11 Risk Factors That Destroy Your Brain | Dr. Daniel Amen on Health Theory

In today's episode of Health Theory with Dr. Daniel Amen, we discuss why football is worse for your brain than cocaine, how to interrupt negative thinking patterns, why low-fat diets may cause depression, and what you can do to improve your brain function right now. Everybody, welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest is Dr. Daniel Amen, a double board-certified psychiatrist who also happens to be a 10-time New York Times best-selling author. He is arguably the world's foremost expert in brain scanning, and he is responsible for scanning roughly 100,000 brains in his career. Discover magazine named his breakthrough brain imaging work as one of the top 20 stories in science in 2015, and the Washington Post called him the most popular psychiatrist in America. Now, having said all of that, knowing what you know about the brain, how do we take a good brain and make it great? Well, I love that idea. It's really three simple things. And the first thing is you have to care about it. When I first scanned myself in 1991, it wasn't good. And just the week before I scanned my 60-year-old mother, and she had a gorgeous brain. And so, I created brain envy. I wanted her brain. So, here I am. I'm a double board-certified psychiatrist. So, for people who don't know what that means. So, I'm a general psychiatrist, and I have a specialty in kids. I'm a child adolescent psychiatrist. I'm a physician. I'm highly educated, and I don't care at all about my own brain. Right? I love watching football on Sunday. And And when I saw my brain, I'm like, "Ouch. This can be better." And so, how do you make it better? Well, the second thing is you avoid anything that hurts it. And I have a mnemonic we can talk about called bright minds. It's If you want to keep your brain healthy, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. Yeah. So, um brain healthy got to care, avoid things that hurt it, do things that help it. And so, what what have we learned? That exercise boost blood flow to the brain. Not believing every stupid thing you think calms the anxiety centers in the brain. Things like omega-3 fatty acids. Get your gut right cuz your gut makes most of the neurotransmitters in your body. Well, the little tiny habit for brain health is before you go to make any decision, you ask yourself, is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if you love yourself cuz it's never about should. Soon as you think you should do something, you won't do it just cuz we're all 4 years old in our head and rebellious. It's you answer the question in a positive way because you love yourself, because you love yourself, your wife, your life, your mission. Um that's why you do the right thing cuz too often people go, "Oh, well, I can't have this and I can't have that." And as soon as you get into that deprivation mindset, it's not going to work. It's really interesting to me how often the answer that you push people towards, whatever their struggle is, is something that I'll call soft. Love comes up a lot, attachment, um not being lonely, like things that you would expect a psychiatrist to give you a pill for. You've traditionally shied away from that. Obviously speak, it can be very profound, but that you're leading people to do um maybe easier or more basic things first. What are some of the like just dead simple easy things that people should be thinking about with protecting the brain? So, if they want to answer, you know, I want to do something that's good for my brain, but they don't know what that is. Well, so if they So, I went to my daughter's second grade class and I put 20 things on the board and I went 20 things that are good for your brain? Just just 20 things. 10 of them were good, 10 of them were bad. And I'm going to separate them for me. They got them all right except one thing. Marijuana? Orange juice. Really? Okay. They put it in the good category when in fact it's got way too much sugar. And whenever you unwrap sugar from its fiber source, it turns toxic in your body. And so um so is this good for my brain or bad for it or is it good for my child's brain or bad for it? And they come to you and they want to play football. Where does that fall? It falls in the bad category. Brain is soft, about the consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and it has sharp bony ridges. No, don't let them do that. And I had one billionaire. He goes, "But my son really wants to do it and I've hired this, you know, NFL coach." And and I'm like, "Oh, well, if he told you he really wanted to do cocaine would you go get him a dealer? Cuz it's the same freaking thing, right? Cuz I have scanned, you know, we have 150,000 scans on people from 120 countries and contact sports damage the brain about the same as cocaine. Whoa. I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad. So and we had talked before we started about tend to get myself in trouble and about 10 years ago we started the world's first and largest study on football players, on professional football players. And the level of damage is sad. But 80% of them get better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. So even if you've been bad to your brain, you can make it better and I can prove it. I've spoken to my audience about it before, but the thing that led me to you was massive anxiety that seemed to be getting worse by the day. And one of the things that helped me was