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The Neuroscience of ADHD: A Beginner’s Guide
Episode 1824th October 2024 • Smart ADHD Podcast • Ian Anderson Gray
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Have you ever wondered how understanding the neuroscience of ADHD can transform your approach to productivity? 

What if you could leverage your unique brain wiring to unlock your full potential? 

How can insights into dopamine and emotional regulation lead to better self-management strategies? 

🔗 Read / Listen more: https://smartadhd.me/18 

In this episode of The Smart ADHD Podcast, I’m thrilled to chat with Jonathan Hassall, an ADHD and executive function coach, who takes us on a fascinating journey into the brain's inner workings. Together, we explore how understanding ADHD at the neurological level can empower you with the tools needed for personal growth and success. 


Jonathan's expertise in ADHD coaching, combined with his background in psychiatric services, brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. He sheds light on the intricate relationship between dopamine levels and attention challenges, revealing how this understanding can lead to effective strategies for managing ADHD. If you’ve ever felt like your brain is working against you, Jonathan’s insights might just change your perspective. 


🎙️ In this episode: 

00:00 Understanding ADHD: We're Not Broken, Just Inconsistent 

00:38 Introduction to the Smart ADHD Podcast 

01:46 Meet Jonathan Hassall: ADHD Expert and Coach 

02:17 The Neuroscience of ADHD: Exploring Brain Functions 

04:06 Dopamine and ADHD: The Role of Neurochemistry 

05:22 The Prefrontal Cortex and Executive Function 

16:46 Default Mode Network vs. Task Positive Network 

24:26 Fight or Flight: ADHD and the Nervous System 

28:35 Final Thoughts and Encouragement 


🕺More about Jonathan Hassall. 

Jonathan is an ADHD & Executive Function Coach and director of Connect ADHD Coaching, providing services internationally from Brisbane, Australia. His background includes psychiatric services and as Scientific Advisor for ADHD in the pharmaceutical industry. Jonathan trained as an ADHD coach through the US and offers individual and group programs for people with ADHD. He is a regular speaker at national ADHD meetings in Australia and the US. He has previously held roles as a board member of ADHD Australia and ADDA. He also co-authored “Decoding Doing - Solving ADHD & Procrastination” in 2023. His current practice focuses on working with Adults and Couples with ADHD. His approach includes the translation of relevant executive function theory to facilitate individuals with ADHD finding and embracing their “neuro-native” state supporting adaptation and realisation of potential. 


Connect with Jonathan: 

Website: https://www.connectadhd.com 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@connectadhdcoaching3658 

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jonathanhassallcac 


What's your biggest challenge in navigating ADHD as a smart creative? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don't forget to subscribe and leave a review! 


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🎤 About the Smart ADHD Podcast 

The Smart ADHD Podcast is for smart creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are navigating life with ADHD. We celebrate unique brilliance, whether we're intelligent, exceptionally talented, or both. Ian Anderson Gray interviews experts to uncover the real story of ADHD for smart creatives, busting myths and discovering effective strategies to improve our lives, unleash our creativity, and grow. 


🔗 Find out more at https://smartadhd.me/


—---------------------------- 


🕺More about Ian Anderson Gray 

Ian is the host of the Smart ADHD Podcast and a live-streaming video coach and consultant. He helps business owners and entrepreneurs broadcast live confidently, communicate better, and set up the right gear and tools. Ian runs Seriously Social, a business aimed at helping others be more productive and level up their impact online. He's also a professional singer, web developer, and an international speaker. Ian lives near Manchester in the UK with his family. 


—---------------------------- 


🤗 Connect with Ian 

Website: https://iag.me/ 

X/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iagdotme 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ianandersongray 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianandersongray/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iagdotme 

Threads: https://threads.net/@ianandersongray  


Transcripts

Jon:

we know that our brains can perform in the same way as anyone else's brain.

Jon:

I always like to say to people, we're not broken.

Jon:

We're just inconsistent.

Jon:

So it's not that we can't focus.

Jon:

It's not that we can't direct emotion.

Jon:

It's not that we can't organize working memory.

Jon:

It's just that it doesn't happen reliably.

Jon:

we can use that attention to create a new decision about

Jon:

what we're going to do next.

Jon:

And then we do something really cool.

Jon:

We summarize that into a new

Jon:

emotion.

Jon:

if I need access to dopamine to turn on my attention, and I know I don't have

Jon:

it, then it's going to be hard to shift from default mode to task positive.

Jon:

So our attention is not turning on as strongly as it could, but

Jon:

at the same time, our default mode is staying fired up.

