Change Your Brain Every Day - Actor Dave Annable on Life, Love, and ADHD

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Actor Dave Annable opens up to Dr. Daniel Amen in this candid brain scan session that’s as raw as it is eye-opening. Dave shares his lifelong struggles with ADHD, insomnia, and self-medication with unhealthy substances—and how they affect his marriage. With Dr. Amen’s insights, Dave discovers how brain health impacts not only focus and productivity, but also intimacy, parenting, and long-term happiness. Dr. Amen also reveals the surprising brain patterns shaping Dave’s life and explains why he should see a functional medicine doctor. Whether you’re married, a parent, or simply curious about how your brain impacts your relationships, this episode is both deeply relatable and full of practical hope.

In 2015, I was diagnosed with adult ADD, and they gave me Adderall. And basically on it since 2015, some breaks here and there. Yes, I think you have ADD. But it's not simple, take Adderall and you're all better. Yes. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Hallelujah.

Okay, I knew it. She was just waiting. I'm trying to bite my dog, but I said, hallelujah. There's other things. We got to support. David Annable is an extremely successful American actor. He is most famous for his roles in the television drama, Brothers and Sisters. The NBC Medical Drama Heartbeat.

And as Neil on the Spy series Special Ops Lioness. I just hate my phone. And I hate that it's constantly going off. So what I do is I just go like this. In today's world, that doesn't hold up. You know, like you can't normalize a bad texter. You know, like where I won't text somebody back. You know, they text, I'm like, oh, I'm with you.

And then I'll text them later. Then, ah, it's not the right time. And then it just keeps getting, you know, Yeah, that if you have boundaries around it, you teach people how to treat you by what you tolerate and how you communicate. And so if you're always getting back to people and they think you're rude if you don't,

well, you've taught them that they can manipulate you with guilt. And one great exercise is... Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. There are days when I need to be at my best, whether it's back-to-back clinic sessions,

long writing days, or just keeping up with life. That's when I take peak energy from BrainMD. It gives me clean, steady energy without jitters or crashes. And I'm not the only one who loves it. It just won a 2025 next year award beating over 500 other supplements. If you want real energy that lasts, check it out at BrainMD.com and use the code, Podcast 20 for 20% off. Well, welcome to an incredible episode, Change Your Brain, Your Brain. day. We're going to do family scans today. And I'm with two really incredible actors and parents,

Dave, and Odette, Annable. And you're going to like this episode. Stay with us. When I first started doing scans, loved it and just got obsessed with looking in people's brains. And I was seeing this couple who hated each other and like whenever they would come in they sat on the opposite end I had two couches in my office of each couch what's a bad like you guys are close right and after about three months I knew I wasn't going to be effective I knew you know these things intuitively but I am persistent I used to think that was a good trade of mine until I realized stalkers are persistent. I'm like, maybe this is not a good trade.

And at the end of nine months, I realize they're on my schedule and my stomach hurts. And I'm in the shower. I'm getting ready to go to work. And I'm like, today I'm going to tell them to get divorced. Wow. Because it's not helpful for children to be raised with people who ate each other. Yeah. And then, but I grew up Roman Catholic, like not kidding, Catholic.

And the voice, those of us that grew up Catholic have a voice in our head, really, because you're not a good enough therapist, you're going to damn their eternal souls to help. And I'm like, I'm calling my friend at the imaging center. I'm like, would you give me two scans for the price of one? Because I have this couple. He goes, couple? What a great idea. He said, I've been married twice.

I can't figure it out. Maybe we could do brainmatch.com. Well, we're here. And they got dramatically better. Really? Fascinating. She had an OCD brain and he had an ADD brain and I balance their brain. And I was in San Francisco last year.

This was 34 years ago. They're still married. And they like each other and they don't see. What? We have a shot. We've got a shot. We've got a shot. Let's do this.

All right. Better brain. Better love. Yeah. There it is. You can see a marital therapist. So if nobody looks at your brain, how do they really help you if the hardware is the problem? Yeah.

