The SECRETS to Better Brain Health & Boosting Your Mood w/Dr. Daniel Amen (PART 1) EP 1120

This is episode number 1120 with New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Daniel Amen. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Steve Maraboli once said, it's up to you today to start making healthy choices, not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind. And Stanford Professor David Eagleman said, instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it. My guest today is Dr. Daniel Amen, who has helped millions of people transform their lives and their brains through Amen clinics, his bestselling books, and through his public television programs. The Washington Post has called Dr. Amen the most popular psychiatrist in America because of his books, media appearances and clinics, which have over 7,000 patient visits a month. Amen Clinics also has the world's largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior, totaling over 170,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. It's crazy the amount of data they have. And he's written a new book called youd Brain Is Always Listening. Tame the Hidden Dragons. that control your happiness, habits and hangups. This is a mind blowing conversation. We split it up into two parts, so make sure to subscribe right now and stay tuned for part two coming right after this episode. And in this episode we talk about why the brain has more control over the body than your heart and your mind. This was huge for me. The four big circles of the human experience, the negative effects that alcohol has on the brain. Yes, alcohol does not support your brain. The five foods that we should eat for a better healthier brain. The biggest benefits of intermittent fasting and the science behind why it works for the brain and so much more. This is going to be a two-part explosion of information to support you in becoming happier and healthier. It all starts with the brain and how it connects to your mood, your energy, your health, the way you view the world and yourself. So make sure to subscribe to the School of Greatness podcast right now on Apple podcast or Spotify, and also share this episode with a friend so you can continue to help your friends improve the quality of their life as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Daniel Amen.

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about our guest, Dr. Daniel Amen is in the house. Good to see you, sir.

Louis, I'm just so happy to be here.

Very excited. This is a topic that I love talking about and I'm so glad you're here because you're one of the top brain health experts, neuro psychiatrists in the world. You've done thousands and thousands of brain scans from people all over the world. And I have a question about brain health, mental health, and just the mind in general. In your opinion, what is more powerful, the brain, the heart, or the mind? And which one is controlling our body the most?

No question. It's your brain.

Really?

Your brain creates your mind. and when the brain works right, you work right. But when your brain is troubled for whatever reason, head injuries from playing football, early Alzheimer's disease, you live in a mold-filled home, you have COVID-19, which we know affects brain function or Lyme disease, it damages your brain and then you're more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, temper problems. And people don't get that. There's all this talk about get your mind right, but think of it like hardware, physical functioning of your brain, software, your mind, network connections, your relationships. If the hardware is not right, the software won't run and the network connections will be faulty. And so at Amen Clinics, we have nine clinics around the country where we see thousands of patients every month that it's like, get your brain right. And then we want to program it. Your mind's really important and we want to help you work on your relationships. But if your brain's not right, nothing else is going to be right. as good as it can be.

So if someone is doing exercises or practices in their relationships, dealing with anger management, stress, anxiety, depression, if they're working on the software and not the hardware, what will happen?

This is not as effective. I mean, it can be very helpful. But just like the computer analogy. And I didn't know this. It was 1991 when I ordered my first spec scan. InspecT is the study we do at Amen Clinics. I'm already a double board certified psychiatrist. I'd been a psychiatrist for about a decade. And I always felt like I was throwing darts in the dark at my patients. There's a great book called the Structure of Scientific Revolution. 'Cause if what I'm doing is right, and I believe it is, it's really creating a revolution in brain health, mental health care. And the first step of the revolution Thomas Kuhn wrote about in 1962 is you notice a flaw in the system. And I was taught, was really well trained, I trained to be a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. And if you have six of these nine symptoms, you get diagnosed with depression, and then I give you a medication. That's what you did for Prozac. Prozac a while. But some of the people I'd put on Prozac got better, and some of them became suicidal. Some of them became aggressive. Some of them became obsessive and anxious. And I'm like, this isn't working like it should.

And a small percentage maybe it helps, but not for everyone.

Well, maybe even a good percentage it helps, but a good percentage it hurts, which would horrify me, because I would always feel off balance. I didn't know this would work, that would work. Plus, I didn't care about my own brain at all, because I I hadn't seen it. And in 1991, when I started ordering scans, I scanned my mom. She had a beautiful, healthy brain. I scanned me, and it wasn't healthy. But I played football in high school. I had meningitis when I was a young soldier. And I had bad habits. I wasn't sleeping. I was eating fast food. And when I scanned myself, I developed a concept. I wanted my mother's brain. And so I called that brain envy. Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. You gotta learn to love and care for your brain. And so the next 30 years, I've been figuring out how can I have a better brain? Because when I have a better brain, I have a better life. And what I realized is depression is not one thing. That's why Prozac didn't work for everyone. For some people, that really low, blood flow and activity in the brain. For some people it's really high and for some people they had head injuries. In fact, if you go, Hey Daniel, single most important thing you've learned from 183,000 scans, that's how many we've done, is that mild traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric illness.

