Eliminate These RISK FACTORS Destroying Your Brain! | Dr. Daniel Amen & Mark Hyman

When your brain is unhealthy, you're likely to be unhappy. It's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to. But I know the one thing when it comes to your health.

In medicine, doctors learn nothing about health. They don't learn how to create health. They don't learn the things that actually you need to be healthy. They barely learn what impedes health and so if you ask your doctor, I wanna make my heart healthier, my brain healthier, they might give you some platitude like eat better, exercise more, you know, but really there's this gap in our understanding of how do you create a healthy functioning human body and particularly brain that's been your life work. So what are the happy and sad foods you talk about?

So, you know, 'cause you would have written about them. It's the pro-inflammatory foods, it's processed foods, these are the sad foods. It's often, you know, most baked foods, most foods loaded, with sugar. It's the standard American diet. You know, I often say the real weapons of mass destruction are highly processed pesticide sprayed, high glycemic, low fiber food like substances stored in plastic containers. Yeah. Happy foods are colorful fruits and vegetables, not skittles loaded with fiber. It's foods loaded with omega-3 fatty acids. So healthy fish, nuts and seeds, avocados, green leafy vegetables, and ultimately, do you love foods that love you back? And, you know, every day, I start the day with protein powder with omega-3 fatty acids in it and I just love the shake I make every day. So, you know, I'm getting good fat and protein, and it just satiates me. I generally will do intermittent fasting. So if I finish eating at seven at night, I won't eat till 11 the next day, and then I'll start the day with the shake. And then at night, I make brain healthy hot chocolate. So I take raw organic cacao with unsweetened organic Vanilla almond milk from Costco of all places. Heat up the milk, put in the cacao, put it in the blender. It tastes amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like 40 calories. It loves me and I love it. And then, you know, I'll often have a cup of frozen blueberries during the day, 'cause they're just loaded with plant medicines.

Yeah.

Everything I do, it's just that question, do I love it and does it love me? Because I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship.

I know.

And I'm never doing that again. You know, I'm like, no, no, I'm married to my best friend.

Well, you know, one of the things that I remember is a study that I read about called the Smiles Trial, which was a randomized controlled trial comparing diet to medication and it just worked better. Like it was just, and it's just amazing how when you go to psychiatry, they don't ask you about your diet, your lifestyle. I mean, maybe they'll ask if you're sleeping or not, but it's really a black hole and you've really been one of the key thinkers that's helped us change that around. So we've been looking for the roots of happiness for a long time. You know, medicine is very good at pathology. We're not so good at well-being, at health, at, you know, Doctor, I want to be happier. What do I do? I don't know, but if you're depressed, I'll give you a drug. It's like, so based on the data, it seems that, you know, some of it's genetic, like maybe 40%, 10% is basically your, your situation in life. Like if you're obviously have bad socioeconomic circumstances or social determinants of health, but habits in your lifestyle make them about 50%. which means you have a lot you can do to improve the quality of your life and your happiness. So, what are the seven secrets that you talk about in the book that no one's really talking about? The secrets of happiness.

So, there are so many books about happiness. It's like, why do we need another one? And it's because they're big things missing. Happiness is a brain function. So that's number one. When your brain is unhealthy, you're likely to be unhappy. And so, you know, it's like, why did I write this book? It's like Americans are the unhappiest they have been since the Great Depression. So given the pandemic, the political divide, the societal unrest, social media and the national media controlling the dialogue. And they go after fear because that activates the limbic structures in the brain and it gets people to pay attention. And so we're- Limbic is like the.

Fear, fight or flight, it's the reptile. So they appeal to your reptile.

They do. And a lot of people wake up with negativity and sadness because that's been planted in our brain through evolution. Because thousands of years ago, you had to wake up and be afraid because that was a survival mechanism. So that is why the brain pays attention to negativity faster than to positive messages. And I'm like, okay, we're so unhappy that I want to spend a year thinking about studying, writing about happiness. And so I got 500 consecutive patients, Damon Clinics, and we gave them the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. And then we looked at their brains and what we found, the unhappier you were, the lower activity in the front part of the brain you had, and the lower activity in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia, which has the nucleus accumbens, which is the part of your brain that responds to dopamine. And so things like head trauma or toxic exposure, and so much of it I learned from you. I don't know if I, I know I've told you, but you've just been a huge mentor of mine that I buy your books for all of my doctors. We have almost 70 doctors now.

Thank you. I'm getting so many royalties. Thank you.

