Change Your Brain Every Day - How Can WE Prevent More School Shootings?

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

We live in an era where seemingly random acts of violence occur at an ever-increasing pace. But why? What is it that pushes these disturbed individuals to commit such atrocities? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss which mental health factors may influence this type of behavior, as well as ways we can reduce the likelihood of incidence in our own children, or perhaps be better prepared should the worst occur.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Welcome back. School shooters are just, the news of this is heartbreaking, repeated, and it's really a national crisis. It's a national scandal.

When I was at the White House, it was actually one of the discussions that we had. And why have we not solved this problem in the United States? And part of it is gun laws and part of it is mental health, how it's currently conducted. Wouldn't you say that, I mean, all the other laws and whatever, the fighting, God knows what will happen. But mental health is a huge part of it. I mean, if you look around, because it's not just in the U.S. I mean, all over the world. You've got people driving trucks into large crowds.

You've got a guy in Japan who runs into a train station with a samurai sword and kills 25 people before someone can stop him. It's going on all over the place. What's going on? In the States, it's guns. We talked about the unhappiness epidemic, and part of it is that, that people who are happy, connected with healthy brains do not do this. I mean, this seems beyond that. This seems like spiritual bankruptcy or mental illness. As we talk about those four circles, it completely matters. I mean, recently as we record this, there was the 19-year-old boy in Florida

who gave off so many signs that he was a troubled person. In fact, he called the FBI and said he warned them. He was looking for help. He warned them, even to the point where my mother just died. And he had weapons. In my experience. The people he was living with knew he had weapons. When the stresses stack, sometimes they stack so much that people explode.

Now we've often talked about there are biological reasons, psychological reasons, social and spiritual. Now sometimes there's just biological reasons. The video that I did about my nephew Andrew who attacked a little girl on a baseball field, I mean there were really no psychological, social, or spiritual reasons. He had a cyst in his brain that was occupying the space that's often involved in violence. Right, and you hear stories about people having brain tumors. Sometimes it's biological.

Sometimes it could just be psychological or just social. If you think of gang violence, that is really social violence. And sometimes people are so spiritually empty, bankrupt. But I think to really understand what happened, you have to look at all of the circles. Well, he clearly had a lot. His mother died. Well, he'd been diagnosed and medicated for depression, dyslexia, ADHD, and autism.

So clearly there was something not right in his brain. Now, of course, probably nobody scanned him and no one had really been thinking what's the matter with his brain. There's some suggestion he had fetal alcohol syndrome because of some of his facial features. And he was adopted. So that goes to the psychological and social circles for sure. But if you are poisoned while you're developing as a fetus, that's not going to predict good things for you. So clearly there's biological things. And many people who collect a lot of guns have a little

OCD. They can't stop thinking about this thing. And it can be harmful if you are not emotionally balanced, per se. Same thing is true with the Las Vegas shooter. And there were signs that- Who was also on medication. And there were signs. And I'm not opposed to medicine, I'm just opposed to the indiscriminate use of medicine

where no one's ever looked at your brain and they're just throwing darts in the dark. Well, and Aurora, he'd been seeking out help. So this is, you know. Right. So when President Obama said, well, we need more mental health care, almost all of the shooters had received mental health care. We need mental health care in a new and different way, in a completely new

and radically different way that actually involves looking at their brain and balancing their brain. Because as soon as someone sees their brain, the issue becomes medical and not moral. It's not because I'm a bad person I have this problem. It's because my brain is hurt. Our friends from Hong Kong, when I scanned their boy, who was a teenager and he was having trouble in school, his mother had a really hard birth with him. And you could actually see the damage from the birth trauma on his scan at 17. And he said to the mom, he said, it's not me, it's what happened to me. But that kid had really struggled up until that point.

I mean, like had a lot. And in their society, to struggle the way he did was stigmatizing. Shameful. Shameful, yes. You dishonor your family, it's like a terrible thing, especially in their socioeconomic bracket. So in understanding this boy, there are clear brain issues going on.

But there are a lot of psychological issues going on. He was adopted. Being adopted, it affects everybody who's adopted. Now we're back to... We're not... We're back to the idea of trying to understand why these school shootings happen. And look, so many of us have a hard time not only understanding, but wanting to understand. Before I met you, I wouldn't have wanted to understand, quite frankly.

I just wouldn't have. You know, you have turned my world upside down. Yes, that is true. No, you've turned my world upside down. No, you've turned my world upside down. It, um, is annoying sometimes because it's easier to just, you need someone to blame. You need someone to pin it on. You need someone. That's the easy answer.

It is. The easy answer is you're bad. You have complete control over your behavior. We should kill you. That's the easy answer. The harder answer is why? Why did that happen? And look, I still struggle. I'm just being very candid here and I'm probably going to get people on this show who hate me for saying this. Nobody could hate you.

