Understanding ADHD: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Relationship Insights

The first exercise I do with all of my patients, but particularly my ADD patients, it's 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 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? The number one health and wellness podcast, J Shetty. J Shetty,

the one, the only J 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? Well, it is more common in men have sleepier frontal loes 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 preffrontal

cortex. And what's the one statistic that identifies that? Who goes to jail? Men.

14 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 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. How does ADHD show up

differently for men and women? So men tend to be more hyperactive. Women tend to have more the inattentive type. Women

also tend to have the overfocused type more. mend 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. 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. 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 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. 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 how you see

God doesn't care about you. 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. 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? 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 undisiplined mind

that creates so much trouble. So you know at Aean 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 neuro feedback where you can actually measure the electrical activity in your brain and then through

exercises strengthen it. So, I like neuro feedback 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, it's 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 your work or school? What do

you want for your money? What do you want for your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual health?

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 42 on my first test and I'm like, "Okay, this is going

to be an obstacle. Get a tutor." and ended up obviously going to medical school. But it's your pre if it's low,

you get a 42 and then you give up, right? 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. Ammon, 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." Mhm. So that's the first step. Know what you want 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? 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? 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-3 fatty acids, helps with

ADD, also helps with mood. There are five studies with saffron, the spice saffron, as effective as rland in some

studies. That's amazing. And it helps 25 randomized control trials that saffron helps with depression. Compared to

anti-depressants, so I love saffron. I've been eating saffron since I was a kid cuz it's in it's in the Indian diet

as a very staple thing right and there's lore in India if you're too happy you must have had saffron omega-3 fatty

acids B vitamins picnogginal 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. 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 oneizefits-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? Well, you just have to follow the money. How's it legal? 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,

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-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 help my greatgrandson. You help my granddaughter. You help 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. 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. 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 you be prepared for and what you should you be thinking about? 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 ADHD and Tana just thought it

was an excuse to fail. Oh, this person has ADD. And then she realized her overex 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 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 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. Yeah. I I

was uh with Dean Ornish. Do you know Dean Ornish? I know the name. 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 cuz 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 10:00 at

night cuz he's 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 6 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

about taking care of it. Yeah. So, so wait, they come over to dinner, you press a button, the wall opens up,

there's like this surgical I send them to the clinic. I thought you might have an undercover clinic, like a batcave in

your house, and like you just, you know, that sort of like the movie Meet the Parents. 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 because they have more dopamine,

right? So, yeah. Talk to me about that because like 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. 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 scor you know the ace adverse childhood experiences. So on a scale of 0 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.

If you have six or more, you die 20 years earlier. Tana is 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

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 20s. 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." 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. And being powerful is so what can I do

to make this better? Cuz 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? They're like what? because they, you know, they

expect me to just listen and buy in to the 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?" M and I know if I become condescending, if I become critical, if I notice what's

wrong, 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 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, which is in uh Hawaii. um

like SeaWorld 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, "It's 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. Um, he's a tiny, humbled

penguin, chubby, 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 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 Freddy to do all these really cool things?" And she said, "Unlike parents." She looked at my son and then looked at

me. Unlike parents, whenever Freddy does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug and I give

him a fish. And even though my son didn't like raw fish, would have totally worked with my daughter Chloe. She loved

sushi from the time she was 6 months old. I realized that whenever he did what I

wanted him to do, I didn't pay any attention to him at all cuz 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. 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 like. It feeds. So good. Yeah, that's so good. What a great story and what a what a great lesson. And 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, 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 cuz 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 going to 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 going to show up between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. 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 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. And what has eternal value? Yeah. And you never want to 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. 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. The I

want to 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? 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 silence

and giving when someone says something, give it space. though 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? How can I help? And often with ADD because of the chaos that's in your head, you might not know. 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, embarrassed a lot, right? Cuz 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 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." That's amazing. 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." 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 outputs being judged, your productivity is being measured. How how do you have that conversation in an

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

Sad that there's still that 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. Happens all the time in colleges. All major colleges have disability resource

centers. Great. 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. That's great. And so that's so helpful. Uh, does ADHD ever go away or is it only man? 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 want to 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. 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? 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. 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 what would that be? 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. 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. Who else's brain have you not scanned that you'd love to scan?

Um, the president's. 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. What would you expect to see in

both of this from your perception? 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 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. You and I off the podcast

were 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 what about

Elon Musk or that Elon Musk would be interesting. I've scanned many highprofile

geniuses. Uh I got to scan Muhammad Ali which at what point on his journey was that later. And so you could clearly see

the damage. I have lots of really fascinating scans. Dr. Don, 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,

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 what can they

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

does that why does exercise help turn the brain on 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 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 praise them and often find a job that fits your circadian rhythm, but sleep is a priority. And if you snore,

get checked for sleep apnnea. So kids who snore, sleep apnoa may be the cause of their ADHD that is treatable. And

what's the most important thing that someone with ADHD needs to hear? 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 have ADD are not dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their

frontal loes just don't turn on when they need to. And the medicine or supplements or neuro feedback 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 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." As always, Dr. Don Layman, I

appreciate our conversation so much. which I get. I feel like whenever I'm with you, I learn to see everything so

differently and deeply and as a 360°ree 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. Damon 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.

Denny Layman on all forms of social media, Tik Tok, Instagram, the podcast as I mentioned earlier, make sure you do

subscribe. And Dr. Denny Layman, 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 Aman and J Shetty or Dr. Daniel on

purpose. And any last words, Dr. Nayan? Anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask you about or anything that is

on your mind or heart right now? 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. Yeah, I love that. Thank you. If you love this

episode, you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Aemon on how to change your life by changing your brain. 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.