crushing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts, and that becoming a pattern interrupt and stopping that. Walk people through some of the things that um aren't necessarily cuz we'll get into diet, but that aren't diet related that are really just um the way that they allow themselves to think, whether it's the brain getting stuck and looping around um repetitive negative things, whether it's negative thoughts that they never interrupt. Like, what are those things that really um cause people problems that they may not even be aware of? We have a brain health assessment online. People can go to brain health assessment.com and I'll go which of the 16 brain types do you have? So, let me take just a step back and then I'll answer that question. Whenever I see someone, so if you came to see me, um I'm always thinking about the four circles of your life. So, I'm thinking about your biology. So, with anxiety, my first thought is areas in your emotional brain just to work in too hard. And so, it's driving that anxiety. So, what's the biology, what's the psychology, which is how do you think, and the environment that you grew up in, um what's the social circle, um because if you're around a lot of irritated, angry, negative people, you're more likely to be anxious. And what's the spiritual circle? Um [snorts] why do you care? Why you're on the planet? What's your deepest sense of meaning and purpose? So, I'm always thinking bio-psycho-social-spiritual. And that way, I end up helping whole people, not just oh, you're anxious, take Xanax. Cuz that's the quick answer that if you go to Kaiser, for example, and I just hired a doctor from Kaiser and he saw 25 patients a day. So, the 25 patient a day answer is Xanax. It's Let me give you a benzo. And the problem with it is once you start it, it's insidious. It changes your brain to need it in order to feel normal. And so, I'm like, so how else can we quell your anxiety? So, there's some simple supplements like GABA or one of my favorites, magnesium, that can be really helpful. Um but the psychological one, there was one day I um was at work and I saw four suicidal patients. And that's hard for me. And then I saw two couples who hated each other and two teenagers who ran away from home. And so, at the end of the day I was worn out and I came home to an ant infestation in my house. And I'm cleaning up thousands of ants and I'm like, uh and then it just hit me, ant. Automatic negative thoughts. My patients are infested. And the next day I went to work with a can of ant spray. And I put it on my coffee table and I'm like, we need to help you get rid of these things that are infesting your mind. And they liked that. It was just something they could grab onto. So, here's the exercise. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, just want you to write down what you're thinking. And ask yourself if it's true. And I have um a process, so I don't know, if you want we could do it together. Pick a thought, any thought you want to share, and I'll teach you how to put a stake in it. Um this is never going to work. Okay. So, here are the five Is it true? It certainly could be true. Yeah. But, is it true? I can't say definitively. I don't know. Sure. Yeah. Cuz I am not a fan of positive thinking. I am not. Interesting. Positive thinking kills way too many people. I'm a fan of accurate thinking. too many people? What do you mean? So, they did a study at Stanford 1921 on 1,548 10-year-old children. And they followed them for 90 years looking at what goes with success, health, and longevity. And it wasn't the don't-worry kids. It wasn't the happy kids. In fact, the don't-worry, be-happy kids died the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. The kids who lived the longest were the conscientious kids. The kids who said they were going to show up at a certain time and they show up on time. The kids who got their homework done. The kids who were responsible, who actually had a bit of anxiety. Because anxiety prevents you from driving at 125 mph down the freeway in the rain. Right? You need some anxiety. Obviously, too much it makes people suffer. Um so, this isn't going to work out. Is it true? I don't know. The second question is, can you absolutely know with 100% certainty it's not going to work out? No. No. Third question. How do you feel when you believe the thought it's not going to work out? Bad. Anxious. Do you feel uncomfortable, impending doom, this sense that, you know, it's overwhelming, you don't want to look at it, you want to turn away, you want to go do things that are fun, that are just easy immediate gratification, um eating the marshmallow immediately. That's sort of all at a limbic level. It's just emotion. And then how do you treat other people when you believe the thought? If I were to give in to it, you're going to be grumpier, grouchier, shorter with people, or just sullen and quiet. Yeah. So, is it true? I don't know. Can I absolutely know that it's true? No. How do I feel when I believe the thought? Anxious. Worse. I mean, it's fuel line, the thing that makes you naturally upset. Fourth question is, who would you be or how would you feel if you didn't have the thought? If you couldn't have the thought. Certainly better, for sure. And I'm going to Now I'm going to start pushing you because one, I want this to be useful in my own life, and then two, I want people listening for it to really be useful. I find that there's a certain point where the anxiety kicks over into it feeling purely biological, and