147 - Dr. Shane Calhoun AMAZING Convo on Dopamine, Serotonin, ADHD, and Depression!

I was so fortunate to be educated by the great Dr. Shane Calhoun of Calhoun Counseling Services. 

He explains the neurochemicals better than I've ever heard and he simplifies it perfectly for my skull spaghetti. 

Dr. Shane Calhoun is a Clinical Health Psychologist who specializes in Adult ADHD. He has several masters degrees and graduated with his doctorate from Loma Linda University in 2012. He has been licensed for over a decade and in the last year he left his position as the Training Director at Cal Poly Humboldt to invest in the neurodiverse community through his private practice. He has been guest host on both radio and podcasts helping people in the neurodiverse community advance on their own personal wellness journeys. You can find more information about him on his profile on Psychology Today.

He also runs ADHD counseling groups and one is starting on the 9th of July. They will be accepting new members into the foreseeable future and would love it if you reached out. Enrollment is ongoing so check in at any time. If a group fills up, he will form a new one.

His Psychology Today profile will have more information on how you can contact him as well as his personal website at CalhounCounselingServices.com

More from Dr. Shane:

I have been a good fit for individuals looking for a supportive space to address anxiety and depression, needing movement in developing new coping strategies, seeking a deeper level of wellness and balance, or identity development. I have often found that I work well with those who have found therapy unhelpful in the past and are looking to give it another try. I also recognize that counseling is a different experience for those who identify as ADHD or ASD. The neuro-diverse culture is an area that I have experience in and that I find meaningful to work with.

Some difficulties are a necessary part of our journey to live meaningfully, but not all of them. We can let go of unhelpful ways of coping and create new habits, making this journey more meaningful and goal oriented. Each story is unique and no solution universal. I look forward to hearing your unique experience so we can explore what wellness means for you.

If you are curious about whether we are a good fit, let's have a 15 minute consultation and figure that out together.

