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S3 Episode 2: ADHD Uncovered: Misconceptions, Medication and a 360° Approach with Sean McNicholas

• Lucia Silver / Sean McNicholas • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Good morning and welcome to My Mighty Quinn, the Brain Health Movement's podcast. I’m your host, Lucia Silver, here to explore the latest in brain health research and interventions that nurture healthy development. Today, we’re tackling ADHD—a condition affecting millions of children and adults, but often misunderstood. Our guest, Sean McNicholas, brings unparalleled expertise and personal experience to the conversation.

Episode Summary:
ADHD diagnoses have soared in recent years, but too often, the focus remains on managing symptoms instead of understanding the root causes. This week, I sit down with ADHD specialist, therapist, and coach Sean McNicholas, whose personal journey and professional insights shed light on holistic approaches that transform lives. Diagnosed with ADHD later in life, Sean has overcome immense challenges to become a leading advocate for brain health, working to uncover the root causes of ADHD and promote whole-child interventions.

Sean shares his 360° approach, emphasising sleep, diet, exercise, and the power of connection. Together, we explore ADHD misconceptions, the dangers of one-size-fits-all medication, and the need for early intervention. Sean also discusses his work addressing the school-to-prison pipeline, showing how holistic brain health strategies can rewrite narratives for children and adults alike.

Key Takeaways:

  • ADHD Goes Beyond the Stereotypes: ADHD impacts much more than attention, often affecting sleep, emotional regulation, and social relationships.
  • Holistic, Whole-Child Approaches: Addressing sleep, diet, exercise, and social connection can significantly improve brain health.
  • Medication is Not the Only Answer: While it has its place, treating ADHD with a one-size-fits-all approach overlooks the underlying issues.
  • Root Causes Matter: Factors like transgenerational trauma, gut health, and environmental influences play significant roles in ADHD development.
  • Family Support is Crucial: Healing ADHD symptoms often involves addressing the dynamics within the home, starting with parents’ regulation and self-awareness.

Resources and Links:

  • Learn more about Sean McNicholas and his work at ADHD Liberty.
  • Download our Top Tips for ADHD Management: Free Cheat Sheet.
  • Explore holistic interventions with The Brain Health Movement: www.thebrainhealthmovement.com.
  • Recommended Podcast: The Attention Divide featuring Dr. Peter Skye and Dr. Robert Melillo.

Resource Links:

[00:00:00] Lucia Silver: Good morning and welcome to My Mighty Quinn, the brain health movement's podcast. And welcome to today's episode, where we deep dive into the latest science and research from world leading experts, as well as the stories, challenges, and root cause interventions and healing for healthy brain development.

[00:00:20] Lucia Silver: It won't surprise you to hear that ADHD has reached epidemic levels in our society, with diagnoses skyrocketing in both children and adults over the past few years. Once thought of as simply a childhood issue characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, ADHD is now understood to manifest far more broadly, affecting sleep, emotional regulation, organizational skills, and even social relationships, and broader mental health challenges.

[00:00:49] Lucia Silver: Yet, while awareness has grown, so too has misinformation, and the root causes of ADHD, which we're all about at the Brain Health Movement, often remains misunderstood, leaving parents, educators, and healthcare providers relying on symptom management rather than addressing the underlying issues. But why does this matter?

[00:01:11] Lucia Silver: Well, it matters because ADHD doesn't just impact the individual. It ripples through families, classrooms, and communities. And the stakes are high. For many, it disrupts their daily lives. And for some, left untreated or mismanaged, ADHD symptoms at their worst could lead to academic failure, social isolation, substance abuse, and even the tragic realities of the school to prison pipeline.

[00:01:38] Lucia Silver: But here's the good news. Through understanding the neurodevelopmental factors at play, and employing a holistic, whole child approach, we can not only support those with ADHD, but also, in many cases, completely rehabilitate symptoms. Today, Sean McNicholas joins us to illuminate this journey, one that offers hope, transformation, and healing for countless families.

[00:02:03] Lucia Silver: Sean is not only an ADHD specialist, therapist, and coach with clients worldwide, but he also has lived the experience, having been diagnosed with ADHD later in life, and he also has children with different types of ADHD. Sean has a wealth of expertise in managing and understanding ADHD from both a personal and professional perspective, and has trained with some of the leading experts such as Dr.

[00:02:29] Lucia Silver: Russell Barkley, Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Gabor Marte, and now with Dr. Robert Melillo. Who's presenting on our own upcoming complete course launching this January. So from working with individuals struggling with anxiety, depression and anger, to parents and partners navigating ADHD in their families, Sean's approach goes beyond just symptom management.

[00:02:53] Lucia Silver: He's passionate about uncovering the root causes. Helping individuals and families heal, and advocating for early intervention to prevent some of the severe outcomes we're seeing, just like the school to prison pipeline. Sean is also a clinical trauma professional, certified brain health professional, and a trustee of an ADHD charity, as well as being a Samaritan, amongst many other roles.

[00:03:20] Lucia Silver: I've reached out to speak to Sean today because he brings the lived in compassion we seek from our experts. As well as the whole child, whole family, root cause approach we know we need to employ for our children to heal and thrive. Sean calls it a 360 degree approach to therapy. And with this, we will today be looking at sleep, diet, exercise, social connection, and more as critical components of brain health.

[00:03:45] Lucia Silver: And we'll hear Sean's powerful story. explore his particular approach to ADHD therapy and discuss the urgent need for better understanding and support for those living with ADHD. So Sean, hello and welcome to the Brain Health Movement's podcast, my mighty Quinn. We're so thrilled to have you on the show.

[00:04:03] Sean McNicholas: Thank you very much. 

[00:04:05] Lucia Silver: So you have quite a story with ADHD. We often talk about children with ADHD, but you've shared that you recently received a diagnosis quite late in life. Would you start telling us your story and how the ADHD has impacted your journey? 

[00:04:21] Sean McNicholas: Sure, I think it would be good to start from the very beginning to give the audience an idea of how and where neurodivergence can come from.

[00:04:27] Sean McNicholas: I was born into a family where two parents, they heavily smoked and they drank alcohol. So looking back now, I can see there were two very stressed parents growing up. I had meningitis in my first year which meant I was left in a hospital, incubator by myself. My mom was at home with two young children.

[00:04:44] Sean McNicholas: My father then had terminal I illness and he died when I was an infant, leaving an abusive and aggressive alcoholic mom to raise three young children without a household income. This caused lots of childhood trauma in our wake from a very young age. Now remember that trauma is not only about the bad things that can happen to you, it's also about the good things that you never received as a young child, those unmet needs.

[00:05:05] Sean McNicholas: And as a result of those traumas, I score a nine out of 10 on the ACE test, which is the adverse childhood experience. Throughout my childhood, I had behavioural issues at home and at school. In fact, I later found out through the Freedom of Information Request, I was referred to a child's psychiatrist at the age of five due to my uncontrollable behaviour.

[00:05:25] Sean McNicholas: And also in that Freedom of Information Request, it even says that even though my behaviour was challenging, My intellect was someone that was four years older, and this is very common in ADHD and in autism. My mum couldn't cope with life, so we were signed over into the care system with social services.

