Heroic Chat with Dr. Daniel Amen: Learning To Love And Care For Your Brain

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It is 1:01pm plus a few change minutes there. Today we have a very special guest. I am thrilled to introduce you to, Dr. Daniel Amen, who is one of my favorite human beings on the planet, who has played a critical role in my and Alexander's evolution both as an author and a teacher before we got to know Dr. Amen and his work personally. You, as you know, helped us through the really challenging time when Alexandra had her seizures. We came in and we're one of the. I don't know how many people you've done brain scans on at this point, but it's a lot. So we just feel grateful to have you in our lives and I am excited to introduce you to our heroic community today as we learn more about you and your heroic quest. But great to see you.

So great to see you as always.

We're relaxing today. Where are we? Home.

I just moved. So. Talk about a journey. I am at home.

Home is still Orange county, though.

It is, yeah. We moved on the water and it's so special.

Oh, that's fantastic. I'm tempted to. You know, I grew up in Fountain Valley, so I'm imagining you somewhere down there south, enjoying the fantastic. Well, let us start with the grounding meditation we discussed. We'd love for you to help us invite the best, most heroic version of ourselves to join us, if you don't mind, with a quick little guided meditation.

No, actually thrilled to do that. And this is one I teach all of my patients. It's how to break a panic attack in less than two minutes and how to center yourself by triggering a sort of calm, loving nervous system. And it's basically this pattern I'm going to talk about. Four seconds in, hold it for a second and a half, and then eight seconds out. I'm gonna actually get my little timer because I love this so much and have found it to be grounding. So with me, we're gonna do four of these 15 second breaths. And so close your eyes, go inside yourself and try to let the energy of breathing go lower in your body. We're in a society where people hold their stomachs in because they want to look fit. And it's the worst thing for breath. So when you breathe in, almost imagine filling a balloon in your belly and let that balloon expand and get big. And then we're going to take twice as long to breathe out as we breathe in. So let's start first one. Four seconds in, hold it just for a second, and then eight seconds out. Hold it out just for a Second again. Four seconds in. Hold it for a second. Eight seconds out. Awesome. Two more. Four seconds in. Hold it for a second. Eight seconds out. One more time. Big breath. Four seconds in. Hold it. And now eight seconds out. And that's it. Do it two or three times a day for a couple of minutes. Just resets your nervous system in a powerful way.

Beautiful. I was calm just being in your presence when you showed up. And now after that beautiful little cycle of breaths, I am feeling even more centered, grounded again. Great to see you. Let me give you a proper introduction beyond the personal celebration team. If you can share a link in the app, in the chat here to the app. So, Dr. Amen, we featured you in 17 of the Philosopher's notes that I've created. We now have over 650 of them, two of your books and then a bunch of plus ones as well. But we started with change your brain, change your life, which is one of these seminal books on how your brain works. You want to understand neuroscience. You want to understand how to. As per the subtitle, breakthrough the breakthrough program for conquering anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, lack of focus, anger and memory problems. This is the book. Check out the note and then the brain warriors way that you wrote with your wife. Ignite your energy and focus. Attack illness and aging. Transform pain into purpose. Check that out. And as I briefly mentioned in the prelude to this introduction, Dr. Amen, MD, one of the world's leading psychiatrists and neuroscientists. When I wrote the Note, it was 115,000 of your SPECT brain scans. What are we at now?

About 250,000.

250,000. Now this obviously isn't just you, it's your team. You now have centers in how many cities around the country?

11.

11 cities. Briefly tell us which ones. Search. Matt, please put Dr. Amen's clinic link in the chat as well. But what cities do we have so far?

Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa in Orange county where I'm at, and then a brand new clinic in Scottsdale, Dallas, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. atlanta and Hollywood, Florida.

Fantastic. I have introduced Daniel to a number of my friends as well who have experienced challenges with family members. We were just chatting the other day about the fact that Emerson had a minor concussion on Monday or Tuesday. The very first thing we did was go to Dr. Amen's site. What do we got? We know that he's got what we need to know. Concussion protocol immediately. Got it followed, every single part of it. So there you go. This is A heroic chat with Masters in which we'll talk about some of your ideas. But I want to talk about you and who you are and how you got to this point, particularly the fun moments in which you had to answer a call to strive to be the best, most heroic version of yourself. And if you can wind us back however far you want to go and kind of give us a picture of how you got to where you are today, because it certainly isn't the traditional path that most MDs will follow, et cetera. And some of the highlights you think we'd enjoy hearing about in this context, I'd appreciate it.