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For those of you that are wondering why nothing is sticking, why you read things and don't do the work, why you have epiphanies about what could work but it goes nowhere...Join myself and others at ADHDBB.  There is a 'team' component to managing ADHD. Join our team. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So if you listen to the podcast, then you know that I'm not really into that whole dopamine thing. I mean, I get it, but I can't really relate to it. I've talked about this before. If I can't see it or taste it, you know, you can't drink it in its raw form and be like, oh yeah, there's that familiar coconut aftertaste as I swig down my dopamine juice. And then I met Dr. Shane Calhoun and he schooled the vegesus out of me. And so I enthusiastically asked him to come on the show and school all of us, and he said yes, because he's an awesome guy. And so school's in session, y'all. Have a seat. Here we go. You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and comorbid depression symptoms. I'm your host, Russ Jones, author of The Standing at the Top, believer that you can actually have a smile in your life despite this diagnosis. So let's make some sense out of this struggle. Let's learn some stuff. Let's laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. I am so excited to share this episode. Uh oh man. Okay, so let's just get all this up top stuff out of the way because it's going to be a longer one. Um, so we can just get into it. You know what I'm saying? Uh I do a mental health update every week. I want to credit the guys from the mental health and tech podcast. They're the ones that inspired me with this. It's to normalize talking about uh the school spaghetti, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So let's be okay talking about our shit, guys. I'm totally over it. You know, the whole, oh, how you doing? I'm fine. How are you? I'm good. Hey, weather. It's pretty weathery out there. Haha, traffic, am I right? You know, let's get into the like what's really going on. What's what's peel that onion a little bit? And so that's what I'm gonna do. Uh I am feeling I'm feeling fine. Actually. I will say this. I'm struggl I struggle with loneliness. That is my big that is the Achilles heal of my world. But I've I'm have some efforts that I'm making, and I've had a couple of days where I swing up and down. Uh, that's kind of par for the course, but I had an amazing time camping with my kids, and it was just me and my two dudes, and it was just all great. Out in nature, my favorite place to be. It's a wonderful recharge of my inner battery. It was a real peak experience for me. So, you know, I actually think I'm better than fine. I'm doing legitimately pretty good. So, all things considered and weighed on the table, pretty good. All right, let's just get into this because I had the most wonderful time talking with Dr. Shane Calhoun. Listen to this bio. Listen to who this freaking guy is, okay? He's a clinical health psychologist who specializes in adult ADHD. He has several master's degrees. What? And he graduated with his doctorate from Loma Linda University in 2012. He's been licensed for over a decade. In the last year, he left his position as the training director at Cal Poly Humboldt to invest in the neurodiverse community. Thank you, sir, through his private practice. He's been a guest host on both the radio and podcast, helping people in the neurodiverse community advance on their own personal wellness journeys. What a guy, you know? And you can find more information about him on his profile on Psychology Today. He also runs ADHD counseling groups, and one is starting up July 9th. I'm gonna tell you more about that after uh we talk to him. So let's just talk to him. All the stuff is gonna be in the show notes, and I'll tell you more about that afterwards. But let's talk to Dr. Shane. Let us now go to the conversation already in progress. And you're literally the first person, I think, on the face of this planet that has ever presented the chemicals and the neurotransmitters and things like that in a way that I actually got, or that you actually made it interesting to me because I'm the type of person that I've had this uh hate-hate relationship with dopamine since the very beginning. I'm like, I can't see it, I can't taste it, I can't manipulate it like Play-Doh. So, how do I resonate with it? And you were the first person to open my eyes a little bit to that. So I'm I'm wondering if you can like why is it important for me to know about the chemicals? And then we'll just let's just go from there.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Because I absolutely, Russ, it has to be it has to be tangible, it has to make sense, and uh, if it's not pragmatic, it doesn't mean anything. Um so I really appreciate you saying that, and I hopefully I can shed some light on that and bring it down to where it is pragmatic and help us know where the rubber meets the road. Thank you. Yeah, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Because I my brain is just it's skull spaghetti to me. So I if you could, I mean, the first the the obvious neurochemical or neurotransmitter would be dopamine. So I don't know if if you want to explain it the way you explain it to me, and and then we can hit the other ones because you said some really cool stuff.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, absolutely. Um, dopamine is go juice, it helps us act on our motivation. Um, in neurotypical world, uh, when they're motivated to do something, their brain just naturally produces this stuff that allows them to do what they want to do, and which is super cool. I would love if that were a part of our community. But what happens with us is that we get all motivated to do something, and maybe it's within our dopamine river, uh, and maybe not. And if it's in our dopamine river, boy, we can go and we can focus and we can uh we can be very productive and uh even more so than the average person. I mean, we become these hyperfocus uh powerhouses. And then if it's not in our dopamine river, it doesn't matter if we are highly, highly motivated to act, to do something. If we're in task paralysis or brain fog uh that day, um we just can't act and we can't do what we want to do without pumping ourselves up first, trying to get our dopamine on the topic that we want it to be on. Uh, and so there's all these strategies that we can use to do that, but we have to understand a little bit more about dopamine uh and and what it is and how it works. So, really, dopamine kind of shows up in our brain. The two pragmatic ways that it shows up is in our feel-good center, where you know it hits us and and we feel really good. And that's kind of in the back of the brain, down in uh the emotional mind. And uh, and then also in the front of our brain, where our focus and attention, our time management, all of our executive functioning lives. And as ADHDers, as part of our community, our brain kind of knows that we are missing this dopamine. We are missing something. And so we reach for dopamine. We want to get this chemical in our brain. And unfortunately, a lot of times we reach for unhealthy versions of dopamine. So let me explain what that is. We tend to have addictive habits. Any addictive habit is a dopamine agonist, it makes us have dopamine, whether it's gambling or alcohol or pornography or drugs, uh, with in the in the neurodiverse community, it's not if you're addicted, it's what are you addicted to? Uh, we struggle so much with that because we know that there's something missing, and there are easy ways to find that chemical, but there are excellent ways to get that chemical. Dopamine comes when you feel productive, when you have adventure, when you exercise, uh, when you have novelty of experience, new sensations. Uh, when you do healthy things, when you eat healthy food, our brain produces dopamine. And uh, and it's a little bit harder to get that kind of dopamine, but that's the kind of dopamine that shows up in the front of our brain where we need it, where we can focus.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