Ian:

Hello, I'm Ian Anderson Gray, and this is the smart ADHD podcast.

Ian:

Now if you're a smart, creative entrepreneur or business owner

Ian:

navigating your life with ADHD, This is the podcast for you.

Ian:

Now, I'm no ADHD expert, but I'm eager to share my story on what I've learned

Ian:

by talking with experts, as well as digging into the personal ADHD stories of

Ian:

successful creatives and entrepreneurs.

Ian:

I was diagnosed at age 46, and it answered so many questions in my life.

Ian:

But of course, that was in many ways, only the start of my journey.

Ian:

So let's learn together.

Ian:

Smart stories, smart strategies, smart ADHD.

Ian:

Hello, welcome back to the smart ADHD podcast.

Ian:

Today, we're diving into a fascinating topic, the neuroscience

Ian:

of ADHD and joining me is the amazing Jonathan Hassall.

Ian:

This was such a fun conversation.

Ian:

He is an ADHD and executive function coach and director of connect ADHD coaching

Ian:

all the way from Brisbane, Australia.

Ian:

Jonathan has a wealth of experience in psychiatric services, ADHD coaching and

Ian:

even served as a scientific advisor for ADHD in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ian:

He's

Ian:

also

Ian:

coauthored the book, Decoding Doing: Solving ADHD and Procrastination.

Ian:

So in this episode, we're unpacking the neurological side of ADHD.

Ian:

What is actually going on in our brains?

Ian:

Jonathan explains some words that you might've heard about before,

Ian:

such as, the prefrontal cortex and how understanding the roles of

Ian:

dopamine and our brain's networks.

Ian:

And shed some light on some of our most common struggles.

Ian:

We'll be exploring how these brain functions affect things like time

Ian:

management, anxiety and the fight or flight response and how medication

Ian:

can help manage those challenges.

Ian:

Let's get on with it right now.

Ian:

Hello, Jon, welcome to smart ADHD.

Ian:

How are you doing?

Jon:

I'm doing wonderfully.

Jon:

Thanks, Ian.

Jon:

Thanks for having me.

Ian:

Oh, it's great to have you we've only just recently met.

Ian:

we had an amazing conversation.

Ian:

My head was blown last time we spoke.

Ian:

In fact, went downstairs for lunch and saw my wife and she saw

Ian:

that and my head had exploded.

Ian:

Ha!

Ian:

After all of what we were talking about.

Ian:

It was so interesting.

Ian:

And so I wanted to get you onto the show to talk about Neurology,

Ian:

Neuroscience, Neurochemistry, whatever you want to call it.

Ian:

And I'm going to ask you about that in a bit.

Ian:

So I suppose my first question to you is, why is it important for

Ian:

us to have an understanding of the neurology, what's happening in

Ian:

our brain, from that perspective?

Ian:

How does that help us as people who have ADHD?

Jon:

Thanks Ian.

Jon:

That's a great place to start.

Jon:

So I think the thing is ADHD has been shrouded in a lot of mystery for a long

Jon:

time and still largely is because we've always had to describe it from what we see

Jon:

as a behavior and tried to interpret that.

Jon:

Now that's very useful for diagnostics because it helps us categorize what

Jon:

we see as consistent behaviors.

Jon:

However, if we want to have an effect on changing it, we need to

Jon:

understand the mechanism behind.

Jon:

the condition.

Jon:

And if we can understand the mechanism, then we can perhaps start seeing how

Jon:

we could influence those mechanisms to get better outcomes for ourselves.

Ian:

Yeah, now that's really interesting What we're gonna try and do in this

Ian:

episode or what you're going to try and help us with I think is to there's

Ian:

all these words that we've heard like dopamine and all these other things

Ian:

that we're going to talk about.

Ian:

And there's a lot of misconceptions, mysteries about all of these things.

Ian:

Now, one thing that when we were chatting last time, I was using

Ian:

the word neuroscience and you were using the word neurochemistry.

Ian:

And I And I thought, Oh, that's interesting.

Ian:

And then I started getting me thinking, maybe that's because of these

Ian:

chemicals in our brains, you know, we mentioned dopamine So why do you refer

Ian:

more to neurochemistry rather than neuroscience when discussing ADHD?

Jon:

I think neuroscience is a factor in your, sorry, neurochemistry

Jon:

is a factor in neuroscience.

Jon:

I suppose my bias in terms of discussing it is twofold.

Jon:

One, I come from a pharmaceuticals background originally.

Jon:

And so a lot of that was about neurochemistry is particularly

Jon:

what we're focused on.

Jon:

But I think the other part is too, that with ADHD primarily

Jon:

we're looking at neurochemistry.

