Daniel Amen Quotes

To feel successful, you must be able to be honest about the things that are really important to you.

Your brain is the organ of your personality, character, and intelligence and is heavily involved in making you who you are.

Practice saying no to the things that are not good for you, and over time, you will find it easier to do.

Stop worrying about what others think of you. Base your thoughts, your decisions, and your goals on what you want and what is important in your life.

And, dear God? Thank you for creating Daniel in all his sweet-ass hotness. That’s probably sacrilege, but I mean it most sincerely. Amen.

18–40–60 rule. It says that when you are eighteen, you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are forty, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you; and when you’re sixty, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all.

My favourite bit of advice comes from Dr. Daniel Amen’s 18, 40, 60 Rule: “At 18 you worry about what everyone thinks of you. At 40 you don’t care. At 60 you realise no one was thinking about you anyway!

Your brain is involved in everything you do. Your brain controls everything you do, feel, and think. When you look in the mirror, you can thank your brain for what you see. Ultimately, it is your brain that determines whether your belly bulges over your belt buckle or your waistline is trim and toned. Your brain plays the central role in whether your skin looks fresh and dewy or is etched with wrinkles. Whether you wake up feeling energetic or groggy depends on your brain. When you head to the kitchen to make breakfast, it is your brain that determines whether you go for the leftover pizza or the low-fat yogurt and fruit. Your brain controls whether you hit the gym or sit at the computer to check your Facebook page. If you feel the need to light up a cigarette or drink a couple cups of java, that's also your brain's doing.ACTION STEP Remember that your brain is involved in everything you do, every decision you make, every bite of food you take, every cigarette you smoke, every worrisome thought you have, every workout you skip, every alcoholic beverage you drink, and more.

When the deep limbic system is less active, there is generally a positive, more hopeful state of mind. When it is heated up, or overactive, negativity can take over.

Dried oregano has thirty times the brain-healing antioxidant power of raw blueberries, forty-six times more than apples, and fifty-six times as much as strawberries, making it one of the most powerful brain cell protectors on the planet.

The first thing on Dr. Amen’s master to-do list, the first thing he sees each day, is his gratitude list. Rather than just writing down a few things, he keeps a running tab on what he is grateful for, looks at it every day, and adds to it as joyful moments occur.

Caffeine dehydrates the brain and body.

There is rising concern about pesticides, used on plants for food, causing endocrine disruption, meaning that the residual pesticides appear to be changing hormone levels in our populations.

Studies show that journaling is a powerful tool to help get worries under control and out of your head.

Dear Lord," she prayed, "please help me to handle all the work You've set before me. I can only do this with You at my side. Amen.

Caffeine restricts blood flow to the brain.

It is your brain that decides to get you out of bed in the morning to exercise, to give you a stronger, leaner body, or to cause you to hit the snooze button and procrastinate your workout. It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you have had enough, or that gives you permission to have the second bowl of Rocky Road ice cream, making you look and feel like a blob. It is your brain that manages the stress in your life and relaxes you so that you look vibrant, or, when left unchecked, sends stress signals to the rest of your body and wrinkles your skin. And it is your brain that turns away cigarettes, too much caffeine, and alcohol, helping you look and feel healthy, or that gives you permission to smoke, to have that third cup of coffee, or to drink that third glass of wine, thus making every system in your body look and feel older.Your brain is the command and control center of your body. If you want a better body, the first place to ALWAYS start is by having a better brain.

Most people throughout the world, not just in Newport Beach, care more about their faces, their boobs, their bellies, their butts, and their abs than they do their brains. But it is your brain that is the key to having the face, the breasts, the belly, the butt, the abs, and the overall health you have always wanted; and it is brain dysfunction, in large part, that ruins our bodies and causes premature aging.

