countries. Committed to revolutionizing brain health, Dr. Amen also founded BrainMD, the Change Your Brain Foundation, and Amen University, which has trained thousands of medical and mental health professionals. A leading expert in brain and mental health, Dr. Amen has millions of followers, produced 17 national public television shows, garnered 300-plus million video views, and hosts the Change Your Brain Everyday podcast. If you haven't subscribed, I highly recommend it. He's a 12-time New

• 5:48Jay Shetty?

  York Times bestselling author, and Dr. Amen's highly anticipated new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, will be released in 2026. Please welcome back to On Purpose, one of our dearest friends of the show, Dr. Daniel Amen. Daniel, it's great to have you here as always. I still remember all the years ago when I launched my podcast, you came on the first ever year. We used to record from my apartment in Hollywood, if you remember. And I'm just so grateful that you did such a consistent guest.

• 6:20Daniel Amen?

  I opened one of my books with an experience on the way to the podcast, seeing a homeless person. And I'm like, I wonder what his brain looks like.

• 6:32Jay Shetty?

  I have to love it.

• 6:33Daniel Amen?

  I love you. Thank you. I'm honored to be back. I always love our conversations.

• 6:39Jay Shetty?

  I want to start pretty direct. Why does it seem like everyone today has ADHD?

• 6:45Daniel 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.

• 7:27Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 8:08Daniel Amen?

  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 too late in the day, you may have trouble sleeping. Sometimes people get headaches or tummy aches. Those almost always go away. If you're prone to tics, you may have more tics. But I want them to ask the other question is what are the side effects?

• 8:37Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 9:09Jay Shetty?

  So would you say that is ADHD being over diagnosed?

• 9:13Daniel Amen?

  I think it's over diagnosed and under diagnosed.

• 9:18Jay Shetty?

  What do you mean?

• 9:18Daniel Amen?

  Over diagnosed overall because people see this as the simple answer. Under diagnosed, especially in people who are not hyperactive or females. Because we still have gender bias in this country. If you have a little boy and he's not doing well in school, you get really worried because you realize he's gonna 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.

• 10:02Daniel Amen?

  Ninety percent of mothers work outside the house. And when they have untreated ADD, they often look depressed and they get on something like Lexapro on an SSRI, which actually makes them more ADD. But now they don't care that they're more ADD because serotonin, we'll talk about it, they counterbalance each other. So serotonin is the neurotransmitter, happiness of flexibility. Dopamine, more the neurotransmitter, focus, motivation.

• 10:44Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 11:02Jay 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 that, that is so overwhelming. So how do I know the difference between whether I have ADHD or I'm just distracted because we're living in an overwhelming time?

• 11:38Daniel 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.

• 12:23Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 13:08Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 13:48Daniel Amen?

  I grew up three houses from the freeway in Southern California and lots of noise. But I never heard it because my brain went, oh, you don't need to listen to that. So it would suppress it. So someone who has ADHD. Can't suppress it. Interesting. And so the world comes at them too much. And you, you see it with the clothes they wear. They hate themes 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.

• 14:31Daniel Amen?

  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 and I'm like, why is my shirt missing the tag? She goes, oh, don't you hate tags? Like, I hate tags. I thought you really liked that I cut them all out for you. And I'm like, I've never felt a tag in my life. Please don't damage my clothing.

• 15:05Jay Shetty?

  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?

• 15:31Daniel 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, they told you my first wife had ADD, which means three of my children have it. So I know more about this than I want to. And if you think of distractibility, what does an orgasm require? Focus. You have to pay attention to the feeling long enough in order to have an orgasm. And so if that

• 16:11Daniel Amen?

  becomes really hard, well, that's a problem for both the person and their partner, because their partner will like, oh, she doesn't love me, or I'm not enough, when it has nothing to do with that. It's just they are easily distracted. People with the real ADD, they need white noise at night. And I'm like, it's the middle of winter, it's Washington DC, the fan is on. Like, why is the fan on? It's like, oh, I need the noise or I won't be able to sleep because I hear everything that's in the house. So, short attention span enough

• 16:50Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 17:07Daniel Amen?

  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 ADDs, last minute, last minute. And I used to fight. I'm like, no, we need to go. And, and then I just started lying. It's like, the flight is at noon, uh, when really it was at one o'clock. And because her organization wasn't such, she didn't really catch on to the idea.

• 17:43Jay Shetty?