Jon:

We're not seeing a particular difference in, at this stage anyway, in structural

Jon:

or functional features of the brain.

Jon:

What we're seeing is an inconsistency and availability

Jon:

of a particular neurochemistry.

Jon:

And that neurochemistry is very responsive to a whole pile of conditions that happen

Jon:

both within the body and outside the body.

Ian:

Yeah.

Ian:

That's fascinating.

Ian:

Cause I've thought about ADHD is there's maybe there's something

Ian:

structurally different about my brain, but actually what's really

Ian:

interesting is going into the chemistry.

Ian:

What inside my brain and so yeah, that's a really helpful distinction So

Ian:

from a neurological point of view, can you break down what ADHD looks like?

Ian:

What's actually happening in our brains?

Jon:

Now I misspoke slightly, there probably is a minor structural

Jon:

difference, but that, which is directly related to the neurochemistry.

Jon:

However, I don't think of it as a major structural difference because

Jon:

we know that our brains can perform in the same way as anyone else's brain.

Jon:

I always like to say to people, we're not broken.

Jon:

We're just inconsistent.

Jon:

So it's not that we can't focus.

Jon:

It's not that we can't direct emotion.

Jon:

It's not that we can't organize working memory.

Jon:

It's just that it doesn't happen reliably.

Jon:

So currently what the research suggests is that in terms of

Jon:

neuroscience, ADHD is highly hereditary.

Jon:

It's right up there with height as the most inheritable thing you can have.

Jon:

The second part of it is that what we think is happening is that we're

Jon:

getting inconsistent availability of dopamine, which is largely due

Jon:

to the fact that we're effectively recycling dopamine too efficiently.

Jon:

Now, the reason we think we are, we come to that little if there is a neurological

Jon:

difference, is that we think we have more reuptake receptors than other people do.

Jon:

So if you think about a

Jon:

dopamine

Jon:

system, there's receptors where we release dopamine and they

Jon:

go out and they impact with the other receptors to pass on signals.

Jon:

But then we also have this process of what we call reuptake pumps.

Jon:

And these reuptake receptors, their job is to reabsorb dopamine.

Jon:

And we think that people with ADHD have too many of them.

Jon:

And one of the reasons that we came to that conclusion was that the medications

Jon:

that we found effective with ADHD, particularly the stimulants effectively

Jon:

block some of those reuptake receptors.

Jon:

So with the stimulant, you're not replacing dopamine.

Jon:

What you're doing is you're stopping your dopamine being reabsorbed.

Jon:

So what does that mean?

Jon:

So if we think about dopamine as a bit of a universal communicator,

Jon:

That it's passing signals between receptors and keeping in mind, it's

Jon:

not one receptor to one receptor it's one to hundreds or even thousands.

Jon:

And so when it does that, what we're doing is we're interrupting

Jon:

the signal in our brain.

Jon:

Now the area of the brain that we think is primarily affected is the back part

Jon:

of the prefrontal cortex, which is what we're associating theoretically

Jon:

with effectively something we call executive function, which is about

Jon:

how we self regulate our thinking.

Jon:

So therefore, that's where we get problems with directing our attention, with

Jon:

directing emotion, with managing working memory or capacity of working memory.

Jon:

And then in turn, other particular functions like organization, time

Jon:

awareness, and all that sort of thing.

Ian:

okay.

Ian:

I think that was That's so interesting.

Ian:

I hadn't thought about the fact that we have too many receptors.

Ian:

This is the kind of think current thinking i've always thought well, maybe

Ian:

we just don't have enough dopamine, but I suppose in a way that is true That is

Ian:

the case, so there isn't enough dopamine for the number of receptors that we have.

Ian:

But what does what is the role of dopamine?

Ian:

I hear a lot about it, it being talked about when it comes to motivation,

Ian:

but What is its role in our brains?

Jon:

And I'll speak just to my knowledge and experience.

Jon:

And, the thing is, that it's popularized as the woohoo

Jon:

neurochemistry or the yeehaw.

Jon:

But basically, I ran into a neural researcher years back here at

Jon:

the Queensland Brain Institute.

Jon:

And he was very excited and he said, we've just found this amazing thing that

Jon:

dopamine is in most parts of the body.

Jon:

In fact, it's everywhere where there is nervous tissue in the body and

Jon:

that it's more, more appropriate to think of it as a universal

Jon:

communicator, that it's passing signals.

Jon:

That's its job.

Jon:

And when we think about how the brain is set up, that we have

Jon:

effectively brain cells that come down to receptors, but they don't

Jon:

actually all connect to each other.

