Change Your Brain Every Day - "I Couldn't Think Straight": Jennie Garth Opens Up About Years of Unexplained Brain Fog & Memory Issues

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

In this week's episode, Dr. Amen sits down with actress Jennie Garth. Six years ago, Jennie Garth was struggling with something she couldn't quite explain: brain fog, memory lapses, mental fatigue, and a growing fear that something wasn't right. Now, in a powerful and deeply personal conversation, Jennie sits down with Dr. Amen to uncover the science behind her symptoms, the surprising factors affecting her brain health, and the steps she took to reclaim her focus, energy, and confidence. From hormonal changes and stress to brain imaging and breakthrough solutions, this episode offers hope for anyone who has ever felt like they're not operating at their best. What caused Jennie's brain fog? What did Dr. Amen discover? And what can you do if you're experiencing the same symptoms? Don't miss this eye-opening conversation about brain health, healing, and getting your mind back. 

My brain needs help in certain areas, dealing with the cycle of depression. I still have dips, but now I'm able to identify them and give myself grace. I need to focus on myself for a couple days, and then it kind of subsides, and I go back to a normal level. Jenny Garth is an actress, author and beloved television personality. Best known for Beverly Hills, 90210. After five years, Jenny Garth reconnects with Dr. Amen to discuss her lifestyle changes and her latest scan. There's so much shame around medication. If you went to an eye doctor, I want a thin lens.

Don't you want the lens that works for you? You want them to see what's the best for my brain. They think somehow they get a prize if they go off their medicine. Yeah. So I have your new scan. Oh my gosh. I'm really scared. Your first one, you are really worried about your memory.

It turned out... 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 Brain MD.

It gives me clean, steady energy without jitters or crash. 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. I'm so excited about today. Jenny Garth is our guest. She is an acclaimed actress, designer, advocate, podcast host, New York Times bestselling. Author widely recognized for her iconic role as Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills 90210.

Today she leads powerful conversations on self-love, aging. Personal growth is the host of the hit IHeart podcast, I Choose Me. Her new memoir, which I'm in, is now out, also titled I Choose Me. She was the first Scan My Brain episode. Over five years ago, we've had about 200 since. Wow. I'm honored that I was your first. But none is fun.

And amazing is you. Welcome back. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you. You know how much I love you. You also were just at my Women's Summit. I cannot believe you came. You came and gave a lovely chat with our audience about brain health.

And everybody was just glued to their seats listening to you. So thank you. Well, it was so much fun for me to be there. And there was so much love. I love the title I choose me too often. People are choosing everybody else. Right. And especially for women.

Oh, yes. It's me last. Yeah, I mean, that's what we do as moms, wives, career women. You know, we get really busy taking care of everyone and everything. That's what we do. We put ourselves on the back burner. So I have your new scam. You do.

Oh, my gosh. I'm really scared. So your first one, which will show, you were really worried about your memory. And it turned out, you had a stunningly beautiful brain, and you still do. But your emotional brain was just on fire. So one of the things I was most curious about is, has that calmed down? and the answer is yes. And what about the concussion that you had because you had a wicked one, which we talked about.

So tell me what you've done in the last five and a half years. Well, I listened to you, for starters. I've been taking supplementation for my brain. Every morning I make my smoothie with your oil in it, the MCT oil. I love it. I've also just, you know, I've read your books. I've studied Buddhism. I've been really working at gaining control over my mind or as much control as one can have. And I think that that has made a big difference. I feel as if I'm less reactionary now, for the most part. But I feel like I have

the tools now that I can sort of redirect much more easily than I used to be able to. So not believing every stupid thing that just pops into your head. That is like the most effective sentence I think you've ever said because we think so much about so many just uncontrollable, ridiculous things. I constantly am thinking, I don't know if that part of my brain is calmed down, but maybe. but I just said that to my husband yesterday, too. Stop thinking, stop thinking that your thoughts are real. Stop believing every stupid thing you think.

Your brain just generates all these comments, criticism. It's like a sportscaster watching the soccer game or football game or something up there. And they will not stop talking. I was on a podcast yesterday with one of my friends, and he talked about AM and FM. And AM is thoughts against me. Okay. And FM is thoughts for me.

