Sex With Emily - The Key To Happiness w/ Dr. Amen

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

What if being happy was a moral obligation, like voting and recycling? Would you take steps to be happier? Today, I’m joined by brain health expert, and New York Times best-selling author Dr. Daniel Amen to talk about how our thinking patterns shape our lives in and outside of the bedroom. We discuss the ways stress affects your sexual performance, give tips to combat your automatic negative thoughts (ANTS), and discuss his book Your Brain is Always Listening.  We answer a question from a habitual cheater on how to break the cycle and discuss how Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) can get in the way of your orgasm. Come along on a fascinating deep dive into how shifting your mindset can transform your brain, your relationships, and your pleasure. In this episode, you’ll learn: How to silence negative thoughts with easy daily habits to rewire your brain Why a healthy brain means better sex, from focus to pleasure How to break toxic cycles and build stronger, happier relationships Show Notes: More Dr. Daniel Amen: Website | Instagram | Amen University | Your Brain is Always Listening Take The Dragon Quiz Today! Try the Enigma Double Sonic Today! Visit lelo.com and use code “EMILY20” at checkout for an additional 20% OFF any existing sales. Join the SmartSX Membership: Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. Emily Morse. Yes! No! Maybe? List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides.  SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you’ll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website  Let’s get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | YouTube Let’s text: Sign up here Want me to slide into your email inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com

No matter what situation you're in, you can still train your mind to look for what's right rather than just focus on what's wrong. Because happiness is a moral obligation. Wrap your mind around that one. I just blew my mind. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex.

I'm joined by psychiatrist, brain health expert, and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Daniel Amund to talk about how our thinking patterns shape our lives in and outside of the bedroom. We discuss the way stress affects your sexual performance, give tips to combat your automatic negative thoughts or ants, and discuss Dr. Amund's book Your Brain Is Always Listening. We also answer questions from a habitual cheater on how to break out of that cycle and discuss how ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder can get in the way of your orgasm. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. It just helps get the show out to more people and it only takes a few

seconds. You can do it right now. You can also find me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, all at Sex With Emily. And check out my new articles, Embarrassing Questions, Kink and BDSM Edition, and How to Train Your Penis on SexWithEmily.com. Before we dive into the episode, if you haven't heard the news, I have to tell you about my brand new membership community,

Smart SX. It is officially live and I've had a blast the last few weeks. Because this membership is everything I've ever dreamed of and more. We're talking exclusive content, interactive workshops with top minds in sexual health, there's polls and so much more. All made for the membership community. But honestly, my favorite part is the community. It's a safe space where like-minded people support each other, they're sharing experiences,

they're breaking down all the taboos around sex and intimacy. It's truly empowering. So if you're ready to really bring more pleasure into your sex life and take the steps, Smart Sx is for you. So join the pleasure revolution today. Just head over to SexWithEmily.com, click on the membership tab, or head straight to sexwithemily.com slash smart S-X. All right everyone, enjoy this episode.

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Use code EMILY20. So do yourself and your health a favor and check it out. So we're here to talk about your book, Your Brain Is Always Listening, Tame the Hidden Dragons That Control Your Happiness, Habits and Hangups. I devoured this book. I saw myself in so many of these dragons.

So first, let's just talk about the book and then we can talk about identifying our dragons. Tell me about it. Well, you know, I actually wrote this before the pandemic. I was just finishing it as the pandemic started and went back and revised it. So the idea is your brain is always listening to the dragons from the past, from the they, them and other dragons. It's people alive and dead

that your brain is still listening to. Like I still listen to my grandfather who died 30 years ago, I still listen and it's not a psychotic process, but I still hear his voice in my brain and my dad and their birth order and sibling dragons. Your brain is always listening to your habits, what you do day in and day out. There's a whole chapter on the scheming dragons, which is it's listening to the news, it's listening to the food pushers who try to sell you cheeseburgers with half-naked women. And so I really just wanted to teach people, your brain is always listening. Here are the, you get to control them.