Before you let your doctor give you testosterone shots or pills, try to boost it naturally by dramatically decreasing or even eliminating sugar, wheat, and processed foods from your diet. A sugar burst has been found to lower testosterone levels by up to 25 percent. If you and your sweetheart share the cheesecake at the restaurant, no one is likely to get “dessert” when you get home! Another way to naturally boost your testosterone level is to start a weight-training program. Building muscle helps your body increase its testosterone levels. The supplements DHEA and zinc can also help. Zinc is necessary to maintain

I have an idea that the phrase “the weaker sex” was coined by some woman to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm. —OGDEN NASH

In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. ERIC HOFFER

Your thoughts really matter. They can either help or hurt your deep limbic system. Left unchecked, ANTs will cause an infection in your whole bodily system. Whenever you notice ANTs, you need to crush them or they’ll affect your relationships, your work, and your entire life. First you need to notice them. If you can catch them at the moment they occur and correct them, you take away the power they have over you. When a negative thought goes unchallenged, your mind believes it and your body reacts to it. ANTs have an illogical logic. By bringing them into the open and examining them on a conscious level, you can see for yourself how little sense it really makes to think these kinds of things to yourself. You take back control over your own life instead of leaving your fate to hyperactive limbic-conditioned negative thought patterns. Sometimes people have trouble talking back to these grossly unpleasant thoughts because they

When a woman understands the uniqueness of the female brain—how to care for it, how to make the most of its strengths, how to overcome its challenges, how to fall in love with it, and ultimately, how to unleash its full power—there is no stopping her. In her personal development, at work, and in her relationships, she can bring the best of herself to her family, her community, and her planet. By contrast, a woman who is not caring optimally for her brain, who is not giving it the full range of nutrients, exercise, sleep, and emotional support that it needs, is squandering her most valuable resource. If you are not taking good care of your brain, you are at a significantly higher risk of brain fog, memory problems, low energy, distractibility, poor decisions, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Self-esteem is the difference between where you believe you are and where you think you should be compared to others. If they match, you tend to feel good about yourself. If they don’t match, you feel inferior.

Physical exercise is the fountain of youth; it’s critical to keeping your brain vibrant and young. If you want to attack Alzheimer’s disease, depression, obesity, and aging all at once, move every day. In fact exercise is one of the most powerful antiaging tools, and it directly fights depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

When the Parent Dragons are triggered, you feel like you’ve done something wrong, you are not good enough or supported, and you are motivated to work harder.

Operating out of Columbia University’s Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Oz is like a modern-day shaman as he mixes traditional medicine with a wide variety of occult/New Age practices.

energy and concentration. For most people with ADD, the right diet is a higher-protein, higher-healthy-fat, lower-simple-carbohydrate diet.” I was able

Decades of research shows this combination of firmness and kindness to be one of the primary factors differentiating successful from unsuccessful parents.[1]

Vitamin D: This is an essential nutrient for your brain and your skin. Low levels are associated with depression and memory problems, and problems with your skin like psoriasis. Get your vitamin D level optimized.

Complete Blood Count (blood test)—This test checks the health of your blood, including red and white blood cells. People with low blood count can feel anxious and tired, and they can have significant memory problems.

Reframing the discussion from mental health to brain health changes everything. People begin to see their problems as medical, not moral. It decreases shame and guilt and increases forgiveness and compassion from their families

For you to consistently make the right decisions regarding your brain, you must have a burning desire to get it healthy. Why do you care about your brain? Write it down and look at it every day. Write down at least five important reasons to get healthy, such as these: Living longer Looking younger Feeling happier Feeling calmer and more relaxed Making better decisions Having better energy Increasing mental clarity Being a better role model for my children

It is interesting to note that the people who had a good relationship with the person who died often heal their grief much more easily than those whose relationship with the deceased was filled with turmoil, bitterness, or disappointment. The reason is that a positive relationship is associated with good memories, and remembering and reprocessing these memories helps in the healing process. When people who had a bad relationship think back on it, they have to relive the pain. In their mind, they are still trying to fix what was wrong, to heal the wound, but they can’t. In addition, the guilt they carry with them impairs the healing process. Donna is a case in point. Donna and her mother had had a stormy relationship, fighting constantly over things that seemed insignificant in and of themselves. Yet in spite of their problems, the year after her mother’s death was the hardest of Donna’s life. Her husband could not understand the force of her grief; all he had ever heard her do was complain that her mother was selfish and uninterested in her. What he failed to understand was that Donna had to grieve not only over her mother’s death, but also over the fact that now she would never have the mother-daughter bond she had always wanted. Death had ended all her hopes.

Distractibility. People with ADD tend to notice more in their environment than others, which makes them easily distracted by outside stimuli, such as light, sounds, smells, certain tastes, or even the clothes they wear. Their keen sensitivity causes them to get easily off task.

