Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose...To Have A Beautiful Brain with Dr. Amen
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone,
- 0:09Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about
- 0:12Speaker 1: the choices we make and where they lead us. I
- 0:16Speaker 1: know this episode is going to be incredible because my
- 0:20Speaker 1: guest today is on a mission to end mental illness.
- 0:25Speaker 1: He is creating a revolution, you guys in brain health.
- 0:30Speaker 1: My guest today is a physician, an adult and child psychiatrist.
- 0:35Speaker 1: He's the founder of brain MD, and he hosts a
- 0:39Speaker 1: digital series called Scan My Brain that I Think I
- 0:43Speaker 1: was one of the first guests on. He's the author
- 0:46Speaker 1: of Change Your Brain every Day and is a twelve
- 0:50Speaker 1: time New York Times best selling author. He has worked
- 0:54Speaker 1: with high profile people like Miley Cyrus, the Kardashians, Justin Bieber, Belahadid,
- 1:00Speaker 1: and so many more. Please welcome my friend, doctor Amen
- 1:04Speaker 1: to the I Choose Me Podcast. Doctor Raman, Oh my gosh,
- 1:08Speaker 1: I've known you for so long. It feels like so long,
- 1:10Speaker 1: but it's not really that long, right.
- 1:12Speaker 2: No, well, I think it's the four years maybe four years?
- 1:18Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Let's bring the listeners into our relationship and like,
- 1:22Speaker 1: have we met? We met a few years ago when
- 1:25Speaker 1: I heard from my friend Adele. She had sent me
- 1:28Speaker 1: your Instagram profile and I was so enthralled by the
- 1:32Speaker 1: content that you were putting out. I felt like you
- 1:34Speaker 1: were speaking directly to me, and I knew I had
- 1:38Speaker 1: to meet with you. Do you remember when I came
- 1:40Speaker 1: into your office the first.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Time I did so, you did my show Scan My Brain.
- 1:45Speaker 2: You are actually the first person we have now done
- 1:49Speaker 2: like one hundred and fifty episodes.
- 1:51Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm so honored.
- 1:54Speaker 2: And you were the first one. We were talking about
- 1:57Speaker 2: your memory and beautiful brain. It just worked way too hard.
- 2:04Speaker 1: Yeah, when you told me I had a beautiful brain,
- 2:06Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that makes me feel good.
- 2:11Speaker 2: Absolutely, you've seen a few.
- 2:16Speaker 3: I was.
- 2:16Speaker 1: I remember I was kind of like in a dip,
- 2:18Speaker 1: you know, like a little a little bit of a depression.
- 2:21Speaker 1: I was really struggling with my memory and I was
- 2:25Speaker 1: getting more and more worried that I was developing like
- 2:28Speaker 1: early onset Alzheimer's or something. And I think that that
- 2:33Speaker 1: was Wait was that was that before the shutdown or
- 2:36Speaker 1: right after the shutdown? See see my memory still an issue.
- 2:41Speaker 2: It's was right after.
- 2:46Speaker 1: Right after right after? Well, my memory is a lot better.
- 2:51Speaker 1: If you're wondering and you have taught me and my
- 2:54Speaker 1: daughters so much, like you've taught the world so much
- 3:00Speaker 1: about brain health and how to perform better and be
- 3:05Speaker 1: better and think better so that we're healthier. All the
- 3:08Speaker 1: things that you've done. Gosh, you've got to be proud
- 3:10Speaker 1: of yourself.
- 3:11Speaker 2: I was excited every day to work with wonderful people
- 3:15Speaker 2: and help awesome people be just a little more awesome.
- 3:22Speaker 1: Yes, that's true. Why don't we start by talking about
- 3:27Speaker 1: high performance and the brain. You just got back from Paris, right,
- 3:31Speaker 1: you were there working with Olympic athletes who are pushing
- 3:35Speaker 1: their bodies to extremes. What kind of things do you
- 3:40Speaker 1: work on with someone like that on that level?
- 3:43Speaker 2: Well, so I was there on Alicia numan'st and Alisha
- 3:50Speaker 2: is a Canadian Olympic poll waulter, and she had a
- 3:56Speaker 2: bad concussion in April of twenty twenty one and developed
- 4:03Speaker 2: something called Arline syndrome, which is certain colors of light
- 4:09Speaker 2: disrupt the functioning in your brain. And she's depressed and
- 4:16Speaker 2: had a lot of what we call ants automatic negative thoughts.
- 4:22Speaker 2: And she actually told me she did my show as well.
- 4:26Speaker 2: She told me, if I don't get an Olympic gold medal.
- 4:29Speaker 2: I will be a failure and my children won't love me.
- 4:34Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, we have to talk about that, because
- 4:37Speaker 2: if you get an Olympic medal, you've just made your
- 4:40Speaker 2: children's lives harder, right, because it's hard to live up
- 4:45Speaker 2: to someone who is so accomplished. Anyways, I scanned her.
- 4:52Speaker 2: I could see the trouble in her brain. We worked
- 4:55Speaker 2: on it. She stopped drinking, because if you're an Olympic
- 5:01Speaker 2: pole vaulter, that's your sarahbellum back bottom part of the
- 5:04Speaker 2: brain that's involved in coordination, and alcohol is directly toxic
- 5:09Speaker 2: to your sarahbellum. So she stopped drinking. She stopped believing
- 5:13Speaker 2: everything she thought. She got rid of the idea of
- 5:19Speaker 2: always being in the future with fear, and we changed
- 5:23Speaker 2: it to every day I win or I learn. And
- 5:30Speaker 2: we also got rid of the idea of you have
- 5:31Speaker 2: to be the best. That's just such a toxic idea.
- 5:36Speaker 2: But you want to be your best, and so every
- 5:38Speaker 2: day we win or we learn. We get rid of
- 5:41Speaker 2: the idea of perfection, but we go for consistency and
- 5:46Speaker 2: being really good. And in twenty twenty three, she was
- 5:50Speaker 2: the world indoor pole vaulting champion and she got the
- 5:54Speaker 2: Bruns medal this year in Paris. It's emotional. It's so
- 6:01Speaker 2: fund for me to be there and to just watch
- 6:06Speaker 2: her perform at this incredibly high level. And one little
- 6:10Speaker 2: secret I told her because she would get really bothered
- 6:13Speaker 2: if she was around the other girls that were negative,
- 6:17Speaker 2: and that would like rub off on her, And I'm like, no,
- 6:20Speaker 2: that's your competitive advantage because when they're negative, well, that
- 6:26Speaker 2: turns off the cerebellum, it turns off the coordination part
- 6:30Speaker 2: of your brain. When they're negative, you're going to fly
- 6:35Speaker 2: higher than them that day, And there were only five
- 6:38Speaker 2: girls left at the end, and two of them were
- 6:42Speaker 2: negative and they didn't make the next bar. And it
- 6:46Speaker 2: was just so fun to sort of take the best
- 6:49Speaker 2: of my work and help her be just a little
- 6:53Speaker 2: bit better.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you said you're getting emotional about that.
