WEBVTT - #2149 The Attention Recovery Plan - David Gillespie 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:01.400 I get a team. 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to another installment of your favorite bloody podcast. It's 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.000 a beautiful day in the thriving metropolis. I've got to 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.600 tell you twenty five degrees in Melbourne. It's almost April. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.319 It's bloody uncanny. I've been out and done my ten 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.680 thousand steps, very proud of myself. But it wasn't hard today. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.040 So I hope wherever you are, whatever you do on 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.360 this finds you well. We've got some exciting news coming 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:28.200 up very soon from probably our favorite typ guest, I 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.280 would assume is we probably get the most feedback about him. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:34.320 Are you a big walker, Gillespoe? 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:36.320 Do you get out and about I can't see you 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.040 getting out in suburbia just clocking up your steps or 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:40.320 checking your stats. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.400 Ah? I do, actually, but I do it at four 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:44.000 in the morning. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.760 So I take We've got two dogs and I take 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:50.560 them for a walk in the bushland across the road 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.240 every morning at about four am. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.160 Is that not? Is that not pitch black? Dark in 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:56.600 the bush? 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:01.120 Yeah? I have a headlamp. Yeah, okay, possums and things? 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:07.120 What kind of X murderers? What's kind? Yeah? Fucking criminals? 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.039 What kind of dogs do you. 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.160 Have Kelby water Collie crosses. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:16.600 So the fucking the genie of the species they are, 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.040 they are, they well trained. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:21.560 They can be when they want to be. 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.880 Yeah, they're smart enough to know when they should behave 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:26.800 but they can also be fools. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:26.920 When they're not. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.240 Yeah, yeah, but they are. I know this is not 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.280 our topic, but we're dog glovers here. They're kind, They're 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.640 need crazy exercise, right, They're not a. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.160 Sitting in the house. They're not a sitting around dog. 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:41.720 One of the ones that we got him from a 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.479 farmer's you know, they that are at a farm and 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.080 it's got to see the parents working. And the farmer 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.680 was saying to us, look, he's heard that you can 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.360 you run them nine kilometers in a day and then 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:56.760 they start to feel a bit tired. 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.760 They're not they're not getting anywhere, they're not killing meets 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:01.000 with me. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:05.840 But which ry, Well, I'm sure you do your best, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.760 but well, the thing is, you can walk five k's 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.640 and they'll run ten cas while you're walking five because 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.960 they're not walking step by step beside you. 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.200 I know, I put them on a lead, you know. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.359 I when I had one a little while ago, it 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.120 was a bit better behaved than this pair, and he 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.799 you could let him off, but this pair just dig 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:27.320 each other on. 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.200 I prefer to have him on the lead. How old 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.120 are they one and two? 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.280 Oh my god, you've got ten years at least of 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.399 exhaustion ahead of you. It's like, well, at least you've 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.440 got an accountability partner or two for your walking. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:44.600 So, yeah, that's right. 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:46.840 They won't let you stop that. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.280 No they're not. They're not letting me sleep in. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.120 Yeah, that's probably a good thing. How are you. How's 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.320 things up in Sunshine? 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:56.440 Statement? Pretty good? 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.360 About the same as there weather wise, Well, it sounds 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.000 of a twenty six degrees beautiful day. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:01.000 I'll tell you what. 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.120 We're not getting too many of these generally, but this 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.200 whole week in Melbourne is very atypical. So I'm pretty 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.440 excited about. It's like mid twenties every day. I'm like, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.560 I don't know why, but I'll take it. But speaking 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.200 of good things, so you've got a good thing, shameless plug. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.960 You've got a new book coming out next Tuesday, which, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.160 by the time people hear this, it will be Tuesday. 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:27.160 So to listeners today today, Gillespo's book is called The 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.080 Attention Recovery. The attention recovery plan, how to win the 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.480 battle for focus in a world built to break it? 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.000 What was the I know we've touched on this before, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.960 but let's just start at the genesis. What was the 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.120 impetus for this? 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:45.000 Ah? 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:45.800 Oh, it's a lot of things. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.200 So I've written two books previously about this kind of stuff, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:54.160 So Team Brain back in twenty seventeen and Brain Reset 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.600 in twenty nineteen, and they were. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.680 Both about the fact that. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.200 Phone software on phones is being explicitly engineered to break 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.160 teenager's brains, which was the initial one in Team Brain, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:13.960 and Brain Reset is about how that extends into mental health, 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:19.160 so not just addiction, but anxiety, depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, all 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:24.719 of that stuff and ADHD. So what this book is 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.920 is people have read those first two books and they've said, well, geez, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.279 thanks for scaring us half to death, but what on 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:32.800 earth are we supposed to do about it? 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:35.720 This is this is. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.440 You went, You went like, here's the problem. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:44.320 The end, the end, it's pretty awful, and it's getting 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:45.279 worse by the second. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:46.560 Enjoy. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.840 Yeah, thanks for buying my book over and out on Davidson. 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.560 But since then, and this is twenty nineteen is last 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.600 time I wrote about this, and since then, you know, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.600 we've had massive increases in mental health issues in Australia, 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.159 not the least brought on by the whole COVID thing, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.720 but they were happening anyway. I mean, we've seen three 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.440 hundred and fifty percent increase in diagnosis in adult ADHD 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.640 just in the last four years. We've seen doubling of 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.359 the rates of anxiety and teen anxiety. And this is 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.839 a disease that psychiatrists weren't even confident existed in the nineties. 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:27.120 That is that teenagers could have anxiety depression going off 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:33.560 the scale. Massive increases in things like schizophrenia, so public psychosis. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:39.240 People are having psychotic breaks in public, those kinds of things. 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.400 We are in brand new territory impulse controlling teenagers, which 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.040 is underlying much of what we're seeing in the current 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.760 obsession around crime, you know, teenage crime and so on, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.600 and all of that is linked to a single point 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.640 of failure in the human brain, which is explicitly engineered. 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:03.480 So when you pick up your phone, you are engaging with. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:06.359 Millions of. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.640 Software developers engineering one of the most powerful ais ever 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:16.919 built with one purpose in mind. Its only purpose is 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.919 to keep you on that phone a second longer than 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.320 you would otherwise would have been and when it gets that, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.560 it'll keep you there for another second. Its only purpose 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.480 is that. So when you pick up your phone and 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.200 you think you're having a bit of a scroll through 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:35.279 your socials or playing a game, you are engaging with 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.760 a machine and thousands of developers on the other side 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.800 of that screen whose sole purpose in life is to 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:48.000 keep you on that screen. Yes, and against that, not 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:53.839 surprisingly we fail. And when we fail. And now, okay, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:07:00.560 that might be bad. People might waste time, and that 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.600 would be a bad thing, I guess, But who am 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.480 I to say what people should spend their time doing. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.040 Where it becomes really bad is that in order to 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.680 make that happen, the science tells us they actually have 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:15.960 to change your brain. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:17.880 Now, people would. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.560 Say, well, hang on, how can something that I don't 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.680 inject or eat, you know, how can it change my brain? 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:31.240 We know that the science of changing and rewiring a 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:36.120 human brain can be done without chemicals, without interaction, without anything. 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:36.920 Being put in your body. 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.200 We've known that for centuries, and the reason we know 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.480 that is something called gambling. We know that we can 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:50.360 addict someone without putting anything in their body, and gambling 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.880 is the pre eminent example of that. Pornography is probably 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:54.960 a close second. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.400 I was I was just writing that down. 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.760 I was thinking, it's almost from a virtue point of view, 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.120 it's like porn addiction was the forerunner to what we're 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:05.960 talking about now. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:06.480 Almost. 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:11.480 Yeah, absolutely, And they're both powerful addictions. They're both capable 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.480 of changing the human brain. And the ones we're talking 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:16.680 about now, the ones that are on phones, besides those two, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.840 which are also on phones, just as capable of doing this. 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.520 And the people who've designed them have learned the lessons 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.320 from gambling and porn. They understand what they have to 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.000 do to break your brain. And when I say break it, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:38.320 I mean actually physically change your brain. When you use 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:43.080 these addictive things in the way they intend you to 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:48.160 use them, your brain will change. A chemical bill will 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.800 be released in your brain in response to it, called 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:55.680 delta foss B, which actually affects your sensitivity to stimulation. 