[00:05:41] Sean McNicholas: School continued to be a problem. I couldn't sit still. I was talking out of turn, emotional dysregulation and so on. So as a result, there were lots of punishments at home and at school, being constantly told I was a bad boy, I was a naughty kid. Making me believe there was something wrong with me. Making me believe that I wasn't good enough.

[00:05:57] Sean McNicholas: And by this time I was getting into more trouble with the police. Alcohol and drugs slowly became a problem. And I truly believe that no one cared about me at that stage of my life. I dropped out of school, with the headmaster stating to me, School is not for you. And looking back now, he was right. I left home at 16, and for many years I was lost trying to find out who I was.

[00:06:15] Sean McNicholas: And then I moved into my working history, where I started work as a youth worker in the 80s, then moved on to being a nursery teacher, because I love working with children. In fact, I was the first male nursery teacher in London, which was really beneficial to so many young children, as there were so many absent fathers that the children didn't have.

[00:06:32] Sean McNicholas: Never had. I was also into music, dancing and nightlife, so I moved into working in nightclubs at weekends, which was full of chaos and uncertainty, which is great for my ADHD, right? And even though I liked working in nurseries, the pay was so bad, so I moved full time to working in nightclubs. I own nightclubs, I've managed nightclubs for many decades, both in the UK and overseas, taking care of many famous people from royalty to celebrities and sports stars, so I get to meet so many different personalities, which was really fun.

[00:07:01] Sean McNicholas: And in that time as well, I got married and had two sons. During this period though, I had many issues with money, with relationships, addictions and even suicidal ideation. All issues associated with ADHD. And every time I felt like I messed up, I felt completely useless or helpless. I kept asking myself this question.

[00:07:19] Sean McNicholas: What's wrong with me? A very common question asked by many people with ADHD. Years later I realised that I was asking myself the wrong question. The question should have been, what happened to me? What happened to me to make me think, feel and behave the way I do? So after burning out for many years working nightclubs, working five nights a week in complete chaos and dysfunction, I decided to go back to London, get a normal job and start working in finance, then I moved on to tech.

[00:07:46] Sean McNicholas: This period of my life was about slowing down to learn more about me and why I do the things I do. I knew I couldn't keep living the way I was. This was part of my personal development. This was part of my self discovery journey. I knew that the past did not define me and I knew I could do something about it.

[00:08:02] Sean McNicholas: So everything slowed down in that moment, no more chaos or dysfunction. No more addictive behaviours, and for the first time I had clarity and I could function better. I had a successful tech company where I was featured in Forbes magazine and was winning industry awards for my innovative work. So I knew I was smart, I knew I was talented, and throughout my career I was always fascinated in human behaviour and psychology, and this stems back from when I was studying to be a nursery teacher.

[00:08:27] Sean McNicholas: So I've continued to read and study over all these decades now, because this is something I'm really passionate about. I want to know why I think the way I do. I want to help people. So then I trained to become a therapist. And this is when I started to learn more about ADHD. And everything started to make sense.

[00:08:42] Sean McNicholas: Everything started to fall into place. And this became even more important when I could see my children showing signs of ADHD and those behaviours and traits. I remember reading about ADHD many years ago and being told back then, it's really important to become the expert. To know more than the teachers, to know more than the doctors.

[00:09:00] Sean McNicholas: So they could be challenged, and I took that literally. For many years I've told myself that I would be a fantastic therapist with my own practice before I was 50, sharing my life experiences and knowledge, and that's what I've achieved, and that's what I continue to do so now. I continue to study every day and recently completed a neuroscience course at Cambridge University to learn more about how the brain works.

[00:09:19] Sean McNicholas: I've learned that our ADHD brain can take a lot longer to kick in, but we are more than talented, we are more than smart enough to achieve our goals because we are unique individuals. I was in my 50s when I studied at Cambridge University, so it's never too late for anyone. And the reason why I share this story is because without awareness of what ADHD or Neurodivergence is, life can take many twists and turns, especially when you've got no support.

[00:09:44] Sean McNicholas: Once I knew I could do something about it, everything changed. And there are many reasons as to what the possible cause or causes are for ADHD. And from my story, I had many possibilities. This could be transgenerational trauma. This could be epigenetic inheritance, smoking during birth, difficulties at birth.

[00:10:02] Sean McNicholas: physical and emotional abuse, meningitis and then the attachment issues around that, hearing issues when I was younger, head or brain injuries, it could be a number of different things and more, but it doesn't matter. What matters is what we can do now to help improve people's brains, especially if they're the ones that are struggling.

[00:10:20] Sean McNicholas: So that was my life in a quick snapshot there for you, Lucia. 

[00:10:23] Lucia Silver: Wow, Sean, I'm taking a breath here because it's, it is deeply personal and deeply traumatic what you've been through is, something that, that is very I feel for you and I'm inspired to hear how much you have been able to turn poison to medicine.

[00:10:46] Lucia Silver: And as you say, it's never too late. And I think listening to your story, parents will relate to some or a little bit and, I see that there are so many composite parts that make up the full picture of a human being. And with that, to understand the hopeful element of it, which is when we look at the body's central nervous system and your story, you, it was highly unlikely given those compacting factors.

[00:11:22] Lucia Silver: That's your brain, body and nervous system. We're going to develop healthily. Let's put it that way. You had a lot riding against your healthy development, but as we know, with neuroplasticity and the incredible possibilities with the brain and how we can develop and mature and understand those brain networks, and how in turn impacts on so many other things in our life that we can reverse, we can heal, we can thrive.

[00:11:53] Lucia Silver: And look at you now, look at you now helping others with the compassion of someone who's been through it. And when you and I first connected, I think we connected, you were having an epiphany as an ADHD coach, having done a lot of talking therapy, which there's no question there is a place for, but I think you were at a stage and we were sharing that it's so important to focus on the root causes as opposed to just the management tools.

[00:12:24] Lucia Silver: Of course, we've got to deal with day to day. Of course, we've got to understand how we get ourselves up in the morning, how we motivate, how we organize, how we focus, how we can stay away from destructive patterns of behavior. But actually, we were meeting in the metabolic, in the neurophysiological, in the biological, neurodevelopmental arena of understanding how did I get here in the first place, and which parts of this can I actually undo and rewire.

[00:12:54] Lucia Silver: Wouldn't you say? That was why we were excited. You were like, there's more I can do as an ADHD coach than talk. 

[00:13:01] Sean McNicholas: Yeah. My revelation was in the summer I was always taught about top down. So we work on the symptoms. We work on the, anxiety issues and what the presenting problems are. It's only when I learned about primitive reflexes in the summer and to learn about bottom, And how it's all about going back to where there could have been a deviation on brain development from many, years ago to reset that to align the brain and the nervous system and everything around that to start to adjust and to go back to as nature intended.

[00:13:37] Lucia Silver: And I think that's brilliant. I've remembered saying that several times to one another, as nature intended, and that's in part a lot of the way that Melillo approaches how you can work through is, go back and look how nature does it. It's, it has all been mapped out brilliantly, and our brain does actually know what it's supposed to be doing.

[00:13:55] Lucia Silver: And given half a chance, if environment and toxins and areas of miseducation, wrong diagnosis and medication, if it all steps out of the way. There's a large part of our bodies that are programmed to naturally go back to homeostasis. We just need to remove a lot of the factors that are preventing that from happening.