That's a tough one, big time, because like the the like the stuff that you're talking about, the addictive stuff, that's so easy to do, and it's quick fix, and it's and the stuff that you're talking about, the the healthy stuff, is a fucking slog. Uh is like the what would how do we how do we get to the other end of like we know the stuff that will produce the positive um the positive dopamine or the you know but we the there what do we do to get into that realm? That's oh my god, what's the secret?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Okay, okay. So so when we think about healthy dopamine, yeah, uh we think of any non-addictive ways to engage in wellness. And uh you see this a lot of times just in, you know, what what doctors are always trying to get people to do, you know. Um but but it's a problem for us because we can't always, you know, wake up with the dopamine necessary to invest in a life that will get us more dopamine. So we're we're in this catch-22 where some days we wake up and we're in brain fog and task paralysis, and all of our dopamine is you know back in in the back recesses of our brain, or maybe you know, we we just don't have it in us that day to do what we want to do. So we have to understand that there are ways to pump ourselves up. You know, if you are not doing what you want to do, it's not, oh, I just need to abandon this. It's what do I need to do to shock my nervous system to get me back up and running, to let go of the urge of reaching for the easy dopamine like social media, uh video games, those quick, easy our phones. Oh, they're they're so addictive. How do we let go of the urge and learn to trust the gentle discomfort that our brains have when we are trying to invest in healthy dopamine? I love how you called it the gentle discomfort.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

When I I I I would like to take that a little more dramatic, if I if you don't mind. The god-awful, horrendous slog of you made it like just this gentle little discomfort. No, yeah. It's what what are some of the things that like when when you're talking, when you're helping people, that weighs in my head? I'm thinking, okay, I need to find a way to have fun before I start my day, or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yeah. Um, I would love to say wake up and have fun, and that's gonna be the best way for you to be productive throughout your day. But the first hit of dopamine you get in a day is going to be what your brain chases for the rest of the day. Wait a minute, dig into that. What? Okay. So if you wake up and the first thing you do is reach for easy dopamine. You turn on your phone, you look at see what everybody's doing on social media, you play a little game, you watch a YouTube video, TikTok video. Um, your brain is absolutely getting dopamine, but it is also spending a lot of the nutrients it needs to focus and pay attention. And uh, and ultimately, when you're done, you're no better than you were when you started. Right. And additionally, your brain has just been reminded that it's missing a chemical, and there is a really easy way to get that chemical. Oh man. And why would you go exercise when you get the same chemical from looking at your phone? Why expand the energy? Why meditate? Why exercise? Why cook yourself a healthy breakfast? Why make your bed? But conversely, if you wake up and you hop out of bed and you get something nutritious in you, and you make your bed and you look and you see, I'm in my bed, I did the dishes from my breakfast. There is a part of that that does feel good. When we have a short productive task, nothing that's long and endless. Those long, those really long, monotonous tasks without ending don't give us a reinforcement at the end. Uh, for us, we have to have a shorter productive task first thing in the morning, uh, so that we have uh the energy to complete it and still get the dopamine hit at the end of it. Um, this is kind of maybe a uh another issue, but um, if we have a long task, we burn through all of our dopamine focusing, and then we don't get the sense of accomplishment at the end, and we're less likely to do those long tasks in the future. So we've just punished ourselves for doing a good job. Whereas if we do a short task, we get a dopamine hit. We get, hey, I just did a thing, good for me.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Okay, okay. Wait a second here. Because you I knew this was gonna happen. Where it's you're a mind blower, dude. You're uh okay, so the um there's two things. I I gotta say a couple of things. I may ramble just for a minute, but the what I'm hearing you say is that it's okay. If I were to wake up in the morning and make my bed, boom, little dopamine hit. Because yeah, I totally agree, and I've done that before without making the bed, but exercise is a long slog. If I'm getting up and I'm doing five push-ups right when I get up in the morning, am I getting that dopamine hit and saying, Oh, exercise, oh my I feel a little bit more sexy right now because I just did five push-ups and I feel a little bit pumped up or whatever. Is is that resonating with my thinking right?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Absolutely. Anytime you cross something off your list and say, I did it, I accomplished a thing, a thing that I was motivated to do, I did it. That is going to give us a sense of accomplishment. Now, exercise is particularly good because of a few additional things that we haven't discussed, and that's blood flow and maintaining the glucose necessary in your brain to produce dopamine in the first place, which we struggle with. Blood flow is a thing for us. And also, when we exercise, we release another chemical, endorphins, which one, it those feel good in and of themselves. Two, it hyperdrives our dopamine for five hours. So if you did, let's say 30 minutes of exercise, for the next five hours, your brain produces two and a half times the amount of dopamine that it would otherwise. And that has a very strong cascading effect on other neurotransmitters, other stimulants in your brain, and other antidepressants. Which let me just say, 300 years ago, there was this uh German guy who discovered this thing where people had a hard time paying attention. You know, he didn't call it ADHD, but he described it and he said, But don't worry, I have the cure. I've got the cure. Uh, it's riding horses and it's exercise. You said this before. I I don't remember the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I get the exercise. Why horses?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Well, uh, you know, we have this thing um called uh body doubling, is what I call the skill, but mirror neurons in our brain, which absorbs the focus and mannerisms of the people around us. And when we are around a large animal like that, we it our body knows that that is not safe to just be around an animal and not be aware of what it's doing. So it wakes us up. Our brain is like, this is a little extreme, it's a little dangerous. So it wakes us up to be able to pay attention to this thing. And horses, by nature, are very zen-like animals. Yeah. And uh when we mirror neuron with them, when we look at them and we understand what's going on in their brains, we recreate a lot of the pathways in our brain, and it provides us a sense of calmness. So it's both a stimulant and an anxiety reducer. And so crazy. So okay, sorry, I interrupted. So horses, yeah, are actually, in fact, um excellent for individuals with ADHD. Um, but you know, so are our dogs and cats and uh and other small animals. But uh, there is something uh kind of magical about horses. If we take it to the next level, we get an elephant. I mean, we we could go bigger. That's amazing. I like the way you're thinking, and you know what? That is our culture. You know, if a little bit is good, let's all of it all. Let's go to the extreme.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