So I'm one of seven children. I'm irrelevant. I'm third. I have an older brother, an older sister, four younger sisters, that plays a huge role. And growing up, my dad called me a maverick, which to him was not a good thing. I had trouble just sort of going with the flow. When I turned 18, Vietnam was still going on and the US government had a draft, and I had a very low draft number, which meant I was going to be drafted. And so I joined the army, became an infantry medic. And that's where my love of medicine was born. But about a year into that, I realized I didn't like being shot at. It's not my thing. Some people liked it. And so I got myself retrained as an X ray technician and developed a passion for medical imaging. As our professors used to say, how do you know unless you look? And that becomes the theme of my life. How do you know unless you look? And then 1975, I get out of the army, use the GI Bill, finish college, I go to medical school. And when I am a second year medical student, someone I love tries to kill herself. And it's the first time, really. I am personally face to face with mental illness and horrified for her. And I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist, the chief of the Department of Psychiatry where I was going to medical school. His name was Stan Wallace. And I just. I fell in love with him because I realized if he helped her, which he did, it would not just help her, that ultimately it would help her children and even her grandchildren, as they would be shaped by someone who is happier and more stable. So this is 44 years ago. I fall in love with psychiatry, and I have loved it every day since. It's a perfect fit for me. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. Think about that. If you have heart pain, cardiologist obviously is going to look at your heart. If you have back pain, the orthopedic doctor is going to look at your back. If you have gut pain, the GI doctor is going to put a scope down there. But at the time, and Even now, in 20, 23, 44 years later, most psychiatric diagnoses are made based on talking to people with no biological data. And when I decided to be a psychiatrist, given my imaging background, I'm like, why aren't you people looking at the brain? We should look at the brain. Brain's obviously the problem, so why aren't we looking at it? They're like, oh, that's the future. Well, if you go back to the comment from my dad, I'm like, I have patients today and I want to see their brain. And so I'm agitating my professors, and they're like, not yet, not yet, not yet. In 1991, I went to my first lecture on brain SPECT imaging. SPECT it's a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how the brain works. I'm like a little kid now. I can look at the brain. I start ordering it on most of my patients, but I'm getting grief from my colleagues. It's like, it's not what we do. It's not standard of care. And, you know, I just didn't really care what they thought because it was giving me more information to help my patients. But that's when the friction started with my colleagues. It's like, well, why are you doing that? And that's not how we practice, and it's not part of our tradition. And I'm like, well, I don't really care. How do I know unless I look? And the lessons early on still, till today, are stunning. Like, most psychiatric problems are not mental health issues. They're brain health issues. Get your brain healthy and your mind will follow. Traumatic brain injury. I'm so glad you're dealing with Emerson's concussion. Traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric problems, and very few people know it. It's public knowledge. I've been Justin Bieber's doctor, and he came into my office one day 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. If you told me I had heart problems, I'd do everything you said. I'm going to do what you say. Or, it's also public knowledge. I've been Miley Cyrus's doctor for going on 12 years, and I adore her. It took A while. But through imaging and teaching her to fall in love with her brain. She has two of the best selling songs in the world this year. One is Flowers was fastest song to a billion downloads ever. And it's all about self esteem and loving herself. And a brand new one called Used to Be Young was all a dumb decision. So I went with her, through with her, but over time she fell in love with her brain. So you know, back in the early 90s when I'm doing this, I got no end of grief from my colleagues. But the hero part of it for me, I didn't plan it, I didn't want it, I didn't like being called bad names by my colleagues.

Details.

