Reverse The Age Of Your Brain - Dr. Daniel Amen - #444

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Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.

This has to be one of the coolest episodes of Bulletproof Radio because we're interviewing one of America's top psychiatrists who's blazed a trail in the field of psychiatry using imaging to see what's actually going on in your brain. We're gonna talk about traumatic brain injuries, what to do if you get hit, things to support your brain, what you can do if you or your family has Alzheimer's, and it's kind of just packed throughout this episode with stuff you can do. So listen through all the way to the end and you're going to just get a continuous stream of good knowledge and good information. You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that teams at work are better when they include your friends. Researchers recently at Ohio State University looked at results of 26 different studies. That means it's a meta-analysis and found teams composed of friends perform better on some tasks than groups of acquaintances or strangers. And they found that friends work together best if the goal is to produce the most output because friends motivate each other. And they said working with friends isn't something that just makes you feel good. It actually produces better results. And that working with friends puts you in a better mood and that you can work through the adversity and strain that comes from having to produce a lot in a short time. So if you want to get a lot done, hire your friends. And if you want to keep your friends, well, make sure that you're nice to them if you work with them because there's always risks of working with friends, especially if they're lazy. But hey. Okay, I didn't say that. I wasn't talking about any of my friends, of course. If you haven't had a chance to check out the new Bulletproof Fatwater, we've got water with zero sugar, micro droplets of Brain Octane in the water so you get your energy from fat versus sugar, a few extra B vitamins, and it's about 20 calories per bottle, but it tastes amazing. It's got those tiny droplets of Brain Octane oil and you really feel it. It's one of my favorite new things that We'll ship it to you with free shipping from the e-commerce store. It's one of those things you can use when you want something good to drink and it's in the afternoon. You don't necessarily want coffee. It's my go-to beverage. All right. Today's guest is none other than Dr. Daniel Amen. He's a 10 times New York Times bestseller. I think maybe 11 times. Dr. Amen, are you 11 times or 10 times New York Times bestseller, or did you lose count?

10.

10, okay. Soon to be 11, I'm sure. Dr. Amen's been on the show before, but he's one of my favorite brain guys on the planet because unbeknownst to him, almost 20 years ago, his work radically changed my life. I can tell you flat out, I would not be recording Bulletproof Radio today if I hadn't have had a SPECT scan because of his very first book 20 years ago that showed me what was going on in my brain, in my biology, was a hardware problem. It wasn't a moral failing. I literally looked at my brain and found out, "Oh, look, when I'm trying to complete a test at Wharton and nothing happens in my brain, it wasn't because I wasn't trying. It was because there was no blood flow in the front of my brain." He's, I think, changed the world of brain science by just relentlessly talking about this crazy idea that people who work on the brain and work on psychiatry ought to maybe know what's going on inside the brain, actually look at it instead of just treating behaviors. On top of that, now he's created the Amen Clinics, which is a chain of clinics which have one of the highest published success rates for treating complex psychiatric issues. He's the lead researcher on the world's largest brain imaging and rehab study on professional football players. He's on Bulletproof Radio today to talk about Memory Rescue, which is his new book. It's Memory Rescue: Supercharge Your Brain, Reverse Memory Loss, Remember What Matters Most. Dr. Amen, it's awesome to have you back on the show. I appreciate your book. I got an early advanced copy that didn't even have the cool pretty color on it yet, so I could check it out. I'm a huge fan of your work and you've earned the respect of millions of people even though when you first started on your path 20 years ago, no one had heard of the kind of imaging you were doing. I'm super stoked to have you on to talk about Memory Rescue because everyone listening has the potential to lose their memory the way I did in my early 20s, but more importantly, we all have family members, grandparents, parents who are very likely to go through this if you look at the statistics. So I think your book is timely and helpful, and I wanted to share some of that knowledge with people listening today. So welcome to the show.

Well, thank you, my friend. Always good to talk to you and huge fan of your new book, Headstrong, and gave it a recommendation. And so many people struggle with brain issues and they don't know. And when they do know, they get afraid and they hide it. And cell phones are masterful at hiding problems because, you know, you can type in home and it'll actually take you home. You won't get lost. So we're actually diagnosing memory problems later than ever. When we should be intervening super early, like in childhood or adolescence or early adulthood. So Memory Rescue, people think, oh, well, I don't have Alzheimer's, that's not for me. It's to keep your brain healthy for as long as possible.

I came to the realization that I was old when I was young. By the time I was in my mid-20s, I had arthritis in my knees for 10 years. I was at high risk for stroke and heart attack according to my blood tests. And when I got my SPECT scans back from you, it was like, "Wow, I really do, like I'm feeling like I'm forgetting things and I'm feeling like I'm losing my brain and from what I can measure in terms of my performance, I know my memory is gone." And it really happened. So I was suddenly like, "I don't want to be like this again." And that's been a big motivator for me. In my own writing, just my own life, like I'm not going back to that 'cause it really sucks. But what you just explained there about hiding it, absolutely. You take copious notes, you write everything down, you build all these crutches in your life because admitting that you're failing or admitting that you're weak is really hard to do, especially in my case. I'm at one of the world's top business schools and I'm like, maybe I'm just dumber than all my friends, not recognizing it's a memory problem and like a blood flow problem. There's other things going on. So that little voice in your head that's like, "I'm not going to look. I'm not going to look." I think it's happening in a lot of people. I'm just profoundly grateful. I was looking at the results of my last scan at Amen Clinics and you have a functional assessment. My working memory was 8.5 out of 10. It wasn't like that 20 years ago. I'm better now. I'm about to turn 45 than I was when I was 25. It's possible. But only if you're willing to face, oh wait, maybe I'm not continuously improving with age. Maybe I'm not even holding even. I'm just going down a little bit. How do you recommend that people know if they're going downhill just a little bit? That takes a lot of self-awareness. What's the trick for developing that?

Well, you know, the brain is one of the only organs we don't screen. So people screen their hearts, they screen their kidneys, they screen every organ except the brain. And I'm hopeful through Memory Rescue and Change Your Brain, Change Your Life that people will begin when they get to be 40 to think about, well, how can I screen my brain? And people can come to one of our clinics and we'll look at their brain using the SPECT imaging we use. Or we also have online tools that can help them know, well, how's my memory compared to people my age? Screening is just absolutely essential. And there's actually a step before then. I remember when I looked at my own scan in 1991, I was horrified. I had scanned my mother the week before and she had a gorgeous brain. But when I looked at mine, it was not nearly as healthy and she was 60 years old. I was 37. And Since then, I developed this concept I call brain envy. You know, as a psychiatrist, I realized Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problems. It's they don't care enough about their brain. You know, it's really 3 pounds of fat between your ears that if you care about it, then you have to see it and then you have to see, well, how can I make this better. And the really simple idea behind Memory Rescue is if you want to keep your brain healthy, or in your case or my case, get it back if you think it's headed for trouble, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And we know what they are. And So, Memory Rescue is all about what we call a Bright Minds approach to optimizing and rescuing your brain. So, if you know these risk factors, well, what can you do to prevent them or treat them if you need to?