That's hilarious. You know, the okay, I wanted to say this one thing about the the making of the bed. I had a buddy that I worked with. Um, he was like myself, we both have depressive disorder, so we would you know talk about that at work, but talk about our downerness. But he said, uh, he I go, so what do you do? And he makes his bed every morning, and he knows if he's gonna have a good or a bad day. If he forgot to make his bed, it's he he was like it was something I have control over, and it's me saying, Look what I did, I took care of myself, and I'm like, Oh, that was beautiful. I thought that was pretty rad. So it speaks to what you're saying about you get a little, you get a little rush, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, absolutely. When we have that sense of accomplishment, and here's the cool thing about that for the rest of the day, your brain is gonna remember how good it felt to be productive.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Dang it, man. So the my big takeaway at the moment, right now, is first thing in the morning, what are you doing to create the thing for the day of your dopamine? Right. Or the it would be like, um, so if I'm gonna make my bed and go for a walk, I've already set the stage that doing some exercise, getting out in nature, or getting outside, or is my thing. That sounds like a challenge I'm gonna bring into my community, man. I'm gonna be like, okay, make your bed every morning for 30 days. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So let me pose the hypothetical. Like we have a very complex uh uh problem around planning like this, because um we have uh chronic sleep problems. That also tends to be uh something related to ADHD. When we're laying in bed and our attention is jumping around and finds a dopamine-ladic to focus on, it wakes us up. Dopamine's a stimulant or a stressful topic. Guess what? Stress is a stimulant too. And our brain likes stimulants, it's kind of low on dopamine, so it'll plug it in with anxiety as a stimulant if we're not giving ourselves the dopamine, which is why we have a 40% comorbidity with anxiety disorders. That is just nuts.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

And it's it's it's it's a sad statistic, but it's also not surprising, right? It's like that all makes good sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

