Why ADD And ADHD Are Good For You (And Supplements, Foods & Lifestyle Strategies To Help With ADD & ADHD).

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness show, you get a five year old kid, oh, he's hyper. He must have adhd. Let's put him on meds. That's the first solution. Okay? Or maybe you wake him up early, you let him go run around for half an hour, you actually give him protein for breakfast instead of frosted cereal. Sugar bombs. All of a sudden, you're going to notice a massive change. When your body is producing it naturally, it knows exactly how much it has to give you, right? It says, okay, I'm going to produce this much of X. So your body releases this much of Y, of endorphins and things like that. You do a lot of coke. Your body's like, holy. Release everything we had.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement.

Get out there.

When you look at the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy, all the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Hey, folks, Peter Shankman is my guest on today's podcast. And if you've been a longtime podcast listener, you may have actually heard Peter way back in the hundreds, which seems like it's eons ago. It was titled Top Fitness Productivity Tips from Peter Shankman. So long ago that I can't guarantee that my voice wasn't bouncing around because I believe I had just gone through puberty. However, it's there and I'll link to it in the show notes for Today's Episode. You can find the show notes for today's episode over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Faster Than Normal. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Faster than Normal. Why Faster Than Normal? Well, it's because Peter is a big believer that ADD and ADHD are good for you. He believes they're not just good for you, but that they can actually make you more successful. And because of that, he has this relatively new website called Faster Than Normal at Faster Than Normal dot com. And it is a blog that focuses on the benefits of having ADHD and ADD and a podcast in which he interviews CEOs and celebrities and a whole bunch of successful and people who I was frankly surprised to find out had ADHD or ADD, who have actually turned it to their Advantage. Peter, in his own rights, is a relatively famous guy. He's a founder and CEO of something called the Geek Factory, which is a social media marketing and customer customer service strategy firm. And in the world of social media and marketing, he's probably best known for this really cool website that he has called Haro H A R O. That's where I first discovered him. Haro stands for help a reporter out. And you sign up for this service and it actually sends you an email each day or on the days that you prefer that tells you what reporters all around the world are looking for for stories. And so if you're a person who like, who writes stories, who's available to be interviewed as an expert, etc. It's actually a really, really good, free way to get out there in front of the media. And because of his expertise in this area and a lot more, Peter's keynoted for a whole bunch of different clients like the U.S. department of Defense and Walt Disney World and Sheraton and American Express and Cisco and Sprint and beyond. And because he does still have a little bit of time on his hands, plus he's add, of course, he's an angel investor. He's a sub 4 marathon runner. He's an Ironman triathlete, He's a skydiver. He's on the advisory board for NASA, and he also recently authored the book Zombie Loyalist Using Great Service to create rabied Fans. So he's kind of an underachiever, but we decided to have him on the show anyways, so. Peter, welcome.

Thank you. Good to be here. What a great intro. Rabid fans, by the way. I'm afraid if I actually created rabied fans, that wouldn't go over well.

That's my problem with being one of those guys. Ever since I was a kid, I would read books to myself and not read them aloud. Part of that might be because I was homeschooled K through 12, and so I didn't spend a lot of time standing up in class reading. And so I'll have these words that I pronounce inside my head. Another one. What is one that I'll do? Like autofeggy versus autophag. That one has come back to bite before.

The Simpsons, where Marge Simpsons shouts out, lisa, run like the wind. And Lisa goes, mom, it's me.

Exactly. Run like the wind. There's one other. It's on the tip of my tongue. I'll remember it later on. But yes, rabied versus rabid. Yes, good point. Okay, so anyways, ADT and adhd. It's really, really interesting that you actually think that is good for you. So let's just start right there. Why do you say that ADD and ADHD are actually responsible for success?

The best way I could phrase it is if you give everyone a. You drive down the road, you're going to see a lot of Hondas, right? Good people in Hondas all over the place. You don't see that many Lamborghinis. Hondas are great cars. They'll get you where you need to go. Whatever. Lamborghinis are fun. Lamborghinis are fast. Lamborghinis are pretty awesome. ADHD simply means that your brain runs at a faster level than a normal brain. Problem is, a lot of people don't know how to control that. You're used to driving a Honda and I give you a Lamborghini and you try to drive it like a Honda, you're going to crash into a tree. But if you've trained your brain or trained yourself to drive that Lamborghini the way a Lamborghini is supposed to be driven, you're going to be cornering like it's on rails. You're going to have a field day with that car. Right? But you have to know how to drive it. And so the problem with ADHD is that we spend a lot of time teaching people to be one way, to be normal, not to do anything different. And our brains don't function that way. ADHD is very real. It simply means that we have less. We produce naturally. We naturally produce less dopamine, monoamine inhibitors, adrenaline, things like that. And because of that, we have a hard time staying focused until we learn how to use our brains to our advantage. Once we learn how to use our brains to our advantage, we can go faster than almost anyone else.

That's interesting.

And so that's where it gets fascinating.

What you just mentioned about monoamine inhibitors and dopamine. How much have you looked into, like, the biology of ADD and ADHD in terms of what's going on from a chemical standpoint?

