understanding and embracing neurodiversity 1080p

Hello and welcome to our panel discussion today about understanding and embracing neurodiversity, such an important topic in today's world that unfortunately doesn't get talked about enough, I feel. So I am very, very privileged and honored to have our guests here today speaking about that and discussing this topic in various different perspectives and approaches. So So let's get started and let me welcome first Eva Vennari. And with neurodiversity and burnout, she is the founder of the Elevate Institute, a spiritual alchemist who specializes in removing blocks to longevity and healing chronic illness. So she has experienced a lot of the things that we'll be talking about today. And next we have Dr. Heather Neal, co-founder and CEO of Global Nutritional Healing, and she also offers mineral balancing certificate programs. So we'll be diving into that a little bit further down as well. We have Tara Bonner, and she's the Chief Neuroeducation Officer of the Aerosmith Program, an organization offering cognitive solutions to learning organizations and individuals globally. And we have Tracy Otsuka, author of ADHD for Smart-Ass Women and host of the podcast by the same name. And Tracy is also certified, a certified ADHD coach, attorney, and creator of the patented Your ADHD Brain Is A-OK program. And she has helped thousands of women understand and fall in love with their ADHD brain. So welcome to all you lovely ladies, and thank you for bringing your wisdom and expertise today to this panel. I'm so excited to start us off. And for starters, we have Eva and Heather who are going to be discussing autism and late diagnosis in women. So I'll leave the floor to both of you and please Please take it away.

So glad to be here. Um, between Heather and I, we both are very familiar with mineral balancing work, and I'm not a specialist in any way particular for the psychology of neurodivergency. I just found out in the last couple of years that I am one of those late bloomers, late autistic diagnosis. along with having— I always knew that I had dyslexia. So this was compounded interest, I guess, over time. But I found something very interesting in society. There were so many of my colleagues in the Generation X— not that this is a Generation X problem, but as children, we kind of were overlooked for diagnoses such as this. And you either learn to overcome the things that can make it difficult, And decide to ignore it and just be like, well, I guess this is me for the rest of my life, whatever that is.

Or, or you, you, you realize that this is a superpower to have these di—

this, this diversity within you. And for me, this is what I found. Um, so I also, I used to be very, um, vocal about saying I'm jealous of people who have these special interests that can get in on a subject matter and become experts so very quickly. And I would probably rather talk to a neurodivergent person with a special interest and an expansive information access over an expert in the field just because they're obsessive about their special interests. And I found, well, that's why I'm interested in everything.

That's why I can't choose one particular path.

Mhmm. But I have found being a healer allows me for all of these types of curiosity. So what does autism look like in, in adults, especially women later in life? And these are just a few of the things that I had. As a kid, I used to always twirl my hair, you know, or I'd find a soft little piece of hair and it would end up in my mouth and I just wanted it there. That was a thing my mom used to tell me, I'm gonna cut your hair off if you don't stop that. So anyways, we had a list of things. Hair twirling being one, that's called stimming, right? So that could be one, you could rub your hands, you could rub your feet, you could find yourself rubbing the palms of your hands against your Top of your thighs. All of those things are meant to kind of calm that neuro system when it's kicked off and triggered. Skin picking, it's a big one. Oh my gosh, I have that on my thumbs, and I've had it my whole life, and everybody was like, what's wrong with your thumbs? What happened to them? I don't know.

They're—

it's just there. It's always been there, and no amount of willpower will make it stop. And I think that's also common. Um, stimulation overload. I can't handle crowds. I never liked anybody bumping into me, especially if I was at a— I can't, I can't do, um, what's those called? This is dyslexia when I miss a word. But when I'm at a concert, you know, lots of people and you're having to go in and find your seat and squish into people and somebody's sneezing. Claustrophobia.

Claustrophobia.

That too. That too. But this is just, I don't want to be bumped. I could be in an expansive space like one, like an amphitheater or Disneyland or any of those other places. I can't do crowds. Like, don't touch me is, is what it is. I feel unsafe. Sound is another one. So misophonia, that's when the sound of something that is out of your control. That's what for me is what it comes down to, like the sound of a baby crying. And I'm a mother of 2 kids. So this did not go well.

But please be quiet, please. Yes.

Yeah, like put a sock in it. That sounds terrible. But if I'm in a grocery store, and I hear a kid over a couple of aisles and screaming away, I'm like, oh no, that would not happen. Yeah, it actually creates a physical discomfort for, for people like me who have misophonia. Flexibility around boundaries and whatnot. Calendaring. I don't like people just calling me or just stopping by. They have to have an appointment. It's another one. Um, sleep. Sleep can be a problem. You can get caught up in something in your head, right, because you're overthinking about something. Eye contact is a difficult one. Um, social interactions, dating, all of that becomes more and more difficult. Anxiety and depression. And this is where I found this particular part overlaps. Like, a lot of the things that, that we, um, Heather and I both work on in mineral balancing helps with that anxiety and depression, but it also helps with all of these other things because I'm finding that, or we're finding that, yes, you're born with this type of brain the way that it is designed. But in order to live in today's world, we have to use— those of us who have a neurodivergent brain, we have to use more of our internal healing day-to-day energy to try to appear normal. And this is what causes burnout for us. And it's very common for those who have a neurodivergent life brain to be burned out. So anyways, it doesn't matter if you have a neurodivergent brain or not. Being minerally balanced helps all, all everything, you know, as far as being able to heal and, and overcome your day-to-day things. Yeah. So that's to start with.

Right. And you know what's funny, Eva? I didn't even realize that we have some similarities. I was in grade school. I was going into 2nd grade, and they kept testing me because I had these issues, and they didn't really— I mean, it was dyslexia is really what it came down to, severe dyslexia. Where I would do it with all different kinds of numbers, reading. And then I had the social anxiety, and, and I never even— I had to stay back a year in grade school. And then I always felt like I was different than everybody. I just felt— and I didn't want anybody to really know that, you know, back then I just thought I was crazy, you know. You know, so. And then as I got older, I noticed I would bounce from topic to topic to topic, and I could listen to all these different topics, and there was things I could do. I mean, look at me right now. I talk fast. I'm always like, I'm a very emotional person, but I have all these things that I've had to— I mean, before I did the mineral balancing program, I was called the sticky note queen. Because I would have sticky notes on my mirror because I had so many things going into my head that I just couldn't remember, like, who am I supposed to meet with? And I'm teaching people. I better be on my tip-top here, you know. But I had to look at the sticky notes to remind me. I had them on the refrigerator. I had them on my computer. I had them— I mean, I should have just stuck them right on my forehead, you know. So sticky notes were What helped me organize, and and and I like you said that the constant changing of topics, the it was really it was actually you know I just thought it was who I was going to be the rest of my life really, and and I had the the weird skin thing not with my fingers I would do with my arms or you know my legs pinching my legs I would do weird things like that that I thought were weird but I was so used to them. And then my daughter, who also she started, she had all of the other things that I don't have. Like she's the sound. Sound, I would take her in. She likes to sing. She's a really good singer. I would take her in and have her sing. She's only five years old, and she would try to sing, and just the echo and that it would just be so overstimulating for her. She just it. I didn't realize that's what it was. I thought she was just maybe a little shy or, or something like that. But it had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the sound, the stimulation, and a lot of things. And there was other things too, obsessive compulsive, like constantly wanting her sheets to be straight and certain things, you know, like, I mean, she'd spend hours if there was a wrinkle. It was like she'd be in tears. And I'm not obsessive compulsive that way. So I was like, gosh, I don't understand why you have to have that sheet so straight. And so I would work on it and work on it with her. But I put her on the mineral balancing program when she was 2 years old, started her then. Some of those things started to come out a little bit more when she got older. And then disappeared. And that was due— we saw it on the hair test. We do hair tissue mineral analysis to mineral balance the body. And so we would see on her hair chart these really high copper levels. Copper can affect the— it's a neurotoxin, so it can affect the brain. So she was having lots of problems with that. She also had really high— I mean, really low.