But well, so here I'm doing this and you know, you become a doctor in part because you like the respect you get from, you know, people and your colleagues. And all of a sudden I'm becoming like Rodney Dangerfield and getting no respect. I'm just getting a lot of grief from my colleagues for what I'm doing and, and it was disorienting and it made me anxious and I had trouble sleeping. And then it all changed in 1995. So I've been doing imaging for four years now and that's really the year the war started against my colleagues. I got a call late when one night from my sister in law who said my 9 year old nephew Andrew attacked a little girl on the baseball field that day for no particular reason. And Andrew's my godson, so Andrew and I are close and I'm like horrified and I'm like, what's going on? And she said, danny, he's different, he's mean, he doesn't smile anymore. And I went into his room today and I found two pictures he had drawn. One of them he was hanging from a tree in a suicide attempt. The other picture he's shooting other children. And now I'm horrified. In retrospect, he's Columbine or Sandy Hook or Parkland, Florida waiting to happen. And it's 1995, so I'd already been scanning kids and adults for four years. And I'm like, he has a left temporal lobe problem. Temporal lobe underneath your temples, behind your eye. They're very important for learning, for memory and temper control. And I said I want to see him tomorrow. And so they drove eight hours to come see me at our first clinic, which was in Northern California. And I'm sitting with my nephew and I'm like, buddy, what's going on? He said, uncle Danny, I don't Know, I'm mad all the time. I'm like, is anybody teasing you? And he said, no. I said, is anybody touching you in places they shouldn't be touching you? And he said, no. And, you know, there was no sort of psychological reason for his behavior. And so when I scanned him, I held his hand while he held his teddy bear. And when the SPECT scan came up on the computer screen, he was missing his left temporal lobe. It's actually the first time I saw it. I've seen it 100 times since then. And he ended up with a cyst the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his left temporal lobe. And I called his pediatrician, and I said, you find someone to take that out. And he called me back a couple of days later, and he said he talked to three neurologists, and none of them thought the cyst was related to his behavior, and they wouldn't operate on it. And now I'm crazy angry, and I'm like. And the doctor said they wouldn't operate on him until he had real symptoms. And I remember screaming at the doctor. I'm like, are you insane? I have a homicidal, suicidal child. What do you mean by real symptoms? I have a child that attacks people for no reason at all. And I thought to myself, neurologists, neurosurgeons. I need to call a neurosurgeon. So I called UCLA and talked to Jorge Lazera, who is the head of pediatric neurosurgery at UCLA, and he said, Dr. Amen. When these cysts are symptomatic, we take them out. Obviously, this is symptomatic. And the day they operated on Andrew, I got two calls. The first one from his mother, who said the surgery went really well. And when Andrew woke up from the surgery, he smiled at her. She said, danny. He hadn't smiled at me for a year. The second call I got was from Dr. Lazzaro, who said, oh, my God. Dr. Amen. That cyst was so aggressive and had put so much pressure on his brain that actually thinned the bone over his left temporal lobe. If he would have been hit in the head with a basketball, would have killed him instantly. Either way, he would have been dead in six months. That was the moment I lost my anxiety. That was the moment I'm like, how do you know unless you look? Because there are too many people like Andrew who do bad things but aren't bad people. They have a brain that's not working right, and I don't have much anxiety around my colleagues anymore. In fact, I generally don't pay attention to them. I try to get the message out in all the ways I can. But psychiatry is based on pseudoscience. Making diagnoses with no biological data is pseudoscience. And we can do better. And since then, you know, had 10,000 medical and mental health professionals refer people to our work. And it's life changing for so many. It's life changing for me because when I scanned myself in 1991, I really didn't care about my own brain. Sounds insane, right? I'm a medical doctor, I'm a double board certified psychiatrist, is the top student in my neuroscience classes. And I didn't care about it because I hadn't seen it. But once I looked, I'm like, this could be better. And I think the last 32 years have all been about making my own brain better and helping my patients have better brains and better lives.

What a beautiful story and beautifully told stories. So many moments there that I want to briefly come back to and reflect on. I felt that experience with your godson and just the beauty of that purpose driven. No more anxiety in the face of this heroic opportunity to serve him and other families. And then the maverick what came up for me was the iconoclast. You and Gregory Burns, I imagine, are who wrote the book Iconoclast on the neuroscience of iconoclasm. Are you familiar with that?

I'm not.