And I love looking at the brain. That's sort of my thing, what I do. And it was just so clear, if your brain wasn't healthy, you were not likely to be happy. So, the first strategy that nobody knows about is get your brain right and your mind will follow. And there are a whole bunch of strategies on how to do that. The second one, which I just- Can.

I stop you right there? Can I just- that is such an important statement you just said. I don't wanna go over it so quickly. Your brain is your brain, which is this, you know, putty-like structure in your skull. And your mind is who you are. It's your thoughts, it's your feelings, it's your perceptions. and your mind function is determined by your brain function. And yes, you can overpower your brain function if you're really strong willed in many ways. But it's really important insight to understand that your brain and the quality of health of your brain determines the quality of your mind. That's a big insight that most people don't realize. Your brain creates your mind, right? People, I'm sad, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. They go, oh, it's, it's, it's, it's like a sore ankle. It's like a like a stomach ache, but your brain can't have a stomach ache or a sore ankle, so it has a mood change, right?

So you and I have been blessed to see some really cool people. And I was in Justin Bieber's docuseries in 2020 called Seasons. And he came to me at a really low point. And like many of these young superstars, they'll show up or not, they'll do what you say or not. And When he got really low, he showed up and he said, I think I get what you're trying to tell me. My brain is an organ, like my heart is an organ. And if you told me I had heart problems, I'd do everything you said. He said, so I'm going to do everything you say, changed his diet, did hyperbaric oxygen, IV therapy. And he's better now than ever. He was just nominated for a bunch of Grammys and I'm so proud of him. But if you don't get your brain right, it's really hard. You know, if you think of it like hardware and software, got to optimize the physical function of your brain and then you can program it. And we have faulty programming. We'll talk about that. But you first have to get the hardware right.

Exactly. So to go, keep going on the seven things. See, I stopped you after the first one.

So the second one is happiness is geared to your brain type. One of the big lessons I learned from imaging early on is that all psychiatric illnesses, all of them, are not single or simple disorders. They all have multiple types. And giving someone the diagnosis of depression is exactly like giving them the diagnosis of chest pain. And nobody thinks about it like that. that. But it's absolutely true that, you know, nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain. Why? Because it doesn't tell you what's causing it and it doesn't tell you what to do for it. I mean, you're not going to give everybody nitroglycerin. I mean, that would be stupid. Right. But now we think of depression. Oh, you're depressed. Take Lexapro. Or you're depressed. Take Luvox, which is really interesting. We may talk about that in the pandemic, but.

Yeah, it turned out to be a joke for COVID.

Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think I know why.

But.

ADD is not one thing. It's seven different things. One of my best-selling books of all time, Healing ADD, I talk about seven different types. And then when I was thinking about happiness, I'm like, the thing that makes spontaneous people happy, like scary movies, having an affair, jumping out of an airplane, the persistent person would actually those things would make him or her miserable. And so it's really important to know your type. There are five primary types. So you balance that means, you know, most any reasonable thing will make you happy. Spontaneous, you need novelty or you're not happy. Persistent, you need routine. or you are not happy, sensitive, you need connection. They were damaged most in the pandemic with the isolation. And the cautious people, they need peace to make them happy. And so know your type. I have an online quiz called our brain health assessment, brainhealthassessment.com, you'll see which of the 16 types you have, and then, well, what are the things more likely to make you happy? And all of these strategies have questions and for Get yout Brain Right, the question, the little tiny habit, I don't know if you know BJ Fogg, but.

I worked with him for six months on tiny habits.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Six months on tiny habits. So we have 50 tiny brain habits, but the mother of all tiny habits for the brain is for strategy one, is this good for my brain or bad for it? So when you go to do something, you just ask yourself, is this good for my brain or bad for it? So when we were at Saddleback, our first fight with Pastor Warren was, you got to get rid of the donuts. Are it's good for your brain or bad for it? I mean, obviously it's bad for it. I don't know if you remember that, but I do.

And the soda, the pancake breakfast, and the breakfast burritos, and the whole thing. We had a work on offer. They did good, though. I would say they, I was impressed. that the scale of change that they did so quickly. It was very impressive.