All right. You talked about the Bright Minds approach, which is actually an acronym for those 11 factors, right? Can you walk listeners through maybe the, the 3 or 4 most important things that are causing those problems?

Well, you know what I learned a long time ago is, because everybody asks me that question, you know, it's like, what's the most important thing? And the most important thing obviously is you care about your brain.

There you go.

But, but what we learned, and this is why ginkgo doesn't work or vitamin E by itself doesn't work. The brain doesn't get sick in one way, and therefore it will never get better. And so that's why, you know, attacking all of them is important. And, you know, since we have time, you know, I can run through them and I won't torture people with all the detail, but the B in Bright Minds stands for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. And so when we looked at your original scan and it had serious low blood flow, if we wouldn't have worked on reversing that trend, then it would have caused you and the people you love serious problems going forward. So what steals blood flow? Hypertension. Even prehypertension is associated with lower blood flow to the brain.

Which is weird. You think higher blood pressure would get you more blood flow to the brain.

Right, except if you put, you know, water under pressure, it actually lowers the output. And so we want your blood vessels to be pliable, to be flexible, to be soft, to allow more blood to go through them. Because, you know, if you think of blood, it's life. It brings nutrients and it takes away toxins. So any form of vascular or heart disease causes blood flow problems. And did you know— I mean, it's the thing that always blows me away— erectile dysfunction is a sign of a blood flow problem. And, 40% of 40-year-olds have erectile dysfunction. 70% of 70-year-olds have erectile dysfunction. And, I think you might know my friend Mark Houston who's a cardiologist in Tennessee. And, he said 100% of the people he has evaluated who have erectile dysfunction have heart dysfunction, which means they also have brain dysfunction. Because your brain, even though it's only 2% of your body's weight, uses 20% of the blood flow in your body. So any vascular problem. So if you're not exercising, likely you have blood flow problems. Now, this is where ginkgo shines because ginkgo increases blood flow. The prettiest brains I ever see are brains of people who take ginkgo. And so ginkgo Vinpocetine, beets, cayenne pepper, exercise. I mean, they're really simple things people can do to increase blood flow, but the first thing is to avoid anything that might be hurting it.

Now, my dad recently over the last year or so, His cardiologist put him on a blood pressure lowering medication, which also radically reduced blood flow to his brain. In fact, I had to send him my OxyHealth hyperbaric chamber, the one I have here at Bulletproof Labs. I literally put it in my truck and drove it to him and it like restored his brain. And it turns out they lowered his blood pressure so much that his brain wasn't getting enough blood, which is a real common problem in older people on blood pressure meds. So, I guess there's a comfortable middle where if you don't have enough blood pressure, you're not going to like your life. And, you have too much, you're not going to like your life.

It is all— That's absolutely right. And, one of the risk factors for Alzheimer's disease is low blood pressure in the elderly. And so, you want to get enough so that blood will actually get to your brain, but too much will shut it down as well.

Is there an optimal range, or does that depend on, like, how tall you are and things like that, so it's hard to say?

Yeah, no, the optimal range is, uh, for the lower number, 65 to 80. Below that, people can get dizzy. For the higher number, 100 to about 120. So that would be the optimal range. And they've even found prehypertension So, the lower number, the diastolic number, 85 to 90 has been associated with brain atrophy and above 130. So, there is an optimal range. You don't want to go too low or too high. And that's true for most of the things we'll talk about. The R in Bright Minds is retirement and aging. When you stop learning, your brain starts dying. And so, if you're engaged in a job that requires new learning, so I'm sure that's true at Bulletproof, that people are always learning what's new and exciting, that there are probably not a lot of people in your company like my company who are bored because we're always trying to sort of push the edge. Well, that's good for their Right. But also, what goes with retirement is people who are lonely have a higher risk for Alzheimer's disease. People who are socially isolated have a higher risk for Alzheimer's disease. People have low levels of acetylcholine, and that tends to drop as we age, or high levels of ferritin. Ferritin is a measure of iron stores. Now, ferritin like blood pressure, there's an optimal range. Too high puts you at risk for vascular problems. Too low, you can't think and you're anxious. And so, it's always a matter of balance. And so, I see a lot of patients who have high ferritin levels. And it's—

How would a listener know if they have high ferritin without getting a blood test? Does it— Okay.

Blood test. And this is why bleeding people is helpful.

Leeches. I knew you were going to bring them up.

Tana and I were in Istanbul. Tana's my wife, and we were in Istanbul, and outside the spice market, they were selling leeches. So they were in these huge jugs. And I looked at my wife and I'm like, why are they selling leeches? And she's like, it's a health fad. It helps people decrease their ferritin levels and they think it keeps them young. So if you have low ferritin levels, don't do that. But you know, the way we bleed people here in the United States is we send them to the Red Cross, right? You know, then if you go donate blood to the Red Cross, which I've done many times, they're like vampires. They're always after you for more.

I just, I just had a procedure I'm going to talk about soon. Very few people have had it done, but I had to get 21 vials of blood taken. So I figure if I could do some random procedure like that, you know, once a quarter, I, I should be able to donate enough blood that, that I can.

But you want your level optimized. Yeah. And the optimal level is between 40 and 80. Lower than that, iron's important to make dopamine. Yeah. So you'll be unfocused, but, but higher, and, and I've always been on the high side. It runs in my family. Is associated with trouble, bad things, delayed healing, and so on. So, for R, if I had to pick one thing, it would make sure you're learning new things every day. It's keeping your mind engaged and not on things. So, both you and I work in high-level professions, but it's not doing the same thing over and over and over because when you learn to do something, whether it's internet marketing or speaking Well, your brain figures out how to do it, and over time it uses less and less energy to do it. So it's picking up a new instrument or a new language, or it's doing something in a new and different way that is so important.

So this means that playing video games only works if you're constantly switching to a new one that's challenging versus playing the same one over and over and over?

Correct. Tetris can only work so long. Now, the fun thing about Tetris is they've actually done studies and found if you're an addict, a food addict, a cocaine addict, an alcoholic, if you play Tetris for 20 minutes, it'll decrease your cravings.