  How much of that is training? Like, I feel like I grew up with a mom who is very meticulous with time. So my mom trained me to always believe that if you're not early, you're late. And so I also live in a world that you do, which is I'm always at the airport early. I'm always making sure of anything that could go wrong. Security could take a bit longer. There's so many other things. That to me, I've always felt came because I had a mom who was super organized and I've inherited that by watching her. Even now, like my mom trained me how to make sure we locked all the doors at night. And, you know, we didn't grow up in a really safe area. So there was this very hyper attention to make sure. So I'm very good at that and.

• 18:25Daniel Amen?

  But it could have been because her brain.

• 18:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Daniel Amen?

  Was busy in the front and she also gave that to you.

• 18:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Daniel Amen?

  Right? So some of it is training, but if she had ADD, she wouldn't give.

• 18:40Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 18:40Daniel Amen?

  That to you and you would often be chronically stressed because she wouldn't get you to school on time or she wouldn't be there on time to pick you up. Or it's really important you have a soccer's 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.

• 19:22Daniel Amen?

  And that just makes everybody around them stressed. And it makes them stressed because, you know, they're often late because they actually don't start getting ready until it's like, oh, my God, I'm late. And then they always show up like either right on time, flustered, or 10 minutes late, always apologizing.

• 19:41Jay Shetty?

  And that's different from people who perform well under stress. This is someone who needs stress.

• 19:47Daniel Amen?

  In order to perform.

• 19:48Jay Shetty?

  In order to perform.

• 19:49Daniel Amen?

  Right. When I first started imaging, 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. 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 because I don't have ADD.

• 20:32Daniel Amen?

  It's like, I'm the doctor. Adults totally can have ADD. And I said, can I scan you? Because I've just learned about this new technology. And I scanned her twice, once at rest, once when she did a concentration task. And when she tried to concentrate, the front part of her brain shut down rather than what it should have done was turn on. And I put the, this is why I love imaging. I put the scans on her hospital table. And I was explaining to them and she started to cry. And she said, you mean, it's not my fault. And that's the moment I got hooked on imaging because I already knew the diagnosis.

• 21:16Daniel Amen?

  She immediately evaporated shame. And then she's like, all right, let's talk about adult ADD. And she had all of the things, including the impulse control issues. But because she was so bright, she didn't bring enough. Negative attention to herself and never gotten the help. And after I treated her, she finished college, she stopped picking on her husband. Because another trait that a lot of people don't understand is they become negative seeking, conflict-seeking, and excitement-seeking. And those are all dopamine-driven behaviors.

• 21:59Daniel Amen?

  So if you have a low level of dopamine, well, if you pick a fight with someone, now all of a sudden, there's some excitement going on. If you jump out of an airplane, that has a whole bunch of dopamine associated with it. But, and I experienced this, it was that poking. It's like, we're going on vacation, why are we having a problem? And activating their frontal lobes, they're less negative. And I just published a study on negativity bias. So I'm very interested in, are you positive or are you negative? Now, unbridled positive thinking is a disaster. You'd die early.

• 22:39Daniel Amen?

  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 if we 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.

• 23:21Daniel Amen?

  They do things that it's like, hmm, wish I hadn't done that. So they actually live with a lot of regret. And your prefrontal cortex is called the executive part of the brain because it's like the boss at work. It's involved in focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, empathy, learning from the mistakes you make. And when it's sleepy... You have all those problems, which just describes ADD.

• 23:59Daniel Amen?

  And strengthening it is critical to your humanity. Did you know that sociopaths have 10% less volume in their prefrontal cortex? So they're a little less human, if you will.

• 24:20Jay Shetty?

  Even 10% has that impact.

• 24:22Daniel 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 people. And so they're entrepreneurial. And some wildly famous people have said they had ADD.

• 25:06Daniel Amen?

  Like the person who started JetBlue, he was public with that. It can look false. It can be masquerade. You have ADD because your parents gave you an iPhone when you were a year old. And I think we're wising up, that's not a good thing to do. But still, children should not have smartphones until they're 15, 16. Social media, Australia banned social media under 16. I think that's so great, right? Taking the neuroscience and making it public policy. California, you can't start school in the morning before 8 o'clock. Taking what we know with neuroscience.

• 25:48Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 26:01Jay Shetty?

  Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

• 26:42Jay Shetty?

  Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more,

• 27:26Jay Shetty?

  so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary, a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated, calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality,

• 28:11Jay Shetty?

  so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now, back to the discussion. Do we know what causes ADHD?

• 28:43Daniel 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 scanned people, because I've scanned thirty or forty thousand 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.

• 29:24Daniel Amen?

  And so my book Healing ADD, I talk about See and Heal the Seven Types. And so can I talk about the type?

• 29:33Jay Shetty?

  That I was just about to ask my next question. You're already, you're already one step ahead of me.