Really low.

calcium and magnesium in her hair, and those are very calming on the nervous system. So if you don't have them, you're going to have this— you have this constant stimulation. So there's a physiological reason for some of that. And I would say most of her— she's now 18. She had learning disabilities. I couldn't put her in school. We did homeschooling because I didn't want to break her spirit. She was just a— really adorable, strong-willed kid. And I had talked to teachers and they had said, with somebody really hyperactive like that, she was a kinetic learner, that she would learn by bouncing. You know, it would— so it was very interesting. I didn't realize this until a teacher sat me down and said, I think I figured out what's going on with your daughter. So I would teach her at home and she was a homeschool-based program. She would go in and have to tell the teacher what she learned. But what was happening is at home, I'd have her on a bouncy, you know, my husband would like film it because she'd roll on the table and I'd be just telling her things and going over math questions and she could just bounce on one foot and tell me everything that she learned. She knew it all. It was all in there. But what was happening is that she would go to school and sit in, sit in a chair and have to sit there. Have to sit and be quiet and tell the teacher what she learned. Well, after 3 months, the teacher's telling me she's not learning anything. She doesn't know anything. And I'm sitting there going, how could she not know anything? She should. And then we'd go home. I'm like, Eva, tell me what— and she would regurgitate, tell me all of the things she'd learned. And she's just like hopping and skipping. And Mom, I know it's this, and the president is this, and the, you know, the, you know, all the geography. And she knew it all.

So, um, I'm not the daughter. I'm not the daughter Eva, just to clarify.

It was my daughter Ava with an A. Sorry, I look so good, don't I? So she ended up— the teacher had figured it out because I didn't know there was so many different learning styles. And so I said, I don't understand it. At home she knows it all. She goes, she Stands up and tells me. And so she got the idea of having her stand up. Well, she stood up, bounced around the whole office, and was able to tell her months, all 3 months, of all the things she had learned. So it was how she could take the information in and how she could learn. Sitting her down at a desk and giving her a pen and paper, she would have been miserable, absolutely miserable. And it would have Probably crushed her spirit, and she's a very lively, adorable 18-year-old. So I mean, as good as an 18-year-old can be, right? She does. You know, I remember being 18 a little bit. So it's very interesting what can happen. And then with the mineral balancing program, it wasn't a quick fix. It was a faster fix for some of my things, but with her, she had a lot of infections too that we worked on, and that went away first on the mineral balancing program. And then eventually those other things started to disappear. I mean, she takes online courses and is doing excellent, 4.0 student as a writer. So she went from— and we were told When she was about 2, they told us she was going to be autistic. They just, they, I guess they didn't want to diagnose her till 3. And I don't know a ton about that. Maybe somebody else here can comment on that. But I don't know if it's changed. It's been many years. But they said they don't, they didn't want to diagnose her until about 3. But they said she's on the spectrum because she would not give eye contact. She would do other things too, like the sound and then noises and sleep. Oh goodness, I went through that too, sleep issues.

Some things linger into adulthood and other things can be overcome, but it just depends on the person's fortitude and how much, how much they're willing to burn themselves out to overcome. So there's that, right?

Yeah, exactly. So Should we go a little bit more into like the hair testing and what we see?

Um, well, I, I, I love that part because this is the thing that tied the two together for me, was it— you don't know. Like a lot of people remember, do you remember in the news there was a ton of people saying the vaccine gave my kid autism? So it's not so much that the vaccine gave a person a new brain. It's more that the delivery system for the vaccine and the chemicals in that vaccine, when introduced, especially into a small body, baby that's trying to grow, are the things that make the autism more acutely aware for, for the individuals who experience it. So the toxic metals, the added information about this new virus, all of that diminishes the immune system. There's a bunch of things that happen. where the chemical responses and the minerals, if they even were in balance before, could become more in an out-of-balance state as a result of it. So you go from not seeing the signs and symptoms to all of a sudden having all of this stuff now to overcome, and now you have this onset of more severe symptoms. So that's something that I noticed, especially for myself as an adult, the anxiety and depression. As soon as I was able to work on the balancing, getting rid of old viruses that I thought I got rid of with antibiotics years ago. Nope, they were still banging around causing inflammation. Had tons of copper toxicity, just like what Heather was talking about. And then zinc imbalance, too much calcium that was coming out of my body, making me way stressed and unable to handle my own immune system. So there's— we've all of these things out of the way. Now you're back to a baseline where you can at least deal with, oh, now I know I don't actually have anything physically wrong with me. I'm just neurodivergent.

Right, exactly. And when you said— I just want to clarify, when we say that high calcium, where a lot of times we see high calcium on a hair chart, that doesn't mean you have— well, it can mean you have too much calcium going in the wrong places in your body. like your joints, your arteries, and other places. But a lot of times what it means is that it's not available to your body because you're missing other minerals in your body. Minerals, I think of them as like an orchestra. They work together in a concert. And what happens is if one instrument is off-key, then all of the other ones are affected. And that's how mineral balance works in our body. And another thing about what Eva had mentioned is that the vaccines, it is common to see after that they are heightened. And that's absolutely correct statement. And the other thing about that is that the minerals are usually— I would say we don't have anybody on Earth that has balanced minerals.

We try our best.

Right. And it's just because we have fake foods, we have You know, all these chemicals, heavy metals. I was just reading something. It said that we're exposed to 700,000 toxic chemicals daily. One day. And that doesn't even include the EMF, the electromagnetic frequencies, or the poisons being put into our genetically modified foods. So we're really— our bodies are being bombarded. With all these toxins. And so you have— and I know for me, I was quite sickly when I got pregnant. I didn't know that at the time, how sick I was until I got pregnant. And so, I mean, you could take my teeth. I mean, this is horrible, but you could take my teeth and you could actually move them because my connective tissue, everything wasn't working as well. And my baby needed those minerals that were Stopping, keeping my teeth in place. So now then your baby's born, and then I ended up doing a hair test on her, and you could see—I mean, she had tons of imbalances, lots of heavy metals, and she got those from my imbalances. So now she's got these imbalances. She's being—and and I was back then I hadn't started the mineral balancing yet, so I was giving her like juice, which. of sugar. And so you start, you don't really think, and it had vegetables in it, but it had sugar in it too. So here I am giving her juice. And so that just kind of adds injury to insult. So she just ended up getting worse until we got her minerals more balanced. So I kind of think of vaccines as, it's kind of like the straw that breaks the camel's back. You know, it's that last thing that you just added on top of that Mountain of toxins, and now you add one more little straw and it breaks. So that's how I look at it with the, the, you know, not necessarily that the vaccines caused it all, but it's a contributing factor.

That's very, very interesting that you say that. I, I was speaking to, um, a doctor who works with functional medicine and He does a lot of nutritional and supplement testing similar to what you do. And he mentioned that they had found a link between people with neurodivergent traits and that they are in essence bad detoxifiers. And that seems to be part of the neurodivergent traits. Is that something that you're finding as well, is that children and adults who are on the spectrum have trouble detoxifying?

I'd like to— go ahead. Well, I would, I would say, um, if you're as a neurodivergent person and you have 70% of the energy that, let's say, a neurotypical person has, it's already— you're already, you know, pushing a boulder up Heal. So it's not so much that we're not good at detoxing, it's that we need a different kind of energy. And that's why the difference between doing the fad diets and the, the trendy supplements that I thought I was trying to get myself cured with over the years— they only helped while I was doing that thing, and they only helped 50% of the way. And then when I stopped doing that said thing, I would bounce back to actually a worse place than where I was when I started. But I noticed when I started giving my body just what it needs based on the mineral test, then it would heal itself in the order it needed to without us having to go arrogantly into the body and go, oh, I have this symptom, let me kill that symptom off with whatever. So if we can get out of our own way and let the body's intuition and its own knowing— it knows what it needs to heal first, second, and third— and let it do that. We instantly become great detoxifiers, all of us, regardless of our brains. Right.