I had a problem with Tetris and maybe you have some insight on this. It's definitely not in your book, but I think I was a sophomore at university and I got some Nintendo. This is going back like a long time. And I started playing Tetris and I couldn't stop. And I like missed classes because I just was obsessively playing Tetris. And it got to the point that I would close my eyes to go to sleep at night and I'd see shapes following behind my eyes. I'm like, "All right, that's it. I have to sell my Nintendo." Like I just got rid of it. But what was going on with that? Is that like a form of addiction? Because I still remember to this day like fear of Tetris. I don't know why. I mean, it's fun, but also—

It puts you into hypnotic trance. Yeah. One of the things. And so, and I remember when I used to play it, I mean, now I play it recreationally if I'm on a plane and we're going to land and I have 10 minutes and I can't do anything. But what I found, it would actually put my mind into a hypnotic trance and time would become distorted. Yes. So I would start playing, then all of a sudden it's 3 hours later and I'm like, Well, that was a waste of time. Don't do that again.

So, for people listening, here's something I want you to test. Get some language learning like Rosetta Stone or something and play Tetris and see if you learn languages faster. Maybe that hypnotic state is a useful state. And because I'm crazy, I am going to wire my brain up at 40 Years of Zen to a 24-channel EEG and play Tetris and see what the heck it does. I want to know what the hypnotic state is. Maybe we could use that for hacking our brains. What do you think?

Well, I think it's certainly interesting how it can decrease cravings and it probably has its own little dopamine squirt going with it. Or, the better word I like is drip. You want to do activities that drip dopamine throughout the day that help you feel sort of pleasure and happy and focused and motivated. You don't want to pour dopamine. So, if you do cocaine, that pours dopamine.

Cocaine and porn, yeah, those are the two big dopamine things, right? And extreme sports maybe, like almost dying.

What are the— Extreme sports clearly would do it as well. And sometimes video games will as well, especially if you're murdering 250 people in 3 minutes, that it is pouring dopamine. And the problem with pouring dopamine, or if you get a big sugar burst— sugar burst pours dopamine as well. They've actually found people who are overweight have dulled activity in the nucleus accumbens, the pleasure centers where dopamine acts. Isn't— you know, I always think that's interesting. That's why you want to avoid Avoid cheesecake or donuts because they actually are physically wearing out your pleasure centers. So, you have to be careful with it. Better to drip dopamine than to pour it.

Very interesting advice for people listening. So, if you're finding yourself addicted to one of those behaviors, dopamine drives a lot of addiction. Gambling for sure is Every time you win, like big squirt of dopamine. But if you have no dopamine because you don't have an interesting life or because you have the inability to make it, you're also not going to like your life.

Right. I mean, and that's what we see, depression and amotivation and apathy with Parkinson's disease. I actually have a funny story. I tell this story in the book. One of my professors when I was in college, the most proper man you can imagine, and I was dating his daughter and just, I mean, he was religious and sweet and kind, and he ended up with a form of Parkinson's disease. And all of a sudden, his favorite shows on television are Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer. And it's like, you know, it just didn't compute to me until I realized he wasn't producing dopamine and he needed Dr. Phil screaming at somebody or Jerry Springer having some crazy, you family drama in order for him to feel anything at all. Isn't that interesting? So, you want to protect your dopamine centers. And, one of the things that kills them are toxins, which we're going to get to. It's the T in Bright. Oh, yeah.

I was hoping you'd go there. That was a big issue for me. Let's talk about toxins in the brain because so many people online, the science trolls like, "Oh, toxins don't matter. What doesn't kill me makes me me stronger. I'm like, it doesn't really work for hand grenades or mercury as far as I can tell. But what's your take on toxins for the brain? What are they doing? Where are they coming from? I think this is so important for people listening.

Well, when we saw your brain, it's like, no, there's a toxin. Are you drinking? Are you smoking a lot of pot? Are you doing cocaine? And for you, the answer was no. And we're like, okay, well then what else can cause it? Carbon monoxide, noxia, having a lack of oxygen, mold, mercury.

In my case, when I had my first scan done, you didn't look at it personally back then. We hadn't met. But when I showed it to you later, you're like, Dave, this is the brain of someone who's on street drugs living under a bridge. And I was living in a house with toxic mold in the bedroom. And you actually said this is chemically induced brain damage that I had been dealing with that's since been healed. But that's the effect of toxins on the brain. It wasn't one of those things that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. It just jacked me up.

Oh, it's so devastating. And for me, I ask myself, so I'm a psychiatrist, why do I care about mold? Because it damages people's brains. And if it damages their brain, they look like they have ADD, they look depressed, they're having trouble getting along, being successful. And it's just so important to, you know, if you see evidence of toxicity on scan, to work it up as fully as possible. And, you know, and how you deal with toxins is you eliminate exposure.

Yeah.

And then you support the 4 organs of detoxification. Your kidneys, your gut, your liver, and your skin.

Now, a lot of people are dealing with mercury now. It seems like it's becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Just, we've been burning so much coal for so long, we've polluted our oceans, and even just a lot of our, our crops now, if you're not eating organic, they're taking sewage sludge that is high in mercury. And there's a limit to the amount of mercury allowed, say 10 parts per million, So they'll cut normal fertilizer with basically sewage sludge from big cities until it's 9 parts per million, like right below the acceptable levels, and then they'll spray that over crops. And so we're getting higher mercury levels. What can people do if they have mercury in their body already? Are there things you recommend?

Well, you know, at Amen Clinics, we're not real big fans of chelating people because we've actually seen people can become worse.

Yes.

Do it. So, it's limit exposure and then really activate your own detoxification pathways. And so, for your kidneys, drink more water. And I saw you have a new drink, which is really exciting. We make something called Brain Boost On-The-Go just to encourage people to drink more. Is that like a powder?

I haven't tried it yet.

It's a powder that we're excited about. It's got B6, B12, folate, theanine. And so, it helps people feel focused but not agitated and they drink more water.

And you sweeten that with NutraSweet, a little bit of sucralose and some other— That was a joke. NutraSweet is really bad for your brain if you're listening and you don't know that. So, there was this look of horror on Dr. Aitman's face when I said that. So, it's clearly sweetened with something that's good for your brain, right?