Oh no, they can. I'm not that easy. It's easy to not like me. But here's the truth. I don't find it easy. Here's the dirty truth. The really awful, ugly truth is that I still struggle and I squirm because there's a part of me that just, especially somebody who grew up in a really not easy environment and who's been attacked or who's been in a bad situation, there's a part of me that just wants to like lash out and you know want blood for that crime and then there's the other side of me who now is educated and who's

This kid sought help this kid needed help this kid reached out to the freaking FBI Telling them I'm a risk. I'm a threat Repeatedly and so no society. That's not society let everybody down in in this situation. But just thinking about the psychological vulnerabilities from being adopted to obviously having a lot of negative thoughts. Well, and he was devastated when his mother died. So he was unstable. His father died when he was 10, I think, of a heart attack, or maybe he was five, I think he was five, of a heart attack in front of him, which is clearly traumatic for a child.

So if you look at the traumas in his life, they are many. And then socially, he was isolated. And he joined ROTC. So he's getting social connection through violence, right? He was learning how to be a warrior. And, you know, we can just conjecture, but it's probably true, is spiritually bankrupt. And when you put all of those factors together, the massive loss, the massive social disconnection, the troubled brain, it's a prescription for disaster. Yes, sometimes people can overcome if they're only struggling in one of the circles, but if you've got three

or four of them, probably not. And almost all of the violent people I've seen, that they have multiple areas. Except the ones that have these cysts. Right, cysts or tumors or... Or tumors or they have strokes in the wrong place. That's why you have to protect your brain. If you don't protect the developing brain, we are at more risk. And the level of toxins in our society, I think it really matters to it.

So why is the incidence of ADD, why is the incidence of autism, why is the incidence of school shootings all gone up? And it's in large part because of the vulnerabilities in all four of those circles. So I don't think we can talk about this without talking about the effect it's having on kids in school who are now scared and parents who are now scared. And they should be. They should be. Parents are buying tracking devices for their children so they know how to get to them immediately. Well, I've had it on my phone for Chloe forever. So I've always had one on there. I know where my whole family is.

I know how fast all of you drive and I know exactly how much battery life you have left on your phones. So just FYI, the NSA has got nothing on me. So yeah, I've had that. Do you want to tell them the app? So, cause they're going to know. Yeah. Life 360. It's awesome. So it's amazing. So I love Life 360. And they know your every move. Yes. I know all of their moves. Yes. So, so I really like it, but, but in addition, I mean,

I'm actually, this is a day and age where it's not why we did it, but I'm actually grateful now that Chloe's homeschooled. I'm incredibly grateful. Two days after that shooting, there was a lockdown at my daughter's school. They found a kill list in one of the kids' backpacks. So, and he was suspended and showed up at school. So, craziness. It's just craziness. And I'm not sad that she, I don't have to worry about that.

So intervening is making sure as a society that our children are healthy biologically, so their brains are healthy. In other words, do your part. Their minds are healthy. The social connections are healthy. And they have a spiritual core. So to that point, I think we need to do our part as a society and as parents. So what I mean by this is there was a child at Chloe's school who clearly was troubled. Doing what we do, I'm only guessing that the child had autism, but it was pretty significant. He would fight with other children.

Teachers didn't want to deal with him, and I knew the mom. And the mom would, for some reason, she would talk to me all the time. And this mother did not ever want to admit her child had a problem. It was just devastating to her to admit that her child had a problem. So she would not go get help.

She would not have him diagnosed with anything. And that is a disservice to the child. So this child grew up basically being isolated from other kids. And that's why he was mean. Kids were mean to him, so he was mean to other kids. That's a big part of it. So now we've got this problem. Now, the parents and the kids now are being mean to this child. So we need to do better both ways.

So that mom needs to be more aware and not in denial that her child has a problem, but also other parents and other kids need to not make it so hard for people to get help and not stigmatize so much. You know what I'm saying? So if we were better as a society together, it would probably not be as difficult for people to acknowledge that their children need help. That's one thing. The other thing is educating your kids.

So do your part about getting some education about what to do if there's a problem on school campuses. You know, schools do what they can, which isn't much. It's just not much. So join the PTA. My suggestion is join the PTA, organize some meetings. Get people like, you know, my friend, we actually had him come to our office and do a training. My friend who's a police officer came to the office to do some training and literally what, the next week it paid off.

So we had someone who ended up not being a real threat, but we had someone who, it was a scary situation for the staff, but they handled it like smoothly. So we want you to be paying attention, do your part. Don't just be scared and blame other people, get involved. Well, and do your part in those four circles. What can you do biologically for your children, psychologically, socially, and spiritually.

So organize some meetings. That's what I would suggest. And train your kids. Use the code PODCAST 10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook we give away every month.