Wondering what the new trends are in dealing with ADHD? Listen to this episode and get to know what Neurofeedback is and why it’s gaining popularity.
Donny Osmond: Hi, I'm Donny Osmond and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amen. Now in this podcast you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy and focus well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.
Guest: I have a son who has ADHD and I read your book on ADHD. So we've done behavioral intervention and medication and dietary intervention and so on. And lately I've heard a lot about neurofeedback and I was wondering if your clinics are using neurofeedback and if so, have you had success in scanning brains while they're doing it?
Daniel Amen: I started to look at people's brains because I was a neurofeedback therapist, so I actually started there and found that it was often very helpful for patients. There are a number of studies saying that neurofeedback can be very effective for kids or adults that have ADD and we are going to offer it at one of our centers in Newport Beach starting in just six weeks I think or so. And we're very excited about it. But it's something that's worth pursuing to see if you can get the benefit from it. But you know, I worry some people oversell it and it's like, "Oh, you can do this instead." And you know, you just, you have to see how your child responds. Sometimes people get great responses and sometimes they still need to take the medicine but maybe half as before.
Guest: Now do you think that the concern of not sleeping or the side effects of the medication that, I mean, they lose sleep on these stimulants and the neurofeedback seems to be something that would work in conjunction with the medication if not instead of. Would you do it with?
Daniel Amen: You know it's so individual. It's hard to say. One of the other things I talk about in Magnificent Mind at Any Age is a study from Holland where they put ADD kids on elimination diets where they let them eat fruit and vegetables, rice, lamb, turkey and carrot juice, that was it, water. And they had the same positive response as they did to Ritalin. So in my mind if they need the medicine, they need it. And there are a lot of doctors who are good at really working around the sleep problems that go with the medicine. But you know, there are just so many different things. I think everybody's an individual, which is why I wrote that book, you know, it's not one kind of ADD, there's six. And you know you just keep working with it till you get it right.
Guest: Okay. Thank you.
Michael: I was wondering, I'm in the Marine Corps and I currently have a couple friends of mine who while they were in high school, they were chronic pot users. And I was wondering how long is it going to take for stopped usage for their brands to go back to normal or will it?
Daniel Amen: Well, you know, Michael, you ask a very good question. What a lot of youngsters don't know is that your brain does not finish developing until you're 25 or 26 years old. And so that early drinking, pot use, drug abuse, not sleeping, is really damaging for your brain. And it may be permanent because the brain seems to go through developmental periods and then it doesn't go and visit that developmental period ever again. So if you didn't sort of get what you needed, then it can have a negative effect.
Now, one of the most exciting things I've seen is that when we get a damaged brain, if we do things, supplements, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, neurofeedback, medicine, that we can actually change it and then people get so much better. So in one sense it's never too late to try to develop a brain healthy life, but it's so much better if you didn't poison it first.
Michael: Right. All right. Thank you very much.
Donny Osmond: Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, that's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donny Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.
