Kind: captions
Language: en
as 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 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 a 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 lowfat diet the
problem with that is 60% of the solid
weight of your brain is fat and lowfat
diets can actually trigger depression
and so I like healthy fat fish although
um clean fish um and so swordfish is out
and 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 uh 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 ended up losing 30 lbss you
know I'd like tried for 30 years and I
just never really had the motivation
until I went I am not going to have a
smaller brain I am 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
Britt more likely to break so there's a
term I like I didn't coin it but I like
it called di obesity 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 CU it feels
happier it feels more relaxed now the
problem is it kills you early and so you
have to sort of take this but you know
the other thing that drives tryptophan
into the brain is exercise and so and
many of my athletes they exercise
intensely so they don't get
depressed and when they get hurt they
get depressed because they can't get
their anti-depressant 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 pneumonic 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 mind 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 the smaller the brain 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 Grow
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 and make them angry at you know
whatever political fight is going on uh
the ey is
inflammation which comes basically from
low get Three fatty acid levels
processed foods gut problems and so I'd
like um 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 jeans are not a death
sentence they should be a wakeup 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' 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's
head trauma um I'd encourage all kids to
hit soccer balls with their head to play
Taco football to ride horses and people
go well why are you down on horses it's
like well what killed Superman 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 function
the te is toxins so if I was the ruler I
would get rid of all of the
Environmental Protection 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 phalates or hormone disruptors and
aluminum and we're putting them on our
body whatever goes in your body
goes on your body goes in your body
becomes your body um i' think of alcohol
as a health food we've 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
had 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
eye is immunity and infections I would
belittle people who are testing patients
for Lyme disease my great stories are
patients who have lime one girl she's 16
she became psychotic after a visit to
eusee and she
went had three psychiatric
hospitalizations none of the medications
work she she became a shell of herself
she came to our clinic and I'm like so
what happened at eede 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 that caused lime
that then caused her to lose her mind
and on an antibiotic she got her mind
back the his neur hormone deficiencies
and so letting kids things with their
head actually drops their hormone levels
and so I test for that diabetes CD I'd
create the American food system Isis has
nothing on our food industry the real
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 as 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 because they disrupt
sleep uh cuz the and bright Minds as
sleep so there's so many things
happening that I'm just it gives me
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
could just go back through those um
bright Minds risk factors so with blood
flow it's exercise simple supplements
like Geno and vosene boost blood flow to
the brain simple foods like beets or
cayenne pepper Rosemary so they're
dietary things you can do they lifestyle
things exercise You' 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 insan 40% of 40y olds
70% of 70y 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 sex life gets
better which I'm like a huge fan of that
this is you know for years my
anti-depressants not mine but you know
like Prozac and zolof 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'll
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 I always think
of myself as your fames psychiatrist CU
I see little kids and old people and
everybody in between so exercise f 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 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
sellum and then I have a table tennis
coach and it's like you 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 you think about keto
so I being inflammation so um keto is
the only thing in my life that had a a
druglike 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 to keep
them in check but I wasn't doing any fat
in my diet I basically lived in a state
of rabbit starvation for 2 or 3 years
and then for the potential anti-cancer
property I'd been hearing about
ketogenics thanks to petera and Dom
deuso and I thought all right I'm going
to give this a shot I went hardcore 4
to1 uh so for every combined gram of
protein and carbohydrate I was eating
four grams 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 neurod
degenerative 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 because 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 skrc
so one story I had a guy that was
severely depressed he had ECT he' been
Hospital electric shock therapy he had
been hospitalized multiple time 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
um 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 um 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 3 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
I'm like we have to break up with corn
and his depression has not come back wow
that's crazy that isn't that crazy 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 because an elimination die
can be very confusing for people how do
you walk people through 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 where do
you start is there a ground zero like is
it chicken breast and broccoli like what
is your start here well 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 um 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 CU 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 Warr called me
up and said I'm fat my church is fat
will you help me we created a program uh
for them Mark hman and I did and
thousands of churches around the world
have done it it's awesome but one of the
pastor's 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 wow and 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 D that
that like actually makes me emotional
that 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 I was watching or listening
to uh 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 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 because 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 live the message you suck as
a messenger and too many Physicians
don't live the message of health and 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
patience 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
because 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
drink and he was like having three
scotches a day who 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 mind's 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
out of find so interesting of 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
use 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 um
feel better fast and make it last which
I'm really excited about is there's an
exercise and 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
they're visual things like images of
nature Al although on my phone it's like
here 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 honeysuckle
Jasmine have been found in scientific
studies to trigger happiness see I
actually think we
carry memories from other people so
genetically in the book you talk about
how you can train a mouse to be afraid
of a cherry blossom tree for three
generations which is crazy is that what
you mean or are you talking about
something else yeah my grandfather for
example when he was 19 he came from the
Middle East came to Los Angeles his
brother who was a bad driver borrowed
his sister's car and was killed in a
train accident and he's 19 my
grandfather never drove because that
anxiety got
solidified in his brain and that
happened before he was involved in
making my father and so the anxiety I
carry may not just be mine that it may
actually come from the
experiences of generations that I think
a lot of it didn't start with me um and
so we know for example children of
Holocaust survivors have a higher
incidence of PTSD 30% of children of
soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who
had PTSD 30% of their children had PTSD
they call it secondary PTSD and so I
think of these as ancestral Dragons It's
like what's the issue that actually may
not be your issue and so I think it's
really important for you to know about
your mom and your grandma and your
grandfather on her side and your dad and
their ancestors because it's not just
the genes we inherit it's the scratches
on them that turn on or off those genes
that make anxiety
depression much more common in future
Generations so for example the end of
mental illness is dedicated to my two
nieces amaly and Alice they're 10 and 15
and um they have mental illness
throughout their whole family um family
history of suicides multiple suicides
anxiety depression bipolar disorder
addiction borderline personality
criminal Behavior but genes only load
the gun it's what happens to us that
pulls the trigger and unfortunately they
were raised in chaos with um parents who
s suffered with depression addiction
domestic violence they had multiple
moves and so the whole idea behind the
end of mental illness is how do I end it
in these girls and in their babies and
grandbabies and what you do is you put
their bodies in their brain in a healing
environment so we work on the actual
physical functioning of their bodies and
um Alice when I scanned her at 13 her
brain looked terrible and was that
because her mom drank when she was
pregnant was it because they lived in a
mold filled home what I don't know but
repairing that is absolutely essential
to her doing well in school for her
picking a good partner for her and not
continuing the cycle of psychiatric
problem the truth is hitting your career
goals is not easy you have to be willing
to go the extra mile to stand out and do
hard things better than anybody else but
there are 10 steps I want to take you
through that will 100x your efficiency
so you can crush your goals and get back
more time into your day you'll not only
get control of your time you'll learn
how to use that momentum to take on your
next big goal to help you do this I've
created a list of the 10 most impactful
things that any High achiever needs to