And now you're going to be able to tell and like, you know, let some things go. Well, I just feel like we focus so much on helping our body and eating right and doing the whole thing. It's got to be a whole body thing. But I forget about my brain. And now that's at the priority. You will never again. Never again. Forget about your brain.

all right um so dave tell me your goals in being here uh well to stay married um no i you know yeah i mean i think that's part of it but obviously um i'd like to really uh kind of look into the ADD part and and finishing things that i want to do and i feel like there's like a ceiling you know that I keep just hitting my ceiling with, you know, with my ADD or with lack of, you know, real information going forward about how to help myself versus just medication. So I'm very excited to be here. And you're taking medicine for ADD. Yes.

Yes. I was taking in 2015, I was diagnosed with adult ADD and they gave me Adderall. and I've been basically on it since 2015, some breaks here and there. But, you know, it was this last, literally two weeks ago where I was like, you know, is there something else out there, you know, or like a different, different drug or because I wasn't, it felt like a lot and I wasn't really feeling like I was getting the benefits. I think that it was there for or maybe my body got used to it, you would know. so I just started trying

five ants like four days ago. It's been great so far. I didn't take it today. It's basically the same medicine. It's just a little bit of a different preparation. It's, yes, I think you have ADD. Okay.

But it's not simple, take Adderall and you're all better. It's a little bit more complicated. Okay. Than that. It feels like it. Hallelujah. Okay. I knew it.

she was just waiting. I'm trying to bite my dog, but I said, hallelujah. There's other things. We got a support for you, not just, you know, medication. Yeah. Or maybe I can tweak it a little bit. So when I reviewed the history, these were just some of the things I took away from it. Okay. So diagnosed, like you said, you had symptoms in childhood, distractive. problems with executive function, chatter in your brain, and it interferes with focus and completion procrastination, unless you're really interested, like, golf videos and like that. Wow. Lock in.

Yes, I wrote that. You take testosterone. I do. Your levels too high. You send me your labs, thank you. Okay, yes. And you have to be very careful when your level's too high. Okay, I just saw that.

gets you all sorts of problems. Okay. What are some like, what are some of those? Your empathy goes down. Okay. And your libido goes up and you're more likely to make bad decisions. Okay. So I think testosterone is essential.

Too high trouble. Okay. Copy that. So you've done lots of work on yourself. I love that. You're open-minded. But you also had Lyme disease. Yes.

And there's something in your brain that looks like inflammation to me. And one of the things I want you to do is see Dr. Cornish. Dr. Cornish is our functional medicine doctor for the East Coast. Okay. Oh, great. She's on the board of the International Lyme Association. Oh, how amazing. That's awesome.

Given that you had it, your brains, yes, you have ADD, but it's also too busy. I would put it in a category of over-focused ADD that you also have trouble shifting attention. It's not just paying attention. Okay. Sure. Let's see. Vitamin D levels, fine.

You take those. So I always think of people in these four big circles. Okay. It's like, okay, what's going on with your brain? How do you manage your mind? What are your relationships like? And why do you think you're on the planet? Like, what is your deepest sense of meaning and purpose?

And when we go to the brain, I have this big idea. You want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it. We have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. And I was hunting for them. Okay. So I was reading yours. And Bright Minds is the acronym. Okay.

We like that. B is for blood flow. And your APOB, which is a. measure of heart inflammation. It's a little high. It's not terrible. Okay. You want to get it lower.

Okay. What are things? What are some? Okay. Diet? We'll get there. Okay. Does that mean I should retire right now at age 45?

That's great. Absolutely not. Okay. Retirement in aging. It's like, are you in a job that requires new learning? Yeah. I mean... For sure.

Yeah. I mean, of course. You're an actor. You've got to turn into all different kinds. I saw you in Lianus. Yes, sir. Yeah, it was great. You were great.

Thank you. I appreciate that. It's a fun show. I love Zoe. Oh, yeah. She's amazing. She's really an amazing person, too. She's going to be very jealous of them here.

Inflammation was high. So there's becoming a pattern. Okay. Hi. We thought genes that ADD sort of ran on your mom's side of the family, but not your mom. I don't think so. Have you ever had your genes tested? There are a couple of genes that I want you to test.