Right. We're both huge fans of people getting into therapy and examining their history and their background. And some people just don't want to look at, oh, my childhood was perfect, or I have it all figured out. But the fact that you were able to share that your birth order had such an impact or the way your older brother bullied you or your dad, you weren't the first born, so you definitely weren't the preferred child. I think that when people read your book, they're really gonna see parts of themselves in all of these dragons,

and it's not a bad thing either, right? We're gonna have struggles in our lives, but when you're able to kind of flip it, you were able to look at shaming, for example. If we pull up the shaming dragon about how we all have shame, but you even have to show some positive sides to it, how we cope with it. I love that you have affirmations. I love that you have the movies that if you identify with this dragon, these are the movies you're going to watch. And then you have the meditation to help heal with it. And I'm going to use this book as a guide to just flip

up and like, I have a friend who's going through a grieving process right now. So I've been trying to help her and I was like, okay, I literally looked at your grieving chapter and I like sent it to her. I was like, these might be some helpful affirmations. So I really think that this is gonna be such a great book for people just to have, to open to whatever you're struggling with, shame or grief or judgment

or all of them are in here. So it's really well done. Thank you. Great resource. Well, thank you, my friend. It's a very personal book, but I found the older I got that those are actually more meaningful when people can relate to you as a fellow traveler along the road.

And if they can get inside my head in a more real way, like my primary dragon is the abandoned invisible and insignificant dragon came from my childhood. And so I spent my whole life working to be significant. And sometimes it causes you to overwork or over attach to the work you do at the expense of important relationships. And so if you know it, so yes, there's an upside to that dragon. And, you know, it's caused me to do really good work for people.

But I have to be careful with it and see myself as special. And ultimately the story turned out great because my dad was harsh. I think a lot of people have harsh fathers, but the last five years of his life, he did everything I asked him to do and got well and turned out to be my best friend. Yeah. I mean, that was such a beautiful story that you were able to say,

you said that I should visit my dad. And then you said, I get to visit him or I want to visit him. And it's such that reframing of language that is so helpful. I often try to remember that like, don't should all over yourself, you know, but I get to, I get to, and so that was really helpful. And then the other thing I want to say, going back to you sent me a dragon quiz, and I think first off, it is so well done. I enjoyed taking your quiz, and we're gonna put in the show notes where people can take the quiz, but we have the same primary dragon, because mine is also abandoned, invisible, or insignificant dragon, and then I go to the inferior or flawed dragon. Are these in order of our dragons?

I'm the anxious dragon, but I think the should or shaming dragon, I mean, I guess, I mean, there's so much to unpack here, like how we've both individually handled it, abandoned, invisible, and significant. So imagine when you're in a relationship with someone and the average number of dragons people have is six. Oh, okay.

So Tana actually has 10. Tana, we love Tana, okay. So if you have a lot, it just means there's good work to do. But imagine your dragons interacting with your partner's dragons, or your partner's dragons or your children's dragons or your own parents' dragons. And so it causes you to be kinder. I had my whole executive team take the dragon quiz. And I just, it just, just knowing each other's dragons helped us

to not wake them up, you know, not- How not to trigger each other's dragons helped us to not wake them up. You know, not how not to trigger each other. Yeah. Is there a common dragon that most people that you find like that's more predominant in most people? The most common dragon is the anxious dragon. The anxious dragon. Okay. By far 30% of the population before the pandemic struggled with significant symptoms of anxiety. Now that's more than half the population. And in the dragon quiz takers, it's like 65% of them have the anxious dragon. The responsible dragon is also very high.

That's the codependent dragon. It's growing up, you worried about someone and you wanted to take care of them, but struggled. And so you end up taking care of people, but sometimes to their detriment where you can actually create codependence when really the best strategy is helping people take care of their own lives and not making them dependent on you. I felt that the

co-dependent dragon is a person who is always helping and they always feel drained because they've done so much for people and then they start to resent them because of that. I mean that's a really tough one to kind of and you have great affirmations in there for dealing with it so you can kind of reset because it's just something that it becomes your way of being and how you get love but ultimately it's detrimental truly. I guess they all are right to the extremes of all of them. They can cause great emotional pain. I think the most interesting of all the dragons actually have him with me

is the ancestral dragon. And this is where the issues you have, they're not your issues that you got them from your grandmother or your great uncle or your dad. So for example, I tell the story in the book of my grandfather who immigrated from the Middle East as a teenager and when he was 19, his brother was killed when his car collided with a train. And my grandfather never drove. And my grandfather was angry at his sister who loaned his brother the car.