And so which channel or band am I going to tune into? And I'm going to tune into the ones against me. And if you're a public figure, there's all sorts of comments. And you can focus on the ones. who hate you or you can focus on the ones that love you. And where your focus goes determines how you feel. Absolutely. I mean, I've definitely fallen prey to reading comments or reading things that are lovely, beautiful,

complimentary, encouraging, insightful, inspiring. And then there will be one, maybe two negative comments. And those are the ones that are. my brain likes to latch on to. Those are the ones that they just somehow obliterate all the positive ones. And those negative ones is like, oh, wait, that person knows the truth. And I give them way too much energy and I have to really talk myself off that ledge because it is not a good thing to do.

You know, like why focus on the one tiny little rotten part of the banana? instead of focusing on the good parts of the banana. Yeah, negativity bias is built into our brains over thousands more years of evolution. The negativity is what kept us alive. If you wake up and you go, the lion's going to eat me, well, then you prepare and you hide from the lion. So that negativity protected you. but now when there are no lions and we still have the negativity, it hurts us. We published a big study this year on 2,000 people on negativity and the brain.

Negativity is just bad for your brain. It goes with sleepy frontal lobes. And it's fascinating. Do I have a sleepy frontal lobe? Your frontal lobes are great. So I had this. idea that I should take influential people, scan them, and then share part of it. You were the first one. So if we bring up the scans...

So we do a study called spec, and spec looks at blood flow and activity, it looks at how your brain works. I have to tell you about a conversation I had with the head of the American Psychiatric Association, because I've sort of been at war with them for 30 years because I'm like why are a psychiatrist the only medical doctors who never look at the organ. We had this most lovely conversation. And she said four words to me, I'll never forget. You were just early. And so we're making progress.

Yeah, we are. That's amazing. So spec tells us three things. Good activity, too little or too much. And then hard job is to balance it. And this is what we want, looking at the outside surface. This is the front of the brain, the cerebellum. These are something called your temporal lobes, under the brain, down from the top, one side, then the other.

And yours before had this little dent here, which I think was the concussion. Here, so this one, the color doesn't matter. The color matters here. Blue is average. red is the top 15%, white is the top 8%. And should be here in the cerebellum and everything else sort of quiet. This was your first one, and you had stunningly beautiful bright. Oh, look at it. It's gorgeous.

Yeah. The problem was your emotional brain is just working way too hard. This was before. And this is actually a very interesting. part of your brain. It's called the default mode network. And it's where the critic lives. It's the sort of self-referential, the part that talks to you, the part that sort of beats on you. This was five and a half years ago. Wow. This is today. Wait a second. And so, did we ever give your mind a name? No, if we did, I don't remember it. So it's one of the things I do with some of my patients.

It's like, let's just give her a name. We probably did. And sometimes it's Mrs. Dewright or can be all Taz. Taz is a common one. That's funny. Look at how much better it is. Are you sure that's my brain? Jenny Clark.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. So much better. So much. Look what we did. Healthier. So much calmer. this is suffering.

Yeah, that was really dark time. And when I see this diamond pattern, I often go, oh, that's past emotional trauma, which you had. And learning to quiet it can be just so helpful. And then your brain is still beautiful. This dent here is better. It looks better. A little more plump. I like that.

I still think it might be a good idea to get in a hyperbaric chamber for 10 or 15 sessions. Plump it up even more. Will it plump all of me up? No. A little dehydrated. I'm going to actually do it after here because I'm like, you know, there's this thing called the gravity of age, right? Oh, I'm familiar with it. age, the skin falls off our face.

Oh, the skin. That same process happens in the brain. Oh, no. But it doesn't have to. And I'm a huge fan of hyperbaric oxygen. But you have a beautiful brain. Wait, what's that hole? Go back, go back.

What's that hole right there? So this is your temporal lobe. And it's just a little bit less than before, but we're also five and a half years later. What's that little dent over there? perfectly fine. Yeah, I wouldn't worry about any of it. She does. I feel like she needs a little plumping.

A little plumping could be good for her. Most people focus on their body. I focus on the brain because it controls everything else. Your mood, your focus, your energy. Take care of your brain. And everything else gets better. Go to brainmd.com and use the code podcast 20 for 20% sent off my favorite brain-first supplements.