dominate and you can download it for
free by clicking the link in today's
description all right my friend back to
today's episode so what are the the sort
of Baseline things we do you talk about
in the book not being addicted to
Flaming Cheetos anymore what are what
are some of the the things that you did
to help them out so for Alise I mean
first it starts with feeding them right
um and then supplementation multiple
vitamin fish oil optimize her vitamin D
level put gave her a brain boost that
has seven different things to optimize
brain function um put her in a
hyperbaric chamber that made a big
difference for her um hyperbaric oxygen
is really intriguing for people that
don't know what it is walk them through
what it does and why it's useful so I've
published a number of studies on it and
probably have a thousand patients with
scans before and after and the reason
it's like why do I care I'm a
psychiatrist why do I want to put you in
hyperic chamber that puts you under
pressure with increased oxygen because
it increases blood flow to the brain
well for Alice she had low blood flow
and so she had about 40 Dives so about
40 hours in a hyperbaric chamber I'm in
a new docu series with Justin Bieber and
the hyperbaric chamber all over the docu
series about him getting zipped in and
zipped out because when I scanned him
initially had really low blood flow to
his brain and he feels less anxious
because he has better blood flow to his
brain and so that was one of the
cornerstones for Alise and then I teach
her anomaly the little one not to
believe every stupid thing they think
this is really important so we talk
about hardware and software optimize the
physical functioning of your brain and
you do it by going after all the risk
factors blood flow being one of them but
then as you optimize the physical
functioning she's got a lot of bad
programming because she grew up in chaos
and Chaos gives you sort of a
hyperactive emotional brain and your
brain automatically goes to the dark
place and so every
morning um we say today is going to be a
great day why cuz then your unconscious
mind will find well why is today going
to be a great day I get to hang out with
you you so that makes me happy at the
end of the day we always talk about well
what went well today it's training your
mind but also setting up your dreams to
be more positive and if your dreams are
more positive you'll be in deeper REM
state which is a more healing state for
your dreams that's so simple but really
really powerful this is something man as
you're talking it's like I know some of
this stuff and even that one like
setting that intention before I go to
bed would be better than what I'm doing
now which is just sort of tumbling into
bed and going to sleep and it's so cool
because you're probably like me and
you're just busy you have a lot to do
and you want to accomplish a lot and so
my days just go so fast and when I close
my eyes and go what went well today I
begin to remember these phenomenal touch
points that I just sort of Breeze
over
and I love that and then I had a little
tiny habit um I worked with Professor BJ
fog for six months on creating tiny
habits for brain health and the mother
tiny habit is before you do anything
before you say anything you just ask
yourself is this good for my brain or
bad for it and if I love myself which I
do I'm going to make better decisions so
is this good for my brain or bad for it
if you can answer that question with
information and love your brain's going
to be better yeah it's one of those it's
really simple and not a lot of people do
it give me some more on the tiny habits
you pepper them throughout the book but
uh what are some other tiny habits that
either you use or you've got your nieces
using um so if the first one is just is
this good for my brain or not what are
some others whenever you feel sad mad
nervous or out of control write down
what you're thinking
and then ask yourself if it's true and
there's a whole process in the book uh
to not believe every stupid thing you
think and then when you go to say
something to your wife
or at work does it fit there's an
exercise actually in all of my books
basically called The onepage Miracle on
one piece of paper write down what you
want your relationships your work your
money your physical emotional spiritual
health what do you want I think
everything starts with what do you want
and then does your behavior get you what
you want so for example with my wife I
want a kind caring loving supportive
passionate relationship I always want
that I don't always feel like that
sometimes I'll get a rude thought in my
head or I'm having a bad day or she
didn't do she not great about closing
cabinet doors and um and I've come to
believe I would so much rather have her
in this house with the cabinet door open
than have her not there so I like Let It
Go because being a jerk doesn't fit the
goal I have for my marriage but it
starts with telling your frontal loob so
that's the front third of your brain
largest in humans than any other animal
by far this is what makes us human but
you have to tell it what you want so
over time you match your behavior to get
what you want so it starts with that and
then does it
fit I love that idea of telling your
brain what you want especially if I'm
talking to an
entrepreneur they don't know what they
want so they have like a vague idea but
they don't really know the specifics of
what they want and my thing is if you
want to get somewhere if you're really
trying to accomplish something the
amount of hard work of practice of
learning that you're going to have to do
is really pretty extraordinary but if
you're not aiming that at the right
thing then you're never going to make
progress and so everything you're trying
to accomplish in your life has to be so
clear that it boils down to something
that you can do right now today do you
have a process for people for that is it
as simple as just writing it down like
how do you walk people through the idea
of getting that level of clarity in
their life so I have all of my patients
start with the onepage Miracle on one
piece of paper and so as we do therapy
over time it's does it fit you know does
the food you're eating does the thoughts
you have do your
relationships fit ultimately your
purpose and all good businesses have
plans they have business plans and they
have goals and they have quarterly
priorities and so on but very few people
ever do that for themselves and when I
first did it in 1986 I think it just
helped me so much clarify because you
know a in clinics and brain MD are two
companies um I didn't even imagine it
back then but it's consistent effort
over a long period of time you end up
doing something special you've written
so many books on the topic given so many
talks and the shows you've done on PBS I
mean it this is a really big topic how
do you help people that feel overwhelmed
that don't know where to start they
don't know how to keep going how do you
give them that entry point well that's
why I write you know and that's why we
have eight clinics is we want to coach
them through it and people go I can't
afford to come to the clinic well get a
book you can get it at the library um
there's so much free things online
because our goal if we're really going
to and mental illness the end of mental
illness begins with a revolution in
brain health I talk about this concept
if I was an evil ruler how would I
create mental illness in America we are
creating It in America by the food we
serve by the news that is everywhere
sort of the toxic pit you against me
news Cycles social media um letting kids
hit soccer balls with their head having
Girl Scouts Girl Scouts selling poison
uh you're talking about cookies I assume
cookies yeah and last year alone
nicotine use among teenagers went up
36% so
jewel is an evil ruler strategy it's
yeah I mean they have bubblegum
flavored uh vaping devices that's
directed at children
hello
um we need to be more thoughtful talk to
me more about toxins so definitely
obviously tobacco marijuana um alcohol
like those are ones that I think most
people although I love what you say
alcohol is not a health food it's not uh
I think that one may need to be said
more but there are someone I don't think
anybody thinks smoking is good for them
but what are some of the things that are
problematic that we might not be aware
of like firefighters that was one um
because of the flame retardant in the
clothing that I I've only recently heard
people start talking about what are some
toxins that people are getting on a
daily basis that they might not realize
is a tox pesticides for example
virtually all the corn is raised with
pesticides virtually all the soy beans
are raised with pesticides and why don't
you want food raised with pesticides
because you ingest the pesticides and
they begin to damage your microbiome so
I don't know if you had a lot of
antibiotics when you were young but kids
who add a lot of antibiotics when
they're young they're anxious because it
damages their microbiome what
antibiotics kill bugs and so you have
these hundred trillion bugs in your gut
if you're damaging them well we've seen
that goes with anxiety one of the toxins
people don't know about but clearly in
the medical literature is anesthesia
children who have anesthesia have a
higher incidence of learning
disabilities in add and adults who have
anesthesia especially around heart
procedures have higher incidence of
dementia I mean who thinks about that
it's like I need surgery I'll just get
surgery now often you need to get the
surgery but then you need to
rehabilitate your brain as if you played
in the NFL not for everybody but for
some people mold exposure so you and I
both know Dave asprey Dave got scanned
about 14 years ago his brain looked like
crap and he found he was living in a
mold filled home and 12 years later his
brain's much better because I mean I
think he's basically dedicated his life
to creating brain health and other
people and so if we're going to do a
quick rundown of what those things are
that they would do to heal and
rehabilitate the brains we've talked
about some so um hyperbaric oxygen may
be extreme but certainly they can do
that get their diet right um sleep is
going to be huge um ending any social
social isolation that you have
connecting to people um what are some
other don't be fat that is straight to
the point don't be fat um I come from
fat people you me both why is it a
problem I it actually have the 11 major
risk factors that steal your mind if
you're overweight you now have five risk
factors um the fat on your body is not
your friend
it stores toxins so that's one risk
factor it increases in inflammation
that's another risk factor I published
two studies that show as your weight
goes up the blood flow to your brain
goes down which should scare the fat off
anyone that's three
and it takes healthy testosterone belly
fat and it flips it it transforms it
into unhealthy cancer promoting forms of
estrogen that's four and then being
overweight is five and when you're
overweight your blood sugar often goes
up as well and that's part of being
overweight so it's just like when I