So you wake up in the morning, and if you have not gotten good sleep, your brain is full of cortisol, it's full of stress chemicals, and uh and being productive in that state first thing in the morning feels absolutely out of reach. And we tend to resent things that we're trying to do but can't do. And instead of stopping and taking a breath and being like, okay, this is a plan B day, I need to do a little recovery. We go, well, this is a thing that I thought I was going to be able to do, can't do it. So we abandon it. And that is why it is so hard for us to maintain a balanced lifestyle because we have uh Sleep difficulties, and we have rhythmic symptoms. Some days you might exercise, get good sleep, and you'll wake up and for no reason that we can identify we are in brain fog or task paralysis, and we can't do the thing that we feel good, we should be able to do it, we're not tired, and we can't do the thing that we wanted to do. And we have to be really mindful. And mindfulness is such an important piece for our community because if we try to do something that we can't do, it's a punishment to ourselves. And we have to stop. And if we're aware, oh, I'm in task paralysis. Hey, we've got skills for that. We've got stuff we can do. And if none of that stuff works, which sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it helps. Uh, we can go, okay, this is a plan B day. What do I do to not burn all my bridges? And what do I do so that tomorrow I can be back at my plan A day?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Can you talk about that a little bit? Uh, I think this is the first time I've heard you talk about uh plan A and plan B day.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Can you define those? And yeah, plan A is like, you know, because we have time blindness, we have a day that's good and we orchestrate our lives as if every day is gonna be good. Of course, it's gonna be great. I feel good, I'm motivated, I'm on fire. I'll do it with clubs. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a new hobby, and of course I'm gonna be able to finish my hobby. Yeah, uh, and we just get like really on fire. Sure, I'll take I'll take 20 units this semester, you know, of of college. And then we have uh, for no apparent reason, the next three days, we are like we we have a hard time paying attention. We our dopamine river is off somewhere else, and we are left going. I can't even keep all these things in my head that I was gonna do. I didn't even put them in my calendar because I it was easy for me yesterday to remember everything and to hold that all that in my head. And now I don't remember exactly what I was supposed to do. And we forget things and we don't have it all written down, and the that is a plan B day. We have to know that our coping strategies need to be different on plan B days. On a plan A day, you just go, you hit the priorities, and you do what is um, what needs to be done, and you also have to be aware that not every day is going to be like that day. Because if we get caught up in that mistake, we feed our rejection sensitivity and we feed our uh our sense of of inadequacy because we imagined that we should be able to do this, and other people feed that too. Oh, we know you're smart enough. Yeah, we know you you can do it because we saw you do it before. We know that too. You're not telling us anything new, but today we can't. And so being able to let go of the shame, let go of the stigma, and this is why community is so important. Our community is so important because we have to help each other let go of the stigma so we don't build up identities around our broken promises to ourselves. Yeah. And we say this is a plan B day. Um, I am going to energize myself as much as I can. Um, and make sure that you know I hang in there, but I I know maybe it's not gonna be a great day. It's gonna be a little bit more uncomfortable to do the things that I want to do. Um, it's going to cost me a little bit more dopamine, and I'm gonna get a little bit less reinforcement as a result. So I have to be very mindful around that. Um, and I have to make sure that I'm, you know, investing in my social support and my connections, and I'm not like abandoning my friends.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, man, I I really feel for everything that you're saying because I that that I I I relate to it harshly of the um on a plan B day for me, um, I'm just getting choked up even thinking about it. It's like the um the um the idea that it's super easy to abandon like on those days. So to try to, it's almost like damage control. A plan B day would be um make sure you're reaching out to people and stuff like that. Yeah. Um god dang, that was uh that hit me hard. You had said a thing to me, uh speaking of like I think it was serotonin, right? Depression. Yeah. Um, and can you talk about that? Because that the how that chemical works really uh affected me. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 26:55

So let me talk about that in the context of all of our antidepressants and all of our stimulants, because this is okay, it's worth it's worth understanding. Um, when we're low on other stimulants in our brain, when we're low on these, what I think of as slow-acting stimulants that kind of build up in our system over time, um, we reach for unhealthy dopamine. We reach for that over and over again. Instead of investing in the areas that will create balance and wellness for us over time, we reach for the quick stuff. And the dopamine is the quick stuff and it feels good and we like that. Um, but a lot of times we abandon these other really important things. And then if we do that too long, a couple weeks down the road, we find ourselves uh just there's not enough dopamine in the world to compensate for lack of serotonin, lacks of lack of oxytocin. So let me talk about what these other ones are. So if we are first off having a lot of healthy dopamine in our life, uh adventures, we're around people who are fun and energetic, and we're having like enough diversity in our lives, we're investing in our hobbies, uh, we're feeling productive and we're moving towards our goals. Our brain is producing all this healthy dopamine. And with that higher level of dopamine, our brain is able to synthesize norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is what you think of as a slow-acting version of dopamine, made from dopamine. And it's an antidepressant, it's a very powerful antidepressant. In fact, if you went to a doctor and said, I'm depressed, they might give you well butrin or buproprion, uh, their norepinephrine stimulants to get you kind of back up. And they take a couple of weeks to kick in. So uh, what you're doing now in terms of your wellness will impact you two weeks down the road. So, norepinephrine is is really great. It's uh it's important, but then there's endorphins. We talked about this. Uh, if you exercise 30 minutes a day, this is why this is the most effective treatment for ADHD outside of uh stimulants. Uh our brain gives us two and a half times dopamine and five times the amount of norepinephrine synthesis for five hours. I mean, that is that is a huge amount of stimulant for 30 minutes a day. And that is why that has to be part of our lifestyle. Good sleep and exercise are absolutely vital to our wellness. God damn it, Shane. Why couldn't you say video games? Why couldn't it have been video games? Oh gosh, I wish, you know, I had to break my video game system in college really so that I didn't fail out. I was just, I was looking at my lifestyle and I could not pull myself away from that easy dopamine. And in a moment of clarity, I was like, in an hour, I'm gonna want to play again. So I had to like destroy and it and there were moments of strong regret, but guess what? I'm a doctor now, so it worked. You did it, man.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