Oh, and who is this? You just noticed? This is Doddy. She's my little baby, doggy. She's my emotional support dog. Maybe that's why my brain looks so much calmer. Oh, dogs do that. Yeah, they do.

Unless they're crazy and then they make it worse. In the last five and a half years, besides not believing every stupid thing you think, What have you done to help your brain and your mental help? I read a lot. I love self-help books. I wrote a self-help book disguised as a memoir because I wasn't accredited to write a self-help book like you are. But I have learned so much on my quest for clarity and my desire to get better to heal. that I just wanted to share that with people and show people that even though my life may look

different on the outside from their perspective, we're all just the same going through the same life, human things. And I have learned things that I just really felt like other people needed to hear because they've helped me so much, you know, and I can see the difference even in my brain. They've helped me to slow down. They've helped me to focus more on the things that are worth focusing on. I just learned so many tricks from reading your books. I know I told you this before, but like when I opened your book for the first time, I remember thinking, this, I understand this.

Like, these are things that I feel I can do. You know, they were written in such a way that it made it seem as if I could handle doing them. And I practice them. I practice every night. say three things that I'm grateful for. Every morning, I say, today's going to be a great day. And I'm able to identify the critical voice in my mind and tell it, no, thank you. And other than that, I've taken supplementation. I'm still on some low dose of medication. We work together to

incorporate the supplements and the medication. I feel like I'm on a really good mixture. Right now, I have no side effects or my sleep is amazing. I eat very healthy foods. I've just learned a lot. And it's become a priority for me. Heart health has always been a priority to me, but now it's heart and brain. Yeah. Nobody cares about their brain because you can't see it.

You don't think about it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly and you can do something when you're unhappy with it. But because nobody looks, nobody cares. nobody cares. And when I first scanned myself, it was 1991. So I was, oh, let's say, 37. And I'd never really thought about my own brain until I thought, until I saw it. And then I'm like, oh, it's not good. I want to make it better. What did it look like when you first scanned it? It was bumpy. It was toxic. I had meningitis when I was a young soldier. And I had bad habits. I was sleeping four hours And I, because I thought I was special.

You did meet. And I realized I was stupid, not special. And 25 years later, it's fuller, fatter, healthier. You're not stuck with what you have. That's why I love your follow-up skin so much. I was really worried. It was going to be worse. Yeah?

Why? Well, because I'm super busy right now. Like, I'm probably the busiest I've ever been in my career. And in my personal life, doing a remodel of my house. Oh, my goodness. There's a lot of construction banging going on all the time. I've been traveling nonstop. So while my brain is active in creativity and, you know, building a business,

it's also, I feel at times like, whoa, it's a lot. There's a lot of balls in the air, you know. But I guess that benefits me more than it did to just sort of be sitting around depressed, not knowing what to do next, not knowing what to focus on, not knowing what I wanted. And I think that the clarity that you get with age, that, you know, brings forth another kind of wisdom. And you just focus on the right things. You have a new clothing lot, right?

Yes. Lola, my daughter, who you know, and I run me by Jenny Garth. It's a fashion brand. And it is so fun, so fulfilling. I mean, just working with Lola full time every day is incredible for my brain health, I think. You know, we get along really well. I just love having her with me. And I can see that she's very inspired and motivated.

And I give her a lot to handle. She basically runs the business and the design portion of the business. like we work together, of course, but I let her take the wheel because I want her to know that she can do that, you know, and she's really good at it. So that, that mommy pride is amazing. It's a good feeling. I love that so much. And if two women don't believe every stupid thing they think, it's much easier to get along with each other. Yeah.

And we help each other. You know, because she's seeing you. She does your techniques as well. So we're both living better lives than we were, for sure, five years ago. A book, a clothing line, remodeling your house. You need a good brain for that. Yeah. Things are really firing on all cylinders in every sense of the word.

So how's your memory compared to when I first saw you? I can't remember. This was startling for me yesterday. Someone asked me about a doctor visit that I had gone to because I did a blood test and it said that my amyloid markers were elevated. And so that doctor sent me to a neurologist. I did an MRI of my brain, which I tried to get for you, but I forgot. I'll email it to you.