I have an extra crow or so? And so does Charlie. So does Charlie. We did do some genetic testing only to see where we line up with Charlie's genetics. And that's where they saw that there was, I can, I actually have the, oh, it might be in Charlie's chart. And Dave has the same exact one, an extra chromosome. I don't know what they were saying is they don't really know what it does yet.

I said, you know, love, because she doesn't happen. Well, we didn't get any answers. Basically, you know, they told, they gave us that information, but it didn't go any further than that. Head trauma played hockey. You had a concussion in high school. you also played college rugby and there's some evidence on your scan i'll show you all of it is mendable okay if you do what i say oh okay the doc i love it um i'm so happy with here i couldn't be happier until my scan comes up so let's see you've had multiple surgeries and why that's important

general anesthesia can actually be hard on your brain. Like, who knew? I had no idea. Heavy social drinking when you were younger, now two to three things, two to three times a week. One of the exercises that I love doing, it's like, all right, let's just be brutally honest. Why do you do it? And let's write all that down. And what would be the benefit to stop?

And then we'd just look at the list. And usually once you see your brain, the benefits to stop outweigh the reasons to do it. Sure. But you have to understand why you do it. Right, right, right, right. So that if we don't replace it, then you'll go back to it. You go right back to it. Sure.

Because the goal is your highest level of happiness and connection. And one of the exercises I'd love to do with my patients, called the one page miracle one piece of paper write down what you want relationships work money physical emotional spiritual help what do you want and then every day you just go is my behavior getting me what I sure why getting closer to this or further away from it makes yeah yeah and I want you to want to have a healthy brain because with a healthy brain everything's better everything's better money is better health is better health is better relationships are better the the one-page miracle is built specifically so you don't get

burned out yeah right people work too much they lose their family and then they get burned out right right spend all the time looking for money or even all the time looking for relationships and you don't so it's balance and one great exercise the kids are how old nine and two nine and two is I have an exercise I love called special time 15 minutes a day do something with your child that your child wants to do and during that time no commands no questions no directions the level of bonding just going way up sure because you can't be on your phone they can't be on their phone you can't be distracted it's like hey it's my time for you that's great that's great yeah it'll just help you so much um and we we live in a distracted society so we have to drug ourselves so we're not distracted

it's like i have a question about that actually um because i have like a real i don't even want to say love hate like i just hate my fault and i hate like that it's constantly going off i constantly have to get back to you know a lot of people and then so what i do is i just go like this because i also like truly love to be present like i really love to be i think it's really if I'm on my phone with other people here. But I'm like, in today's world, that doesn't hold up, you know? Like you can't normalize a bad texter, you know, when people like, I'm an accidental ghoster, you know, like where I won't text somebody back because like, you know,

they text, I'm like, oh, I'm with you. And then I'll text them later. Then, oh, it's not the right time. And then it just keeps getting, you know, punted. And then eight years later. Yeah, but if you have boundaries around it, you teach people how to treat you by what you tolerate and how you communicate and so if you're always getting back to people and they think you're rude if you don't well you've taught them that they can manipulate you with guilt

and so you are in charge sure of your life okay and I think having regular breaks like we're not on our phones down because we're connecting doing something important and so I think you get to schedule the phone rather than And the phone schedules you. Okay. Love that. Thank you. Struggling with your mental health.

At A.man Clinics, we use brain imaging and personalized care to help you heal at 11 locations. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Orange County, California, Seattle, and Scottsdale. Visit Aamonclinics.com. but you had a friend's suicide a couple of years ago yeah best friend 20 years i'm so sorry that's terrible sir because you like you have emotional trauma in your brain i do you do okay and i don't know if it's still circle can you tell like when it's from no no i'm just go oh i have to ask them about emotional trauma um in the therapy you've had have you ever had EMDR?

No. It's a specific form of therapy. It's called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. So like for my patients, I have them

keep a journal. And every five years, like zero to five, five to ten, so on. On the left side of the page, write down what awesome things happened. And on the other side of the page, what awful things happen. Sure. And then with EMDR, we'll like pick the top 10, go after the worst one first, have you bring it up, have you bring up the feelings, the emotions within, get your eyes to go back and forth.