It's amazing. And then the question for the second strategy, am I doing something today that makes me uniquely happy? So it's really diving into happiness is not the same thing for everybody. So don't say it's novelty and gratitude and appreciation and fun and comedy, because it's different. based on your type. Three, you'll appreciate is supplement your brain. We live in a society of deficiencies. And if you're nutrient deficient, especially serotonin, you know, most people don't know that birth control pills deplete serotonin. And I've seen this over and over in teenage girls. They go on birth control pills and now they're anxious or they're depressed, and no one's thinking it's changing their neurotransmitters. And my favorite happy supplement is saffron. I've been following the science of saffron for 20 years. 24 randomized controlled trials against Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, amipramine, Effexor, equally effective, but Rather than being anti-sexual, you know, put someone on an SSRI and they have trouble having an orgasm or their libido goes down, saffron is pro-sexual and it makes them more interested. And there's studies showing that saffron helps with memory, even in people with mild cognitive impairment. So when the pandemic started, I just released a product I love called Happy Saffron. Saffron is a curcumin. And I'm like, right at the beginning of the pandemic, my dad died. I had to close our Manhattan clinic. I mean, it was a disaster. I'm like, I'm taking this. So this is the supplement. I take many of them, but that's my favorite one. And so I think we might agree probably everybody should take a really good multiple vitamin. Yeah. Everybody should take an omega-3 fatty acid. you should optimize your vitamin D level, test it, odds are it's low, and then work to get it high normal because we're in a pandemic. And then it depends on your brain type. So our spontaneous people do better with stimulating supplements like rhodiola, our persistent people do better with serotonin boosting supplements like 5-HTP, the sensitive people do better with saffron or and the cautious people do better with GABA, theanine, magnesium. I'm just a huge fan. And too often you see this is people go to their family doctor, their nurse practitioner, and they end up on a benzo. And it's like, no, no, no. That's like 20th on the list. Let's do meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, let's try GABA, magnesium, Please don't do that because why would you start something? Somebody can't stop. And I see them creating so many problems with inappropriate medication use.

Well, they don't even work that well. That's the thing. If you took Prozac and you were cured and you were happy, life was good. Wonderful. But it just basically no better than a placebo for mild or moderate depression. So, Correct. That's another problem.

Well, the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want to be in the order business. I mean, they consciously made the decision to be in the reorder business, that once you start something for a lot of psychiatric medications, they change your brain to need them in order for you to feel normal. So many people are just wickedly afraid of going off antidepressants because of the withdrawal. from them. And I'm not opposed to medication. I'm just opposed to that's like the first and only thing you do without getting someone's diet right, without getting their habits right.

Right. Well, that's so true. I mean, you also talk about in the book this whole idea of four circles of happiness. It's an exercise you do to make you happy. What is that?

Well, when I was in medical school, actually the first week, our dean came in the classroom and he said, Never think of patients as their diagnosis. Always think of them in four big circles. And it's just stuck with me. He went to the board and he drew the first circle, which is the biological circle. So, you know, as a doctor, you need to know all about their biology and as a psychiatrist for me, You know, our primary organ is the brain. So brain health, as we talked about. The second circle is the psychological circle, which involves development and how they think. And secret number five is master your mind and gain psychological distance from the noise in your head, which we'll talk about in super fun circle, but it's basically the psychological. Circle. And then he drew.

One of the things that you said is, don't believe every stupid thought you have.

And I didn't learn that till I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. And I'm like, my eyes got really big because, you know, I've struggled with anxiety. And I'm like, why didn't they teach me that in third grade? Right? Just because I have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, whether or not it's helpful, whether or not I should attach to. And it's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to that make you suffer. And then he drew the third circle, which is the social circle. He said in the social circle, it's how are your patients' relationships and what's their social situation? And two years into this pandemic, the social situation for so many people has just been a disaster. from the societal unrest, the political divide. At Christmas, I had never seen family division like I have seen. And I'm saddened by it. And I kept telling my patients over and over and over again, without connection, you have no influence. So you're a vaxxer, you're an anti-vaxxer, whatever. You know, people were like not getting together and angry at each other. and I'm like, if you don't stay connected, you have no influence on the other person. And then the last circle, which I just love so much, is the spiritual circle. It's, why do you care? You know, what is your deepest sense of meaning and purpose, your relationship with God, with the planet, with the past, with the future, and really talking about that with my patients. And I have to tell you, Mark, Nine out of 10 patients when I ask them what their goals are and why they think they're on the planet, they haven't thought about it. And I'm like, you know, a business is not going to go unless it has a mission statement and a purpose and a strategic plan. And so that's actually number seven of the happiness secrets is live each day based on clearly defined values, purpose and goals. And purposeful people are happier. But if you don't know, and there's a great exercise in the book on how to find your purpose that I love. And, you know, one of my favorite patients that came out last year that I've been her doctor for about 11 years is Miley Cyrus. And I love her so much. and she has just grown up so much in the last couple of years, and she's very purposeful. She knows what she's about and what she wants to accomplish, and her bad habits didn't fit. And ultimately, that's the question to ask for secret number seven, is, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life?