And I don't remember what he said. And this was less than two weeks ago. and I've sat down and I pondered it and tried to remember. I don't remember what he told me I should be doing next. I would remember if it was something terrible, so I'm guessing that it wasn't bad news. I remember I'm saying you have a healthy brain, but that there was some, you know,

because I'm very concerned about that because of my mom, who's struggling with cognitive issues. It's a really good thing to talk about. And there is a new blood test for amyloid. There are a lot of doctors who don't think the whole amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's is real. It's a huge food fight because they have come up with hundreds of drugs to get rid of amyloid, but they don't help people's memory very much. I mean, it's like so small that people's,

a lot of scientists go, no. Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews. Is a reaction to a concussion. It's a reaction to an infection. It's a reaction to a toxin. The part of your brain. So we'll talk about dementia. I'll stay here.

When you came and saw me and said, I have really terrible memory problem. I don't know if I used the term with you, there's something called pseudo-dementia. It sort of looks like. like you have it. But what it really is is depression masquerading as Alzheimer's disease. And your emotional brain is so busy, well, that sort of goes with depression.

The first area that dies in Alzheimer's disease, it's called the default mode network or the posterior singular gyrus, yours is still fine. It's not tormenting you anymore like before, but it's still fine. And then the part of your brain, Alzheimer's disease. So if you put your hands on your head and your thumbs in your ears, that's the pattern for Alzheimer's disease. Bilateral, parietal, right here, and temporal right here. And yours are fine. they you don't have that pattern now there are other patterns for memory problems um let's look

so we tested your memory your working memory your short-term memory even though you said these are really a problem for me five and a half years ago i'm like well you test fine and we tested and we tested you again, so long-term memory, short-term memory, they're fine. Focus could be a little better, and that may be why you say you have memory problems, because you got distracted and you can get the information in, so you're not going to be able to get it out. Yeah, that might be it. I mean, I've talked with Dr. Brush about ADD symptoms.

you know, not being able to finish tasks. There will be times, and I'm not in one of those grooves right now, where there's 10 projects started in my house and none of them are finished. I just will walk away and go start another one. Or I can't remember things, like what I call normal people remember. Before you started acting, how did you do in school? A's, B's, maybe a C or two in math. She did fine.

Yeah. And if you had a half an hour of homework, how long would it take you to do? Probably 20 minutes. Okay. And what did teachers say about you? I don't know. I don't know. I never asked them.

Just a pleasant girl to have in class probably, you know. So you weren't... I wasn't a troublemaker. In the hallway. No. In your own desk. No. No, I didn't.

I didn't tell your mom. If only you tried harder, you'd do better. Right. No. I don't think so. Maybe in math. I think so. I just don't have a brain for math.

I don't want a brain for math. We gave you a specific ADD test. So you remember when you did the scan, you did the X test. Mm-hmm. You did perfectly fine. I did. Yeah. Okay.

And. The first time we did your attention. It was fine too. Yeah. I think it's the busyness of life. And keeping your brain as healthy as it can be in the next season, I think it would be a great goal, along with me and the remodel and. the podcast and all of that, if you can make brain health really one of the top priorities for you, it'll help.

And I think going in a hyperbaric chamber like 10, 15 times would just be so helpful for you. Okay. And there's research out of Israel on how it is a longevity structure. strategy. Yeah, I was wondering, do I need to go in an infrared sauna? You know, there's so many things you can do now. And everybody says this is the answer. Peptides, inject peptides into your body.

You know, and there's so much information now that it's really hard to weed out what's the most important or what's just malarkey. Well, that's why you have me. What do you think about peptides then? I think it's a little early. There's very little research. On it, it's like, let's be cautious. You know, I've been on the edge of what's new for so long. But I also want to be sort of thoughtful, cautious that you're not putting things in your body.

No. One of my friends took growth hormone for a long time and ended up dying with three different cancers. Oh, my God. And it's like, you know, was that really the best thing to do? I mean, the best thing to do is not believe everything you think. Focus on what you love. Eat whole food. Move your body.

Nurture your relationships. I think those are the best things. Multiple vitamin, fish oil. MCT oil is great. I'm a huge fan of saffron. You are. I have these new saffron gummies. I'll let you try.

They're really good. I'm very happy with the saffron. They're new? They're brand new. Oh, exactly. We're going to release them in a week or two. Yeah, you were the first one to introduce me, I think, to the happy saffron, your supplement. Yeah.