And you just sort of imagine being on a train going back to when that happened. It's intense when you bring it up and then it's not. Wow. And then it might be connected to something else. And then it might be connected to something else. And so if you go back, for example, to your friend's suicide, I mean, it's terrible. And it's awful. And you'll feel it.

But then those feelings tend to dissipate. You still remember them. You still remember them with love. But it doesn't circle in your head. And the pattern in your brain, which I'll show you in a little bit, calms down. I published a study on police officers who were involved in shootings. And they couldn't go back to work because they were so upset. And they all went back to work.

Wow. That was cool. A lot of friends do it. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really helpful. And it's one of the things I recommended for you just because I saw that pattern.

Sure. Lime. You've had shingles. You have asthma. and high IgE, which is in the immunoglobulin, and high eacinophils on your white count. So there's an immune activation in your body. Yeah, like an autoimmune something. Yeah.

And I just think you should see Dr. Cornish, and she should help hunt that down for you. And I'm like not a huge fan of, oh, I have an autoimmune disease. it's like, well, why do you have an autoimmune disease? Is your gut not healthy? Right. Is it the substances? Right, right, right, right. It's like, well, why do you have it?

Well, you know, I've always been, like, sick, I guess. Like, I was hospitalized twice when I was a kid, I didn't write that on there, with pneumonia, allergic to everything. My parents actually sent me to live with my grandmother in Florida for a month when I was having, right after the pneumonia, because of the, in New York, like the pollen was so bad with them. So, I mean, I've always had, like, high inflammation or allergies, you know. I mean, even when we first started dating, you were in and out of the hospital. I mean, you've gone through so many surgeries. I mean, we were first dating.

Way to break this. Okay. So. He had some stomach issues. Yeah. And your brain feels that. Yeah. And that may be what you're trying to calm down. Your sleep's low. Very low. Yeah. Ooh, very low. Well, I'm also sleeping next to the lightest sleeper on the planet.

This is for another, this is another conversation. Sure. But if I like sniff, I hear, and then I got to like go down and stay like. We're basically in separate bedrooms at this point. I mean, she yells at me for sneezing. I'm like, that's involuntary.

I can't control that. You try sleeping with them. And then we can have a conversation, okay? Let's keep it moving. Sleep needs to. Sleep, it is, it is important. You are clocking sometimes, what was it the other day? Two and a half hours?

Well, yeah, it's like three. That's why. And I go to bed early. I go to bed real early. I'm like a grandpa. He's like a 7.45. Okay. Probably eight.

I'm not roasting you. This is the truth. This is a 7.45 alcohol. My children make totally fun of me. Yeah, I'm like, you know, it's 8.45. I was like, I'll do the wake up with the kids. I ain't putting them to bed because I'll be sleep. But normally, and this has been since you were a kid, you wake up early, very early, like in the four and five.

So if you go to sleep at a, what time do you wake up? Well, so, you know, let me give you an occasional. We just did the thing. So, you know, if I go to sleep, let's say eight, okay, then I'll probably wake up at like one. And then I'm like stuck enough. probably pee, you know, and then I'm stuck like, oh, I can't wake her up. And then I'll hear the, I'll do anything. And then I'll hear the exhale and then I'm, shit.

Pretend like I'm not in bed. Well, you, I sleep better. Do you go back to sleep when you wake up that one? When you're not there, then I go down and go up a snack. I watch a little, you know, I go, it's horrible. Okay. I'm not here to justify that, but I walk to the basement. It's got big TV.

You guys should sleep in separate rooms. Yes. Okay. This is why she's here. Thank you. The permission that I need. We're getting closer. Cuddle with each other for sure.

Yeah. Well, she's out of con. So we're just actually going to have different houses. Oh. Yeah. Everything's great. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So this is the long computer test you took today. And these are just how you answered questions, which is yes to the ADHD. some substance stuff that we talked about. You're really good at recognizing faces. You actually recognize positive faces faster than negative faces. That's good. You get your feelings hurt.