• 29:37Daniel Amen?

  So I thought so. Type one is the classics. What most people think of ADHD. Short attention span, distractibility, disorganization, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. They can't sit still. And one of my kids, when she was born, we thought she was going to be a boy, because in her mother's womb, she was so active. And the lore is, the more active a baby is inside their mother, the more likely they are to be a boy. She wasn't. When I held her older sister, we could watch movies, she'd sit on my lap. She was just calm. Her sister, when you tried to hold her, was like trying to hold a live salmon. She's so wiggly. And then I take her to the mall.

• 30:20Daniel Amen?

  She would have been one of those children on the little yellow leashes, the big bird leashes in the mall. But I wrote a column in the local newspaper, so when I went to the mall, people recognized me. It's like, oh, Dr. Amen, I loved your column. Why is your child on a leash? So what I used to do with Caitlin is put her in her stroller and tie her shoes together so she couldn't get out. Because she's like, where are you? Going and I remember just holding her hand. I take my little pinky and wrap it around her wrist. Because and I had spiritual problems because of this child. We would go to church and I don't know why Catholics take children

• 30:59Daniel Amen?

  into church rather than, you know, send them to children's church. But anyways, she was so active and blurting out and I'm like the only child psychiatrist in the county. And if my child is the worst one, that's bad for business. So I used to take her out and threaten her life and now I'm worried about her eternal soul. And I adore her and she's thirty seven now and Haven is just like her. Which is, you know, my six year old granddaughter is just like her. It's genetic.

• 31:37Daniel Amen?

  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. Now written forty two books. Every one of them's been handed in early. And her mom goes, it's not me. But then I was so grateful. Cause it took her like twelve years to get through college and she just, she asked her this one question. This is 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 the street lamp.

• 32:20Daniel Amen?

  No kids, no noise, nothing there I can study. And the doctor goes, you have ADD. It was very helpful for me.

• 32:30Jay Shetty?

  So that's type one.

• 32:32Daniel Amen?

  That's type one. Classic. Type two is inattentive ADD. Short attention span, distractibility, disorganized, procrastinate, but they're not impulsive. And more common in girls, they're 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 nineteen eighty. I described the next five types. The third one is overfocused ADD where the problem is not so much you can't concentrate.

• 33:14Daniel Amen?

  It's you can't shift your attention, that you get stuck. And if you can't shift your attention, you cannot pay attention. But it's a different mechanism. And I found this to be particularly true in children and grandchildren of alcoholics. And they tend to be argumentative, oppositional, worry. If things don't go their way, they get upset. And on the surface, they appear selfish. They're really not selfish. They're just not flexible. And stimulants tend to make them more worried and more upset. Type four is called limbic ADD.

• 33:59Daniel Amen?

  It's where their emotional brain is too busy. And it's sort of like ADD plus mild depression. And the glass is always half empty for them. Type five, I think is such an interesting one, is temporal lobe ADD. They have problems in one or both of their temporal lobes. Often goes with learning problems, but mood instability, irritability, temper problems. One of my first great cases was Chris. He's his third psychiatric hospitalization. This time he took a pencil and put it in the neck of one of his classmates. Stimulants made him hallucinate all the other medicines. And I'm like, I'm scanning you.

• 34:43Daniel Amen?

  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 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 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, aggressive. Actually use a supplement to calm things down in their brain, very effective. And then the last one's anxious ADD, where...

• 35:26Daniel Amen?

  They're really anxious and so they tend to be early to things but disorganized, distracted and so on. So knowing the type and that's why Ritalin has a bad reputation. For the right brain, it's miraculous. For the wrong brain, it's a nightmare.

• 35:45Jay 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?

• 35:56Daniel Amen?

  Well, and sometimes with the medicine, they don't like it because it feels like it suppresses their emotions.

• 36:02Jay Shetty?

  Interesting.

• 36:02Daniel Amen?

  And my daughter Caitlin, when I put her on Ritalin, because she was hyperactive. And then she was dramatically less hyperactive, but I found I had to titrate the dose down because I could see it putting a lid on her personality, which is not what you want to do. And so often you want to work with someone who's really knowledgeable to titrate the dose up and down effectively. If you're a baseball player, so just thinking of athletes, the medicine gives you a better batting average. If you're a linebacker in football, you might be a little bit less aggressive

• 36:46Daniel Amen?

  because you're more thoughtful, right? So if you want to play with abandon, you probably don't want to stimulate on board. But I find for some of my professional athletes, they're just much more focused and less likely to get technical fouls because they're not a hothead. And when you see the world like I see it and you're watching, you know, someone have a meltdown on the court. I'm like, I wonder what's going on in that person's brain, right? Rather than just judge them as bad. I haven't scanned Draymond Green, but I want to.