Oh man.

And nobody knows about it because psychiatrists, by and large, never look at the brain.

What does psychiatric illness mean? Is it the same thing as mental health disorder, mental health disease? What does that mean?

Right, I mean it's the same thing. It's people who struggle with anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, addictions.

So you're saying if we played football we're screwed forever?

You're vulnerable. Since we played football, and you're bigger and probably way better than me, so you got your head hit more. I was on the best position in the field, which is I was a backup quarterback.

She wasn't on the field, yeah.

And, but you're clearly more vulnerable. So in 2007, Anthony Davis came to see me. He's the Hall of Fame running back from USC. he's called the Notre Dame Killer because in 1972 he scored six touchdowns against the University of Notre Dame. And he was at the time confused. He had memory deficits. He had temper problems. He's getting into fights. He had no business. And one day he's driving on the 405 and he had no idea where he was going. And he pulled over, called a friend of him at USC School of Medicine. He says, you should go see Dr. Raymond. And when I saw him, his brain at 54 looked like it was 90 and bad for 90. And Anthony just did everything I asked him to do. And five months later, his brain is better. He's excited. He's like, Doc, we have to talk about this. And this is at a time the NFL is really in active denial that they have a problem. And so we did a study. He helped me with the Lost Los Angeles chapter of the NFL Players Association. They co-sponsored my first study, high levels of damage in players. And what we found, they had four times the level of depression and significantly higher incidences of dementia. But 80% of them got better when I put them on a brain health program. So it's- Wow.

Now, do you think I know from transitioning out of sports as, you know, a professional football player transitioning where my identity was tied to that thing for so long, that when I left and that I had this identity, mini identity crisis for a few years of, like, living in the past and will my life ever be the same type of mentality? Can the depression or anxiety come from the identity crisis as well, or is it more tied to the traumas you hit. Because when I was in the game, I felt like I had a purpose, a mission. I didn't feel as stressed and overwhelmed, but it's when I left the game when that came up. Is it a combination or is it?

It's always a combination. Always. I always think of people in four big circles. What's the physical functioning of your brain and body? So some biological circle. What's the psychological circle, which is your development that really matters. And your ability to manage your mind. In my new book, your brain always listening. I talk about the ants and the dragons. The ants, the automatic negative thoughts, it steal your happiness. And the dragons, big psychological issues from the past, like the abandoned, invisible and insignificant dragon. It's my dragon. That are always sort of breathing fire on your emotional brain. So biological, psychological, social, it's like, well, how's your money? How's your relationships? I mean, we're just coming out, hopefully, of a pandemic that has spawned another mental health pandemic, right? So biological, psychological, social, and spiritual, which most psychiatrists would never touch. But 80% of the population believes in God and has deep-rooted spiritual beliefs, and it's ultimately, well, why are you on the planet? And you had lost your sense of meaning and purpose, where you had one life and then, well, all of a sudden you don't have that anymore. And I'm a huge fan of Ariana Grande's song, Thank youk, because those three words are mental health. It's gratitude for what's happened in the past looking forward. Gratitude for your career, and then like, all right, what's next? and if you had known me at the end of your career, you'd like go, good, we're not gonna hit our head anymore, we're gonna take care of our brain so we can do something fun, which obviously you've done.

Yeah, it's been great. We have to acknowledge the season of our life and then move on to the next season. What would you say are the three worst things we can do for our brain? If the brain health is the foundation for our mindset, our heart health, our the way we view the world, what are the three worst things we can do? Whether it be taking a substance, thinking a thought, staying in a toxic relationship, being around mold all day, like what are the, you know, trauma to the head?

Well, I mean, the worst thing you can do is not care about it, is not have brain envy. That's the worst thing.

Have brain envy.