- 6:57Speaker 1: I'm getting emotional about it. I don't even know her.
- 7:00Speaker 1: That's that's what a special position you were in to
- 7:06Speaker 1: be able to help her and then go there and
- 7:08Speaker 1: be on her team in such an intimate way and
- 7:12Speaker 1: such a part of her accomplishing that. Wow, that's really cool.
- 7:16Speaker 1: That's a good story. I mean, stress and anxiety. It
- 7:22Speaker 1: affects so many of us. Do you think there's really
- 7:25Speaker 1: anyone left out there who doesn't have those feelings?
- 7:28Speaker 2: Well, you want to hear something new I learned?
- 7:31Speaker 1: Yes, please?
- 7:32Speaker 2: Great? Freaking me out a little bit? Uh Aspertain, the
- 7:38Speaker 2: you know, Zerow, the diet coke, and diet pepsi and
- 7:44Speaker 2: over six thousand products. They did a study with mice
- 7:50Speaker 2: and they found when they gave the mass pertain, they
- 7:53Speaker 2: became very anxious, and their babies were anxious, and their
- 8:00Speaker 2: grand babies were anxious. So it had a generational negative fact.
- 8:09Speaker 2: And I think, you know, maybe I was twenty when
- 8:12Speaker 2: aspartain came onto the market and I thought it was free, right,
- 8:17Speaker 2: it's free, right, it's no calories.
- 8:20Speaker 1: Yeah, But it's not such free, yeah.
- 8:24Speaker 2: Because it changes some of the structures in your brain
- 8:29Speaker 2: to need it in order for you to feel okay.
- 8:33Speaker 2: But then you're more anxious. And in the study they
- 8:37Speaker 2: actually gave the mice valium to calm them down, and
- 8:42Speaker 2: that worked. But as you and I both know, valium
- 8:45Speaker 2: is addictive. Once you started, people don't stop it. It's
- 8:49Speaker 2: just a very bad thing. So could our societal anxiety
- 8:58Speaker 2: in part be to what we're eating or what we're drinking.
- 9:03Speaker 2: I mean, yes, there are obvious answers. The pandemic really
- 9:08Speaker 2: ramped up everything, the death tolls, the isolation, the fear,
- 9:13Speaker 2: and the virus itself. COVID activates your suffering pathway in
- 9:22Speaker 2: the brain. It was the most interesting thing when I
- 9:25Speaker 2: first started doing scans. So I saw you in December
- 9:28Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, so right after the pandemic started, and
- 9:33Speaker 2: I had scans. So I do a study for your listeners.
- 9:36Speaker 2: I do a study called spec that looks at blood
- 9:39Speaker 2: flow and activity, looks at how the brain works. And
- 9:43Speaker 2: I had all these scans that people before they got
- 9:47Speaker 2: COVID and then after they got COVID, and it was
- 9:51Speaker 2: like this inflammatory bomb went off in their brain, making
- 9:57Speaker 2: them more vulnerable things like anxiety and depression.
- 10:04Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, first of all, that's a bummer for those mice.
- 10:10Speaker 1: Second of all, it seems like the aspartain, not just
- 10:14Speaker 1: the valuum that they gave them, but the aspartain itself
- 10:17Speaker 1: is addictive, right right, Yeah, Okay, wait, rewind, what the
- 10:23Speaker 1: heck is a brain scan and why do people want
- 10:27Speaker 1: to get one?
- 10:28Speaker 2: Well, you know, the brain is like the only organ
- 10:31Speaker 2: people don't routinely screen right heart, You screen your calling,
- 10:37Speaker 2: you screen your cervix, you screen your brass, and the
- 10:42Speaker 2: most important work is your brain, right because it's your
- 10:47Speaker 2: brain that makes you who you are. And about thirty
- 10:53Speaker 2: three years ago I started looking at the brain with
- 10:56Speaker 2: this study called brain Spacked imaging spect stands for single
- 11:03Speaker 2: photon emission computed tomography that looks at blood flow and activity.
- 11:09Speaker 2: It looks at how your brain works, and it basically
- 11:13Speaker 2: shows us three things. Good activity, you had a lot,
- 11:18Speaker 2: too little that wasn't your problem, or too much and
- 11:22Speaker 2: that's what we saw in your emotional was working too hard.
- 11:26Speaker 2: And then I take the scan and I balance it
- 11:31Speaker 2: with lifestyle habits, with supplements, sometimes with medicine, and Jenny,
- 11:39Speaker 2: imagine with me. Last year, there were three hundred and
- 11:43Speaker 2: forty million prescriptions written for antidepressants in the United States.
- 11:48Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, go back, how many again? That's a
- 11:50Speaker 1: big number.
- 11:51Speaker 2: Three hundred and forty million million descriptions. Twenty five percent
- 11:58Speaker 2: of women in the United States are taking get an antidepressant.
- 12:01Speaker 2: That is not an okay number. Twenty five percent of
- 12:05Speaker 2: women do not have they're not born with a serotonin deficiency,
- 12:11Speaker 2: but all of these people who got these medications, no
- 12:14Speaker 2: one ever looked at their brain. So they're changing the
- 12:19Speaker 2: brain without any guidance on how to do it. And
- 12:26Speaker 2: so since I started looking at the brain, I learned,
- 12:30Speaker 2: like all these important things, mild traumatic brain injury is
- 12:34Speaker 2: a major cause of psychiatric problems and nobody knows it.
- 12:39Speaker 2: And remember you told me about the accident that you had.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I had. I'll tell our listeners. I had
- 12:46Speaker 1: an accident when I was in my early twenties. I
- 12:49Speaker 1: was run over by a jet ski in the Pacific Ocean.
- 12:52Speaker 1: The person that was driving the jet ski was Luperry,
- 12:55Speaker 1: and so we always got a good giggle out of that.
- 13:00Speaker 1: But I did totally pass out, black out whatever, go unconscious,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and I woke up and I was being asked all
- 13:07Speaker 1: these questions on the beach by the paramedics. So, yeah,
- 13:10Speaker 1: that was the only time I can really remember a
- 13:14Speaker 1: hit to the head, a traumatic brain injury or concussion
- 13:17Speaker 1: of any kind.
- 13:19Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was big. But you know, I didn't
- 13:21Speaker 2: really see that in your brain, which.
- 13:24Speaker 1: Meant, well, you saw a little, didn't Yeah, but.
- 13:27Speaker 2: It was little opposed to you know, can this explain
- 13:32Speaker 2: the problems with your memory, and so the brain can heal,
- 13:38Speaker 2: But so many of my patients it's the traumatic brain
- 13:44Speaker 2: injury that leads to the impulsivity that leads to the addiction,
- 13:48Speaker 2: that leads to the depression. And we can fix it,
- 13:54Speaker 2: but you can't fix something you don't know.
- 13:57Speaker 1: Is there bingo? I mean, yeah, you've told me before.
