WEBVTT - Healthy Anger & Saying No with Gabor Maté 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:01.639 Hi, Catherine. 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.759 Oh hello Chelsea. 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:03.760 Hi. 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.560 I'm just trying myself in my work ut. It's so 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.360 hot here, so hot. I'm just trying to figure out 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:11.720 where I'm going to go next because I might have 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:13.400 to leave before my next guests get here. 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.400 It's too hot. Oh no, Well, were your first guests 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:17.040 fun at least? 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:17.720 Mm hmm. 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:18.000 Yeah. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:19.160 No, everyone's been fun. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:20.360 We've had a lot of good laughs. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.280 We've had a lot of good You know, everything's legal 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.680 in Spain, mushrooms, LSD, even cocaine is legal in Spain. 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.760 Cocaine's legal in Canada. Now I've just found out. I'm 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.880 like cocaine. Every time you think cocaine is out of style, 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:36.239 it makes some sort of comeback. 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.000 I mean I was like, wait, this is like a 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.320 thing again now, and I feel like it's happening all 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.600 over again, although now I'm too afraid to try it 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.120 because of all the additives. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.599 Well in America that's a thing, fence and all. In 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.960 London and everyone was doing blow, I was like what. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.559 I was like, people are still doing cocaine here. I 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.000 mean not everybody, but a good portion of people. I 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:55.960 was like, wait, what about fentanyl. They're like we don't 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.760 have that problem here. I'm like, oh, really, we don't 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.600 have fentanyl here. Only America has up problem because we 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.800 have people like Gronda Santis and Trump to deal with, 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:03.920 so we need the fentanel. 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.240 I was going to ask, you've spent a lot of 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.479 family time this summer. Do you get sick of being 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.440 around family after a certain amount of time? 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.640 I think of everybody, I mean, I just like to 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.680 I mean, it's better, you know, like post therapy now, 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.000 I know, I'm just better at modulating my moods and 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.360 not freaking out or losing my shit. Like I don't 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.280 really do that anymore, luckily. I mean, I don't want 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:28.920 to write it off completely because we watch it will 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.119 happen tonight. But I'm pretty good about that. And when 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.280 I want to be alone, I'm just pretty obvious about it. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.560 I just remove myself from a situation. And I just 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.679 read that book Lessons in Chemistry. That was I keep 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:42.640 trying to stop reading books so I could just focus 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:44.760 on writing my book. But then I'm like, fuck, I 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.000 love reading so much, and I feel like every time 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.800 you read something, you gain something for writing. So but 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.080 when I don't have time, like if I'm over people. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.720 I just go and read my book somewhere. The thing 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.400 that annoys me the most is when you are reading 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.200 a book and someone starts talking to you. It's like, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.800 what do you think I'm doing? What does this fucking 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:02.360 look like? 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.880 I'm reading, I'm busy. I'm looking at something else. That 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.839 happens to be quite often. And I won't say who 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.280 it is, but it's definitely the person who lives with me. Yeah, 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:13.720 it's like, hey, do you want to have a conversation 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:14.240 right now? 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.400 We got that, We got that very loud and clear. 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.600 I went and got this MRI called like praneuva or something, 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.519 which is like a body MRI to like detect any early, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:26.720 like tumors or anything you're It's supposed to be like 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:28.880 a pre deetection. But once you do it, you open 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.160 yourself up to everything because everyone has nodules or gross 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.800 or like little things. So but my doctor was like, oh, 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:36.919 I see something in like your L five L six. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:37.600 I was like, what's that? 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.959 He's like your neck and I'm like really, He goes, yeah, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:41.520 something's off in your neck. I have to order you 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.880 a spinal MRI and see how bad it is. If 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.840 it's something that we need to look at or whatever. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.000 And as soon as he said that, my neck hasn't 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:48.840 stopped killing me. 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.400 Oh no, how is that though? Oh it's psychosomatic. 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.320 Yeah, I mean I'm like, oh fuck, now my neck 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:56.080 is killing me. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.600 No, okay, So I have to tell you. I I've 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.080 never talked about this with you before, I don't think. 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.840 But my therapist I go to is a sematic pain therapist. 