You can do And I have a little tiny habit I love. I worked with BJ Fogg from the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford. And we worked with him for six months on how people change. And we created 50 tiny habits. But my favorite tiny habit is before you go to do something today, ask yourself, takes three seconds, is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if you can answer that question with information and love, love of yourself, love of your mission, you are going to be better. Because when your brain is better, you're better. So that's number one. If you don't care. Number two is you engage in behaviors that hurt your brain. Whether it's head trauma or thinking of marijuana is going green, it's not, damages the brain. Alcohol is not a health food. Living in a mold filled environment, you may know Dave Asprey. Dave and I are buddies. He got scammed about 15 years ago and it was like moth eaten. It was terrible. But he was living in a mold filled home. And he actually did a documentary called Moldy that I'm in on the impact of an environmental toxin. on your brain. And I would say the third thing, so brain envy, engage in behaviors that hurt your brain. The third thing would be you just never do anything to help your brain, such as, we talked about this before we started, table tennis, which is just a great brain game.

Yes.

Because you got to get your eyes, your hands and feet all to work together while you think about this spin on the ball. So I think of it like aerobic chess. And people never think about their cerebellum. It's the Rodney Dangerfield part of the brain. Now, I'm horrified because many young people don't know who Rodney Dangerfield is. He was a comedian who used to say, I get no respect. And then he'd talk about why he got no respect. Well, in the back bottom part of your brain, there's cerebellum actually means little brain. It's 10% of the brain's volume, but it has half 50% of the brain's neurons. And it's involved in coordination, which is why table tennis is great for your cerebellum, but also thought coordination, how quickly you can integrate new information. And we know people have ADD, have sleepy cerebellums, people who have autism awfully have damaged cerebellum. And so we, so athletics are so important. Yes. Right, these coordination exercises like martial arts is amazing. As long as you don't hit your head. As long as you don't hit your head because the brain is soft about the consistency of soft butter, tofu, custard, somewhere between egg whites and jello, and your skull is really hard and has sharp bony ridges. This is why the thousands of blows you took to your head are just bad. Helmets don't protect brain damage. Protect you from brain damage. They protect you from skull fractures. But inside your brain, your brain is doing this repeatedly and that's not a good thing. You can't like take your laptop and just drop it repeatedly and expect it to do what it needs to do.

Oh my gosh, I just keep thinking of the decades of brain hitting over and over. But I think, you know, what I love about your message and your research is that it doesn't matter if you've been through that in the past, as long as you're aware of it and you start to practice habits and routines and really set your environment up, your relationships, these four circles up for success, you can really heal a lot of the past trauma. in the brain, is that right?

Absolutely. That's the exciting thing.

How much from these scans you've done where people have had horrible looking scans, I mean, whether it be brain trauma or sexual trauma, whatever it is that they were stuck in some type of brain trauma, and they went on a program of better lifestyle, better habits, spiritual growth, personal development, were you able to see a significant transformation within a year, five years, 10 years? How long does this take?

Well, I have Anthony Davis' scans 10 years apart and dramatically better. Or one of my favorite NFL players, his name is Duvall Love. He was an offensive guard for the Los Angeles Rams for 12 years. And when I saw him, he's obese, he's depressed, he's been to jail, he's a mess. And he just did what I asked him to do. And that's why I love my NFL players, because they're coachable. They're used to being coached.

Don't know what to do, coach. I'll do it.

Hey, coach. Tell me what to do. And he lost 110 pounds. And he's actually ended up getting his master's degree. I was like, oh my God. And, you know, he's trim, he's happy, he's fit, and his brain is radically better. Now, it depends, right, on how much you played and how many hits and how damaged it is. And it also depends on the brain you brought into football. because some people brought really healthy brains into football. They had parents who cared, they had reasonable nutrition and so on. And some people brought in terrible brains. But 80% of our people get better, especially if they do what we ask them.

Is this better in terms of like, okay, you're 80% back to a super healthy, perfect brain. Is it like, wow, this thing's unbelievable, off the charts healthy. Like everyone can envy your brain, even if you went through trauma, or is it like, it looks really good.

It depends on what you start with. One of my other players, Anthony Trucks, who I just love, his brain was suffering when I first saw him. Really? I get the Trucks from Oregon.

Oregon football player who played in the NFL for a few years.

I know Trucks, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love him. Good guy. And he just did what I asked him to do. Super positive guy.

And a year later, his brain's healthy. Really?

Yeah.

So it wasn't healthy when he came.

In, a year later it's healthy. Right, and that's the cool thing about the brain. Every day, your brain, and there's an area called the hippocampus, and so I don't know if this is too much nerd neuroscience, but the cerebellum is really important. The hippocampus is really important because it's involved with mood and memory. And it's Greek for seahorse because it's shaped like a seahorse. And every day the hippocampus makes 700 new baby stem cells or new baby seahorses. Every day.