[00:14:15] Lucia Silver: And meanwhile, just to move on to this issue of ADHD diagnosis, which I know we're both passionate about, much like ASD, it can be used as a rather dangerous umbrella catch all for what is a multitude of symptomatologies, And actually if you look at Dr. Amen, who you've studied with, and Melillo, Dr.

[00:14:37] Lucia Silver: Amen would talk of seven types of ADHD. Melillo will talk of three types and connect this very much to neurological development. Just as a preface, and then I'll let you take it away. I was really astounded to see the correlation. If you're looking at, for a start, people will tell you, I've got ADHD, whether they've been diagnosed or not.

[00:15:00] Lucia Silver: Other people who have been diagnosed, they'll tell you ADHD. If you ask them, and what did your doctor tell you was the reason? They never have an answer in the first instance. Secondly, if I ask them, what type of ADHD? They'll go, what do you mean, what type of ADHD? I've just got ADHD. No. ADHD 1, for example, is an inattentive type of ADHD, which actually has no hyperactivity or impulsivity connected to it.

[00:15:26] Lucia Silver: ADHD 2, and sometimes ADHD 2 with 3, according to Dr. Malillo in his research, is the inattentiveness that we see, but it's also with the hyperactivity and impulsivity as well. And ADHD 1 is connected far more to a left brain delay. or an overactive right hemisphere, whereas the ADHD2, and sometimes combined with 3, is a right brain delay with a left brain overactivity.

[00:15:55] Lucia Silver: So when you look at it just from that point of view, how could you possibly have one approach to healing all. So I'm going to hand over to you on that because you will be seeing the variations, you will be understanding what another fantastic doctor, Dr. Peter Skye, talks about is the nuances of ADHD.

[00:16:17] Sean McNicholas: Yeah, this is a long, this is a long subject. So first of all, from my experience in my practice I, see people with ADHD every day and there is a vast spectrum we go from the very hyperactive, very risk taking, thrill seeking, optimistic, impulsive kind of behaviors to the very low mood, anxious, procrastinating kind of behaviors at the very far end and there's everything in the middle.

[00:16:41] Sean McNicholas: So when we talk about diagnosis essentially what's happening is the doctor or the psychiatrist, the psychologist is going to ask a number of questions to see if you fall into the inattentive bucket. Do you fall into the impulsive bucket? Do you fall into the hyperactive bucket? And if you do, you meet the criteria to be said, right?

[00:17:01] Sean McNicholas: You have ADHD. Then we talk about the different types. The problem is that sometimes you could have, you could, your bucket could be really overfilled with hyperactivity and you could be one, one symptom short of being diagnosed. It doesn't mean that you don't have ADHD, right? So like we said before, ADHD is not one thing.

[00:17:18] Sean McNicholas: It's not one tumor. It's a cluster of symptoms. That means if you meet the criteria, then you're diagnosed. If you miss one, then you're not. And when we talk with with Daniel, Dr. Daniel Ayman, he says psychiatry is one of those medical professions where you are diagnosing someone and saying you have a problem and you need to be medicated on it without actually testing the organ.

[00:17:39] Sean McNicholas: No one scans the brain, no one tests it, there's no lab tests, we're not checking the bloods, the livers, the adrenal fatigue, thyroids, we're not doing anything else to eliminate what could the possible problems be and when we talk about the medical professions. They make an oath to say to do no harm, but medicine should be the last resort, not the first alternative to when you get diagnosed.

[00:18:03] Lucia Silver: Absolutely. 

[00:18:04] Sean McNicholas: And then when we talk with Daniel Aymond says there's seven different types the classic inattentive, you've got the ring of fire, you've got the over focused, you've got the temporal lobe, you've got the limbic, you've got the anxiety. Now, when you talk about medication, We are talking about stimulant.

[00:18:21] Sean McNicholas: I'm talking about stimulant or amphetamine. What's amphetamine? Amphetamine is one molecule away from cocaine. It's one molecule away from crystal meth. Now we're talking about possibly medicating adults and children and with adults coming through being lately diagnosed like myself.

[00:18:37] Sean McNicholas: And if you've got issues of addiction, the last thing you want to be doing is being put on to, stimulant drugs like amphetamine. And especially when we talk about different aspects of the brain, some are underactive, some are overactive, some are really stimulated. And then we talk about the ring of fire and the last thing you want to do is medicate that person because all of a sudden they get very manic.

[00:18:56] Sean McNicholas: And there's at least a suicidal thoughts and behaviors, so we cannot treat everyone with the same medication. It's not a one size fits all solution. So the we need to go back to the basics. Let's go through that holistic approach the 360 Let's talk about your sleep your diet your exercise.

[00:19:15] Sean McNicholas: How are you living? You know your social environment? How are your social connections all this kind of stuff to see if that needs some adjusting or tweaking before we talk about medicating adults and in particular children 

[00:19:30] Lucia Silver: Indeed I was challenged not that long ago on radio as to when I said that it was really important that we approached it from a root cause point of view, as opposed to looking at medication, and that I think it was at the end of, year before last, America had prescribed 20 million issues of Ritalin.

[00:19:52] Lucia Silver: That year alone, I said to the broadcast, I said how do you have proof that changing lifestyle, changing diet, changing, doing more exercise, inhibiting primitive reflexes, looking at the central nervous system? How do you have proof that? I said, it's extraordinary that you would, and there is proof, that work does reverse the symptoms of ADHD, autism and more.

[00:20:14] Lucia Silver: I've healed my own son under my own nose and seen it happen. But isn't it extraordinary that you would ask for proof when there is no proof that medication in long term has no negative side effects? When we, how could exercise and eating whole foods have a negative effect? Yeah. So there's a great responsibility, as you rightly say, huge oath that the medical community have taken to ensure that what is prescribed in any form is for the good health of the recipient.

[00:20:52] Sean McNicholas: To be clear, medication does have a role for some people at some time, especially with different conditions. What concerns me is that you have world leading experts in ADHD that make statements to say, for example, ADHD is only genetic. And if it's only genetic, it means there's nothing you can do about it, so you need to take this medication for the rest of your life.

[00:21:13] Sean McNicholas: Which is not true, and I always say follow the money. You look at these world leading experts, doctors who talk about it's genetic and you look at their research papers and who are they funded by? They're funded by the pharma. So that's another discussion we can go into and we look at stuff like for over 50 years the medical journals were saying about depression.

[00:21:35] Sean McNicholas: It's a chemical imbalance. So therefore you can't do nothing about it. So you need to stay on this medication. We now find out it's not chemical imbalance. Thanks. So for many years I've got clients that have been depressed for over 20 years on antidepressant medication. And guess what? They're still depressed.

[00:21:51] Sean McNicholas: So do you think the medication is really working for that person? And then we talk about tolerance, titration. We talk about I've got clients that start on the ADHD medication pathway and within two or three weeks they need to double the dose. They need more and more because they're becoming tolerant to it.

[00:22:08] Sean McNicholas: And then you get to a certain point where you can't. And the GP cannot prescribe you any higher. So then you're stuck on this level. Then what do you do? So there are many issues around that becoming more dependent on medication. Now, it may help sometimes. And when I say, especially temporarily but it's like a band aid, if you, have a car crash and you have a car come into you and you've broken your hip, for example, they don't keep putting a band aid on it.