Yes. I actually really like a combination of erythritol and stevia because stevia has actually been found to have health benefits, decreases Lyme when you put it in a petri dish with Lyme and erythritol. Neither one of them raise your blood sugar. And, that's really important But I don't want you to really have a lot of either one of those because it sort of primes your taste buds to want more and it just puts you at risk to want more sweet things. Water, fiber, absolutely essential to help detoxify your body. I'm a huge fan of N-acetylcysteine. And if you actually look at the studies, N-acetylcysteine is fascinating. It's what they use to help people have Tylenol overdoses. To help the liver, but it's also got multiple studies showing it improves resistant depression. It helps with cocaine addictions, with marijuana addictions, with alcohol and compulsive gambling, which I just think is really fascinating. And then the skin and sweating really helps. And in Memory Rescue, I talk about a study from Finland where people who took the most saunas had two-thirds lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. And I think it's because they're helping to detoxify someone's body. And so the more saunas you can do, odds are that's better for you, at least if we believe this research.

Do hot tubs probably do the same thing?

No.

Why not?

It's the sweating that really helps activate it. And the infrared saunas penetrate deeper than just hot water. And my sense is it's not just being in hot water, it's activating your sweat gland activity. As much as you can where you don't feel dizzy or tired or nauseous.

Got it. Yeah, I definitely use my infrared sauna on occasion, but for some reason, I'm one of those guys who can sit there in it on full blast for an hour and it's 150 degrees and a half hour in, I'll start sweating. But my tolerance for it is much higher than most other people. So, I'm like, it takes a long time for me to get benefits from an infrared sauna, at least that kind of benefit.

It's true for some people, But after 7 or 8 sessions, it actually— your sweat gland activity will likely increase. So, it's almost you have to prime it to work over time.

Alright, maybe I'll just do more of them back to back.

The other thing that's really important is in the book, I talk about certain apps you can download. To know about your personal products. So as you talked about food, and I think this is the reason you need to eat organic, I mean, for, for many reasons, but to decrease the toxins on your food is whatever goes on your body goes in your body.

Yes.

So I like this app called Think Dirty, and it allows you to scan your personal products and it'll tell you on a scale of 1 to 10 how quickly they're killing you. And so, for example, I'm sort of irritated with myself because it was sort of like no thought at all. I always read the labels for whatever I put in my mouth. I never read the labels for whatever I put on my body. And it's like, it's nuts. So, soft soap, for example, bath soap, on a scale of 1 to 10 was a 10 and just horrified, where Suave, I mean, they're the same cost, they're both inexpensive, is a 5. Now, if you like yourself, which one are you going to choose? Now, I love myself, so I get something now from Africa that's a 2. And whenever I'm in the store, whenever I buy something, I'm just scanning the label into Think Dirty, or there's another app by the Environmental Working Group called Healthy Living. And I'm just going, is this good for me or bad for me? And, you know, does it have things like phthalates and parabens and fragrance that are known endocrine disruptors? So the N in Bright Minds is neurohormone deficiencies and low levels of testosterone or thyroid or estrogen or progesterone for women are known. To disrupt your cognitive function. And so, why am I going to put something on my body that potentially would steal the hormones that drive my happiness?

We have a rule in my house, we don't put it on our skin if we wouldn't put it in our mouth. And I've been working for quite a while with Alitura. A friend of mine, Andy, started it. He was a guest on Bulletproof Radio when he first talked about what he was doing for his skin. Dave Asprey. He's a model who recovered from a really bad car accident just amazingly quickly. Every ingredient on there, it's a food or it's an essential oil. That's the stuff that I started using on my face because it wouldn't taste good, but literally I could pump it in my mouth and swallow it and it wouldn't harm me. That's the standard that I have for anything that goes on my body, which is why also when I travel, I bring my own soap with me because the crap they put in hotel rooms is full of stuff. It's not even going to be scannable by these apps because it's the cheapest possible soap with the nicest possible wrapper. That's how hotels do it. So, just don't use hotel products, bring your own is a little piece of advice I might offer. What do you think? You agree?

I would. And it's an act of love and people go, "Oh, this is hard." And I'm like, "Come on, none of this is hard." Like throwing a bar of soap in your bag is not hard. Right? I mean, and you know this. Being sick is hard. Doing the right thing so that you have energy and memory and motivation and vitality. It's, it's a mind shift. And that's what messes people up. And the M in Bright Minds is mental health, because we know things like ADD, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, chronic stress. I'll steal your brain. And getting them treated, not necessarily with medication, but in the natural ways that, you know, you and I talk about, is absolutely essential to keeping your brain strong. And in the book, I tell the story of my father-in-law who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. So, when Tana and I first met, she was estranged from him. And she got a call from her sister saying, "Dad's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He needs work clues. He won't come out of his room. He's not eating. He has multiple medications." They were completely freaked out. And I'm like, "Well, I know what to do." And so, I brought him to the clinic. We scanned him. He didn't have Alzheimer's disease. It has its own pattern on SPECT. He had this thing we call pseudodementia, which is you look like you have dementia, but you're really depressed. And so I got him off all of his medication, put him on some supplements, gave him some targeted exercises, created a social support system for him. And 5 months later, he did an all-day seminar at the local church. I mean, it was miraculous. He said it was like being raised from the dead. So whenever someone gets the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, you have to look and then If you take this Bright Minds approach and go after all of these risk factors, for a significant number of people, they can get their minds back.

That is so profound. So if, if you're listening to this and you have Alzheimer's in your family and all, it may not be Alzheimer's. A huge percentage of Alzheimer's, maybe not huge, a significant percentage of Alzheimer's that's diagnosed is actually this. It's a lack of blood flow in the brain. It, it's this depression you just talked about. It's, it's actually not that. And I think it's eminently hackable in most cases. But there are some late-stage Alzheimer's where I think pretty much no one's having success or very few people are. Is it reversible if someone's had Alzheimer's for quite a while? What are your experiences? I mean, you've had, what, 40,000 brain scans, I think?

What's the cause? I had someone, Walter, 72, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, clearly going downhill. When we scanned him, he didn't have it. He had something called normal pressure hydrocephalus, which is his ventricles were too big. And when we put a shunt in his brain, he got his memory back. You have to know what's the cause or, I mean, what Memory Rescue really argues, the causes. And the G in Bright Minds is genetics. And what I have come to believe is your genes are are not a death sentence should be a wake-up call. So, if you have this bad issue in your family, rather than take, you know, laissez-faire issue, well, there's nothing I can do about it, you need to get serious and make sure you eliminate all other 10 risk factors if you can. So, I use it as an activation. And a lot of people go, well, I have it in my family, I'm losing my memory, I don't really want to know, it'll be bad for my insurance. And my thought is if you— well, I'll tell you a story. There's two women on a railroad bridge. It's in Ohio and it's an active railroad bridge. It's 80 feet up in the air and a train starts coming toward them. And the video actually sees the train run them over. Now, they didn't die. They laid down flat on the tracks. But what the hell are they doing on an active railroad bridge where there's no way out? And what the scan shows you is, is a train coming to hit you? Because wouldn't you want to know so that you can get off the track, so you can do something about it? When I first started doing imaging, as you alluded to at the top of the show, I had lots of haters. You know, it's like, oh, you shouldn't do this. There's not enough science behind it. And they said, and if you had Alzheimer's disease, there's nothing you can do about it. So, why freak people out? Well, what we now know, and I believe that now what we know, there's so many things you can do to optimize your mind. And that's what Headstrong is about. It's what Memory Rescue is about that I just think we should go about the business of doing.