In the brain.

In the brain. It's making new cells every day. So neuroscientists, when I was taking neuroscience in medical school, they told us, you know, if you hurt your brain, sort of you're screwed, and you're not getting it back. Well, that was a lie. That the brain continues to make new neurons throughout life. And every day, you're growing those babies. If you put them in a healthy environment, or you're murdering them. And, oh man, funny story. Came out last year. I've been Miley Cyrus's doctor for about a decade. And I adore her. And she was smoking a lot of pot, as everybody knows. But she's also an animal lover. So when I told her the pot was suffocating the baby seahorses, she's like, Dr. Evan, that's so unfair. No, I love animals. You can't say that. Take that back. And now she's better to her brain. Just The information, know better, do better.

I'm gonna ask you some controversial questions about brain health. How much does, is it a third of Americans are obese or is it two thirds? Two thirds of Americans.

72% of Americans are overweight.

Or overweight.

42% of us are obese.

Obese.

I published three studies In fact, I did an NFL study. One of them was an NFL study. I took players at the same position who were at a healthy weight versus those that were overweight. The overweight had sleepy frontal lobes. They had decreased activity in the frontal lobe. I just published a study on 35,000 people. It's one of the largest imaging studies ever done. And there is virtually a linear correlation between as your weight goes up, the function of your brain goes down.

Really?

Oh, morbidly obese was worse than obese, which was worse than overweight, which was worse than healthy weight.

So healthy weight versus...

So healthy weight would be the best activity and then overweight and then obese and then morbidly obese.

What consists as overweight versus obese? body fat percentage.

Well, it's something called BMI or body mass index, which in NFL players actually doesn't correlate very well. For them, it's their waist to height ratio. So their, your waist should be half your height or less. So if you're six feet tall, that's 72 inches, your weight real, your waist and you gotta measure. You can't go by your pant size because the clothing industry knows that we're unhappy. And so you guys gotta put a tape measure right around your belly button. And so if you're six feet, your waist should be 36 inches or less. And if it's not, then it's good to work on. Right. And you just see it as a problem to solve. But if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. I have a mnemonic for that I read about in the book, it's called Bright Minds. Well, if you're overweight, that automatically means you have five of the risk factors. Really? Because being overweight decreases blood flow. That's what my studies showed. It increases inflammation. It stores toxins, fat stores toxins, like if you smoke pie. It actually stays in your body for 30 days.

Wow.

It changes your hormones, and this is like shocking for me and my NFL work, that these big, strapping, virile men are almost all low in testosterone because when you have subconcussive blows, it damages the pituitary gland, which turns off the production of testosterone. Oh my gosh. And so, belly fat especially takes healthy testosterone and turns it into unhealthy, cancer-promoting forms of estrogen. And so, you know, you have the diobesity, risk factor, blood flow, inflammation, toxins and hormones.

And so that's all from being overweight.

That's all from being overweight. It's just a thing we should be working on. And what I often say is the real weapons of mass destruction Ices has nothing on our food industry. They're highly processed, pesticide sprayed, high glycemic, low fiber food like substances stored in plastic containers. This is what's really killing the health of America.

Okay, so obesity is a, when I'm hearing you say obesity is a big factor to mental health stresses and brain stresses.

And Alzheimer's disease.

And Alzheimer's, obesity.

I mean, it all sort of goes together from depression to problems in school to memory problems later in life.

What's your thought? I mean, I'm all for people loving themselves where they're at, where they're at in their life, and loving their bodies for where they're at and not shaming themselves and the self-love movement of accepting yourself for where you are. But that's only going to hurt our brains if we're not actually saying, okay, I accept and love myself where I'm at and decisions I've made to be here, but I've got to start working on these things. Otherwise, there's going to be some challenges emotionally, mentally, anxiety, depression, if I don't work on it, right? My health.