Very interesting.

Yeah. Because the energy can— when you have the right energy, the body starts to be able to go, oh, you have this copper in your brain. It's not really supposed to be there. And your body takes that and starts filtering it into the blood, and then it goes to the blood, and then it goes to the liver, and then it gets out of the system, so it leaves. But your body can't do that if it doesn't have the right mineral balance. Minerals are like the spark plugs to life. So if you don't have the right mineral balance, those toxins, they don't want to stay in your bloodstream because your blood touches everything. The body's like, oh, I don't want you touching my heart, my liver, everything. So the blood's very smart and starts putting those in other areas, the bones, the fats, the brain.

Right on.

And they're not supposed to be there. They're not supposed to be there. Your body's really smart, it's going to use replacement parts that might be a heavy metal or different minerals, not the right one, but it keeps your body going, but we don't wanna just keep the body going 'cause that's, you know, that's, we're not gonna have that energy that we want and to feel good and to be able to do the things we want to do in our life. So yes, we, and I do see most people don't toxify well. And that's due to lack of energy.

Yeah, very interesting connection. Now, Tara and Tracy, do you have anything to add to this discussion? Because this is more on, I would say now, the physical side of things, the mineral balancing parts, a little bit different than what you will be talking about. Any thoughts or insights on what Heather and Eva have been talking about?

This is the first time that I've ever heard anything about mineral balancing. So it's interesting. I will say that not everybody with a neurodivergent brain is lacking in energy, right? So if you are hyperactive or combined type ADHD, you may have so much energy that your problem when we're talking about sleep, because the other thing that I noticed is a lot of the symptoms that you both were talking about, Sleep problems, skin picking, having to move to learn, not liking to be in crowds. We tend to be creatures of specificity. Can also apply to ADHD. So I can't remember where I was going because ADHD brain. Oh, you too. I can't remember.

I love your comment. I love your comment about, you know, too much energy because we deal with that with a— that's on our hair testing with someone that we call a fast oxidizer. It means that they burn their foods too quickly and it really means they're going to burn out. You know, the end result of too much energy that we find with somebody that cannot relax, that can't— it's a— their body's being stimulated is a lot of times the end result, we may not see it for years, but we do see it is burnout. I saw— I've seen it with many of my clients.

Yeah.

And you can— and I would agree with that if you don't know how to regulate your own nervous system, right?

That's exactly it. You are 100% correct. If you can't regulate it, you're in trouble. Yep. That's it. You are.

So you have to learn how to use it, how to use it properly.

Right. That's where we get to hear you.

I can't wait to hear your— you and Tara.

Yes.

Amazing. Well, I'm glad that we're able to bring in some new perspectives on, on things that we haven't heard before. I did hear about mineral balancing, but not to the detail that obviously you work with. So this is fascinating. Uh, Tara, do you have anything that you'd like to ask or add, or that's a little bit different than what you will be talking about, but still neuroplasticity also with the brains?

So yeah, by all means. And I'll only say, Petra, that it makes so much sense that you brought us all together in the same session. We clearly all are obsessed with the brain, uh, and I think we all have a growth mindset too, to ask questions, to take risks, to fail, all in pursuit of, of understanding and enhancing our quality of life. Uh, so I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

there are these clear synergies between our work and our approach and some distinctions. And I really recognize, although, as you say, our work is more strictly cognitive in nature and therefore a real focus on the brain, there's no question that brain-body relationship must be deeply explored and understood. They're not silos that, you know, there's, there's no question that they feed and fuel and indeed harm each other. So really, just so intrigued by where those connective tissues, to use a silly pun, across our conversation today.

Yeah, amazing. So With that, is there anything else, Heather or Eva, that you'd like to add? If not, we will move on to the next section of our discussion.

Do you have anything, Eva?

I mean, there's always more. You know me, I can talk, but—

Yeah, yeah, I know. Same with me.

I so want to hear the, you know, the other Tara and Tracy. I want to hear what you have to say and what we can— what kind of mess we can get into together.

Right, exactly. All right, so we'll move on to the brilliance of the ADHD brain in women, and I will open up the floor to Tracy. Take it away for us.