first figured it out I always carried
like 20 extra pounds um I lost the
weight because I'm not going to shrink
my brain right I'm never going to do
anything I know purposefully to hurt
myself why and and it's like oh you're
too uptight it's like no it's cuz I love
myself why would I ever do something to
hurt me unless I was sort of an idiot um
and I know that sounds harsh but now
that you know we need to be eating in a
way that's calorie smart and loaded with
vegetables there is a linear correlation
to the number of fruits and vegetables
you eat a day and your level of
happiness but the brain you'll like this
the brain does what you allow it to do
and so whatever habit or whatever
Behavior you engage in you're going to
do again and so bad habits they get
stuck in your brain just like good
habits get stuck in your brain so it
just takes some retraining so for
example when I sit down at a restaurant
and they come always you want alcohol
and they just drop bread on the table so
I'm like no to the alcohol because if
you drink alcohol before a meal you're
actually going to order more food um and
you're more likely to order dessert and
no to the bread why because it's a
simple carbohydrate that quickly turns
in your mouth it starts turning to sugar
and it boosts a chemical called
serotonin in your brain which makes you
happy but it drops your frontal loes
making you more likely to order more and
dessert and so as soon as the waiter
comes I'm like no on the Alcohol take
the bread away and now it's just an
automatic response where the first
couple of months of it it was hard my
brain had to actually make new
connections to say here's a situation
say no so speaking of the brain if it's
always listening what is it always
listening to and what is this idea of
dragons that you talked about in the
book I find this really
useful well your brain is always
listening it's listening to your past
it's listening to the food you eat it's
listening to marketers it's listening
when you say it's listening to your past
is it listening to what you say about
your past or are you using listen as
sort of an umbrella for
reliving the past for many people is
always present for them and I got this
idea of dragons from the past that still
breathe fire on your emotional brain so
I was doing a podcast with Dr Sharon May
who's a friend of mine relational
therapist and she started talking about
dragons from the past that were ruining
relationships and then she and I started
collaborating it's like well let's
identify the dragons and we came up with
13 of them and a couple the pandemic
just exploded like the Death dragon or
the grief and lost Dragon um but my
whole life I was living with the
invisible abandoned or insignificant
Dragon one of seven um I was in the
middle I'm a second son in a Lebanese
family which means you're
Expendable um which turned out to be
beautiful cuz I didn't have to go in the
grocery business right and leban family
is the oldest child the oldest male
child goes in the business is your
brother still in the business my brother
is the president of the business wow um
I don't think I'd ever heard you talk I
mean your dad was really successful in
the business that he built I didn't
realize just how much sort of I guess
ended up not being familial pressure for
you but certainly would have been for
your brother well it's pressure when you
grew up with a dad that's very
successful and me ended up being the
chairman of the board of A4 billion do
company um you often just go like I can
never live up to that and so you're
struggling in that
comparison which is actually the second
dragon the inferior flawed dragon and I
had that one in Spades you know being
short and second and
um you know it helped me in so many ways
right the dragons have
downsides but they also have upsides if
you have Felts insignificant well I
built a life based on being significant
and it sort of worked
so how do you help people reconcile that
like when I when I read the book I'm
hearing about these dragons they mostly
sound negative but you in terms of if
they go unchecked your prefrontal cortex
is offline it really does become
pathological and it becomes a problem
but I'm obsessed with this idea that
there's pathology on both sides so if
you have too much drive it's going to
spill into pathology you know if you're
feeling too broken too inadequate
whatever but if you don't have enough
there's also pathology on that side how
do you help people walk that balance is
it the prefrontal
cortex well it's always this balance
between your prefrontal cortex so think
of that as the break in your brain but
you don't want it too strong when it
works too hard people have OCD it's sort
of like the brake is always on and so if
you think of a car like I like going to
Big Bear and think about coming down the
hill you need need a good prefrontal
cortex you need a good break because if
the brak's not on you die because you go
off a cliff which is appropo people
don't break their
behavior and they make bad decisions and
so they die early but if the break is
always on you can't get down the hill
either because it's like stop stop stop
stop think of people have OCD so it's
about balance between the front third of
your brain prefrontal cortex and your
emotional brain because we need passion
we need purpose we need a reason to do
something but if it works too hard we
get sad or we get too anxious or we come
traumatized uh the wounded dragon's just
so common way more common now since the
pandemic and wounded dragon is I am
broken in some way or something else
it's I've had trauma okay and I tell the
story of
reliving it was so hard for me but when
I was little I had this beautiful white
Goat Who Umar was our pet sugar and um I
actually have this video I did a public
television special on the new book and I
actually showed the video of me when I'm
five playing with sugar and shers
kissing me and and it was just beautiful
but sugar also likeed my dad's
roses and so so one day sugar went off
to the farm which means sugar got
slaughtered and a couple of nights later
my dad and his brother were joking that
they were feeding us sugar for dinner
which was incredibly traumatic for me
and years later how old were you at this
point like six five or six and I mean I
and I remember it like it's
yesterday but years later I was in
Monterey Mexico giving a big talk and
they have goat meat for sale in Street
vendors like we don't do that in the
United States and as I walked by I got
flooded with that memory and all of a
sudden I'm 43 or something have a panic
attack wow because the past is always
connected to the present and so if
there's trauma learning how and I talk
about this in the book how to recognize
it and disconnect from
it okay so that's recognizing it
disconnecting doing the unwinding is a
tall order before we get to that can you
what are some of the most common dragons
and if you have one of these running
rampant in your life your prefrontal
cortex isn't putting the brakes on it
what what does that manifest as in in
the more common dragons well so we've
had over 100,000 people take the quiz
Know Your Dragon drag.com so people can
do that it's free
and on average people have six of them
so it's common to have issues and the
anxious dragon is the most common the
responsible Dragon where you feel like
you have to take care of other people
which actually can breed this thing
called codependence and entitlement in
others you have to be careful with that
the wounded Dragon the inferior flawed
Dragon very common and it's basically I
compare myself to you in a negative way
um social media is driving that epidemic
[Music]
um and the Death Dragon sort of
surprised me but you know we did the
study during covid and is that a fear of
death it's the fear of death
dragon and a lot of people haven't come
to grips with death like one of the
strategies I have actually played out
today is write down 10 good things about
dying whoa and
um it's like oh well that's okay because
if it's inevitable it is right it's it's
like you have to learn to embrace it and
there's a lot of writing exercises in in
the book because I actually want people
to write their story and give it the
ending they want and then ask themselves
every day then kick in your prefrontal
cortex is my behavior getting me what I
want cuz too often people go for fixes
that fail rather than fixes that
fix okay so first we're going to
identify our Dragon okay so I have the
fear of death dragon or I have the
anxiety dragon is somebody who suffered
with the anxiety dragon that one's very
easy for me to relate to okay so I have
the anxiety Dragon I'm obsessing about a
future that I'm practicing the failure
unintentionally this was my thing I
would find my what I thought of as exit
ramps like if this situation becomes
problematic what's my exit ramp but in
thinking about all of my exit ramps I
was rehearsing it going wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong
and when I'm journaling the idea I want
to bring together with this so I I
identify my dragon but now when I'm
doing the journaling how do I get to
Accurate thinking because the problem in
the first place is that I have a
cognitive distortion I have a a tendency
to think of how the things could go
wrong or at least that felt like the
right way to plan for the future I've
since stopped doing that
um H how do you recognize what accurate
thinking actually is and you go through
this in the book because you you have
that like four questions that you have
people do I think it was four and
there's a a part in there where they
would often say like I'm going to fail
are you going to fail yes like to them
that seems self-evidently true so how do
you help them recognize that that isn't
actually
accurate like help them question it
whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous
or out of control write out what you're
thinking and then it's five questions
but it's is it
true is it absolutely true with 100%
certainty and that's the one that
usually cracks it like I'm worthless is
it absolutely true now you're getting
thoughtful it's like well I'm a mother
and I'm a sister and I'm a daughter and
no it's not absolutely true it's
ridiculous the third question is how do
I feel when I believe I'm worthless
dead
withering sad
lonely and the fourth question is who
would I be without the thought or how
would I feel if I didn't have the
thought the most common answer to that
one is
free and then you flip it around to the
opposite it's
like I am worth
something or I have worth and and then
give me an example or two or three or
four and you have to do that exercise at
least 100 times to begin to retrain your
automatic response I mean I've been
teaching people to kill ants for a long
time automatic negative thoughts but I
just found these five questions they're
just so
elegant to just have a dialogue with
yourself I'll never be successful or I
won't have enough money um or my life
has no meaning it's like well let's put
that under a
microscope not positive thinking
accurate
thinking okay so putting myself in the
shoes of somebody that's trapped in one