Whenever you get a worry (a negative thought that won’t go away), write it down. The act of writing helps to crystallize it and get it out of your head. The worry is now on the paper, a tablet, computer, or phone. Once the worry is written, evaluate it for its accuracy. Is it true or realistic? If not, smile and let it stay on the paper to get it out of your head. If the worry has merit, write down three or four things you can do about the worry, and equally important, write down what you cannot do about the worry. For example, Jeanne had a daughter, Nina, with

thoughts (ANTs) and talk back to them, you begin to take away their power and gain control over your moods. Kill the ANTs by feeding your emotional anteater. The “kill the ANTs/feed your anteater” exercise is for whenever you feel anxious, nervous, depressed, or frazzled. Here are some examples of ways to kill these ANTs:

Rule #2. Drink plenty of water and don’t drink your calories. Your brain is 80 percent water. Anything that dehydrates it, such as too much caffeine or alcohol, decreases your thinking and impairs your judgment. Make sure you get plenty of water every day. To know you are drinking enough water for your brain, a good general rule is to consume half your weight

It was the conclusion that the secret to living a long life had nothing to do with happiness, a lack of stress, or avoiding hard work. They found that the secret was living conscientiously and using forethought, planning, and perseverance in all aspects of one’s life. Conscientiousness was the number-one predictor of longevity. Friedman offers a number of reasons

Having greater self-esteem Looking better in jeans or a bathing suit Being able to participate in sports and other activities I used to enjoy Having a better relationship with my spouse Reversing diabetes, heart disease, or other health risks Decreasing my risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases of aging Having the confidence to apply for the job I really want

Heavenly Father, I yield to you. What you say I will do. Where you say to go, I will go. What do you want me to do today? (Pause to listen) What do you want me to say today? (Pause to listen). I am your servant. Lead me and I will follow. (Pause to listen) I submit to your agenda and not mine. What is Your Will for my life today? (Pause to listen) Yes, I will do it. In Jesus’ name, Amen. ● Four

The people close to you influence your outlook, your values, how you spend your time, and how you treat other people. In other words, who you hang out with matters. If you are consistently in the company of someone who gossips, for example, it’s likely you’ll gossip. If you live with someone who is depressed, in my experience you are likely to become depressed. Spending time with positive, uplifting people will make you feel positive and hopeful. If you want to improve your attitude and conduct, spend time with someone whose conduct and values you admire. Emulate his or her behavior, and you will likely find it rubs off! You’ll notice yourself avoiding actions and statements that might cause disapproval in the person you admire. By the same token, you find yourself naturally guided toward better, more life-affirming, behavior.

This includes drugs, alcohol, environmental toxins, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, depression, negative thinking patterns, excessive stress, and a lack of exercise or new learning. 3. Consistently do good behaviors that help your brain. Adopt a great diet, learn new things, exercise, develop accurate thinking habits, work on stress management, and take some simple supplements to nourish your brain.

The other major hormonal player in your cycle is progesterone. It helps to prepare the uterus for implantation with a healthy fertilized egg and supports pregnancy. If no implantation occurs, progesterone levels drop, and another cycle begins. Progesterone receptors are highly concentrated in the brain. Progesterone can support GABA, the brain’s relaxation neurotransmitter; acts to protect your nerve cells; and supports the myelin sheath that covers neurons. I like to think of progesterone as the “feel-good hormone.” It makes you feel calm and peaceful and encourages sleep. It’s like nature’s Valium, but better, because instead of making your brain fuzzy, it sharpens your thinking. It has also been shown to help with brain injuries by reducing inflammation and counteracting damage. It is so much more than a sex hormone. Progesterone increases during pregnancy, which is why many pregnant women often feel great. Some women with hormonal issues, in fact, feel so much better during pregnancy that they will

Like a muscle, the more you use your brain, the stronger it becomes and the more it can do. The opposite is also true: The less you work it, the weaker it becomes. Repeatedly engaging in “no brain” activities, such as TV, decreases a person’s ability to focus. In addition, the pacing of TV has changed over the past thirty years. Thirty years ago a thirty-second commercial had ten three-second scenes. The same commercial in 2000 has thirty one-second scenes. We are being programmed to need more stimulation in order to pay attention.

Before I got serious about being healthy, I gave in to my urge for bread, especially freshly made bread dripping in butter. Yet when I fell in love with my brain, I realized I love being healthy, having energy and cognitive clarity, and being able to get into the same size jeans I wore in high school much more than the momentary pleasure of unhealthy food. The new benefits were so much better than the old ones. I now see free bread as a “weapon of mass destruction,” and I feel badly when I give in to a behavior that does not serve my health.