Thank you. So I hope it's okay that I just talk first a little bit about what ADHD actually is so that we have a baseline of understanding here. So ADHD is a neurobiological condition, and when you think of it, you typically see symptoms of hyperactivity, So that could look like you don't sit still, you're constantly moving, or you can have hyperactivity of the brain where you cannot shut your brain down. The other symptom is impulsivity. So we often will act before we think. It's almost like our body moves into action before we've had an opportunity to think about, wait a minute, is that a good decision to make? And there are pros and cons to that. And then finally, a lack of focus. Although, well, I'll go into hyperfocus in a bit. So what I want to say though, first and foremost, is I don't believe that ADHD is a disorder. I believe that it is just a different brain. And I have a study out of Canada. It's actually quite a large study that discovered, or that found, that 43% of all people with ADHD are in excellent mental health. I didn't say good mental health. I didn't say okay mental health. Excellent mental health. And so from that, we know that, well, why is no one talking about this? You know, why am I the only one who seems to bring up that study? All we ever hear about is the pathology, what we can't do right, what our weaknesses are, how we're going to fail. And I just think that That is a huge mistake. And I'm sure that people like Greta Gerwig, who was the director of this Barbie movie that just came out, and I think it was the 2nd highest grossing box office hit, $1.4-something billion. She has recently come out saying she has ADHD. We know Simone Biles has ADHD, who's the Olympic athlete. I don't know how many gold medals she's won. And of course, Lisa Ling, who is an investigative reporter at that I think she's on 60 Minutes and 20/20, and she discovered she had ADHD by talking about ADHD in one of her segments and learning what it looks like. So all 3 of these women will tell you that they are successful not despite their ADHD, but because of their ADHD. So before I go into some of the positives of ADHD, I do want to let you know. What the 3 telltale signs of ADHD are that most people will not share with you. They'll talk about the hyperactivity, the impulsivity, and the distractibility. Number 1 is unexplained underachievement. So you're with someone, this could be your child, this could be a friend, this could be a partner where you're just like, this doesn't make sense. Clearly, and I'm going to talk about women because that's who I work with. This woman is So brilliant. I see how she puts these ideas and concepts together. She's so creative in her thought processes. Why isn't she more traditionally successful? Why is she struggling so much? Number 2, consistent inconsistency. And in a child, this can look like my son, A's and F's in the same subject in the same week. So you never quite know when is that brilliant brain going to show up because I know I've got it. I just don't know when I've got it. And then number 3 is typical productivity tips and tricks. They just don't work for us. So when we are told to eat the frog, which means do the hardest thing first, we fail. We can't. Or when we're told to time block, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? We love to be in the spontaneous, free, kind of free space. where we don't have to plan a week in advance what we're going to be doing. I know how I'm going to feel a week from now. Am I going to even want to do that thing? So we really struggle with time blocking. And of course, that whole just do it idea, right? Well, if we could just do it, we would have just done it. So there is something different about our brain. And the big difference is— and they don't know for sure what it is, but we believe that it is— Our brains either don't make enough dopamine or our brains don't process dopamine in a neurotypical way. Dopamine is the hormone that is responsible— neurotransmitter and hormone that is responsible for our motivation. It's responsible for our ability to manage time. It's responsible for all of our executive functions, right? How we plan, how we schedule, decision-making, how we organize. And so That seems to be the neurotransmitter that is affected in the ADHD brain. So if you meet someone with ADHD, you've met one person with ADHD, and that's what makes it so hard to diagnose because it looks a little bit different in everyone. But there is one thing that we all have in common, and that is that we have interest-based nervous systems. Versus importance-based nervous system. So a neurotypical has an importance-based nervous system. If their parents, their teacher, their coach, their— oh, I don't know— boss, their partner wants them to do something, they can kind of like, okay, that makes sense. This is what society wants me to do. I'm going to go ahead and do it. With the ADHD brain and with an interest-based nervous system, We don't do that so much. So we have to actually be interested in the thing we're doing to be able to do it. And so when people say, oh, well, you know, she's just all over the place and look, she can go do these things brilliantly, but then this basic stuff like, you know, paying bills or, you know, getting somewhere on time, she can't do that at all. It must be a moral failing. It must be a character flaw. What I always say is, no, it's an interest-based nervous system. I can do the things that I'm interested in, but you think I can't do anything that I'm supposed to be doing because I'm not doing what you're interested in. So I think the next place I should go is that ADHD— so 75% of women are undiagnosed. And I frankly think that statistic is low, but it was the only statistic that we could actually find studies around. So a lot of people will tell you up to 90% of ADHD women are undiagnosed. The science says 75%. And so the reason why we tend to be undiagnosed is a couple of factors. Number one, we have double the amount of inattentive ADHD than boys and men do. Inattentive ADHD means that you're in your head a lot. So For the child, it can look like the little girl in the back of the classroom, clearly very bright. But the teacher starts talking and she gets into her head and creates this whole big fantasy world. She may be doodling, not paying attention at all to what's going on. She's not even sure she's still in school. And all of a sudden the teacher will call on her and she'll be like, oh, you know, she has no clue. And so again, those kids are seen as not very bright. Or worse, they are seen as bright, but they're not trying hard enough. So it's a moral failing, it's a character flaw. And that is the problem. For the adult woman, it can look a lot like the absent-minded professor. So the area that she's brilliant in, she is friggin brilliant and she is knocking it out of the park. But the day-to-day boring stuff she cannot do. Because it's boring and she's not interested in it. So what happens to girls and women is they internalize their symptoms versus boys and men externalize their symptoms. When they're in school, they're annoying. They tend to be really loud and obnoxious. They're creating problems for the teacher. They're mouthing back. They can be aggressive. And so they get the services. The girls, especially the ones with inattentive ADHD, these are good girls, right? They are people pleasers. They want to be— they want to do the right thing. They want to be good. They don't understand why their brain works the way it does. And so they look around at all of their friends and they're like, well, why can she do it? And she can do it and he can do it. And what is wrong with me? There must be something wrong with me. So they learn how to mask. And they just do whatever they can to work as hard as they possibly can. A lot of them, they have to go home and then teach themselves what they just learned because they can't pay attention in class. And so over time, when you are internalizing symptoms, you're beating yourself up, right? You're telling yourself that there is something wrong with you. There's a lot of shame around it. You're hoping that nobody notices. And so what ends up happening is these girls, because a lot of the clinicians don't know what ADHD looks like in girls and women, they will be misdiagnosed and mismedicated. They'll be misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, personality disorders if they tend to be more aggressive and, you know, kind of out there and a problem rather than ADHD. And it's not to say that they might not have some anxiety, they might not have some depression. However, if you treat the ADHD, oftentimes the anxiety and depression will resolve, or at a minimum, it will get so much better. The other problem with girls is girls are typically diagnosed after puberty. The DSM says that you have to have symptoms before the age of 12. And so if, if you're a girl And you don't have symptoms but for the age of 12. I mean, I will tell you that I almost feel like I'm a different person from when I remember when I was really young and then once I went through puberty. I had the most incredible working memory. I could memorize anything. I was the lead in all the plays, whether they were in German, whether they were in English. I had an amazing memory. But I literally remember the time in 8th grade when I had to give up stand up and give a book report. And, you know, I was so good at this that I didn't really prepare the way I should have prepared. I just thought, oh, I'll wing it like I normally do. I could not even remember what book I had read. So it was literally like night and day. And it was because my working memory just was no longer working, basically. So girls are diagnosed later after puberty. And what we now know is that Estrogen modulates dopamine. Of course, when does our estrogen start bouncing around or start going down? In puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and menopause. Yet we have no studies that have looked at ADHD in women and puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, or menopause. There are none. What the reason we know that estrogen modulates dopamine is because of one small study that was done on women without ADHD, but they were in menopause. And so they were given stimulant medication. And then there was another group that was given Strattera. And what they discovered is that it actually helped these women's cognitive processing or processes. So we know that it's the same brain mechanism at work. What we also know is dopamine in everybody goes down about 10% every decade. And so we have that dopamine that is going down for everybody every day, 10% every decade for everyone. Then on top of that, we know that when women go through perimenopause and menopause, they— their levels of dopamine are reduced as well. So of course, their cognitive functioning suffers. But then we also know that for the ADHD brain, you know, it's even more severe. So I use a phrase that I call maturity onset ADHD. And I think there are a lot of women who can go back to their childhood and see, like me, I was called the Burlingame Blab by my parents because I was such a mouth. I would tell everybody anything. And we lived in Burlingame. I had tons of energy. I was bouncing off the walls. I was starting businesses from the time I was 8 years old. And I think what saved me was I also danced ballet 6 days a week. And what we know is that dopamine levels increase through physical exercise. It's actually as effective as a course of Adderall and a course of Prozac. So, The last thing I want to say, although I should go into the strengths of ADHD as well, but, you know, we think of, oh, it's just ADHD. Oh, so you're a little hyperactive, or so you're, you know, you can't focus, whatever. It's just ADHD. And I will tell you that for women, it is actually quite serious. 24% of all women with ADHD will attempt suicide.

Wow.