You sort of bounce back from it. That is good. Not horribly stressed, anxious, or depressed. Your memory, long-term, short-term is not great. That's not good if you're learning a lot of lines over and over. Again, focus. not awesome planning not awesome processing speed not awesome flexibility sort of okay I got to the gray but we need to make this better and so and I think I'll show you in a second I think it's because

you're poisoning yourself okay um reasonably positive I like that I'm not terribly resilient I think that's the busyness in your brain but very social All right. What was the resiliency part? It's how you answer the questions. I don't worry about that one so much. This is the one I worry about the most. The cognitive thing, okay.

So we do a study called SPECT, and you've seen Charlie's scan. Speck basically tells us three things, good activity, too little or too much. Sure. And then our job is to balance it. And this is our goal. Smooth, looking down from the top, up from the bottom, one side and the other should just be full, even, and symmetrical. Here, blue is average activity. Red is the top 15%, white is the top 8%. So white's like really active parts of brain. And it should be here. And you'll notice with Charlie, this just absolutely goes away. And she tries to concentrate.

Wow. So with yours, it's not bad, but it's bumpy. You see the bumpiness? Yeah. The bumpiness is the problem. Because it means toxicity. I see a lot of bumps in there. It's bumpy.

It's a bumpy road. And here, you see these valleys. So that's the ADD. Okay. Toxicity, trauma at some point, and it could be the concussion or playing rugby. And that's the physical or the emotional? Physical. Okay, physical.

And hyperbaric oxygen is really helpful for this. And one of the biggest benefits of hyperbaric oxygen is you sleep better. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was sort of, line. It had a problem with traumatic brain injury on football. They've come around since. But when I put players in the chamber, they slept better. That was the first thing we saw. It might be my new bedroom. I might just might just move in the new bedroom. That'd be great. I saw Justin Bieber and he slept in his chamber. Not sure I recommend. Yeah. Right. All right. You have a great cerebellum.

Heard that. And this is when you concentrate. But, If you look, it makes a diamond. That's the trauma pattern. And it's pretty clear. Worry, anxious. And when I see that, I published a couple of studies on it, and it goes with emotional trouble in the past. And EMDR seems to calm it down.

But it's so busy, I'm like, I wonder if Lyme has anything to do it. Okay. Or whatever is the origin of your immune system working. Okay. So what do I think? Yes, I think you have ADHD and a concussion or more. The toxicity on the scans, emotional trauma, high testosterone. So what do we do?

Cornish for a lime console, hyperbaric oxygen. I think that'll give you a really healthier-looking brain. Some supplements that help. I would add happy saffron as a way to calm your limbic brain as opposed to give you something. Yeah, give you something to sort of settle it down. And then I would just love for you to love. your brain and just every day you ask this one question, it's just good for my brain or bad for it? It's good for my brain or bad for it. All the evidence on alcohol is bad.

Right. There's just no good evidence. The American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol because any alcohol is associated with an increased risk of eight different cancers. Wow. And it's like decisions aren't better on alcohol. Brain is not better. Your brain is totally mendable. I love that. But I want you to love it and never do anything to hurt it. All right. You exercise on a regular basis, right?

Yeah, yeah. Kind of when I'm getting job ready. I'm a little lazier when, you know, the downtime, but for sure, when it's time to go to work. I would say, can I just say that you are an extremist? he's either on or he's off. And it is one or the other for the most part, I would say. So if he's, so he's going to start shooting season three of Linus in October.

So he's sort of on right now. And he will be when he puts his mind to it, he will exercise every day. He will eat healthy, you know, the whole thing. I stop smoking. I stop drinking. He does. He does the whole thing. And it's obviously maybe for vanity, right?

I mean, for his job. That's all we got. He's on camera, but of course, of course. But I will tell you what, when the man is off, you will see... There's no Dairy Queen that's safe. I mean... Midnight snacks. You cannot...

I see wrappers, candy wrappers, the whole thing. How to tap into the motivation to be great even when you're not on camera. Even when it's not for a job. Right. The discipline part. the overall caring about myself. It's just, it's almost like a rigid way of thinking. We'll take a break in a little bit because I want to show you.

I have to make my patients posters. Here's a healthy brain. Here's yours. Here's yours if I do, you do what I say. And here's yours if you don't. Oh, that's great. That would be great, yeah. That's great.