Interesting. So, you know, you've been doing this for a long time, like 40 years, and you've looked at a bazillion brain scans, and, you know, you did what most psychiatrists never do, which is they look at the organ that they're treating. What a concept, you know? What did you learn through that detour that you took from traditional Psychiatry? And, and what are the sort of big lessons that you got and that helped change the way you treat your patients?

You know, I became a psychiatrist when I was in medical school. My first wife tried to kill herself, and I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I came to realize if he helped her, which he did, it wouldn't just help her, but ultimately it would help me. It would help our children and our grandchildren and. I became a psychiatrist because I loved it. But I joined the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ and treats. And I was an x-ray technician in the Army before I went to medical school. And I'm like, well, of course you should look. How do you know unless you look? And when I got the opportunity to look, it literally changed everything. I realized that psychiatry is broken. making diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data. That's just insane. That, you know, we're run by the pharmaceutical industry. That's not a good thing because the motive isn't wellness, the motive is profit. And when I started looking at the brain, I'm like, oh, let's dump the term mental illness. I've always hated that term. And let's really focus on brain health. If I can get your brain right, the biological circle, your mind is going to be better. Now, you got to program your mind with your values, purpose, goals, not believe in every stupid thing you think. But if the foundation of mental health is sick, you're not going to be okay. And that's where I learned like Lyme disease can have a negative impact on your mind. COVID-19, what we know now is it activates the limbic or emotional brain and 20% of people who have COVID will get a new mental health diagnosis within the first five months. Wow, that's just craziness. I learned that diet matters. Secret number four. is only love food that loves you back. That you are in a relationship with food. And so many people are in an abusive relationship with food. When we were doing the Daniel Plan, one of the pastor's wives, you know, I scanned her brain and she's in my office and I was drinking tea and she said, could you put the tea down? I'm like, no one had ever asked me that before. But, you know, I'm polite. And I put the tea down. She said, I didn't want you to spit it at me. And I'm like, I've never spit tea at anybody. She said, after you and Dr. Hyman lectured, I told my husband that I'd rather get Alzheimer's disease than give up sugar. I'm like, did you date the bad boys in high school? Because that's obviously a relationship with sugar.

The question then becomes, well, how do we improve our brain health to improve our mood?

So it's really three big strategies. You know, you and I both spend a lot of time trying to make things really simple for people. So the first one is brain envy. You got to care about it. Nobody cares about their brain. Why? 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 most people never look at their brain, they don't care about it. In 1991, I was 37. I'm a double board certified psychiatrist, board certified in general Psychiatry, child and adolescent Psychiatry is the top Neuroscience student in medical school. I didn't care one wit about my own brain because I'd never seen it. And when I saw it, I was sort of horrified because I played football in high school, had meningitis twice as a young soldier. And I had bad habits, like it's only sleeping four hours a night, was eating fast food, I was overweight. I just didn't even think about it. And so I developed a concept the week before I scanned my mom, and she had a beautiful brain. And I developed a concept called brain envy. I always say Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I've not seen it one time in 40 years. it's brain envy. You gotta like love and care for your brain. And that becomes easy to answer the question, is this good for my brain or bad for it? Which is why I'm not a fan of alcohol and I'm not a fan of marijuana. The second strategy is avoid things that hurt your brain and you just have to know the list. And, you know, whenever I post on alcohol or marijuana on TikTok, it goes crazy. You know, people just get so, oh my goodness, how can you say that? I wrote a blog last year called I Told youd so. And when I first met Tana, and you know Tana, when I first started dating her, she said, I'll never tell you I told you so. and she lied. It's her favorite thing to say. And I've been saying since I started looking at the brain that alcohol is not a health food. And then the American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol because any alcohol increases your risk of seven different kinds of cancer. Not to mention all you have to do is watch Netflix. The people who drink the most get into the most trouble. Alcohol is at the center of divorce, incarceration, conflict, and so many health problems. So you want to be happier, you want a healthier brain, kill the alcohol. and other things that nobody knows, like general anesthesia can damage the brain. And, like, I didn't know that. Nobody ever taught me that. But I had a patient who I had her scan, and then after she had a knee replacement, she said, I think I have Alzheimer's disease. And her brain looked like she'd just been hit by a truck. And I'm like, I wonder if there's any literature on this. And there's a whole food fight in the literature among anesthesiologists on cognitive function after anesthesia. So for example, people have coronary artery bypass surgery have a significant increased risk of getting dementia. Now, it doesn't mean you don't have surgery or anesthesia. What it means is no, that's a potential hurt. And so you have to do things that help. Yeah. Things that I didn't know, like playing football is a brain damage in sport. I mean, you'd think most thoughtful nine-year-olds would come to that conclusion.