The Number of Hours You Sleep Each Night—One of the fastest ways to hurt your brain is to get fewer than seven or eight hours of sleep at night. People who typically get six hours or fewer of sleep have lower overall blood flow to the brain, which hurts its function. Researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the University of Pennsylvania found that chronically getting fewer than eight hours of sleep was associated with cognitive decline. Strive to get at least seven or eight hours of sleep a night. There are hypnosis audios on the Amen Solution @ Home.

Social: Alizé grew up in an environment that was contributing to lower blood flow in the brain. When she came to live with me and my wife, however, we surrounded her with people who live brain-healthy lives. It has inspired her to start adopting healthier habits that are boosting blood flow to her brain. Spiritual: For many people, like my grandfather, taking care of others takes precedence over taking care of themselves. Making your own health a priority may feel selfish, but making sure you are happy, healthy, and energetic is the key to being there for your family and friends.

So people feel tired, wired, and stressed at the same time. In one group of patients with rapid cycling bipolar disorder, more than 50 percent had hypothyroidism. Experts conservatively estimate that one-third of all depressions are directly related to thyroid imbalance. More than 80 percent of people with low-grade hypothyroidism have impaired memory function. Low thyroid is associated with a host of symptoms and problems, such as: Feeling cold when others are hot Weight gain Constipation Fatigue High cholesterol High blood pressure Dry, thinning, or losing hair, especially the eyebrows, where the outer third are often missing

A study in the Journal of Neuroscience tested pain sensitivity in women at different times during their menstrual cycle—first during their period when estradiol is at its lowest and then when their estradiol levels were at their highest. The women in the study were subjected to a controlled amount of pain and asked to rate the level of their discomfort. At low levels of estradiol, the women reported feeling much more pain than when the hormone was at its highest. The implication is that when your estrogen levels are low, such as during menopause or during the premenstrual or menstrual phase of your cycle, you are likely to feel pain more acutely, which is also likely true for emotional pain. Just one more reason a smart man is especially sensitive at this time!

Reproductive hormones aren’t the only hormones that affect how you look and feel and think. Among the most influential are the hormones produced by your thyroid gland. Too little thyroid, and you feel like a slug. Hypothyroidism makes you feel like you just want to lie on the couch all day with a bag of chips. Everything works slower, including your heart, your bowels, and your brain. When we perform SPECT scans of people with hypothyroidism, we see decreased brain activity. Many other studies confirm that overall low brain function in hypothyroidism leads to depression, cognitive impairment, anxiety, and feelings of being in a mental fog. The thyroid gland drives the production of many neurotransmitters that run the brain, such as serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. A

feel that such obvious age-old “truisms” simply must be real. They think that if they don’t continue to believe these thoughts, they are lying to themselves. Once again, remember that to know what is true and what is not, you have to be conscious of the thoughts and have an intelligent perspective on them. Most negative thinking is automatic and goes unnoticed. You’re not really choosing how to respond to your situation, it’s being chosen for you by bad brain habits. To find out what is really true and what is not, you need to question it. Don’t believe everything you hear—even in your own mind! I often ask my patients about their ANT population. Is it high? Low? Dwindling? Or increasing? Keep control over the ANTs in order to maintain a healthy deep limbic environment. Whenever you notice an ANT entering your mind, train yourself to recognize it and write it down. When you write down automatic negative

Whenever possible, avoid animal protein that has been raised with hormones or antibiotics. Europe won’t accept hormone-laden U.S. beef because of the health risks. Look for grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free organic beef and chicken, which is richer in omega-3 fatty acids and will therefore act to reduce inflammation and help your hormone receptors to function properly. Also, eat organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, and grains. Pesticides are known to cause hormonal imbalances and some pesticides have been shown to act as “endocrine (hormone) disrupters,” interfering with the body’s natural hormone systems and causing an array of health problems. While the Environmental Protection Agency began looking at this issue in 1999, little change has yet occurred in the marketplace, and women are well served by educating themselves on this important issue. (I’ll discuss this more later in this chapter.)