[00:22:35] Sean McNicholas: They go to the root cause and they fix the issue physically. But when we talk about issues in the brain or even traumatic with trauma as well, this is not about medicating to just paper over the cracks. We need to go to the root cause of where this came from and then help help heal it.

[00:22:52] Lucia Silver: Indeed. And in the same way that we're given a sort of panacea of this medicine will treat all ADHD. This diagnosis is the same for anyone with ADHD. Dr. Melillo, in a fantastic podcast with Dr. Peter Scouch, I think it's called The Attention Divide, which I recommend anyone looking into this to look into and listen to, talks about how, in actual fact, if you were certain types of ADHD and you prescribe the typical, medication for improving focus.

[00:23:28] Lucia Silver: A lot of the time it gives a boost of dopamine, which is precisely what the brain is already struggling with in those conditions, regulating dopamine levels. And it actually interferes with that and it might give them hyper focus for a certain length of time. It then wears off and they're back to exactly where they were anyway, because actually that's not the area that they needed the help with.

[00:23:51] Lucia Silver: So it's equally the case that the medication is being unilaterally dispersed when they haven't actually looked at the nature of the condition either. So it's, not even helping in the short term, Sean. 

[00:24:06] Sean McNicholas: And this goes back to, there could be possible deficiencies, right? Nutrition. If with ADHD, if there's an immature brain, there's likely to be an immature gut.

[00:24:14] Sean McNicholas: So for example, we may not be able to process food or the building blocks to, to produce dopamine. So we need to go back and look at that kind of stuff. And with the work with Dr. Daniel Ayman, one of the things that we do is a brain assessment to find out we go for a list of questions and he produces 16 different brain types.

[00:24:33] Sean McNicholas: And based on the different brain types, there will be a kind of, protocol for your diet, for your exercise, and to start off with from supplementation. So supplementation could be just the multivitamins and minerals and omegas, for example, but we can go into rhodiola, ginseng to see what we need to do to kind of balance the brain 

[00:24:53] Lucia Silver: out a bit more.

[00:24:54] Lucia Silver: Indeed. And even before that the metabolism if the body, as you say, there was often a case where if the brain hasn't matured as it needed to, then there could be leaky gut. There can be brain gut barrier leakage. And when that is the case, at the severe end, you can end up with autoimmune disorders.

[00:25:10] Lucia Silver: Just at the basic day to day level, if you're not producing the necessary energy or absorbing the necessary nutrients from your food, you can't concentrate, Sean, can you? So a child's getting into school in the morning, if their primitive reflexes in turn are not integrated, we explain that in other podcasts, but for those who are following will know what we're talking about, they cannot sit still.

[00:25:33] Lucia Silver: Add to that they haven't metabolized their food, so there's nothing firing the brain, allowing it to focus, because there's no energy there, there's no sustainability there. And then we're labeling that child, first of all, as badly behaved, which is appalling, but then secondly, they get slapped with some sort of diagnosis, whereas in the first instance, as you correctly say, and thank goodness for you practicing the way you do, you would look at that whole child and say, let's look at your metabolism first.

[00:26:03] Lucia Silver: Let's look at what some of these impacting factors are before we label you with an attention, an attentional issue. Of course there's an attentional issue, yeah, so I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. And you've coined the term 360 therapy. Sean, can we explore a little bit? Can we deep dive a little further into the roles that Sleep, diet, exercise, play, socializing.

[00:26:29] Lucia Silver: Those are your sort of your, five span, areas. Talk to us a bit about those. 

[00:26:36] Sean McNicholas: So essentially what happens is when I onboard a client, the first thing we do is we have an intake form. So I asked him to provide us as much information as possible. And part of that is to really understand. their lifestyle habits.

[00:26:46] Sean McNicholas: I want to know how much sleep they have, what quality of sleep, what's their diet like, what's their exercise like if they're older, are they any alcohol any, nicotine and so on to see, to get a bigger picture of how they're living their life. And we go through a typical day of what their routine is like from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed.

[00:27:06] Sean McNicholas: Because for me, there's something called Conscious consumption. I want to know everything they put into their body and into their minds, whether it's drinking a coffee with any snacking, but it's also about what they're reading, what they're watching and we can spend another day on, trauma triggers phone addiction, and what that brings. So we really dive into How are they living their life? And and based on what presents itself, we talk about diet. I will send them a sleep guide. We talk about meditation. We talk about calming down the nervous system. We talk about having, especially with ADHD maybe you need more of a high protein diet.

[00:27:46] Sean McNicholas: We talk about how much are you exercising? How regular? When do you do it? What's your sleep routine when you go to bed? Is it a case of that you are watching the news till 11 o'clock, you turn the lights off and then you can't sleep for two hours? Guess what? Maybe you're worried about what's being on the news for two hours, so we need to have this gap. We need, to give the brain a rest. We need to, even through the day, I always, Ask people to find some time to just get 10 or 15 minutes just for pure silence, to be still. No phone calls, no screens, no communication, just to sit still. Because sometimes we are overloaded by so much information at the moment, back in the day, we used to just sit in front of one person, have a conversation we could cope with the information coming in. But now the information is coming in from computers, from work, from people. from social media. It's like we've got this fire hose of information and the processors in the brain just cannot catch up until there is silence.

[00:28:36] Sean McNicholas: And the problem is, that we're living so fast and there's no pause throughout the whole day, is that we have not got any time to catch up. So the only time we get to catch up is when we turn the lights off and there's no more sound. And then guess what? We're just overwhelmed. By all these worries, fears, and concerns of the day so we need to be able to process that.

[00:28:52] Sean McNicholas: We need to find time to just unwind, break it down, have a long slow bath, or have some reading or meditation. We need to just calm down the nervous system and then think about what can I do now, which is going to be a bit of. Benefit me more. What's going to be healthier? What's going to be smarter?

[00:29:08] Sean McNicholas: Think about what time I wake up. To have a really good morning routine, you have to have a good sleep routine. We think about what kind of foods can I have throughout the day? How can I fuel myself? Because as the brain needs oxygen and needs glucose. So it's really important that we give ourselves all the nutrients to have the optimal brain.

[00:29:26] Lucia Silver: Yeah, there's a lot of composite parts, aren't there? And for parents listening, it can feel overwhelming because on the one hand, something can be done. On the other hand, where do I start? Where do I start? There are some parents who are perhaps now not even in the starting gate. Their kids are on the screen the minute they come out of school.

[00:29:46] Lucia Silver: They've been sitting all day at school, and we talk constantly about how our entire educational system needs to be reversed to or not reverse, but needs to be really, to understand the importance of movement in order for the prefrontal cortex, in order for children to be able to sit and concentrate.

[00:30:04] Lucia Silver: So many other elements need to be in place. So they come home, they're already wound up, they've been sitting all day, they probably had processed food, snacks through the day, they've come home, they're not regulated, they're not going and exercising, they're coming home, they're sitting on their screens.

[00:30:20] Lucia Silver: They may, in some cases, have another processed meal in the evening. And then they're on the screens again. And it, there, there isn't a fighting, there isn't a chance really there for that central nervous system, as you say, to find its way back to homeostasis, to balance is there. And then there could be trauma at home, there could be arguments at home, there could be toxins and mold.