what I mean by that is I can't differentiate between being cold and being anxious. They're the same physical sensation. So, I'm like, am I just cold or is this an exacerbation of the anxiety? And so, one of the quotes that is just seems so true to me in my life, and this isn't how they meant it, but this is um you'll understand in a second why it's always ringing so true. The only thing to fear is fear itself. So, the only thing that I have to fear when it comes to public speaking is anxiety. It's like, if I didn't have to worry about the anxiety, I'm not worried about the performance or the outcome. I've done it so many times. And so, before I go on stage, I have to meditate to calm everything down, to slow my breathing, to get the blood back into the right areas of my brain. that situation, there's not negative thoughts that are driving you. Right. So, in the beginning, I had to learn to stop that loop from even starting by killing that initial thought, which is why that was so powerful for me. So, killing the ants is by it's a biological treatment, too, because when you believe these negative thoughts, it changes your physiology immediately. Um so, how would you feel if you didn't have the thought? Better, you said. So, the fifth question is my favorite question. It's you take the original thought, this will not work out, and you flip it to the opposite. To the exact opposite, not the narcissistic opposite, which is I will be the best ever. So, the opposite of it, this will work out. Do you have any evidence that that's true? If you're thinking about you know, whatever the situation and you won't work out. Historical performance, sure. Just like once in your life or more than once? Uh depending on what we're talking about, no, it could be years of success at something. Right. Somebody on my board just this morning, I'm dumb. And then, when we switched it to I'm not dumb, she had like 50 reasons why she wasn't dumb. Right? But if you don't challenge your thoughts, if you don't question your thoughts, you believe them 100% and then you act out of the belief. So, learning how to clean that up is really important, but sometimes there are remnants of anxiety that are not driven by the negative thoughts, and there diaphragmatic breathing is so important. So, if I was you, well, and I used to be you, cuz before I'd speak, I'd be very nervous, and I was on the speech team in college, but I couldn't hold paper in my hand cuz it would shake. It was like really irritating. And so, I became masterful at diaphragmatic breathing. And it's super simple. Um I put people in my office on the floor, put a book on their belly, and I teach them when you breathe in, make the book go up. When you breathe out, make it go down. The trick is big breath. Take twice as long to blow it out. So, it's like 3 or 4 seconds in, hold it just for a second, and then about 8 seconds out. And that triggers a parasympathetic response. So, you know the difference between the fight or flight response. You have a sympathetic response where we're really anxious, our hands get cold, so that's the cold connection. They start to sweat, our muscles get tense, our breathing becomes shallow and fast, which is inefficient for the brain, and you just you want to run away or you want to hit something. You want to trigger the opposite. It's called a parasympathetic response, and that breathing pattern will do it. Also, holding something warm will do it as well. And for for some people, they'll just put their hands under warm water. And if you could get in a sauna, that's great, or get in a hot tub. You can't do that before you speak, but So, what is like if somebody comes to you, I know you're going to say that you scan the brain, like it's a bit tough for everybody watching at home, but what are like the the basic protocols for some of the most typical things that you see? Is it Are you starting with diet? Are you starting with exercise? Like how do you get people to take the the sort of um edge off whatever they might be experiencing? Well, I I'm usually working always in those four circles. So, yes, I'll scan them cuz if I don't look, I don't know, but not everybody can do it. So, in Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, I think that's my book you read, One of, yeah. questionnaires that go, oh, well, you're more likely to have a limbic issue here or basal ganglia and anxiety issue with these symptoms, or prefrontal cortex issue, which is so common for us. Um And then I'll go, "Oh, well, if this is likely the issue, these are the supplements I would think about." And I tend to start with supplements. I mean, unless you're schizophrenic or you're brittle bipolar person, I generally start with supplements first. Um And so, at home, people can go to brainhealthassessment.com, find out which of the 16 types they have, and then we'll work on the biology. Along with biology, yes, you should exercise. Of course, you should. And there's certain kinds of exercise, especially coordination exercises. So, racket sports by far my favorite, very few head injuries, but they work your cerebellum. And the cerebellum, I think of it as the Rodney Dangerfield part of the brain. It gets no respect, even though it's 10% of the brain's volume, but has 50% of the brain's neurons. Can you imagine? Something that has half the brain's neurons actually gets very little coverage uh in the scientific media. what is the cerebellum doing? Is it um to do with coordination and Well, that's what they used to