• 37:20Jay Shetty?

  I saw a study that found that children with untreated ADHD are nearly twice as likely to develop an alcohol use disorder or other substance abuse problem. Why is that?

• 37:33Daniel 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.

• 37:52Daniel Amen?

  And you want to settle it down and you don't have good forethought or good impulse control and you're more likely to drink and it's just so prevalent. Plus with society during the Super Bowl, there were thirty beer commercials and the rest of them were Jack in the Box, right? So it's like we're just being flooded with these awful messages that take people have ADD, make them more ADD and then they engage in habits that aren't helpful.

• 38:23Jay Shetty?

  Do you think there should be a ban on alcohol advertisements as much as there is obviously on smoking like?

• 38:29Daniel 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 eighty or ninety percent of their diet, to marijuana is innocuous, which

• 39:09Daniel Amen?

  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 three hundred percent. It is not innocuous. Now, might it become a good treatment? I don't know. But I feel like I've seen this party before, right? From the big benefits of being seventy is you've seen lots of things. The early eighties, benzos are innocuous. They're mommy little helper. We know benzos are highly addictive and increase the risk of dementia.

• 39:54Daniel Amen?

  The early 90s, alcohol is good for your heart, you should drink, it'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? 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.

• 40:32Daniel Amen?

  During, not this presidential campaign, the last one, Joe Biden was debating, and they asked him, should the federal government legalize marijuana? And he said, no, I don't think there's enough research. And Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, shames him on national television, and he said, man, are you high. Like, the science is settled. Well, as more places legalize it, the science is getting settled. It's bad for us, right? If you use as a teenager, it increases anxiety, depression, psychosis, and suicide in your

• 41:17Daniel Amen?

  twenties. I published a study on a thousand marijuana users. Every area of the brain is lower in blood flow. And I got so much grief for it, and two months ago, in JAMA Psychiatry, on a thousand marijuana users, the memory and learning centers are lower in blood flow and activity. This is not innocuous. It's all these lies that then increase the expression.

• 41:46Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 41:58Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 41:58Daniel Amen?

  Having ADD is these hallmark symptoms have followed you most of your life.

• 42:05Jay 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?

• 42:15Daniel Amen?

  You know, I have a free online test called adddtypetest.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 because there's this great study published in the Lancet, replicated that when you put kids on an elimination diet. So what does that mean?

• 43:00Daniel Amen?

  You eliminate gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes and sweeteners. Seventy percent of the kids lost their ADD.

• 43:08Jay Shetty?

  No way.

• 43:10Daniel 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,

• 43:53Daniel Amen?

  they're going to have it three months from now or four months from now. Let's do this and see. I have an online course called Healing ADD at Home in 30 Days. And it's basically before you give them medicine, do these things first. And it's so helpful.

• 44:14Jay Shetty?

  Why does changing our diet affect ADHD? Why does removing gluten, removing processed foods, et cetera? Why does that impact it?

• 44:24Daniel 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 glutomorphins, which work on the heroin centers or the opiate centers of your brain. And it just sort of spaces you out. For milk, it's caseomorphins. And it's why we love pizza. If you think of gluten and dairy, right? It's pizza.

• 45:11Daniel Amen?

  But it's also why you feel spacey afterwards. And too often, what do we feed kids? Like when I was growing up, it was Frosted Flakes or Pop-Tarts or a muffin or donuts. And if you get a sugar burst, well, a half an hour later, your brain is walking in mud. And yet that's what we feed children in the morning. ADD kids who have protein in the morning, their medicine works longer throughout the day. And so in the 50s, you know, we grew up with bacon and eggs and much better than the processed cereals.

• 45:55Jay 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.

• 46:10Daniel 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 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,

• 46:53Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 47:27Jay Shetty?

  Why is that?

• 47:28Daniel Amen?

  Because their brain is turning off when it should be.

• 47:33Jay Shetty?

  The frontal lobe, as you were saying.

• 47:34Daniel 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 is a psychologist who's really famous, Marty Seligman. You probably know of him because he's famous for positive psychology. He helped start that movement. But he was way famous before then because he coined this term, learned helplessness. 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. And that happens with so many people who have ADD.

• 48:19Daniel Amen?

  In fact, when I diagnose and treat an adult woman, a common scenario, she brings her hyperactive son to me. And I'm like, where did this come from? And see, 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? 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 with her and like, okay. But now you know, so your son doesn't have to go through this.