Oh, my goodness. So he basically identified neuroscientist who's also, you know, talking about individuals who go out and do the things that you've done. You are a case study in iconoclasm. Anyway, he connects three things to the brain. One is the ability to see a different possible reality and future. And then two is the ability to tame your amygdala while you face inevitable obstacles from other people as you pursue that different vision of reality, what you see as possible. So one, vision. Two, ability to act in the presence of fear. And then three, social intelligence, the ability to communicate effectively in the midst of that pushback. Easier said than done. But anyway, that was what I felt as you were sharing your story of just pure heroic iconoclasm. But then I want to step back and say, what did you see when you started looking at these brains? You shared the story of the temporal lobe and that remarkable. And I'll send you a note on iconoclast when we get off just so you can see what I'm talking about. But what did you see when you started actually looking at these brains? What, What Is it that you saw? And then, of course, I want to come back to, how is it possible that given what you have seen, and the truth in the statement of, well, you look at your heart, you look at your gut, you look at your knee or your back, why we aren't doing what you're talking about yet. But first, let's start with what are you seeing when you're looking at these brains?

So spec looks at blood flow and activity looks at how your brain works. And it basically shows us three things. Good activity, too little or too much. And then my job is to balance it. And some of the big things I saw early on, my first patient that made me so excited about imaging. Her name was Sandy. I go to the lecture on brain SPECT imaging. It was given by the chief. Chief of the Department of Medicine at my hospital. And I walk out of the lecture, and I walk into Sandy's room. She's 44 years old. She had a suicide attempt the night before. She has an IQ of 144. She's really bright, but she never finished college. She has an ADHD son. And as I'm talking to her, like, in my head, I'm like, oh, you have ADD like your son? And later, when I sort of broach the subject, she's like, oh, adults don't have add. And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm the doctor. And I'm like, but we have this cool new study, and I want to do it on you twice. Once at rest, and then once while you're doing a concentration task. Because what I had already learned about ADD is that when people with ADD try to concentrate, their frontal lobes turn off. And so I did it at rest, and then when she did a concentration task. And then a couple of days later, I put the scans on the table in her hospital room. And her scan at rest is healthy. And when she tries to concentrate her frontal lobes, the front third of her brain deactivates. And I'm like, you have add? This is a classic ADD pattern. And when she saw her scans, this is what hooked me on imaging. She starts to cry, and she says, you mean it's not my fault? It was immediate. The decrease in stigma. It's immediate. The increase in compliance. I said, you know, having ADD is sort of like, people need glasses. People need glasses aren't dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their eyeballs are shaped funny, and we wear glasses so we can focus. People on ADD aren't dumb, crazy, or stupid. You're clearly not stupid. But when you try to concentrate. Your frontal lobes betray you, and the medicine prevents that from happening. This is wild success story, and I'm so excited for her. And she ended up doing great. Then I saw matilda, who was 69 years old. She's diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She almost burns her house down. Her kids want to put her away. She doesn't want to go. And so they hospitalized her. And this is the week after I went to my first lecture on brain spectrum and gene. And I think she has Alzheimer's disease, too. Her memory's no good. Her affect is flat and seemed to have a slow progression after her husband died. That's really important in this story. In 1991, the pattern for Alzheimer's disease on SPECT had already been described. It's bilateral, both sides. Your parietal lobes, top back part of your brain, temporal lobes underneath your temple are low in blood flow. Well, hers weren't. Her emotional brain was on fire. And then I'm like, slow progressing. After loss of her husband, she has pseudo dementia, which is depression that masquerades as dementia. And on Wellbutrin, a really good antidepressant. Within three weeks, her memory comes back and she starts teaching people on the ward. She's like the ward's mother. And, I mean, she's just awesome. And it's like the movie Awakenings, except she stayed better. And that's ultimately what makes me happy. You know, if I look at what makes me happy is being helpful, being useful, and it's. It's a high. I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. And so when people told me I shouldn't do imaging, I'm like, no, you have to do it, because you get these great stories. You help transform people's lives. And then one more story. I have so many of them, but Chris, a boy who attacked another kid at school. This is his third psychiatric hospitalizations. The doctor tells the mother she's the problem. And, you know, and he's a really difficult kid. And when I scan him, he has a left temporal lobe problem. And his brain drops when he tries to concentrate. So he has this variant of ADD I talk about called temporal lobe add and on medicine to stabilize his temporal lobe and pronal lobe. He just became the sweetest kid. And I know without that intervention, he would have ended up dead or in jail. And five years later, I went to his high school. I have a high school program called brain thrive by 25. And when he saw me on the campus, he runs up to me and gives me A hug. It introduces me to five of his friends. And I know without the imaging that would have never happened. So. So that's what I. Those are some of the things we see. We also see I have a poster that hangs in about 100,000 schools, prison, churches, police stations called which brain do you want Healthy scans surrounded by drug effective scans. That's sort of a big deal. This year I was on the Kardashian show because I scanned Kendall and Chloe and Kendall had post Covid anxiety. And if you look at her brain, Covid causes this inflammatory bomb in her brain.

