01-20-17 Change Your Brain, Change Your Life – A Conversation With Daniel Amen, MD
A special opportunity to listen to two of the greats in the field of psychiatry and Mind-Body Medicine, and experience guided imagery for healing Attention Deficit Disorder. You are probably aware of Dr. Daniel Amen from his TV specials, especially on PBS specials. As a practicing child psychiatrist Dr. Amen fell in love with SPECT brain scans (SPECT = Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography), which provide 3 dimensional images of the activity of the brain. In his subsequent work, aided by this remarkable technology, he became aware that the prevailing concepts about Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD or ADHD) were incorrect: Adults with ADD in their childhood often do not outgrow it, and that if this condition is not seen and treated, it will continue to block success, happiness, and love.
That’s because people with Attention Deficit have difficulty focusing on things in their lives that need their attention – especially tasks they find boring or uncomfortable. They have impulse control problems, they find it hard or impossible to organize things, and often have trouble learning from their mistakes.
And when you look at a SPECT scan of their brain you can see that their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain right above your eyes, has an abnormally low state of arousal. When the subject tries to concentrate the activity in the prefrontal cortex actually goes down instead of up, the way a more normal brain does. So for the child in school, when we try to push this obviously intelligent child (ADD kids tend to be the intelligent ones) to concentrate harder, they actually do worse. Think about how hard that feels to a kid “the harder I try, the worse I get.”
It is because of these kind of experiences, the child with ADD loses confidence and empowerment, becomes demoralized, and develops low Self-esteem. Adults with ADD fail for the same reasons. They become frustrated, often stop trying to excel, their performance and personal life suffer, and frequently become depressed and turn to addictions for relief.
In today’s Conversation, Dr. Miller, who studied with Dr. Amen as a mentor for several years, will explore ADD and how it can be successfully be treated by eating the proper diet, exercising sufficiently, taking appropriate supplements, and, when necessary, medication. We will also explore the effect of stress on the brain, how our thoughts can create neuroplastic change (growth of new nerves and nerve connections) through guiding your thoughts and your mental imagery (mental image rehearsal, and experience an anti-ADD imagery, “Focus your Attention.” This is one you don’t want to miss.