think. Yeah, coordination movement, but now we know 80% of it is dedicated to cognition and emotion. And Cognition in what way? Just like general processing or Processing speed. You want to talk about something near and dear to my heart. I would love to be able to process raw data faster, that's how I think of it. Um I'm assuming then that's cerebellum. Cerebellum. So, I start playing table tennis. That's step one. What else? What am I supplementing? What other activities am I doing? So, a racket sport. If your wife likes ballroom dancing, become good at it because it's a coordination exercise. And then you want to stimulate it. And there's certain supplements that I actually like, like theanine because it helps you feel relaxed, but it really also helps you focus. And this is over the counter? Mhm. Rhodiola, ashwagandha, ginseng. We actually make something we like called focus and energy and we find it stimulates your frontal lobes and your cerebellum at the same time. So. And then stop hurting it. Alcohol is directly toxic to the cerebellum. I mean, that's why they make you try to walk a straight line. You can't because your cerebellum's [clears throat] not working. It's being poisoned. So I hardly ever drink. What are some other things that people do on a day-to-day basis that could be totally just horrific for that? So if you're playing football or your kid is playing football, what they're doing is they're banging their frontal lobes and there's actually this really cool term I like. It's called crossed cerebellar diaschisis. It's like, "Whoa. What does that mean?" You hurt your left frontal lobe, it actually turns off your right cerebellum. And if you hurt your right frontal lobe, it turns off the left cerebellum. And if you're heading foot soccer balls, you're turning off both sides of your cerebellum. So we just have to do so much better at protecting the brain. Talk to me about diet's impact on that. What are some um main sort of ballpark things that you should be pulling out? You know, it's not hard. And again, if I put this these things on the board, people would get it. Sugar is pro-inflammatory. It increases erratic brain cell firing and it's addictive. So if you can get rid of or really limit sugar, that's really helpful for people. The more colorful, clean fruits and vegetables, the better. The The one misnomer people often have is, "Oh, I should go on a low-fat diet." The problem with that is 60% of the solid weight of your brain is fat, and low-fat diets can actually trigger depression. And so, I like healthy fat, fish, although um clean fish. Um and so, swordfish is out. I never would have that. It's just loaded with mercury. And I'm a huge fan of salmon, wild salmon. Um avocados, they're like God's butter, right? It's just a great brain food for you. Um you have to be calorie smart to because um 70% of us are overweight, 40% of us are obese. I published two studies that show as your weight goes up, the physical size and function of your brain goes down. Should scare the fat off anyone. When I read that, I ended up losing 30 lb. You know, I'd like tried for 30 years, and I just never really had the motivation until I went, "I'm not going to have a smaller brain. [laughter] I'm not going to do that." Um So, clean protein, healthy fat actually at every meal because it helps stabilize your blood sugar. One of the biggest things that will steal your mind is have a high fasting blood sugar level. Um it's actually been shown to be associated with brain atrophy, and it makes your blood vessels brittle and more likely to break. So, there's a term I like. I didn't coin it, but I like it called "diabesity." It's a combination of being overweight with high blood sugar. It's a disaster for brain function. And this is why people get addicted. It's carbohydrates, simple carbohydrates. So, if you ingest cupcake, your pancreas sees all the sugar and it sends out an insulin burst. Well, that insulin burst drives tryptophan, the amino acid precursor to serotonin, into your brain. So, when you eat bread or pasta or potatoes, your brain likes it cuz it feels happier. It feels more relaxed. Now, the problem is it kills you early. And so, you have to sort of take us. But, you know, the other thing that drives tryptophan into the brain is exercise. And so, in many of my athletes, they exercise intensely so they don't get depressed. Mhm. And when they get hurt, they get depressed because they can't get their antidepressant fix. And so, they'll go to sugar. And then that'll make them feel terrible about themselves. And so, know what's good for tryptophan to getting into your brain and know what's bad. So, before we started rolling, you said something so fascinating. And you said if I were basically an evil genius and I wanted to just absolutely destroy people's health, I would create what kind of lifestyle? So, let's just take this mnemonic I've created on how to keep your brain healthy. It's called bright minds. And so, if I was the evil ruler, the B in bright minds stands for blood flow. Is I would give all children social media and video games and encourage them to play as much as they could because that would drop blood flow to their brain. Brand new study, the more screen time, smaller the brain. That's a little horrifying. Well, one, they're not going outside, they're not getting exercise, they're not getting the sun. We have a massive deficiency of vitamin D in this country. And exercise increases something called BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor. It helps your brain grow. So, we're losing Miracle-Gro. Retirement and aging is the R in bright minds. If I was an evil ruler, I would let everybody retire at 55 and not have to and then I'd put them in front of the TV. They're and make them angry at, you know, whatever political fight is going on. Uh The I is inflammation, which comes basically from low omega-3 fatty acid levels, processed foods, gut problems. And so, I'd let go. Nobody gets fish in my kingdom. And we don't have fresh food. Um we basically have fast-food restaurants. Um the G is genetics. Um and I don't know what you have in your family. In mine, I have heart disease and obesity. Obesity in a big way in my family. Yeah. But as you we can see, genes are not a death sentence. They should be a wake-up call to do the right things to decrease your genetic vulnerability. So, if I was the evil ruler, I would go, "You have obesity in your family?" I'd do a public campaign. So, it's in your family, why worry about it? Live it up. You're going to die early, enjoy the path. As opposed to what I think is actually more rational, is you have this vulnerability, you need to be really serious about your health. H is head trauma. Um I'd encourage all kids to hit soccer balls with their head, to play tackle football, to ride horses. And people go, "Well, why are you down on horses?" It's like, well, what killed Superman? It was a horse. I can't tell you the number of patients I see who had serious addictions because they had fallen off of a horse and had no frontal lobe Wow. function. The T is toxins. So, if I was the evil ruler, I would get rid of all of the environmental protections so that we are filled with air pollution, water pollution. And I would never I would tell the manufacturers they don't have to put the ingredients on the labels. Not only for food, but also for personal products. And one of the things things like parabens and phthalates are hormone disruptors. And aluminum and we're putting them [clears throat] on our body. Whatever goes in your body goes on your body goes in your body becomes your body. Um I'd think of alcohol as a health food. We certainly had that craze. I would legalize um not only legalize marijuana, but it's like, let's not say it's good for us because all of my published research says it's bad. That Now, does that mean if someone's dying of cancer and it'll help their pain and help the nausea and help them eat? God bless them. Right? I mean, so let's be rational about it. I just saw someone who'd been smoking pot for 50 years and his brain was remarkably older than he was. Um the M is mental health. And um if I was the evil ruler, I'd create CNN and Fox News. And that it that ruins people's health because they always lead with negative. They increase anger and frustration and polarization. The more you're exposed to it, the angrier you get. And the more it separates you from other people. Um the eyes immunity and infections. I would belittle people who are testing patients for Lyme disease. My great stories are patients who have Lyme. One girl, she's 16. She became psychotic after a visit to Yosemite and she went to three psychiatric hospitalizations. None of the medications worked. She became a shell of herself. She came to our clinic. And I'm like, "So what happened at Yosemite?" And her mother said, "We were surrounded by six deer." And we thought it was a magical moment. She got bit by a deer tick. It caused Lyme that then caused her to lose her mind. And on an antibiotic, she got her mind back. Then there's your hormone deficiencies. And so letting kids hit things with their head actually drops their hormone levels. And so I'd test for that. Diabetes, I'd create the American food system. ISIS has nothing on our food industry. The real way And I'm not kidding when I say it. The weapons of mass destruction are highly processed, pesticide-sprayed, high-glycemic, low-fiber food-like substances stored in plastic containers. They're ruining our health. If I'm right, you know, and I'm not the only one who's published this. There's been, I think, 20 other scientists your weight goes up, the size of your brain goes down. It's like, "Oh my god, if 70% of us are overweight, it's the biggest brain drain in the history of the United States." In fact, it's a national security crisis because they're not letting as many Not as many people are eligible to sign up for military service because we just have an unhealthy population. And if I was an evil ruler, I would create screens that have blue lights cuz they disrupt sleep. Uh cuz the S in bright minds is sleep. So, there's so many things happening that I'm just It gives me [clears throat] pause about the society we're raising our babies and grandbabies in. Yeah, I was going to say a lot of what you're describing sounds like what we're encountering every day. So, if that's the way to really mess people up, then what is the lifestyle that is going to help us supercharge? So, you talked about sleep. Um where where should we be at? How much sleep are we talking about? Does time of day matter? Like um and not just sleep, what is the idealized lifestyle? So, if we just go back through those um bright minds risk factors. So, with blood flow, it's exercise. Simple supplements like ginkgo and vinpocetine boost blood flow to the brain. Simple foods like beets or cayenne pepper, rosemary. So, there dietary things you can do. They're lifestyle things. Exercise is so important. you've said that I thought was really interesting is um what happens in the heart happens to the brain happens to the genitals. Um and what's the stat on the number of 40 and 50 and 60-year-olds that have erectile dysfunction? It's insane. 