Change Your Brain Every Day - Functional Medicine Made Simple

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

This week of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast continues our limited series from The Brain Health Revolution 6-Week Live Class. In this episode, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen discuss how you can use an integrative approach to brain health to get the best results. In short, you must take a full body approach and treat all of the risk factors for cognitive decline to keep your brain and body strong.

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. Hi, this is Dr. Daniel Amen.

And I'm Tana Amen. We're so excited you're with us for this week's series. What we're doing is we're playing the live class from the end of mental illness. We wanted you to join us on this journey because we had such a good time in our class and the people who joined us had just saw such incredible transformation that we wanted to share the challenge with our tribe. So we wanted to share this with you

and we hope that you will join us in the challenge. Hey everybody, welcome back. We are so excited. We had over 14,500 people watch it's amazing week one so invite all of your friends uh we have questions we have lots of questions and some of them are really good so we need to make sure we get to some of them. And we're going to have more challenges for you. We made it super easy for you for, you know, like day one, tell somebody the little tiny habit is as good for your brain or bad for it.

Some of you actually went to your doctor to get your lab work done. And as I predicted, they told you you didn't need it because you didn't have a problem. We have that every class that happens. It is. Yeah. And so, you know, say, hey, this is a collaboration. I would like these done, please. And if they still say no, find another doctor.

Your doctor is not your mother. You don't even have to have it anymore. There are sites now, places you can go and have your labs drawn. Yeah, but it's better to work with a healthcare professional because if things come back and they're not optimal. Oh, no, I agree. But I'm just saying they don't get to be your boss. So you can actually get them done. You get to be my boss.

It's true. But you get to be my boss too. So that was one of the questions. So one of them I want to clarify. Someone asked, they were confused about my advice, never to drink juice. She said ever, even fresh squeezed juice, celery juice. Let me clarify. And if I didn't say this, it's my fault. No fruit juice. So no fruit juice. Celery juice is great. I love my green juices all the time. I love wheatgrass, celery juice. I get my big green goddess, you know, goddess of greens, whatever it's called.

So yeah, no, green juices are great. So I apologize if I didn't say that, if I didn't clarify that. But fruit juices, fresh squeezed, no. So I love this question. Eat the fruit. Can an older person like me say 49 years old i know i'm like oh they'll see improvement if i start now i'm afraid of irreparable damage this person just called me old just called me old well you old and me ancient right basically

and in our nfl work we actually had had players who were in their 80s. And they still showed significant improvement on our program. And so that is our hope for you. And remember, the end of mental illness begins with a revolution in brain health. And we're a week closer to the release of The End of Mental Illness. Those of you who pre-ordered the book, thank you so much. I would just dearly love it if you gave it as a gift to people who needed it. So this week is about creating bright minds. And those of you that listen to the podcast or

have read Memory Rescue, you know this idea. If you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. Now, I'm struggling. There we go. Okay. So this is what we're doing this week. We're actually not going to do all of them because we're going to take a deep dive into each one of these risk factors. And as I figured this out, I was so excited. This is functional medicine made super

simple. And I first created it with my book Memory Rescue. And you remember in Memory Rescue I talk about the hippocampus, which is Greek for seahorse or sea monster because it's got that shape. And for Christmas two or three years ago, you actually went to Laguna Beach, found an artist that you like, and commissioned a painting. And commissioned a painting on the hippocampus. It basically looks like this abstract modern art, but it's a hippocampus. Yeah. And it's beautiful.

But the hippocampus, why do I love the hippocampus? I mean, not as much as Tana. But why do I love the hippocampus? Because it's one of the few parts of the brain that makes new cells every day. So I was just in a new docuseries on stem cells. Oh, it was so fun. Well, that's a different one. Oh. The one last night was so fun.

The one last night was so fun. We'll talk about that. Yeah. But I was in a new-series on stem cells and in your brain, people have had the wrong idea about the brain for a long time. It's like the brain cannot change. It absolutely can change. We see it all the time here.

Yeah, that once they die, they die, and that's it. Right. And you are a neurosurgical ICU nurse. And that's what I was taught. It's like once it dies, it dies, that's it. Wow. And I guess it was about 20 years ago we realized the brain continues to make new cells, especially in the hippocampus, throughout life, about 700 new cells every day. So the hippocampus is Greek for seahorse. It's like you have 700 new baby seahorses being born every day. And so Chloe, who's 16, who I got to hang out with yesterday and today, and I'm 65, and hers tend to stay around and get absorbed into the big seahorse. And so our mood and memory is

sharp. Where the older you get, say 49 or 65, they don't tend to stay around. Why? Because the older you get, the lower blood flow you have and more toxins in your body that are actually killing the baby seahorses. And so if you want to love your brain and love your hippocampus, your seahorses, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And about halfway through memory rescue, I realized, oh, this is not just to rescue your memory, that this is a program that rescues your mood, your focus, the health, really the vitality of your mind. One thing I like about that concept is it actually feeds into one of our questions

which i really love because someone said when asking myself is this good for my brain um what if i don't know the answer to that question um is there some resource that can help me i'm especially interested to know how different food choices may impact my brain health so i like that because basically the information that the answer to that question is, is in bright minds. Is it good for my brain or bad for my brain? Well, is it affecting those 11 risk factors? And you have a whole chapter on food anyways. And so, which we, my cookbook, your book, the chapter on your book.

So the cookbook helps you to put it into practical. Right. The Brain Warriors Way cookbook, which I think is one of your best books. But the information on what to do for food is in the book. And in the end of Mental Illness, there's a chapter called Food Made Insanely Simple. And some people pushed back against it insanely. But it's just like, you got to make it easy. Or made sanely simple.

Section is this, you know, it's like eat this, don't eat that. Right. And most of you will understand if generally it's colorful and not artificial. Skittles don't count. If it's colorful, high in fiber, low in sugar, it's likely going to be good for you. So let's get started because I can go on and on forever. Almost all of these risk factors are preventable or treatable. So that's the good news. And when we taught a similar class a couple of years ago, I guess about three years ago now, we studied it. So we want all of you actually to go to the week one and week two surveys and fill them out.

So they've been loaded. You might have to refresh this page. But they wanted me to remind you, don't fill out week two until you have done all of the stuff on week two. So after today, and you've done the things on week two, don't fill out that survey until after you've completed the tasks for week two. Yes. And that's very important, especially for those of you who want to be in the challenge. You know, I know some of you, you're not really interested in the prizes and the challenge, And you just want to get this information. Some of you want the prizes, the free evaluation, the year's worth of supplements and all of those

things. You need to fill out the surveys because we want to track. And when we did this before, what we found is people had better energy, mood, focus, memory, and sleep with reductions in stress, weight, and pain. So, I mean, that's what we're trying to help you get over the next six weeks. So, that's our goal for you. And, you know, our big sneaky goal is we want to end mental illness. And how do you end mental illness? You create a revolution in brain health. So in order to do that, you need brain warriors. You need people who are armed, prepared, and aware to win the fight of their lives. And every day I open the, you know, not the paper anymore, but a news site,

and you just see all these toxic things. There was an article last week about the water. In many cities in the United States, it's actually filled with toxins that once you ingest them, they actually never leave your body. That's a war, right? It's a weapon of mass destruction. So true. 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 from BrainMD, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.