Change Your Brain Every Day - Can You Change Your Personality? With Dr. Earl Henslin

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

Dr. Earl Henslin, author, psychotherapist, and board member of The End Mental Illness Now Foundation, found himself on the other side of the desk when he brought his own mother in to scan her brain. She had often been angry and detached, and both Dr. Henslin and Dr. Amen were horrified to see her scans showed signs of early dementia. What happened next changed not only her life, but the lives of those closest to her. In this episode, Dr. Earl Henslin tells the story of his mother’s transformation.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back.

We are on day three with our friend and colleague, Dr. Earl Henslan, and we've been talking about the brain and psychotherapy and how you have utilized putting images into your practice. One thing we didn't mention about you, Dr. Henslan, is that you're actually on the board for the foundation for End Mental Illness Now. Yeah. And because when I went to that very first seminar with Dr. Amen, on my drive home, I called a friend of mine who's, you know, he and his wife are very successful business people. And I said, you know, you got to go see Dr. Amen and explain the spec scan and people. And I said, you know, you've got to go see Dr. Amen. I explained the SPECT scan and everything. And the next week they literally made an appointment and flew up to see you.

And for him, it was the first time in his life that he was free from intense anger and from migraines. He'd been to all the best medical facilities around the country, and no one had been able to help. And so then he called me up. It was like a month or two later. He says, you know, he was talking with his wife, and he said, we want to help people who can't afford to get these scans. Still gets me.

And over the next 10 years, you know, they basically contributed over a million dollars. Wow. And we were able to help people get scans that would never be able to afford it. There were pastors, missionaries, secretaries at a business or janitor. I mean, and then there were people that were doing well, but the money was so tight they just couldn't get the scan. And it was so wonderful to know that scan would help them. And I would say, let me make a call. And I have a friend who just might say yes.

I can't promise anything. And so literally ever since then, that couple, they've only said yes. And have continued to help people today. When I walked in the building today, there was a patient in the waiting room that they sent the money for to get a scan. Oh, that's so funny. And so to me, if anyone out there, because I know there's people listening that do have the means, and even if you can just make a small donation, you know, whatever that would

be. Or if you just know someone that needs help even. Yeah, to donate the money for them to get the scan because it's life-changing you know like uh one like to give you a quick example a person on disability um you know from working in a software company in a job she was not suited for in an abusive relationship, massively depressed. She came in with a medical file, this, literally this thick.

And she had massive panic attacks, couldn't get out of the house, and then plus incredible GI problems and so on. And so, you know, and I was paid for this file and she'd gone through every test and her MRIs and labs and everything and I said well we need to get the scan and she said okay so we got the donation and then sent her and we got the brain balanced out for the very first time in her life she went from being in an ER room on a quarterly basis for some reason because her potassium and sodium would just suddenly drop out. She couldn't eat.

She was underweight. I mean, the anxiety was so intense. And so then as we got the brain balanced out and the panic attacks down, then a flood of memories came back of being abused when she was a little girl. And only now we're able to work it through and have it be a healing experience. So within a two and a half year period of time, she went out and started her own business and is making her way in the world today. Whereas before, she was being defined as permanently disabled for the rest of her life.

Now there's no more workman's comp, and she's producing and happy, and her marriage made it through, and they have a lovely marriage. And I literally could spend the entire day just telling story after story like that because hopefully someone there will want to make that call or go online to make the donation to help another person because she really is a gift of

life. I mean, it's incredible. I've had the same experience. I mean, I end up adopting people sort of. I may do this all the time. But there's only so many people you can. No, you call me up and say say you're going to adopt this person well i so but you end up paying we end up paying for it out of pocket basically and because there's so many people out

there suffering and so i'll be somewhere and i'll meet someone i'll meet a veteran or someone who's just suffering horribly and what are you going to i just i feel terrible so i'll call them up and i'm like i need to bring this person into the clinic you know i mean we're going to, I just, I feel terrible. So I'll call them up and I'm like, I need to bring this person into the clinic. You know what I mean? We're going to have to do this, you know, pay for it ourselves, but there's only so many people you can do that for. So the foundation, that's the part of the foundation that, that really touches my heart is where we can help people that, um, that really need help. And so those are the people, I mean, we're just trying really hard to build that part

of our foundation to help more people because families change like like we adopted another person we adopted literally is my sister and my nieces and um and we are completely literally changing the dynamics of that family which will now change the next generation exactly and that's the point exactly so i mean we're trying as hard as we can to do our part but if there are people who can help other people, some people can't. Right. But some people can. Exactly.

So one of your stories that I really like the most is about your mom. Oh. Can you talk about that and what it was like for her when she got her first scan? Yeah. My mom has had depression and problems with anger and then more recently memory problems and migraines for over 50 years. And our farm in southern Minnesota is 15 miles away from the Mayo Clinic. And I have great uncles that actually worked with Charles and Will Mayo in the beginning. And so our family always had the best medical care, and yet no one looked at her brain.