- 14:02Speaker 1: Like all my years dealing with my dad and his
- 14:05Speaker 1: heart disease, they would never have prescribed him medication for
- 14:09Speaker 1: his heart if they hadn't gone and done a sonogram
- 14:13Speaker 1: and looked at it from every angle to know what
- 14:16Speaker 1: the problem was. And then to think, all these years
- 14:21Speaker 1: myself and many many other people have been getting prescribed
- 14:25Speaker 1: medication for their brain and nobody's ever even looked at
- 14:29Speaker 1: it until you.
- 14:30Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit insane.
- 14:32Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. You talked about ants. I think
- 14:44Speaker 1: you were the first person that taught me about ants,
- 14:48Speaker 1: and you tell them what ants is, what ants are.
- 14:51Speaker 2: So goodness, it was over thirty years ago. I'm in
- 14:54Speaker 2: my office and it was a bad day. Not a
- 14:58Speaker 2: bad day. It was a hard day. Four suicidal patients,
- 15:02Speaker 2: two teenagers who'd run away from home, and two couples
- 15:07Speaker 2: who hated each other at the end of the day,
- 15:10Speaker 2: I walk I go home and I walk into the
- 15:13Speaker 2: kitchen and it's got an ant infestation in the kitchen
- 15:19Speaker 2: and I'm cleaning up what feels like thousands of ants.
- 15:23Speaker 2: And as I'm doing it, and the ants start like
- 15:26Speaker 2: crawling out my arm and I'm like, automatic negative thoughts, ants.
- 15:33Speaker 2: My patients are infested with ants. And so I finished
- 15:38Speaker 2: it cleaning up. And then the next day I brought
- 15:40Speaker 2: a can of ant spray to work and I start
- 15:45Speaker 2: talking about it. I'm like, it's like, you have this
- 15:47Speaker 2: investation of ants in your mind and I have to
- 15:51Speaker 2: teach you to get rid of them. And then I
- 15:54Speaker 2: realize ant spray is probably too toxic. And that weekend
- 15:58Speaker 2: I went to Peer thirty nine and San Francisco and
- 16:01Speaker 2: they have a puppet store there that's really awesome, and
- 16:04Speaker 2: I got an ant puppet and then later an ant
- 16:08Speaker 2: eater puppet. And because I also see kids, so I'm
- 16:12Speaker 2: always thinking about, you know, analogies that they'll understand. And
- 16:17Speaker 2: actually have a book called Captain Snout and the Superpower
- 16:20Speaker 2: Questions where we teach kids to kill the ants that
- 16:24Speaker 2: just pop up in their head. And I was twenty
- 16:29Speaker 2: eight years old in my psychiatric residency when I heard
- 16:33Speaker 2: a professor say, you have to teach your patients not
- 16:36Speaker 2: to believe every stupid thing they think. And that was
- 16:41Speaker 2: such a revelation because I believed every stupid thing I thought.
- 16:46Speaker 2: And I'm like, what you know. Thoughts come from all
- 16:51Speaker 2: sorts of places. They come from your genes. Sometimes, you know,
- 16:58Speaker 2: trauma's written in your genetic based on what happened to
- 17:01Speaker 2: your mom or dad. Sometimes they come from the voices
- 17:05Speaker 2: of your mom or dad. From I grew up in
- 17:08Speaker 2: a Catholic church, I had lots of guilt voices. Sometimes
- 17:12Speaker 2: your siblings or friends or foes, you know, those of
- 17:16Speaker 2: you who've been blessed and cursed to be in the
- 17:19Speaker 2: public eye from the crazy journalists for clickbait. Lots come
- 17:26Speaker 2: from all sorts of places, And just because you have
- 17:30Speaker 2: a thought has nothing to do with whether or not
- 17:33Speaker 2: it's true, whether or not it's helpful, and whether or
- 17:38Speaker 2: not you should attach to it, Because it's not the
- 17:40Speaker 2: thoughts you have that make you suffer. It's the thoughts
- 17:43Speaker 2: you attached to that make you suffer. And so the
- 17:47Speaker 2: exercise is, whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out
- 17:54Speaker 2: of control, just write down what you're thinking, and then
- 17:59Speaker 2: ask yourself whether or not it's true, whether or not
- 18:02Speaker 2: it's helpful, whether or not it's going to get you
- 18:05Speaker 2: what you want in life, or if it's toxic and
- 18:08Speaker 2: it needs to go. And it's a discipline, right, I
- 18:14Speaker 2: believe people have to do the process like a hundred
- 18:20Speaker 2: times to just retrain your brain. So Alicia's thought that
- 18:27Speaker 2: we started with is I will be a failure if
- 18:30Speaker 2: I don't get a gold medal and my children won't
- 18:33Speaker 2: love me. Well, that's clearly distorted, not helpful thinking. We
- 18:40Speaker 2: killed at least a hundred of her aunts, and so
- 18:44Speaker 2: when she's at the most stressful time, she does her
- 18:48Speaker 2: personal best because on the runway on the track, she
- 18:56Speaker 2: imagined white lines and they will hot colds, and they
- 19:03Speaker 2: were to prevent the ants from jumping over into her lane.
- 19:08Speaker 2: And it's like, no, I don't have to believe that
- 19:11Speaker 2: today I win or I learn.
- 19:15Speaker 1: I think everybody has ants. Right. I love when you
- 19:21Speaker 1: taught me that a thought leads to a feeling, leads.
- 19:24Speaker 2: To an action and then the outcome.
- 19:30Speaker 1: That's so incredible to just break that down because it's
- 19:34Speaker 1: so simple to understand, just because you have a feeling.
- 19:38Speaker 1: What you said doesn't make it true. And I literally
- 19:41Speaker 1: just had I was having a little moment with my
- 19:44Speaker 1: husband last night, literally was like, that is a feeling
- 19:48Speaker 1: you're having and it's not doesn't make it true. So
- 19:52Speaker 1: I was quoting you in my argument last night.
- 19:55Speaker 3: We're good ants if you have ants and your husband
- 20:00Speaker 3: has hands and the ants mate, Oh God, create super ants.
- 20:07Speaker 1: I have three super ants living in my house.
- 20:11Speaker 2: And so you know, with my wife, I'm always really
- 20:17Speaker 2: clear with what I want. I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive,
- 20:21Speaker 2: passionate relationship. I want that all the time. But I
- 20:26Speaker 2: don't feel like that all the time. Right. I have
- 20:29Speaker 2: rude thoughts that just show.
- 20:31Speaker 1: Up what you mean, You're human.
- 20:36Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I don't say them because it doesn't get
- 20:43Speaker 2: me what I want. And I find I spend a
- 20:46Speaker 2: lot of time with my patients going, Okay, what do
- 20:50Speaker 2: you want? Remember, I think we did the exercise, the
- 20:53Speaker 2: one page miracle on what piece of paper write down
- 20:56Speaker 2: what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health?