No.

Obesity. I published three studies now. Last one on 35,000 people. As your weight goes up, the actual physical size and function of your brain goes down, which should just scare the fat off anyone. And so- Big belly, brain envy. Yes.

Big belly, small brain.

Well, and you've heard me say, if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And I first learned this term from you, diobesity, where you're overweight and have high blood sugar. It's a disaster for the brain, because when you're overweight, it increases five of the 11 risk factors. You have lower blood flow to your brain. Your brain looks older, so aging, it increases inflammation, it stores toxins and takes healthy testosterone and turns it into unhealthy cancer promoting forms of estrogen. And it's like with 72% of us overweight, because you have to ask the question, why America is the richest country in the world, 4% of the world's population, 15% of the COVID deaths. It's because we're unhealthy. And we need to do something about that beyond the vaccine and what pharmaceuticals there are. I've been disappointed that the powers that be haven't talked about we're sick as a society and we need to do better.

It's astounding to me, honestly, especially when the data is so strong. I mean, I mentioned this before in the podcast, But a study out of Tufts determined that 63% of hospitalizations for COVID were because of poor diet, which would literally, if we had everybody who was healthy and didn't have a poor diet, we'd literally have no problem with COVID It would be maybe a few people older, sicker would get die, but we wouldn't be shutting down society, we wouldn't be overwhelming the hospitals, we wouldn't be burning everybody out, we wouldn't be in this horrible situation. And no one's really said anything about.

It except Bill Maher.

I mean, it's true. It's insanity.

It's, it's just- I wrote about this.

First week, I mean, the first week or so after COVID, the data started coming out and I was like early March, maybe early April and I wrote an article with the Darymple Safarian from Tufts and we published in the Boston Globe, but it basically said, you know.

Your diet is playing a huge role in this time to smarten up, but nobody listened. Well, and you could get shut down. I mean, people get after me because I say your best defense against COVID.

Is your immune system. What heresy? What heresy?

Why is that controversial?

Close this clinic. The FBI in there, let's raid that quack.

Yeah, I mean, it's just insanity. But, you know, I've been a hair tech my whole career, so- God forbid.

We tell people to eat healthy and exercise and get sleep and relax a little bit. God forbid. Shut us down for malpractice. It's crazy. It's crazy. Okay, this is really, really helpful, Daniel. So, tell us about the book, you, Happier youy Diet. And you talk about happy foods and sad foods. Like, I can imagine what they are. I mean, my happy food is chunky monkey ice cream, but it might not be yours.

Yeah, that's a food that you love that abuses you.

So, I love it, but it doesn't love me back.

Well, for five years, it doesn't. For five years, love you back. Yeah, but ultimately we want to feel good now. and later versus now, but not later. That's the goal, right? The goal is to not just be in the moment. That's a four-year-old's mindset. And I talk about the one thing. I don't know if you saw the movie City Slickers with Jack Palance and Billy Crystal.

I saw that movie.

Great movie. And so Billy Crystal's character Mitch, he's having a midlife crisis, and he goes to a dude ranch, and he's with an old cowboy, Jack Palance, his character. And Jack goes, you just have to know the one thing. And Billy's like, your finger. And he goes, no, the one thing. And he never tells him the one thing. And in the next scene, curly, that Jack Collins's character is dead. And Mitch is so upset because he doesn't know the one thing. But I know the one thing when it comes to your health is when you do the right thing, stop feeling deprived. It's when you do the wrong thing, the chunky monkey ice cream. That's when you should be feeling deprived because you're depriving yourself of what you really want, which is energy and health and memory and relationship. And I love what the comedian said who lost a lot of weight. I'm trying to think of his name, is blocked on it. But he said it'll come to me. Eating healthy food isn't a re... Eating unhealthy food isn't a reward. It's a punishment. And I went, oh, he's going to keep his weight off because he's got the right mindset. that's the mindset of happiness. It's not a mindset of punishment. You punish yourself when you do the wrong thing.