[00:30:42] Lucia Silver: There could be, there's so many composite parts. But with the work that you do and the courses that we do, and a lot of the practitioners in this space. It's just taking it step by step, isn't it? And also the parents Sean, I wanted to ask you who comes to see you typically for help?

[00:30:59] Lucia Silver: Because you see the kids how often are you finding that it's also the parent's nervous system? You've said yourself in your upbringing. Huge beginning factor with alcoholic upbringing. You've got, a lot of people are dealing with, children are dealing with their parents dysregulated nervous system.

[00:31:19] Lucia Silver: So, how do you navigate that when it arrives in the office? 

[00:31:23] Sean McNicholas: Just going back to the point you mentioned they're talking about the increase in ADHD and autism in young children. And we talk about now the lack of movement from being a baby, right? We talk about before there was a lot more movement being outside, a lot more play.

[00:31:38] Sean McNicholas: Now it's a case of the baby's being pushed around a lot in the buggy and they've got an iPad in the screen that they just look at. So there's, less connection. There's less activity, there's less, exercise, which means the brain needs that sensory stimulation to, to grow and develop.

[00:31:54] Sean McNicholas: So that's a consideration from many parents that I think there should be like more education before you even have children to learn about the importance of this and when we talk about. parents coming to the practice. There's something called co regulation, right? So co regulation is when, the young child or baby is upset and they're dysregulated, they're relying on a caregiver.

[00:32:19] Sean McNicholas: The primary could be the mother, for example, and they expect her to calm her down. Now the mother has to be regulated to co regulate the child to calm them down. But if the mother is stressed, if she's got many things going on in her life that she can't cope with, she is highly dysregulated. Now you've got this dysregulated young child, the baby or the toddler, and they need calming down and they're now co regulating with a dysregulated parent.

[00:32:42] Sean McNicholas: Guess what? They start to just be conditioned to be much more heightened in sensitivity, much more stressed, and so on. So that's the kind of environment I grew up in. So for me, chaos and dysfunction, I didn't realize for many, years, I was always attracted to chaos and dysfunction. And I realized now it's because it was my norm.

[00:33:00] Sean McNicholas: That was my go to sit still and be quiet and do nothing felt so unfamiliar to me. So it felt so strange that I didn't even know what to do with it. That's why I kept moving. This is where the nervous energy comes from because we feel like we need to keep moving all the time. And part of that's too, because I'm stuck in survival mode, I'm in fight or flight all the time so this is the things that I learned about myself, which then I can implement into the work I do with, the parents and the children and the adults.

[00:33:26] Sean McNicholas: Now, with the parents coming to the practice, We've got, there's kind of two types really. So one type is like yourself. So I've met many people like you, Lucia, and you are special. Where you have a really caring mother that wants to do everything, go over and above to improve their child's life.

[00:33:46] Sean McNicholas: And then we have bookings where I get this long note to say, my son is 12 years old or 14 years old and they're stressing me out and they're behaving this way. He needs to see you and literally we go into a zoom call and I'm sitting in front of the child as if he's the problem, and so I always say it's really important that we have a family discussion because this is a family, it's a family issue that we need to work on together.

[00:34:12] Sean McNicholas: I need to know what the dynamic is. I want to know where this child is, why this child is behaving the way they are and what I do is when I go through what ADHD is and what the symptoms are and the traits and so on, all of a sudden I see the light bulb pop with parents and they say, that sounds like me.

[00:34:28] Sean McNicholas: Oh, that sounds familiar and I've, take clients to see like primitive reflex therapist. And again, they talk about issues growing up in childhood and so on. And the parents say, I was the same as that so for some parents, it's really good. And they want to, really do everything possible and they put the work in.

[00:34:47] Sean McNicholas: Whereas other parents, And again, with primitive reflexes, I've took them to see therapists and I'll say, look, only start this process if you can commit to do the exercises. And some of these exercises, as are two minutes a day. But what I found is that some parents are committed and they do the work.

[00:35:03] Sean McNicholas: Whereas others after about a week, it's I was just too much or I've had a bad day and so on. So it's really tough because this is a really it's a real family, support system that's required to make this work for everyone. 

[00:35:19] Lucia Silver: Absolutely. And, oh, deep breath on that one because it's, huge.

[00:35:25] Lucia Silver: And I think it takes great courage. And as my journey has evolved with the brain health movement through Quinn, like yours has evolved for yourself and your children, you understand more and more as you go. And at the beginning, I thought I was just dealing solely with central nervous system. system development.

[00:35:41] Lucia Silver: Then I understood that impacted on gut. Then I understood the importance of trauma. Then I, and as I was working my way through from the child's symptoms to then understanding the whole child, then understanding that it was actually a whole family issue. And then I understood that when Quinn became particularly unwell through his PANS and became very dysregulated, Disregulated me.

[00:36:09] Lucia Silver: And that was then I S I had this epiphanal moment, which was also came about because so many parents would call me and say, Lucy, could you just deal with my child? Or, Oh, Lucy, I thought I was going to come to you for this parent coaching session. And you were just going to refer me to someone who was going to sort my child out.

[00:36:26] Lucia Silver: And then listening to the parent. I had this epiphanal realization that if I wasn't fully that's a tall order to expect yourself to be in a ventral, vagal, fabulous state all the time, we're not. Life is, life has its ups and downs. But if we at least don't have the neuroception of safety to understand what space we're in at a given point in time, or indeed understand the space that our child is in at a given point in time, and understand that they cannot.

[00:36:56] Lucia Silver: self regulate. They cannot up until a certain age. They need, as you said, the parent to co regulate. Then suddenly I realized that I couldn't do any of the educational work, send anyone to any therapist, until I got mum or dad or key carer sorted. And I was like, whoa, here's another huge piece of the jigsaw.

[00:37:22] Lucia Silver: And how many parents are A, going to be ready to look at themselves, and then B, do the necessary work to get their children through the program that we're offering and the incredible practitioners that we're sending them to. to get from A to Z. This is the point, Sean, this is the point, is it begins at home.

[00:37:43] Lucia Silver: It begins with us as parents understanding where we are and finding our way back to some sort of calm, whether that's through your meditations, through SSP, there are a number of different ways of calming the nervous system and understanding, but I'm hearing you would unequivocally agree that is where we need to begin.

[00:38:09] Sean McNicholas: I would even go a step before that. And the work begins with myself. It's important as the therapist, I need to make sure that I've, worked on myself so I don't bring myself to my child or to my client. Because one of the things is that one of the things I learned was that do not put your stuff onto your children.

[00:38:29] Sean McNicholas: Because sometimes what we do is that we project our fears, the fears of the past onto our children, which can cause anxiety, fear control issues panic, so we need to really calm our nervous system down so then I can be the best version. So for me, I'm the person who should be co regulating any of my clients, for example.

[00:38:51] Sean McNicholas: So I need to be calm and relax myself. 

[00:38:53] Sean McNicholas: But going back to the parents, we speak before about how regulated are they? What stuff are they carrying? Because of what I've seen is that with multi generational trauma is that we have a very controlling, anxious mother because of the stuff in the past has been unresolved.

[00:39:12] Sean McNicholas: Then they project onto the child and then it's constantly, don't do that. Don't go there. The child. It's just. He needs information. He needs information, especially the ADHD brain. He needs to make sense of them. And if not being told why, they start to think about what could be the possibilities?