Quite extensively. There are a lot of things that are basic, common knowledge. Essentially, at one point, I dated a neuro. The hell was her title? She was a Neuro. She was doing her third PhD. Which tells you we should not have been dating.

You could just say she was a really smart person.

Oh, my God, like, ridiculous. And we were dating right around the time that I started skydiving and got my skydiving license. And at one point she came out and she took my blood When I woke up, took a little bit of my blood, and she took my blood again when we got to the drop zone and shook my blood again when I landed after jump. And she said that the basics of what was in my system, typical ADHD before I jumped, about 25% less monoma inhibitors and things of that nature. When I get to the drop zone, I was pretty much normal, as you define normality, When I landed, she goes, you're about a molecule. There's a molecule difference between you and someone binging on cocaine.

Wow.

Which was just fascinating to me. And that's what started my sort of research and excitement.

So she was taking your blood, like, when you woke up in the morning? Yeah. But what, she was taking off to the lab?

Yeah. Not for. Not. This wasn't like a sex thing or whatever. She actually said, I want to use you as an example for this thing.

Right. She didn't have a fetish, right?

No, no. But it was pretty fascinating to sort of put a name to what I understood. I always had all my life. And it was probably about 10, 12 years ago, so I started researching from there. From that, I look back towards my schooling, and I talked to thousands of people on this, and it's pretty much a given. The kind of people who do things like skydive, the kind of people who do things like run marathons, do triathlons, things like that, we're pretty similar. And the benefit is that we've found positive ways to figure out what's up with our brains and how to make them function the way we want. There's another side of this where there is a whole society of people who have not found positive ways to do this, and they found negative ways to do this. And that could be crime or drugs or, you know, antisocial behavior. Things that. If you look at the number of criminals in jail with adhd, the numbers are off the charts. So, you know, it is not. It doesn't. It's not always a gift. In a lot of ways, it can be a curse. Before I figured out what it was and how to handle it, it definitely was a curse. And it hurt. But once I figured it out, I'm like, holy crap, I can control this. I can use this to my advantage. That sort of really changed the game for me, and that's, I think, a lot of my success.

Interesting.

Professional, personal. Really comes down to that.

You figured out how to drive the Lamborghini. I'm actually fascinated. Maybe it's because I have such a bent towards biochemistry, but Mao A. That's a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, More or less. It'd be like when people, like go on ayahuasca retreats, they'll take ayahuasca, but it's got this MAOA inhibitor, I believe. So like DMT stays hanging around the bloodstream for a longer period of time. But from what I understand, MAO inhibitors, those reduce the breakdown of things like serotonin and norepinephrine and dopamine. So are you saying that you would produce more of those in inhibitors if you had ADD or adhd, and so you'd have more serotonin, more norepinephrine and.

More dopamine hanging around or less and less serotonin.

So you have less of these MAOA inhibitors?

Exactly. The best way to describe it is when. When a normal person. Right. Or a slower than normal person. You know, not slower than normal, but when someone who's not adhd, when they are. When my assistant says to me, hey, you got to do your expense reports or your client's not going to pay you whatever it is, right. Normal people would simply say, okay, let's buckle down and do this. And the act of buckling down and doing that produces serotonin, dopamine, things you can use to focus. We don't have that. So that's why we're sitting there going, okay, let's see. Oh, something else. We're looking for that. Something else to give us that same level of whatever.

Okay, interesting. So what about, like, can you. Or have you experimented with using things like, you know, mucuna dopa. I know is one supplement that's like a dopamine precursor. Have you tried things like. Like that to see what happens? Like it, like if it allows you to focus more, you know, things that would be like serotonin precursors, like bananas. I know, are one common one. Or even like these supplements out there, like a lot of nootropic supplements on the market now, they have things like dopamine precursors in them. Have you experimented with many of those?

No, I have. So I have a prescription for concerta that I call my expense report medication. When I have to do an expense report, I take it. Otherwise, I tend to understand myself and have learned to do things in my brain the way that work for me instead of having to take anything. So I have life rules that I live by. I will not go more than 24 hours without exercising. I don't sleep in, I get to sleep early. I don't drink. All these different things that I've learned benefit me that do pretty much the same. I'm very aware of my diet. These kind of things are ways of, I don't want to say tricking my brain, but ways of optimizing my brain. When you have a brain that focuses, that does things differently, you have to do things differently to make them work. I find that if I give up processed foods, I see a difference. I find that if I on days that I don't exercise, if I don't get out and first thing in the morning get to the gym or get on a run or a bike or swim, my day is impacted. And I feel that. And so I'm very aware of the things that I do. You know, we could talk for hours about something I call the elimination of choice, which is essentially, remember the movie War Games? The only winning move is not to play. There are certain things that I will not do. There are certain places I will not go. In my closet I have T shirts, button down shirts and jeans. And that's it. I have one type of outfit that I wear if I'm on stage or tv, it's one, you know, it's the button down shirt and jeans. If I'm on, if I'm just having a normal day, it's a T shirt and jeans. And I don't fluctuate from that. So I don't have to spend my time doing the things that I could focus my time on doing things that matter and dismiss the stuff that doesn't. Because if I woke up first thing in the morning and said, oh, I have 47 sweaters, I'd look at one. I remember that sweater. What's her name? Gimme that sweater. I wonder how she's let me look her up on Facebook. Six hours later. I haven't left the house.

