Change Your Brain Every Day - From the Cage to the Congo: Answering the Call for Help, with MMA Fighter Justin Wren

Episode Date: November 19, 2019

Things had been on a downward swing for MMA fighter Justin Wren, but then his desperation and faith provided him with the most unexpected of visions. Where that vision would ultimately lead him, no one could have predicted. In the second episode of a series with “Fight for the Forgotten” author Justin Wren, Dr. Daniel Amen and Wren discuss the remarkable circumstances that answered an entire culture’s prayers.

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're here with Justin Wren, world-famous MMA fighter, but he's known worldwide. You've been on Joe Rogan's podcast seven times, and you're going to be on it an eighth time, but world-renowned for fighting for the forgotten. So talk to us about how that happened. Yeah. After I got sober and personally found my faith, it was just a statement in my head, it's time to fight for people. And so I started small and locally, and I never thought about doing anything globally. It was just helping your backyard first and just help one person like you wish you could help yourself. And so I started at a local children's hospital, became an official volunteer there, started my youth group at my church, and then started

at an at-risk youth group, then at the homeless shelter in Denver. And I just started, it's kind of like shotgun. I just was kind of helping anywhere and everywhere I could, just had my head on a swivel. Where can I make a difference? How can I put love and compassion in action? Like people did for me in my really, my bad drug addiction. I mean, I went missing for eight weeks. I just disappeared on everybody, my family. No one knew where I was. Friends, family didn't take a call. And the addiction was so bad, I was hitchhiking from drug house to drug house in the mountains of Colorado. I got a voicemail. It's from my best friend. And it said, I can't believe you missed my wedding. I can't believe my best man didn't show up. And so that was devastating, obviously. And what I've learned is hurt people hurt people. And it was a hurting-

You know, Pastor Warren says that all the time. Oh, wow. Do you know Pastor Warren? Saddleback. Yeah. Warren and I wrote a book together called The Daniel Plan. And that's where I go to church. And I always hear hurt people hurt people. Now I know also loved people love people or free people free people like you do. With a healthy brain, you help others get a healthy brain and yeah i i so i just

wanted to help people and or maybe helped people help people i guess you could say where uh people had helped me and i just wanted to help others after that um and so it started in 11 months later i found myself um in the congo in the rainforest with the hunter-gatherer tribe the mabuti pygmies their average average height's only 4'7". So I'd actually feel tall there. You would, absolutely. Absolutely. Anyone, for the most part, would feel tall there.

And they are incredible, loving, amazing people. How did you get to the rainforest in Africa working with pygmies? That's also kind of a faith journey of sorts. 11 months after stopping fighting, I felt like I had to deepen my roots and my faith, but really sobriety and life change and being consistent and in a different way of life. So I stopped fighting completely, even though that was my only job as an adult. This was your sole source of income? Yes. With fighting?

Absolutely. And so for 11 months, I was broke as a joke. Is anybody in the MMA talking about brain health? Not for the most part. Maybe Joe. Joe is actually. You're in a brain damaging sport. Yeah, for sure.

And he's even advised fighters privately, like, hey, maybe it's time to hang it up. But let me give you my take on this because i know one of the questions for you is do i keep fighting or not um so i've done 300 nfl players and some really cool players and a number of them are still active and when they sign like a 50 million dollar contract many of them are going to keep playing yeah and tom brady who's probably history's greatest nfl quarterback 40 41 he's 40 41 and he's playing at an unbelievable level yes sir but i read his book tb12 and since he's playing a brain damaging sport and he owns it, he's got to do everything else in his life right. And he gets nine hours of sleep at night. He never eats terrible food.

He knows how to manage stress. He's a warrior. Yeah. He probably doesn't know, but he's, you know, from my standpoint, he's a brain warrior. And think about it. There are brain-damaging professions. An MMA fighter, it's a brain-damaging profession. Absolutely. Just don't lie about it. Just tell the truth.

You can see many guys that are punch-drunk after this and slurring their speech. Firefighters. It's a brain damaging profession. The toxic smoke they breathe, the cyanide they inhale with furniture that burns, the emotional trauma that they see over and over again. There's a very high incidence of traumatic brain injury in firefighters. But does that mean we're not going to have firefighters?