- 21:04Speaker 2: What do you want? So you have to actually tell
- 21:08Speaker 2: your brain what you want, and then the question is
- 21:15Speaker 2: does it fit If I say this, will give me
- 21:20Speaker 2: a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship or not. And
- 21:28Speaker 2: I remember once we were fussing over a piece of
- 21:32Speaker 2: property we were thinking of mining, and I heard the
- 21:37Speaker 2: criticism come up in my head, and I'm like, that
- 21:40Speaker 2: is not going to get you what you want. And
- 21:44Speaker 2: I collect penguins. When you were in my office, you
- 21:47Speaker 2: probably saw I have penguins. And the penguins are about
- 21:52Speaker 2: noticing what you like about other people, way more than
- 21:56Speaker 2: what you don't. Because every day we're training each other
- 22:02Speaker 2: by what we notice about each other. And so I've
- 22:06Speaker 2: lived with this concept, notice what you like more than
- 22:09Speaker 2: what you don't. And so in the fuss, I'm like,
- 22:13Speaker 2: how can you turn this around? And I'm like, you're
- 22:18Speaker 2: really good with real estate. So rather than the criticism
- 22:24Speaker 2: that had popped up in my head, I flipped it
- 22:29Speaker 2: and then just sort of let it go a little bit.
- 22:32Speaker 2: And then she went, oh, this is probably not a
- 22:35Speaker 2: good decision. So yes, you flip the thought. I flipped
- 22:40Speaker 2: the thought right, rather than criticize her, notice what I
- 22:45Speaker 2: like about her? Right, Because every day you're training. We
- 22:49Speaker 2: teach people how to treat us by what we tolerate,
- 22:55Speaker 2: but we also teach them how to treat us by
- 22:58Speaker 2: what we notice about them. So I have this great story.
- 23:01Speaker 2: So I have this patient I saw, and she was fourteen.
- 23:07Speaker 2: When I first saw, she had tried to kill herself.
- 23:10Speaker 2: And this is two years later. She's doing great. And
- 23:16Speaker 2: then she shipped conflicts with her mother. She came in
- 23:19Speaker 2: one day and she's very angry and she said, I'm
- 23:22Speaker 2: gonna run away from home and you can't stop me.
- 23:25Speaker 2: And she went on and on. And then she looked
- 23:28Speaker 2: around my office and noticed I collect penguins. And she's like,
- 23:32Speaker 2: and Doctor Eymond White is a grown man collect penguins.
- 23:36Speaker 2: I laughed. I said, you've been seeing me for two years,
- 23:39Speaker 2: you're just noticing them. And then I told her this story.
- 23:44Speaker 2: When my son was seven, So this is forty years ago.
- 23:47Speaker 2: My son was seven. He was really hard for me.
- 23:50Speaker 2: And I was doing my child's skyatry training and I said,
- 23:54Speaker 2: I went to my supervisor and I said, he's really
- 23:56Speaker 2: hard for me. Help me. He said, you need to
- 23:58Speaker 2: spend more a long time with you. So I took him.
- 24:01Speaker 2: I was doing my training in Hawaii to a place
- 24:04Speaker 2: called Sea Life Park on O Wahoo and they have
- 24:07Speaker 2: sea animal shows. And I went to the whale show
- 24:09Speaker 2: and the dolphin show and the sea lion show, and
- 24:11Speaker 2: I was all great. And at the end of the
- 24:14Speaker 2: day he goes, I want to see fat Freddy and
- 24:17Speaker 2: I'm like, who's that. It's like the penguin, Dad, don't
- 24:20Speaker 2: you know anything that was of our relationships. But this
- 24:24Speaker 2: little penguin was so cool. He was a humble penguin
- 24:29Speaker 2: and he was chubby. Why it was called that Freddy.
- 24:32Speaker 2: And he comes on the stage, climbs a high diving board,
- 24:37Speaker 2: goes to the end of the board, bounces, jumps in
- 24:40Speaker 2: the water like the whoa. Then he bowls with his nose,
- 24:44Speaker 2: counts with his flipper, jumps through a fire and I'm like,
- 24:48Speaker 2: this is cool. And at the end of the show,
- 24:51Speaker 2: the trainer asked Freddy to go get something. Freddy went
- 24:53Speaker 2: and got it and he brought it right back, and
- 24:56Speaker 2: in my mind, I went, damn, I asked this kid
- 25:00Speaker 2: get something for me, and he wants to have a
- 25:02Speaker 2: discussion for like thirty minutes and then he doesn't want
- 25:05Speaker 2: to do it. And I knew my son was smarter
- 25:08Speaker 2: than the penguin. So I went up to the trainer
- 25:10Speaker 2: afterwards and I'm like, how did you get Freddy to
- 25:12Speaker 2: do all these really cool things. And she looked at
- 25:15Speaker 2: my son, and then she looked at me, and she said,
- 25:17Speaker 2: unlike parents, whenever Freddy does anything like what I want
- 25:20Speaker 2: him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug,
- 25:25Speaker 2: and I give him a fish. And the light went
- 25:28Speaker 2: on in my head that when he did what I
- 25:30Speaker 2: wanted him to do, I wasn't paying any attention because
- 25:33Speaker 2: I was busy, But when he didn't do it I
- 25:36Speaker 2: wanted him to do, I gave him a lot of
- 25:37Speaker 2: attention because I didn't want to raise bad children. So
- 25:40Speaker 2: it's inadvertently teaching him to be troubled. And so I'm
- 25:46Speaker 2: telling my patient this and then I get this really
- 25:50Speaker 2: crazy idea, and she tended to be oppositional, and so
- 25:54Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, I have this really crazy idea.
- 25:58Speaker 2: You probably don't want to hear it. And so if
- 26:01Speaker 2: they're a little opposition of like, no, I have to
- 26:03Speaker 2: hear it now. And I'm like, well, what if we
- 26:07Speaker 2: shaped the behavior of your mother? And she goes I'm listening.
- 26:13Speaker 2: I said, what if whenever she's rude to you or
- 26:18Speaker 2: inappropriate to you, you don't overreact, you don't yell, scream,
- 26:23Speaker 2: stomp out and her eyes got really big, and I said,
- 26:28Speaker 2: but what if she is appropriate with her? You put
- 26:33Speaker 2: your arms around her and you tell her you love
- 26:35Speaker 2: her metaphorically, you give her a fish and she goes,
- 26:40Speaker 2: let's try it. And she texted me that night, I'm
- 26:44Speaker 2: not going to run away. Don't worry about me. And
- 26:47Speaker 2: two weeks later when I saw her, she said they
- 26:49Speaker 2: had the best two weeks and she brought me a
- 26:51Speaker 2: penguin for my collection. And so, you know, with your husband,
- 26:58Speaker 2: or my wife or the people who work with us,
- 27:04Speaker 2: can we be better at noticing what we like more
- 27:10Speaker 2: than what we do?
- 27:12Speaker 1: Yeah, that really works. It's hard to remember to do
- 27:17Speaker 1: it in the heat of the moment, but if you
- 27:20Speaker 1: keep practicing at it, if you keep reminding yourself about it,
- 27:24Speaker 1: then it starts to become habitual and easier to access
- 27:29Speaker 1: in those moments of you know, a fight or an
- 27:32Speaker 1: argument or disagreement or whatever it is.