I took the wrong track. Gosh, I kept playing the video game. Oh, you got me on that one, dude. That's that's so interesting. The 30 minutes, what is there like I mean, you follow the science, right? So it's like, what is the thing of 30 minutes of what? Of running cardio, light cardio, okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Power watching have to be much, it really doesn't have to be much. Get your heart rate up. Um, and uh you can look up what constitutes cardio for your uh age, weight, and body type, and the there's all sorts of information out there on what cardio means for you. Um, but it just doesn't have to be much. Uh, in fact, uh, even five minutes, five minutes of getting your heart rate up is going to increase the amount of glucose and oxygen in your brain, and that's going to allow you to produce dopamine. So even five minutes is beneficial.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah. I think I can dumb this down for myself to the point where I can just say, exercise for 30 minutes equals I will be my my well-being will be better. It it's the the uh I get lost a lot when when we talk about glucose and synthesis and all that. I'm like, I don't I don't know how my food like when you eat you, saliva breaks, it goes down and then it mushes, and then what vitamins get sucked out.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

I don't, but if I say eat vegetables equals healthier, hey, all all what what I'm talking about with blood flow and glucose, all that means is your brain consumes 22% of your daily calories, which means it is the most calorie-consuming part of your body. So uh, if your blood sugar drops, if you haven't eaten in a while, your brain doesn't have what it takes to produce go juice. You cannot produce dopamine, and you won't feel it right away if you have reserves, but it uh glucose doesn't absorb immediately. It's kind of a slower absorbing thing. So you have to maintain healthy nutrition. And if you're eating a bunch of sugar and having it spike and then getting hungry and letting it drop, that is playing uh that that's just terrible for your ability to focus, for your long-term focus. You'll focus for moments at a time, you'll get a dopamine hit, and then you'll burn through it. So, stability and getting good exercise and good blood flow, more blood flow means more nutrients get through, which means you're able to produce dopamine. Basically, if you can maintain steady, uh steady uh food in your diet, and you're not letting your your hunger um get too strong if you're maintaining good blood sugar levels uh by eating healthy, uh your brain will be able to produce the focus that you need.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

That is super, super interesting. I think the the one of the biggest uh parts of this too that that you had mentioned is the the thing like I could do something poorly for my health uh today, and I could have a depressive episode in two weeks. Yeah, and I wouldn't even know that it was because I had three pieces of pizza and I uh got drunk or whatever it was. It would be like because I'm it's not in the moment, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

And because we have time that gets so hard for us to monitor. So uh, but but let me kind of talk about that that uh fourth antidepressant, that fourth stimulant, serotonin. Because yes, it takes noripinephrine, takes a couple of weeks, serotonin takes at least two weeks. Serotonin is what uh SSRIs. If you went into uh a doctor's office and said I'm depressed, most of the time they give you uh an SSRI, an antidepressant. That's serotonin, but we produce serotonin when we are surrounded by people who love us, when we are accessing our friendship, when we sleep well, when we eat healthy, those three things our body has put in the same category: sleep well, eat healthy, and be around people who respect you and love you. And if we can do that and and feed ourselves that way, in two weeks, we have this whole nother layer of resilience, and we need less dopamine in our lives to do the same tasks. We become more stable and we become internally stronger and more resilient. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