Jon:

Because if you think about it.

Jon:

And again, theoretically, that would not be a good model for a

Jon:

brain because it'd be very limiting.

Jon:

We'd be like hardwired.

Jon:

But instead, we've got this neat little system that instead of being permanently

Jon:

wired to each other, we pass on the electrical signal between brain cells

Jon:

by spitting bits of neurochemical, across that passes on the information

Jon:

will re triggers the electrical stimulation in the other brain cell.

Jon:

Which means we can have one cell talking to hundreds of others and

Jon:

mediating that in a really, very eloquent way, which is why our brain

Jon:

can do the amazing things it does.

Jon:

Yes, dopamine is very much affected in terms of stimulation.

Jon:

It's certainly very much present in terms of the reward centers of the brain.

Jon:

In fact, that's one of the features when we look at treatment used

Jon:

appropriately is very much therapeutic.

Jon:

We know that it still affects increasing dopamine availability

Jon:

throughout the brain.

Jon:

So it does have the potential to have a sensory effect in terms

Jon:

of that's where you have to be careful about potential for misuse.

Jon:

So dopamine is a really interesting neurochemistry.

Jon:

And, there are other very interesting neurochemicals as well.

Jon:

However, dopamine has been fairly unique in that it's very select.

Jon:

We talk about it very selectively with ADHD.

Jon:

But it gives us a very neat target, if you like, for change.

Jon:

For example, everybody's dopamine fluctuates.

Jon:

Everybody.

Jon:

And in fact, we've all seen examples.

Jon:

If you want to see someone who looks like, who's got poor dopamine availability,

Jon:

pick someone who's been up all night.

Jon:

Somebody with a newborn.

Jon:

They're running on low fuel.

Jon:

If we look at somebody who is intoxicated.

Jon:

If we look at somebody who is hungry.

Jon:

The whole hangry meme that we seem to have now that never used to exist.

Jon:

Under a lot of stress.

Jon:

What we're going to see is a lot of cognitive poor self regulation.

Jon:

So we see people being more emotional, we see people having trouble with

Jon:

their attention, we see people struggling with working memory to hold

Jon:

concepts in mind and manipulate them.

Jon:

Do we see them struggle with organization and perception of time?

Jon:

Now, the difference being that for people without ADHD, these transient events,

Jon:

they're usually quite reliable that they know exactly why they're happening.

Jon:

I stayed up all night, that's why this is happening today.

Jon:

And the other thing that they do, which I think in coaching is of particular

Jon:

interest with ADHD, is that they have cognitive systems to accommodate when

Jon:

their dopamine availability isn't as good.

Ian:

Interesting.

Ian:

So would it be fair to say that with ADHD brains that have lower

Ian:

amounts of dopamine, but that it does again, it fluctuates.

Ian:

Sometimes if we're just in a hyper focused state, then our dopamine goes up or we're

Ian:

excited about something, our dopamine level goes up, but that it fluctuates.

Ian:

That's the kind of first part of the question.

Ian:

But the second part of the question is what happens when

Ian:

we have very low dopamine.

Ian:

I guess I know what that's like having ADHD.

Ian:

I know how that feels But what's actually happening in the brain?

Jon:

I think we've got to be careful of this association with dopamine

Jon:

as being, we've got dopamine, we're excited, or we're charged up.

Jon:

If we think about it from a self regulatory approach.

Jon:

So it's more about how we regulate all those things.

Jon:

So if we're too excited, that's not good.

Jon:

Bad things happen when we're too excited, right?

Jon:

But also good things can happen when we're appropriately excited.

Jon:

Just like it is great to put our attention on things, but it's also being great

Jon:

to be able to switch our attention.

Jon:

So we're talking about hyper focus versus being on the shift attention.

Jon:

So in terms of dopamine availability, effectively, there's probably this

Jon:

relative line in the sand that anyone can dip in and, in a crossover in

Jon:

which they means they're going to have less effective communication, which

Jon:

means less effective self regulation.

Jon:

So that may look like someone being very emotional.

Jon:

It may look like somebody being very distracted and vague.

Jon:

It may look like somebody having trouble holding procedure in

Jon:

mind and that sort of thing.

Jon:

The difference I think with ADHD and the way I like to think about it is

Jon:

because that we seem to have greater recycling of dopamine or we're

Jon:

closer to that line all the time.

Jon:

And then you compound that by the fact that we have behavioral

Jon:

habits because of our poor self regulation that further impact it.

Jon:

So poor sleep.

Jon:

Poor diet, poor exercise poor stress management.