I love that. Yeah. I had an actor who, Like, I saw him for a couple of times and then lost touch to him. Ten years later, he said, when he saw me, he completely stopped drinking. And this poster scared the hell out of him. Wow, that's great. That's what we need.

New learning. You're going to do that in your job. Or with the golf videos. A huge fan. Are you taking omega-3s? No, I should. I think there's, we have some of the house. I dabbled.

So I want you to, it's my NFL formula, two packets a day. Okay. Multiple vitamin, fish oil, and a brain boost that works in six different ways. That max would be the one I would change it to. All those lower numbers we saw, they'll all go to right. Just the supplements. I published a study on it. all of these go over there.

Whoa. Yeah. And is that from like here forward or I'll like remember the fight we had where I was right three weeks ago? Okay. But with the Saffron, you'll remember the better stuff. Oh, there we go. Oh, that's good.

And your negativity is not bad, right? I see a lot of patients. They're like over here. And, like, we have to work on, today is going to be a great day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, you have to train that. Like to get out of bed type thing, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So we're going to give you omega-3 fatty acids. I'm going to give you great multiple vitamin. What a great. Thank you. Thank you. So those packets, two a day. You can take two at the same time.

If you have ADD, it's probably better, so you don't forget the other one. this saffron, you'll notice you'll move these up. Okay. And you'll be less worried. Okay. And the gummies for when you feel anxious. Yeah. Probably a little.

Yeah. I also, I want to order an APO-E gene type and an M-THFR. And I think the big one is this, is avoid exposure. It's like you want to have a better brain. I don't know if you guys know the app Think Dirty. No, I was just going to ask about it. It allows you to scan all of your personal products. Tell you on a scale of 1 to 10 how quickly they're killing you.

Oh, wow. Kind of like the... The Yucca for food. Yeah, the Bobby approved or whatever, yeah. Saunas, do you take sonnas? Yeah. We have one at home. We have an infrared sauna.

Great. I get in three or four times a week. Great. It will help detoxify. by your system. Kill the ants. Ants stands for automatic negative thoughts. Thoughts to come into your mind automatically

and ruin the day. Very important to learn not to believe every stupid thing you think. That's in your kid's book. Yeah, we have that. Give your mind a name. I don't know what you might give your mind. It's name.

I named mine after my pet raccoon when I was 16. She was a troublemaker. I loved her, but she was a troublemaker. So when my mind starts bothering me, like the chatter that you get stoned, it's you just have to learn how to separate from it. I sat next to Lisa Trout recently. Lisa and her husband owned Justify

the Triple Crown winning racehorse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was sitting next to her and I'm like, would you ever get justified drunk? And she goes, no. I said, would you ever feed him junk food? Like, would you take him to Dairy Queen? No.

No Dairy Queen. I'm like, why? Why? Wouldn't you feed him junk food? He'd never live up to his potential. Oh, there it is. And you're worth so much more. Mm-hmm.

Right? So it's this mindset thing. Like Drew Carey, he said, eating crappy food isn't a reward. It's a punishment. And as soon as I read that, I go, oh, he's going to stay healthy. Right. Because it's a mindset. When you do the right thing, feel proud of yourself and kick your ass when you do who long. Sure. Your vitamin D levels 37. I'd sort of wish it was 50. In the packets, there's going to be 2,000 units of vitamin D. Okay. Right.

I only saw your testosterone. No, I think I saw thyroid was fine. How is your diet? Odie was right. When he's on, it's great. Yeah, when I'm on, it's great. It's like meat, veggies, you know. When I'm off, it's everything.

When do you film the new season? We start first week in October. I'm so excited because I love that show. Jim, it's right. The first script, it's so good. Have you ever been hypnotized? No. It's awesome.