Then don't worry, be happy people, die the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. I want people to love themselves. But doing the right thing is an act of love. Like if you're really unhealthy, walking is an act of love. And so it sort of catches me in this funny place. I remember I was on a plane once and I'd figure out this connection between as your weight goes up, the size and function of your brain goes down. And I was sitting next to someone who is very overweight and we were on a tiny plane going to Des Moines, Iowa for public television. And in my head, I'm like, oh, you want to talk to her about that? And then I talk to myself all the time. It's like, no, you don't want to say anything. Don't need to upset her day. And, But then I went to Pittsburgh and I went to GNC, you know, the supplement company. And one of my core values is being authentic. So I live the message of my life. And the message of GNC is health. And their number three guy, their marketing director, took me to dinner, was morbidly obese. Really? And that thought in my head is, you should talk to him about this. And he made the comment, he opened the conversation. He's like, you know, I don't know why I'm overweight, but my numbers are okay. And I'm like, what numbers? And I'm like, Tom, you don't want to be a dinosaur. Because I had figured out, big body, little brain, you're going to become extinct. And we had this great conversation because my favorite verse in the New Testament is John 8:32, Know the truth and the truth will set you free. I'm like, Do you not want to be like the number two guy or the number one guy? You're not going to do that if your brain's not healthy. And that conversation the next year, he lost 80 pounds. Most people don't know that this is a serious health, mental health, brain health risk. And I just want to tell people the truth, and I want them to get healthy. And people go, But I don't like any of one of my NFL players, but I don't like any of the foods that are healthy for me. And I'm like, None, not one. And we did this great exercise. and it turned out he liked like 70 of the foods that were on the list. You only want to love food that loves you back. It's a relationship, right? I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship, but I've been in a bad relationship. As in a 20-year marriage with someone who didn't like me very much. I'm never gonna do that again. I'm just not. It's a boundary for me. I'm damn sure not gonna be in a relationship, a bad relationship with food. I want to be in a good relationship. I mean, I love food. I just want it to love me back.

What are the five foods that we should have to help our brain the most?

Salmon, wild salmon, blueberries, walnuts, olive or avocado oil. Yeah, healthy protein, chocolate. I make this great brain healthy hot chocolate every night for my family. Really? I just look at the six of them that live at home, I'm like, okay, who's up for it tonight? So Costco, of all places, organic vanilla, unsweetened almond milk, rock cacao, it's a superfood, so organic rock cacao, And a little bit of Sweet Leaf is a company that makes flavored stevia. They make chocolate flavored stevia and put it in the blender, heat it up, it's phenomenal. Good for me, I love it, and it loves me back.

It loves you back. Salmon blueberries, walnuts, avocado or avocado oil, rock chocolate are some of the top favorites. foods for the brain?

For the brain.

Why are these foods? Is it high in antioxidants? Is it proteins that they have?

So, blueberry, it's the phytonutrients. They've actually done studies showing cognitive enhancement with blueberry juice, salmon, it's the omega-3 fatty acids and the complete protein, avocados, it's the healthy fat. especially omega-3 fatty acids, same with walnuts. Your brain is fat. Low-fat diets are bad for your brain. People who go on low-fat diets actually have an increased incidence of depression. Really? Yeah. Now you don't want bad fats, fried fats particularly. You want healthy fats, avocados, nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables. Olive oil, olive oil, avocado oil, Damien nut oil. Yeah. So.

How much food should the brain have? Is it, you know, it's your buddy, our buddy, Dave Asprey talks about fasting a lot. A lot of people are in this fasting craze. If we're not giving the brain food or nutrients for a day, three days, five days, does that help the brain? Does it reset the brain? Does it It hurt the brain.

So intermittent fasting, where you go 12 to 16 hours from dinner to breakfast or lunch is good. They've actually found your, there's a term called autophagy, where your brain begins to clean up some of the trash.

So it works in the brain too, not just in the body.

It works on the brain as well. Now, I grew up Roman Catholic and long suffering was one of the gifts and I never got that one. I'm not a fan of long suffering. I'm not doing a marathon. It's like way too much stress for my brain. And I'm not fasting for three days, but I can go 12 hours. I mean, like that's not a big deal. And it helps people lose weight. It helps them be healthy. And I come from a family of fat people. My dad used to say when I would say that, but I have a brother who's 150 pounds overweight, despite me loving him, nudging him. You just have to be thoughtful, know your vulnerability and bright minds, and gee, it's genetics. So know what you're genetically vulnerable to, and I have to work on it. Right, right.

You mentioned you don't do marathons. If you're not traumatizing the brain through contact sports, but you're an endurance junkie, you love to run marathons, you run them every year, you do triathlons, you do ultra marathons, you're doing mountain climbing, are these activities good for the brain to put some extreme stress on it, even if it's not physical contact to the brain? Or does it long term hurt the brain?

The scans I have of extreme athletes are not good.

Really?

Yeah. I think it's too much stress for the brain. I love HIIT training, high intensity training. That's been shown. to increase mitochondria in cells, I'm not a fan of putting your body under a lot of stress. It's just not good for it. Some stress is good. We call it eustress. A little bit, so your fibers grow. That's why weight training is important. The stronger you are as you age, less likely you are to have Alzheimer's disease. Really? But you want to love your brain. You want to make sure you're sleeping. For your brain, that's the essence of Bright Minds.