Do you want to know my secret for living a long and happy and healthy life? Well, all I have to do is check out my weekly newsletter, Mark's Picks, where I share my favorite tips for health, longevity, well-being and lots more. Check it out and the link below. You know, one of the things I also talk about in the book are the four nutraceuticals that really are important for happiness and mood. Can you talk about them? You might have touched on it earlier, but just can you explain what they are, how they work and who should take them?

Well, you know, we mentioned saffron. I'm just a huge fan of saffron. Anything that can boost your mood, sexuality and memory at the same time. I think that's just one I don't ever miss. Omega-3 fatty acids are just crucial. I did a study, actually published it in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, where we looked at 130 scans and we had their Omega-3 index, Bill Harris's test, and people who had low levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in their blood had low blood flow to the memory centers of their brain. And so, the hippocampus is also one of the major mood centers in the brain. so I think omega-3 fatty acids are critical. Vitamin D is critical. And that really depends on your type. If you are the persistent brain type, you know these people, worried, rigid, inflexible. Things don't go their way. They get upset. No matter what it is you say to them, they argue with you. It's like it's nice outside. Oh, no, it wasn't, it was nicer yesterday, right? I mean, you know these people and they have a deficiency.

I try to stay away from them.

The front part of their brain works too hard and they are some of the unhappiest of the group and serotonin enhancing strategies help them so much like 5-HTP. or L-tryptophan. I love 5-HTP. The cautious people, what makes them unhappy is they're always seeing the sky is falling. They look at the future with fear and calming down their basal ganglia with GABA, magnesium, theanine can be just so helpful. up for. Yeah.

So there's a lot of stuff in your book that covers all this, and people can learn out what type they are and what they need. And there's questionnaires. Really, really great. The other thing you talk about is this whole idea of the noise in your head. And how do we, how do we get rid of that? That's constantly talking about stuff and making us depressed because, you know, our, our feelings are follow on from our thoughts. Most people think our feelings generate our thoughts. They don't. It's the other way around. You have a thought. and you have an interpretation of reality, whether it's true or not, it's going to change your mood. If you think your wife is cheating on you, even if she's not, you're going to get the same reaction as if, you know, you were chased by a tiger and the body doesn't distinguish. So our thoughts generate our feelings and, and you're talking about all these negative thoughts. How do we, how do we get happy by getting rid of these thoughts?

Or can we, or what do we do? Can we get distance from them? Well, this section is just loaded with great strategies. There's just nowhere in school they teach you to discipline your mind. And there's a whole group of positive psychology habits. I start every day with today is going to be a great day. Nudge my mind with what's right. I know I was going to talk to you today. That makes me happy. I end every day with what went well. today. People who do that for just three weeks notice a significant improvement in their level of happiness, just that one strategy. And about a year and a half ago, I lost my dad. And I've been doing that habit, like for years now. What went well? So I say a prayer and I go, what went well? And the night my dad died, I did it because it's habitual. It's just a habit I do. And the critic in my head goes, Really? We're going to do this today on one of the worst days in your life? But because it's my habit, I began to think about the interaction between my mom and the police officer. It was hysterical. All the texts I got from my friends and just holding his hand before they took him away to the mortuary and how soft it was. And then I went to sleep. these habits help you during hard times. We all have hard times. It's our habits. Where you bring your attention always determines how you feel. And you could nudge it in a positive way or in a negative way. Left unbridled, for many people, their brain goes to the dark place. And so these habits are so important. And then two other strategies quickly. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. Because you're right. Thoughts create feelings. Feelings create behaviors. Behaviors create the outcome of your life. It starts with thoughts. So when you feel that, write it down. Tanner never listens to me. I had that thought. and then go, is it true? And when I really think about it, it's actually not true. She's listened to all 16 of my public television specials. And then I just don't have to attach to it. So not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to. What's new for this book is a technique I learned from my friend Stephen Hayes. on give your mind a name. And that way you can gain psychological distance and you can choose whether or not to listen to it. So when I was interviewing him on the Brain Warriors Way podcast, and he said that, I'm like, so what name would I give my mind? And I gave it the name, Hermy, which was after my pet raccoon I had when I was 16 years old. And I loved her, but she was a troublemaker. She used to TP my mother's bathroom. She ate the fish out of my sister's aquarium.

That was crazy.