And this is in large part because of the ADHD and being in their brains and the shame and beating themselves up because they can't do things the way everybody else has done them, especially if they also struggle in school. But, you know, ADHD has nothing to do with intelligence. So just because you have ADHD does not mean you will not be the valedictorian. It depends on where your area of interest is. The big problem, I think, for women is that— and that suicide statistic, that is 8 times higher than a woman without ADHD and 3 times higher than a man with ADHD. A lot of the problems, though, I think revolves around gender roles, social stereotypes, sexism, this idea that because you are a woman, You are more organized from the time you're a little kid, right? Your penmanship needs to be better. You're more organized. You're better at all the social structures and the planning and being the social secretary for the family, making sure your kids get to school on time. And that is a bunch of baloney. You know, all of our brains are different. Some of us are really good at those things. Some of us aren't. And it has nothing to do with whether, you know, we're a woman, a man, or, or, you know, Anyone. So the last thing I want to talk about though are the strengths of ADHD, because that's where— that's my thing. Okay, so the ADHD brain is highly creative, responsible for a lot of creative and neurodivergent thinking. Ideation— scientists will say that ideation is probably our biggest strength. So it's called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The stupidest name ever. When in fact, we don't have a deficit of attention, we have a surplus of attention. We notice everything all at the same time. And that is what makes for, you know, this brand new widget that just came to market, this brand new company, you know, entrepreneurial ventures, um, new ideas, new ways to manage people, um, out-of-the-box thinking. And that is definitely an ADHD strength. We also really don't struggle with focus, especially not when we're interested. In fact, we do the opposite. We hyperfocus. And many people with ADHD can actually hyperfocus when we're interested, which of course can be really helpful in business and sports. We're risk-taking and very entrepreneurial. Research shows that individuals with ADHD, we are more likely to take risks and we're more likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities where a neurotypical brain might look at, you know, some new business venture. They may look at what you're doing and think, what the hell? Like, that is so risky. She's going to quit. I was a lawyer. She's going to quit her career in law to become a fashion designer. She knows nothing about that. Yeah, I know nothing about that, but I was really interested. And in 8 months, I had Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom as clients. So when we are interested, we do things really fast and really easily. When we're not, of course, we can't get out of bed, right? Um, but we— our creativity requires that we are— and our ADHD— that we're always looking for stimulating experiences that kind of challenge us. And we're really comfortable with uncertainty, whereas— Typical brains, maybe not so much. We are also really resilient and really adaptable. We tend to be highly optimistic. And if you've struggled in school all your life, there's really no reason to be highly optimistic. But somehow we just are. And I think a lot of it is this, because we're so adaptable and we like to be challenged and we like change, we're constantly jumping in the fire and trying new things. And when we're trying new things and we're not successful, we actually learn from it and we are lifelong learners. But when we are successful, that also— so learning and just being successful right out of the gate, which you never learn as much that way, right? But those 2 methods of kind of being in the world and doing allows us to develop confidence because contrary to popular belief, confidence is not something you're just born with, right? Confidence is something that you get when you do those things that you really want to do and they're difficult, you do them and then you're proud of yourself. The other thing with ADHD women is we tend to be very mission-driven. And because of this, I see a lot of late-in-life ADHD women who are diagnosed. And I always tell them, you know, they'll be 50, 60, 70, and they'll tell me 80, and they'll tell me, I just think it's too late. Not for an ADHD woman. It's not. We are late bloomers. And so when we discover what that thing is that we're really interested in, I have seen time and time again women building huge businesses in literally less than 5 years in a field that they knew nothing about when they started. And that is just— it's our drivenness and this idea that You know, you get into your 50s and all your friends start talking about retiring. And I have always laughed at that because there is no way in hell that I'm ever going to retire. There is too much to do in the world, too much to do in life. There's too much to learn. And I just can't imagine that, you know, driving off into the sunset and retiring. And so I always tell these women, we are late bloomers. Especially when we're diagnosed late. But that diagnosis gives us carte blanche to finally figure out how does our brain work. It gives us all the reasons why we maybe struggled with the things that we struggled with. But it also gives us carte blanche to figure out, okay, what is it that you're really interested in? What is that mission that you just in your bones, you feel like you need to jump into, and the confidence to know that if you're in an area of interest, you will do it faster and better than anyone else. So the other thing that I want to say is that, third, because we're talking about autism here, I see a lot of women in my programs. I've met thousands of women at this point with ADHD and worked with thousands of women. And I will tell you that the overlap of autism and ADHD, it's a big deal. You can never pinpoint, though, what exactly it is. I've seen studies anywhere from 30 to 80% of women with autism also show symptoms of ADHD. And we know that women with ADHD also have a higher prevalence of autism. And a lot of the symptoms overlap. So I personally believe that over the next decade or so, we will discover that we're all part of the same spectrum. You know, we want to give labels to everything, right? And it's kind of like you think of, like, I don't know, a constellation of stars. And however your symptoms fall into that constellation, that's the label you get. Well, but it's all part of one constellation.

So amazing. Thank you for sharing that. What an engaging talk and so much information for us as well. I watched some of you chuckle along. I, I think that some, some of the things that Tracy said really hit home, and I bet you for the viewers as well. Anyone would like to comment or offer some insights or thoughts on, on what Tracy was talking about?

I love that she—

oh, did somebody jump in?

Go ahead, Heather.

Oh, I was just gonna say, I love that you talked about the positive aspects because I think we do hear mainly, um, a lot of the, the negative side of it. But, um, I mean, even looking at my own family, I— my daughter can I mean, she is— I don't know how she does it. I don't know how she can screenplay and write and come up with all these different ideas and, and just very creative outside-of-the-box thinking. I love that, that comment. And the other thing you mentioned was something about estrogen. One thing with minerals that we have found that copper and estrogen work together. Mm-hmm. And we see a lot of copper toxicity, a lot of are just copper type. It doesn't, you know, it can, if it gets too high, we get, we see the negative, we see the negative sides of it. If you can get it more balanced, then we see more of the positive sides of it. So copper and estrogen can work together.

You took the wrong—

Can I ask, where does copper come from? Can people be born with it? Getting this?

We can be born with it. It's really interesting. I had copper toxicity. I was really sick. I was told I had 2 months to live back in 2005. I had a newborn baby, and I knew nothing about— I came from the medical field, so I never, ever thought about minerals or any of this stuff. And so when I got a hair test, I saw my copper was about 50 times higher than where it's supposed to be. And I Panicked because I was working with this doctor. He's like, you have— where? I'm like, where in the world am I getting this? So I didn't know. I stopped eating all these foods that were copper, which is a bad idea, all these things I was doing. And I realized it was— I did my mom's hair test 2 years later. My mom had copper, high copper. My grandmother had already passed, so I didn't get to see it in her hair chart. I would have loved to see that because her personality She was, I mean, all the things you're talking about, Tracy, I, you just, you just like, I was chuckling because I'm like, oh, that's my grandmother. Oh, that's my mother. Oh, that's me. Oh, that's my daughter. I saw in everything you talked about, Tracy, I could see my whole family. But so we get it from, we can be born with it. Our diet can change it. Like vegetarian diets are higher in copper proteins. Um, so that's another one. Stress. Who doesn't have stress? I mean, so stress can actually deplete zinc. And so then what? Zinc and copper work together. So if you're not— if you're getting too much stress, then here's zinc, and then copper's going— so we get a copper imbalance that way too. And I'm sure Eva— do you have anything else, Eva, to add to that?

Yeah, I mean, you took the words right out of my mouth because as, as Tracy was talking, I wrote down, and you can't see it now, but it's here, copper in big bold letters. So, um, but yes, and I want to take this coin that you're talking about how copper is an issue and flip it over and talk about the where does it come from. It builds up in the body if the copper— imagine the copper is a bad kid in the back of the class throwing spit wads at the teacher. It's not supported. It's probably not supported with good parents at home to help. The school is probably not recognizing their potential. They're not given enough either to do or to think about, or they're not in the right class, etc. Copper's no different. Copper will act like an irritant in the body, and I want to add a word of caution: do not go get chelation therapy to get the copper out. That's not the problem. The problem is also due to our chemical revolution where we have farmed our way out of the proper minerals that process the copper that is in abundance in the rest of our diet choices. So it is about the relationship. Heather mentioned the relationship. When copper is is high in in in our hair test, then zinc is probably low. There's a direct relationship between the two that matter have everything to do with our hormones, and therefore every single instruction the body gets based on a hormone from a gland is affected by copper. Ta-da! So. Yeah, it's a huge relationship that is underknown, underutilized.

Can I ask, how do you test for these minerals? And then how do you balance them? Like, how do you get rid of all that copper if that's in fact what the problem is?

We use a hair tissue mineral analysis. And so you send a little bit of hair, not all of your hair. Just a little bit.

Yeah, a little close to the scalp.

Yeah, close to the scalp. And we send it into a lab, and the lab prints us off a beautiful graph that shows us what the minerals are in your hair and also the heavy metals. We're more interested in the, the minerals because if you balance the minerals— and we balance them according to your hair test. So some people need Some people will need B vitamins, and there's others too, but B vitamins in a certain order, in a certain amount. And so we give those and that can help. Other people, they don't need that. It just depends on their balance in their hair. So we balance their minerals based off the hair test and we get repeat tests because our body does change. We're always changing with stress or With whatever's going on in our life, and we have different layers in our body. Meaning, like the first hair test is like what we're seeing right now. It gives us like a three-month timeline of a blueprint of what's been going on in your body the last three months. And so, like three to four months, we'll get another test, and it can look completely different. And you might need a whole new program. It's mainly foods. We do it with your lifestyle. I mean, 80% of our lifestyle is really what our— how we either we're going to be healthy or not. So lifestyle, minerals that are specifically for your body chemistry. Like Eva was saying, we take the guesswork out. It's that when we see what you need, we can give your body exactly what it needs. And this is pretty much— this is revolutionary for me because I love to learn. So does Eva.