So someone's like, you know what? Okay, I hear what you're saying, but I really love to do a marathon or two a year. And a few times in my life I want to do, you know, on a climb Everest or something like that. I want to do something to challenge myself. And I go, Is that gonna hurt the brain?

Is that gonna, if you're doing everything else right. So one of my NFL players just signed an $80 million deal. Wow. So he's gonna play. He's going to play. But if you're gonna do something that is potentially damaging to the brain, make sure you're doing everything else right. So for example, being a firefighter is a brain damaging profession. We need to own that, just like we need to own playing football is a brain damaging profession. Own it. Everybody knows it. Now, when I started my work in 2007, very few people know it. Now, everybody knows it. But they don't know that being a firefighter, because they're our heroes, those are the people we need when we need them, and we need them healthy. But because of the toxins they breathe, because of the emotional trauma they see day in and day out, because of the head traumas they experience. They have a higher incidence of depression, a higher incidence of suicide, and a higher incidence of early death. We should not be okay with this. But it doesn't mean we're not gonna have firefighters. What it means is we should put their brain in a rehabilitative environment all the time. We should be teaching them about brain health, like with NFL players currently. We should be teaching them, look, if you're gonna do this, own it. It's a brain-damaging sport. So let's just do everything else. Right.

What are the other things right that you talk about? Are there are a few main keys? Is it nutrition? Is it sleep?

We think about Bright Minds, it's just such a good model. So blood flow, B is blood flow, so exercise. And foods like beets that increase blood flow or supplements like ginkgo that increase blood flow. The R is retirement and Aging, new learning is absolutely critical. You know, your work and studying greatness, you're always learning. Something new, which is great for the brain.

Retirement plus aging, is that what you said?

Retirement and aging.

So continuing to learn in those stages.

And always putting yourself in an anti-aging environment. So the food you eat, the exercise, new learning, being passionate, never retiring, right? I mean, maybe you go and do something else you like better because you have enough money, but never retirement. Because when you start, when you, when you start not doing things, your brain actually starts to disconnect itself.

So when we say people, someone retires at 60, 70, 75, and they say, you know, I'm just gonna sit on the beach for the next however long. enjoy my family time, enjoy the money I've had, and relax. What happens to those people if they don't have a purposeful mission in their life beyond relaxation? What happens?

Their brain disconnects itself, really. They have a higher incidence of dementia. And my dad worked until he died when he was almost 91. And he's like, when my friends retire, they die.

Really?

And now If you retire, because you really didn't love what you were doing anyways, and you go off and do something you love, maybe not golf, because you're around all those toxins on the green, maybe not golf, but if you're doing things you love and you're always learning, well, that's awesome. That's different. That's a really good thing.

So you can retire from your job, don't retire from your life.

Don't retire from your life.

Stay connected in some meaningful suit.

Absolutely critical to stay keeping young. And then the eye is inflammation. This is the big bad actor because inflammation in your body, which comes from eating processed foods, one of the surprising things comes from gum disease. If you're not a flosser, really, you need to floss. I'm a flossing fool.

I do twice a day.

I wasn't that way until I started. reading the studies that people who have gum disease have a higher incidence of heart disease, but also a higher incidence of brain disease. They actually found gum bacteria higher in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. And so omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation, fruits and vegetables decrease inflammation, flossing and probiotics, getting your gut healthy, there's this huge connection between the brain and the gut because inflammation often comes from having an unhealthy gut, either from infections or the lousy food that you're eating. And the G is genetics. You need to know your vulnerability, but genes aren't a death sentence, what they should be, is a wake-up call to know what you're vulnerable to. to my, I have heart disease and obesity in my family. I don't have heart disease and I'm not obese. Why? Because I'm always on a prevention program. You just want to be serious as soon as you know what your risks are. Right.

Okay.

H is head trauma, which we talked about. Brain is soft, skull is hard. There are 3 million new head injuries every year in the United States. This is a big deal.

3 million new head injuries Every year. Is that from car accidents or falls?

Falls, everything. Everything. Wow. You know, being hit, domestic violence, whatever.

It might be, anything. Gunshot, whatever.