She left raccoon poo in my shoes. And so now, whenever I get one of those thoughts, I really go, Hermy, do we really need to have this conversation? So I'm just separating from my mind. And my patients find this so helpful. Like one of them, you know, her mind is psycho Sandy. because she realizes really the voice of her mother that constantly puts her down and tortures her. And it's you get to choose whether or not to listen to it. Another fun part of that chapter is look for the micro moments of happiness. It's part of training. What's the smallest thing that makes you happy? So for me, it's that taste of the first sip of the hot chocolate I make at night.

Yeah.

Or the first couple of frozen blueberries, because I love them. Or I was looking outside the window before our podcast, and I saw a little bird that had a red head. You know, Tammy's a redhead. I like redheaded things. And it just made me smile. So what are the little things? Because if you're waiting for the big things to happen, you know, I got a Grammy or my books in New York Times bestseller. that's just such a bad trap because if you have too many big things happen, so we've learned about fame, it wears out the pleasure centers in your brain and makes you more vulnerable to depression.

Interesting. That's a very interesting thing. Yeah. Wow. And you talk also about the sort of simple decisions and the simple questions you can ask yourself. to make you happier? Is some of the stuff you've touched on or there are other ideas?

Well, it's like, is it good for my brain or bad for it? Am I doing things that make me happy for. For my type? Am I supplementing my brain? I think that's so important. Do I love foods that love me back? Is it true? You know, whatever nonsense is floating around your head, be as good at talk. I don't know if you were good at talking back to your parents when you were a teenager. I was excellent. Nobody ever taught me.

I was a rageaholic. I had to.

Oh, well, and they get stuck in your brain sometimes, you know, our past. If we don't manage it, controls are present. And then we haven't talked about sex, which is. are you reinforcing behaviors in others that you like or dislike? Where you bring your attention in your relationships often determines how those go. And I tell the story of why I collect penguins. And it's like, how do you train a penguin? You notice what they do right. You don't beat them. You don't criticize them. You don't yell at It's like you, whenever they do something right, you give them a fish.

And you have penguins? You don't have penguins at your house?

Oh, I have like almost a thousand of them. Not real penguins, but penguin pens, cups, dolls. I actually wrote a book about this.

I was like, you live in California, penguins aren't gonna be too happy there.

Actually, they're behind me. I have two of them. And it's based on this story.

That.

I have now six children. I adopted our two nieces. But when my oldest who I adopted, he was hard for me. And I was a child psychiatry fellow at the time and my supervisor said, Just spend some more time with him, spend special time with him. And I took him to a place called Sea Life Park in Hawaii where I was doing my training. and he was, he's the persistent type, argumentative, oppositional. He asks them to do something, it's a fight. And we just, just he and I, we had a great day, went to the whale show, that was fun, went to the dolphin show, and that was fun. At the end of the day, we went to the penguin show, and the penguin's name was Fat Freddy.

And this was what?

Fat Freddy.

Fat Freddy.

When Fat Freddy came onto the stage, he climbs a high dive, goes to the end of the board, bounces twice, and then jumps in the water. I'm like, oh, this is so cool. And then he gets out of the water, bowls with his nose, counts with his flipper, jumps through a hoop of fire, and I'm like, okay, this is cool. And at the end of the show, the trainer asked him, to go get something. And Freddie went and got it, and he brought it right back. And in my mind, I go, damn, I asked this kid to get something for me, and he wants to have a discussion for, like, 20 minutes, and he doesn't want to do it. And I knew my son was smarter than the penguin. So I go to the trainer, and I said, how'd you do? How'd you get Freddie to do all these really cool things? and she said, unlike parents, whenever Freddy does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug and I give him a fish. And the light went on in my head that when my son did what I wanted him to do, I paid no attention to him at all because I was like my dad, who basically was gone at work my whole childhood. But when he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a lot of attention because I didn't want to raise bad kids. so I was inadvertently teaching him to be troubled in order to get my attention. So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself to notice the good things about the people in my life, because in that way there will be more goodness. And so I'm very intentional of not being critical, of noticing what I like, and it helps all of my relationships. And oh, by the way, at work, I have the no rule that I don't get to be an and neither do you. So it starts with me, but I really work to hire people who are kind, who are competent and passionate. You know, just like you said, you know, I try not to have them in my life. But if you want to be happy, you want to be powerful. People who are not powerful are not happy. And powerful means I know exactly what to do to make Tana smile, and I know what to do to make her angry. And I work hard before I say things to go, does it fit? Does it fit the goals I have for this? Relationship, because Harmony will show up with rude thoughts that just should never get out of my mouth.