Yeah.

We love going to talks. I love to see what people are doing and we learn all these great things, but nobody really puts the mineral relationships together. Like Dr. Pawlak, he was the founder and biochemist of Analytical Research Labs where we get our hair tests from. And I just have not seen anybody come up with— I mean, I've seen people talk about vitamin D does this and you got to do this and you got to do this with zinc and you got to do this. But nobody is talking about the inter— the relationship. How do these all affect you? I mean, I would not be here today if it wasn't for that work. I was told I had 2 months to live and my oxygen was low and I was so sick. I could not take care of my baby. We moved in with my in-laws. My husband had to— he was a contractor. He had to stop his work to take care of me. And so I was really on death's door. And so, to have to take minerals and to change my diet just a little bit, I couldn't do many of the detox procedures. We do give you other things to help the skin and liver and those kinds of things. But, once I started doing that, it took me 4 months and the pneumonia, my whole right lung was pneumonia, that it was completely gone. Gone.

Wow.

And, I had been trying Everything from antibiotics. Oh, I have a bunch of friends that are doctors, medical doctors. They were giving me all kinds of stuff and nothing was helping me. Nothing. Then I went to Ayurveda. I went to Chinese medicine. I tried every naturopath I could find. And I was really— I was desperate. And out of desperation, I found the hair test on accident. So when Tracy said— even I chuckled when you When you said, I've never heard of mineral balancing, because that's why we're here is because the way we found it was pretty much out of desperation and we were sick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's something I've been educating on for years and been on podcasts for years and been on stages for years. And because I'm not backed by the pharmaceutical industry, I'm not in every other commercial. So it's harder to find the message. But Yeah, the education is out there. The books are out there. It's just a little bit like a mushroom in the dark.

And the science is here too, right?

Oh yeah, it's 50 years worth of science research. It's, it's not something that was pulled out of the air from an ayahuasca journey. This is actual, real, scientifically backed, evidence-based, you know, work. And, and we're both certified in this work, and Heather teaches that and offers the ability to become Just like us, but I've been helping people for 14 years recover from things like early onset menopause, infertility. I mean, all these are my stories. I had a list of things that were mixed in with my autism and dyslexia symptoms, and as a result, I had okay thirty medical symptoms from chronic fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, depression, fibromyalgia, itchy skin, heart palpitations, arthritis, short-term memory loss, and then you have the arth. Yeah, arthritis, IBS. I mean, the list is so long. Um, now you get rid of all of the physical things from an imbalance. Now what you have left are all the stems and all the things that you can't change with your, you know, with your brain. And I— once I realized that I was just neurodivergent, the healing began. I went, oh, I don't have to be so hard on myself.

Yeah.

This is cool. I now understand. I'm good. I'm just gonna keep just overcoming With my, my work and make sure that my body's in a healing phase all the time, which you can do once you know how to do. It's like that apple a day, you know, aspect. You can put your body into a healing phase. You just have to know what to give it. And then live, live it, live a life kind of like you remember in kindergarten, right? Take your naps, share, eat whole food snacks, you know, and get your sleep at night. Like, really, that's, that's the lifestyle. If we could go back to that, wouldn't we all be happier? Okay.

Anyways, yeah, that's the last time that the school system actually works, right?

Yes, kindergarten.

Amazing. And Tara, did you want to add anything? I saw that you wanted to add something before.

Certainly, Tracy, you had some terrific compelling points there, and 2 jumped out at me. One, one of your last comments about spectrum, the spectrum of autism, the spectrum of attention, the spectrum of learning difficulties or diagnoses. Hear, hear. You know, we— I so deeply agree with you on a professional and personal level. And as you note, the science tells us that neuroscience tells us that our brains are not binary. There's no on and off switch. There's absolutely a spectrum, a continuum of capacity within our brains. As a way of background, I spent the early part of my career in the classroom. So my struggle to, to understand the range of my learners, and even the, the curiosities or the inconsistencies within each learner, my struggle to meet their very different needs, my frustration In knowing that these were bright, bright kids, whether they had a diagnosis or not. Frankly, those who had a diagnosis, we know, as Tracey, you alluded to, they are bright. I mean, that's the operational definition of having a learning difficulty or a learning disability, is that they're at least within the average range of intelligence. And I knew these children were bright, and they were struggling to fully capitalize or communicate their intelligence. I love your comments about the differences between boys and girls, males and females. I mean, absolutely, there's no question there's a curious distinction in how they self-identify and how they are identified. I have to admit, I think my own frustration perhaps was most with those who were not identified and were being misunderstood or misdiagnosed. Again, as a teacher, and I may have been guilty every once in a while to this tendency, but that dismissing or accusing or referral as being lazy or disobedient, I mean, I know I have to— I put my hand up and confess, I know I would have said. Oh, they are absolutely capable as long as they try. And so many of us as teachers and parents have seen those in report cards or told at parent interviews. It's such an injustice to those kids. If they could, they would. So it really, it was my frustration as an educator that led to finding a different way of making an impact in education. So Tracy, your comment about the spectrum, Absolutely, it's profound. And I really see that conversations like this are going to raise that awareness and to push us all to be a little more curious about what is out there and how things can be understood, whether diagnosed, but certainly understood. The other part that I was curious about, and it's something I want to explore certainly in our work is your comment about confidence. And I think there's been an interesting, I don't know, a bit of a pendulum in parenting circles, particularly about the importance of confidence and to make sure that you're giving your child confidence as though it's something that you can, you know, purchase on Amazon and hand it over to—

Right.

To your child because we know there's a relationship between confidence and how they see themselves and how they step out into the world. But it has to be built on something. I mean, it has to be authentic. There has to be authentic self-efficacy and proven demonstration, even to the individual themselves, that they are capable. So that really spoke to me as well, that sense of, of confidence being, uh, genuine, being authentic. In our work, we call it, uh, cognitive competence. That is the foundation to that confidence. So those are the 2 pieces that really, uh, yeah, got excited about.

Perfect. I'm so glad that everyone is finding their little pieces within what, what all of us do. So thank you so much Thank you for those comments. Does anyone else want to add anything before we move to the next section? All right, perfect. We are all in unison. So we'll move on to the next section, and this one is neuroplasticity and learning disabilities. And this is where Tara's specialty comes in. So let's open the floor to Tara and take it away for us.