Jon:

All of those things will actually decrease dopamine availability too,

Jon:

so it's like a compounding problem.

Jon:

Whereas someone without ADHD will have better availability of

Jon:

dopamine, but it's more consistent.

Jon:

So they're able to fuel their self regulation better, but also

Jon:

too, like I said, they're more likely to intuitively develop

Jon:

cognitive systems to self regulate.

Ian:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Ian:

There's, I think there's a lot of misconceptions and myths about dopamine

Ian:

and it's, it's a complicated thing.

Ian:

So you've mentioned the prefrontal cortex, I think a few times.

Ian:

And again, this is something that I hear a lot that I've heard people

Ian:

say that we don't have reliable access to the prefrontal cortex.

Ian:

I don't really even know what that means, but what is the prefrontal cortex and

Ian:

what's happening is that there, for ADHD brains, you've mentioned executive

Ian:

functions and planning and that's what tends to be happening in there, but

Ian:

from a neurochemistry, neurological point of view, what's going on?

Jon:

Prefrontal cortex, basically we're describing a

Jon:

geographical area of the brain.

Jon:

And in this case, we're talking about the part that's right behind your forehead.

Jon:

And that part of the brain, we think developed a bit later in, in humans.

Jon:

It's allowed us to do a lot of very directed attentional tasks.

Jon:

It probably has a role in terms of things like object permanence.

Jon:

So in other words, we can visualize things.

Jon:

We can imagine things more effectively, but in the context of ADHD, we

Jon:

tend to talk about prefrontal cortex in terms of attention.

Jon:

And then we get, as we go back into the brain, we go back through the rear

Jon:

of the prefrontal cortex and we get back towards the center of the brain,

Jon:

we're actually looking more at emotion.

Jon:

And so in between that, there's some sort of crossover, which is what we theorize

Jon:

is the seat of executive function.

Jon:

Keeping in mind executive function is a theoretical model.

Jon:

We don't know that there's an executive function brain or part

Jon:

of the brain or anything else.

Jon:

But what it's come from is an interpretation of how people are

Jon:

observed to self regulate their behavior and particularly the

Jon:

relationship between emotional regulation and attentional regulation.

Jon:

So if we think about that, then we think about what current

Jon:

theory around emotion is.

Jon:

And if you wanna look at some great research on this.

Jon:

Lisa Feldman Barrett has been doing wonderful research for many

Jon:

years and is very very popular now in terms of redefining how we

Jon:

interpret what emotions even are.

Jon:

It's not to do with ADHD, but it's always interesting to look outside of ADHD.

Jon:

When we want to look at that relationship, we have to start moving into thinking

Jon:

about a new way of looking at the brain, which is called neural networks, which I

Jon:

think has got far more utility than just the straight old, the emotional center to

Jon:

an attentional center, because it actually incorporates far more areas of the brain.

Jon:

But once again, in terms of us understanding or trying to interpret

Jon:

what we're seeing in our behavior.

Jon:

It's far more useful because we can again look at manipulating it.

Ian:

Yeah.

Ian:

Fascinating stuff.

Ian:

And I think, yeah, we'll maybe talk a little bit about that more when you

Ian:

come on to the podcast again, to talk about motivation and things like that.

Ian:

So fascinating stuff.

Ian:

The next thing I wanted to ask you about, which I've only started to hear about

Ian:

relatively recently, and maybe it's been around in the neuroscience world for ages,

Ian:

but this is what's called the default mode network and task positive network.

Ian:

So I think the it's DMN and TPN.

Ian:

I always get really confused about these.

Ian:

So what are those things and what's going on again in our brains with ADHD?

Jon:

So they're the neural networks are what two of the

Jon:

neural networks I was referring to.

Jon:

There were more than two, I think there's at least seven last time I looked,

Jon:

but it's a new emerging research area.

Jon:

When I left pharmaceuticals and moved into coaching, it was very new.

Jon:

So we're talking about 12 years ago, we're seeing a lot of the

Jon:

research starting to come out.

Jon:

But basically, it's looking at the brain in a different way because it's looking

Jon:

at it in a very functional context.

Jon:

And where we've got a new opportunity to see how the brain works through

Jon:

things like functional MRIs, where we can actually see the

Jon:

electrical, functional functionality of the brain as it's working.

Jon:

So you can get someone, you can strap someone up, get them to do a task and

Jon:

actually see what parts of the brain are lighting up and in what order.

Jon:

Which is very cool.

Jon:

And once again, we're observing something and trying to understand it.

Jon:

And you get someone who's doing current research in the area who

Jon:

could describe it far better than I.