- 27:35Speaker 2: Yeah, the more you do it, it's building the pathway
- 27:38Speaker 2: in your brain. And so I didn't get a lot
- 27:41Speaker 2: of that grown up, which is why collect penguins, because
- 27:45Speaker 2: I have to constantly be reminded, notice what you like
- 27:50Speaker 2: more than what you don't, and actually they am. In clinics,
- 27:54Speaker 2: we have the no asshole rule. I don't get to
- 27:56Speaker 2: be an asshole, and neither do you, because kindness goes
- 28:02Speaker 2: with elevated service and it goes with better outcomes.
- 28:14Speaker 1: I don't know this for sure, but brain scans aren't
- 28:19Speaker 1: customarily covered by insurance. Is that right?
- 28:23Speaker 2: No, because it's not part of yet the standard of care.
- 28:30Speaker 2: So most doctors will make diagnoses based on symptom clusters
- 28:37Speaker 2: with no biological data. And who wins in that scenario?
- 28:43Speaker 2: Insurance companies because they're not paying for any high technology
- 28:47Speaker 2: pharmaceutical industry is clearly winning, and doctors don't have to
- 28:53Speaker 2: do anything different. That's clearly of the future.
- 28:59Speaker 1: And you said, yeah, right, so and is that going
- 29:02Speaker 1: to change anytime soon? Do you think?
- 29:05Speaker 2: I don't know. The Canadian Society for Nuclear Medicine just
- 29:09Speaker 2: came out with procedure guidelines firstpect as if I wrote them,
- 29:14Speaker 2: and I think it is covered in Canada, so it will.
- 29:18Speaker 1: Change, I hope, So I hope. So are there exercises
- 29:23Speaker 1: or specific things that our listeners and myself can do
- 29:27Speaker 1: to keep our brains healthy and sharp and ant free ish?
- 29:32Speaker 2: So brain health is three things brain envy. You want
- 29:40Speaker 2: to care about your brain. So nineteen ninety one I
- 29:43Speaker 2: scanned my mom, actually just saw her a little while ago.
- 29:47Speaker 2: She's ninety two. At sixty, she had a stunningly beautiful brain.
- 29:53Speaker 2: And then I scanned myself and it wasn't awesome because
- 29:56Speaker 2: I played football in high school and didn't sleep, and
- 30:00Speaker 2: it was overweight and just had bad habits. And I
- 30:05Speaker 2: was very upset that my sixty year old mother had
- 30:09Speaker 2: a better looking brain than I did at thirty seven.
- 30:13Speaker 2: And so I developed this concept called brain envy. I
- 30:16Speaker 2: wanted a healthy brain like hers. And then I went, oh,
- 30:20Speaker 2: Freud is wrong. Penis envy is not the clause of
- 30:24Speaker 2: anybody's problem. What we need people to do, need to
- 30:27Speaker 2: teach people to do, is have brain envy. And so
- 30:30Speaker 2: that's number one. You got to love your brain. Right.
- 30:34Speaker 2: I lived in Newport Beach, where we have more plastic
- 30:36Speaker 2: surgeons and almost anywhere in the world, and I'm like,
- 30:40Speaker 2: we care more about our faces, our boobs, our bellies,
- 30:43Speaker 2: and our butts than we do our brain. That's insane.
- 30:47Speaker 2: So the first step love the three pounds between your ears.
- 30:54Speaker 2: And that should be especially true for you because you
- 30:57Speaker 2: have a beautiful brain, so you just never want to
- 31:00Speaker 2: lose the healthy blood flowed to your brain. The second
- 31:07Speaker 2: thing is avoid things that hurts your brain. And so
- 31:11Speaker 2: you just have to know the list, and you know,
- 31:15Speaker 2: quite frankly, most seven year olds know the list. I
- 31:17Speaker 2: went to my daughter's second grade class and I went
- 31:21Speaker 2: and I went to the board and I drew twenty
- 31:23Speaker 2: things on the board, playing football, playing soccer, drinking orange juice,
- 31:29Speaker 2: going to bed early, taking your vitamins, staying up late
- 31:33Speaker 2: with your iPad. And I said, I want you to
- 31:37Speaker 2: just divide these into good for your brain and bad
- 31:40Speaker 2: for your brain. And out of the twenty things, they
- 31:43Speaker 2: got nineteen right. The only thing they missed was orange juice,
- 31:48Speaker 2: which they put in the good category when it really
- 31:52Speaker 2: belongs in the bad category because it's too much concentrated sugar.
- 31:58Speaker 2: And but you know some things that would surprise people.
- 32:04Speaker 2: If you have gum disease, you have brain disease. You
- 32:07Speaker 2: got to be a flossing fool. It's a flossing fool.
- 32:12Speaker 2: You want to take really good care of your teeth.
- 32:17Speaker 2: If you have a dysfunction, you probably have brain dysfunction.
- 32:21Speaker 2: Because if you have any blood flow problems anywhere likely
- 32:25Speaker 2: means they're everywhere. If you retire and you're not engaged
- 32:33Speaker 2: in new work or new passion, that's really bad for
- 32:37Speaker 2: your brain. So new learning is especially helpful, and you
- 32:43Speaker 2: doing the podcast, you're always learning something new and you're
- 32:47Speaker 2: a very curious person anyways, that's really good for your
- 32:51Speaker 2: brain process. Food terrible for your brain. Having an unhealthy
- 32:56Speaker 2: gut is bad for your brain. Having low levels of
- 33:01Speaker 2: Omega three fatty acids. So wild salmon taking fish oil
- 33:08Speaker 2: just essential for brain. Help texting while you dry. If
- 33:13Speaker 2: your brain is you are more likely to get a concussion.
- 33:17Speaker 2: And alcohol is just not a healthful it's not. The
- 33:22Speaker 2: American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol three years
- 33:26Speaker 2: ago because any alcohols associated with an increased risk of
- 33:30Speaker 2: seven different cancers. Marijuana is not innocuous, and people using
- 33:39Speaker 2: psilocybin like crazy now, and I'm very.
- 33:43Speaker 1: Concerned psilocybum like microdosing with mushrooms, right.
- 33:47Speaker 2: I'm very concerned about that because everybody thinks it's safe,
- 33:54Speaker 2: even though it's still illegal in forty nine states. There's
- 33:59Speaker 2: very little research on it. So the total number of
- 34:03Speaker 2: research studies involves less than a thousand people, Wow, it's
- 34:08Speaker 2: going to go the way I predict that benzos are
- 34:11Speaker 2: going to go, or opiates or alcohol or marijuana. You know,
- 34:16Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen this party before and it's like, oh,
- 34:21Speaker 2: it's innocuous.
- 34:22Speaker 1: Oh, but it grows in the ground. It can't be
- 34:25Speaker 1: bad for you, right, that's what people say.
- 34:29Speaker 2: But cyanide grows in the ground and it's clearly bad.