That's really fascinating, Peter. And I want to get back into like food strategies and supplement strategies and lifestyle strategies here in a second. Because that's actually something that I run into is I have found that in many cases, and in cases that especially I don't have the right type of foods or supplements in my system, or I'm distracted or a hectic day or whatever, I will go up to get dressed in my closet. We have one of these walk in closets. I will stand in front of the pants, the shirts, et cetera. And I will stand there for about 10 minutes. My head will be spinning and I'll space out. That will happen to me too. If I don't. I am one of those people who needs to go to the website of a restaurant before I visit that restaurant and look at the menu and make sure that I've chosen what I'm going to order, because otherwise I will go to the restaurant if I'm not careful and I don't rein myself in, I will look at the menu for 10 or 15 minutes and I'll get super annoyed. I won't be happy with the food that I order because there are too many choices. If I show up already knowing what I'm going to order and just point at it and put the menu down, I'm a much happier person. So what this is leading into is I'm curious if I have. Not to, like, paint everything with a disease or a condition or whatever, but I'm curious if I have ADD or adhd. Other people listening in might be too. Are there simple surveys or questionnaires or ways that you can know if you have ADD or adhd, or if you're just like a really busy person?

The best thing I can advise is to go get checked out by a doctor, get a recommendation to a psychologist, psychiatrist, have them ask you some questions, have them talk to you for an hour. You know, nothing beats that. Short of that, there is a book called Delivered from Distraction. It's written by a wonderful man named Dr. Ned Hallowell. I'm fortunate to call him a friend. He's sort of the godfather of ADD ADHD. And I read his book probably 12 years ago, and it literally changed my life almost overnight. All of a sudden, had a name to what I had, and that's where I started my research. He's a great guy, and he has offices in New York and Boston. But Delivered from Distraction, the precursor to that, was Driven to Distraction, followed by Delivered from Distraction. Both of those are phenomenal reads, and they both have quizzes at them that'll tell you sort of.

Delivered from distraction.

Delivered from distraction. Now, of course, look, any kind of. The brain sees what it wants to see. You take a quiz that you read in a book and you could pretty much, oh, my God, it's the WebMD scenario, right? I have a headache. It means you have cancer. It's that premise. So I encourage you. It's nice to read the book. I definitely think you should read the book, but see someone.

Gotcha.

And make sure that the person you're seeing isn't. Make sure their only goal isn't to put you on meds.

So you've actually. You have this podcast in which you interview people who have ADD or adhd. I'm Fascinated with that. Because, first of all, how do you know, do you. Do you stalk these people first and look them up and then ask them to be on your podcast? Or do you have them on and then realize they have ADD or adhd or how does that work exactly?

I talk to people who have been public about their adhd, who understand they do have it, who have mentioned it in passing, or people that I know that I've met personally. There's almost like ADHD dar, Right. You could tell just by talking to someone. It's pretty much a given. You could figure out, yep, he has it. Yep, she has it. It's pretty easy to figure that out.

So who are some people we'd be surprised at that have ADD or adhd?

Well, it's actually, it's interesting. It's not a surprise in the respect that when you understand sort of what makes ADHD and how to benefit from it, it makes perfect sense. So when you look at, basically look at anyone who founded this country, right? Ben Franklin is like a dead. Given that he had adhd, you don't, you don't come up with all these rules early to better lead arise. You know, things like that. Without needing to control your life. Let's. Let's start our own country somewhere far away where there's nothing there, and, well, we'll figure out how to make it work. It's all good, right? You don't do that, right. Unless you're thinking a little differently. Let's. Let's fly this, this kite into a storm and attach the key to it and see if we can create electrical. Let's see what happens, right? So, you know, that's much a given you can figure out in that regard. But then I talk to people who I think have, who are successful and who have either mentioned it or at some point talked about it. And I simply encourage them. I'm like, look, we have thousands of people that listen to our podcast. A lot of kids, a lot of parents of kids with ADHD who need some support and need to know they're not alone. And I think it'd be great if you came on. And we've had. It's funny, we've had tremendous success from business leaders. We've had tremendous success. When I've reached out to celebrities personally, when I try to go through their publicists, they simply don't get it. It's amazing.

That's funny. That happens to me with podcasts, too. I'll read an amazing book and I'm like, I have to have this author on, and I'll contact their publicist. It's just like a debt. And they're like, what's a podcast? And then I'll contact the author.

That's the thing. Podcast. Like, oh, you must be some kid in your basement. Well, yeah, I'm a kid in the basement who, by the way, Random House just signed to write a book called Faster than Normal. So, you know, take that.

Yeah, it's really interesting. You have to actually bypass the gatekeeper. And I found that Twitter actually works quite well. It seems like that many celebrities publicists actually don't have any responsibility for that celebrity's Twitter account. Instead, the celebrity actually reads it. I actually just pulled up itunes. Peter Seth Godin. I see you interviewed him. Does he have add?