And I, my girls and I were all taking it for a period of time, and they loved it, too. Yeah, I'm a huge fan. 35 now randomized controlled trials showing it's equally effective to antidepressants. Amazing. But most antidepressants, the serotonin. ones can decrease your libido and decrease your ability to have an orgasm, which is pretty irritating. Saffron enhances those things, which is why I sort of got interested in it.

Because I never want to mess in a negative way with my patient's sex lives. No, can I get a case of the gummies? Absolutely. Because it doesn't just hurt the person you give the medicine to. it hurts their partner. Yeah, the medications are tricky, tricky, tricky. It takes a long time to find the right combo, the right recipe. And that's so many years for me of trial and error.

And just, you know, taking something because my psychiatrist told me to and then waiting for, you know, three weeks, whatever it is to see if it's helping at all or if it's having, you know, adverse side effects. And by that time, you're already in the side effects. So then you have to titrate off of that and get on something else. It's just been like such a roller coaster of trying to find, you know, my best state of mind through, you know, medical enhancements, medicine and supplementation. But I do feel like I'm in a good spot now. But whatever you're doing, your brain says thank you. My husband says thank you. That's for sure.

He has noticed a big difference. My kids have noticed a big difference, too. Tell me what you're taking. I take aschaganda every night. You just smiled. I like it. You do? Yeah.

Asherganda's in calm my brain. It's in focus and energy. Yeah, I like asherganda. I think it be complex because I think I should because of my stress levels. Is that true? Well, I think if you take a really good multiple vitamin, it should have enough bees in it. I've been taking a multivitamin, a new one I wanted to ask you about.

It has, gosh, two hoda, hoba, two hoba in it? I don't know. No? These new things are coming. But it's like a packet of powder, a supplementation that you put in your water and you take and has minerals and vitamins, supposedly all the things that you really need. But the two hobat one was specifically for brain something. thing I remember, but must not be if you haven't heard of it.

I don't know. I don't know. Too old. Well, I think, you know, because I always go through those phases where I just want to be without any medicine, you know, and I've done that so many times over the course of the years of saying, I'm feeling great. I don't need it. And then I'll stop taking whatever it is for my depression that I'm on.

And then I'll just get depressed again. It will slowly just kind of come back when I don't have medicine. So that was like a reckoning for me of just really accepting that my brain needs a little bit of help in certain areas as far as dealing with the cycle of depression and kind of ebbs and flows of that. And I still have, I call them little dips. I still have those occasionally. but now I'm able to identify them.

I'm able to nurture myself through them and give myself grace and say, you know, I need to get a little more rest than normal. I need to focus on just myself for a couple days and then it kind of subsides and I go back to a normal level. But they're much less frequent now and much less intense. You know, I always think win or learn so that there's no failure and you know this is a vulnerability you have. And virtually everybody has a vulnerability of one form or another. And there's so much shame around medication.

And it's like if your heart was having problems, you wouldn't feel shame about the satin you were taking or about the beta blocker you were taking. You'd just take them. or if your pancreas or your gut or your liver was having problems. But when it comes to your mind, and I think it's psychiatrist's fault because it's not, they don't go, oh, it's your brain. We need to balance your brain as opposed to you go, it's my mind.

Or it's my personality or it's my character. It's my fault. And so many years of thinking something was wrong with me. So many years of that shame that you just talked about. Absolutely. And if we think, like I hate the term mental, like mental illness, mental health. Like when you call somebody mental, you shame them. Yeah.

If you call them a brain, you elevate them. So what if mental health was brain health? Right. What if someone is, well, they used to say mentally ill. I hate that. I just literally hate it. So if someone's suffering from multiple personality syndrome, you would call that. It's a brain health issue.

Brain health issue. Interesting. Brain health issue plus trauma. Things that need to work through. People who almost all multiple personality disorders, where we call it dissociative identity disorder now. are severe abuse, which meant it left a lasting imprint on your brain. And if we get your brain healthy, you can integrate and be better.

Yeah. But, you know, someone who's bipolar or schizophrenic, you know, we call that a mental illness. It's like, well, who wants that? Nobody wants that. No. But if it's my brain, I don't feel shame and I want it to be better. What is it that causes the occasional dip, though, back into that depressive state? So I would journal it, see how often it's actually happening and then go, so how's my stress now, how are my hormone levels now?

you're taking A trifecta. Yeah. Good. Yeah. All the things. Because you know the real reason our hormones drop with age. Do you know the reason?