That's friendship and connection, and um, that's amazing because, like, yeah, there'll be times because I'm single at the moment, you know, I'm divorced and um great relationship with the ex and all that business. But that that part where you know the kids are with their mom and I'm by myself, that level of loneliness is really, and I find that on the times when I'm checking with my buddies, go have dinner and stuff like that, those are nicer times than the times when I'm like, I'm just gonna stay at home.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yeah, yeah. And it's and so we have to monitor am I spending the amount of time around people that's going to benefit me? And there are some days maybe we don't need as much. And that's fine. And every and this is confusing because there's no doctor-prescribed amount of social life that is going to benefit you, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Make more friends. You need to make three friends this week. That's the prescription.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Yeah, well, like we all have our own threshold of what benefits us. But the thing about depression is it's so sneaky. It says, look, people cost you energy. Why would you spend energy when you're low energy? Just chill at home, you're fine. Just, I mean, let's stay up late, watching YouTube, and you'll feel good. And if you feel good, that means you don't need people as much. And so then the next day we have less energy, and the next day we have less energy until the idea of going out and making friends is just unfathomable. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

And they're like, and they don't want to see me anyway. Yeah. They uh they're but they're like your best friends. There's no, there's no reason they to think that, and yet they they don't want to be around me. I'm convinced of it.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

And like, oh God, what a horrible because serotonin is the identity chemical. When we have good serotonin, we can change our identity and we can actually see ourselves and give ourselves updates and see ourselves as we truly are, and not some crappy thing we did 10 years ago. You know, we love to do that when we're depressed, when we don't have serotonin, we look at a thing we did or a failure that we had, and we say, That well, that's who I am. I'm a big dumpy loser. Yeah, noted. Yeah. And so when we have serotonin, we are surrounded by people who reflect good things to us, it nourishes us, it allows us to go, oh no, no, I'm the kind of person who values friendship, I'm the kind of person who values peace and harmony. Uh, I'm I'm the kind of person who values productivity. I can't always honor those values, and that sucks, but I that's who I am, and I will always be investing and working towards that. And that feels good when we can identify with our values instead of our mishaps. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

And then how do you uh work with people? Like you're so dang, like I'm I cannot tell you enough. Like that the way that you speak to this stuff is so clear to me, and you're talking in words that are usually not clear to me at all. And I'm like, uh, is this what you do when you when you're working with people? Like, um, can you speak to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Absolutely. If you understand why you should exercise, you're gonna exercise, but you know what? Nobody ever explains that, nobody ever breaks that down. Why is dopamine healthy or unhealthy sometimes? I don't know. It's the dopamine. If I do a bunch of drugs, I get my dopamine, right? You know, like it we have to know why something helps. And when we understand where we can make a difference, now it's not some doctor telling you to do something that is archaic and doesn't make sense. It's now I have imbued this person with the power to understand why they need to do something or not that day, why exercising is a bad idea that day, and why, you know, and be able to make that decision mindfully rather than going, well, I didn't do it, so it must be a thing that I don't do, or maybe it doesn't help because we tell ourselves that all the time, you know. Uh or label them character flaws or things like that. Like, yeah. So it's it's to understand the underlying reasons why we do what we do, it destigmatizes. And this is the most important thing is that it allows us to change our identity and to let go of rejection sensitivity. 98% of us have a very real, very intense rejection sensitivity. And so it costs us so much to invest in friends. And when somebody may or may not like us, it scares the crap out of us. Ambiguity. We need somebody to say, hey, I like you. It's like, oh great, that that makes sense. And we calm, we calm down when we hear those things, but but when we haven't destigmatized, when we haven't done our work, uh we identify that with that. We're so reactive, and we have to understand um why we're reactive and and what we can do to manage that and let go of the identifying ourselves as victims, uh, and and we can have control and and make changes in our lives that that leads to happiness, meaningful happiness. Meaningful happiness.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

That sounds really, really good to me. I'm in. Put me in. Hey, you have a thing coming up, uh we and then I'll I'll let you go.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