40% of 40-year-olds. 70% of 70-year-olds. And if you have blood flow problems anywhere, it likely means they're everywhere. And it's one of the I don't want to say big benefits, that's bad. But it's one of the benefits of the program almost everybody's sex life gets better. Which I'm like a huge fan of. But this is you know, for years my antidepressants, not mine, but you know, like Prozac and Zoloft and Lexapro, they decrease sexual function. Which that makes me sad, right? It makes it harder for women to have an orgasm or harder um for men to perform, right? And I'm like, well, let me give you something that will enhance your performance because your mood will be better. And I'm always thinking what I do for you, how is that going to affect your partner? Cuz I never think of myself as your psychiatrist. I always think of myself as your family's psychiatrist cuz I see little kids and old people and everybody in between. So, exercise. So, for retirement and aging, I want you working in a job that you're passionate about, that you're purposeful with. And if you're not, and some people just aren't, it's well, what are you doing for new learning every day? What do you do for new learning every day? Is it all around the brain or do you have stuff outside of that? No, in fact, it shouldn't be. Like I know how to read brain scans. Just reading more scans doesn't really help my brain. It's pattern recognition. So, I play the piano, which I really like. Um, Simply Piano is my app for playing the piano, which is good, which is good for my cerebellum. And then I have a table tennis coach. You have a table tennis coach? I do. That's right. You played at the national level, didn't you? I did. But you want to get better. And the only way you get better is pay play people better than you. And so, so I do that. The I is take fish oil. And a probiotic. Because What do you think about keto? So, I being inflammation. So, um, keto's the only thing in my life that had a a drug-like effect when I tried it. I had suffered from inflammation for like 15 years. I was icing my wrist every night because they just hurt and just uh keep them in check, but I wasn't doing any fat in my diet. I basically lived in a state of rabbit starvation for two or three years. And then for the potential anti-cancer properties, I'd been hearing about ketogenics thanks to Peter Attia and Dom D'Agostino and I thought, all right, I'm going to give this a shot. I went hardcore 4:1. Uh, so for every combined gram of protein and carbohydrate, I was eating 4 g of fat. It was miserable. I hated it the most, but my wrist felt amazing. Um that was really transformative for me. What what are your thoughts on keto? Well, I'm a fan of it for neurodegenerative diseases and for seizures. In fact, I have a granddaughter who has a wicked seizure disorder and on a ketogenic diet she lost her seizures. It's actually one of my passion stories. Because when I suggested it, she's 5 months old, she's having 160 seizures a day, and on the diet she lost her seizures. But the reason I'm not a fan in general is there's not enough colorful plants. And plants have medicine. So, for your pain, it may have been dairy or it may have been gluten or it may have been corn or it may have been soy. Those things that tend to go away on a ketogenic diet, it could have been one of those things as well that was driving the inflammation cuz a lot of people would argue that meat can drive inflammation as well. And the first thing I do with almost all of my patients that aren't getting better is I put them on elimination diet. And I have to tell you the nutritionists in my clinics, they have more success stories than the psychiatrists. So, one story. I had a guy that was severely depressed. He had ECT, he'd been hospitalized, electric shock therapy. He had been hospitalized multiple times, he was suicidal. He said to me, he said, "You're my last hope." I get that a lot. That's a little bit stressful for me. And I'm like, "Nothing's worked. I want you to try an elimination diet." He's like, "Do I have to?" I'm like, "Really? Yes, you have to." And so, what does that mean? No gluten, no dairy, kill the sugar, no corn, no soy, no artificial dyes or preservatives. He's like, "That's my whole diet. But I'll do it. Three weeks later, he's dramatically better. But then I said, so let's see what it is. So we added back gluten. Nothing happened. We added back dairy. Nothing happened. We added back corn. He said within 20 minutes, he had a vision of a gun in his mouth pulling the trigger. I'm like, we have to break up with corn. And his depression has not come back. Well, that's crazy that Yeah, and I mean I should be used to that at this point. Like the number of people that have that kind of reaction to a specific type of food and how variable it is, meaning maybe corn for me is fine, but for him is absolutely catastrophic. Um and how much variability do you see? Um how do you cuz an elimination diet can be very confusing for people. How do you walk people through that? No, you just have to think of it really simply. It's these are foods I get to choose and these are the foods I should lose. And you just have to know the list and But like where do you start? Is there a ground zero? Like is it chicken breast and broccoli? Like