He does. And that was a phenomenal interview that aired last week. He talked all about how he. In school, the first signal that he might have had something different was that he wasn't being called on enough. So he built a hand out of paper towel holders and a stick and held it up higher than in all the other kids hands. You know, that kind of thinking led him to found yo Yodine, led him to start his company. I mean, just amazing, amazing stuff out there. And it's so nice because you have all of the kids. Whatever. I was the same way when I was a kid. I was totally different. And when you're a kid, man, different's wrong, right? I mean, you learn that different's great, but when you're a kid, man, your job as a kid is to make friends and to have fun. And when you're being ostracized for being different, holy shit, it's like a death sentence. So, you know, I love being able to produce this podcast and interview these people. You know, if you scroll down, we had Adam Sud. He used to be like £300. And he discovered eating better in that, got rid of his ADHD and kept it at bay, and he discovered how to use it. We interviewed the chief of staff to the mayor of Boston. I mean, these phenomenal people who all had the same concepts growing up that were different. And if you're different, that's wrong. And I'm all about guys. If you're different, that's freaking awesome.

Yeah. Cameron Herold, Cameron Herald, he's one of the guys who, who I would say is if you're into business, you must, must follow on Twitter. He has ADD.

Yeah, I mean, spend 30 seconds with Cameron Herald. He has ADD. Trust me on that. But, you know, all these guys do that's.

Crazy. So what about this though is add? Because a lot of people think this and you know, I want to play devil's advocate here a little bit. Peter, is this just like an over prescribed term that we use to, you know, in many cases people will say they don't have ADD or adhd. They're, they're a nine year old boy. Right. Or they are just a regular person who gets stuff done. Like what, what say you to this idea that, that like 80 and ADHD are really only conditions that exist because we've created a title for creative or busy people.

Yeah, you know, it's like Those people who 100 years ago would just die randomly and it was, it was because we angered the gods, you know, and then they discovered like cancer.

Right.

I hate that. You know, don't tell me he's a nine year old boy, first of all, let's talk about that. You get a five year old kid, oh, he's hyper, he must have adhd. Let's put him on meds. That's the first solution. Okay? Or maybe you wake him up early, you let him go run around for half an hour, you actually give him protein for breakfast instead of frosted cereal. Sugar bombs. All of a sudden you're going to notice a massive change. Okay, so you have two aspects there. The first aspect is that you put, you get, oh, he's acting a little different than everyone else in the class. Boom. Throw him on meds. He must be adhd. That's number one. That's the mistake. The second mistake is he doesn't have adhd. He's just a five year old kid who needs to shut up and buckle down harder. And that's the cancer aspect. Right? You know, I mean think about, my God, think about how many people were put into mental hospitals and ultimately died because they had bipolar before it was diagnosed, for Christ's sake. Think about the people who, you know, had a simple illness and then we discovered, oh, penicillin. You know, we just because we're learning about what new ideas and what new what. Just because we're coming, the science has improved, doesn't mean we're labeling things now. That being said, I can't stand on, you know, there are a lot of people I can't stand now I think about it. But on the flip side, I can't stand people who puts me. I lost my keys. The best of adhd. No, you're a fucking idiot. Just find your keys, hang a hook up by your door, you know, so I mean there's a. There's a. It's tough, it's difficult because things that, you know, you break your arm, bone sticking out of your arm. Yeah, I broke my arm. You could pretty much see that.

Yeah.

A little different on the other side.

So. So are there varying and. And I'm. I might sound like an idiot asking this question for people who know a lot about ADD and adhd, but are there varying degrees that would allow you to say, okay, well, maybe this is just a. A busy person who is hyperactive and this person actually has, like, full on clinically diagnosed ADD or adhd. Like, are there brain scan tests that you can do? Are there like, different. Different surveys that you can take that really say that you are definitely dyed in the wool extreme ADD or adhd. And this isn't just like some term being used to, well, again, tell you that you're hyper.

You want to talk to a doctor. Okay, in the other day, I'm not one. And doctors. Yeah, there are tests that doctors can perform. You know, they can ask you questions, they can talk to you. And, you know, not everyone who has ADHD has adhd. Not everyone diagnosed that has it. You know, you want to get fully informed, and I am not the person who can do it. You know, that's not my job. But I could tell you how I use my ADHD to make it work for me. That much I can give you.

There's a lot of people, like, do you know who Dave Asprey is?

Mm.

Okay. So, yeah, Bulletproof coffee guy. And he has created like this 40 years of Zen type of program where he's actually doing, like, brain retraining. Another friend of mine named Dr. Andrew Hill, who runs Peak Brain LA, he is actually doing the same thing. I'm actually going down there in a couple of weeks to do a full week of intensive neurofeedback to reprogram my brain and to learn how to subconsciously direct blood flow both to and away from different areas of my brain that might be hyperactive and anxious or irritable and areas that actually don't get enough blood flow? In your writings and what you know about ADD or adhd, have you come across the use of any of these, like, you know, these hacks like the halo headband for meditation or the neuroptimal system or any of these forms of neurofeedback or brain scanning, have you found that any of those seem to be useful or of utility to people who have ADD or adhd?