Really? For your anxiety and calming things down, it's like the perfect thing because it activates your frontal lobes, your executive functions better, but calms your emotional brain. I have an app called BrainFit Life, 5.0. Make sure we send them that.

there's hypnosis for sleep there's hypnosis for pain there's hypnosis for anxiety favorite one for you is peak performance so before you go on set i just listen to it for 20 minutes and like get your brain in the right i mean you're already super competent yeah oh love that yeah and this is very important it's very important for charles when people first come to see us they're not doing well but they have good days and bad days right and then we intervene and they get better that makes me so happy yeah that's what happens but nobody just gets better they're like better and then they're not they're better and then they're not they're better and they're not and we always want to take the down days and turn them

into good data what happened what did she eat what was going on in her environment. And if we always win or learn, win or learn, we're just more likely to get to a much better place over time if we're curious and not furious. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So this is actually for both of you, which...

tend to be you so these are like advanced species right all or nothing things are all good or bad comparison focusing on the negative beating yourself or others up with guilt labeling fortune telling i'm looking at that guy right there if only i'll be happier when or, you know, focusing on the negative or blaming, you know. Yeah, blame it's right there. Well, only, I only blame him, not anybody else. It's just mostly pointed to you. You don't have like a, he's perfect up there.

That's his problem. Mind reading? Would you say that? No, no. I don't want you guys, I want you saying yours. I don't want you to go, yep, that's you, yep. No, that's what I'm saying. I think I'm, which one's you? Mine read, do I like try in, what would I?

I would say, what's fortune telling? It's where you predict things are going to turn out badly, even though you don't have evidence of it. I think mind reading. I think I'm probably overly, I'm overly confident about what someone else is thinking when they could not be. Even though they haven't told you.

Yeah. Mine would be that one. If only, yeah, I think so. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, just write down what you're thinking. And ask yourself whether or not it's true. Right. Oh, that's great.

And write the opposite of what you're thinking and meditate on that. I haven't heard that. I like that. We won't make it. Is that true? I don't know. we will make it.

And if you meditate on that, you're much more likely to behave in ways that you're more likely to make it. Yeah. Yeah, that's so great. So these are the questions that I teach all of my patients. Can we have printed out sheets?

Okay. Thanks, Natalie. So Carlos Riddaker came and did our show like you guys, and he was worried he was going to get Alzheimer's disease like his dad. And I just took him through the process. So if you write down your worst thoughts, and that was one of his worst thoughts, we get Alzheimer's like my dad. Like, is that true? I don't know. Is it absolutely true? No. How doesn't make him feel terrible? How does it make him act more likely to drink? What's the outcome? More likely to get Alzheimer's disease? How would he feel

without the thought, stress-free, motivated to be healthy, less likely to get Alzheimer's disease. The opposite is, I won't get Alzheimer's disease. And he goes, yeah, that's true, with the right plan. So it's disciplining your mind as actors. You have to discipline so much about yourselves, right? You have to discipline your facial expressions. You have to discipline your body. You have to discipline so much. But you also have to practice. right it's something that is a craft that's a skill you build over time managing your mind is the same thing you have to do it over and over again last week we had NBA superstar Julius Randall here I love him so much and I'm like how many free throws have you shot like tens of

thousands yeah of them because in the playoffs he was spectacular shot like 85 percent and it's like you got to do that with your mind right sort of like shooting free throws got to do it over and over and over yeah um so i want you just write down your negative thoughts and then kill them yeah yeah blast them are you excited to optimize your brain and help the brains of those you love do you want to prevent or treat memory problems anxiety or depression? Do you want to be happier? That's why I created Amen University to take what I've learned over the last 45 years and help you have a better brain, a better mind, and a better body. You can take courses like our 30-day happiness challenge, which was shown in research

to increase happiness by 32% in just 30 days. Or, memorabilms. rescue, or overcoming anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief, or healing ADD at home in 30 days and much more. We also have professional courses and courses for kids, including Brain Thrive by 25, which was found in independent research to decrease depression and improve self-esteem. And as a special offer, just for our listeners, you can, can save 20% on your next course. Visit amenuniversity.com and use the code podcast 20. Well, that was amazing. We learned so much. I learned so much. And we had such a good time. And I just want to thank you so much for being so brave and so open. And I'm so excited to see what your brains are going to look.

like going forward in Charlie's brain. You've been watching, change your brain. Every day, subscribe, leave us a comment, question, a review, share it with your friends.