Well, all of us do, right? How we manage that, how we relate to it and how we... And we're.

So much better, like our ant population, automatic negative thoughts, they tend to grow when we've eaten bad food. They grow when we haven't slept seven hours. right for women, right before their period, their ant population is higher, so they need to be more aware of that. So just, you know, what I try to go with my patients is let's just notice, you know, we're going to take a course in you. And when it's hard, we're going to look at what did you eat? How did you sleep? What's the quality of your thoughts? Are you nourishing your brain or not. And pleasure, we haven't talked about this, but hedonism is the enemy of happiness.

Really? Really?

Because the more intense pleasure you have, the more you're going to wear out the nucleus succumbence and be depressed, which is why I'm listening to Will Smith's new book. It's wonderful. And he talks about fame and how the ride up is incredible. The ride, the plateau of fame is really a mixed bag. But when you become unfamous, because he won a Grammy and his next album was terrible, he said, that is just awful because you're not modulating or managing the happy centers in your brain. you gave them too much pleasure. And so modulating it, that's why things like micro moments of happiness. And just one other thing that we haven't talked about, I start the book by saying happiness is a moral obligation. And where I grew up, I grew up Catholic school, altar boy, that concept, happiness is a moral obligation. was nowhere to be found. There's plenty of guilt and shame and negativity. But why is it a moral obligation? Because of how you impact other people. Yeah, I can guarantee you if you were raised by an unhappy parent, like a rageaholic, or married to an unhappy spouse, ask anybody if happiness is a moral issue, and I guarantee you they're gonna say, Yes. So it's not selfish. People have that idea, oh, I shouldn't be happy, or that's not important. It's crucial to how you impact others.

Amazing. So we are really not very good at happiness in America. We have more mental illness, drug overdoses, countries like Bhutan measure gross national happiness. When I've been there, it's pretty amazing actually. You go to jail if you honk. It's like you can't be an asshole in Bhutan.

They have the no asshole rule.

Yeah, they have the no asshole rule. And, you know, we're really at the bottom list of happiness countries. I think the top four in the last decade have been Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, which I'm surprised because all the Finnish were depressed. But anyway, what do we have to learn from those countries? And how do we get a little more of that happiness juice?

Well, happiness, there's actually a chapter in the book on happiness around the world. They often look for micro moments of happiness. So cozy is one of their words that translates to happy. You know, it's like time at home with friends in front of the fire. That makes you happy. It's the small things, not the big thing. And often, more often than not, it's about connection and your relationships. And here in the United States, we're so focused on the hallmarks of success, whether it's money or house or job, and not focused on the things that actually make people happy, like the right food. All you have to do is go down any major city and see all the fast food restaurants, loaded with depression inducing food. And you and I, you know, go to the airport. What percentage of the food available in the airport will make you happy versus the percentage that will increase inflammation? We haven't talked about that much, but that's part of the first strategy, get your brain right, that is pro-inflammatory. which will make you want to happen.

Absolutely. Wow. The last thing I want to touch on is this program you've created as part of your book called the 30-Day Happiness Challenge. What is that? Sounds fun.

So, what I did was I really wanted to test the concepts in this book. And so, I put together a course called the 30-Day Happiness Challenge. 32,000 people signed up. We measured their happiness with the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, and then we measured that for those who finished their happiness and those from start to finish, 32% increase in happiness. So I basically tell them about these seven secrets and then expand on it. It's only like five to seven minutes a day. For those people who pre-order the book, they can actually have the 30-day happiness challenge along with a bottle of happy saffron. I'm so excited about that. I really want this book to do well and it's not hard. And you know, Mark, one of the things I'm thinking about is happiness and mental health are daily practices. It's like physical health. Everybody gets that, right? It's a daily practice. You can't be 50 pounds overweight on Monday, have a salad for lunch and expect to be healthy on Friday. No, no, no. It's like you need to, like, get to the daily habits.

Yes.

Of Health. Well, we need the daily habits of mental and brain. Hell, today is going to be a great day. What went well today? Is it true? Does this food love me? And do I love it? It's like all of these little habits is we need to put them into our lives every day. And, you know, as you and I write, we're always writing about, you know, how can I get this to work for this person? And we got to make it simple.

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Thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. And how we think and how we feel creates our state of being. The problem is, is that the person thinks of the problem, feels the emotion, and that is a thought and feeling. That's a image and an emotion.