of these dragons my gut instinct and
you've done this so much more than I
have but my gut instinct is the part
that they're going to struggle with the
most is they're going to the opposite
right so I have worth I have value it
just isn't going to feel true or it's
going to feel true at such a low rung
level like yes okay fine I have some
value but Jesus is it enough to be worth
everything that I'm going through I find
that people are so ill equipped to
accurately identify what their abilities
are their capabilities their worth their
value all that but I'm like don't even
worry about what's true ask yourself
what's useful and if it's useful to tell
yourself I'm a good person person I have
worth and that gets you moving towards
doing the things that are actually
worthy then we're going to do it does
that make sense to you or do you think
there's something better well well not
better I like it it's with each of the
dragons in the
book I have their origin story so where
do they come
from what's the upside because all the
dragons have upsides my abandoned
invisible and insignificant Dragon had
tremendous upside for me um how do you
tame it so it's more than just corrector
thinking so there's strategies so for
for one seeking
significance well that's useful and it
could be volunteering a church it you
know whatever
fits your definition internally of
significance and then I have meditations
around each of them
um so think of that as foundational like
the wounded Dragon for example I talk
about EMDR IE movement desensitization
and reprocessing and it's so powerful
it's when you're traumatized it actually
gets stuck in your brain and we see a
pattern we call it the diamond pattern
in the brain so your emotional brain
gets turned on and it can't go back to
normal or healthy and EMDR they actually
have you bring up the trauma while they
get your eyes to move back and forth and
it settles it down so is an example 1996
so I've been doing Imaging for 30 years
the first 20 years it was like a horror
film in my life cuz I was getting picked
on and I had the New York Times pick on
on me the Washington Post pick on me and
my colleagues calling me bad names and
I'm like I just want to look at the
brain what's your problem um and in 1996
I had the state of California's Medical
Board investigate me yeah i' never heard
that before it's crazy and that was
traumatizing and I couldn't sleep and
one of the original EMDR trainers worked
for me and I walked into Jennifer
lindell's office in my clinic and I'm
like you need to help
me after an hour of this treatment I was
absolutely fine if they took my license
from me I could get a job I could take
care of my family I was going to be fine
but you can just imagine you spend a big
chunk of your life trying to do what you
do and now someone's trying to take it
away from you why does the lateral eye
movement shift the brain so profoundly
that you go from I can't sleep this is a
total mess to one session and now I'm
good I think it's more than just eye
movement um there's another technique
that's somewhat similar that's a part of
the same technique it
no but it's similar it's called havening
okay and but they're both bilateral
hemisphere
stimulation so for
example um off camera we talked about
how my dad died last year and a couple
of days after after he died um in a
random stack of papers I'm at my mom's
house just helping her organize things
is a picture of my dead dad in the
mortuary and I'm like what idiot what
because it just bothered me and I
noticed it was just bothering me
throughout the day you know I'd see the
picture and I'd be irritated and and
then I'm like oh you help people who
have this problem and havening is
bilateral hemisphere stimulation
so it's either rubbing your hands like
this while you think of the trauma um
it's rubbing your face probably not cool
in a pandemic um or what my favorite
thing is and I do this a lot with my
patients is I have them hold their
shoulders and then rub down to their
forarms and they do it for 30 seconds
and the idea is to get stimulation on
both sides of your body both sides while
you bring up the trauma do you have to
do it yourself or can someone else do it
for you either way interesting people
can learn about it at havening dog like
Safe Haven havening dog and so I did
that with the picture and you rate it
like on a scale of 1 to 10 and there was
like a nine I was pretty irritated by
this and after I did it for 30 seconds
it's like a four and then after I did it
again the irritation was gone I did it
two more times for 30 seconds and I fell
in love with the picture because it
was the last picture of my dad on Earth
and
so there are techniques so that you
don't have to live with trauma spinning
in your brain whether it's EMDR other
people do tapping which can be helpful
or
havening I want to speculate about why
that's working so when I meditate what's
useful about meditation the only times
that it works for me are when I can
really lock into the pleasure cycle of
the breath so I have to be thinking
about optimizing the pleasure of each
part of the breath by doing that I
really pull my brain to like what is
happening right here right now one it
helps because it's truly when you're
breathing in a meditative way it it just
feels good like purely hedonistically it
just feels good and then my mind can't
wander to whatever is freaking it out
because I'm there in my breath and I'm
wondering if this is a there's something
about stimulating both sides of the
brain that's the important part or if
this is just your focus is now locking
in on the sensation of being touched or
touching yourself and that disrupts
because I I think a lot about pattern
interrupting that you're just hitting
the brakes on this runaway thought and
by touching yourself by tapping by
whatever that you you're grounding in a
physical sensation which stops your
brain from thinking about the traumatic
thing that's sort of bullet point one
but bullet point two is that you fell in
love with the photo but let's take these
one at a time do you think is it the
bilateral activation of the brain that's
critical or is it just the
focus I think it's the bilateral
hemisphere stimulation CU a lot of times
people will bring up trauma and focus on
it and it doesn't make them feel any
better it makes them feel worse but I
did a study on EMDR we took police
officers who were involved in shootings
and they developed PTSD and couldn't go
back to work
and I scanned them and then I scanned
them during their first EMDR session so
while the therapist was bringing up the
trauma and the person scanning them in
that moment or you scan them after it in
that moment interesting and and so okay
before you go on lights up their
emotional what does it look like when
they're PTSD out so when they have PTSD
if you look at the scans I do it looks
like a diamond pattern where their
limbic or emotional brain is more active
compared to a healthy brain and then in
that trauma activation it gets bigger
gets more intense but after they did an
average of eight sessions calmed it
down
and that psychological intervention had
biological
effects okay so that all makes sense now
when I'm stroking
myself I am recalling the memory I'm
activating bilaterally my brain I don't
understand why that breaks the elevation
of the emotion
why yeah and I'm not sure we know why we
just know it does was actually
discovered by Francine Shapiro when she
was in Meno Park that when she looked
left and then right and did it over and
over again what she was upset about
didn't upset her as much and it was
really from that moment she then started
working with soldiers from the VA and
found did she comment on why she did it
the first time was it accidental it was
accidental so intriguing okay yeah and
now we have other groups like the
havening group there's another group
called brain spotting but they all seem
to be bilateral hemisphere stimulation
tools to bring up the trauma and sort of
suck
the
emotion out of it so you still remember
it you know I still remember being
investigated by the medical
[Music]
but I don't get freaked out do you tell
yourself a new story so you pull so one
of the things I find Most Fascinating
about memory is that every time you pull
it into your working memory you're
affecting it and so you can change the
tenor of that memory the emotional
Resonance of that memory as you hold in
a working memory and then store it back
so as you're doing this you're doing the
havening you're or the bilateral eye
movement or both you're pulling the
memory forward are you
to optimize the process do you need to
tell yourself a different story about it
do you need to focus on the positive
things that came out of it I mean you
talk about being able to find positives
in death is that what we're doing or you
literally just need to think about it in
the normal way that you always think
about it in your I'm sure obsessive way
but as long as you're doing that
bilateral contact it's going to lower
the emotion for many people that's
exactly what happens um other people not
so much and so then you have to go what
else is going on and do they have a hurt
preal cortex so a lot of the soldiers
that we work with they PTSD and
traumatic brain injury people just
didn't focus on the fact that they were
around three IED blasts and so when
things don't work like you hope they
would that's where the Imaging work I do
becomes so helpful what is up my friend
Tom bill you here and I have a big
question to ask you how would you rate
your level of personal discipline on a
scale of 1 to 10 if your answer is
anything less than a 10 I've got
something cool for you and let me tell
you right now discipline by its very
nature means compelling yourself to do
difficult things that are stressful
boring which is what kills most people
or possibly scary or even painful now
here is the thing achieving huge goals
and stretching to reach your potential
requires you to do those challenging
stressful things and to stick with them
even when it gets born and it will get
boring building your levels of personal
discipline is not easy but let me tell
you it pays off in fact I will tell you
you're never going to achieve anything
meaningful unless you develop discipline
all right I've just released a class
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right click the link on the screen
register for this class right now and
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this Workshop from Impact Theory
University and tell them my friends be
legendary peace out okay so now let's
talk about the second fascinating
element here so we understand that how
lower the emotional
resonance but how did you fall in love
with that photo it so even when you
retold it to me it sounded like a change
in story that you went from that's a
photo of my father's death to that's the
last photo of somebody that I loved and
cared about is that a narrative shift
that's required to get that new
emotional anchor or or the the
association with that physical sensation
is pleasant and therefore it paints that
new emotion on an old memory so part of
it is
skill um my children get horrified if I