No. I'm, you know, and today in California, there's all these fires. No, we bless them. They are our heroes. So they're going to do it. But what that means is they need to always have their brain in rehab. And so after you came and we scanned you and looked at your brain, I want you always to have your brain in rehab because you love it and you're, how you act, how you get along with the people you love. Your brain is involved in intelligence, character, and every single decision you make. So when your brain works right, you work right. And so I just had to throw that in there because I know my audience is listening and they're like, Dr. Amen is talking to Justin Redd. Well, I don't want to say how this journey even started. It was, you know, I'm in counseling myself and with my wife.

And you just came at the highest recommendation from numerous people. And so even people on our board, other people were just like, you got to get to the Amen Clinic. And so we got here and I started doing hyperbarics because of you. And I've seen my sleep has never been better. I feel more positive. I just feel healthier doing hyperbarics and changing my diet, my routine, getting better sleep from your suggestions and just listening and binging on this podcast. Thank you. And so I'm so grateful.

And I showed you how your brain could be better. Seeing that is hopeful. How it can be healthy. Yeah, absolutely. How exciting is that? And so when you leave, I want you to leave, we call it brain envy. I want you to want a better brain.

I do already. This has been phenomenal. Three days being here and just so many extensive exams from, I don't know if I share, but the blood work, the urine and stool samples and swabbing the cheek and the history and the functional medicine and from Dr. Mark Philliday and Dr. Robert. It just is absolutely awesome being there with Dr. Johnson. And you, y'all's care is so, I've never been like this,

like treated so incredibly well. And so I know that's going to help you get well. And you're helping me and I get to go. It's my mission to help others through that. And so I'm just so thankful. And I want to share this, of course, with all my friends that are in this sport that is brain damaging.

Yeah. So if you're going to engage in the sport, you need to do everything else right. All right. So back to how you got to Africa. OK. Well, that's quick for two minutes. But I basically said a prayer.

I was 11 months sober, 11 months in my faith, 11 months broke as a joke. And I said, God, what do you want me to do with my life? And I know it can sound wild and crazy. And I'm not sure if I shared this publicly, but I, well, it's in my book. So I have done that, but not on a podcast. I had a vision and I know that sounds out there, really out there. I felt crazy for about three days, but I didn't, I didn't using psychedelics like I had been in the past.

And I wasn't trying to conjure anything up. I just literally said a prayer. God, what are you going to do with my life? And I saw myself in a rainforest. It was like a movie in my mind. And I was walking down a footpath. And I heard drumming. And then I heard singing as I kept walking.

And I came into this clearing. And it was twig and leaf huts and these people that I met. And, and I just was over, I was flooded with like knowledge of like what their struggle was. I knew that they're hungry, thirsty, poor, sick, oppressed. I knew that I knew that they're enslaved. And I came out of that feeling like they felt forgotten. And I cried like I've never cried in my life. I left a little, not a puddle, but whatever that size is of tears. And I was overwhelmed. I didn't know where they were, who they were. And I didn't want to share this with anybody for, but I, but I wrote it down and three days later, I met a guy named Caleb and he's kind of a wild guy, helped survival training and traveled the world and was a humanitarian missionary guy. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. And so I share it with him and he kind of perked up and said, and I said,

why? And he goes, he goes, those are the pygmies, those people. And I go, who? And he said, they're in the Congo. I was like, where? And so three and a half weeks later, he took me there. And he actually said that he was taking a group of other guys, but they all canceled. The US State Department said, no one go there for any reason. The rebels took over the airport they were flying into. And this is in what country? In Congo.

Democratic Republic of Congo. Keep this thought, because we're going to unpack this story more in the next podcast. Wow, I'm blown away. Justin Wren, Fight for the Forgotten. He has a book, website, a foundation. You want to learn about this and even more so stay with us for the next podcast. Did you learn anything? The one thing I want you to learn is even if you're in a stressful job, or you're in a stressful marriage, or you're in a brain damaging job like a firefighter or a police officer, it doesn't mean you don't get to do that job. It just means you have to

put your brain always in a healing environment. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain-healthy supplements

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