In human studies, black cohosh has been found to decrease hot flashes associated with menopause. Unlike conventional estrogen effects on individuals predisposed to breast cancer, black cohosh has been shown in laboratory studies to inhibit cancer cells. Most studies used doses of 20–80 mg twice daily, providing 4–8 mg triterpene glycosides for up to six months. Melatonin—This hormone is produced in the pineal gland that, among other functions, helps sleep. Melatonin levels decline with age and may lead to the sleep disturbances common during menopause. Melatonin has been shown in laboratory studies to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. Melatonin acts as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant in the brain and other tissues like the intestine. Studies show that low melatonin levels increase breast cancer risk in women. So if you are having trouble sleeping consider 3–6 mg of melatonin before bed. It may boost your immune system and help you sleep.

healthy deep limbic pathways. Then a bond or connectedness between the parents and the baby can begin to grow. Without love and affection, the baby does not develop appropriate deep limbic connectedness and thus never learns to trust or connect. He feels lonely and insecure, and becomes irritable and unresponsive. Touch is critical to life itself. In a barbaric thirteenth-century experiment, German Emperor Frederick II wanted to know what language and words children would speak if they were raised without hearing any words at all. He took a number of infants from their homes and put them with people who fed them but had strict instructions not to touch, cuddle, or talk to them. The babies never spoke a word. They all died before they could speak. Even though the language experiment was a failure, it resulted in an important discovery: Touch is essential to life. Salimbene, a historian of the time, wrote of the experiment in 1248, “They could not live without

All of us have Dragons from the Past influencing our present feelings and actions.”[1] Unless you recognize and tame them, and consciously calm and protect your amygdala from overfiring, these dragons will haunt your unconscious mind and drive emotional pain for the rest of your life. What blows from an ember, or a small action of another, can turn into a destructive fire of anxiety and rage. After learning from Dr. May, I started using this concept with my patients, including Jimmy. Over time I identified 13 Dragons from the Past, including their origins, triggers that make them overpowering, and how they cause us to react. All of us have more than one Dragon from the Past driving our behavior, and they are always interacting with the Dragons from the Past of others, causing both internal and external battles—a modern-day Game of Thrones. All of us have primary and secondary dragons driving our behavior. Primary ones are present most of the time, while secondary ones come out during times of stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. You’ll learn which ones apply to you. (You can also take the Hidden Dragons quiz at KnowYourDragons.com.)

I keep fighting voices in my head that say I’m not enough. LAUREN DAIGLE, “YOU SAY

She was so scared that she actually went out and bought a siren to get her up in the morning. Even though that helped her, she had made all of her neighbors mad at her, and now she was threatened with eviction from her condominium.

happiness is about 40 percent genetic (you inherit it from your ancestors), 10 percent your situation in life or what happens to you, and 50 percent habits and mindset.

Mastering your mind and gaining separation or psychological distance from the noise in your head is essential to protecting happiness.

Having clearly defined values, purpose, and goals are essential to a strong foundation for happiness.

Lie #1: Having more and more of something (love, sex, fame, drugs, etc.) will make you happy.

people” die early from accidents and preventable illnesses.[3] You need some anxiety to be happy. Appropriate anxiety helps us make better decisions.

Lie #2: A “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” mindset, promoted by the popular 1988 Grammy Song of the Year of the same name by Bobby McFerrin, will make you happy.

Lie #3: Advertisers and fast-food restaurants know what will make you happy.

Lie #4: Someplace else will make you happy.

Tiny habits are the smallest things you can do that will make the biggest difference in your life.

Secret 1: Know your brain type.

Ditch quick-fix thinking for lifestyle longevity.

You Cannot Change What You Do Not Measure

Scientific research has made it clear that our lifestyle choices affect brain health.

Your brain controls everything you do and everything you are.

You are not stuck with the brain you have. With the right guidance you can make it better, and I can prove it.

Physical health takes consistent effort and daily practice over a long time, including eating right, smart supplementation, exercising, managing stress, and making many, many more good decisions than bad ones.

If you are struggling with your brain or mind, welcome to normal.

the better overall brain function someone has, the more likely they are to exercise a high degree of free will. On the other hand, people whose brains are unhealthy often struggle with feeling ineffective in life and making good decisions for themselves. Consequently, they experience a diminished sense of free will.

I wanted a healthier brain like hers, so I spent decades working to improve it.

Warren Buffett has two rules of investing: Rule #1 Never lose money. Rule #2 Never forget Rule #1. In the same way, the most important rules of brain health are as follows: Rule #1 Never lose brain cells. Rule #2 Never forget rule #1. Losing brain cells is much harder to recover from than any financial loss.