So then that leads to the why. Why hasn't this been more broadly adopted? And what are we going to do about it? And all that conversation.

So I've thought about that a lot and there's actually a great book called the Structure of Scientific Revolution by Thomas Kuhn. Because one would go, well, it's obvious, of course you should look at the brain. I mean, nine year olds would get this. So why don't we. If I'm right, and I am not, I have no doubt that I'm right. That means 40,000 psychiatrists are wrong. And that means the billions of dollars made every year by the pharmaceutical industry is a shit show. So Thomas Kuhn talked about five stages of a scientific revolution. So stage one is normal. Science is just going along until somebody notices a problem. And I noticed the problem. I was taught you have six of these nine criteria for major depression. You're depressed, let me give you an ssri. I was taught that. And some people I give Prozac to dramatically better. And some people want to kill themselves. And if you're in it because you get joy out of helping people, when you hurt people, it terrifies you. And I was terrified that I would hurt someone. And all psychiatric meds have black box warnings. And so step three, the status quo makes small incremental changes. They see there's a problem too. And we've now had six versions of the dsm, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, because the status quo is wed to the economic model that sustains it. And they're like, no, we have to keep doing what we're doing. We'll tweak it, we'll change it a little bit. And then the next stage is someone creates a new paradigm.

And.

You know, it's like, it's not mental health, it's brain health. Get your brain right and your mind will follow. If you don't look, you don't know. Stop lying about it. So we created the paradigm we use at Aim and climb clinics. And then the next stage is the rejection. And he talks about it in it, he said, and it can last for decades. It's when you go up against a behemoth like the pharmaceutical industry and the American Psychiatric association, you better have a thick skin. And then. Fun story. I was interviewed by 20 20, and, you know, most of my. I've been on television probably a thousand times. Most of it's great, but a couple of times it's not been great. And 2020 lied to me so that they could get an interview with me, and then they tried to shame me. And Richard Avia was the reporter, and he starts the interview with Dr. Brad Peterson, who's a child psychiatrist who does imaging from Columbia University, says, you should be arrested for your work. What would you say right away, I'm like, this is a different interview than I was expecting. But I was on the speech team in college, and I remember my speech coach said, when you don't know what to say, smile and take a breath. So I smiled and I took a breath, and I said, that's so interesting. Last week, someone told me I should win a Nobel Prize for my work. This week, you're telling me I should be arrested. Sort of keeps me balanced. And. And then at the end of the interview, the journalist takes off his microphone, throws it, looks at the producer, and said, this guy's for real. I have no idea why you had me just do that. So that was cool. The funny part of this story is my New York clinic. My medical director there, Manny Trujillo, had trained Brad Peterson. Because I call him up, I'm like, who is this guy? And he had Dr. Peterson come to our New York clinic. I met with him. He realized I really wasn't the Antichrist. And we're going to publish a paper this year together on Spectrum bipolar disorder.

When are we. This year?

Yeah.

And when was the interview?

I think it's 2005.

Wow.