And that level of angst and anger and unhappiness and anxiety was in my grandfather before he made my dad. So it actually was written in his epigenetic code. And as a child, I was anxious all the time. Now, yes, I have an older brother who's beating me up and I wet my bed, and so those didn't help. But I just have this sense that my grandfather's unresolved anxiety and grief impacted my nervous system. And I think it's really important for everybody to know their family history.

Yes. And before my dad died, I spent a lot of time just talking it's really important for everybody to know their family history. And before my dad died, I spent a lot of time just talking to him about his childhood and about his mom and about his dad. And, you know, as a psychiatrist, I like doing that, but anyway. Right. We're talking about epigenetics,

how like each generation they say, aren't certain things transferred? Like they say seven or eight generations, like perhaps if you had incest or rape in your family or trauma, it carries on for that many generations. You said you spent time with your dad understanding it. I was thinking I've got my 23 and me test sitting here, I haven't taken it yet.

Is that what we're talking about? It's kind of understanding where you came from and then having talks with your family to understand? Understand the story and just know if you're struggling with something, it might not be yours. It might be you're carrying the burden from another generation or you may be carrying the strength from another generation because both good and bad get written in our genetic code. How do we deal with it then?

So what do we, how would you say we kind of work on that? Cause it's not ours, but it's in us. Well, owning what's yours and blessing and sending on what's not yours is, it's just freeing. So I think the knowledge and there's a section in the book on how to rewrite your story, because the dragons create the stories we tell ourselves, but you and I love to create content.

Well, you can create a different ending. And where you bring your attention will determine how you feel. You know, I think it's just one of the most powerful things I've ever heard. Where I focus will determine how I feel and if I focus on being a failure or I focus on being less than, I'm going to feel bad. Right. But if I focus on where I want to go, I'm going to feel more hopeful.

It's such good advice because I spend a lot of time, I think a lot of us do, on what could have been or what's wrong or the negative thoughts. That's a big one for me too. So that's why I quote you on your ants all the time, automatic negative thoughts. What helps me too is just having notes in my phone too. You actually gave me some great new affirmations to put in. Like when I do my meditations in the morning, I often have statements that I'll say and it's, there's such people might be hearing this and go, oh, that's so woo woo.

And then you want me to light some incense and do, yeah, I actually do want you to do some of this work because if you're the only one who's left in charge programming your brain, you're the one who's saying all the negative thoughts and that's all that you're the only one who's left in charge programming your brain, you're the one who's saying all the negative thoughts and that's all that you're hearing all day, it would be great for you to have something just to turn to in your phone. Like I have a note page of just the things that you want to replace it with. And I love expanding that with writing your own story. Like what is your reality?

Where do you want to go? And you train your mind and often negative thinking is a bad habit. And it's just sort of the habit that you grew up with. You had a negative mom or negative dad, or you didn't have the right guidance. And so you allowed your brain to go to a dark place. And then it does, your brain does what you teach it to do. And there's a whole chapter, a whole section of the book on the bad habit dragons

and how to rewire your brain. Negativity is one of the worst bad habits. In the hopeless and helpless dragon section, I talk about something I love called positivity bias training. Okay, let's talk about it. Start every day with today is going to be a great day. And that way your mind will start looking for what's right rather than what's wrong.