I've heard they exist. I haven't done enough research to figure out whether or not they're beneficial. Because I can tell you again that the kind of things I do to change my brain are self facing. So I mean, I focus a lot of my time on trying to understand myself better, to understand why certain triggers happen, why they affect me, how I can mute them, how I can eliminate them if possible, or at least calm them down. That allows me to focus on sort of retraining my brain in a different way.

Okay, gotcha. And by the way, for those of you who want to know more about what I just talked about, I do plan on reporting on my results of doing my own brain reinvention and I may turn into a vegetable. I'll know in a couple of weeks, but ultimately just stay tuned and I'll be talking more about that in the future. You do. However, Peter, I know noticed have three ways that you've talked about to fast reboot an ADHD brain. What are those three ways?

Well, I have multiple ways, so I'm not sure if these are the three that you're talking about, but I can tell you that the first one.

Well, the reason I say three is because I noticed you have a blog post about this.

I probably do. Yep. Hang on, let me find it. Or if you want to tell me what they are, what I wrote about, I'll tell you why they work.

You know what I just noticed when I was stalking you that it pulled up as one of the articles that you've written. But you can pull whatever your, whatever your biggest tips are. But yeah, you say there's. Here we go. Three ways to fast reboot an ADHD brain.

The first one is to fill a water bottle and drink. Studies have shown that given close to 80% of the population at any given time is slightly to moderately dehydrated. Okay. So we don't anywhere drink anywhere near enough water as we should. And you have to force yourself to actually get into the ritual of drinking of drinking water on a regular basis. I Probably, I remember 10 years ago, 20 years ago when I used to smoke, I would take smoke breaks. Right now I take water breaks or pee breaks as it were. If I'm not going to the bathroom at least once every hour and a half, I'm not drinking enough water. You want to be able to, you want to constantly be drinking water. Constantly be. Especially when you wake up first thing in the morning. I have before my alarm, when my alarm goes off, before I shut it off, I take a huge bottle of water that I keep in My bed. And I just chug it because it's. It does so much for you. It starts the processes in your brain. It starts your blood flowing again. It wakes you up out of that sort of sleep funk, as it were.

Do you put things in your water, like essential oils or lemon or things like that? Just plain water.

I like club soda. I like sparkling. But during the day, I have. In the morning when I get to the office, my first bottle of water is filled with BCAAs, branched amino acids. But after that, it's pretty much just plain water.

Do you want a couple of quick tips for me?

Sure.

Okay. So first of all, I don't know if you've seen the recent studies that have shown that probiotics can help to heal depression and have a significant impact on probiotic. Not my water, on mental function. Water filters. I'm super duper careful with my own house. With all my clients, we use reverse osmosis filters with remineralization everything. Because the chlorine and many of the compounds that you'll find in municipal or airport water supplies or elsewhere, they can kill the good bacteria in your gut. And so if folks, if you're listening in and you're concerned about, like, mental function, depression, add stuff like that, make sure that if you're taking into account Peter's recommendations here on drinking a glass of water and staying very hydrated, that you not kill your gut bacteria. It's like good water.

You don't mind my playing devil's advocate here. I grew up in Manhattan drinking tap water from New York City apartments. My whole life, I've never had one cavity. So, you know, there are a lot.

I don't think it's gonna cause. Actually, the fluoride.

I love the concept that there's fluoride in the water. Right.

Well, the fluoride will help with cavities.

Right. But on the flip side, I don't think it's.

You're not supposed to swallow it.

I don't think it's turned me into a vegetable just quite yet. But no, at the end of the day, you know, if you have the means to get to filter your water, sure, by all means. But, you know, at the end of the day, just drinking water.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what is number two?

Number two is to exercise. And again, I talked about this earlier, but, you know, first thing in the morning, I will get up. I sleep in my gym cloth. And it sounds pretty crazy, but it eliminates the choice. I wake up, I fall into my sneakers, I'm out The door in under two minutes, I brush my teeth and I'm gone. If I have to think about it, I'll figure out a reason not to go to the gym. Oh well, it might be an asteroid that hits next week, so I better stay out.

Have you found with ADD or adhd? Because this is something that I've also wondered, is it just me or do other people have that? I find it much, much easier if I'm going to exercise and especially if I'm going to exercise for a long time to break things into circuits. And that even means sometimes I'll take a run, like a five mile run and I'll say, okay, every half mile I'm going to stop and I'm going to do 10 pushups or 15 burpees or some squats. So almost everything I do in tiny chunks instead of one big long chunk. Do you use strategies like that when you exercise?

When I hear you say that, my first thought is that you in no way, shape or form have ADD or adhd. Because for me, when I go for a run, the sole purpose other than obviously to get healthy and improve my cardiovascular health and physical health, the purpose of going for a run for me is to get into a zone. I get into a thinking zone, I get into a reboot zone. If I have to stop every 30 seconds or every 30 minutes or whatever, two miles, whatever, run and do something else, I break it. So for me, the greatest thing in the world is an hour on the recumbent bike in the gym or six hours on the bike to do 80 miles up 9W or an Ironman. There are more recovering addicts in triathlon than any other sport in the world. And it makes perfect sense because it lets us focus on other things and zone in so that you know, that.

For me, chronic repetitive motion is very.