Whatever. Three million. Which means most people live over the last 30 years. That's 90 million people in the United States who struggle with the effects of traumatic brain injury. Very high in prison populations, very high in people who struggle with psychiatric diseases. And then T is toxins. And so you go, what can I do to support my brain? Well, one, avoid them. Alcohol is not a health food. My biggest blog last year was titled, I Told youd so. And when I dated my wife, Tana, and I think you met my wife, she's awesome. And when we were dating, she said- the current wife. My current wife.

Not the 20-year.

Not the 20-year. She said, I'll never tell you I told you so. She lied. She's a flat-out lied to me. It's like her favorite thing to say. But I've been telling people ever since I started imaging, alcohol is not a health food. And our first clinic was right next to the Napa Valley, so it was not a popular thing to say. say. But it's just what I saw. And then there's a study from Johns Hopkins that say people who drink every day have smaller brains. Wow. And last year, the American Cancer Society came out and said any alcohol is associated with an increased risk in cancer. Seven different cancers.

Oh, any alcohol.

Any alcohol.

And so my wine drinker is saying, no, you're wrong. No, I'm not listening to this right now. What about a glass once or twice a week? What about the nutrients from the grains?

Oh, you're gonna do something that's bad for your brain. You should be doing other things that are good for your brain. Right. It doesn't mean you can never have a drink, but just know it's not a healthy, healthful thing to do. So you want to do the other thing.

When I eat a bowl of ice cream and pizza, I know it's not helping my brain.

Right. And if you do it once a month, it's not the biggest deal in the world. Exactly. But then, because here we're talking about tea for toxins, you want to support the four organs of detoxification. So, your kidneys drink more water, your gut eat more fiber, and my shake every morning. put fiber in it for your liver, kill the alcohol, and eat detoxifying vegetables. They're called brassicas, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, kale. And take infrared saunas. People who take the most saunas have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease because it detoxifies you. And it's also There's actually a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. People with major depression took one infrared sauna, their mood was better. Well, how cool is that? I mean, that's simple. There's no side effects mostly to taking a 25-minute sauna.

So is it infrared or any type of sauna?

Well, it's probably any type of sauna. But the study was on infrared.

Infrared, gotcha. But anything that's releasing the toxins, any heat exposure, and not sweat.

Sweat, sweating with exercise or saunas is detoxifying for you. Yeah. And this isn't hard, right? Like not one thing I've said so far is hard. The M in Bright Minds is mental health. This is where you learn to kill the ants and tame the dragons. So ant stands for automatic negative thoughts. The thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And the exercise is super simple. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking. And then just ask yourself if it's true. You don't have to believe every stupid thing you think. I didn't learn that till I was 28 years old. I'm like, I'm in class. I'm a psychiatric resident at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. And I'm like, no, I don't have to believe the noise in my head. It's like thoughts come from your genes, right? actually written into your genes, your failure, maybe because your grandfather had to file for bankruptcy. They come from your parents talking to you. They come from your siblings. I'm one of seven. They come from the noise. They come from your coaches. And they lie. Just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true.

Absolutely. I was working with a therapist recently that said, just because someone tells you something about yourself doesn't mean, and they're trying to give you this thing, doesn't mean you need to receive that gift. It's not a gift you need to receive. They're offering you a gift that's a bad gift. Doesn't mean you need to take it. You can just say, okay, I don't need that gift right now. I don't need to let that thought sink in and believe this. And I think I'll speak for myself growing up, anytime I heard someone say, you suck, you're dumb, you're an idiot, you're not enough, you'll never amount to whatever, I learned to believe those things. And I think a lot of us probably learned to believe whatever we hear from anyone, whether it was a side comment or a direct comment. And how have you learned over the years to really defend against those ants? Like, besides someone might say, okay, I tried writing it down that this is not true and analyzing this, but what's an, what, how can we really show up for ourselves so our thoughts consume us in a negative way.