Thanks, Petra. As I said, I started in the classroom and you may very well hear me refer to a classroom setting or students in general, but I know we all recognize here that we all have the capacity and we are lifelong learners. We are always learning and growing and we're relying on our brains to navigate that day-to-day life. So if you hear me defaulting to children or students, please make a note in your own brains that really this type of perspective can and should be recognized throughout our lifetime. Our work, the Aerosmith program and our team here, we focus on developing a cognitive perspective of neurodiversity, meaning that there are cognitive functions contributing to an individual's experience in learning and performing. And listening to this group today, I mean, there's no question there are many things that impact one's experience, and our work particularly centers on the unique cognitive makeup of our brain. So when I refer to cognitive functions, I'm describing the many distinct processes or network of processes that together work as an active network when we face any task. Heather, you mentioned, uh, you see the analogy of an orchestra. I feel the same way when we're looking at cognitive function, that each cognitive function is a— is its own instrument, and depending on its capacity, depending on its practice, Uh, or whether the strings are tight enough, it will contribute to the symphony, uh, in a particular way. And certainly depending on the task, of course, depending on the piece of music, different cognitive functions are active and working together to complete that task. So, and this is what was so compelling when Tracy, when you mentioned the spectrum, because it's the degree to which these individual functions are operating determines how we learn and how and if we pay attention. There's some research suggests there's about 80 different cognitive functions that are up in this gorgeous organ of ours. Our work at Aerosmith focuses on those that most impact learning and performance. So that could be executive function processes in our left and our right hemisphere. They are distinct, certainly. visual memory used in reading and spelling, motor planning and writing, typing and reading, and also some deep higher-order functions like the conceptual understanding that is required, that, that light bulb that goes off in our heads when we understand, which is essential for comprehension, for reasoning, for logic, and so on. We really agree that our cognitive capacity is deeply individualized. Some say that our unique cognitive makeup is as individualized as our fingerprints, and also how very deeply relevant it is. And some neuroscientists and some educational theorists suggest that our cognitive capacity, our unique cognitive capacity, might be the most powerful influence in our success, our academic success, our personal and professional success. So there's no question that the brain is essential for paying attention, for engaging in learning. And we've talked about our own experiences in school and in the workplace. Learning and performance is complicated, really, really complicated. Our brains are miraculously complicated. So even just thinking about the conversation we're having today, both here around the panel and, and Petra, your listeners, I mean, what's happening cognitively? We need to follow along with what's being shared. We need to remember details like our names or what we're describing. We need to pay attention to the essential elements and, and inhibit those that are less so. We need to understand the concepts. Some of us might want to take notes. So that's a whole other host of cognitive functions. Never mind if some of your listeners are, are driving or, uh, uh, uh, working themselves, multitasking, trying to do other things while absorbing what's happening. So those are all distinct cognitive functions at play there. And even if one or two are underperforming, again, along that spectrum, along that capacity or continuum of capacity, it has an impact. So imagine the load if multiple cognitive functions are underperforming, the cognitive load, and I would argue the emotional load too. So in the context of neurodiversity, ADHD, of learning differences and difficulties, whether diagnosed or simply self-identified. If we view or interpret these through a cognitive lens, we believe it can offer a really important perspective. It may be that overload, maybe not necessarily prefrontal in nature, although Tracy certainly mentioning that we know that our prefrontal cortex is a essential in attention, in sustaining attention, in problem solving. But in our work, we often see that even learning what seems like the simpler tasks, because they require that interactivity of multiple cognitive functions, if some of those functions are weak, even just mildly so, the kind of net result is inattention. It could be a diagnosis of a learning difficulty, But that misdiagnosis and that underdiagnosis really speaks to us in our work in the educational space, but even in general in health and wellness. I think for a lot of people, again, those of us here today, sometimes that inattention is a matter of self-preservation. You know, if we're struggling to read or to remember or to understand, disengaging from that moment may be our safest option. I wonder even, Heather, whether that burnout maybe is something here too, that we're just cognitively and emotionally exhausted. So, we tap out. And again, sometimes that may or may not be diagnosed. That may or may not look different for different genders. But there's something there to seeing the relationship between what's happening cognitively and how we express or manifest that. So I'm happy to step on to, in terms of our work, where the next lesson from neuroscience is. But I do want to pause and see if anyone has any thoughts. I also know where some of us might be on a time, a strict time schedule, so I'm going to pause there.

Feel free to—

Happy for me to go on?

Yeah, feel free to jump in. Does anyone want to ask anything or add anything, or would you like Tara to continue?

I like— Go ahead, Eva.

Okay, I just, it's quick. Because I love this comment about— it reminds me of, I feel like we all know just enough to be a little bit dangerous. And I don't just mean us here on this, I mean as society. You know, even Tracy mentioned it, it's like we're all being labeled right now. I think we're just learning what all of these aspects are of the playing field and how they all work Together, I think that is something that we have yet to fully discover and fully cognize as part of, you know, we're not— and I totally love the comment about we're not a disordered people, we're, we're just different and we don't fit into the typical. And so I think the learning styles that you were discussing, so important to know we don't all fit into that. what do we call that, the standards of learning styles. We have, we have to be a little bit more creative. So I guess it's up to us, huh? We need to figure this out. How do we help our children and even the adults who are struggling in corporate America? Because that was my struggle. Corporate America did not work for this brain. And the burnout over and over again of quitting a job and then having to start all over again because I couldn't handle the politics or The workload, or because I was more productive, and they would pile up work more on top of it. And then I, I'm sorry, I can't do all of this. And burnout was not just here, it was also a physical response. You can actually see it on a hair test. You can actually see where the adrenals are dead. So it's just wonderful to see how all of this coalesces, and we have so much more to learn, so much more to discover.

I also love when she talked about, Tara, you were talking about 80 different processes. I mean, I'm sure there's, they're probably going to find more and more, but I thought that was just, when you start thinking of it in those amount of numbers the brain's trying to do, you know, that, that was, you really put it in perspective. That was wonderful.

Yeah. And then she followed that with Cognitive makeup is like our fingerprints. I love that. I wrote that down. I'm going to use that.

Yeah. I have copyrighted it, Tracy.

By all means, go ahead. The next book.

I just want to comment, Eva, you're— I mean, absolutely, it's up to us. There's no question. It's up to us as individuals. It's up to us as parents, as professionals. As teachers, as therapists. But I would argue we should expect more from society, from humanity, that these approaches, that this understanding, that this awareness becomes normalized. I mean, as I said, I left mainstream education because there were such restrictions and limitations and fixed mindset, truly, of what was possible and how to understand or interpret someone's reality. So I think there's an urgent opportunity and a human right to build awareness. Again, in our work, it's It's the cognitive perspective. It's the awareness that there are very specific parts of our brain that are responsible for our learning and performance. And then the next piece, which I'd love to talk to because I know we're limited on time, which is the science that has reinforced that the brain can change. And I know we all have this intuitively or through our own research, but that neuroplasticity, the capacity for our brains to change, frankly, for better or for worse. We know things like addiction, mental health issues, perseveration, and OCD likely are rewiring our brains to some degree. But it can also be harnessed for good. Mindfulness practice, meditation. There's been some very compelling work in positive psychology. Rick Hanson is fabulous here. But applying this concept of neuroplasticity to learning and performance, to targeting stimulation in specific cognitive functions, no matter where they are along that spectrum, along that continuum, there's a really critical opportunity to directly enhance our cognitive capacity. And I mean, that's my hope that I can contribute to this conversation here is absolutely yes, our brains are deeply responsible for how it is we learn, how we navigate the world, how we see ourselves and how others see us, and that our brains can change. That they can be harnessed— neuroplasticity rather can be harnessed to affect meaningful, measurable cognitive change. And that can have all kinds of implications. for us as individuals, for us as parents, as educators, and I think for society as a whole. I mean, again, I'll speak from the education perspective. It's such an important time in education because science really has informed us that we can change the brain. So it has to inform educational policy and practice. It's still very much in theoretical construct. I believe that teachers these days are starting to appreciate the unique cognitive makeup of their students. It's absolutely starting, and I'm hearing a lot. I speak to educators every day, and there's been some very promising awareness that we are unique learners, but it's that next piece I think that fundamental paradigm shift to recognizing, okay, so then what? What do we do with this understanding? And to apply principles of neuroplasticity to fundamentally enhance one's capacity. Again, whether or not there's a diagnosis, I think there has to be value there in understanding this as an educational tool. That we can engage in cognitive programming. And that's certainly our work at Aerosmith is a methodology that organizations themselves deliver to their own community. So, be it a school or a learning center. More recently, therapists and executive coaches are seeing the value of integrating neuroplastic programming into their work. Because they recognize there's a relationship between the brain's processing capacity and their client's ability to fully benefit from their coaching or therapeutic experience. So it's really encouraging to see that span, that continuum. I'm going to keep reinforcing that theme because the potential for neuroplastic programming, for cognitive training, we see it throughout the population. students as young as 6, we have people in their 80s participating in cognitive programming. So our team trains organizations and it's really up to the organization how they want to integrate cognitive programming into their programs and services. But it's really intriguing to see what is that interpretation of the types of population that organizations want to serve. So certainly, as I said, primarily it's in schools, but there's a group in Australia right now that are using Aerosmith's cognitive programming for those recovering from addiction, seeing some really important shifts in not just their ability to problem solve and to process information, but to also recognize conceptually because it's a cognitive function to be able to see the connections, the patterns, the relationships, or situations in their past and present that have contributed to their choices. Making choices, making judgments is a cognitive function. So if you can improve the brain's capacity to make those judgments and to see even the— not just the logical connections, but even the illogical connections. and to be able to identify those, some very compelling possibility and potential to, to really enhance someone's quality of life.