want to watch poana one of my favorite
movies ever poana teaches people to play
the Glad game whatever situation you're
in what is there to be glad about in
this situation so I've train my brain to
do that over time and when you take the
emotion out something's going to replace
it and if you have skill in managing
your mind you'll often look for what's
right rather than what's wrong and and
I've worked really hard on that cuz it
wasn't my nature growing up I was pretty
anxious and I was masterful at
predicting what's the worst thing that
could happen happen and then I'd make it
worse so it's Hallmark of people that
have panic attacks um but I've worked
really hard and it's the blessing of my
job I get to help people and in that I
always help myself okay so we need to
identify what our dragons are we need to
engage our prefrontal cortex to make
sure that we pump the brakes on that
stuff we need to reframe things get good
at the Glad game the poana game whatever
we're going to call that um we need to
engage with reality so how are things
really instead of trying to run or hide
from it both the good and the bad so
don't over um think you're a loser
failure whatever um yeah it's completely
not helpful because negative thinking
disrupts brain function um but at the
same time too positive of thinking you
could be driving down the freeway at 125
miles an hour in the rain I mean
Positive Thinking by itself is harmful
that we have to be
thoughtful careful no doubt right and
that's the prefrontal CeX there's a
whole chapter in the book on the dragon
Tamer it's like how do you tame this
dragon
thunder um and and you do it with having
forethought and judgment and impulse
control which means oh by the way you
have to feed it right there's a whole
section in the book on the scheming
dragons which which is really how
Society is stealing your mind if you're
scheming to make you worse basically
yeah like there's the holiday Dragon
right oh it's Thanksgiving let's eat
terribly or it's Halloween or Christmas
you know we're going to celebrate the
birth of the baby Jesus by eating
terribly and hurting people it's like
how does that make sense and there's a
brand new 12-step program in this book
uh because there's the addicted dragons
I talk about the bad habit dragons and
as I was writing that I'm like you know
the 12-step program for
addiction was written basically in the
1930s and there's not one Neuroscience
step in the 12 Steps it's mostly
psychological social and spiritual and
I'm like well if a neuroscientist
rewrote the 12
steps what would he add
that step one in the traditional 12
steps is admit your life is out of
control and I'm like no that's step two
step one is what do you want
relationships work money physical
emotional what do you want step two is
your behavior getting you what you want
if it's not then you need step three
which is get your brain right because I
really think better brain better
decisions better brain better
relationships better brain more money
better brain better
life 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 it 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 that don't know what that
means so I'm a general psychiatrist and
I'm have a specialty in kids I'm a Child
and 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 pneumonic 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 Envy got care avoid things that
hurt it do things that help it and so
what what have we learn that exercise
boosts 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 because your gut makes most of
the neurotransmitters in your body well
the little tiny habit for brain help 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
because it's never about should soon as
you think you should do something you
won't do it um just cuz we're all four
years old and 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 because too often people
go well I can't have this and I can't
have that and as soon as you get into
that deprivation mind said 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
their 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 is like well 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 go 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 n F 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 I 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 than I can prove it I've spoken
to my audience about it before but the
thing that led me to 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 because 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 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 a working 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 why do you care why you're on the
planet what's your deepest sense of
meaning and purpose so I'm always
thinking bioc
psychosocial spiritual and that way I
end up helping whole people not just oh
you're anxious take xanx 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
is 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 H and then it just hit me
an automatic negative thoughts my
patience are in fested 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 like 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 questions is it
true it certainly could be true yeah but
is it true I can't say
definitively I don't know sure right
yeah cuz I am not not a fan of positive
thinking I am not interesting positive
thinking kills way too many people I'm a
fan of accur youan it kills too many
people what do you mean so they did a
study at Stanford
1921 on 1548 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
kid kid 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 M an hour 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
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 it's
sort of all at a lyic level it's just
emotion and then how do you treat other
people when you believe the thought if I
were to give into it you're going to be
GR iier grouchier shorter with people or
just Solen 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 fueling 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 seemed 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 running 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 so in 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 out and you flip it to the
opposite to the exact opposite not the
narcissistic opposite which is I will be
the best ever
um so the opposite of it this will work
out you have any evidence that that's
true if you're thinking about you know
whatever the situation it won't work out
historical performance
sure just like once in your life or more
than once 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
their diaphragmatic breathing is so
important so if I was you um well and I
used to be you because before I'd speak
um 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 m 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 ORF flight
response you have a sympathetic response
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 um 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 getting 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
their brain that gets 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 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 because 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 there
one of yeah questionnaires that go oh
well you're more likely to have a limic
issue here or basil gangl 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 a
brittle Bipolar person I generally start
with supplements first um and so at home
people can go to brain health
assessment.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
Rocket Sports by far are 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 and so what is that
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 en 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 Sarah Bellum sellum so I
start playing table tennis that's step
one what else what am I supplementing
what other activities am I
doing so a rocket 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
rodea ashwaganda Jin sing We actually
make something we like called focus and
energy and we find it stimulates your
frontal loes and your cerebellum at the
same time so and then stop hting 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 not
working it's being poisoned um so I
hardly ever drink what are some other
things that people do on a day today
basis that could be totally just
horrific for that so if you're playing
football or your kids playing football
what they're doing is they're banging
their frontal loes and there's actually
this really cool term I like it's called
cross cerebella diis it's like what does
that mean you hurt your left frontal Lo
it actually turns off your right
cerebellum and if you hurt your right
frontal loobe 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 so with that insane
string of interactions with the brain
how's that given you a new way to think
about mental health how should we
reframe it what what does that taught
you so I have a new book coming out
called the end of mental illness and I
realize that that's going to get me into
all sorts of
trouble I love it
but after looking at the
brain I've come to realize these are not
mental illnesses at all that they brain
health issues that steal your mind and
when you really unpack this one idea it
just changes everything people begin to
see their problems as medical and not
moral it decreases shame and guilt it
increases compliance it increases
compassion and forgiveness because we
begin to see bipolar disorder
schizophrenia or major depression like
heart disease and no one is ashamed for
it even though all of them have
lifestyle contributions where do you
think that the stigma came from like why
cuz dude it was not long ago where
mental health issues was really really
stigmatized I would say it's less now I
for years struggled with anxiety and
didn't even want to tell my wife cuz I
thought she would think less of me where
do you think that all comes from I I
think it comes from the fact that we
don't think of these as brain health
challenges um mental illness places the
emphasis on your mind which is vague and
hard to define the mind is created by
the brain and when your brain works
right you work right but when your brain
is troubled for whatever reason you have
trouble in your life you're more likely
to be anxious you're more likely to be
depressed you're more likely to have
cognitive problems or get the diagnosis
of ADD and if we don't ever look at the
brain then how do we care about it think
about this what other medical specialty
virtually never looks at the organ they
treat and because we don't look at the
brain on a routine basis like we look at
your heart or your prostate or your
breast nobody cares about their brain
really and and when when you don't look
at the brain you come up with all sorts
of interesting theories about why people
act the way they do but you don't have
any information on the actual biology
and so for someone who struggles with
anxiety what we learned it's clearly not
one thing your brain could work too hard