• 49:03Daniel Amen?

  And you don't want to argue with the past. You want to look forward.

• 49:08Jay Shetty?

  Have you seen people break the cycle as we're talking about it's genetically passed down? Have you saw in your parents? Have you seen that be possible? Is it possible to break the cycle completely so that you don't pass it on?

• 49:20Daniel Amen?

  You know, I, I think so, but we're starting at such a disadvantage. And, you know, as I think, because you know, my real passion in life is to create a brain health revolution. And where would that start? It has to start with kids before they have babies. Because when that mother was born, she was born with all of the eggs in her ovaries she will ever have. And so if we're going to help her children be healthier, we have to get to her when she's a child

• 50:00Daniel Amen?

  and help her make really good decisions when she's a teenager. And too often, parents go, oh, I don't have control. And they abdicate their parental role over teenagers on who they hang out with and what they eat. And, you know, we're not drinking together and we're not smoking pot together. And, you know, like all the insanity that's going on in our society today. I think we have to. Get to their ovaries early because if you're born with all of the eggs you'll ever have, whatever you do in life turns on or off certain genes,

• 50:42Daniel Amen?

  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, because his sperm really matters, to be as healthy as possible.

• 51:02Jay Shetty?

  I read in the National Institute of Mental Health, they found that 5.4% of adult men and 3.2% of adult women have ADHD. Why do you believe that ADHD is more common in men?

• 51:16Daniel Amen?

  Well, it is more common in men. Men have sleepier frontal lobes than women. So I published the world's largest imaging study on gender and looked at the difference in 46,000 patients, difference between male brains and female brains. Females have much stronger, much more active prefrontal cortex. Men have sleepier prefrontal cortex. And what's the one statistic that identifies that? Who goes to jail? Men, 14 times more than females.

• 51:55Daniel Amen?

  So they have a relative dopamine deficit compared to females. But girls still have it. And when left untreated, it just devastates their lives. And how you can diagnose it in a teenage girl is just look at their love pattern. It's they get all excited about falling in love, dopamine burst. After it wears off, right? It's like, don't get married in the next two months, because you never really know. After the dopamine wears off, the cocaine effect wears off, they start picking on their partner and they start fighting. And so new love, fighting.

• 52:39Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 53:01Jay Shetty?

  How does ADHD show up differently for men and women?

• 53:04Daniel Amen?

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

• 53:36Jay Shetty?

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

• 54:21Jay Shetty?

  It starts to impact all the 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 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.

• 54:42Daniel Amen?

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

• 55:16Jay Shetty?

  What do we do with that feeling? Because? That's the feeling for people who have ADHD and they feel they're failing at life. They feel they're underperforming. They feel like they're not going to succeed. But earlier you were saying to me, actually, some of the greatest CEOs of big companies are people with ADHD. But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff, too. Like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan.

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• 57:13Jay Shetty?

  All right. Thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. So walk me through if someone's sitting here thinking, well, I'm not going to achieve anything with my life because I've got ADHD. What would you say to them?

• 57:23Daniel Amen?

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

• 58:08Daniel Amen?

  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, called the one-page miracle, on one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, what do you want?

• 58:49Daniel Amen?

  Like with Tana, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Don't always feel it. I get rude thoughts that show up, but I don't say them. Why? Because I inhibit them because they don't fit. Most people in life don't do this exercise, which I find crazy. What do you want your... Work or school? What do you want for your money? What do you want for your physical health? Your emotional health? Your spiritual? What do you want? We put it on one paper. And then the question always becomes, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life?

• 59:31Daniel Amen?

  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 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 prefrontal, 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?

• 1:00:12Daniel Amen?

  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. Relationships require tact. They require forethought. Jerry Seinfeld once said, the brain is a sneaky organ. We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. But when you have ADD, your inside voice gets out when it can be hurtful. So that's the first step. Know what you want.

• 1:00:57Daniel Amen?

  And then is my behavior getting me what I want? And if my behavior is not getting me what I want, is my brain, could my brain be better?

• 1:01:05Jay Shetty?

  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'm 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?

• 1:01:27Daniel Amen?

  I do, and that's why we scan people twice, once at rest, once when they concentrate. And if their brain drops with activity, it's like, okay, we have to treat this. And, you know, we can try to treat it with supplements and I like them a lot. I own Brain MD and I want to support you. People who take EPA fish oil, omega three fatty acids, helps with ADD, also helps with mood. There are five studies with saffron, the spiced saffron, as effective as Ritalin in some studies.

• 1:02:02Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing.

• 1:02:04Daniel Amen?