No. Tell me. It's the planet's way of getting rid of you. Okay. That's not very nice. I'm not ready to go, Dr. Raymond. I'm not ready to go. Oh, my God.

It's like, no. Oh, my God. And so Dr. McCarrie, who just left the FDA, but I love him, he came out and said all the nonsense about bioidentical hormones for women, they absolutely should be taking them. Mm-hmm.

Because it helps your brain work better. It helps your skin be better. It helps your heart be better. So I would just get really curious about the downtimes and go, is it stress? Is it food? Is it what's going on between me and my husband? It's, or what's going on with the kids? You know, a lot of women have the idea I can only be as happy as my unhappiest child, which is complete crap. I mean, that does make some sense to my mommy brain, though. Yes, it does. But you never want to give away your happiness to another person who has agency. That's hard because like when you're unhappiest kid, the moment, it's different all the time, by the way. Like when they're sad, you do anything to make them not sad. But I guess if you get sad along with them, how is that helping them?

So I'm working this out right now for myself. So in essence, it makes sense that I'm there to bring them back up. Do you know my friend Dennis Prager? No. I love him so much. He says happiness is a moral obligation. I'm like, whoa. Growing up Roman Catholic, didn't hear that one time.

No. And I'm grateful for my upbringing. But happiness is a moral obligation. Why? Because of how we impact other people. So if you've been raised by an unhappy, mother or married to an unhappy spouse and you ask those people as happiness and ethical issue, they'll all go, you bet it is.

And so it's not selfish. It's loving. And, you know, when you wrote, I chose, I choose me. It's like, yeah, because if I'm good, everybody else is better. And when we did, you and I, I think early on, did an exercise called the One Page Miracle on one piece of paper, write down what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, psychological, spiritual health. What do you want? And everything on that list is good.

I want all of those things. Right. Yeah. But there's nothing wrong about that. But people go, oh, I shouldn't. especially if you had the level of fame you have. There are a whole bunch of psychological traps that go with that. Yes, yes.

Right? Yeah, you feel guilty for having more than someone else. And then that turns into why you, why me. This doesn't make any sense. I still have my problems. You know, there's a lot going on in there about that. There's a lot with that. Everyone I've treated, you just, you see.

the traps and you go, I'm blessed. Most people are blessed. It's like, what do I do with the blessing? And how do I stay in flow? Flow is not in the past with regret or the future with fear. Let's just go back to kids for a second. Because so often we try to fix. and in the process of fixing, we feed their incompetence.

I said something once, I got 50 million views. What was it? I said, when you do too much for your children, you boost your self-esteem by stealing theirs. That is so true. Ultimately, the one thing we want to give to our children is competence. Right. Let them do things on their own. Let them fail if that's what it takes.

When they say, I'm bored, it's like, hmm, I wonder what you're going to do about it. And then be quiet long enough to let them figure it out. Because when they figure it out, they're like, I solve problems. Like both you and I, we've solved a lot of hard things. in our lives. We want to give them that opportunity. I mean, that starts as a young child. Like, you see so many moms younger than me,

just over-parenting, in my opinion, and just knocking themselves down to the ground with, you know, exhaustion, just going overboard to make their kid happy. There was a definite shift for me when my girls reached a certain. a certain age where I knew I needed to kind of step back and be less of a helicopter mom and more just letting them figure things out and then being there for them once they

either fail or succeed at something. But that was definitely a conscious decision that I had to make as a parent because their needs were different, you know, as they become teenagers, young adults. Now my girls are all adults and young adults. And they're all so competent. They're also well address. They adapt and they figure things out. So working on the money thing with the youngest, but she's going to have to figure it out. It's hard though when they call and they're like, I need $200 right now. And it's so they're like, just Apple pay it. They make it so easy to, and it's really hard for me to say no, especially to the baby. Question always is what's the goal? I want to raise competent.

kids who feel good about themselves. Yeah. And feel good about me. Right. Solving their problems. And survive out there. It's so hard. It's so hard.