So. And then, you know, the last stage is the acceptance, and we're not there yet. I mean, I had a big fight with NPR last year, which really pissed me off, because I've raised $110 million for public television and public radio through my specials. And I'm like, why are you picking on me? But if you look at a lot of their funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and if I'm right, I would cut their profits by 80%. I'm not opposed to medicine. In fact, I told stories where medicine was helpful. I'm very opposed to how it's being currently prescribed in the United states, there were 337 million prescriptions last year for antidepressants. And I'm like, y' all don't know what you're doing, and you're hurting people because of it.

Bless you and your heroic quest. Thank you for the highlights of the. The dragon claw scars that you bear with pride, by the way. This is how you wear those scars, like metals, to quote Paulo Coelho. So knowing that that's a beautifully. You got something else you want to share right there. Knowing that's a beautifully. Longer chat on scientific change and all the things that we can and must do in order to continue to push that forward, bringing it back to us today and the individuals who are here. And the reality is, when it is outside of the medical system, of course it's more expensive than when it is covered by insurance and all the other things, like the pharmaceuticals. So those of means, check out Daniel Ammons clinics and you can learn more about all the things that are going on. When we think about how all of us can take this wisdom and apply it to our lives today, obviously check out the books and all those things, but how should we be thinking about it from a. This is what you can do today to start mitigating some of the downstream perspectives. And I'm making the assumption there that the costs remain high for one to come in and get a scan. Is that an accurate assessment?

Absolutely not. The cost of having an ineffectively working brain is a lot. The cost to get scan, that's about $5,500 to get our whole evaluation in the first six months of help. It depends on how you think about it.

Yeah. So let me.

Is it an investment?

Let me frame it up. So the way that. I'm sorry to interrupt you. The way that I frame it is the youngest of five kids, Catholic school. We went to Kmart. I couldn't afford to buy anything. No money. So no net. No money whatsoever. My father's an alcoholic. His father's an alcoholic who kills himself. We didn't have the means. So my rage comes in that my family of origin should have been able to go into your clinic without having to think about it. But 5,500 times 7 isn't happening. Like, that's how much my dad made a year. So knowing how you've already driven it down and how committed you are, I just want to. I always come from that orientation of deep humility, and I'm thinking of humanity at large. And literally, I get enraged imagining how many people don't have access to the tools that should be ubiquitous. And to your point, those who can't afford the expense, the investment, as you're putting it, obviously, let's go there. But that was the frame through which I was thinking about it. I was thinking about my family of origin who simply wouldn't be able to afford it. And not saying that it's too expensive, but saying that our society is fundamentally broken, where we're doing the heart scans, we're doing the colon scans, we're doing all that and that costs the CO pay. And this isn't in that is literally absurd to me. But anyway, I just want to frame it up.

Well, I think people don't value their brains. And if you value your brain, if you just think of what people spend on a car or what they spend on college, this is not much. When you frame it, if someone's in poverty and they have no resources, then it's quite a stretch for sure. We actually have a foundation called the change your brain foundation that raises money for people who can't afford our services. But, you know, whenever we see people from all over the economic spectrum, when people see value, you know, we've had people do fundraisers at church to be able to come see us. I think that's where my pushback is. It's like you have to see value in your brain because to do what insurance will cover. It puts you at a huge disadvantage. So my niece has this thing called complex regional pain syndrome, and the medicine is like almost $1,000 a month. And it's like, how is that even conscionable for them to charge so much money? It. It just blows my mind. Anyways, in my mind, I think of it as an investment. I'm missing the question, though.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was making the assumption that some people here, and perhaps I'm hypersensitive to my own story because my family couldn't afford it, what you're doing. And that's just the fact of my reality. So when I look at the conversations I'm having, I'm thinking of people across the spectrum of financial means. And so. So my intention with the question was if one. And your point is spot on, which is this is an investment. We're not properly prioritizing it. And I should also say I have a residue on the enraged sense that my family of origin can't get access to this after your decades of work still remains absurd in my mind. But my question was, what, independent of going to your clinic tomorrow, can one do listening to this call today in order to optimize their brain. What's the top kind of tips that we can leave our conversation with today to go get to work as the second one. After looking up your clinics and scheduling a trip in.