  And it helps 25 randomized controlled trials that saffron helps with depression. Compared to antidepressants, so I love saffron.

• 1:02:15Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:02:20Daniel Amen?

  Right, and there's lore in India, if you're too happy, you must have had saffron. Omega three fatty acids, B vitamins, pygnojonal, which is from pine bark, it's 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.

• 1:02:47Jay Shetty?

  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? 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?

• 1:03:31Jay Shetty?

  Or alcohol is good for your heart or everything that you've been mentioning?

• 1:03:35Daniel Amen?

  Well, you just have to follow the money.

• 1:03:37Jay Shetty?

  How's it legal to say that?

• 1:03:38Daniel Amen?

  A lot of it is. Driven by the alcohol industry, the marijuana industry, and now, you know, all of these billionaires investing in mushrooms and psilocybin. And I'm like a huge fan of lion's mane. And we make something called smart mushrooms. But you have to be very careful with something that disrupts someone's brain and someone's mind. And for some people, it can be helpful. For other people, it's a nightmare. And I'm like, first do no harm.

• 1:04:15Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:04:44Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:05:28Jay Shetty?

  you be prepared for and what should you be thinking about?

• 1:05:32Daniel Amen?

  So Tana has said publicly, she has ADHD. We actually did a PBS show, Healing ADD. And she talked about it and our first date, like I had no idea she had ADD. But when she described her mom, she's classic ADHD and Tana just thought it was an excuse to fail. Oh, this person has ADD. And then she realized 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 rapper she actually wanted to throw away. And I remember being irritated

• 1:06:13Daniel Amen?

  about the rapper. And then I thought I had this very interesting vision is I saw the counter clean without her there. And I got really sad. And so I'm like, that's just not worth the fight. Throw the rapper away. And

• 1:06:34Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:06:35Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 1:06:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:07:04Jay Shetty?

  I know the name.

• 1:07:04Daniel Amen?

  He's an internist, but he's written a lot of work on diet and health. And he wrote this one book called Love and Survival. And it's one of my favorite books I ever read. And as I was with him, I was like a little kid, excited to talk to him. And because with my first wife, I mean, you can have all the ADD things, but if there's not love, it's not worth it. And I read in his book, he said he talked, there was a study from the Cleveland Clinic, and they asked 10,000 men, one question, does your wife show you her love? Right? And you can interpret it any way. And I remember reading it at like 10 o'clock at night because

• 1:07:47Daniel Amen?

  I was reading myself to sleep. And I woke up with crushing chest pain. And I'm like, this relationship is killing me. This is so important when you're with someone. The issue is really not do they have ADD or not? It's do they fit? Or not? And are they willing to get help? Or not? Like, if you date one of my kids for more than six months, I'm scanning you. It's just like, you're not in my mind, you're not even dating until I see your brain. That's amazing. Because if you have ADD or you played football and you have concussions, I want you to be serious

• 1:08:32Daniel Amen?

  about taking care of it.

• 1:08:34Jay Shetty?

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  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig. On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:09:18Speaker 06

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:09:24Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death. That's what.

• 1:09:28Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:09:33Speaker 06

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:09:38Speaker 07

  Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide, at all major retailers, and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription, or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN-recommended brand of emergency contraception, and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be. Use as directed.

• 1:10:08Jay Shetty?

  And back to our episode. Yeah.

• 1:10:11Daniel Amen?

  Right.

• 1:10:11Jay Shetty?

  So wait, they come over to dinner, you press a button, the wall opens up, there's like this surgical.

• 1:10:16Daniel Amen?

  Oh, no, send them to the clinic.

• 1:10:19Jay Shetty?

  I thought you might have an undercover clinic, like a bat cave in your house and like you just.

• 1:10:23Daniel Amen?

  Sort of like the movie Meet the Parents.

• 1:10:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. That's brilliant. I I've heard a lot of people say to me, and I love your example that you just gave about the rapper, because I think I've 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.

• 1:10:49Daniel Amen?

  Because they have more dopamine.

• 1:10:50Jay Shetty?

  Right. So yeah, talk to me about that, because you could see your you 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.

• 1:11:00Daniel Amen?

  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 10, 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 and addiction. So if you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the 10, top 10 leading causes of death.

• 1:11:43Daniel Amen?

  If you have six or more, you die 20 years earlier. Tana's an eight. And we adopted both of our nieces who were nines. And when you see untreated ADD, you see it throughout both of their families, right? Untreated ADD can go with trauma. And her earliest memory, or one of them, is her mom and grandmother falling to the floor.

• 1:12:13Daniel Amen?