And then before you go to bed at night, go what went well today and write it out. Just find three things that went well. And I love that exercise so much that I turn it every night into a treasure hunt. And so I put myself to sleep starting at the beginning of the day, go, so what went well today? And all days for everybody is filled with good things and bad things. But don't put yourself to bed with the worries because it'll mess up your

dreams and it'll mess up your sleep. And so I even look for the micro moments of I figured out how to make brain healthy hot chocolate and just the first taste I'm so happy with myself. It's always one of my micro moments. But it could be looking in Tana's eyes. It could be having an interesting conversation with one of the kids. You know, it's the day-to-day stuff that you appreciate. And let me tell you how powerful this can be. So May 5th last year, I lost my dad.

And you know, he's obviously a central figure. He shows up in a lot of my books. It was just the worst day. When I went to bed that night, because it's my habit. So this is the point. We do things that we allow ourselves to do. And I went to bed and I said a prayer and then I went what went well today. And then the other part of my brain,

and we all have it, I actually give my mind a name. Hermy, after my raccoon when I was 16, Hermy holds up a sign like, seriously, you're going to talk about what went well today, you obviously didn't love your father, you're a terrible human being. And, but then, because it's my habit, I went to an interaction between my mother and the police officer that, quite honestly, was hysterical, that even after this horrible thing happened, the police officer said, Mrs. Eamon, we have to do an investigation because someone died at home.

And she looked at him with a straight face, even though I knew she was kidding. And she said, do you think I was having an affair with my 89 year old mother? Do you think I had him murdered? And it was just terrible. And then I remembered the hundreds of texts I got from my friends when I found out.

And then I remember sitting with him before they took him away and holding his hand. I just remember how soft his hand was. And then I went to sleep. So no matter what the situation you're in, you can still train your mind to look for what's right, rather than just focus on what's wrong. And that's not a bad thing because happiness is a moral obligation. Now, wrap your mind around that one. My mind just blew, I just blew my mind. Moral obligation, if you've ever been raised

by an unhappy mother or been around an unhappy co-worker. You know the devastation that causes and so it is incumbent upon us to work on the negative thoughts because they're contagious. Yeah. We leak leak. Wow, that's so powerful. I mean, I always say like pleasure is our birthright, but being happy and controlling your negative thoughts is just like, it's our duty. If we wanna be good partners, good lovers, good citizens. Yeah, and our sex organs work so much better

when they're not stressed. I mean, you know that when your stress did negatively impacts blood flow and it gets us distracted. And I'm working on a new study you'll love on happiness and the brain. If your brain is healthy, you're way more likely to be happy. And you know, we often you and I went on your show, we talked about blood flow and whatever's hard is good for your brain is good for your genitals. Well, it's good for your level of happiness that the better blood flow, especially to the front part of your brain and your emotional brain, the better blood flow, the happier you are,

which I think is interesting. So sugar is not an agent of happiness because sugar lowers blood flow to the brain. Yeah, you've helped me realize the power of movement and exercise and dance and doing other kinds of things to stimulate the blood flow in my brain and I just look at it so differently right now. I mean everything because it's probably been about a year right since we've been doing it and it's just so we just don't think about we don't you know you're right we don't think about the brain which is sort of insane right it's insane insane because your brain controls absolutely everything you do and when it works right you work right and we always think of people

in four big circles. So what's the biology? That's why we looked at your brain. And if I don't look, how do I know? Right. Psychiatrists all around the world are giving people drugs without ever looking at the organ they treat.

No other medical doctor actually. That's what shocked me. And so learning how to control those negative thoughts, because even someone like myself who knows that that is probably my biggest challenge is that I just go to the negative. My team, my staff knows it. I'll be like, this is wrong. Like I immediately see what's wrong. And so I have to work on that as well, but if I'm doing it to them, I know that I still do it to myself even with meditation and journaling. But I don't think I have a habit, because I know it

takes how, do they say it takes 21 days to build a habit? I think sometimes for me it's about 40 days, but to have that exercise at night even when your father died to be able to flip it is so helpful. Like I actually want to do that tonight. I want to start that for real because I have journals everywhere. I often just don't stick with it starting new habits. So I'm wondering if someone's just like hearing about this right now, like where could they even start? Three things. And you know I've been working with BJ Fogg at Stanford at the persuasive tech lab on how people change and he's like make it small. The smaller you can make it. So on the top of your to-do list every day, just write today is going to be a great day.