So a long time ago, I realized not everybody's getting a scan based on, you know, because they couldn't afford it or they are not near a clinic. And we can help people. And how for free. I've written 12 New York Times bestsellers. So they can go to the library and get one of my books. And I'm not shy. I share everything people accuse me of. Like, oh, his methods are proprietary. It's like, do you read? Right? If you read change your brain, change your life, which is in most libraries around the world. I tell you exactly how to take care of your brain. Or the brain warriors way or the end of mental illness or my new book, change your brain every day. It's 366 short essays meant to be read one a day over year. Dramatically improve your life because brain health. And you know, I'm next week gonna film My 18th National Public Television special. So for free. And really it comes down to three things. So the first one is brain envy. You got to care about your brain. Nobody cares about their brain. Why? Because you can't see it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly. And you can do something when you're unhappy. Happy with but very few people. We live in a society where nobody cares. You know, where the NFL was clearly a brain damaging enterprise owns a day of the week in the United States. And during the super bowl, there were 30 alcohol commercials. And then the other ones are for Taco Bell and other brain damaging food endeavors. So brain.

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I watched the super bowl and I had the same reflection. Although I would add the third. What's the third set of ads about how to do the pharmaceutical companies telling you how to deal with the first two ads, which were the alcohol and the junk food. Perfect. We'll solve it with the pharmaceutical. Let's make sure we're clear on that point. Trust me, I had the same experience.

It's nuts. I mean, when you actually look at the world through the lens of brain health like we're in a shit show when it comes to that, right? From addicting kids to bad food to making people think alcohol is a health food even though it causes cancer to marijuana is innocuous, which is a complete lie. The big innovations in my Profession psychiatry are marijuana, ketamine and psilocybin. And you know, as a brain imager, I'm just like routinely horrified by what's happening in our society. But back to brain envy. That's the first strategy. Avoid things that hurt your brain. You just need to know the last. And then do things every day to respect and help your brain. And probably the most important thing you can do today is go to bed a half an hour early, is make sleep a priority. And so I have all of these tools for free to help people because that's ultimately the goal. I mean, I love imaging and the imaging is what, you know, brought me a lot of grief, but also tremendous insight and joy. But it's, it's learning to love and care for your brain. We have a brand new preschool through grade one course called Brain Thrive by Five. It's 35 to seven minute videos that we teach youngsters to love and care for their brains. We have a course called brain thrive by 25 high school and college course that teaches teenagers and young adults to love and care for their brain. So education is really important to us.

Brilliant. Love it. So three things. Brain envy. Stop doing things that are kryptonite. Start doing things that work for you on a daily basis. We talk about a lot of them, of course, in the notes as well, knowing we're coming up on our time, you, energy, work and love. My joke is I don't agree with Freud on many things for a lot of parallel reasons, but I do think he got it pretty close to right when he said a good life comes down to your work and your love. I like to say, yeah, and if your energy isn't optimized, then good luck showing up in your work and love. But from your perspective, what have been the biggest theoretical distinctions that you've applied practically that have most changed your life that you think we might like to hear about in energy, work and love? You talked about that half an hour of sleep, which I love. Everyone heard that head shaking. Get another half an hour of sleep, folks. This is why in our app, Daniel, and this is our social platform we're launching. My number one target I hit every day is in bed for nine to 10 hours. So I've hit this target 509 out of like maybe the 515 days we've had the app. So I absolutely love that. But when you think about your top targets or the top behavioral changes you've made energy, work and love, what comes to mind?

Well, Slate number one. I used to think I was Special because I could get four hours of sleep at night and go to work the next day. And then I realized I wasn't special. I was stupid. So I eat mostly ketogenic diet, very low carb, no sugar that gives me consistent energy throughout the day. And I supplement great multiple vitamin, high dose, high quality fish oil and my favorite of all the supplements is saffron. Boost mood, memory and sex. So you're getting energy, work and love.

All in the let's go Hiro and what's up.

I love that work is I'm just endlessly passionate about what I do. I'm completely not balanced because you're not changing the world eight to five in love. I'm married to my best friend and have six kids I adore and five grandchildren. And so I always ask myself this question, so if you want what's the biggest lesson with love? Keep your mouth shut. Think about what you say before you actually say it. I'm very clear with my wife. I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. I want that all the time. But I have thoughts that damage that. So I don't say. I always filter what I'm going to say. Will this help get me what I want? So you have to use your frontal lobes to get and keep the lobe.