So you know that if you're overweight on Monday and you have a salad, you are not going to be trim on Friday. You need to develop practices that getting well physically is a discipline that occurs over and over, over time. Right? to be mentally well, you need to develop practices that you do like eating well over and over and over. So for example, I start every day with today is going to be a great day. As soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning, and today was easier because I spent last night in Santa Monica and walked on the beach this morning, and I get to hang out with you, today is going to be a great day. that way my unconscious mind finds why it's going to be a great day. And then your brain is always listening. I talk about taming the hopeless and helpless dragon, the dragon from the past that feeds depression. And it's something I do called positivity bias training. I want to get my brain looking for what's right because it automatically goes for what's wrong. And so I start every day with today is going to be a great day. And then if I have a hard time, if I feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, I write down what I'm thinking. And then I just go, is it true? And there's a whole bigger method in the book. And often I'll go to, what's the opposite of that thought? No one loves me or no one respects me or you're a failure. And so quickly my brain, if I go, my wife never listens to me, I've had that thought. I'll go, well, I never listened to my wife. And I'll be like, oh, that can be true. Or she does listen to me. And then I find the time. It's just I don't believe what goes on in my head. And then when I go to bed at night, and this is so powerful, I say a prayer, and then I go, what went well today? And I put myself to sleep by reviewing the positive things that happened. that day. And I find the little micro moments, whether it's that sip of hot chocolate that I made that I'm proud of myself for, or some cool text or interaction, and it sets my dreams up to be more positive. And a really fun thing I've been playing with recently is, I had Stephen Hayes on my podcast, the Brain Warriors Way, and he had a technique of give your mind a name. and it's based on a concept of psychological distancing. And as he was talking about that, he gave his mind the name George. I'm like, oh, I knew exactly what I'd give my mind, the name Hermie. Hermie was my female. I didn't know she was a female when I named her. Raccoon. I had a pet raccoon when I was 16 years old. And she was a troublemaker. She was beautiful. and smart, and she TP'd my mom's bathroom. She ate my sister's fish out of her aquarium. She used to poop in my shoes. She caused a lot of trouble, just like my mind. And so when I hear the negative chatter, I used to take Hermie and put her on her back and tickle her, and she used to love that. We just had this great relationship. So when my mind is acting up, I'm like, Seriously, do I need to tickle you right now? Just so I separate. And I'm like, Is this helpful? Because you've had good coaches and you've had bad coaches, right? And I want me to be a good coach for me. Too many people, their internal life is like a courtroom, and they've got a spectacular prosecutor and a cruel judge and a jury that's off And they have a weak defense attorney. And I'm like, I got Johnny Cochran in my head, right? You know, I wanna protect myself. But people don't get any training.

Isn't that interesting?

It's like- In their minds.

Yeah, I feel like in general we're conditioned to find the negative, the bad, to keep us safe or protect ourselves in some way. But we've never trained ourselves to be a great coach or a great cheerleader to ourselves. you just brought that up, it made me think about it. It's like, what if we did have that training as a kid on how to coach ourselves through pain, discomfort, and not only rely on the addictive coping mechanisms that we tend to lean towards? Well, I don't know how to coach myself, let me drink. I don't have a coach, let me take this drug or pornography or whatever the addiction choice is to cope for someone. How do we learn to be a good positive coach in a time of complete chaos, stress, overwhelm? dysfunction. When we can't even get out of that, we can't even get out of that in our heads, we can't even hear that coach in our mind.

It's a practice. Yeah, it's all practice. And that's why I write, you know, whether your brain is always listening or feel better fast and make it last, you know, people do things to feel better fast. We saw that during the pandemic. But they're choosing things that actually make them worse.

That hurt them.

In the long run. So you want to do things that help people feel good now and later versus now but not later.

Now, needing it all the time, yeah.

So, diaphragmatic breathing, I'm just a huge fan. Or meditation. I published three studies on a Kundalini yoga form of meditation called Kirtan Kriya. It's all of 12 minutes, but it activates your frontal lobe. It helps you with forethought and judgment. than impulse control. And it's fun, it's beautiful. Satonna, ma, saona, Ma, which is birth, life, death reborn, birth, life, death reborn. It's just beautiful And, um, you know, people can google you know, their YouTube videos on it, but it works to balance your brain, and that helps you feel good now. and later versus now but not later.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a few friends right now to continue to spread the message of greatness to other people and help them improve the quality of their life as well. You can post it on social media. Make sure to tag me, Lewis Howes, and tag Dr. Daniel Amen and let him know what you enjoyed most about this episode. And also, we've got part two coming right after this where we talk about how to optimize your brain and heart health, why pleasure can make you unhappy, the effects of marijuana on the brain. That's right, we talked about alcohol on the brain in this episode, but the next one, I'm gonna reveal what marijuana does to the brain and so much more. Again, if you enjoyed this, please subscribe and leave a rating and review and share with me the part you enjoyed most about this episode over on Apple Podcasts.

Cast.

We'd love to read those reviews. So click over there right now, subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend. You can also go to the full show notes@lewisowes.com/1120 and send that link to some friends as well. And I want to leave you with this quote from John Green who says, There is hope even when your brain tells you there isn't.

Whoo!

I am excited about this two-parter. I hope you got a lot of value out of this. I want to remind you no matter what you're going through right now, You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.