and that's why you're anxious because
you can't settle it down or it doesn't
work hard enough so it can't suppress
the anxious feelings or maybe there's a
toxin or
trauma
and most people with anxiety they go to
a therapist and they talk about what's
going on and so they're working really
on the software of the issue but what if
there's a
hardware concern I want to talk about
the biology I think this is really
interesting and do would I think you
would self-identify as religious yes you
go to a church talk about church a lot
um how do you think about sort of
religion and that onetoone tie between
the the physicality of the brain and the
mind um there doesn't seem to be a
conflict for you where there is for a
lot of people yeah no not at all for me
to think all of this evolved out of
random chance I think actually takes
more faith than believing in Creative
Design I've actually studied prayer and
the impact of prayer on the brains
really interesting tell me more go deep
what do you mean by that what is the
impact so we studied it in different
states so conversation brain States like
different brain wave States or different
like well we studied brain in different
prayer States so for example I pray for
you um it's very intentional very
purposeful versus someone who does
prophecy which is one of the gifts in
both the New Testament and the old test
or speaking in tongues which is a gift
in the book of Acts in the New Testament
it's really interesting because speaking
in tongues is basically you are
channeling the Holy Spirit and I've
actually scanned channelers I mean
people who channel the dead like the
Long Island Medium and other people and
there's research on channelers because
you know in the United States we go no
that's not real but in places like
Brazil half the population believes in
it and engag and those kinds of
spiritual
disciplines and so the theory was when
you speak in tongues or when you Channel
you have to drop the function in your
brain so you have to sort of drop the
noise in your brain to become a vessel
for the channel and so give me give me
some of the brain wave so full
disclosure I'm not religious at all and
I definitely will count myself in sort
of the deeply skeptical but I accept
that there are things I do not
understand but could you look at a brain
scan and know ah this person's in a a
prayer state or a meditative State like
are there certain things that you look
for well I you have to compare it so for
example for the prayer study we did both
spect which looks at blood flow and
activity and we also did quantitative
EEG which looks at the electrical
activity in the brain so if you think of
alpha States or Theta States Theta
States more meditative State although
meditation fooled us you sort of think
oh when you meditate your brain would
get less activity that's true in your
emotional brain but in your thoughtful
brain it fires up it actually increases
something called gamma rays which are
super fast waves and so you have to sort
of know where in the brain you're
looking so when we we say brain waves
what we're looking at is how busy is
your brain and we measure it in
something called Waves per second or
cycles per second and 0 to two cycles
per second is called delta waves and
it's what happens when we
sleep um 3 to s or theta waves sort of
daydreaming people have ADD have higher
levels of theta waves so they're often
in sort of a daydreaming mean State
Alpha Waves 8 to 12 cycles per second
and that people often train that to
become in a more meditative focused
state so I love hypnosis and I've done
it ever since I was a medical student
with my patients and so we almost think
we try to get them into an alpha State
and then beta is 13 to 18 and high beta
is above 18 and Gamma is above 40 and so
we can actually
train your
brain maybe you need less Theta so you
can concentrate better and not be so
distracted or maybe we need to train up
Alpha and it's very exciting for me
because I first learned this idea in
medical school first Do no harm use the
least toxic most effective treatment so
I would much rather do something like
nerve feedback for you than just start
you willy-nilly on medication but
unfortunately that's what's happening in
our society 85% of psychiatric drugs are
prescribed by non- psychiatric
Physicians and 10-minute office visits
and and I'm not opposed to them I use
them when nothing else is working but
it's not the first thing I think about
and in the end of of mental illness
there's a whole chapter on mind
medication versus
neutraceuticals and there's actually a
table on which supplements have a-level
scientific evidence for things like
insomnia anxiety depression ADHD
addiction um and and I'm pretty excited
about that all right let's go back to
the neuro feedback and meditation prayer
like how do we train ourselves to be in
a different state so I do a lot of
creative writing and there's just a
certain state that I think is an alpha
wave state but reading your breakdown in
the books it may be more of a Theta
State um so I'll meditate for 15 to 20
minutes I I am focused entirely on uh
diaphragmatic breathing so um I am
trying to what I think of is lower the
background radiation so all of my stress
all of my anxiety I can get it to zero
and unless there's something really
weird going on in my life I can get it
to zero pretty fast
like I said 15 to 20 minutes um start
diaphragm breathing sort of all the
worries and thoughts begin to go away
but you've got this um neuro feedback
that people are using you referred to it
as a game on a computer what are people
doing how are they getting the neuro
feedback do you need that can you get
there through prayer meditation like how
do how do we begin to shift gears well
one of the reasons I really like Nur
feedback is when people
meditate the only feedback they're
getting getting this from themselves and
so when you have instruments that can
actually measure it you have a better
sense and then once we know it and we
have our goal whatever that goal is more
creativity more Focus less anxiety
irritability then we can specifically
set those training
protocols and give you feedback to know
where you are um and that's actually how
I came to Imaging was through um a
treatment technique called biof feedback
so biof feedback we measure things like
hand temperature heart rate uh sweat
gland activity muscle tension breathing
brain waves and so we know your Baseline
and then we teach you so for example to
warm your hands and if I teach you to
warm your hands with your brain mhm it's
an automatic
relaxation response and so it triggers
something called a parasympathetic
response so if you think of fight or
flight is a sympathetic response well
it's the opposite of that and so well
how do you teach someone to warm their
hands so first you put a little thermost
on their pinky and go so what's your
hand temperature and then let's get
handw Waring images and let's see which
one works for you and so we'll write
down 10 images that you might think
would work for you and then we'll spend
a couple of minutes on each image and
then you know over an hour you have a
pretty good sense one if you can do it
children do it without any problem
because they don't believe they can't
that is super interesting but um so it
could be holding a puppy or putting your
hands in front of a fire or holding a
cup of decaf coffee or and it starts
warming people's hands up yeah and it
when you warm your hand it sends a
signal to the rest of your body to calm
down because when you get stressed your
hands get cold and they get sweaty so
when I was a young psychiatrist I used
to do a word association test with my
patients and I would talk about well
think of a pencil and nothing would
happen with their hand temperature or
think of your mother and for me when I
think of my mother my hands get warmer
because she's this really good concept
in my head but as soon as you go think
of your father my hands get cold because
we had a conflicted relationship I mean
he's actually one of my best friends now
but it took a long time to get there so
your
body responds to every single thought
you
have and your brain responds and are
they helping you or are they hurting you
and you can learn to change your body
Often by changing where you let your
mind go I want to go back to hypnotism
so is there an element of that in this
uh and I I think the first question we
have to answer is why is hypnotism
powerful well it helps you tap into a
natural state are you are you um
shutting a part of your brain down now
actually we're activating so that was
like with like with meditation you know
it sort of fooled us yes it calms your
emotional brain but it activates your
cortical brain the most evolved human
thoughtful part of the brain um hypnosis
in the studies that have done tends to
activate the happy side of the brain
which is the left front and people who
are right-handed and we're not talking
about Las Vegas and making people cluck
like chickens and all of that we are in
hypnotic States all the time so I drove
to beas and that 5H hour drive seemed
like it went by in two it's called
highway hypnosis where time gets
distorted I don't know if you ever like
drove through a city and you like I
don't remember driving through the city
but you did and you were obviously fully
awake and competent and so on it's
hypnotic state so I'm just directing
people into a natural state because
they're more open not more gullible
because you can't make people do things
they wouldn't do but I have found it
helpful for sleep it's helpful for pain
it's helpful for anxiety and it just
feels so good which is I think because I
had a lot of anxiety when I was young I
I think I gravitated toward these things
because I teach my patients because they
also help me yeah so the idea of
hypnosis making you open what made me
think of that is you were saying okay
you can give people these images they
can actually begin to warm their hands
uh it made me wonder if okay do we first
have to train them to light up that part
of the brain that you're calling the
happy part which I've never heard that
reference before um so is is that step
one teach them to light up the the part
of their brain that makes them more
receptive so some people are highly
hypnotizable um that when you put them
in a trans time gets destroyed Ed very
quickly and almost everybody can be
hypnotized but for some people like me
it's training you need to do it not one
time and think of it as magic but do it
over time and when you put yourself when
you do the diaphragmatic breathing which
I'm a huge fan of you're actually
beginning to put yourself in a hypnotic
meditative State and then you can solve
problems um it just your whole
physiology changes do you practice like
do you teach people how to do self
hypnosis so if if a meditative state is
Hypnotic then I would say okay it's
simply focusing on the breath returning
sort of letting go of the thoughts
coming back to the breath over and over
and over um is that sort of the Baseline
entry into this state or are there um
more typical things that you'll have
somebody do like trying to warm their