But what do you have coming up? A lot of what I've been talking about is why community is so important. Um, being able to be around other people who talk about their experiences to help us destigmatize, uh, to to body double with us, to to be around us and and give us support when we need it. Uh, that is as important as exercise. Um and you know, it's hard to rank them, but you know, between exercise or being around somebody who's gonna help you let go of that identity uh around failure and and kind of cultivate uh an identity of accomplishment and wellness, I would I would lean that way. And so I I run groups uh for neurodiverse individuals for ADHD um um community members. And uh I just to be able to talk about these things, to teach some of these things, uh to to give people a place where they can feel like they belong. And when you're around other people who have ADHD, it's amazing what that does for your nervous system and your your view of yourself. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

That's this it's the the people that get you that you're like, oh, I'm not so alone in this in this slog. And then do you so we'll link all that stuff in the show notes. Um, do you have stuff coming up or is it ongoing, or how is it for you?

SPEAKER_00 42:31

So uh it's an ongoing group. Um I'm actually gonna start one here um on uh July 9th. Oh, it's coming up, yeah. Oh, it's happening. Um, and uh it, you know, when I first start, usually it starts small because it's hard to, you know, to convince people that you know the neurodiverse community needs a group, uh because they don't understand why. You know, even a lot of counselors, you know, don't really understand the cultural piece. We are a culture, we are a community, and we have to be around our culture if we're going to do our work. And it's really hard to get our professionals in the field to understand that, to make the referrals, to help people understand that. So that's why what you do, Russ, is so important is to get that word out there and help people understand that we are a part of a community. And and a group is a really powerful way to hyperdrive that community and to help people do the work.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Hell yeah, man. And I we will shout it from the rooftops here. It's like you you said a thing that was very interesting to me because this is how I was. When I think back to when I was first diagnosed, it was like 10 years ago-ish. Um, and the there's this feeling of like, this is basic stuff. I should be able to do stuff on my own. I don't, I shouldn't need help, I shouldn't need somebody. And I think to any time I've ever I've ever done anything uh really with a lot of momentum, I've had some help. Like I hired a personal trainer or I hired, you know what I mean? And but it's like stuff like, well, I shouldn't need help to do my laundry. I know how to do my laundry. I'm like, but you're not doing your laundry today. So maybe a body double, maybe, maybe a horse, maybe so I don't know. Like just it's getting over that feeling that we we have to figure out how to do everything on our own always.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

I'm a huge advocate for the group. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, um, and there are so many skills to help us learn how to do that effectively, how to body double, how to get enough novelty in our life, how to add the intensity and the stimulant without reaching for anxiety or substances. Um, and I just love the work of being able to like help people do that. And uh and just like you, Russ. That's awesome, dude. And you're like super smart about it.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

I I love I we could chat for hours, man. But um, I will let you go and thank you for coming and talking to us. And uh hopefully this you can come back on. That's really because it was pretty rad.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

I would love that, and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Oh my god, there's so much juicy juice in that conversation. Here's my challenge to you. If you're looking for an ADHD counseling group, I think I know your guy. Here's some of the popular things he was telling me that they talk about in their group. They talk about understanding ADHD in terms of the brain chemistry, right? The dopamines and ornepinephrines and endorphins, the serotonins, the exotocins, the cortisols, as well as implications for balanced living to manage the deficits. They talk about accessing your motivation so you can do what you intend. He calls them be nice skills. Um, there's also they talk about the neurodiversity as a culture, destigmatizing and managing shame and rejection sensitivity by understanding our shared experiences. That just sounds awesome. They talk about ADHD and romance. Um, this was interesting. Learning to trust oxytocin, which is bonded relationships, over dopamine, which are exciting relationships, and how to communicate to partners around symptoms and coping strategies. It just sounds like a phenomenal opportunity, you guys. And he also offers 15-minute consults. So why don't you just talk to him directly? Why don't you just get him on the horn? He's clearly fun to talk to. Guys, awesome. Okay. Alrighty. All the links are gonna be in the show notes. Uh, you can go to Calhoun Counseling Services.com and just dive into it, man. And I think that'll do it for this week. I mean, I don't know about you, but I am I'm here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put together my morning prescription so that like I want to make sure I get my day off to a good start. So let me ask you this what is your prescription that you're gonna take in the morning to start your day off with the right kind of dopamine? What you gonna do? That is my challenge to you. All righty, let's take some action on on Dr. Shane's amazing info. And with that, I hope you guys have a fantastic week. And I will talk to you later.