I think at this point you've been vindicated. You stuck to your guns. You've got more data than anyone else. You've also shifted though. Your very first book, which is the one that inspired me to go get a scan, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, it completely blew my mind, what was left of it anyway. Then I went in though, and that book though was, I would call it relatively pro-pharmaceutical. Just over the last 20 or so years, you've shifted from what was more like, "Okay, if you have this, here's the pharmaceuticals and some lifestyle stuff," to your approach now is very functional where you say, "Okay, if you have this going on, start with these breathing exercises. Start with this exercise. Start with these dietary changes. Start with these supplements, and if necessary, work with the pharmaceuticals." By not being dogmatic in either direction, I think it shows a lot of progression and just a lot of open-mindedness in your own approach. What caused you to just over the course of 20 years of clinical practice to start being more open to the supplements maybe than you were 20 years ago when you started?

Well, I wrote "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" in 1998. And by then, I'd already begun to get excited about nutritional supplements and lifestyle intervention. And they're in the original version of it because what I saw in 1991 when I started doing scans was many of the meds I was using were flat-out toxic to brain function. But the progression from 1998 to 2015 when I revised Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, I mean, half the book is new. I mean, it is really a functional medicine approach to psychiatry just because I had learned learned so much more and had had so much more experience with supplementation and lifestyle interventions. And I'd written books like Change Your Brain, Change Your Body and Use Your Brain to Change Your Age that I had really shifted in my thoughts to first do no harm. What are the natural things I can do? Now, if you're bipolar and suicidal, I'm probably going to put you on Depakote. I'm not stupid. I'm going to do everything I can to protect you. But if you have mood cycles and it's really the result of a traumatic brain injury, we're going to put you in a hyperbaric chamber and put you on a group of nutrients to support your brain and then see. But if you're going to lose your marriage because You have intermittent explosive disorder. I'm probably going to use an anticonvulsant along with it. So, you know, actually, thank you for asking that question because it just lets me reflect on the progression of my own career. And I'm a classically trained psychiatrist. You have these symptoms, take this drug. And I've completely lost that training and have embraced the new psychiatry. And my professional goal is to change how psychiatric medicine is practiced by adding imaging because if you don't look, you don't know. We should just stop lying about it. I belong to a profession where the emperor really does not have clothes but should have scans. And then, the second innovation I want to bring to my colleagues and the people people who suffer is natural ways to heal the brain. There's so many things we can do that let's do those things first. And if they don't work, then we consider pharmaceutical interventions.

I've run across a couple people just in the last year or so. I just got asked to review a book. I'm not going to call out the author, but it was pretty much, you know, here's what you can do for aging and your brain. And by the way, supplements are all a waste of time. And it wasn't really a pro-drug thing, but it was basically like supplements don't work and you should stop taking them all. And another guy was really proud that, you know, oh, you know, all you need is, you know, breathing and sunshine and, you know, and a good diet and all this. I found that supplements brought my brain back online and they give me more energy than I've ever had before. Like, I, it when you, when you get them dialed in, they're really, they're really good. What do you think about that, that sort of anti-supplement thing that emerges from some people? Is this because of low quality of supplements? 'Cause people are misusing them, or is this just like kind of old pattern behavior?

Well, I think it's more pattern behavior. They didn't learn about it in medical school or wherever they went to school, and because they didn't learn about it, it doesn't exist. And the research behind using nutraceuticals is vast. I was in a debate at the American Psychiatric Association with the head of psychiatry at the University of Texas Houston, and he was diminishing imaging. And he's like, there's no research behind imaging like there's no research behind supplements. And I'm like, how did you get through school? Don't you know how to read?

Tell me you said that out loud. Did you ask him that out loud?

I said that out loud. You know, I say that all the time to people who go, "Oh, there's no research." I'm like, "Do not read. Seriously? All you have to do is go to PubMed.com and then brain SPECT imaging, depression, OCD, dementia, traumatic brain injury. You're going to find hundreds, you know, not 3, hundreds of studies." And, if you type in omega-3 fatty acids, you're going to find thousands of studies. Or ginkgo and blood flow, ginkgo and memory. Natural Standard, it's a comp, you know, from Stanford, Harvard, NIH, they put together all the supplement research, had A-level scientific evidence for memory, as did Sage. It's like, stop it. At least, you know, before you open your mouth and you say stupid things, Read the literature. And, you know, and whenever people read the literature, yes, they can cherry-pick this study or that study. But my personal experience— so I published a study on football players, NFL players who had been hit in the head thousands of times. And what we did for them is we put them on a multiple vitamin, high-dose omega-3 fatty acids, 5.6 grams. In a blend I like, higher EPA than DHA, and a supplement I created called Brain Memory Power Boost that works in 7 different ways. And, 80% of our players showed improvement including— so, not just self-report, they showed improvement in blood flow to their prefrontal cortex on SPECT. So, that's not a placebo thing. A placebo thing is not actually going to improve blood flow to the focus thought, judgment, impulse control part of your brain. And then, what we did is we did a randomized placebo-controlled crossover trial on a group of sort of "normal healthy people" and showed exactly the same thing, improvements in mood and memory and processing speed, actually decreases in hostility using natural supplements. And so, not only is it in the literature, but it's also our clinical experience and our research experience. And that's why I take a big handful of about 20 every morning, right? I take a whole batch of multiple vitamin, omega-3 fatty acids, a brain boost because I want my brain to be the best it can be. I know what happens to people's brains over time. This year, our research team, we're doing a whole series of imaging studies on aging. And so, we're going to do— we already published the world's largest brain imaging study on 46,000 scans. Well, we're going to up our game and do it on 70,000 scans. Wow. Aging diagrams from 9 months of age to 104. So, what happens to different parts of your brain over the life cycle. And it's bad news, right? I mean, and I've done this for a long time just looking at scans, like your skin, as your skin falls off your face as you age, that same process happens in the brain. But both you and I know it doesn't have to. You just have to do the right things for it.