So what about the next 10 years? What about the next? What do you want? You know what? I knew very clearly what I wanted from my 50s. I called my 50s my building decade. I really want, wanted to and still want to. I'm not through them yet to focus on building.

something that I can leave for my kids, whatever that means, whatever they want to do with it. It's not even about me as much as it is leaving them something that's meaningful that they know I was so passionate about and was so important to me. And that's why, you know, really folding in the message of encouraging women and men to remember to choose themselves and remember to focus on self-care more than just, you know, getting their nails done, but the real kind of self-care about learning the skills and what it takes to survive this crazy world. That is, I'm so passionate about it.

So I feel like I'm like midway in that build and I feel very comfortable with the thought that when I turn 60, I'm going to have to. And my brain is already like, wait, wait, okay, that's happening and we got to figure out what's next. What's the next decade going to be? and I can't figure it out yet, which makes sense because I'm only 54, but I want to. Like, I want to get ahead of the curve. Yeah, but that's a sign of intelligent life.

I mean, you don't want to live there because then you feel anxious. You want to be present, but you want to plan. And so, you know, I always think in those big buckets, like, what do I want in my relationships? what do I want for my work? What do I want for my money? What do I want for my physical, emotional, spiritual health? And 50s are interesting, especially for women because their hormones flip. Yeah.

You've got to get a handle on that before you can. Although when you have a baby, your brain remodels so that families everything. And then as you go through menopause, your brain, brain remodels again. And family's not everything. So it's sort of like, I'm everything. And that transition can be super tricky for a lot of families. And then once you get through that, I found my 60s were great fun.

Really? More fun than your 50s? Way more fun. Way more fun. Because I had less expectations of me. Right. And I'm going to be 72 next month. I'm hard to believe.

That's a good year. And I'm just, it's fun. But you realize you better be in the present moment because you never know how long it's going to be. But even then, I think it's going to be great. I think even in death, it's not it. Like I've never believed, okay, that's it. I always think there's something special waiting. Even though you don't know what it is.

Even if you don't know what it is. Are you afraid of getting older? No. Are you afraid of being... So I was afraid of pain, which is why I wrote my new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain. And I found out that it's the fear of pain that activates the pain circuits in the brain. And your first scan, the pain circuits were very busy.

And so if you would hurt, you would actually hurt more because your brain would magnify the signal. But if you're not afraid, if you get out of the doom loop, the doom loop's the star of the new book, you don't hurt as much. And then, of course, I do Pilates and Stretch and don't eat things that trigger my pain. I think stretching. I mean, I've had some physical setbacks, two hip replacements. The last one was last year. And then I had foot operation this year where I haven't been able to exercise or go on, you know,

hillside walks where I live, which I really, I feel it in my mental health, my physical health. it's the one area that I know I'm just not getting what I need. And I'm really anxious to get back, you know, at least to just walking. And I think I'm really close, but you got to let yourself heal. And that's really hard when you want to be at your optimum state. But you can't, when you are recovering from something, it really knocks you back. Well, the anesthesia by itself can be hard on your brain. brain. It's another good reason to get in a hyperbaric chamber. I think that will help, and it will

help your foot heal. How long does anesthesia stay in your body? Well, for some people, it sort of wax their brain. And since your first scan, you've had two hip replacements and then the foot surgery. Do you have general anesthesia for all three of those? Yeah. Yeah. So I think doing something to repair would be good. Okay. I'm going to check it out. I also have a pain supplement called Smart Relief. I like it a lot.

Smart relief? Smart relief. To relieve your pain? To relieve your pain. Huh. What's it do? Decreases the pain circuits. Okay.

Magic. So. Science. Magic and science. It's such a joy. to see you. Have any questions about your scan? I mean,

I'd be super happy. I'm proud. I'm so proud of it. I'm like, good job. I feel, because I knew I was feeling better, but like I said,

I still have my dips. But I feel like all my hard work, many years of trauma and pain and trying to heal and doing all the work has really paid off, not just in my brain scan, but in my life in general and my productivity level and, you know, just my belief in myself

that, look, I can outlive all of that. I can, you know, be better. And I, you know, when you're stuck in those depressive states, you don't think you can get better. Well, and if the medicine helps, there are a couple of traps people get into with medicine. I just want to take a little bit. So they try to get away with the least amount possible, which is sort of dumb. Like if you went to an eye doctor and you go, I want a thin lens. Look at you like you were sort of dumb.