Thank you so much for—

thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Amazing. I think the work that you are doing with Aerosmith is absolutely fascinating. And, and also for myself as a We've talked about how we can incorporate that because I do believe that no matter whether we are neurotypical or neurodivergent, we can all use the support for the brain and everything that we do, and we can keep changing. We used to think that that stopped at some point, maybe in our 20s or 30s. Now we know that that's not the case, so we can keep working on that for the rest of our lives. and take advantage of the tools and the science that we have available. So I'm very excited about that part of it as well. So as we wrap up our discussion today, would anyone like to give any final thoughts, final insights, anything that comes to mind before we wrap up?

I would like to say that what a collection of experts here today. And I think a lot of the delay in getting what we need out to society comes from not communicating enough amongst those of us who have specialties. And so brava to all of us for not only participating, but looking at a way, like, what's next? And that's what I loved about this conversation.

Just getting the message out too that we have, where I can just by listening to everybody today, it's just not— I mean, Tracy was saying, why am I the only one talking about it? And Tara is trying to— she says, why are we not having— we have— we've just got the theoretical, but we don't have the next step. And so, and we're doing hair mineral analysis, mineral balancing to help with getting their balanced minerals to get rid of a lot of those symptoms. I mean, the negative ones. So very interesting with everybody. I'm really happy to have been here.

I'm not sure if this is a last thought. It's more an ADHD. I can't not say it, but I'm fascinated by what you're talking about, Tara. What worries me though is that education, it's such a social construct, right? Who decided that we're going to test kids' IQ by this method and that's going to determine who's smart and who's not smart? When in fact, I feel like just, I think about all the neurodivergent kids that I've met, 2 that I've raised, and Isn't the smartest person the most curious person? The one who's saying, no, I'm not going to sit down. I want to know why. And does it have to be this way? And couldn't it be this? I want— it's the pain in the asses, right? Who, like, I think about my son. He was the best bellwether for good teaching. When the teachers really looked at him.

Mm-hmm.

And were kind of fascinated by his curiosity, that is when he soared. He would do anything for those teachers. It challenged him, and he wanted them to respect him. Versus the bad teachers who really didn't even want to be there, that could care less, that couldn't deal with the kids that maybe are a little bit more difficult because they don't just sit in their chair and are mute. Those are the teachers that he just did so poorly with. And so I'm curious, and I'm asking another question, I'm sorry, but I mean, isn't so much of education about who is teaching these kids? And that when you have really good teachers, you're just going to get better learning from the children. And are you frustrated with this idea that— You know, when you think about the way the whole education system is set up, the people that run it are the ones who did well in this system. And so because 80% of kids can learn in this way, this is what we keep doing. And how do those of us who see that, no, it's those 20% that we really need to pay attention to, how do we make that change if we're not part of, you know, that school system? I mean, it's, it's just endlessly frustrating to me, which is why I respect so much the work that you and Barbara do.

Thank you, Tracy. I mean, if you and I want to face the entire educational system as it currently stands, as it has stood for the last several hundred years, and blow it to smithereens and build it back up again, I am with you. Let us— tell me where and when to be. I'd be more than happy to do this. At the same time, in the same breath, I want to be— I stand in allyship with educators, and I say that because I, as I said, I speak to them every day, and they are in pain, and they are struggling, and they want to support their learners, and they know they are limited by the right tools, by the right approaches, by resources, by things well outside of, you know, complex socioeconomic situations. And there's no question that they may not share it with you as a parent, but they're struggling and they know they're failing because the system is failing, not them as individuals, but the system is failing. So I would want to just distinguish the macro and the micro here. Because I agree with you. I see, and certainly, you know, the founder of Aerosmith, Barbara Young, and I know you two have had some rich conversations together. But we really see an evolution of education. It's overdue. But it's happening. It's a slow revolution. Or as I said, maybe it should be an evolution because it is slow and steady, where teachers are informed and equipped with tools to understand all of the students across the spectrum, across that continuum in their classroom, and to give the students tools and resources that allow them to fully express their intelligence, to not feel shame or confusion or frustration or anger, all of those different psychological manifestations of our unique brain makeup. So I'm fully in agreement for you that we are overdue for important changes in an educational system. Ironically, because it's so established, because it's hundreds of years old, and we see this of course of course, in the medical community too. Change is hard. Change is difficult. And I think all kinds of things interfere with that. One of them being egos, you know, a system's ego. I'm not even talking about individual, but how can a system have to redefine itself? It's not the case that there's a group of students who can and a group of students who can't. I mean, that's We all were part of a system growing up and it still exists, you know, that children are put into maybe 3 different paths, you know, here, here, and here, and then that's it. I mean, that's an injustice to those children, but to those educators too, and the system needs to evolve. I am in total agreement with you.

That's very nicely put. I think we have some beautiful and very inspiring words there that definitely will give us food for thought on what our current systems look like and where they could evolve to, and that change is very, very much overdue for many of those systems. So thank you for that.

I'm so sorry. I hate to have the last word, but I just wanted to see this happen. I want to say it is happening. So we have relationships with schools all over the world that are integrating cognitive programming and even an initial assessment into their day-to-day programs and services. So Petra, I'd love to share with you some material that you can share with your listeners. Tracy, I really am grateful For leaders like you and Heather and Eva, of course, people who are, I think, did you say it, Heather, about the curiosity? So that curiosity to deeply understand and do something with that understanding. I hope that's encouraging to all of us. Again, particularly those who had some challenges or some frustrations in school. During our school lives, that there absolutely are schools starting to build the brain into the educational equation, and we're so grateful for that. Those innovative educators, those innovative thinkers, and I know all of us around the panel here are really excited about deepening every— all understanding of what is possible in the brain and body. So I just wanted to leave it there. It's not, as I said, it's not entirely theoretical. There's tremendous change and awareness happening around us.

That's very encouraging. And thank you for that. It's, I think part of what keeps us going also is that we are starting to see some of those things happening, more people collaborating, Talking about these things where before these were theories, wasn't talked about, oh, there's no way we're going to change any of that. We are seeing those things happening now. We are here talking about those things right now. So that's very encouraging all across the board to see that and to see all of you here talking about the different specialties and different areas where you are talking about those things. So anyone else wants to put in their last word? Otherwise, we are going to wrap up the panel. Any last thoughts? Amazing. Thank you so much to everyone for being here today. I truly appreciate your time, your wisdom. You have educated us today, inspired us, empowered us and the viewers. So thank you, ladies, for joining us today. Truly, my heart is full, and, and everyone has shared so much and contributed so much. Thank you to each and every one of you. Thank you to our viewers and listeners for sticking with us through this panel, hearing all these different perspectives and new things that are coming up on the horizon. Truly, I'm very grateful to have you all here. And thank you so much, everyone, and be well.