what is your start here? Well, you see for me, the first rule is it has to be delicious Interesting. and nutritious. So I am fortunate that I'm married to a nurse who not only is beautiful, but she's really smart. And one of her best gifts is taking really healthy food and making it taste awesome. So there is no suffering. So you have to get that in their head and we're all creatures of routine. I mean, I'm so a creature of routine. So that means I really only have to find 20 foods I love that love me back. And I don't know in your relationship if you've ever been in love that was bad for you. If you've ever had a bad relationship. But I have. And I'm not doing it again. And I'm damn sure not doing it with food. So cuz I have control over that. Do I love this and does it love me back? I'm not going to be in love with something that hurts me. I did the Daniel Plan. Pastor Rick Warren called me up and said, "I'm fat. My church is fat. Will you help me?" We created a program uh for them, Mark Hyman and I did, and thousands of churches around the world have done it. It's awesome. But, one of the pastors' wives came into my office and she said, "I told my husband last night after you gave a lecture that I'd rather get Alzheimer's disease than give up sugar." Woah. I'm like, "Did you date the bad boys in high school?" Cuz that's a bad relationship. Wow. And later we found out she has a family history of Alzheimer's and she's given up sugar, but the insanity around food is is crazy. Dude, that that like actually makes me emotional. That's crazy. It's crazy, but so many they're attached to, you know, at the holidays, this is how my mother loved me. So, if I give this up, it's like giving up my mother and you really have to understand the attachments to the different foods they have, but then get them attached to new foods by showing them it could be both delicious and nutritious. watching or listening to a podcast that you did with somebody and they were asking you like final questions and they said, "What do you wish you were better at?" or something like that and you said um "The one thing I wish I could do was get more people to change." And I thought, "God, I so get that." Like I'm I totally agree with you. But, I imagine it meaning that you tell people, "Hey, this is what you need to do." Like even your own father for years like wouldn't listen and then obviously he finally has his breakthrough moment, but what have you learned in all of that to get to the point where you have maybe a better success rate than somebody else even though still far too many people would rather get Alzheimer's and can actually say it out loud, which is just beyond crazy to me. Um But where have you had successes with that? What are some takeaways that people watching this can try to implement? Cuz I I know it is true if even if it's only me, there are people watching this that either they need to change or maybe more importantly someone they love needs to change and they just don't know how to help them. Well, if you're going to help someone else, and my dad's story is a great story, you have to live the message. If you don't live the message, you suck as a messenger. And too many physicians don't live the message of health and then so therefore they're not good at changing behavior in their patients. And so they end up just one medicine after the other, which I think is bad medicine. Um So, the first thing is you have to live it. And then you have to find smart ways to get them interested. So, I start an exercise with all of my patients called the one page miracle. So, on one piece of paper, I want you to write out what you want. What do you want in your relationships? In your work, in your money, in your physical, emotional, and spiritual health. What do you want? Write it down. And then I want you to ask yourself, does your behavior get you what you want? Cuz I realize nobody does it because they should do it. Um but they're more likely to do it if it fits, if it's their goal. So, I want to live a long time because I love my mission. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love my grandkids. You have to understand. So, why do you want to be healthy? So, that really becomes primary. So, you live it, you get them into what their motivation is, and then you make it as simple as possible. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? Um, start every day with today is going to be a great day because then your unconscious mind will find why it's going to be a great day. Or end every day with well, what went well today? Just to begin to direct your mind. So I find I have to make it really simple. And I have this huge benefit I have pictures. You know, 30% of the brain is dedicated to vision. And so I can show you here's a healthy scan, here's your scan. I'm sort of hoping you'll get some anxiety over it, right? Ramp up your anxiety so you do better. That's what I've seen. I had this one guy from the valley came to see me and he was really his wife was concerned. He was really depressed. And his brain looked like he had Alzheimer's disease. And I'm like, how much do you drink? And he's like, I'm never drunk. I'm like, that's not the question. How much do you [laughter] drink? And he was like having three scotches a day. Whoa. And he was overweight and I added up the calories that he was drinking a year at three scotches a day. It was 30 pounds of fat he was putting on his body just from those calories. And but when he saw his scan, he got appropriately