Jon:

But at a functional level, for me, I look at it from default mode network is

Jon:

basically our walking around network.

Jon:

It's basically around the limbic region, going back to the cerebellum now the, and

Jon:

a little bit into the prefrontal cortex or the back of the prefrontal cortex.

Jon:

And what, what makes that interesting is that, okay, that's

Jon:

where we used to have emotions.

Jon:

It's also where we have access to the amygdala which traditionally has

Jon:

been associated as a fear center, although more current research

Jon:

talks about it as a contrast center.

Jon:

Which is important.

Jon:

I'll explain why in a minute.

Jon:

And then the cerebellum is about memory.

Jon:

So it goes one of its big features is about memory.

Jon:

So in a very simplistic way of looking at it, the default mode network allows

Jon:

us, as one of its features, to walk around, see a contrast in our environment,

Jon:

something that stands out as different.

Jon:

So that's where, I think it's more useful to look at the amygdala in that

Jon:

context rather than in a fear context.

Jon:

Because fear is the end result.

Jon:

It's the end emotional interpretation.

Jon:

It's not actually what the functional part of the brain would be.

Jon:

So then if we go back from there and think okay, so I'm walking around.

Jon:

I see a contrast in my environment.

Jon:

Let's say, It's a throaty V8 engine roaring in the street

Jon:

and terrifying all the Teslas.

Jon:

Now, if I was ever, now that's going to alert to me, there is something

Jon:

out of the ordinary in my environment that, that deserves my attention.

Jon:

Now, what I'm really trying to decide very quickly, is it motivational?

Jon:

What form of motivation does it stimulate?

Jon:

Is it something I want to motivate towards or something I want to motivate away from?

Jon:

Is it got opportunity or threat?

Jon:

So the default mode then.

Jon:

And this is what we think it's doing is accessing cumulative memories that we

Jon:

have in a very rough fuzzy logic sort of way to say, what does that remind me of?

Jon:

Now, if I got run down by a V8 at some point in my life, it probably is not

Jon:

going to remind me of something good.

Jon:

So I'm probably going to have a very adverse immediate response to it.

Jon:

Like I won't even think about it.

Jon:

It'll make me jump.

Jon:

However, if I happen to be a bit of a motorhead and love a big throaty

Jon:

engine, it might be something I want to motivate towards because I've got

Jon:

a very positive association with it.

Jon:

And obviously we form these associations based on, the frequency that we get

Jon:

them, but also with the emotional significance of them, where you see

Jon:

where people with a lot of trauma can be very quickly and very significantly

Jon:

conditioned to a response because it was such a profound experience for them.

Jon:

So that's default mode.

Jon:

So that's what really fast and dirty way of seeing the future.

Jon:

However, it's based on the past.

Jon:

It's not prospective.

Jon:

So if we just did that, we'd be running around reacting to everything.

Jon:

Which probably wouldn't work out most of the time.

Jon:

So what we do is we have access to our attention.

Jon:

So remember we said prefrontal cortex the task positive network

Jon:

which is also referred to as the central executive in some areas.

Jon:

Is where we turn on attention effectively.

Jon:

So we have to switch from this default mode network and transfer

Jon:

over to the task positive.

Jon:

And fMRI scans that I've seen of it show a significant reduction in the default

Jon:

mode as we turn on the task positive.

Jon:

So what that suggests is we're turning down on emotional response.

Jon:

So we're turning off the alarm to turn on attention to look at detail,

Jon:

because you ever tried to look at detail with an alarm going off in the back

Jon:

of the room, like next to impossible.

Jon:

So you focus on the detail.

Jon:

Now we're seeing stuff here and now we're still seeing it with a bit of bias, of

Jon:

course, because we can't escape that.

Jon:

But basically we're now looking at it more objectively.

Jon:

And when we look at that, we can make a more informed decision.

Jon:

Okay, maybe I did get run down by a V8 once, but I look at that V8 and, Oh,

Jon:

it's actually a pretty cool looking car.

Jon:

And there's a nice looking person driving it.

Jon:

And now I'm thinking, Oh, I might want to go and have a look at that car.

Jon:

Now I've decided it's not a threat.

Jon:

It's something that actually has other appealing factors

Jon:

that I might go and check out.

Jon:

So in other words, what we do is we can use that attention to to create a new

Jon:

decision about what we're going to do agency about what we're going to do next.

Jon:

And then we do something really cool.

Jon:

We summarize that into a new emotion.

Jon:

We associate a new emotion with that sound.

Jon:

Now that's not such a bad sound.

Jon:

That's, it might be benign or it might be even appealing.