[00:39:28] Sean McNicholas: And they'll always go to worst case scenario to fill in the holes of the story. And this leads to catastrophic thinking, which creates more fear. So then we talk about injustice sensitivity. We talk about rejection sensitivity. We talk about guilt sensitivity. This is coming from sometimes it's the environment that we're living in.

[00:39:45] Lucia Silver: Yes it's, a lot. And I think there's going to be mothers listening, thinking, Oh, I do that. Oh, I do that. With the best will in the world, trying to protect, just not understanding that, our children I've definitely been guilty of that. And then you look at chicken and egg.

[00:40:03] Lucia Silver: Is it through that overprotection that you prevented the exposure, which has then created the condition or was the condition? It doesn't matter. The awareness is everything.

[00:40:13] Sean McNicholas: What's really important though, I must stress because when we talk about this discussion, this topic in particular lots of parents that reflect and say, Oh my God, it's my fault.

[00:40:23] Sean McNicholas: I've done something wrong. Or they keep trying to find the root cause of what did I do to make this happen? Karen is Guilt, blame and shame. It's no one's fault. These are unintended consequences for one reason or another and we need to just work on finding solutions and improving life then dwelling on the past because that doesn't help 

[00:40:41] Lucia Silver: anyone.

[00:40:42] Sean McNicholas: Now for me, like I said, I've gone through many issues in my life, many traumas. It doesn't matter. All I need to focus on now is what can I do to be the best version of myself, to be the best parent, to be the best husband, to be the best you know, therapist. I need to just be there for myself and everyone around me.

[00:40:58] Lucia Silver: Absolutely. And I read something very helpful in that regard because I think if we have been raised in trauma and in this level of dysfunction and lack of safety, we're the first to feel guilty, shame, not good enough. And that doesn't serve our children either to, know that they're that it's from today forwards that is important.

[00:41:21] Lucia Silver: But I read something around repair and rupture and that really was, incredibly tender. to me understanding that, there is as much healing, if not more healing in repair than rupture. You will never create a life for your child, children, that is free from rupture, as in disruption, distress, heartache, and so forth.

[00:41:45] Lucia Silver: And, for sure, we've had plenty of that in, in, in my personal life with Quinn. But what I recognize now is where the gold is, where the value is, after those moments have happened. with Quinn in our history and even day to day. If I lose my S H I T and don't manage to pull it together on some days, we sit down and we talk about it honestly.

[00:42:14] Lucia Silver: And I say, mommy mommy wasn't, doing too well on that day and it's absolutely not your fault and nothing you could ever do could ever stop me loving you. I'm really sorry for the fact that I wasn't the best mum yesterday. I lost my patience. And in those moments Sean Sean Quinn has said to me, Mummy, sometimes I quite like it when we have those little upsets because we always sit down and have such incredible connection afterwards.

[00:42:44] Lucia Silver: And that is, for me, It's not striving for life to be marshmallows and honey all the time. It's to understand that there are moments where it's not going to be, and how are you going to conduct yourself and how can you create a safe space? to allow your child to express what was happening for them then, and you can too.

[00:43:06] Lucia Silver: And in that comes co regulation, and in that comes connection. And it's connection, which we haven't spoken about specifically, but we're talking about connection, for it to be safe to come into this moment. And as you said, Sean, safe to sit still. When your environment's been nothing, taught you nothing but keep busy, keep active it's not safe to just be with what is.

[00:43:31] Lucia Silver: That's the environment that we need to create for homeostasis and balance again, right? 

[00:43:36] Sean McNicholas: Yeah, and it's never too late to heal these emotional wounds. Remember, trauma actually means wound, right? It's not what happens, it's the feeling that you receive from it and what it means to you in that moment. And especially with children, they're very egocentric, which means that the world revolves around them.

[00:43:54] Sean McNicholas: So when something happens, and they feel unsafe, or they feel insignificant, or they feel unworthy, or unloved, or not good enough, they are seeking comfort, they're seeking reassurance of comfort. Seeking safety and security. And if they don't receive it in that moment, it's all about them. That's because no one cares about me.

[00:44:12] Sean McNicholas: That means it's, that means that I'm not safe. That means the world's a dangerous place. That means I'm unlovable and so on. So we can go back with the work I do to heal those deep. Wounds because what happens today when I'm working with a 50 year old man and his wife has sent me an email sent about you need to sort him out.

[00:44:30] Sean McNicholas: He's definitely got ADHD. I'm going to leave him if you don't fix him. What we're talking about now, we're dealing with anger issues. We're dealing with anxiety and they are triggered from many years ago of these belief systems, not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy, feeling like the world's a dangerous place and so on.

[00:44:47] Sean McNicholas: So we can go back and heal those wounds and everything changes. We disconnect the past from the present. Otherwise, they are just living their life carrying this box of pain and suffering and trauma. And every time someone pushes that button and says or does something, it just opens everything up.

[00:45:02] Sean McNicholas: dysregulation, That sometimes the reaction of the, individual can be very excessive and extreme. You just think, wow that, that, wasn't necessary, but it's not about now. It's what it means to them deep inside the perception that was, created from, this kind of traumatic event at that stage in her life.

[00:45:22] Sean McNicholas: And especially when we talk about children and brain development up until seven years old, they haven't even got the cognitive thinking part of the brain. There's no conscious, rational Rationalization of what that meant to them. It's all emotion and what does emotion mean to them. And they carry this for many years, unless you challenge the belief.

[00:45:40] Lucia Silver: It's it's stored in the body those, moments and then inappropriately then triggered. So looking, forward, Sean let's just step back into what is happening for our children with ADHD within the system. I appreciate we, we, you and I could do 10 podcasts. There's so many, so much juice and gold to cover really with all of this, but I just want to step back into what is happening within the system typically when a child is diagnosed or not diagnosed, taken to their doctor, what that route looks like for most parents versus what happens when you understand your trajectory, which we've discussed more.

[00:46:23] Lucia Silver: But what's happening typically? out there with these kids, what is happening when they visit their GP and onwards? 

[00:46:28] Sean McNicholas: So I'm talking about the UK system at the moment. If you believe that your child has ADHD, if you go through the NHS process you will be referred which will take up to three years. Now, for example my son was showing signs from about 11 or 12.

[00:46:48] Sean McNicholas: We spoke to GP, he asked us to wait. And by the time we wanted to make sure. That because in schools without an EHCP, Educational Health Care Plan, it means that there is no additional support given to that young child, which is the adjustments and accommodations and so forth to support them through those years at school.

[00:47:07] Sean McNicholas: By the time my son was diagnosed, he was in his second year of GCSEs. So we missed a lot of these opportunities. The waiting list for children in the NHS at the moment is about three years. So this is the problem, right? So if you, and normally, especially with boys, it shows up a lot more in teenagers, which becomes more of a problem because they're much, much more hyperactive and disruptive in class.

[00:47:29] Sean McNicholas: Not so much for girls. Most girls are inattentive. So you don't really see or hear them. They're very quiet. All the stuff is going on inside their brain. You can go the private pathway. Which means that you could be seen by a psychiatrist between three and six months. It's going to cost you about a thousand pounds.

[00:47:45] Sean McNicholas: The problem is if you get diagnosed by the private pathway, you cannot cross over into shared care with the NHS. Which means that every month you have to pay 100 prescription to the GP, to the private GP with a, and plus you've got to pay for medication. If you're an adult, you've got to wait at least five years and that list is increasing.

