The Link Between ADHD, Dopamine, and Our Hunter-Gatherer Past | TJ Power | Be Well Moments

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/ZoyEJ0WD99g

Are rising ADHD diagnoses caused by genetics or by our modern environment? This clip explores how dopamine, attention, and lifestyle interact in today’s overstimulated world.This discussion focuses on whether ADHD stems from inherited traits or if modern habits, like constant phone use, social media, and quick dopamine hit , are influencing attention and focus. Sarah shares her own recent ADHD diagnosis and reflects on how evolutionary factors may have once made these traits beneficial for survival. The conversation also delves into dopamine regulation, the challenges of deep work in a distraction-filled environment, and the importance of self-awareness in managing focus and energy levels.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers
improve their health and well-being with somebody who's
recently been diagnosed with ADHD.
And I know that you have ADHD too, and I have.
It's not something that I've really publicly spoke about.
It's only recently that I've just started.
I've only just come to terms that I didn't actually seek the

(00:22):
diagnosis. As I told you, it came up during
an interview. Yeah.
I was quite a lot to process andI'm still processing it, which
is why I'm very, you know, awareof how I'm speaking about it
because I'm still going through that understanding what it
really means for me. But it's really interesting.
There's this big conversation now with, you know, everyone's
getting diagnosed with ADHD, which is another reason why I'm

(00:43):
also very like aware I'm not talking about this as another
person who's been diagnosed withADHD, but with you also have
ADHD. I don't know how young you maybe
got diagnosed with it. I mean, I've no, not all my
life. My mum had a similar thing which
she knew like, oh, he's definitely like super
hyperactive and oh, it's a snappy nightmare at school.
So it was like super obvious. So you knew it from quite a

(01:04):
young age, but. Maybe two or three years ago,
like I had a proper understanding, OK.
Right. So I think like there's this
whole wave of people whether getting diagnosed with ADHD or
realising that their attention is like massively plummeting.
Do you think that like dopamine as having that effect, like
everything that we're going through or do you think we're

(01:26):
just becoming more aware of it? Is it like an environmental
cause? Is it a genetic thing?
Like I guess like people seekingthis all kind of connecting to
maybe what you and I have just found out in the last few years.
It's trying to understand like, is the world making us this way
or is it actually, you know, there's is there a genetic
factor in link? Yeah, so I reckon ADHD is a

(01:48):
evolutionary adaptation that wasreally important to hunter
gatherers surviving. I constantly go back to this
evolution thing just because ourbrain and its chemicals spent
300,000 years doing that and then we just suddenly went, OK,
now we're doing this like we started farming 12,000 years
ago, but we really became modernsociety a couple thousand years
ago. And even if you go back 1000
years, life was very different. It was much more effort

(02:10):
outdoors, very connected. It was very different to the
experience we have today, but for 300,000 years the goal was
to find food and build shelter and survive.
An individual that had ADHD, andI believe many hunt gatherers
would have had ADHD, would have been effectively extremely good
at hunting for dopamine. They would have been very good
at hunting for food, building shelter, making fires.

(02:31):
They might have been amazing with like finding new ways to
help kids survive. There would have been this
massive advantage to ADHD and I think a subset of the population
would have been designed with it. 12,000 years ago we invented
farming and humanity began to slow down massively in our
pursuit of food. A small subset of the community
would be able to provide food for the entire group.
And then gradually the advent, the invention of writing and

(02:54):
poetry and all the things that evolved humanity began to fall.
I think there's a huge population of humanity now.
They still have that hunter gatherer brain and don't have
the farmer brain. Effectively.
They have a brain that is seeking dopamine more than a
neurotypical brain, and that wasuseful.
The challenge that's now presented with us is we no
longer can only acquire dopaminethrough effort, which the hunter

(03:17):
gatherers had to do. So their dopamine was staying
nice and stable. Like if they had ADHD, they
might have seek dopamine harder,but their dopamine never spiked
and crashed. It just would have built and
they would have had this like ridiculously strong dopamine
system, very motivated, very focused.
The challenge we're presented with now is all of the
individuals with ADHD are being given the opportunity to access
dopamine quickly with ease via their phones, via pornography,

(03:38):
viral alcohol, nicotine, cigarettes, so on.
And that's then causing a massive dysfunction in the
dopamine pathway, creating big spikes and crashes and then low
dopamine baselines. If you have a low dopamine
baseline, your ADHD symptoms aregoing to worsen.
They're going to get more intense, intense.
Your inattention, your hyperactivity, your difficulty
like sitting still and being present in activities.

(03:59):
And I think that's where the situation is really confusing
because I think some people willhave been born with ADHD.
They've genetically got this hunter brain and they if you
look back over your childhood, typically men like might
physically display ADHD more andwomen might mentally have more
ADHD. But if you look back over your
childhood, if you were someone that was very hyperactive within

(04:20):
your mind or your body, you might have had ADHD since you
were born. But if you're an individual that
it's suddenly feeling as though they're developing ADHD,
suddenly they can't focus, suddenly they find stillness
really hard, suddenly they're hyperactive, then it's more of
like behavioural inattention developing as a result of
behaviour than maybe something you've genetically had since
birth. Regardless of where you are on

(04:41):
that scale, understanding dopamine and beginning to figure
out how you're going to reduce greed dopamine and increase low
dopamine I think is the answer for everyone.
It's essential. I think that's where the
self-awareness component really,really comes in, like actually
being aware of just how much your attention is decreasing or
increasing. And I know this because I'm in
the midst, or hopefully near theend of finishing my book.

(05:03):
Yeah, the book's a big journey for your radio.
Oh. My gosh, I can't tell you like
the highs and the lows of tryingto hyper focus, which I'm I'm
very good at doing. Yeah, I bet.
But I think it's, you know, knowing that there's constant
distractions with my phones or like messaging different parts
of my team or running everythingelse and trying to write a book.
It's really, really difficult, especially in this environment.

(05:25):
I feel like I just need to be locked in A room.
You need to be locked in a room with literally only Google Docs
and maybe like your AI or your Safari or whatever you do to
search and look at ideas. Because even just like trying to
write, like I've been writing mysecond book and the difference
between my first and 2nd book, even just now with like
increased stimulation via the computer, because they're just
getting better at stimulating our brains.

(05:47):
And if you try and like write a little bit like one or two
sentences and then you check your WhatsApp web and then you
check your Slack and then you check your, you know, you never
really get any like good deep work done.
And humans, it's so good. Like if you actually work for an
hour on something, you feel insanely good.
Like you feel next level becauseyour dopamine has gone on the
path it wants to go on and requires so much discipline.

(06:08):
It's so hard. It's so hard.
Thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode.
There's a link in the description.