Pick one of the strategies listed above to add to your daily routine.

Instead of seeing himself as a failure, he recognized his own potential and found great fulfillment in serving his country.

Tech companies create addictive gadgets that hook your attention and distract you from your loved ones and your purpose.

We can fix these problems, but it requires a new perspective.

18–40–60, which stands for a rule I teach my patients, called the 18–40–60 rule. It says that when you are eighteen, you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are forty, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you; and when you’re sixty, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves, not you.

etc. In the APA program abstract Dr. Jaeger wrote, “Regardless of the initial diagnosis, patients who underwent brain SPECT prior to, or during, psychiatric hospitalization had markedly shorter stays than controls. As demonstrated by this clinical database (two thousand patients), brain SPECT may lead to more effective, shorter, safer, and less expensive diagnostic and treatment modes in children and adolescents with suspected neuropsychiatric illness.

etc. In the APA program abstract Dr. Jaeger wrote, “Regardless of the initial diagnosis, patients who underwent brain SPECT prior to, or during, psychiatric hospitalization had markedly shorter stays than controls. As demonstrated by this clinical database (two thousand patients), brain SPECT may lead to more effective, shorter, safer, and less expensive diagnostic and treatment modes in children and adolescents with suspected neuropsychiatric illness.” His experience completely dovetailed with mine. I wondered, “How can we not look at the brain?” Cardiologists look at the heart, orthopedic doctors have X-rays to examine bones, gastroenterologists look at the gut, pulmonologists look at the lungs, every other medical specialist looks at the particular organ they treat. And, we deal with the most complicated organ in the body. How can we treat it without having any information on how it functions? Psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who never look at the organ we treat!

There were brain-imaging studies that suggested there was overactivity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in patients who had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). There was a SPECT study in 1991 reporting that Prozac decreased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in OCD patients. I saw hyperactivity in the anterior cingulate gyrus in many patients who did not have OCD. But I noticed a common thread with OCD. Patients had trouble shifting attention. Researcher Alan Mirsky wrote a book chapter highlighting the anterior cingulate area of the brain as being involved with shifting attention. In Robbin, Kaitlyn, and many of my patients who had too much activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus I saw this problem of shifting attention: there was a certain cognitive inflexibility that was evident in many of their symptoms. Could it be possible that oppositional children had a similar underlying brain mechanism found in OCD? I was intrigued. Over time the finding proved to be true. When there is increased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus a certain cognitive inflexibility is present. This can present as many different symptoms, but the underlying mechanism, trouble shifting attention, remains. The symptom list at the beginning of the chapter is a compilation of what we have seen in these patients. The anterior cingulate area of the brain is heavily innervated with serotonin neurons. We have also found that serotonergic medications seem to be the most helpful in this disorder. The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus

Write down five things you are grateful for every day. Our research suggests that focusing on gratitude helps to calm the deep limbic or emotional areas of the brain and enhances the judgment centers. Exercise. It not only boosts PFC activity,

Aim for 11–14 hours for toddlers, 10–13 hours for preschoolers, 9–11 hours for elementary and junior high schoolers, 8–10 hours for teenagers, and 7–8 hours for adults. Turn off tech devices 1–2 hours before bedtime.

Sensitivity to Noise At the same time the ADD person may also be sensitive to noise. They often need to escape from others to feel calm or peaceful inside.

In dealing with kids, employees, and spouses with ADD—NO YELLING! Many people with ADD have low activity in the front part of their brains, due to lower levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. As a way to feel more alert they often find themselves seeking conflict or excitement. They can be masterful at making other people mad or angry at them. Do not lose your temper with them, because it often makes things worse. If they get you to explode, their unconscious, low- energy frontal cortex turns on and unconsciously they come to crave it. Never let your anger be their medication. They can get addicted to it.

There Are Five Hallmark Symptoms of ADD Short attention span, for regular, routine, everyday tasks. People with ADD have a difficult time with boring tasks and need stimulation or excitement in order to stay engaged. Many people with ADD can pay attention just fine for things that are new, novel, interesting, highly stimulating, or frightening. Distractibility. People with ADD tend to notice more in their environment than others, which makes them easily distracted by outside stimuli, such as light, sounds, smells, certain tastes, or even the clothes they wear. Their keen sensitivity causes them to get easily off task. Disorganization. Most people with ADD tend to struggle with organization of time and space. They tend to be late and have trouble completing tasks on time. Many things get done at the last moment or even later. They also tend to struggle keeping their spaces tidy, especially their rooms, book bags, filing cabinets, drawers, closets, and paperwork. Procrastination. Tasks and duties get put off until the last moment. Things tend not to get done until there are deadlines or someone else is mad at them for not doing it. Poor internal supervision. Many people with ADD have issues with judgment and impulse control, and struggle not to say or do things without fully thinking them through. They also have a harder time learning from their mistakes.