That is the best little monologue about supplements I think I've ever heard. I'm going to excerpt of that and we're going to put that up on Facebook for people because I get tired of these— and some of them are well-intentioned, but when they say there's no evidence, here's the deal. If you're under 30 right now, you know you can always go find the research in about 5 seconds. You just go look it up for yourself. Then there's people who are over 30 where, especially if you're over 40 like I am, where the way we did research was you go to the library and the microfiche and then like It was really hard work to find out if there was no evidence. But at this point, if someone says there's no evidence, you can literally on your phone in the meeting look and be like, "Wow, here's 500 pieces of evidence. This person is either misinformed or lying." And they say, "I don't like the evidence," or "There's not enough evidence," and those are different discussions. But when someone says no evidence like that, I just kind of roll my eyes. And you said something else in there though. And this is— you're probably the only person I've thought to ask this. When I was writing my very first book about fertility, this was a book called The Better Baby Book, and it was what we used to restore my wife's fertility. She was infertile when we wanted to have kids. And I did a huge amount of research on EPA versus DHA. And for people listening, these are the two types of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil. And I determined that more EPA seemed to be more important. This is going back, you know, 8, 9 years when I, I did the research. And since then there's been a lot more evidence around DHA and cell membranes and things like that. You mentioned that you're a fan of more EPA than DHA. Why is that?

Well, one would think it would be DHA because it makes up a fair amount of the fat in your brain. Right. But it turns out the research for ADHD is DHA doesn't matter. It's EPA. EPA works. DHA doesn't. For depression, EPA works. DHA doesn't. Now, it seems like for anxiety, the DHA is important. And for memory, DHA is important. But for clearly at least 50% of the patients I see, EPA is critically important. And so, I like a balance of about 60% DHA, 40% EPA, 40% DHA. I just published a study. So, I mean, so now we talk about the I in Bright Minds. See, I'm attached to the letters. And the I is inflammation. And inflammation, you know, comes from the Latin word to set afire. And when you have low-level inflammation in your body, it's like you have a fire that's destroying your organs. And one of the major causes of inflammation in the body is low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. And I did a study here at Amen Clinics where we did the OmegaQuant test. It's a measure of how much EPA, DHA, and omega-3 you have in your body. An optimal range is 8% or above. 49 of our 50 patients had below 8%. 49 of 50. And then, we published another study where we looked at hippocampal size and your omega-3 fatty acid level. The hippocampus was smaller in people who had lower levels of omega-3. So, if you think of a major cause of Alzheimer's disease, a major cause of depression, a major cause of heart disease and pain, that 95% of the population is low in omega-3. And how simple is it to fix? Although you said something earlier that was interesting, that a lot of us are suffering from higher mercury levels in large part because we think we should be eating fish. And I would actually make the argument that taking high-quality, clean omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil, it's probably healthier for you than eating a lot of fish because of the contaminants, toxins that, that are fish. But everybody should get their C-reactive protein measure checked. It's a simple blood test. It's a measure of inflammation. And if your level is over 1, you should be concerned.

That is one of the 4 key things that I recommend everyone on Bulletproof Diet gets is C-reactive protein, homocysteine, and Lp-PLA2, which is a measure of whether you have damage to the lining of your arteries from some sort of inflammation. And then the 4th one, well, actually there's a bunch of stuff that you could go there. But if you have low inflammation, you're probably going to like your brain. That's one thing that I've learned. And then there's all these other things. Around taking some fish oil. What about rancidity in fish oil? Like, you can get some cheap fish oil supplements, you know, in giant, giant jars at discount places. What happens if you're using low-quality fish oil?

Well, it doesn't work. So our copywriter here at Amen Clinics, Lorenzo, when he first started working for us— I, I like to measure my employees if they allow me to.

Me too.

So he's taking went to one of the big box stores, fish oil, and his omega-3 fatty acid level was 5% when it should be 8% or above. And so I had him stop that and gave him ours, Omega-3 Power, 2 capsules a day, and his level 3 months later was 10. So quality matters. Plus, you know, if you read a lot of label. So, so rancidity matters, and so you want to make sure the expiration date is there, and you want to make sure you have a high-quality brand. And I know I really care about quality like you really care about quality. But then you have to actually read the label on how much is it. So 2 of our capsules have 1,446 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids, where 2 capsules at one of the big box stores may have 120 milligrams. So, I recommend kids get at least 1,000 milligrams, adults 1,400 or often more. And, if you're in a repair situation, it's more like 5 grams.

Now, we're going really deep on this and I think it's awesome, A, because you really know what you're talking about, and B, a lot of people listening to Bulletproof Radio, I mean, we're at almost 450 episodes now, they've definitely heard, "Get your omega-3s," but you've got details here. And some of these aren't even in Memory Rescue, but I think people listening are going to change their habits based on this. I've seen studies where people take so much fish oil that it affects their cell membrane integrity. Like, you've basically gone too far where you don't have the other fatty acids that are required there. Do you have a concern about too much fish oil over long periods of time?

I've personally never seen it as a problem with my patients, but the only people I know who are taking 20 grams of fish oil are in head trauma recovery programs. But people say, "Oh, you should worry about bleeding or bruising." I haven't seen that as a significant problem.

Got it.

You know, I mean, clearly the other problem is worse, right? If 49 of the 50 people who came in not taking fish oil had low levels, I'm much more concerned. We're, we're not quite where we need to be, which then, you know, leads me to the other I, which is immune immunity and infections and vitamin D. And low levels of vitamin D are rampant in this country. And you probably know this, but if you have a vitamin— so normal level according to the literature is 30 to 100, I think it's nanograms per deciliter. But if you're over 40 compared to someone who's under 20, you have half the risk of cancer Just think of that. Just that one thing. You're over 40 compared to people who are under 20, you have half the risk of cancer. And when I first tested my level maybe 10 years ago, I'm really switching in my head to becoming an integrative medicine psychiatrist, mine was 17.

Wow. That's bad.

And I live in Southern California where the sun's always out, except I'm not always out.

Right. I'm working.

And just getting my level up and optimized, my appetite went away. It's when I did a big study. So the D in Bright Minds is diabetes. And I published a study that said, as your weight went up, the size and function of your brain went down. And I'm like, oh no. I coined the term called the dinosaur syndrome, big body, little brain. You're going to get extinct. And I'm like, no. But the thing that helped me lose those 30 pounds was vitamin D because my appetite went away where before I try, try, try and the evening I'm just always hungry and all of a sudden I'm not hungry anymore. Because when vitamin D levels are low, leptin, the hormone that tells your brain to stop eating, doesn't work and you become leptin resistant.

And I was like, "Well, that was simple." It's on my top 10 list of supplements on the blog. It has been since I think since I started the blog, really within the first week of writing. Like if you're not taking some vitamin D, you're missing out because it's so cheap. But also you've got to get some sunshine to activate it, which is something that I didn't add until halfway through my recommendations there, where it's like a little bit of sunlight it seems to do good things for us.