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.760 It makes you much more tolerant of stimulation. At the 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:04.400 same same time, it makes you crave more stimulation and 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:11.840 also degrades your impulse control, significantly increases your anxiety, and 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:17.520 significantly increases your likelihood of depression. It also degrades your 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.720 ability to focus. So people say, oh, okay, sure, I 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.559 understand that when I'm scrolling through my feed, Yeah, I 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.040 get you three seconds of a real and move on 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.320 to the next. And so I'm a bit scatter brained there. 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.080 But that's that's the nature of the software I'm using. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:39.199 But the problem is by changing your brain, it isn't 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.480 just there that it's having the effect. Your brain is changed. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.760 So when you go out into real life and you 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:50.520 put the phone down, you have a three second attention 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:56.040 span and that continues in everything you do. Now, you 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.000 present to a doctor and describe that and they'll die 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.600 diagnos you with ADHD. Which is why I wrote the 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.319 article that I did that we're presumably going to talk 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.160 about today, which is a four corner story, fabulous four 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.200 corner story that came out this week about why the 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.720 wealthier suburbs have the worst attention spans. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:16.800 You would have loved that. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.840 I saw when that came out, I went, if it 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:21.400 is what I thought it was going to be, which 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.079 I didn't watch it yet, I've recorded it. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.600 I'm like, Glespo will love this. I think. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:28.920 Also, I just want to jump back. You know, you 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.720 said like their purposes to break your brain, and I'm 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.560 not pushing back or disagreeing, but I feel like obviously 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.720 their purpose is to make money for shareholders as but 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.120 it's like the avenue or the path to that is 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.400 by getting you addicted. The path to that is keeping 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:47.880 you using that thing. 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.840 And oh yeah, I think today it's like the cigarette companies. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.439 I mean, a cigarette company's purpose was to give you 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:56.160 un cancer. 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:57.920 They don't want to do that. 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.640 It's a byproduct I don't care about. But I don't 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.400 think they's care. Yeah, that's why. 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:04.440 But you get it. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.320 Yeah, I mean people expect I don't know. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.640 I think people think that this thing called, you know, 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.319 corporate altruism or corporate morality exists, and it's like that 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:17.920 their job is not to look after your body or 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.720 your brain or your health. All they care about is 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.760 profit and loss, which is the purpose. Well, I don't know, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.600 not all organizations, but all companies. Basically their purpose is 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.280 to make money. And if they can do something that 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.800 isn't illegal, it is accepted. You care whether or not 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.040 it's a moral, whether or not it's good or bad. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.880 They don't give a shit about that. Like their purpose 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:41.960 is to sell stuff. 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.720 Yeah, and no one ever went broke selling addiction, okay, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.960 And I mean that takes a particular talent to have 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.360 an addictive product and still not make money out of it. 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:02.040 So you might wonder why someone like Instagram or Facebook 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.079 or you know, the owning company Meta or any of 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.000 the others are not picking on them, would spend billions 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.400 and it is billions of dollars a year, employing thousands 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:17.280 upon thousands of programmers to give a piece of software 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.040 away for free. How much did you pay for your 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.280 Instagram or your Facebook or you know not a. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:24.640 Sand Yeah, yea. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.280 So they spend billions of dollars on that and continue 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.679 to spend billions of dollars on it so you can 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.160 have it for free. Now, what kind of insane business 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:39.319 model is that? It's clearly not the business model. When 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.360 the product is free, you are the product. And here, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.240 our attention is the product, our engagement is the product. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.080 Its sole purpose is to keep us engaged and to 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.960 be the only person who keeps us engaged. So they 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.520 are competing with each other, obviously, and there's thousands of 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.160 people out they are trying to do this and get 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.400 a poll of this gig as well, and they've got 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.720 to keep them at bay as well. So their goal 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.120 every day is to improve their product, and what they 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.600 mean by improve their product is improve engagement. And what 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.240 they mean by improve engagement is improve addiction. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.920 So every single thing they. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:25.520 Do is targeted at just that, which is keeping you addicted. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.560 And if the only downside to that was wasting your time, 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:33.520 then boohoo. But it's not because to addict you, they 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:38.080 actually have to change your brain and that comes with 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.640 a whole series of really awful consequences for society. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.079 You said, correct me if I get in and those 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:46.760 numbers wrong. 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.040 But there's been a three hundred and fifty percent increase 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:56.480 in diagnosis of adult ADAHD has over what timeframe is 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.800 that from now to back to when? Like, what's this 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.199 darting point, like twenty years a lot? 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:07.400 No, No, I think it's the last five years. I'll 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.600 have to check that, but I think that the number 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:11.160 was in the Full Corner show. I just don't have 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:12.240 it immediately to hand. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.400 That's cool, it's very very recent. 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:20.120 Yeah, So in general terms, when people are going to 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:25.840 see clinical psychologists or neuropsychologists for these diagnoses, which It's 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.440 like every second person that I seem to talk to 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.080 is diagnosed with something in this kind of neurodivergent space, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:42.520 right any of them talking about, like other than prescribing pills, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.280 powders and potions and drugs, are any of them talking 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:51.440 about like what you're talking about right now, like in like, 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:53.600 drugs are not the answer. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.440 The answer is that you use your phone. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.080 Less, that you scroll, less that you are as Is 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.320 that an impractical piece of advice for someone who's addicted. 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.720 Oh that's a big question. Let's break it down into 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.160 a few different things. First of all, they're not getting 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.440 an endless selection of drugs here. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:14.280 They're getting amphetamines. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.880 And some of your listeners might know amphetamines by their 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:24.520 street name, which is speed. So you might think to yourself, 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.000 I'll hang on. If the symptoms of ADHD are hyperactivity 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.920 and an ability to focus, then why would giving someone 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.200 speed be a cure for that? What turns out it 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.160 is because what those are symptoms of is insufficient dopamine 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.080 to allow you to focus. Dopamine is the thing that 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:48.320 allows you to focus. So what enables you to focus 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.320 long enough on food or sex or whatever? It is 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.120 that your body needs in order to get it is 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.680 sufficient dopamine. And what happens when you become addicted to 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:05.080 something is that the level of dopamine required increases because 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.080 you become tolerant of the dopamine, You become acclimatized to it, 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:10.320 and so. 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.040 You need more and more and more. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.040 But what that also means is that your baseline levels 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.720 are not enough to keep you focused, so that they're 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.520 not enough for you to read a book or hold 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.960 anything in your mind for more than well what study 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:30.560 suggests forty seven seconds seems to be about the average 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:31.320 attention span. 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:37.040 Now, so when you don't have enough dopamine. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.080 The cure to that, some smart person figured out was, well, 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.080 why not just give them some dopamine. Well, the easiest 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.240 way to give someone a dopamine it is to do 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.480 something addictive. Give them a cigarette, give them a drink, 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.880 which is why people often refer to that as self medicating, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.520 or give them speed, which is what these drugs are, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.960 which is a lot more you know, fharmacol acceptable way 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:05.280 of doing this, particularly with kids. So give them a 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.800 dopamine stimulant and the dopamine will get to a level 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.000 where they can focus, which is why people who have 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:17.480 these symptoms report immediate improvement in their ability to think. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.360 They say, as soon as that thing hits their stomach, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:27.080 they suddenly feel normal. They can focus again, they can 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:31.960 get stuff done, they can be clear headed, the voices 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:33.359 turn off in their head. 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:36.840 So it's no wonder. I mean, there are very. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.200 Few drugs for anything that have that kind of I 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.719 mean even headaches don't do that. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.879 Yes, have that kind of effect. Problem. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.040 They wear off after about three or four hours, and 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.600 so they have to take more. They do have longer, 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.440 longer lasting versions they can give to kids that will 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.160 last a whole school day now, but that's what they're 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.560 giving them. The trouble is, and you might spot at 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.920 the bit of a paradox in this, If the thing 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.760 that's causing you to have the problem in the first 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:10.359 place is too much dopamine stimulation, and the cure for 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:15.480 that is a drug that stimulates dopamine, then you're eventually 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.919 going to get to a point where nothing works because 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.040 you're still going to be driving up that set point. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.440 You're still going to be driving up your tolerance for it. 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.960 And when you get to that point in the human brain, 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.640 what you develop is something called psychosis, which is anxiety 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:38.720 about things that do not exist, so hallucinating around danger 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.119 to yourself that doesn't exist. So it is anxiety taken 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.840 to the next level. And in the four Corner Show 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.440 on Monday night, they had one of the ED doctors 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.000 presented saying, one of the things she's noticed with this 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.600 massive wave of increase in the prescription of these drugs 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.000 is many, many more presentations of psychosis or psychotic episode 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.159 at ers m. 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.840 Yeah, and that's the thing is like, as you said, 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.440 there's a diminishing return. So the thing that worked really 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.439 well in inverted commas question mark three, four weeks or 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.840 months later or whatever, it doesn't work now you need too. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.000 If you don't need one. 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.399 It's usually about five years that it seems to be 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.160 the accepted in the medical literature. You'll get about five 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.680 years out of it, depending I guess on how bad 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:31.159 you were to start with. But the interesting thing is 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.720 that when this was first discovered, so this was discovered 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.440 by accident, as most of the great drug stories are 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:43.199 by a chap who was trying to deal with what 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:48.000 were then called rambunctious kids, which today we would have 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.760 diagnosed as hyperactive or ADHD. And these were the kids 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.480 of the depression in the United States. So the other 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:56.919 way you can make this happen, by the way, is 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.720 with chronic stress. So chronic stress produce this is exactly 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.520 the same result. So if you are if you are 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:05.919 not sure you've got a roof over your head tonight, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.560 or you're not sure that the money is going to 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:11.560 last long enough to pay the rent. 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.600 If you're not sure of that, you're in a situation 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:15.760 crank stress. If you've got an. 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.600 Alcoholic father coming home and beating the wife and the 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.120 kids up, you know, because he's been unemployed for a year. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.280 So there was a lot of that going around in 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:31.040 depression era in the United States, and there was a 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.639 sort of a wave of kids who were appearing with 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.879 these symptoms. So we're appearing with what today will be 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.560 diagnosed as ADHD or hyperactivity. At the time, they just 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:49.320 called them highly rambunctious kids. And the doctor who discovered 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.800 this operated a facility in New York City which was 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.280 essentially a large farm, a large hotel on a farm 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.960 which he managed to inherit, and he had hundreds of 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.639 these kids there and his prescription for fixing them was 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.520 to bring their life certainty. So certainty fixes this. By 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.280 the way, when the cause of it is uncertainty, the 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.640 cure is certainty. And all he did was give them 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.280 three square a day and a place to play outside, 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.960 and it's ordered them out in three months. So he 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.040 was fine with that. But then the drug company said 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.400 to him, oh, Loosten, you know, he was having experiencing 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:27.399 some of the kids were having headaches with things, and 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.159 he tried out a drug that was around at the 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.320 time for headaches, which was essentially an amphetamine nasal injection 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.720 nasal spray, which he tried. It didn't do anything for 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.560 the headaches, but the kids suddenly could focus instantly. They 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.160 didn't have to wait three months. They could take this 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:48.360 and instantly they were fixed. They could focus, they could 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:55.240 do their school work, they behaved perfectly. But he recognized 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.119 the problem immediately. I mean, he didn't know all the 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.240 science of dopamine, etc. But he immediately recognizing problem is 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.200 that if you did this day after day after day 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:08.960 after day, the kids actually got worse, and so he 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:14.080 stopped using it and the experiment stopped there. It was 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.960 rediscovered again by drug companies in the nineteen sixties who 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.840 did it again and hence what we now have, which 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.600 is these things now being prescribed for this. But what 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.480 was actually a pretty rare phenomenon in the seventies and 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:35.840 eighties is now exceedingly common and getting more and more 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:36.680 common every day. 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:44.000 So it seems we're treating the symptoms and not the problem, right, 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:45.240 the underlying problem. 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.720 And so is your book. 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.320