- 34:34Speaker 1: Good point.
- 34:36Speaker 2: And the first story of alcohol in the Bible is no,
- 34:39Speaker 2: it gets drunk after the flood and sort of makes
- 34:42Speaker 2: an ass out of himself, and then it causes this
- 34:46Speaker 2: generational family rift with the people. You know it naked son.
- 34:56Speaker 2: But it's like, how can I have any fun? And
- 35:00Speaker 2: we play We have a high school course called brain
- 35:02Speaker 2: Thrive by twenty five, and when we teach kids this
- 35:07Speaker 2: topic of what to avoid, invariably a boy it's never
- 35:11Speaker 2: a girl will raise his hand and go, how can
- 35:13Speaker 2: you have any fun? And so we play a game
- 35:16Speaker 2: with them called who has more fun? The kid with
- 35:20Speaker 2: the good brain or the kid with the bad brain?
- 35:22Speaker 2: Who gets the girl and gets to keep her because
- 35:24Speaker 2: he doesn't act like an idiot? Who gets the college
- 35:27Speaker 2: they want to get into. Who has the best jobs?
- 35:32Speaker 2: You know, becomes the best parents, the person with the
- 35:35Speaker 2: good brain or the person with the bad brain. And
- 35:38Speaker 2: I think that helps people sort of got it, So
- 35:42Speaker 2: avoid things that hurt it and then do things that
- 35:47Speaker 2: help it, like exercise. Low blood flow is the number
- 35:53Speaker 2: one brain imaging predictor of alzheimer. And so I walk
- 35:57Speaker 2: like a late for forty five minutes. It's four or
- 36:01Speaker 2: five times a week. I think that's so important. Coordination
- 36:05Speaker 2: exercises like tennis because it works out that cerehbellum part
- 36:11Speaker 2: of the brain we talked about before. Multiple vitamin vish oil,
- 36:16Speaker 2: optimize your vitamin D level, engage in new learning, and
- 36:22Speaker 2: know your risk. So I have the risk of heart
- 36:26Speaker 2: disease and obesity, and I don't have heart disease and
- 36:31Speaker 2: I'm not overweight. Why because every day of my life
- 36:35Speaker 2: I'm on an obesity heart disease prevention program. I adopted
- 36:40Speaker 2: by two nieces because their parents were drug addicts and
- 36:44Speaker 2: it was terrible for them, and so I've encouraged them
- 36:48Speaker 2: to be on an addiction prevention program every day their
- 36:54Speaker 2: lives and go to bed half an hourly. If you
- 36:59Speaker 2: want to better, remember tomorrow, and go to bed early tonight.
- 37:01Speaker 2: Without your gadgets, and don't be overrated. I published three
- 37:06Speaker 2: studies that show as your weight goes up, the size
- 37:10Speaker 2: and function of the brain goes down. And don't be skinny.
- 37:14Speaker 2: That's not good for your brain. But with seventy four
- 37:18Speaker 2: percent of the population overweight, this is it's just going
- 37:22Speaker 2: to cause huge long term cost to this country and
- 37:26Speaker 2: paint and suffering.
- 37:28Speaker 1: I read last night, actually a horrifying article and it
- 37:32Speaker 1: said there was an increase in microplastics infiltrating our brains.
- 37:36Speaker 1: Have you been seeing this these signs in your studies.
- 37:40Speaker 2: I have, and it's horrifying. And if you get in
- 37:44Speaker 2: Coca Cola's website because you always want to buy things
- 37:48Speaker 2: that do not have this phenol a in it.
- 37:52Speaker 1: Wait, leta go back. What's that word, this.
- 37:55Speaker 2: Phenol a or BPA's it's gas BPAs. It's what they
- 38:04Speaker 2: put in hands and plastics to make them harder, and
- 38:11Speaker 2: they're in every Coca Cola product, and Coca Cola is
- 38:14Speaker 2: proud of it, even though it's associated with autism, it's
- 38:19Speaker 2: associated with ADHD, it's associated with cancer. We need to
- 38:25Speaker 2: be much more thoughtful. When we know better, we have
- 38:31Speaker 2: to do better.
- 38:33Speaker 1: Why would Coca Cola be proud of.
- 38:35Speaker 2: That because they're like, oh, there's not enough science, and
- 38:40Speaker 2: we are even though there is. So you know why
- 38:44Speaker 2: they would put that on their website is I think
- 38:47Speaker 2: of them as evil. And in my book The End
- 38:53Speaker 2: of Mental Illness, I wrote a whole section on if
- 38:57Speaker 2: I was an evil ruler and I I wanted to
- 39:00Speaker 2: create mental illness in our society, what would I do?
- 39:05Speaker 2: And that's an evil ruler strategy. I'd put a known
- 39:08Speaker 2: neurotoxin and then I'd brag about it, because if I
- 39:13Speaker 2: brag about it, then it makes you know. Coca Cola
- 39:16Speaker 2: has some level of authority even though it sells diabetes
- 39:20Speaker 2: water and it's like, oh, well, I trust it, sort
- 39:25Speaker 2: of like we like trust McDonald's and I'm like, no,
- 39:30Speaker 2: probably a bad idea.
- 39:32Speaker 1: Yeah. One study showed that we could be consuming a
- 39:36Speaker 1: credit card size of plastics in a week.
- 39:41Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really terrible. And so you have to ask yourself, Jenny,
- 39:45Speaker 2: why in nineteen ninety one was autism at one in
- 39:50Speaker 2: ten thousand children, and now here in California it's one
- 39:56Speaker 2: in twenty two boys, and it's one in thirty five
- 40:00Speaker 2: kids nationwide. It's like if I was going to have
- 40:04Speaker 2: babies today, I would be afraid that.
- 40:08Speaker 1: I'm more discouraging doctor Emon.
- 40:11Speaker 2: Well, the encouraging news is you're not stuck with the
- 40:16Speaker 2: brain you have. You can make it better. You just
- 40:18Speaker 2: have to be thoughtful. And Tan and I, my wife
- 40:25Speaker 2: and I did almost a thousand Brain Warriors Way podcasts.
- 40:29Speaker 2: And the reason we called it the Brain Warriors Way
- 40:32Speaker 2: is you're in a war for the health of your brain.
- 40:35Speaker 2: Everywhere you go someone's trying to give you bad food
- 40:38Speaker 2: that will kill you hurly. Or every time you turn
- 40:42Speaker 2: on the news it's the same stuff, but it's negative,
- 40:45Speaker 2: negative terror or political divide. It's like, just turn it off,
- 40:51Speaker 2: you know, if you have to limit it to no
- 40:54Speaker 2: more than ten minutes a day and read a neutral site.
- 41:00Speaker 2: And now we have addictive gadgets that are stealing our attention.
- 41:04Speaker 2: As device youse went up, the incidents of add went
- 41:09Speaker 2: up as well. We just have to be thoughtful, careful
- 41:17Speaker 2: on what we do, and I'm always hopeful we'll figure
- 41:21Speaker 2: it out, but we need to be serious.