Well, and the dermatologists won. They made us afraid of the sun, even though you were made or you evolved in the sun.

Right.

And so the sun is critical. Now, never get burned. I mean, let's not be stupid, but let's not be afraid of it. Because when we were growing up, kids actually went outside and played. Dave Asprey. And, the incidence of learning and behavior problems in children has tripled since 1990. And, I'm not okay with that. And, there's so many societal factors, but one of them is their vitamin D levels are terrible. Ben: Wow.

Well, I'm happy everyone listening, if you're not doing your vitamin D, come on. Vitamin D, fish oil are actually both on that list and certainly definitely on your top list. I want to talk about traumatic brain injury, which isn't really a main focus in your book Memory Rescue, but—

Oh, but it is. It is. It is. The H in Bright Minds is head trauma.

Ah, that's true, but it's not the main focus. It's like 5% of your focus in the book. It's in there, right? Not to say it's not.

That's one of the 11.

Okay, there we go. Let's talk about that, and specifically, I got her permission before this, My wife, Dr. Lana, stood up from her desk recently and hit her left temple on a cabinet door that had swung open and gave herself a concussion, like with full-on concussive symptoms, can't remember stuff. She's actually smarter than I am and remembers things better than I am, but don't tell her I said that. And she literally overnight was sleeping 20 hours a day and was just wrecked. So I, uh, I flew her down to, uh, to see, uh, to one of the Amen Brain Clinics, one closest to us, so she wouldn't have to be in an airplane for a long time to come down to Southern California where you are. And we got her SPECT scan, and sure enough, there was, there was clear evidence of a recent but not too bad traumatic brain injury. And you also found, uh, evidence of, you know, like childhood traumatic brain injuries. And it's the same thing that, like, when we're doing the 40 Years of Zen, we do a 24-channel EEG scan, and something like 90% of people who come through have some evidence of, like, an old TBI from when they were 2 and they fell out of their high chair and stuff like that that are still in the brain. So 2 questions for you. Should we be paying attention to old traumatic brain injuries? And what should we do if we just hit ourselves in the head hard enough to cause damage? So let's go with that first one. Like, what about old traumatic brain injuries? Should we pay attention to them? And if so, what should we do about them?

So when I first started doing scans, one of the things I learned almost immediately is mild traumatic brain injuries ruin people's lives and nobody knows about it because they see psychiatrists or psychologists or marriage and family counselors when at least 50% of our patients, uh, who have mental health issues, they're a result of having a past traumatic brain injury. And we see it on scans and traumatic brain injuries 90% of the time affect your frontal lobes, focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, and your temporal lobes, memory, learning, mood stability, temper control. And so it's just, it's a monster. Issue. I think of it as the silent epidemic. You should never let your kids play sports that put them at risk for traumatic brain injuries. It's that important. If your brain runs everything you do, you have to protect it. That protecting it is a sign of love. So, if you're struggling with your mood or your temper or learning or impulse control, ask yourself, have you ever had a brain injury? Now, I got to chat with your wife. This was really great to chat with her. It's like, well, have you ever had another brain injury? And so many people, they'll go, no, no, no. Oh my God. Yeah.

So it's like you forgot about it. Actually, it turns out I was unconscious for several days when I was whatever age. That might have been a brain brain injury, you just say, right? But we forget it.

We forget and they tend to stack on each other. And so having a quote, mild concussion on top of trouble in the past can actually make it much worse because the reserve in your brain is less to start with, even though, In Lana's case, she's bright and highly accomplished. It's her reserve wasn't there. And so, brain reserve is a concept I think about and write about a lot. And it's really a culmination of, well, what have you experienced through your life that has enhanced your reserve or has stolen your reserve? It's such a huge issue. If you've had it in the past, the most important thing, like within our NFL study, is to put the brain in a healing environment. And that's why we really like hyperbaric oxygen. It's why we like brain support supplements, a brain-enhancing diet. In Memory Rescue, there's a whole chapter and this awesome table that I created for each of the risk factors. Here are the things to eat and here are the things not to eat if you want to support blood flow or you want to support healing from traumatic brain injury and traumatic brain injury. It turns that shrimp is awesome because it boosts acetylcholine.

Wild-caught shrimp, right? Not, not the Vietnamese chemical shrimp.

Of course. And, you know, and a great website that I really like is seafoodwatch.org. Yeah, they can help you with what is the most sustainable. And so for each of the risk factors, It's what are the supplements? What are the foods that you can do to optimize it? Along with, if you've had a significant brain injury and then a concussion, it's how do I prevent the next one and being really purposeful about that. I saw my— you know Shailene Johnson, I think. And so Shailene came to see us 2 years ago and she's talked about this publicly. And she had ADD and she has family history of Alzheimer's disease. And her brain was terrible. And she's beautiful and her brain wasn't. And that really irritated her. But she's like you. She's a high-performance individual. And those are always my favorite patients because they'll do what I ask them to do. She just did everything. And 2 years later, her brain's dramatically better. And I asked her, last week when I was chatting with her, we went through each of the Bright Minds risk factors. So I do that with my patients. And so what are you doing here and what are you doing here and do we need to retest this? And I'm like, okay, head trauma. And what are you doing differently? And she said, I used to do high-risk activities. I would look for that mountain to ski where I was going to get that dopamine Dump that we talked about. And she's like, I don't do that anymore. I look at it, I assess the risks, and if it's dangerous, I don't do it. And I don't do it because I love my brain.