Much what I do when I, you know. And I also have to do it, like I said, super early. When I'm out of the gym by 6:45, I got endorphins out the ass my whole day in front of me.

Do you meditate occasionally?

Not anywhere near as much as I should.

Right. Okay, now what's number three?

Singing. So this sounds kind of crazy, but I actually, I have an ADHD Buster iTunes mix that I keep on my iPhone. And when I need a break, when I need a rut, close my door or I've gone outside, I've walked away from people and I will sing my guts out. I can, you know, you sing La Vivo M from the Broadway show Rent and My magic is on for the next day. So it's.

That's really interesting. Did you know that there's actually some science to that? Singing activates the nervous system, actually activates a part of the nervous system called the vagus nerve. And chanting does it and gargling does it and like the om that you do when you're doing yoga and meditation and stuff like that. Does it. But it actually increases what's called the tone of your vagus nerve and activates your. Your parasympathetic, like your rest and digest nervous system.

Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I have 20 years of classical vocal training under my belt, which very few. Oh, but so it makes perfect sense. Yeah, you know, it sounds logical. Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, so glass of water, exercise and singing, that sounds easy enough. And those obviously aren't too, too complicated. You mentioned a little while ago about how you avoid processed foods, et cetera. Have you delved into using, like, ketosis for controlling blood sugar swings, high amount of some of those dopamine precursor foods like bananas and capers and stuff like that? Do you have any special diet or dietary strategies or foods that you really go out of your way to include specifically for ADD or adhd?

So it's interesting. I don't go out of my way to include food specifically or adhd, but I do. My diet itself is based on the premise that when I am in a healthier place, my ADHD does not affect me or does not get the best of me, as it were. So I am very aware of lack of process. My logic is, if my grandmother wouldn't have recognized it in 1912, I won't eat it. I focus on and look. You know, I wish I could say I'm 100% at this. I'm not. You know, I live in New York City. If you don't have pizza at least once a week, you know, you're. You're asked to leave the city. So obviously, you know, not perfect, but 99% of the time, I am very much all about lean meats, fish, veggies, as many veggies as humanly possible. I try to keep my carbs somewhere between 20 grams and 40 grams a day. That's not a lot. It puts me just into slash over the edge of ketosis.

Gotcha. Even though you do lean meats, you don't do fatty meats.

I do lean meats primarily because I'm always trying to improve my times for running. And I get my fats, I get my fats through nuts I get my fats through. Look, when I go to Morton's, no matter how lean the meat, it's going to have enough fat on it. But I try, you know, I use regular butter, I use coconut oil, things like that. I try to. I don't like. You know, I avoid margarine, I avoid things processed. And I try to just eat in a way that. My logic is, if I want to eat in a way an hour from now, I don't hate myself.

Yeah, well, I know. In addition to bananas, like I mentioned, for those of you listening in, I know chocolate is a big one, obviously, for dopamine. Coffee is another one. Avocados. Do you do much avocado? I do.

I do the pure fats. And avocados.

Yeah, avocados are a huge dopamine boosting food. And then almonds also. Are you an almond fan?

Egg. Right here.

Wow, cool. Okay. So in addition to going out of your way to eat clean and also include some of these dopamine boosting foods. Supplements. We briefly touched on supplements. And I even talked about, for example, this one that I'm aware of, the mucuna dopa, or there's a company called Natural Stacks I know, and they make one called dopamine Brain food, which I believe is that mucuna dopa. And then there's some other things that they throw in there. Selenium and tyrosine and some of these other precursors that help you to, I suppose, feel happier, increase dopamine levels. Do you take supplements?

I don't. I take supplements, but not related to that. You know, I'm getting older, so obviously there's fish oil every day. There's flaxseed oil, things like that. But for me, I don't take supplements for dopamine. I don't want to rely on a supplement that at some point I'm going to excrete out of my body. Okay. And I guess the best example of that is the difference between going for a skydive or doing cocaine. Okay. And I'll explain my logic. When you do a skydive, your body is producing extra dopamine, serotonin, basically, to keep you alive. Right. And it's a great high. It feels wonderful. The difference is, and you know, when you do cocaine, it's also a great high. The difference is when your body is producing it naturally, it knows exactly how much it has to give you. It says, okay, I'm gonna produce this much of X, so your body releases this much of Y of endorphins. And things like that. You do a line of coke, your body's like, holy release, everything we ever had, and that's why you crash. So I am more of a fan of doing things on my own, within my own body, understanding my own body. That release just the right amount according to what my body needs versus, you know, and look, I have nothing against people who take those kinds of supplements. That's totally cool. I am just more about figuring out ways to do it so that my body gives me what I need. If you treat your body well, it'll give you exactly what you need. So let's figure out how to do that.

For me, it comes down to negative feedback loops, meaning if a supplement or some exogenous compound is known to shut down your body's own production of said compound. That's where I'm careful. Testosterone is of course a classic example of that. But there are other little known ones like antioxidants. If you do high dose vitamin C or vitamin E and you actually don't need those extra antioxidants, your brain can or your body can shut down your own antioxidant response and it blunts basically your response to exercise and results in you actually becoming less fit by taking high dose antioxidants. And granted, some people produce way more free radicals like Ironman triathletes, and they might need those extra antioxidants, but so many people take amounts that they don't need or forms that they don't need. So that's kind of like my litmus test. Is, is this or is this not creating a negative feedback loop or shutting down my own endogenous production? I think it depends. Like fish oil, for example, that doesn't shut down your body's own production of essential fatty acids because they're essential, because you don't make them. Right. So you have to take them from some external source.