And so she never got the relief. She's on the typical meds for migraines and typically antidepressants. So now looking back, it actually made her worse. And so she was at probably the lowest point in her life and severely depressed. And I had been trying for 10 years to get her to get a scan. And she kept saying no. And finally she said yes. And so she was after a Mother's Day weekend, and Monday morning we were down, you know, we were in the lobby of the office and I'm helping her fill out the forms. I said, Mom, have you ever had any head trauma?

Because I can't remember an accident or you falling or slipping on the snow or the ice or anything. And she started to cry. And she said, Well, I was 12 years old. I was swinging on a rope up in the barn, and the two-by-four holding it broke. And as she's falling, the board hit her in the back of the head, and her dad found her on the floor in a pool of blood. And that would have been 1944.

And she had over 50 stitches to take care of the lacerations from that blow. So for me, what happened at that moment, just with her hitting her head there, I know there's going to be injury back here in the cerebellum and occipital lobes. It was going to bounce forward. It would be injury in the frontal cortex. And that's why growing up she didn't think before she said or did things. And the brain bounces around, and I knew there would be injury in the temporal lobes. And that would be at that anxiety center high that I knew finally the source of the migraines and depression

that no antidepressant could help because one of the things I learned that first seminar was that there are two systems of the brain that produce the same symptoms but they require different strategies to help and that's what gets confusing just a symptom of anxiety doesn't mean anything unless you look at the brain and know where it comes from. So we're sitting in Dr. Eamon's office and he brings her brain up and my heart just sinks, you know, because what I'm seeing is not pretty. And so he's, you said, you tell her. My mom said, I said, no, wait a minute minute i'm like a patient here this is my mom you tell her she knows both of us and so she says one of you boys say something

and so i said well mom you're headed for dementia because the longitudinal fissure was right down the middle looked like a grand canyon and you could see the frontal lobes were atrophying and the temporal lobes and and my I mean my heart just sank but I said but mom you show no symptoms so I looked at you and I said so if we improve the perfusion or blood flow in the frontal cortex and the temporal lobes, you should be better. I said, right, Dr. Allen? He nods and said yes. And so he put her on gabapentin, medication that hits that anxiety center, dials it down, and then supplements brain and memory power boosts,

which was highly successful in the NFL football player study and then I got her to start reading anything and everything that you write so she keeps your stuff on her computer and uh she knows nutrition backwards and forward plus she began walking every day now about 60 days later I happened to get my dad on the phone. He was still alive then. And I said, Dad, what do you notice with mom? And he said this. I gave her a birthday present, and she smiled, and she said, thank you. Because before that, like a spontaneous expression, this wasn't there. And then when I got a hold of mom, I said, mom, do you notice any changes between you and dad? She says,

I feel so sad for how hard I've been on you. I never had the ability to let things bounce off. That got me thinking about the role the brain plays in boundaries because people can say hurtful things or do hurtful things. It's not good to overreact, not good to underreact. But calming down that basal ganglia, getting that frontal lobes working actually gave her the ability to let something bounce off that would have made her angry before then what happened all of a sudden i mean that's 13 years ago and i was 54 i hate to admit and i started to get used to having a mom right because then when i call she'd say how are you doing and she just really wanted to know and wanted to know what you could pray for and things like that.

And then in the last 10 years of my dad's life, I watched them be affectionate to each other. So I saw love and I saw caring there that I hadn't seen growing up. But the impact on that was across four generations you know my granddaughter had me come and talk to her school about the brain they got to the drug and alcohol part of their house book and she said let's ask my grandpa to come he's famous and he knows a lot about the brain he'll show pictures so I go and I show these kids pictures of sixth graders and the stuff that came out of the woodwork was just amazing but I started to tell a story about the importance of exercise and because my dad when he was given six months to live he went out and got a job as a

security guard I was trying to figure out why it took me two two months. And I said, Dad, did you do that because those doctors told you to walk and the only way you're going to walk is if you get paid for it? That's so funny. And he said, yes. Well, Georgia raises her hand, my granddaughter, as I start to talk about exercise. And she says, I said, do you have a question? She says, no, I want to talk about great-grandpa. Great-grandpa took care of his brain, took care of his heart, and he lived 22 years beyond when he was told he had six months to live. And he got a job that helped him to keep walking

because his brain needed that and his heart needed that. And my great-grandpa, when he called me, he would ask me how I was doing, and he'd ask me how I was doing with the things I asked him to pray for. And he would remember that from one call to the next. Well, I'm sat in there in tears, because I'm no different than anybody. You're doing all you can do just to get through the day. You never dream. Because I never sat down with my granddaughter and told her the whole story or anything. But that's what she had constructed out of that. And so when we make this change, we're not making a change just for here.

This is four generations. There's so many pieces to that story. That's beautiful. So what's it like when you grow up with a mom who's had a head injury, who's depressed, who doesn't have a good filter, who when she does filter things, it's filtered through depression or negativity, and then the transformation. It's just so special for me to be a small part of that story.

When we come back, we're going to actually begin to wrap this up on how does the brain and the mind work together? And if there's something you learned from this podcast, write it. Send it to us. Post it on any of your social media channels and hashtag BrainWarriorsWay. Go to BrainWarriorsWayPodcast.com or Apple Podcasts. Leave a review. We'll enter you into a free drawing for one of

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