Jon:

And if you think back, there's lots of examples through life where you can

Jon:

imagine, you can remember times something that you maybe were repulsed by, but when

Jon:

you looked at it in a different light or had a different experience of it, you're

Jon:

able to create a new association with it.

Jon:

And I think that's a really exciting opportunity for growth.

Jon:

Emotional growth.

Ian:

Definitely.

Ian:

So in the ADHD brain I've heard that we tend to be kind of locked

Ian:

more in the DMN network more than the task positive network.

Ian:

is that true?

Ian:

And do we get more towards the task positive network when we

Ian:

actually need to get stuff done?

Jon:

Yeah.

Jon:

So it's, yeah, I suppose we careful how we talk about it.

Jon:

I guess I think you described it pretty well, but it's more like that.

Jon:

So if we think about how do we move from default mode to task positive.

Jon:

So it appears that we require more energy to turn on the attention.

Jon:

And I think this is what's fed some of the theories around it being

Jon:

a later evolution in our brain.

Jon:

The whole lizard brain thing is not real.

Jon:

I think that the current research doesn't support that, but definitely our brains

Jon:

have changed as we've evolved as animals.

Jon:

But if we think about that, we need energy to turn on that.

Jon:

In other words, dopamine, we need availability of

Jon:

dopamine to turn on attention.

Jon:

We don't appear to have a dopamine problem in that default mode network.

Jon:

With ADHD, that system is up and firing.

Jon:

And if we think about this, that if I need access to dopamine to turn on my

Jon:

attention, and I know I don't have it, then it's going to be hard to shift

Jon:

from default mode to task positive.

Jon:

And in fact, there was some small, I haven't checked it lately, but there,

Jon:

there have been some small studies, fMRI studies done where they've shown

Jon:

that as the task positive network activates, the default mode network

Jon:

doesn't turn down like it should.

Jon:

So the task positive isn't as robust in its activation.

Jon:

So our attention is not turning on as strongly as it could, but at

Jon:

the same time, our default mode is staying fired up, which the suggestion

Jon:

from that research was it might be why we remain so distractible

Jon:

when we're focusing on things.

Ian:

Yeah really interesting stuff.

Ian:

And I want I do want to get back to your thoughts on making emotions

Ian:

because that is mind blowing.

Ian:

But we maybe talk about that in the next episode.

Ian:

We're almost out of time.

Ian:

In fact, we are out of time.

Ian:

But I do want to quickly ask you but there's a few other things.

Ian:

So maybe if you could look, this is an impossible task to

Ian:

go through this really quickly.

Ian:

But there's the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems.

Ian:

I always get these mixed up, but one is described as the fight or flight

Ian:

one and the rest and digest one.

Ian:

Yeah.

Ian:

So how are those affected by ADHD?

Ian:

I find that I'm in, tend to be in the fight or flight mode a lot and

Ian:

that kind of the anxious state and I find it difficult to switch back

Ian:

into the rest and digest sometimes.

Ian:

Is that an ADHD thing?

Ian:

What's going on?

Jon:

Yeah, again, we're talking about a functional outcome of ADHD.

Jon:

And it depends on the person with ADHD then there are a lot of people

Jon:

out there with ADHD who particularly inattentive who may spend much more

Jon:

time in parasympathetic and don't get riled up very easily at all.

Jon:

But in terms of when we are having that fight, flight, freeze response.

Jon:

And my wife actually wrote a fantastic, she's Monica Hassel,

Jon:

she's also an ADHD coach.

Jon:

She's written a fantastic paper a few years ago called the fourth F because she

Jon:

proposed that there was a a fourth F in fight, flight, and freeze, which was fib.

Jon:

In other words, we tell fibs or lies to, to fend.

Jon:

And if you look at kids, the kids do it, but we do it as adults and

Jon:

they're not manipulative lies.

Jon:

They're more like defensive misleadings or fabrications.

Jon:

But if we think about that state, what we're doing in that state is

Jon:

yes, you're getting an adrenaline hit.

Jon:

You're going into some sort of self preservation.

Jon:

It's usually heavily attached to anxiety.

Jon:

And I've got to say, anxiety is prolific amongst people with ADHD.

Jon:

And even if, Very commonly people aren't aware that what they've

Jon:

been experiencing is anxiety.

Jon:

I had a client today, very clever person who has obviously

Jon:

been ADHD her entire life.

Jon:

And when we talked about anxiety, she suddenly thought about it and thought,

Jon:

Oh my goodness, was that anxiety?

Jon:

Was threatening myself to do things, worrying that if I didn't do

Jon:

things immediately, it would fail.