So if you forget to say it when your feet hit the floor in the morning, it's as soon as you're looking at something, look that today is going to be a great day. And for those of you that have children, do it at breakfast, you know, go with the kids. So why is your day going to be a great day? That's great.

Set it with your kids too. Yeah, first thing. And as you go through your day, and you know, Hermi for me, when your mind goes up with the negative signs, just go, well, is it true? If you could just keep those three words with you, right? So these are all three second habits. Today is going to be a great day. Is it true? So I get the thought, oh, you're a bad habits. Today is going to be a great day. Is it true? So I get the thought, oh, you're a bad son because you're going to look at what went right on the day your dad died. Is that true? It's like, no, I loved my dad and he loved me. I'm not a bad son. So it's a lie. And I want to tell myself the truth, right? It's

never really about positive thinking for me. It's about accurate thinking. Accurate thinking and habits. Before you go to bed, what went well today? And you'll just notice you're a better boss, you're a better partner, and you like yourself more when you are training. And you know, you and I both want to be physically healthy right work

out try to eat right you can't do that once right people who come to see me sometimes it's like well if they don't feel better the first time they don't come back right because they just expect like a miracle right and so I work on it every day every day why shouldn't we be working on our minds every day? If you want to be physically healthy, you have to eat right most of the time. If you want to be mentally healthy, you have to think right most of the time. And it's a practice. So if you have a diet of negative thoughts, you're going to have the consequences of

that. Like if you have a diet of fast food. you're going to have the consequences of that. Like if you have a diet of fast food, you're going to have a fast food mind. Right. God. And you know what I was thinking about is that how people sometimes say to me, oh, I tried therapy, it didn't work. I'm like, did you go for a year and commit every week? Oh, I went three times, I didn't like it.

So it's just like people saying, yeah, I go to the gym, yeah, once a year, you're not going to have the abs that you want, I suppose, or the health. We'll be right back after a short break. But first I got to tell you about Lay Low. So as you know, there's many different types of orgasms and there's many different pleasure spots that can get you there. We've all heard of the G spot, but today I'd like to introduce you to the A spot, also known as the deep spot for being the deepest spot in the vagina before you reach the cervix.

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Then you can snatch 20% off on top of that using code EMILY20. Check it out now. The link is also in the show notes. That's lalo.com, use code EMILY20. If you've been listening to the podcast, you already know that I'm a huge fan of sex toys. And you know the story that one of my very first loves was the magic wand. And in fact, when I got my magic wand original, it had a cord attached to it.

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or wherever you want to. Get yours today at shopsexwithemily.com slash magic wand. That's shopsexwithemily.com slash magic wand. That's shopsexwithemily.com slash magic wand. Dr. Amon, will you help me answer a few emails from our listeners? Questions? Anything you like. Okay. I love it. All right. This is from Ryan. Hi, Dr. Emily. I've talked with a counselor before, but they only came up with ideas that I'd somehow been scared in childhood or had a family member influence me in a negative way. But the issue is I cheat. Mainly, I have several women I start to sleep with at the same time and then a relationship slowly forms with one, but I don't end it with any of the others.

So this last time I started to see a therapist and ended up working through things with my girlfriend and we got back together. It's been over a year and I haven't cheated but it's a struggle daily. I would compare the urge to what I would imagine a drug addict would have if he went too long without a fix. I find myself yearning for more kinky stuff I don't have with my partner but I don't want to bring it up because she gets mad that I watch porn from time to time. I'm not sure what to do. I can give you more information if you need it. I'm trying to give you a little intro. Let me know if you can help."

So this is a combination of like having the impulse to cheat and addiction. It truly is. You know, he went to a counselor who said, oh, it's a scared childhood, but he's not giving him steps. And what I'm thinking about is maybe you're a addiction dragon or helping him with some of this pattern and just thinking like what are the small steps?