[00:48:06] Sean McNicholas: So the demand for diagnosis is coming, becoming greater. And the lists are becoming longer. Now, there are some other issues around this. Now people can game the system because ADHD diagnosis, just a list of questions that you answer. So you can game it and cheat it if you want to, depending on the, objective of the individual.

[00:48:29] Sean McNicholas: Some people just want to medicate their children. So there's a documentary in America called Take Your Pills, and it's talking about parents that are medicating their children just to dumb them down, just to sedate them just to keep them quiet. And then you have the issues around, should they take medication at school?

[00:48:48] Sean McNicholas: Should they take them at weekends? And so on. There are so many issues around this. 

[00:48:54] Lucia Silver: That's terrifying, Sean. On the one hand, there's all that. You wait three years and you get given medication, which we know is not ultimately going to help. It might. as you say, put a plaster on it, get some concentration, or as some people would take it to get them through exams, for example, for a short period of time.

[00:49:12] Lucia Silver: But actually, it's not addressing the issue at all. And even then, where do you go from there? The point is, and I say to a lot of parents, I've got, I'm going to get a diagnosis. And I said that's great for whatever that is, whether it's autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, audio, But ultimately, what are you going to do about it?

[00:49:32] Lucia Silver: Because the system doesn't take you any further. The system might get your child an EHCP eventually, if you're one of the lucky few, but the system is so overburdened with this. Epidemic, which it is, and this is the reason why you and I are as busy as we are, because it's one in five children in every classroom that now is showing these signs of struggling.

[00:49:57] Lucia Silver: You get the diagnosis, and then, nothing! There's no advice from the GP. You might go and see some of the better OTs, certainly in the UK, who understand something of primitive reflex integration, but my journey wasn't that. I went to see so many different experts until I ended up abroad to find the information and train and understand, as you have done, what I could do about it.

[00:50:23] Lucia Silver: Most of it was just, and I use this very provocative and rude antipodean phrase, polishing a turd. It was just at the very, as you say, top down level, it wasn't giving me anything. This is where our children are being left and, without being alarmist, the problem doesn't go away. The symptomatology doesn't disappear.

[00:50:47] Lucia Silver: We need support, and the body, somatically, and physiologically, and neurochemically, needs support to get it back to thriving. In order for us to express our most optimum, fantastic lives, we need help to get back on that pathway. And I would really like to hear from you, Sean, because you've ended up, I can't even believe that this actually exists, but it is a charity to prevent, specifically within the arena of ADHD, the school to prison pipeline.

[00:51:20] Lucia Silver: I remember when you first said it to me and I was, I remember just thinking, is this where we've got to? So can you talk to this for us? Please. 

[00:51:30] Sean McNicholas: Yeah, sure. So the, charity is called ADHD Liberty, and it's all about implementing screening processes in prisons, in probation services and police stations to ensure that if even at an early moment, we can recognize that someone may be neurodivergent and give them the right support at the right time.

[00:51:48] Sean McNicholas: Because at the moment, I think the government's stating that 20 to 25 percent of people in prisons. We know from our screening and research and data, it's about 70 to 80%. 70 to 80 percent of people in prison are neurodivergent. And as far as I'm concerned, prisons are the UK's largest mental health institute.

[00:52:08] Sean McNicholas: There's so many people in there with issues and they're not being seen or treated. Now, the issue we have is then you've spoke to Sally Goddard Blythe and the INPP movement, right? So she tried to bring in a pilot to introduce exercise and movement and primitive reflexes into school classrooms and PE classes at a very young age for us to recognize and identify if anyone's retaining these reflexes.

[00:52:35] Sean McNicholas: To see if that could be an indicator to see if there's anyone with learning difficulties, behavioral issues and so on. And, for some reason, that part of the script. Now, if we can get in early enough to identify at a much younger age, you know 

[00:52:50] Lucia Silver: Can I just, interrupt that, Sean?

[00:52:52] Lucia Silver: Because it's really important. The reason that pilot, or the research, was put to one side, is because something like 70 percent of the children that were assessed as not ready for school, it was so overwhelming for the government to deal with, that they thought, oh let's just, we can't deal with this, because quite clearly they're not motor ready, they're not neurologically ready for school, but that's the system.

[00:53:21] Lucia Silver: So they ignored it and carried on. So that's what actually happened with that huge piece of work. 

[00:53:29] Sean McNicholas: The fact is, that by doing that work, it might highlight there's more neurodivergent people than they thought, which means there's a lot more work. And look, this is not slow on, on CEND departments or teachers, because they do an amazing job.

[00:53:41] Sean McNicholas: But the thing is, there's just too much resource required. So one of the conversations about why is there such a large waiting list for ADHD diagnosis is because they would have to spend so much time on psychiatrists and psychologists and medication and so on, they just cannot afford it. So therefore they're slowing everything down, a lot of people know there's a problem, but we just cannot, we haven't got a solution to, to deal with the problem, and that's the challenge, right? So we go back to all the kids that were disruptive in class, being told they're bad kids, naughty. If kids believe they're bad and always in trouble, they start behaving as if they're bad and if they haven't got the right support and guidance and so on, they're going to follow a pathway into prison because there's no one there to support them and give them or have the role models in life to support them, to give them the life that they deserve.

[00:54:31] Sean McNicholas: And therefore they just lead into that pathway and 

[00:54:35] Lucia Silver: What's, 

[00:54:35] Lucia Silver: happening for the neurochemically, Sean, we know that we can see that happening. The data is showing that's happening. Can you talk from a neuro neurophysiological point of view, what's happening because addictions and OCDs and emotional dysregulation is part of what's happening in the brain and, left.

[00:54:54] Lucia Silver: unhelped, it's exacerbated, isn't it? So what's, actually what, is the roller coaster that's happening in the brain from that, point of view? 

[00:55:03] Sean McNicholas: First of all, we got issues with behavior. We got issues with focus, attention, belief systems so when we talk about substance use or even behavioral issues such as porn addiction violence, gambling and so on.

[00:55:19] Sean McNicholas: The brain is functioning differently. And we talk about dopamine and dopamine networks. If you're taking substances that, that hit those dopamine networks, you become very dependent on those. You start to behave in a different way. But it goes back to how that individual feels about themselves because they've gone through their life where they've struggled for one reason or another, whether it's academically, behaviorally, at home, in social environments because sometimes they can say or do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

[00:55:46] Sean McNicholas: So therefore they feel like an outcast. So therefore they're trying to find their way in society, trying to fit in some way, trying to find out who they are. Sometimes that behavior starts to put on the mask I have to be the aggressive person to be seen and be heard. I need to behave in a certain way to be respected.

[00:56:02] Sean McNicholas: So it's really tough for those individuals to navigate themselves through the world without any guidance or support. So neurochemically it's just all over the place it's, just, there is no balance. And we talk about right side, left side balance. We talk about parts are underactive.

[00:56:22] Sean McNicholas: We talk about parts that are overactive or highly stimulated. And these people, they really need some help and when it becomes extreme, we talk about schizophrenia, we talk about bipolar it becomes worse and worse because then it's just becoming more and more extreme in terms of mental health conditions.