anxious, stopped drinking, started with the bright minds habits, and completely transformed his life in 6 months. Wow. That that is really pretty extraordinary. One thing um again, you keep throwing out these little nuggets that I find so interesting is starting the day putting your feet on the ground and saying this is going to be a great day. Like these um the the I call them soft things but they're so powerful. One thing you talked about that I absolutely love is I forget the exact phrase you used but basically to bathe in happiness, to just drink that in. One, why is it important? And then two, how do we actually do that? Well, in my new book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, which I'm really excited about, is there's an exercise in Feel Better Fast. It's about flooding all five of your senses at once with happiness. I mean, that's why you have senses. It brings the world in. Well, why not bring it in in a happy way rather than in a terrifying way? So, there are visual things like images of nature. Uh although on my phone, it's like here are my favorites. And I can just go to it and it makes me happy because it triggers happy memories for me. Um listening to sounds of nature, like the rain or the ocean or certain music. Like for me, it's Good Vibrations from The Beach Boys. Um what are the scents? What are the touches? What are the tastes, the smells that can trigger happiness? So, vanilla, of all things. Uh honeysuckle, jasmine have been found in scientific studies to trigger happiness. It's really interesting. And if I remember right, there's something about smell. It's the one sense that doesn't go through like a relay station in the brain. It's like processed directly. There's right to your limbic brain. And so, smells will trigger either intense happiness or sadness. Really interesting. All right. So, before I ask my last question, tell these guys where they can find you online. And then I have a modified question for you. Um amenclinics.com is a great place. Uh we also have brainmdhealth um for our supplements to take the brain health assessment brainhealthassessment.com. And they can find Feel Better Fast Amazon or Barnes & Noble, wherever books are sold. Nice. All right. My last question normally I ask people just what the one thing they can do that will have the biggest impact on their health. But for you, I I want the one thing in each of the four areas. I thought that was so interesting that you think when you're treating a patient of those four areas that really make up the whole human. So, in each of those four quadrants, what's the one change that they could make that would have the biggest impact on them? So, under biology, it's this tiny habit, 3 seconds. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? You just you need to know the list. But if you love yourself, you're going to do the right thing. Under the psychological circle, is it true? You should just carry those three words around everywhere you go, cuz the thoughts that just pop into your head, my wife doesn't listen to me, the traffic today is going to be terrible, you know, it's like, is that true? Um in the social circle, what have I done today to enhance my relationships? And I know, cuz relationships are the one thing that can make you immediately feel better or homicidal. And so, how can you enhance your relationships? And spiritually, what am I doing today that's purposeful? Because purposeful people live longer. They're happier. They actually have less risk of dementia. Amazing. Awesome. Daniel, thank you so much for joining me. That was really awesome. Guys, this is somebody who has had a massive impact on me. One of the earliest books that I ever read about the brain was making a good brain great, and realizing that we are not stuck with the brain that we have, that we can make change. And if you guys know me, you hear so much of my rhetoric about change from those books. And that was what really began to show me that there were concrete steps that I could take to improve things. I love his mnemonic devices. I think that they will be very effective for you. Um one that we touched on, but didn't go letter by letter, um is Brain Excel. That's one you're going to want to look up. You can find that on his website. It's absolutely extraordinary in terms of improving your ability to basically perform at a high level. So, going out, figuring out what the things are that are working against you, and then breaking down BrainXL, which is feeling better and making it stay that way. So, getting into his world, finding those things, applying them in your life, fixing your lifestyle so that it matches something that is good for your brain. I think it's fascinating that he said that you can give it to little kids and they can sort it out in terms of what's good for your brain and what's not. And yet, as adults, we're hearing crazy ass phrases like I would rather get Alzheimer's than give up sugar. And so, really coming to terms with what you want to achieve and then the steps you have to take to get there. And I don't think anybody does that as well as he does. So, as you dive into his world, that will be your reward. You'll be able to optimize your brain in a pretty profound way. So, check him out. He certainly changed my life. All right, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friend, be legendary. Take care. [applause] Thank you, sir. That was phenomenal. Thank you guys so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.