Because it's his brain that's telling him, this is a struggle, I want something else I can't have. Sex addiction's real and odds are, I'm just thinking of this story I did with Dr. Phil on compulsive cheaters and Jose, who I evaluated, cheated on his wife eight times in four years that we know about. That we know about, right. His wife had a gun and was going to kill him.

And so I made a great Dr. Phil. Great Dr. Phil, yeah. And so I saw Jose and he had damage to his frontal lobe. And he played football in high school and college. He was a mixed martial artist. He used to have a party trick of breaking beer bottles with his forehead. He could like, boom, break the bottle, insane. And when we fixed his brain, he did so much better.

He had all these tattoos on him. He tattooed on his forearm, then what? If I do this, then what happened? So consequences. Because his goal was to be married. He didn't want his daughter to be raised in a broken home like he was because his dad was a cheater. So there were brain issues.

There were social modeling issues. And he also had the inferior and flawed dragon. And so he used the affairs to tame the inferior, flawed dragon and created the angry dragon in his wife. Right. But now, this was 10 years ago, they're married, he's not cheating. And he went back to school and now he's a nurse anesthetist. I'm so proud of him.

Wow. So with Ryan, do you think it's similar than like he and this is what it is because I used to be a cheater. I don't know if I've told you this, but I've told my listeners this. I mean, like years ago, I would, I kept finding myself like in my twenties, I would just cheat and I never got caught. I didn't have consequences, but I just knew I'm like, I, this doesn't seem right to me. I don't want to be this person. And then I realized that for me, a lot of it was about wanting to get the attention and feel more significant or feel desired and wanted because it was just like a fix, right? Oh, this person wants me and maybe things got hard in my relationship. So with Ryan, I mean, it's like he's getting somewhere

and I love that he's seeing a therapist, but he's kind of saying it's a daily struggle. So would you say like the micro change here would be or the little mini habit could be thinking about and that like, what does he want? Because he's saying he wants to get married and he or he wants to be in his relationship. And he's gone a year so far, which is pretty good if you're talking about, you know, not cheating, but like, is there a practice maybe thinking of writing his story of what he wants? And when your frontal lobes are sleepy, it's hard to control your impulses even though you want to. And so first thing to do is what do you want? Write it down.

Like if you want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship, well you know cheating isn't going to get you right. So that's what your frontal lobes do. It creates goals and then it matches your behavior consistently over time to get them. And so the little habit is, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have? So not what you should do, not what somebody else thinks you should do.

Well, what do you want? And if you want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship, you cheat, you're going to blow that up. Because if your frontal lobes are sleeping, you probably will get caught. Mine were sleepy. You told me that. Mine were sleepy when I came to see you, but I don't think they're sleepy anymore. So it's excitement seeking for you. And nobody knows it, right? I mean, see you, but I don't think they're sleepy anymore. So it's excitement seeking for you. And nobody knows it, right? I mean, when you're really bright, like you're really bright.

You come up with all sorts of explanations about your behavior that may have nothing to do with the truth, because no one's ever looked at your brain. Right. People with sleepy frontal lobes can be drama driven, excitement seeking, negative seeking. I think maybe we talked about that. I never thought of it that way,

that the negative was like, I have to beat myself up to get myself to do something and it never made sense to me. Why, why couldn't I just be nice to myself? But it's because it was an intense reaction. It was like, it made me so mad. I was making myself so caught up in it that I had to act. And that's so common with kids who have ADD.

If they have a bad morning at home, which means mom's yelling at them a lot, they have a good day at school. But if they have a good morning at home, like there's a lot of kindness and sweetness and cooperation, they often have a bad day at school. So they're actually using mom's anger as a little bit of riddlingdling and that's a bad thing.

Oh my god, I never thought of it. That's stunning to me that fact. That is that make and then it makes so much sense. You know, we've also gotten questions because I mentioned on the show, I've mentioned I had ADD and it was like a throwaway comment. But you are also the leading, I believe, ADD expert in the country. I'd first read about your clinics in the 90s and I was like, I want you to just check in and live there if you can help me with this ADD. And so what about ADD in relationships? Are there any just like a few things we could talk about or how it comes up in like a romantic partnership? Because it's often the missing link to what people struggles so much. It's so common and. And you know you have ADD, short attention span, but not for everything.