- 41:26Speaker 1: And we need to be warriors.
- 41:30Speaker 2: Say the truth, and the truth is we can do
- 41:33Speaker 2: way better.
- 41:34Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about technology, especially like
- 41:37Speaker 1: social media, and the world just seems to be getting
- 41:40Speaker 1: quicker and quicker and faster and faster. That's got to
- 41:43Speaker 1: be affecting our brains and our attention spans. I mean,
- 41:48Speaker 1: it's something we all probably know but conveniently forget. How
- 41:52Speaker 1: important is it to put our phones down before we
- 41:55Speaker 1: go to bed?
- 41:56Speaker 2: Well, so, what does social media do and what devices
- 42:00Speaker 2: do they give? You? Just this little bit of dopamine
- 42:04Speaker 2: over and over and over and over again. And dopamine
- 42:09Speaker 2: is the neurotransmitter that helps you feel good, It helps
- 42:13Speaker 2: you feel motivated, it helps you focus, it gives you pleasure,
- 42:18Speaker 2: brings you joy when you dump dopamine. So, and I
- 42:26Speaker 2: think you and I talked about this. I mean, it's
- 42:28Speaker 2: really one of the problems with being famous early. It
- 42:32Speaker 2: just wears out the dopamine centers in your brain and
- 42:36Speaker 2: it leaves a lot of young people vulnerable to addiction
- 42:42Speaker 2: because they feel bad. Right, all these good things are happening,
- 42:46Speaker 2: but internally they feel bad because their brain has been
- 42:52Speaker 2: overflooded with dopamine. Well, devices, it's like you're dumping dopamine
- 43:00Speaker 2: all day long.
- 43:01Speaker 1: But how am I getting dopamine when I'm seeing something?
- 43:07Speaker 1: And it makes me compare myself or it doesn't feel good,
- 43:10Speaker 1: it makes me feel I could feel jealous, I could
- 43:13Speaker 1: feel left out, all the negative feelings. How am I
- 43:16Speaker 1: getting dopamine?
- 43:17Speaker 2: Then you're getting it from the hit of the notification.
- 43:23Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I have to look or scrolling and
- 43:27Speaker 2: you go, oh, that's really funny. Well that's really cool.
- 43:31Speaker 2: But then your serotonin levels dropping when you compare yourself
- 43:36Speaker 2: to someone else in a negative way. So dopamine gets released,
- 43:43Speaker 2: but then you don't have any store left. Serotonin drops
- 43:47Speaker 2: because the respect you have for yourself goes low. Cortisol
- 43:51Speaker 2: goes up because of the stress. And my wife said
- 43:56Speaker 2: it really she goes when I start scrolling, I start
- 43:59Speaker 2: thinking about what's wrong with me. She's like, I think
- 44:04Speaker 2: I have to fix something, as opposed to she wouldn't
- 44:09Speaker 2: have that thought at all if she wasn't scrolling.
- 44:12Speaker 1: Yeah, I've convinced myself to stop scrolling. You know, I
- 44:17Speaker 1: post and I take care of my business on Instagram,
- 44:20Speaker 1: but I really do try try, try to have a
- 44:24Speaker 1: no scrolling policy. And I tell my friends, Look, if
- 44:27Speaker 1: you're doing something exciting and you want me to know
- 44:29Speaker 1: about it, just text me it because I want to
- 44:32Speaker 1: know what's going on for you, but I'm not going
- 44:34Speaker 1: to see it on Instagram.
- 44:37Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's good to have a team
- 44:39Speaker 2: that does that. I mean, I think it's important. I
- 44:43Speaker 2: have seven million followers or something, and I love educating people.
- 44:52Speaker 2: But there's no way I'm going to spend all the
- 44:55Speaker 2: time curating in the comments. Because some people love me
- 44:58Speaker 2: and I'm grateful for that. Some people hate me and
- 45:01Speaker 2: I try to ignore that.
- 45:04Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a slippery slope, blessing and a
- 45:07Speaker 1: curse because like you said, you know, we can do
- 45:10Speaker 1: like what we're trying to do and spread beautiful and
- 45:13Speaker 1: important messages, positive, uplifting, positive things, but on the other hand,
- 45:18Speaker 1: it can really amplify those negative thoughts.
- 45:28Speaker 2: So can I tell you about something new I'm working on.
- 45:31Speaker 3: Yes.
- 45:33Speaker 2: So I'm working on a new book called Change your Brain,
- 45:35Speaker 2: Change Your Pain, and it's about the intersection of physical
- 45:42Speaker 2: and emotional pain. I turned seventy last month. Yeah, I
- 45:47Speaker 2: just started noticing it's my me, it's my hip, it's
- 45:51Speaker 2: my it's my shoulder, it's my knack. I'm like, what
- 45:55Speaker 2: is going on? And then I remember, you know, in
- 46:00Speaker 2: my work, some antidepressants like Symbolta or antidepressant supplements like
- 46:08Speaker 2: samy also work for pain. And so one of the
- 46:13Speaker 2: reasons I write is when I really want to get
- 46:16Speaker 2: excited about learning something new and it's been so much fun.
- 46:22Speaker 2: But the one big aha I got is all pain,
- 46:27Speaker 2: physical and emotional, is processed in the brain in these
- 46:33Speaker 2: three different pathways. And one of the things that puts
- 46:39Speaker 2: people a great risk for physical pain is repressed emotions.
- 46:46Speaker 2: And so I'm really good at noticing what I like
- 46:49Speaker 2: more than what I don't like. And I actually make
- 46:54Speaker 2: my grandchildren sit with me and watch Pollyanna the movie,
- 46:58Speaker 2: the Disney movie Pollyanna, because she plays the glad game
- 47:02Speaker 2: no matter what situation you're in, what is there to
- 47:04Speaker 2: be glad about in this situation? But what I've come
- 47:09Speaker 2: to realize is that repressed emotions, if you don't express them,
- 47:17Speaker 2: they punish you, they torture you. And I've been having
- 47:22Speaker 2: my patients do some rage journaling, and it's sort of
- 47:27Speaker 2: like Pollyanna meets the Hulk, and we have to honor
- 47:33Speaker 2: all of our feelings rather than I don't know in
- 47:36Speaker 2: your house, but in my house, my mother would say,
- 47:39Speaker 2: if you don't have something good to say, don't say
- 47:41Speaker 2: anything at all, and you just learn to bottle and
- 47:46Speaker 2: repress what makes you angry or frustrated without talking about
- 47:54Speaker 2: it or without finding ways to express it. And I
- 48:00Speaker 2: just think that's so important. I have a rule of twelve,
- 48:04Speaker 2: which I love. It's like I took ten ou to Paris,
- 48:08Speaker 2: and I'm like, twelve things are going to go wrong.
- 48:11Speaker 2: Let's just agree we're not going to get angry till
- 48:13Speaker 2: the thirteen thing goes wrong, and then we can yell
- 48:15Speaker 2: screen have a complete meltdown and three things went wrong.
