I’ll Never Forget the Day My Brain Broke

Hey everybody. Welcome to my weekly house call. Now, for the next few weeks, I want to talk to you about a topic that's very important to me and that is brain health. Now, treating my own brain disorder led me to the world of functional medicine. And although suffering from anxiety, depression, ADHD and brain fog was really difficult, to say the least, I truly believe that I went through this experience to discover a revolutionary approach to treating chronic disease and spread the message about what it really takes to heal. Now I'd like to tell you the story about how my own brain broke. And about 20 years ago, when I was at the start of my medical career, I went from being a healthy, thriving physician to becoming disoriented and a terrified version of myself. I woke up feeling like I didn't even know I was anymore. I was depressed, I was anxious, I was forgetful. It got so bad that I had a hard time following what my patients were saying during their appointments. I had to take lots of notes and I really barely could keep track. I couldn't focus on our conversations. I couldn't even remember anybody's name. Now, some doctors, including my colleagues, said that I was depressed and they recommended taking antidepressants. I saw a few psychiatrists who suggested anti anxiety medication. My family doc prescribed sleeping pills and a neurologist told me that I had ADD and gave me Ritalin. Now, other doctors told me that I had chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. And at that point I was exhausted and I just wanted answers. And all that I knew for sure was that my brain was broken, I was depressed, my memory was failing, and my body just wasn't working. These doctors had good intentions, but all the recommendations for another pill didn't sit well with me. So I decided to go on my own journey to heal my broken brain. Now, it was at that time that I discovered the power of functional medicine. And the idea that every system in our body is. Is connected and that everything we eat, do, say, think how we live, influences all aspects of our health, including our brain health. Now, this is a revolutionary moment in my life because it really opened up the world for me. It was the moment I realized that maybe my brain disorder was not localized in my brain. Maybe the root cause was in the rest of my body. And it turned out that it was when I treated the imbalances in my body's key systems. I healed. But I wasn't the only one who benefited from this approach. Thousands of my patients and the patients of other practitioners have recovered from a broken brain using the Power of functional medicine. And I want to help you identify some of the root causes for brain disorders and how we can recover from them. And this is why, for the past year, my team and I have been working on an eight part docu series about brain health called the Broken Brain Docuseries. You see, our broken brains cause many problems such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disease, personality disorders, addictions, OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder, ADD or attention deficit disorder, autism, Asperger's, learning difficulties and dyslexia. But a broken brain also includes psychotic disorders like schizophrenia and mania, and also all the neurodegenerative diseases of aging like Alzheimer's and dementia and Parkinson's. There are also brain problems that fall on the lighter side of the broken brain continuum. And these are the challenges that many psychiatrists and neurologists might just kind of brush aside. But I can tell you that they are the most common complaints that I hear about in my office. And these problems include chronic stress, lack of focus, poor concentration, brain fog, anger, mood swings, sleep problems, or just feeling a bit anxious or depressed most of the time. And guess what? These are all treatable. Look around. Maybe you know someone with a broken brain. Maybe it's you. Did you know that psychiatric disorders affect 26% of our adult population in over 60 million Americans? Or that over 40 million people have anxiety? Or that over 20 million people have depression? Or that 1 in 10Americans takes an antidepressant? Can you believe that? Or that the use of antidepressants has tripled in the last decade? Did you know that Alzheimer's disease will affect 30% and some experts even say 50% of people who are over 85. And guess what? That is the fastest growing segment of our population. These statistics are really grim. And I call this the epidemic of broken brains. And it's time we address this epidemic and we address it now. So what leads to a broken brain? You might not know that too much sugar and refined carbs and not enough good fats and inadequate intake of the right nutrients and exposure to toxins can create a brain disorder. But they can. So can inadequate sleep and stress and lack of exercise and the overuse of drugs and alcohol. My own brain challenges started with mercury toxicity. I became so toxic because I polluted myself growing up on tuna fish sandwiches, eating lots of sushi. And I lived in Beijing, which heats all of its homes with raw coal, which is the major source of environmental mercury load. And I also had a mouthful of amalgam fillings or what they call silver Fillings which are mostly mercury. Now, all these exposures, combined with Genesis that prevent me from effectively detoxifying metals in my body, led to a slow and significant poisoning of my cells and my mitochondria. We'll talk about that later. What that is. Because of this, I felt weak and tired and I couldn't think. I had muscle pain and muscle twitches, insomnia, digestive problems, food allergies developed. I had depression and anxiety. It was only by discovering the high levels of mercury in my hair and urine and slowly detoxifying myself that I was able to get fully better. Now, this was just my experience. And a broken brain could be the result of all sorts of other issues like nutritional deficiencies or a leaky gut or bad bacteria in your gut, a chronic infection like Lyme, and much, much more. It could be just one of these things, or more often it's a combination of these things. And the truth is that medications can help a little, but they just cover up symptoms and sometimes only temporarily. Until you get to the root cause of your broken brain, you're not going to be able to truly heal. Our brains are our most prized organ. And having optimal brain health is absolutely critical in order to live and thrive in our modern society. Unfortunately, most of us are living now with semi functioning to low functioning brains. And that is why I brought together over 50 experts to talk about this epidemic and how we can take steps toward better brain health. In this docu series, you're going to learn the seven steps to creating what I call an ultramind. We'll talk about how our gut and our gut microbiome, how stress levels, how environmental toxins, how toxic relationships are good relationships, how our diet and much more influence the health of our brains. And we're going to present a six week plan to start taking back your brain health today. I promise you that if you watch this free series that you'll walk away with a much better and a much deeper understanding of our most precious and dynamic organ, which is our brain. You know, for so long we thought that the brain is unchangeable and even worse, we believe that once your brain starts to deteriorate, that's it, you're done. It's all downhill from there. We now know that this is not true and that our brains actually can change and heal the at any age, our experts will show you how what we do every single day can impact our brains both negatively and positively. Look for more information about this docu series in the blog post attached to this video out throughout this month, where I'll be featuring the brain in each of our housecall newsletters. You don't have to suffer with a broken brain anymore. Let's fix this problem together. Join our movement by signing up for this free series and and spread the word to your friends so we can all take back control of our brain health together. And if you have questions about the brain, tweet me and use the hashtag housecallwithdrhiman. And maybe next week, I'll make a house call to you. Thanks for watching.