Exactly. And you know, like I said, those I do take. But I think at the end of the day I really want to be aware of, I'm trying so hard to put in good things I want to be aware of.

Yeah. Now I thought also your discussion of like lifestyle strategies because we talked about exercise and we talked about food and supplements. You talked about like having like that same color or the same simple items of clothing that you might wear from day to day. Do you have other little things that you do from a lifestyle standpoint to control ADD or ADHD or to especially because this fascinates me in particular, eliminate decision making, fatigue.

Yeah. I mean, so like I said the concept of not, of. Not of only having a couple of different types of clothing, right? That's number one. Other things I do, I try to keep my fridge filled with things that I'm going to eat and not things that I potentially could not want to eat. Stupid things. I deleted Seamless off my phone.

You deleted what off your phone?

There's an app. I don't know if it's where you are, but there's an app in New York called Seamless.

What is that?

Seamless is. Allows you, in one click to reorder any restaurant takeout and have it delivered anywhere near you. So in one click, I get home, hey, I'm hungry. In not even 3012 seconds, I could order a large buffalo cheese pizza and it'll be delivered. I don't even have my credit card. It's one click versus, okay, why don't we take the steamed grilled chicken out of the fridge and throw some salsa on it and have that. So you eliminate the things that can do those kind of. That can make you have those kind of decisions. And it helps a lot. My speaking, I mean, I'm a corporate keynote speaker. I've spoken to companies ranging from Saudi Aramco to American Express to SAP. And my speaking contract is like the easiest thing in the world. Pay me, come, I'll speak, you'll pay me, and you'll pay for my expenses. That's it. Except in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, I have a rider when I have to speak in Vegas, I have a rider on my speaking contract that says client. A speaker does not have to be on the ground from wheels down to wheels up for more than eight hours. And that means that if you want me to speak in Vegas, I have to do an afternoon, like a 12:30 lunchtime keynote. I'll take a 6am flight out from New York. I'll land at 10. I'll do a 12:30 keynote. I'll be in a 4pm flight back. And the reason for that is because I know myself well enough to know that if I have to give a morning keynote or an evening keynote, that's going to require an overnight stay in Vegas. 12 hours on my own in Vegas. Nothing's going to come of that.

Interesting.

It's not like I think I'm going to do anything stupid, but why put yourself in a position where you could.

I have the opposite approach. When I travel to speak, I typically request or add in a buffer day, meaning I actually have that extra day that I use to sit in my hotel room and do nothing but get work done that I otherwise probably wouldn't accomplish at home because of this idea that to radically change a habit you need to radically change your environment. And I find that those extra days when I travel of me just sitting by myself in a hotel room working actually make travel less likely to leave me walking in the door all hectic and grumpy when I arrive home to my wife and kids. So. So that's interesting.

See I do a quarter million miles a year on the road. The last thing I want to do is spend an extra day where I don't have to. What I've learned to do is utilize my flight. So my last two best selling books have been written on planes. My last book, Zombie Loyalists, I actually flew. I had eight months to write it. With two weeks left, I hadn't written it. I booked a flight to Tokyo. I had absolutely no reason to be in Tokyo. I wrote chapters one through five on the flight from Newark to Tokyo. I landed in Tokyo, I went to the lounge, I had a couple cups of coffee, I took a shower, got back on the same plane, same seat, two hours later, wrote chapter 6 through 10, landed 34 hours after I took off with a book.

Lucky man. I actually develop a medial epicondylitis or what they call climbers elbow when I type on planes, probably because of the copious amounts of pull ups that I do for obstacle course racing. But I actually, I can't type on a plane for longer than about 20 or 30 minutes without developing like shoulder pain and elbow pain and a tight neck. It's really weird. So I actually use the plane as my reading time or for international flights to catch up on that movie that people always tell me that I need to see but that I never have time to watch.

Interesting.

It's interesting to hear people's different travel approaches, Peter. I also know that some people are listening in who may not have any concerns whatsoever that they have ADD or adhd, but they might live with someone who does. What are some things that that folks can do if their loved one or someone close to them actually has adhd? How can they make that person's life easier or understand them better? What would be a couple of your top tips for that?