  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 25. She goes to Hawaii. He's teaching a seminar for Jack Canfield. And he asks her, how much responsibility do you want for your station in life right now? And she goes, I have cancer. It's not my fault.

• 1:12:57Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:13:40Daniel Amen?

  And being powerful is, so what can I do to make this better? Because I know, and I ask all my patients this. I'm like, like they're fighting with their wife. And I'm like, or their mom. I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy? And they're like, what? Because they, you know, they expect me to just listen and buy into the bullshit. And I'm like, so what do you do to make your mom crazy? Oh, what do you do that makes your wife yell at you? And I do that purposefully because the next question is, what do you do to make your mom smile? And I know if I become condescending, if I become critical, if I notice what's wrong.

• 1:14:23Daniel Amen?

  I'm not going to get back what I want. And I collect penguins. Did I ever tell you why I collect penguins? No. It's crazy, actually. It's good to know. I have like a thousand of them. And I live my life with why I collect penguins. So I adopted three of my kids. My oldest was hard for me, argumentative, oppositional. So he has the over focused ADD, like classic. And I was in training at the time to be a child psychiatrist. And I went to my mentor and I'm like, I am not having any fun as a dad. So he was the first child I had. And she goes, you need to spend more time with him.

• 1:15:05Daniel Amen?

  And so I took him to a place called Sea Life Park, which is in Hawaii. It's like Sea World or Marine World, Northern California. And we had a great day. I took him to the whale show and that was fun. And the dolphins and the sea lions. And at the end of the day, grabs my shirt and he goes, I want to see Fat Freddy. And I'm like, who's Fat Freddy? He's like, Penguin Dad, don't you know anything? And that was our, you know, interactions. And so at the end of the day, went to the last show, the Fat Freddy show. He's a tiny, humble penguin, chubby Fat Freddy. And he comes out onto the stage, climbs the ladder to a high dive,

• 1:15:49Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:16:32Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:17:13Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:17:49Jay Shetty?

  So good, yeah. 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, they lose a point. As opposed to if we are going to keep score,

• 1:18:32Jay Shetty?

  we've got to really take account of all the amazing things that person does and be open to the fact that we also make mistakes. Because 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 got to meet a guest for a podcast, a client, time is of utmost importance. But when me and my wife are just going out to a friend's event that is a bit more casual, people are gonna show up between seven and eight P M. And I'm the guy trying to be there at six fifty nine.

• 1:19:17Jay Shetty?

  And I'm putting so much pressure on both of us. It's almost like it didn't really matter whether we turned up at seven or seven fifteen or seven thirty. 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.

• 1:19:33Daniel Amen?

  And what has eternal value?

• 1:19:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Daniel Amen?

  And you never wanna have to win an argument. If you have to win an argument, it's because you have low self-esteem. It's why do I have to beat my partner who I love, who, you know, when something good happens, I call her or something bad happens, I call her. I need to nurture that. And the winning comes from a low self-esteem place, or it comes from an earlier gladiator place that just has no business. I want Tana to win. If I have to win, then there's a deficit somewhere in me.

• 1:20:17Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:21:02Jay Shetty?

  To help because they might be being really harsh on themselves. They might feel misunderstood. What would you say to them?

• 1:21:09Daniel Amen?

  Well, I think communication is 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.

• 1:21:51Daniel Amen?

  And the other person feels diminished. And so having both people practice active listening. It's so magical when they say something, don't say anything. Or repeat back what you hear and then be quiet. Too often, people just use too many words. And if you can practice silence and giving when someone says something, give it space. So if they want to say more, they will, as opposed to jumping in too quickly. Communication is so important. And get dopamine from going, what do you need?

• 1:22:37Daniel Amen?

  How can I help? And often with ADD, because of the chaos that's in your head, you might not know.

• 1:22:43Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:22:55Daniel Amen?

  Embarrassed a lot, right? Because you go to the restaurant and the person will just say the first thing that comes to their mind, which can be horrifying. My oldest patient with ADD is 94. And I'm like, why are you in my office? And she goes, you helped my great grandson. You helped my granddaughter. You helped my son. I've never been able to finish the paper in the morning. I want to finish the paper. So that was our goal. And so I scanned her. She clearly had ADHD and age doesn't make it better. I think that's an important point. Age doesn't make it better.

• 1:23:39Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 1:23:48Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing.

• 1:23:49Daniel Amen?

  And I would just be encouraging and go, we've learned so much about this. It's not a childhood disorder. It starts in childhood, but it can impact the rest of your life.

• 1:24:04Jay Shetty?

  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?

• 1:24:22Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:24:28Jay Shetty?

  Sad that there's still that.