- 48:22Speaker 2: And I love that because it goes with emotional flexibility.
- 48:25Speaker 2: The more flexible you are, the healthier you are. But
- 48:30Speaker 2: rolling with it doesn't mean rolling over that. When you
- 48:36Speaker 2: have strong feelings, it's important to find a proper, healthy
- 48:41Speaker 2: way to get them out of your body.
- 48:45Speaker 1: And you think journaling is a good way to do that.
- 48:48Speaker 2: Rage journaling.
- 48:50Speaker 1: I've done some rage journaling in my days.
- 48:54Speaker 2: That's good because then you're just less likely to hurt
- 48:57Speaker 2: if you can admit your feeling lines and find a
- 49:02Speaker 2: way to get out. But then, so this is where
- 49:06Speaker 2: Pollyanna the Hulk sort of become best friends. It's we're
- 49:11Speaker 2: going to express it and then we're going to find
- 49:13Speaker 2: out what's good about it. Well we can learn from.
- 49:17Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's really good. Okay, there's you know me,
- 49:22Speaker 1: There's so many things I want to talk to you about.
- 49:23Speaker 1: I could talk to you forever, but I'm going to
- 49:26Speaker 1: save that question that I wanted to ask you. I'm
- 49:29Speaker 1: going to come back to that one when you come
- 49:30Speaker 1: back another time on the show. Okay, we talked about
- 49:34Speaker 1: the foods we could eat. We talked about all the things. Oh,
- 49:37Speaker 1: brain fog, brain fog. We've talked about this. I talked
- 49:40Speaker 1: to doctor Mary Claire Haver. We were talking about menopause
- 49:43Speaker 1: and the brain fog that comes associated with it. Is
- 49:47Speaker 1: our way to help us get rid of the brain fog?
- 49:52Speaker 1: Are there supplements we should take, activities we should do well?
- 49:57Speaker 2: So you want to ask yourself, right, So I love
- 50:00Speaker 2: my brain? What am I doing that might be hurting
- 50:05Speaker 2: it to increase inflammation? And what can I do to
- 50:09Speaker 2: calm that down? And if you're a menopause, are you
- 50:14Speaker 2: taking bioidentical hormones to really give your brain the nutrients
- 50:22Speaker 2: it needs? Too? Many women are afraid of them, and
- 50:27Speaker 2: so they just sort of grit their teeth and try
- 50:31Speaker 2: to get through it. Do you know why your hormones
- 50:35Speaker 2: drop with age?
- 50:37Speaker 1: Tell me.
- 50:40Speaker 2: It's the planet's way of getting rid of you.
- 50:43Speaker 1: Oh okay, well that's great.
- 50:45Speaker 2: And I'm not okay with that now. So I'm like,
- 50:49Speaker 2: I'm not okay with that. I'm the CEO of Brain MD,
- 50:54Speaker 2: and we have a product called brain Tmax which helps
- 50:59Speaker 2: boost stosterone levels, absolutely essential for women, and in our study,
- 51:05Speaker 2: the women actually did better than the men. I mean,
- 51:09Speaker 2: I take it every day because I know how important
- 51:12Speaker 2: testosterone is, not just for libido, but also for memory,
- 51:16Speaker 2: for focus, for vitality, for strength. And Ashwood Bonda, which
- 51:23Speaker 2: is herbal product that I just love, decreases anxiety but
- 51:27Speaker 2: also increases testosterone. And my wife says when she takes
- 51:34Speaker 2: progesterone at night, this is the reason she's not on
- 51:37Speaker 2: the six o'clock news.
- 51:40Speaker 1: So I take biodentical hormone therapy and my testosterone levels
- 51:45Speaker 1: are fine. But do you think taking a supplement like
- 51:49Speaker 1: you mentioned is important?
- 51:52Speaker 2: Well, I think levels are fine, and there's a difference
- 51:56Speaker 2: between normal and optimal, and so if they're in the
- 52:05Speaker 2: upper half of normal, and I think that's fine. If
- 52:09Speaker 2: they're in the lower half of normal, then maybe taking
- 52:11Speaker 2: a supplement like brain temax could be helpful.
- 52:15Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to get your blood checked though, right.
- 52:18Speaker 2: Can't change what you don't measure.
- 52:20Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, doctor Aymon. Before I let you go,
- 52:24Speaker 1: what was your last I choose me moment? The moment
- 52:28Speaker 1: where you choose yourself.
- 52:30Speaker 2: I was in Paris as with my wife and daughter
- 52:34Speaker 2: and I love them so much. I was so excited
- 52:39Speaker 2: to help Alicia that I'm like, I'm going to go
- 52:42Speaker 2: separate and I'm going to focus and you guys, I
- 52:45Speaker 2: will see you later. And they were totally fine with it.
- 52:49Speaker 2: But you know, the usual me is like are you okay?
- 52:53Speaker 2: Can I take care of you? And it was like,
- 52:57Speaker 2: now I choose me because I want to to just
- 53:00Speaker 2: do the work I love so much.
- 53:03Speaker 1: Wonderful, thank you being on my podcast. I love you
- 53:08Speaker 1: so much.
- 53:09Speaker 2: I love you back. Thank you so much for helping
- 53:12Speaker 2: me share.
- 53:12Speaker 1: My work always. Doctor Amen is such a wealth of knowledge.
- 53:21Speaker 1: We're going to have to have him back on because
- 53:23Speaker 1: there's just so much that I want to cover when
- 53:26Speaker 1: it comes to our brains. But that conversation was so
- 53:29Speaker 1: jam packed full of great information. I hope you guys
- 53:33Speaker 1: listen to I hope you took notes because the things
- 53:36Speaker 1: that he has taught me have changed my life. As
- 53:40Speaker 1: we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want you
- 53:43Speaker 1: to try something different and this is really actually going
- 53:47Speaker 1: to help your brain. I want to challenge you to
- 53:50Speaker 1: give a random act of kindness. You could offer to
- 53:54Speaker 1: pay for the coffee of the person standing behind you
- 53:57Speaker 1: in line, or you could send a handwritten to someone
- 54:01Speaker 1: just to brighten their day, or even more simple, give
- 54:06Speaker 1: a stranger a compliment on how great their outfit looks.
- 54:11Speaker 1: We get so caught up every day with jobs and
- 54:15Speaker 1: bills and responsibilities that it's really easy to forget to
- 54:18Speaker 1: spread kindness. I know what you're thinking, how is a
- 54:22Speaker 1: random act of kindness? And I choose me moment. Trust me,
- 54:26Speaker 1: you are going to feel good after you do it,
- 54:30Speaker 1: and that is going to make you want to keep
- 54:33Speaker 1: feeling this happiness of spreading joy. Thanks for listening to
- 54:37Speaker 1: I Choose Me. You can check out all our social
- 54:40Speaker 1: links in our show notes, rate review, tell me everything,
- 54:45Speaker 1: and use the hashtag I choose Me. I will be
- 54:48Speaker 1: right here next week, and I hope you will choose
- 54:50Speaker 1: to be here too,