Untreated ADD increases the risk of depression, drug abuse, obesity, smoking, Type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.

In the largest effectiveness study to date, with more than four thousand patients with major depressive disorder in primary care and community settings, only 31 percent were in remission after 14 weeks of optimal treatment. In most double-blind trials of antidepressants, the placebo response rate hovers around 30 percent . . . The unfortunate reality is that current medications help too few people to get better and very few people to get well.

Gene-Jack Wang and colleagues at the Brookhaven National Laboratory found that treatment with Ritalin over a year increased the dopamine transporters (proteins that help clear dopamine, the neurotransmitter that helps us focus) out of the brain’s synapses, meaning that there is less dopamine to do its work. Taking the stimulant seems to increase the need for it.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7 (HCSB) The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. Psalms 9:9-10 (NLT) The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him. Nahum 1:7 (NLT) The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 2 Timothy 4:18 (NIV)

(1) Love your brain (you have to really care about your brain). (2) Avoid the things that hurt your brain. (3) Do the things that help your brain.

In general, poor PFC function leads people to make repetitive mistakes. Their actions are not based on experience, or forethought, but rather on the moment. The moment is what matters. This phrase comes up over and over with my ADD patients. For many people with ADD, forethought is a struggle. It is natural for them to act out what is important to them at the immediate moment, not two moments from now or five moments from now, but now! A person with ADD may be ready for work a few minutes early, but rather than leave the house and be on time or a few minutes early, she may do another couple of things that make her late. Likewise, a person with ADD may be sexually attracted to someone he just met, and even though he is married and his personal goal is to stay married, he may have a sexual encounter that puts his marriage at risk. The moment was what mattered. In the same vein, many people with ADD take what I call a crisis management approach to their lives. Rather than having clearly defined goals and acting in a manner consistent to reach them, they ricochet from crisis to crisis. In school, people with ADD have difficulty with long-term planning. Instead of keeping up as the semester goes along, they focus on the crisis in front of them at the moment—the next test or term paper. At work they are under continual stress. Deadlines loom and tasks go uncompleted. It seems as though there is a need for constant stress in order to get consistent work done. The constant stress, however, takes a physical toll on everyone involved (the person, his or her family, coworkers, employers, friends, etc.).

Ioften tell people I know more about ADD than I want to. I have not only studied ADD from the perspective of a clinician and researcher, I have lived with it at home. My first wife, Robbin, and my current wife, Tana, both have ADD. What can I say, I love exciting women.

Well God knew I was like that, so God gave me Kaitlyn. Hyperactive from before birth, we thought Kaitlyn was going to be a boy, because the lore is that the more active babies are inside their mother’s womb the more likely they are to be boys. Well she wasn’t. Trying to hold Kaitlyn when she was a year old was like trying to hold a live salmon. I had a spiritual crisis because of this child. Many Catholic churches have the tradition of young children sitting with their parents at mass. It was no fun with Kaitlyn, because she was the worst-behaved child at church, which was not only embarrassing, it was bad for business. I treated half the children in the congregation and if my child was the worst one, people would lose confidence in me. So after a while I stopped going to church. Have you ever seen children on little yellow leashes in the mall? After having Kaitlyn I believed in little yellow leashes because she was always trying to get away. But my problem was that I wrote a column in the Daily Republic, a local newspaper where I lived, and whenever I went to the mall people recognized me and said things like, “Hey, you’re Dr. Amen! I loved your column.” I just could not deal with, “Hey, you’re Dr. Amen! Why is your child on a leash?” So what I used to do with Kaitlyn was put her in her stroller and tie her shoelaces together so she couldn’t get out. Now, I am not proud of that but when you have a hyperactive child you do things just to survive.

Sensitivity to taste is another common problem. Many people with ADD will eat only foods with a certain taste or texture. Parents frequently complain that they have trouble finding foods their children will eat. One of my patients went through a two-year period where he would only eat burritos with peanut butter and bananas.