Jon:

Forget.

Jon:

Was that anxiety?

Jon:

And then she said, was this great sense of negative pressure on me all the time?

Jon:

Was that anxiety?

Jon:

And I said, yes, definitely.

Jon:

So that's that system that we're utilizing.

Jon:

So there's two things to think about that one is in the appropriate measures.

Jon:

It's a very useful system.

Jon:

Every neurological system is useful, right?

Jon:

But even distractions are useful in the appropriate context, right?

Jon:

But the problem with ADHD is that, as you mentioned, we can find ourselves pushed

Jon:

into that space too often because we get there when we feel out of control.

Jon:

Which, if you have an inconsistent dopamine availability, you're gonna

Jon:

feel out of control because you're not self regulating effectively.

Jon:

The other thing to think about, too, is if you look at things like cortisol.

Jon:

We know that as cortisol levels increase, that's very useful to us because cortisol

Jon:

helps us activate and solve problems.

Jon:

But, when we can't solve the problem, it goes too high.

Jon:

And when it goes too high, it suppresses dopamine availability.

Jon:

So we now are getting stressed and we can't think straight anymore.

Jon:

So what do we do?

Jon:

We flick back into the four Fs and we react and that's what we do.

Jon:

Now that an interesting alternative byproduct of that I've seen

Jon:

with ADHD and I see this very commonly in intelligent women.

Jon:

Not exclusively, but I just see my clinical experience is predominantly

Jon:

more intelligent women is is that women get very good at using anxiety

Jon:

as an activation tool that self threat that if I don't do it now, I'll fail

Jon:

or I'll make sure I bring everything forward as though it's due tomorrow.

Jon:

And that makes me activate.

Jon:

Unfortunately, that doesn't keep working, but it seems to be effective to a point

Jon:

for them, but at a significant cost.

Jon:

That would be something I would be very conscious of changing, because I think

Jon:

that is one of those things that is that, the big unseen of impact of ADHD.

Jon:

And often it gets written off as this other anxiety, but often my experience

Jon:

has been they're very correlated.

Ian:

fascinating.

Ian:

Yeah, Dr.

Ian:

Tamara Rosier was talking about the six bad tools that many of us can have

Ian:

used as a motivation technique and anxiety is definitely one of them.

Ian:

Yeah, I might have been known to use that myself a few times, but

Ian:

we are out of time, Jonathan.

Ian:

Oh, my goodness.

Ian:

I just feel we've only just dipped our toe in this world.

Ian:

I think we probably need a part two in the future and we can

Ian:

go deeper Thank you so much for showing all your thoughts with us.

Ian:

You do have an amazing book.

Ian:

I've got it on order It's called "Decoding Doing: ADHD

Ian:

Solutions for Procrastination".

Ian:

And we're going to talk a little bit more about that in the next

Ian:

episode on that Thank you so much.

Ian:

Jonathan any kind of Final words of encouragement.

Ian:

Obviously, we've talked about the neurology here.

Ian:

But what would be your kind of final message for people who've been

Ian:

listening, that there is hope and there is a way forwards with all of this?

Jon:

Absolutely.

Jon:

First of all, and thank you for having me and thank you for doing

Jon:

this podcast because it's these sorts of conversations that we,

Jon:

and, having had Tamara on recently.

Jon:

I've met Tamara and she's wonderful.

Jon:

And so there's having these sorts of conversations are invaluable.

Jon:

The thing I'd say to everyone out there is.

Jon:

Whatever you know about ADHD, there's always more to learn.

Jon:

However, the secret is, I think, we want to get ourselves to a point where

Jon:

we achieve our intentions reliably.

Jon:

Our intentions invariably are the right thing to be following.

Jon:

And they're the measure of who we are.

Jon:

We can learn to self regulate more effectively.

Jon:

So those biases, some people call them superpowers.

Jon:

I prefer to think of them as functional biases.

Jon:

We can use them to our advantage instead of our depriment.

Jon:

Please, the reason I work in ADHD is because people with ADHD are

Jon:

nothing but unrealized potential.

Jon:

And with even the fact that you've achieved heaps already, there's

Jon:

so much more that you can tap into and most importantly is a

Jon:

very happy and rewarding life.

Ian:

Awesome.

Ian:

Thank you, Jonathan.

Ian:

You can find out all the show notes for this, you can connect

Ian:

with Jonathan, just go to smart.

Ian:

ADHD dot me.

Ian:

And finally, this episode and all the details will be there.

Ian:

Thank you, Jonathan.

Ian:

And until next time, I encourage you to be smart with your ADHD.

Ian:

Toodaloo!

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