It's short attention span for regular routine, everyday thing, homework, paperwork, chores, the routine stuff. For things that are new, novel, highly stimulating, interesting or frightening, people they need to pay attention just fine because they have their own intrinsic dopamine. But short attention span for routine things, easily distracted, tend to be disorganized for time and space, procrastinations, their middle name,

they put things off, put things off, and impulsivity and sometimes restlessness. Now, all of us have some of those every once in a while. People who have ADD have them all the time. And in relationships, initially people are drawn to them because of their spontaneity, but over time, the unpredictability grates on them. And I must say this five times, please to my patient, please don't say everything you. Right.

People, it just gets out. Just tap it. And it's like, no, supervise, supervise, don't say. Cause I don't want to forget. So here's everything. Yeah. right. Right. It's always good to filter it with, will this bring me closer to my partner or will it horrify

my partner? So having a filter is a good thing. And when it comes to sex, this is very important. Yeah. You know, we rarely talk about this. But after I treat women for ADD, when they come back, they have this smile on their face. And I know what it means. It means they can have an orgasm.

As women with untreated ADD, what does an orgasm require? It requires focus. You have to pay attention to the feeling long enough to make it happen. But if your brain is all over the place and many people with ADD are hypersensitive to the environment, their senses are heightened, so they hear too much, they see too much, they feel too much. My first wife had ADD and I just thought she didn't like me. I mean, I don't think she really liked me that much anyway, but it was really hard. And many ADD women, they have to sleep with white noise. I do. Yeah, always. The winner, the fan.

Yeah. White noise. And even when I'm home and there's no me, I listen, I have my headphones on, The fan. Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv You know? They have ADD. Cause they were just, from the time they were little, they were taking their clothes off. Yes. You know, scenes would bother them. And then when we treat them, you know, with a little bit of a stimulant, they can focus and their sex lives are better. That's happened to me. Exactly. I couldn't focus. You're like, oh, that feels good.

But look, who's someone coming in the door? What? Oh, I have an itch. Oh, do I look? It's true. It is focused. I thought you were gonna say also letting go, but we're pretty good at letting, because that's also an ingredient to orgasm,

but focus, being able to breathe. That's why breath is so important for me, for orgasm and for everything. It sort of redirects when I remember to take a deep breath. It just sort of stops my thoughts, so. There's a specific breathing pattern I want you to try. Okay. Three seconds in, hold it for a second, six seconds out.

So big breath, hold it, and then six seconds out. Then hold it out for a second. Repeat that 10 times. It'll reset your nervous system. Do that just a couple of times a day. Like nothing we have talked about is more than two minutes max. And that breathing pattern will trigger

a relaxation response. I already felt that and I know it, I've taken breath work classes, but that already helped me. Cause we just don't know how to breathe correctly. So I don't, I know I'm like a shallow breather. I try to breathe in the morning. That was very helpful. And that helps with everything.

I think even before you have sex or you with your partner, before you have sex or when you're trying to have a conversation with someone, if you breathe together. I've done that with partners sometimes just to kind of it resets. And it helps to be intentional. Your brain is always listening. It helps to be intentional to guide your brain rather than to let it be a victim of our crazy current society. victim of our crazy current society. Dr. Daniel Amon, thank you so much for being here. I always feel wiser, more grounded, better, smarter after you're on the show. So thank

you so much. Thank you for being here for my listeners, for being my doctor, and so many others. Your brain is always listening is your book and everyone should get it. We're gonna put a link in the show notes and also everyone should take the dragon quiz. We're gonna put that in there as well. KnowYourDragons.com. Thank you for being here. Thank you my friend. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily and be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast

and share this with a friend or a partner. You can find me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, or X, and Facebook. It's all at Sex with Emily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email. So sign up on SexWithEmily.com, and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize

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