hands like what's the easiest gateway to
this and then how do people use it so we
have an an online program called brench
life and there's actually six hypnosis
audios I do for them as if they were in
my office um so we begin to decrease the
outside world by focusing and then I'll
have people focus on something above
their eye level and as I count to 20 I'm
going to suggest to them their eyes are
getting heavy and about 12 their eyes
start to get heavy and I'll have them
close their eyes so we take their
scattered attention to a spot close
their eyes and then the attention gets
focused inward okay pause there what's
happening in the brain what are you
trying to do in that first step what I'm
trying to do is decrease the noise and
then I'm going to do diaphragmatic
breathing for them or really initially
deep breathing if I hadn't already
taught them diaphragmatic breathing and
there's a specific rate I don't know if
you've ever played with this but three 3
seconds in 6 seconds out because that
rate has been found to trigger a
parasympathetic response but I'm just
getting them focused on what's going on
internally and then I'll have them roll
their eyeballs up I'll have them
basically tense their muscles around
their eyes roll it down and then we're
going to do Progressive
relaxation I'll have them imagine the
relaxation spreading from the little
tiny muscles in their eyes to their
forehead to their scalp all the way down
to the bottom of their feet and then
I'll do a deepening technique may have
them walk down a flight of stairs or
something similar to that and then we'll
do guided imagery I'll take them Park to
beach the mountains you know whatever we
decide on ahead of time that is relaxing
for them get them to see what's there
feel what's there smell taste the
freshness in the air and and then we do
the work
I had a 16-year-old boy who had panic
attacks and I got him into a really nice
calm hypnotic State and then I had him
remember the last time he had a panic
attack that's interesting why there
exposure in a new safe so one we're
relaxed it's
safe and then in this safe meditative
State I would have had I want to you to
imagine yourself getting younger and
smaller smaller and
younger and I went you go to the first
time you had a panic
attack and after a minute he went back
to when he was four years old he had
stay stuck in his throat he thought he
was going to die and someone did a high
maneuver on him and it was very
traumatic for him and he'd completely
forgotten about it and then and this
doesn't happen often his mother was in
the room his 16-year-old boy and and I'm
like well there anything before
this cuz that was one of the sensitizing
events he actually went back to a time
when he couldn't see when it was dark
when he was wet and something was
choking him and his mother knew exactly
what happened he actually went back to
his birth and was born with the cord
wrapped around his neck I've never heard
anybody talk about goals before like I'm
obsessed with that and it just seems
like people don't bring it up uh but
here we go this from the book you're
more likely to be able to protect
yourself from dragons and ants we've
talked about those when you have clear
goals a healthy blood sugar level plenty
of sleep no alcohol in your system and
you talk about marijuana as well which
would be nice and controversial you
don't mention it in this quote but um
you have in the book and you are not
hungry angry lonely or tired and I
thought that really sums up the
protective mechanisms of things you have
to look out for and what you have to do
um walk people through why are goals so
important why is a guy that spent 40
years focused on brain health talking
about that and how did you come to
realize just how useful that is you have
to tell your brain what you want because
it's always listening and if you don't
know what you want and I ask all of my
patients what do you want they'll talk
about money
or they'll like I have a 17 almost 18
year old daughter and she's had two
boyfriends and I've dismissed them both
but it's like what do you want and they
talk about money and I'm like no that's
a side effect of a meaningful
purposeful
life having that as the goal is a
terrible goal and
I I like money I always say to my team
no margin no mission right you have to
make money but if that's the point
that's the prescription for
unhappiness and I've
always and I got this when I was a
medical student
it's people get burned out when they
become
unbalanced and so when I ask my patients
what they want relationships
work money it's important but it can't
be the thing right physical emotional
spiritual health what do you want in a
balanced way because if you know then
you're more likely to get it so for
example you've met Tana uh I want a kind
caring loving supportive passionate
relationship with my wife I always want
that but I don't always feel like that
but when I'm thoughtful when I know my
goals cuz they're
posted I'm so much more likely to act
like that which means I'm going to have
a great
marriage especially if she has clear
goals too and we have similar goals for
our
relationship do you guys talk about your
goals all the time and when you say
they're posted where are they posted so
I have them posted in my bathroom
and I have them on my phone very smart
and and and so everything it comes out I
love like three letter three-word
sentences or three-word questions and
like for the ants is it true and for
goals is does it fit does my behavior
today fit the goals I have for my life
so last night I was at the Orange County
Fair they had fried butter Puffs does
doesn't fit the goals I have right cuz
one of my goals is to be physically
healthy if you're trying to change
medical specialty you want to live a
long time because it's going to take a
long time and so I want to be healthy
because that gives me energy and
happiness and so the butter fried butter
Puffs didn't fit yeah I think this is a
a super underserved um thing it there's
a great Tony Robins quote if you don't
know where you want to be in 5 years
you're already there and I remember when
I heard that I was like oh my God like
so many people have dreams about where
they want to go and what they want to do
but they stay these sort of vague
amorphous blobs and they never get
defined and therefore you never achieve
them and your future is always 5 years
away and you're just you're stuck in
this Perpetual sameness so it's really
interesting to hear you talk about that
so now let's say that they have their
goal they've written it down they posted
it they see it multiple places in their
house how do they go about getting the
brain that they're going to need to
actually get there so we know that we
don't eat our butter Puffs in fact what
I'll ask is why don't we eat our butter
Puffs we want to live a long time I get
that but specifically what what is the
problem with fried butter yeah like what
makes something bad food I think that's
the right way to ask
it um I come up with this new phrase I
just love so much uh that you only want
to love food that loves you back that
you're in a relationship with food I
think 30% of the mental health problems
in America are related to our terrible
diet uh that you are what you eat in
large part and if you're
eating I call them the weapons of mass
destruction highly processed pesticide
sprayed high glycemic low fiber food
like substances stored in plastic
containers you're not going to be
healthy you poison your gut you're
poisoning your brain and I published
three studies now the last one on 35,000
scans one of the world's largest Imaging
studies Tom you will not believe this
there was a linear correlation on
virtually every area of the brain as
people's weight went up the activity and
blood flow in their brain went down I
believe it unfortunately healthy weight
overweight obese morbidly obese in a
linear fashion when I saw those graphs
when I was doing the research I was just
like horrified and I come from a family
of fat people uh my dad used to hate
when I'd say that but I have a brother
that's 150 pounds overweight and a
sister the same thing and I know if I
just ate everything that looked good to
me I would be too and no I'm not having
that especially because I don't want a
small brain right and and people go oh
that's fat shaming and I feel terrible
about it because 72% of the country is
overweight think about that I mean how
insane is that 42% of people are obese
the pandemic made it
worse we should be worried about that
because the extra fat on your body
produces inflammatory cyto Kines and we
know inflammation is a major cause of
depression and dementia the fat on your
body takes healthy testosterone which we
need which men and women need and it
turns it into unhealthy cancer promoting
forms of estrogen that's a bad thing fat
stores toxins we need to get serious
about being at a healthy weight with
healthy food um and
so diet is critical
exercise supplementation I think is
really important I did a study 97% of
the population um low in omega-3 fatty
acids and so finding ways to supplement
about 80% of us are deficient in vitamin
D in a pandemic that's not okay nope
right because people with low vitamin D
actually die more if they get
covid-19 so yeah going back to what
you're saying about fat shaming so first
of all I come from a morbidly obese
family as well and I've often said that
you when you love something you don't
hate on it look down on it like I don't
think less of people because they're
obese uh but going back to the idea of
facing reality at the same time I know
that I will lose them earlier than I
absolutely have to if they continue to
live that lifestyle and so getting
people especially now in a pandemic to
just face that it isn't fat shaming to
say you're more likely to survive this
disease that's ravaging you know the
entire human population if you are
living a healthy lifestyle get your
weight under control exercise Eat Right
work out all of that stuff um because
there's nothing worse than trying to
solve a problem when you ignore the
thing that's actually causing it like
you're just at that point it's really
about symptom mitigation versus figuring
out what's really going on um
do you think that this so going back to
weight specifically I want to pick up on
that for a second because I learned a
long time ago as a psychiatrist if you
don't admit you have a problem you can't
solve it dude that is so true until I
finally admitted to my wife that I was
anxious I I couldn't make progress and
finally I just was like [ __ ] I have to
tell her and it really did not make me
feel good about myself because you know
there is something about the way that
she would look at me like I could do
anything and that felt so good and to
finally be like yo I'm over here I am
struggling homie like this is really
gnarly and of course it wasn't the
turnoff that I feared it was going to be
and it only brought us closer together
but that was really hard to admit but
then once I could say it out loud to the
person that was the only person I really
cared about impressing then it was like
okay now I can actually deal with