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.400 And I found her about a year ago or a 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.760 year and a half ago. Now, maybe because I was 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.320 having terrible pain in my feet. I had been having 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.200 like really bad plantar fasci iis for like six years, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.040 and I had had these painful episodes where I just 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.239 had this like terrible pelvic pain and they would come 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:30.160 and go, and I didn't know what was setting them off. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.400 And so I started seeing this sematic pain therapist after 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:39.960 several symptoms told me like, maybe this isn't a physical pain, 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.360 maybe this is something else. Like I would move around 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.680 my body some days my left knee would hurt, some 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.320 days my right knee would hurt. Which if it's structural, 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.520 that's not gonna happen, right, So I can't tell you 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.560 the difference that this therapy has made in my life. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.160 I no longer have any foot pain. Instead of feeling 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:58.600 pain when I wake up in the morning, when I 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.560 set my feet on the ground, I feel like, oh, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.560 I might need to stretch a little bit. It has 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.360 helped me totally reframe all of my pain. My pain 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.400 events when they do happen, they're very, very mild, and 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.840 I can sort of like breathe through them and meditate 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.920 through them, which is something that like surgery to not fix. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.480 But yeah, it's a lot about people pleasing, a lot 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:25.320 about stress and this therapy, which really I kept thinking, like, 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.240 what's it going to be, like, are they going to 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.480 give me special meditations that are going to fix all 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.800 these things because it's specifically about pain, But it's just 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.000 really normal therapy where they kind of help you figure 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.160 out all your pain stuff and how to fix your 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.240 stress stuff so that the pain goes away or is 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.440 much reduced or you have a different relationship to it. 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.839 So yeah, that's something I haven't talked about on. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.440 This before, saying interesting somatic therapist. 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.240 Thematic is body uh huh. 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.960 And the thing about sematic pain, like we used to 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.280 call it psychosomatic pain, it is real pain. It's like 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.880 you're really feeling this pain, but it's sort of your 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:09.080 brain misinterpreting signals from your body that it thinks are pain, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.960 but really they're really just sort of like warning signals 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.039 of like maybe you're too tired, maybe you're this I 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.680 had a couple friends who had really bad back pain, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.440 and they had sort of done similar therapies, and they 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.040 like don't have back pain anymore. Like my one girlfriend says, 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:25.839 you know, when I start to have like a twinge 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:27.960 in my back and I feel like a throw my 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.880 back out coming on, I know that I need to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.120 like sit and rest and journal, you know, in journal 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.479 and like get her stress and stuff out. So I 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:39.919 went to the La Pain Psychology Center and they helped 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.200 me tremendously. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.159 I can't general no, I just I can't handwrite stuff. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.200 My answer always. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.160 If I write a card, a birthday card, my hand 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:50.279 hurts for an hour after. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:50.600 Oh. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.760 I would argue that you write many journals, they just 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.240 get published as books. 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.520 Well, I type those. I can type. I have no 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.560 problem typing, but I can't i'm writing. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.080 I'm like, oh, that's why I'm scared to put out 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:04.800 another book, because I don't want to do that I do. 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.559 Know why I can't sign those books again. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:08.560 So many books you have to sign when you have 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.120 a book cover, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like your 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.839 hand on you get carpal tunnel totally. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.400 I mean I when I go on. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.800 Book tours and like do book signings you have, I 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:18.320 literally go in after and. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.200 Put my hand in an ice c my gosh. 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:21.720 Yeah, I've got to learn how to sign with. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.279 My toes or something, or like a stamp. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:25.720 Or Bernice needs to fucking chip in. 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:26.920 She's so lazy. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.320 Oh, Bernie is my lover. Okay. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.080 Our next guest is a very well known Canadian physician 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.479 and author. He has written the books When the Body 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.839 Says No, Scattered Minds, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.239 He's also written a book called Hold Onto Your Kids, 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.800 and his most recent book, which has been on the 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.760 New York Times bestseller list for nineteen weeks, is called 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:48.760 The Myth of Normal. 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:50.799 Please welcome gadbor mate. 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:57.719 Hello, oh, hello doctor, good morning, well, good afternoonsh nice 0:06:57.720 --> 0:06:58.120 to meet you. 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.000 I'm Chelsea. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:01.600 Is a gobor and I wish you'd row up the 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:02.320 doctor's stuff. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.880 Okay, I'm so used to everyone calling me a doctor. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.440 So I was just projecting and you know, Catherine, my 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:09.320 co host. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.640 Hi there, Hi, I can clear a doctor if. 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.520 Yeah, yeah, sure, sure whatever. It's very nice to speak 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.680 with you. Thank you for coming on the podcast. I'm 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.120 very much looking forward to asking you some questions and 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.200 having you help some of our callers with their life 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:24.520 advice and life questions. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:26.960 Well if I can, if I can do it, I'll try. So. 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:28.720 Your new book, which has been on the New York 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.840 Times best seller list, is called The Myth of Normal, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.800 and your book before that was also a huge success, 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.320 and it is called When the Body Says No, which 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.480 has been brought up on our podcast multiple times. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.080 So I wanted to talk to you. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:51.400 A little bit about the relationship between trauma and ADHD 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.920 and how add and ADHD differentiate with their relationship to trauma. 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.600 If you could speak to that a little bit, I'm 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:00.400 very curious. 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:01.080 Sure. 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.400 Well, that's actually my favoritt book which I wrote when 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.360 I was in my mid fifties and just diagnosed freshly 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:12.800 with attention deficit hyperactive disorder. That book is called Scattered Minds. Now, 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:17.000 the characteristics of this condition are the people have trouble 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.280 staying focused. They tend to tune out, kind of absu 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.280 mind it a lot. So they tend to lose things, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:26.840 forget things, mix up appointments, this kind of stuff, miss 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:31.120 parts of conversations. They tend to pour impulse control. So 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.040 when they want to do something, even if they know 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:34.720 it's not so good for them, they tend to do it. 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.480 So people they did the slip very easily into addictions. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.120 And the hyperactive part is some of them have trouble 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.520 sitting still there restless. They have to move all the time. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.560 You can see their feet tapping on the floor, their 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.840 thumbs fidgetting on the table. You know, that's the hyperactive part. 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.880 So now, the usual medical view of it, which I 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.680 don't agree with, is that this is the genetic brain 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.920 disorder that passed on for Munde to the next. Now 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.880 I was diagnosed with it, so repove my kids, and 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.200 I don't think it's either a disease of the brain, 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:08.720 nor do I think it's a genetic So what is 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.240 it actually? And this is where life experience comes into it. 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.480 Tuning out is an actual capacity of the human brain. 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.040 As an example, if I were to stress you right 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.240 now by being rude and appropriate aggressive, you'd have some 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.880 healthy options. You could just hang up on me, say 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.199 heck with you, or you could fight back and tell 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:31.720 me God, but you're not the right to talk to 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.600 me that way. What if you couldn't either escape or 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.280 fight back, then how would you handle it? I tell 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.160 you how you handle it. When there's a lot of 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.400 stress and a person is helpless, the brain tunes out 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.760 as a defense mechanism. If this happens early in life, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.800 if the parents are stressed because the relationship troubles, or 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.880 because they're on on result trauma, or because of economic 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.160 stress or racialist stress or whatever stress, the child is 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.040 very sensitive. The infant is very insitive to the parents' 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.240 emotional states. When the parent is stressed, the child is stressed. 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.960 When the infant and the young child is stressed, there's 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.439 not much they can do about it. They tune out. 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:15.080 There's a defense mechanism they don't do deliberately. And when 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.880 they're doing this when their brain is developing. So how 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.960 the human brain develops is an interaction with the environment. 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.960 And if you look at the studies of human brain development, 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.840 the biggest influence on new chemicals, the secretry the netflix 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.920 of the brain is the emotional. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.880 Relationship with the adults. If that relationship is stressed, not 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.080 because the parents don't love their kids. It's not because 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.679 they're not trying to do their best, because they themselves 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.160 are stressed. The child is stressed, and what happens is 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.280 that the tuning ug gets wired into the brain and 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.319 then ten years later or fifty years later in my case, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.080 the person is diagnosed with the so called brain disease 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.680 that they inherited. Now, what happened to me was I 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.360 was a Jewish infant under the Nazis in Hungary in 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.319 the Second World or I don't have to go into 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.960 it here, but you can imagine how stressed it was, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.600 how stressed my mother was. How did I deal with 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.320 that stress? I tune out. And this is where my 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.040 brain is developing now. My own kids grew up in 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.800 Canada in a loving home, but with a father who 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.959 was a workaholic, add driven personality. And when I was 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.959 at home, I was very often in a bad mood. 