• 1:24:30Daniel Amen?

  There is still that. 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.

• 1:25:11Daniel Amen?

  Happens all the time in colleges. All major colleges have disability resource centers.

• 1:25:17Jay Shetty?

  Great.

• 1:25:18Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:25:27Jay Shetty?

  That's great. And so that's so helpful. Does ADHD ever go away or is it only managed?

• 1:25:33Daniel Amen?

  Great question. In about half the cases, the kids who had ADHD, so the hyperactive form.

• 1:25:42Daniel Amen?

  Or 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 maturation lag in brain development. And you can encourage it to go away, or you can discourage it to go away. So you can encourage it to go away if there's regular exercise. If you teach kids not to believe every stupid thing they think. If you support them with omega three fatty acids and a healthy diet and you don't just give them devices they want, right?

• 1:26:23Daniel Amen?

  If you want to discourage it, so if you want them to make sure they have the ADD as they age, then feed them bad food, give them all the devices they want, let them watch endless hours of TV and play video games.

• 1:26:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's a great, great summary to help people, set them up for what to do before medication. And what are some of the long-term effects of leaving ADHD untreated?

• 1:26:47Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:27:05Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:27:20Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:27:58Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:28:01Daniel Amen?

  Um, the presidents. I wrote an op ed piece in the LA Times in 2008 on scanning presidential candidates. You know, if someone has the nuclear codes, don't we at least want to know about the health of their brain? Like the last election, I would have loved to scan both President Biden and now President Trump.

• 1:28:23Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:28:27Daniel Amen?

  I think with President Biden, there were clear cognitive issues. Well, I don't think I'd see a healthy brain. President Trump, I'm much more curious. Now, I know I get a lot of hate for this, but I'm very interested in resilience. For someone who was the most popular person or one of them in the world before he ran for president, right? The Apprentice had gone for 14 seasons and he was beloved by so many people. And then he was demonized and then he was falsely accused. He was impeached, he was attempted assassination, indictments, convictions. And it's like, how do you show up every day, right?

• 1:29:12Daniel Amen?

  You and I off the podcast, we're talking about worldwide shame and how some people just causes them to disappear. Well, he didn't disappear and you know, he's still fighting every day. So I'm really interested. I'm not sure I've seen a brain quite like.

• 1:29:30Jay Shetty?

  What about Elon Musk?

• 1:29:32Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:29:41Jay Shetty?

  At what point on his journey was that?

• 1:29:43Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:29:51Jay Shetty?

  Dr. Daniel Amen, I've got a few more questions that I want to leave people with to summarize some of our conversation today. To really leave them feeling energized.

• 1:30:01Jay Shetty?

  Positive, hopeful about their journey with ADHD, whether they have it individually or they have it through someone that they love in their life. And the first question is, for those who do have ADHD, what are some great hacks for someone struggling with ADHD to be more organized, to be better? What would you suggest for them? What can they do?

• 1:30:21Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:30:29Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:30:31Daniel Amen?

  Because it increases serotonin, but also increases dopamine and it increases blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. For those people who live in colder climates, get a light box, a light box with 10,000 locks. 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 praise them

• 1:31:16Daniel Amen?

  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.

• 1:31:36Jay Shetty?

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

• 1:31:42Daniel Amen?

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

• 1:32:26Daniel Amen?

  Do you want to be who you are when your brain is fully functioning? I want to be who I am when my brain is fully online.

• 1:32:36Jay Shetty?

  As always, Dr. Daniel Lehman, 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 three sixty degree view, I think we're so used to in our society to see one aspect of something or have a very limited understanding of the different issues that we see. And whenever I speak to you, I feel like, oh, wow, I have the much more broader contextual view of it. And I want everyone at home who's listening or watching, whether you're on a walk, whether you're at the gym. Dr. Daniel Lehman 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.

• 1:33:21Jay Shetty?

  And of course, if you don't follow Dr. Daniel Lehman on all forms of social media, TikTok, Instagram, the podcast, as I mentioned earlier, make sure you do subscribe. And Dr. Daniel Lehman, 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 Lehman and Jay Shetty or Dr. Daniel Lehman on purpose. And any last words, Dr. Lehman, anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask you about? Or anything that is on your mind or heart right now?

• 1:33:51Daniel Amen?

  I'm just so grateful for you. You know, I love the idea that we can train our brains that focus on what you want way more than what you don't want.

• 1:34:06Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 1:34:15Daniel 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 a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged.

• 1:34:33Speaker 08

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:35:02Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company, for me, the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:35:13Speaker 06

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:35:19Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:35:23Speaker 06

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:35:26Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:35:27Speaker 06

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.