this because when you become more real
you become more relatable and this so
many guys don't understand this that
they deny that they have a problem
because they want to be perceived is the
person who has it all together but then
nobody can relate to you um you know
that's one of the reasons I became
really vulnerable in the book and I
haven't gotten any haters I mean I have
plenty of haters don't get me wrong but
from
writing from on that stand um but I
remember I did the big NFL study at a
time when the NFL was sort of lying they
had a problem and my letter to the
commissioner so you don't admit you have
a problem you can't solve it and it's
going to get worse and and that came
from marriages where especially the guy
wouldn't admit that they were struggling
and it ended up falling
apart yeah I can certainly understand
that so okay we admit that we have a
problem whether it's about weight or
whatever um how do we begin to unwind
this stuff that's really I think the the
important thing is it does it just come
down to look there are because you you
write in the book and I wrote them down
so I can read them out if we need to but
um they just are there just certain
things you just have to do and you just
you have to do them and until you do
them like this is never going to change
well and that's the bad habit chapter
you know I have the bad habit dragons
there's the overeater bad habit Dragon
the worst of all the dragons is the
oblivious Dragon the dragon is that an
intentional like you're intentionally
being oblivious or people that really
just don't know you just don't know and
you haven't taken the time you go I'm
fat because everybody in my family's fat
it's like no I have a lot of fat people
in my family and I'm not because I don't
give into the behaviors making it likely
to be so and so it's about being
intentional reading the labels of the
food you eat of the products you put on
your body it's asking yourself this one
question is this good for my brain or
bad for it right I mean ultimately in
all of my books I try to create brain
Envy I want people to love their
brains um and is this good for my brain
or bad for it and the reason that brain
Envy works just to be clear is because
you can improve your brain how exciting
is that and I've proven that over and
over and NFL players and soldiers and
police officers that you're not stuck
and intuitively people should know that
right if I don't sleep tonight and I'm
not going to think well tomorrow but no
one's thinking about the physical
functioning of their brain so I'm in
Justin Bieber's um new docu series
seasons and he came out of been his
doctor for a long time and like many
celebrities he'd do it I'd say sometimes
show up sometimes but then because he
went through a really hard time he came
into my office and he said I get it my
brain is an organ like my heart is an
organ if you told me I had heart
problems I'd do everything you say I'm
going to do everything you say and he
got radically better and you got love it
and and we have to stop this whole
mental illness thing I hate it because
it's not mental illness it's brain
health right get your brain right and
your mood is better you're happier
you're more focused you make less bad
decisions which will decrease your
anxiety speaking of anxiety so you said
earlier that you think 30% of mental
health brain health problems are tied to
um diet
in my n of one experience I think it's
even higher than that so when I think
about okay suffering from profound
anxiety I'm trying all the mental tricks
and there's no doubt they helped I mean
very very beneficial but I just couldn't
I felt like I was learning to better
cope with the symptoms but I wasn't
eliminating the symptoms and so I was
like what is going on and then of course
because of what my wife went through
from a health perspective become aware
of the gut start really thinking about
what I'm eating and that there are going
to be things that might be messing me up
that I just would never have guessed um
longtime listeners of my show will grow
tired of hearing the following statement
but at the beginning of covid I went
through something really weird that I'd
never experienced before was getting
super tired all the time brain fog just
like almost losing my zest for life and
I was like this is really bizarre and I
thought okay well what would you tell
somebody if they came and describe those
symptoms and I was like no matter what I
would tell them it's something that
you're eating because that's just so
true in terms of the way if your body's
being affected your brain's being
affected it's almost certainly something
you're eating and I'm like but my diet's
so healthy like how could this possibly
be and I was like just eliminate
whatever you're eating a lot of and see
what happens and I'm like what am I
eating a lot of and I was like pecans
and so I cut out pecans 48 hours later I
was back in business I was like how the
hell is it possible that peans of all
and they were like raw they weren't even
like roast I mean these were like the
[ __ ] all but just plucked off a tree
so I was I anyway I couldn't fathom that
that was it but it was it and then that
got me thinking wait a second could my
anxiety be tied to something I'm eating
and so then I started cutting out
anything processed cuz dude I love my
zeroc calorie drinks love them in a way
I can't even begin to tell you but of
course that comes with a lot of
chemicals that I've never even heard of
and I've heard of a lot of chemicals and
in cutting all of that out the what my
anxiety feels like to me now I might
still have a thought about something's
going to go wrong in the future and that
will trigger that that feeling of like
ooh something bad is coming but it never
escalates food is so
important and
um when I put my patients on Elimination
Diet so we basically eliminate the bad
things um they
get so much better and and the
nutritionists that work with us have
more success stories than the
psychiatrists and used to irritate me
Food Matters what you put in your mouth
your
microbiome matters we have these hundred
trillion bugs in our gut and what we
feed them you know helps to grow the
ones that make you happy or they help to
grow the ones that make you angry and
sad um it's just so important and our
biggest blog last year uh I wrote one
called I Told You So and when I and I
started with when I dated Tana she told
me I will never tell you I told you so
she lied it's like her favorite thing to
say and
then I said but the American Cancer
Society just came out and said you
shouldn't drink why it increases your
risk of seven different kinds of cancer
not to mention it prematurely when
people were giving that advice I was
like uh like this one just doesn't land
for me it just doesn't seem possible
that it would be essentially a health
food what about
weed
marijuana is uh in that it's very in my
friend it's in I published a study on a
thousand marijuana users every a of
their brain is lower in activity now
does help some people like when my
father-in-law what what does it actually
help with it helps increase appetite for
some people it can actually decrease
seizure frequency it suppresses activity
in the
brain I I'm very worried because as the
perception of dangerousness of a drug
goes down it use goes up especially in
teenagers and if you're smoking or
eating Edibles as a teenager you you've
just increased your risk of anxiety
depression and suicide in your 20s o so
that's it's not good and I you know all
child psychiatrist I'm also a child
psychiatrist have the experience of all
of a sudden this 16-year-old is not
acting right and we test them and they
end up positive for marijuana that it's
not innocuous and and I think that's the
important thing now is it worse than
alcohol well actually I published a stud
on 62,000 this is the world's largest
Imaging study 62,000 scans on how the
brain ages and then we looked at what
accelerated aging schizophrenia was the
worst your brain looked 10 years older
than people who didn't have
schizophrenia the second worst and it
was a surprise for me was marijuana your
brain worse than alcohol worse than
alcohol worse than smoking what I am
startled by that yeah I was too and it's
like it's the data and I have no dog in
the fight right if you smoke if you
don't smoke you're just actually more
likely to see me if you do is it
lowering blood flow
like blood flow to the brain wow I
thought for sure you were going to say
alcohol was the worst yeah but neither
of them are good man that's
crazy yeah so food can make you happy so
can drugs that's the that's the problem
like when I think about all the the
insults that people can do to their
brain how important the brain is for the
mind and that your mind if you don't
have your mind under control your life
your life will be determined by how well
you control your mind like I just
because ultimately all we are is a
string of emotions things either make
you feel good bad or indifferent and
when you spend a lot of time feeling bad
life sucks when you spend a lot of time
feeling good life is great and it
doesn't matter if you have all the money
in the world if you feel bad life sucks
doesn't matter if you're broke as day is
long if you feel good life is great so
but the number of things that insult our
brain from just concussive Trauma from
certain types of contact Sports to um
sitting around to uh weed alcohol a lot
of things that are fun the
overprescription of drugs oh my God
Gadget screen time like yeah negative
thoughts like it is bananas and the
amount of time that people have to put
into getting it right so we have a high
school course called brain Thrive by 25
and I I love this course and we play a
game with them called who has more fun
the kid with the good brain or the kid
with the bad brain who gets the girl and
gets to keep her because he doesn't act
like an ass they get with the good brain
or they get with the bad brain who gets
into college who gets the job they want
who has the most consistent positive
behavior it's the person with the good
brein this is not about not having fun
it's about having fun with all of you
intact yeah and over a prolonged period
of time over a prolonged period of
Time Dr aiman thank you so much for
coming on dude I always love your books
and time with you where can people
connect with you and ensure that they
have the good brain over a long period
of time well they can find us at amcl
clinics.com so amen like the last word
in a prayer clinics.com they can follow
me on Facebook or Instagram Instagram
it's
_ Amen we're doing a whole cool series
called scan my brain I've done some just
wonderful influencers it's super fun and
um we want to create a revolution in
brain health we want to end mental
illness and that whole discussion and
really start talking with a better brain
always comes a better life where cancer
patients are taking psychedelics to deal
with the existential crisis of a cancer
diagnos that's even higher than to me
it's like CU you're starting to think
like there's parts of me are eating
myself from the inside and growing
inside me it could give you a real sense
of what what is identity