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.040 And since I hate to tell you guys this, but 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.400 we always marry somebody at the same level of trauma 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.120 that we're at. It means I met and married a 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.280 woman who was as traumatized as I was not in 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.199 the same way, but to the same degree. So now 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.440 we have two traumatized parents, two young people who remember 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.840 that traumas acting out on each other in a form 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.160 of family conflict, and our kids live in a stressed 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.920 environment so they tune out. So yeah, what was passed 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.120 on here is not DD. What was passed on was 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.920 the stress and the trauma, which is multi generous. 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.920 You've talked quite a bit about those things that we 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.840 develop as children as coping mechanisms, ADHD being one of them. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.320 I know that's my situation as well, But how we 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.200 take those into adulthood in ways that don't serve us? 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.440 Can you talk a little bit more about that well. 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.880 So, first of all, the tuning out, which is a 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.880 coping mechanism, gets wired into the brain, so it does 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.400 become a matter of brain physiology. But the deproblem didn't 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.280 start in the brain. It started with how the environment 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.120 acted on the brain. It's difficult in adult life to 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.199 be in relationship with somebody who's about ADHD because the 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.200 poor tension span, the poor impulse control. Sometimes my wife 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.360 would say, you're not listening to me, you know, thinking 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.400 I was not doing it deliberately but actually what would 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.320 actually happening is that, especially when the emotional environment. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.520 Gets a bit heavy, I tend to tune out. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.000 Can I ask you a question when you say tune 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.000 out when you're talking about that, are you talking about 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.920 disassociation or is that a separate category? 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.319 Yeah, about this situation simply means disconnecting from the present moment. 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.120 So same thing, the degrees of it. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.560 So I would say that ADHD is a milder form 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.520 of dissociation, and it's not all the time. When you're 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.640 very interested in something where you're motivated, oh, you can 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.760 pay perfect attention. So partly it's also a matter of motivation, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.440 emotional safety, comfort, and so on. But the point is, 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.240 if you came to me as a parent with a 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.200 kid with ADHD, what would you rather hear, sir or madam. 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.680 You've got this kid with this genetic brand disease, or 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.520 you've got a kid who probably grew up in a 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.600 stressed environment. Not your fault, you did your best. But 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.640 if you provide the right environment, that kid can develop 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.400 new brain circuits and can grow in very healthy ways. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.560 So the second message puts more responsibly on the parent, 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.320 not guilt, but responsibility. But at the same time, if 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:57.800 you're a parent, which would you rather hear? 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.080 Yeah, And that's very helpful, you know, for people to 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:02.800 be able to know that they can change their behavior 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:04.319 if they put it, the work towards it, and the 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:05.040 effort needed. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.320 What do you think the contribution. 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.120 Of social media and all of that has on add 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:11.840 and ADHD. 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.360 Well, First of all, let me say something about the 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.719 contribution of social culture in general, because if you look 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.480 at what's happening with bad diagnosis, or i should say, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:28.120 any other childhood diagnosis, childhood depression, childhood anxiety, self cutting, bulimia, anorexia, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.440 childhood soucides, these numbers are going up and up and 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.240 up and up and up here in North America. Now, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.400 if these are genetic disorders, why would they be going up. 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.360 Genes don't change in a population over ten or fifteen 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.000 or twenty or thirty or fifty years. So if the 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.080 numbers are going up, there's something happening in the culture. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:48.920 And what's happening in the culture is that people are 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.400 much more isolated and much more stressed than they used 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.560 to be, and parents are much more isolated and stressed 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.880 that they used to be. Ghost parents are even together, 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.000 but there's a high divorce rate, and there is a 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.520 high rate of depression amongst adults, and that's affecting the children. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:05.920 So what I'm saying is that the reason we're seeing 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.840 more and more these childhood disorders is not because they're 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.240 any genetic epidemic, but because the conditions on the region, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.280 means developed and thrive are less and less available. And 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.320 that's really the essential motif of my most recent book, 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:21.160 The Myth of Normal. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:23.480 The subtitle is the Myth of. 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.160 Normal, Trauma, illness and healing and a toxic culture. And 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.320 I'm basically saying we're living in a toxic culture now. 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.640 Now social media comes into it. How First of all, 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.040 one of the essential needs of children is free play, 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.200 spontaneous play out there in nature. As soon as you 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.560 introduce screens into the kid's life, that's over with. Because 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:49.040 these things, these devices, normally are they highly addictive. They're 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.440 designed to be addictive. They call it neural marketing. They 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.280 design and to hook in the brains of young kids. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:58.920 And if you look at the brains of children who 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.400 are a lot on social media, they don't look normal. 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.880 Circuits that involve thinking and emotional regulation are attenuated or 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.760 not well developed as a result of screen news. Number one. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:16.160 Number two, there's the addiction addictive thing. You take a 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.920 kid on social media. If you're a parent and you 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.600 get addicted to social media, you try and get them 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.880 to stop it. I've worked with drug addicts. One of 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.560 my books is on addiction, and I worked with some 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.000 of the most severe drug addicts in North America. Actually 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.480 trying to separate a child who's hooked on their social 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.800 media from their devices. It's like trying to get a 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.920 severely opiate dependent individual off their heroin. They hate you, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.840 they attack you, they fight back, their hostile they're really upset. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.960 Why Because they're addicted, and they're respawning, like any addicted person, 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.560 to the threatened deprivation of the addictive preference. Thirdly, a 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.720 lot of parents use social media as a way of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.880 babysitting their kids. Now, I don't blame them for it. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.200 Painting was never meant to be as difficult and as 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.920 isolated and as stressed as it is in this culture, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.520 but the result is that people are no longer relating 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.720 to adults in their lives. How we evolved as human 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.639 beings is we lived in small tribes, but the adults 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.920 were all around us the whole day. No kids can 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.120 spend the whole day relating to each other, which means 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.840 they lose respect for the adults because we tend to 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.280 get our orientation and our guidance from the people that 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.960 we're connecting with. When kids have connected with other kids 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.280 most of the time, they can't care less what the 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.879 adults think, and they start getting obstreperous and resistant, and 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.560 the adults thinking, what's wrong with these kids? Nothing's wrong 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.760 with the kids. What's wrong with the kids is that 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.359 the healthy relationship with adults has been so weekend in 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.320 this culture, the kids are influencing each other. I mean, 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.639 look at all the child influencers out there, immature creatures. 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:56.600 I don't mean that as a pejority of I just 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.760 mean objectively, they're immature and i having matured yet influencing 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:02.640 millions of their peers. 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.120 I mean that's a frightening phenomenon. 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.520 Yeah, but with what you said earlier, I mean, you 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.400 can retrain that neural circuitry, right, You can create new 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.479 habits at any time almost, I mean, unless you have 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.200 some other inhibiting factor. 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:18.040 Yeah. 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.600 Yeah, So it's not a hopeless situation if you address 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.280 the situation and try to limit. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.840 The addictive behavior of children on their devices. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.240 I mean, I saw my friend's four year old son 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.840 throw an iPad at her face when she tried to 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.040 take it away from him, and I thought, oh my god, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.040 that's an addict that's like taking away. Yeah, so it 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:40.520 is very disturbing. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:42.960 We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.800 I know you discuss in your books, all of your books, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.920 the mind body connection. So when you're talking about retraining 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.359 the neural circuitry, how does. 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.119 The body fall in step with that? 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.240 Again, if you look at how you evolved as human creatures, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.960 they didn't involve in cities and pavements and isolated apartments. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.840 Revolved out there in nature, living with other human beings 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.760 in small groups and traveling with them and hunting with 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.520 them and collecting food with them. But there was a 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:17.040 real sense of community. 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:22.720