There's a map of how you can get into the flow states and the guys behind the Flow Genome Project. I was one of the first, in fact, I was the first investor in the Flow Genome Project, like figuring out the state of flow. One of the things that will put you there is these high-risk extreme sports. There's a dopamine effect and there's a cascade of neurochemicals, but man, you're not going to be in a flow state if you whack your head doing that. Josh Perry, the pro BMX biker, he actually had a brain tumor and some TBIs. I'm to the point now where the easiest way to get in a state of flow is by serving others. Which is like the least talked about one, but it actually works. There's neuroscience behind that. You're not going to get a TBI serving others. At least it's not very likely. Like you, I mean, my kids, my son really wants to play soccer. He can go play soccer recreationally because he's 8 after school, but I'm not going to put him in a competitive league the way I was because I still remember heading a ball that was kicked by a goalie from across cross the thing. There's no way a 12-year-old should be doing that. I know that they've taken some steps in soccer. I still like soccer, but man, I'm not going to put my brain or my kids' brains at risk because they can still take appropriate risks to learn and grow and face their fear without having to take unreasonable risks for their brains. Let's say you do hit your head. At Burning Man last year, I took a titanium knee to the head. And a flying on a bungee cord situation. Yeah, it's Burning Man. I had a pretty bad TBI from this. I immediately, literally, of course I'm in a camp full of functional medicine people, so we gathered everyone's fish oil because everyone travels with it who knows what they're doing, and I took all of it. I started on progesterone and I took 10 unfair advantages, which is the Bulletproof PQC. PQ plus CoQ10 in a delivery system and a whole bunch of Keto Prime, anything that would support mitochondrial function. And it was the last day of Burning Man anyway, so I got home and continued on this. And of course, I don't eat fried stuff anyway that jacks up your brain. And I stayed on that program and I did some neurofeedback and some hyperbaric, and I recovered very quickly from— it was a really hard hit. Like, within 5 minutes of being hit, I couldn't look at lights and sounds were too loud. Messed up. What should someone do? Like, what, what are the first steps, uh, if you've just been whacked in the head? Uh, like, like, what do you do? What do you not do? Uh, like, how do we minimize damage?

Well, I mean, you don't put yourself at risk for again, because seconds can be lethal. I put my patients— well, when I will scan them, because your scan is good right after that it's 100% prediction that you're going to be okay. If your scan is not good, you have to then do all the right things for it. So omega-3 fatty acids, some evidence, although not as good as we like for progesterone. Get rid of any pro-inflammatory foods including sugar. And then if you're light sensitive, one of the things to be screened for, it's the Irlen syndrome. So, I've actually seen the Irlen syndrome, and I know you know Helen.

She's a good friend.

Very common after traumatic brain injuries. In fact, I have a lot of hockey players who tint their masks the color that really helps their brain process.

Let's do a quick plug for Helen's work. Helen's been on Bulletproof Radio. It's irlen.com, I-R-L-E-N, and she figured out if you've had a TBI or you have other brain stuff going on, certain colors of light just mess with you. I got my brain back when I got my Irlen lenses. It really made a difference for me. And I've become less sensitive as my brain has become healthier and healthier. But what a game changer. And you've done a lot of work with your SPECT scans showing the changes that just a color change can make. So I think Hella just deserves recognition. So thank you for bringing her name up.

Unbelievable. I mean, it is just transformative for many people who've had traumatic brain injuries in the past. And then I like basic supplements. So multiple vitamin, omega-3 fatty acids, and then a brain boost. I like ginkgo, vinpocetine because they help to support blood flow and acetylcysteine, acetyl-L-carnitine. Just some basic brain nutrients that could be really helpful.

Beautiful. So if you're listening and you just got whacked in the head, there's a good list right here. It'll be in the show notes for you on what to do. And if you read Bright Minds, I think you'll— actually, read Memory Rescue. Sorry, Bright Minds is your acronym. But you'll find a lot of information here about how to recover more quickly just if you follow the basic Bright Minds recommendations even if you've had a TBI, I think you're going to be better off.

Correct.

Now, we're coming up on the end of the show. I know you've got a patient to see. I've already asked you this, but I'm going to ask you one more time because you've just written another New York Times bestseller or maybe soon to be. We shall see. Someone came to you tomorrow, Dr. Amen, and said, "Look, I want to perform better at everything I do as a human being." not just my job, not just my sport, whatever, but just being a human, 3 most important piece of advice you'd have for them based on where you are now in your career, what would you say are the 3 most important things?

It's funny, I just started working on my new show for next year and my new book. It's called Success Starts Here. Nice. And obviously, that's between your ears. At least that's how I sort of perceive the world People don't think about that or care about it enough. So 3 pieces of advice and then 1 habit. So I figured this out a number of years ago and I actually horrified myself. I can summarize my work in 3 words. So word number 1 is care. You have to care about your brain. Nobody cares about their brain because you can't see it, right? You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly, and you can do something when you're unhappy with it. But because nobody looks at their brain, they often don't know until it's too late. So, care. I think looking at the brain, that's what it did for me. I started caring about it. The second word is stop doing things that hurt your brain. And you need to know what the list is. We have a high school course. Oh, by the way, let me just tell people this. We have a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25. 42 states, 7 countries. We decided to give it free. So, if you just let your group know to go to BrainThriveBy25, they can get it for free, 12 weeks, 24 hours. And if the business model, if they want to upgrade and get 3 college units of credits, it's only $300. Oh, cool. And get psychology credits from Corbin University in Oregon. But it's a wonderful Of course, but after we do the things you should stop, invariably a 15-year-old boy will raise his hand and go, "How can you have any fun?" And so a game with them called who has more fun, the kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain, who gets the girl and gets to keep her because he's not a jerk, who gets into the college he wants to get into, who makes the most money, who takes the coolest vacations, the good with the good brain. Miley Cyrus and I are friends. And I published a study on marijuana in December and I sent it to her and afterwards she stopped smoking pot. I'm so proud of her. She's just wrapped life around. And I texted her before a big lecture I was going to give to teenagers and I said, "So are you having more fun with your good habits or the bad ones?" And she immediately texted me back. She said, "Ha, good by a billion." And so stopping is never deprivation. Of love. So care, stop, do, do the right things every day. And the one little tiny habit, because you and I are both interested in behavior change, is I figured it out for brain health. The one thing you should do every day is ask yourself, is what I'm going to do today good for my brain or bad for it? Nice. And I choose good. That's the ultimate sign of love for myself and for my family.

Very nice. What a, what a great way to end the show.

Thank you, my friend.

Now, for people to find out more about your book, they can clearly go wherever you buy books and find a copy of Memory Rescue. Is there any website they should go to? There's amenclinics.com. Anywhere else?

Well, if they go to memoryrescue.com, um, if they pre-order the book, they'll actually get a whole bunch of free gifts including a PDF of one of my wife's cookbooks, Live Longer with the Brain Doctor's Wife. So, we would love for them to do that. But memoryrescue.com has a lot of free resources for people.

Beautiful. Thanks for your life's work, Dr. Amen. It's had a profound effect on my ability to do what I do, like more profound probably than you know. So, thank you. Keep doing what you're doing for many more years and keep keep calling it like it is.

Great. Well, love to you, love to Lana. Hopefully, I'll see you soon.

Looking forward to it.

Okay. Take care.

Take care.

All right.

We got it. I will catch you later.

All right, my friend. Take care.

Thanks. If you like today's episode, you know what to do. Pick up a copy of Dr. Amen's new book because it's got stuff in there that's going to be good for your brain, good for you, good for your performance. And he's a luminary in the field. I'm super happy to have had him on the show.

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