[00:56:40] Lucia Silver: And again, so that it's not all doom and gloom. I still love to come back to the fact that now I have seen treatment and I know you're going to share with us a couple of case studies of where you've seen fantastic transformation with clients. But I was watching again, Dr. Melillo working with. I think it was in his late twenties, a wonderful, guy who had been suffering with bipolar and absolutely was there talking, saying, I've come out of, I've come out of it.

[00:57:09] Lucia Silver: It's this has been haunting my life. I've not known, I've not known life without this up and down without this terrible depression, anxiety. And, there he was. Experiencing life differently. And, Dr. Mililo is emphasizing again and again, it's all part of the same thing. If you understand what we can do within the brain, then you understand that we can reverse it.

[00:57:32] Lucia Silver: So share with us some, I know your ultimate goals with your clients struggling and what you aim and how you measure success, but just talk to us about a couple of human stories that you've had with your own clients where you've been able to identify this and seen them from the dark. back into the light again.

[00:57:48] Sean McNicholas: Yeah. I've had young girls that were really successful dancers. And the, when they went into the teenage years, they was really struggling with performance and belief in self, anxiety, rejection, sensitivity really low mood. And we, worked on understanding too much screen time.

[00:58:09] Sean McNicholas: not enough sleep. Diet was high sugar. We, worked on belief systems and we worked on when you go into your teens, you can start using like CBT because the cognitive part of the brain is now developed. You can't challenge a seven year old's thinking, patterns because they're not there.

[00:58:27] Lucia Silver: Yeah. 

[00:58:28] Sean McNicholas: Yeah. So for example, she just followed the program, followed the pathways and a lot of that was psychotherapy as well for her. She's now become the national champion I've worked with. Lots of musicians, lots of famous DJs again, performance anxiety. And these are comorbidities that come along with ADHD itself.

[00:58:47] Sean McNicholas: So there was impulsive and hyperactive behaviors. There was kind of addiction to certain substances and behaviors. And it was about learning to calm down the nervous system. Learned about how you value yourself and the belief about yourself as well, to know that you are good enough.

[00:59:01] Sean McNicholas: You do deserve to be successful. You are worthy because this is the thing as well. It's the thought process. That is a consequence of, the, brain immaturity, because all of a sudden you're going through your life, not believing in yourself living your life through these past histories and traumas of how you see yourself in the world.

[00:59:21] Sean McNicholas: So again, these people are, they're performing at Glastonbury. I've got clients that I've worked with high level CEOs where they're struggling with work, they've got burnout. So burnout's very common for adults, forties and fifties they're living their life lately diagnosed.

[00:59:37] Sean McNicholas: Not being able to cope or understand why they do the things they do or why they behave the way they do. Issues with relationships. I've got many sessions with with partners of people living with ADHD. So it's the wife of living with someone that's really hard to live with. So I explained to them from my perspective, I am a husband with ADHD.

[00:59:57] Sean McNicholas: So I explained to them, This is why we do the things we do. This is how we think the way we do and so on. To give them perspective. And these are the tools that can really help by working together as a couple. So I can do it separately or together as well. So they can both see each other's perspectives and to say, this is why he does these things.

[01:00:14] Sean McNicholas: We talk about lack of hindsight poor working memory. We talk about poor choices because in that moment we've got now and not now. So we don't see foresight, we have no idea of consequence until it happens because in our brain we are living in this moment and again we talk about because we're living in survival mode.

[01:00:31] Sean McNicholas: We're living in fight or flight so we can't think beyond today because right now it's so scary I just need to focus on this. You know I also work with parents that say to me You're seeing my son, but we really want to understand more about this and what we can do. So we work on tools and strategies. So again, all these kind of sessions and methods that I use are beneficial in so many different ways.

[01:00:52] Sean McNicholas: So it's much more holistic. 

[01:00:54] Lucia Silver: Sean, I'm interested, just as a last question, and it's a challenging one that that I wasn't expecting to ask you, but I would like to ask you. Refer to yourself as having ADHD. I like to refer to all of this as the symptoms of, just because we're so careless with, our terminology collectively in society.

[01:01:15] Lucia Silver: If everyone with ADHD was like you the world would be a better place, but I'd like to understand why you refer to yourself as having ADHD when it feels to me that you've understood it, you're aware of how your brain has developed, You're a healed party as far as I can see. You're not someone who is held back by your ADHD.

[01:01:40] Lucia Silver: You have reversed, or remediated, or what should we say? Healed. many of the elements that were impacting your life negatively. 

[01:01:51] Sean McNicholas: I like to use the word improved rather than healed. 

[01:01:55] Lucia Silver: Yeah. 

[01:01:56] Sean McNicholas: And when I, use the term, when I have ADHD, it's normally to clients to connect with them to show that I understand you.

[01:02:06] Sean McNicholas: I know how the way you think, feel and behave and I give stories of my life because I know that by when I explain my life and my stories and struggles at school and classroom and relationships and money and everything. I know when I share my story, I can see it clicking with them. I know that they say, okay. For the amount of times clients say to me. For the first time, I'm speaking to someone who knows me, who understands me, and it's really important that people feel safe, they feel secure, they feel like they've got this non judgmental, impartial space where they can be open and confident and be vulnerable and be brave because it's really important for them to feel like they can really talk to someone who gets them.

[01:02:50] Sean McNicholas: In terms of can you heal ADHD, does it ever go away my foot's tapping now. No. There are things that pop up now and again. Sometimes is it middle age? Is it forgetfulness? Is it, menopause? Because men get menopause as well. There's so many things that could be going on.

[01:03:09] Sean McNicholas: So for me, it's about, I've got the tools around me to be focused on how to improve my life. And I like to share these with the world. 

[01:03:18] Lucia Silver: I think that's absolutely incredible. And I think it's, so much about also understanding that this is the collective human experience. And unfortunately, or fortunately, however you care to see it, more of us are affected than not.

[01:03:31] Lucia Silver: And that's not about trying to normalize it. It's actually about trying to throw light on these many impact, impacting factors, generational, in vitro, in the womb, developmentally, environmentally, metabolically, but they are factors that have contributed to a list of symptoms and we are becoming more and more aware of what, can be done.

[01:03:57] Lucia Silver: And thank you for being where you are with such courage. such humility and intelligence and for making your time available to join us today and sharing not just your expertise, but your personal story, Sean. I'm so happy to have met you as a friend, but also as someone who's going to warrior on with me to make sure that we provide the support and the education that's going to support our parents and children and families moving forward.

[01:04:25] Sean McNicholas: Thank you very much. 

[01:04:27] Lucia Silver: So for those of you listening today who might like to look again, At the key takeouts of this incredibly informative podcast with Sean, we will create our top tips, a little cheat sheet with practical tips for anyone struggling with ADHD symptoms, and it will include a lot of the actionable advice that Sean has touched on around improving sleep and diet, exercise, play, and 360 degrees whole child approach, all the components of brain health.

[01:04:57] Lucia Silver: and well being. All contact details and so forth for Sean will be in the show notes. We'll be sharing soundbites from the podcast across the next while and then we'll be sharing the podcast across all of our normal platforms. You can download the free guide, the little cheat sheet, via the link in our show notes or by visiting the website at www.

[01:05:20] Lucia Silver: thebrainhealthmovement. com All our love to you today. Thank you for listening. Bye bye for now.