Okay, so I actually wrote a piece on this that I'm going to find for you right now, which was basically 10 ways to be happier when you live with or love someone diagnosed with adhd. And the concept is that you have to understand, number one, our ADHD occasionally drives us insane too. Okay, so when we absolutely, positively, 100% intend to do something and then forget to do it. You've written down reminders for us. You've noted the time every five minutes, you've set multiple alarms. For whatever reason, we simply didn't do that thing. Trust us, as much as you think it sucks, it sucks a million times more for us. Because not only did we not do the thing, but not only did we not fulfill what we were supposed to accomplish, but worst of all, we let you down. Maybe we let the kids down. That just kills us. All right, so we already feel like about that. So reminding us that we screwed up. We know we screwed up. We totally did. Are you angry? Tell us you're angry. But we know. Here's the thing. If it's truly an ADHD moment that caused us not to do that thing, we're already beyond hurt. So you have to understand that. And on the flip side, you have to understand that sometimes our brains move so fast that in our heads, we've already friended, best friended, argued, broken up, and divorced you from our lives in the space of four minutes. I remember when I was married. I had landed this major contract and I was really excited. I called my wife at the time and she didn't answer her phone. And, like, why didn't she answer? Doesn't she know she's always at her office? Why is she there now? She must know it's me and just doesn't want to talk to me. What the hell? Called her again. I called her mobile. What the hell is this bullshit? Why? She doesn't care about me. You know, by this time, I sent her an email, like, five minutes in, I'm like, I can't believe you. This is ridiculous. You know, you didn't even care about me. You obviously don't care. I had great news. All I wanted to do is share it with you. And, you know, you've just crushed my. So I'm coming home, packing my stuff, moving up, you know, Five minutes later, she calls me. Hey. It was an impromptu meeting with my boss. I just saw that you called. Oh, I got an email from you. What the hell is wrong with you? Click right. So you have to laugh it off. You have to understand that no matter how hard we try, we're going to screw up on occasion. And finally, I think the best rule I'll give you, if you ever call someone with ADHD and they're working and they say, hey, can I call you later? I'm in the middle of something. The worst possible thing you could do is go, yeah. I just have one quick question for you because that's technically not allowing us to call you later. What winds up happening when you do that? We're always going to answer our phone because adhd, we want to make sure we're there in case something happens to you. We are fiercely loyal and we truly care. But if we say, you know, it's. Your logic is, oh, well, the answer to the phone, obviously, it's time to talk. I was asking this one thing. If you proceed to ask us this one question, what you're doing is you're taking us out of our zone. And we talked about that earlier. If we're in the middle of writing something and we're in a zone or creating content or producing or whatever it is we do, you know, we might be two hours in. Imagine the equivalent of being like 400ft underground or underwater. If you pull us out to the top and they keep us there, we're going to decompress and die. Because now, all of a sudden, we can take ideas and go from paper to computer to implementation in a matter of minutes. It would take a normal person hours to do that. But if we're interrupted, getting back on track takes forever. So understand that when we're working, just leave us alone. We have happy zones, work zones, love zones. We will have time for you, and we will focus on you. And when we do focus on you, it will be entirely on you. But right now, I'm in a work zone. You have to let me be there.

Got it. Well, I know that on your podcast, Faster than Normal, you have a whole bunch of really cool interviews. And I actually will admit I have yet to dive into many of them, but this Seth Godin one is definitely on the top of my list because I love all his books. Seth Godin is one of those few authors where anytime he publishes something, I will buy it and I will read it. And for those of you listening in, Peter's website is Faster than Normal. I've been taking some notes during this call, and I'm linking in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com faster than normal. Not only the interview I did with Peter a very long time ago, but also this book delivered from distraction that Peter recommended, along with some of the other resources that we discussed during today's show. Peter, is there anything else that you want to share with folks while I have you on and you have access to a massive audience of people drooling over how to control ADD or adhd? Or live with someone who has it.

I'm always looking forward. It's always exciting to talk with people who do. You can reach me@petershankman.com, my Twitter is petershankman. I'm petershankman and all the socials. If you know anyone who has had success learning how to use their ADHD to their advantage, I'd love to have them on the podcast. And I'm really just trying to change the game here. This is a labor of love for me. I've been very successful. I've had three great companies, all of which have been acquired. I've been very fortunate and very lucky. And to be able to give back like this and show, hey, you know what? It's not. It's okay to be strange. It's okay to be different. I'm just blessed that I get to do that. So I'm always up for talking to people about it. And people can reach anytime. I actually, I created a mastermind group for entrepreneurs that are either with ADHD or without, but that are in that similar vein of that constantly working, constantly moving, constantly unable to shut their brains off. It's shankminds.com shankminds.com Shankminds yeah, I'm happy to have people there as well.

And then the last thing is for people who are Ironman triathletes or out there on the circuits, raising marathon, marathons, et cetera, when's your next race or your next big event?

So I have the Atlantic City half Ironman. That's in September, late September in Atlantic City. I'm special. Then I have New York City Marathon in November. And then someone convinced me to do the Dopey Challenge, which is Disney's. It's 5K Thursday, 10K Friday, half Saturday, full Sunday because I'm a moron. And then I'm gonna do, I think, my third triathlon, my third Ironman, probably in November or 7th.

Yeah, I've coached a lot of people for that particular challenge at Disney. So hit me up if you need any tips. And in the meantime, for those of you listening, and if you see Peter out there at any of those events he just listed off, give him a banana, please, because it's good for dopamine. Cool. Well, Peter, thanks for coming on the show today, man.

My pleasure. Always good to be here.

All right, folks. Well, this is Ben Greenfield, and Peter Shankman is signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com faster than normal if you want to pipe in with your own tips, comments, feedback, or just access the show notes, thanks for listening and have a healthy week. You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.