Impulse control, baby. Impulse control. Yet another one of my targets is listen to Alexandra without interrupting. Listen to Alexandra without coaching. I did a presentation with the CEO with whom we're working and joining. During the talk he said, my wife just texted me and said, I love it when you coach me. Anyway during our little presentation. And I'm like, really, man, I really admired you before. You're a special human being. And he starts laughing. Yeah, right. No way.

For the first three minutes and then I have to run. But for the first three minutes you're with someone, don't try to improve them. I love that so much.

That's a good one. First three minutes and then pause, take a breath, smile and maybe another three minutes would be helpful as well. I appreciate you taking time. Bless you for all of your work. So appreciate, so admire all that you have done and so committed to supporting you. I mean my pushback on that was related to again, my own rage. You know, with this and everything that you and Dr. Hyman and others are talking about a nutritional perspective. We've got work to do. So honored to do it with you. Appreciate you being here today. And team, if you would like to connect with one another afterwards, please stay on and that will connect us. But have a great Rest of your day and enjoy that ocean outside of your window there. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Bye everybody. Thanks so much.

Bless you. All right, we did not get into details but check out the notes. Search Nat I imagine you shared. We took a nice step back from a cultural change perspective. Great to see one hero's frontline experience on this subject. Check out the notes. Brain warriors way. Check out the notes. Change your brain, change your life. Check out his site and all the other things. And there you go. Day one. How's it already? Friday?

I don't know.

Recording the audiobook this weekend though. Pretty excited about that and sending out a big update. By the way, the audiobook, the ebook is up on Amazon as we discussed. I just got approval to share the fact that the entity within the military that we've been working with is ussocom. It is the Special Forces Command Center. It's the group that Admiral McRaven commanded when he was a four star admiral. Tears my eyes. It's how he ended his career. So it is a 70,000 person organization. All Special Forces operators and their command support personnel report up to one four star admiral or general. It was McRaven when it was McRaven. Now it's a guy named General Fenton who I have an incredible amount of respect for. And we've been in dialogue with them and their team about serving a unit they have called the Protection of the Force and Families. And the idea is can we I get emotional again? Can we help these heroes be heroes on the battlefield, the battlefront and the home front. And so we submitted a proposal, I mentioned kind of more abstractly yesterday, to have USS ocom, you know, funded support to run a study in which we prove the efficacy of the Heroic app or of course disprove based on the exact same parameters that we use to establish the fact that if you use the app and you hit three to five targets a day, you go from the 60th percentile flourishing the 83rd, 40% more energized, 20% more productive, 15% more connected. And I got the blessing. I need to check and see if it's a final, final blessing to share the pre application six page narrative in which we've worked with Sonya Wyvermersky and one of her former top PhD students gets me emotional again. And another great team to concretely state what we do and why and the research that supports the efficacy of the app. Why setting your targets in the beginning of the day with a pre commitment routine works because there's deep, deep research on it. Why, why simplifying your targets into very, very concrete, specific targets works and why we believe we can prove that it works with this community and then hopefully by extension bring this out beyond just the special forces, et cetera. So as you can imagine, we're really, really excited about that. It's very early stage. It's just the pre application. It may or may not go further than that, of course, but the fact that we are even in conversation with individuals I respect and admire so much is just, it's a sacred thing. And then to be in the position to serve these individuals who have dedicated so much and given so much to us is, is a beautiful thing. So Deo Valente, we'll be able to share that officially early next week. It's Labor Day this weekend in the U.S. i hope you have a great long weekend. I will be laboring. Is it work or is it love? Yes. I will see you tomorrow. I will see you Sunday. I will see you Monday. I might do abridged sessions with you because I'm going to be recording and the goal is to get the audiobook done. It's going to be over 20 hours long, which is going to take me over 30 hours to record. Of course, over 25. We'll see. So I may need to, to curtail my, my speaking a bit over the next week, but I'll see you. I appreciate you and great to see you today. Hope you got something out of our conversation and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.