It's like, don't you want the lens that works for you? And so if you still notice the debside, go, is it enough well-beatron? or can I do something else to support it like saffron or omega-3 fatty acids? And with your brain, if you're not able to exercise intensely, then you need to support it with more serotonin because intense exercise boosts serotonin. So don't try to get away with the least amount. you want to see what's the best for my brain. And your emotional circuits are so much better.

And then they think somehow they get a prize if they go off their medicine. Yeah. It's like, oh. I'm better. I'm normal. And I always tell patients, normal is a city in Illinois. Normal is the setting on a dryer. Oh, gosh.

I'm from Illinois. And no normal. There are no normal people. There are no normal people. Right. If you think someone's normal, it means you don't know them. Exactly. Well enough.

When I was a young psychiatrist, I would like, oh, that person's so normal. And if I got that thought, within three weeks, they'd be in my office telling me about the affair, the addiction, the domestic violence. And I'm like, stop it. Yeah. They're... I think the normal people. think normal is all those problems. They think that that's normal now.

Yeah. To live like anxious about money all the time or, you know, in pain all the time or fearful of the future. They feel like, I feel like people are like, that's how everyone feels. So it makes me normal. Yeah. Hopefully that's not how we're brave feels. Pastor Warren, I love Rick Warr.

He and I wrote a book together called The Daniel Plan. I love what he says about money. He says, money is just something you borrow because as soon as you're dead, it's somebody else's. I love that. And then I took a death and dying class in college, and it was so helpful to me because every problem I have, I compare it to death. I'm like, you know, it's not that big a deal. I mean, that's right.

In the Buddhist teachings, you do meditations on death and dying, and it sort of makes you just so much more appreciative of the now and the here. So I'm working on a new book called The Neuroscience of the Lord's Prayer. You are crazy. How many books do you have on it? 42. But we're doing this program in churches. We have 100 pilots going now on, it's called the Amen Hole 4.

It's about getting better physically, mentally, relational, spiritually. And then we, too, talk about the neuroscience of the Lord's Prayer. And I did it on a podcast. I got 3.2 million views. And a literary agent who I actually wanted to be my literary agent, called me up, and she goes, would you write a book on this? The reason I bring it up is there's a kondolini yoga.

No, it's not a Kandalini Yoga. But there's a form of meditation that is very Buddhist. It's called loving kindness meditation. One of my favorites. Which is, may I be happy? May I be purposeful? My life. Be healthy.

Whatever. Three things. And then you do it to yourself. And then you do it to someone you love. And then someone you're sort of neutral on. But then someone you don't like someone you're struggling with. And in the Lord's Prayer, it talks about forgive us our debts as we forgive others. That it's so clear.

Forgiveness is healing. Oh, yeah. And holding on to the pain, holding on to the hurt is so bad for us. This is an example of what you're talking about. The other day, I was taking my mom to the heart. doctor and we were in a parking garage and Lola had driven us and she pulled she pulled up and was going to let my mom get out by the elevator and the car pulled in behind her and had a problem with that. And I got out of the car and I said, I'm so sorry. It'll just be a second. My mom's trying to,

I'm trying to get her into the office. And the lady was like, well, you could have pulled over or something. You could have used the handicap spot. And I was like, but we didn't. And here we are. See the woman getting out of the car? And she just wouldn't let it go. And I got irritated. And she said, something like, don't talk to me that way. Don't tell me how I should think. I said, you know, I'm going to talk to you however I want to talk to you. And I got real pissy with them. And for the rest of the day, I was upset. I was physically and mentally bothered by that moment with that woman that I'll never see again. And I focused on, I really tried to meditate on sending her love and kindness and then giving it to myself as well. And I think it helped, but it took a lot of work for me to let go of that.

glimpse of anger and impatience and just not understanding how someone could react unkindly like that. And it was just an interesting little study on those triggers are there that, you know, we're human. Things are going to irritate us sometimes. But then working through that. Because I don't feel that very often in my life, it felt so big that it bothered me the rest of the day.

Did I ever teach you Havening? What? No. Havening. Havening. Like Safe Haven. Uh-uh. No.

My granddaughter's name's Haven. Oh. Yeah. Havening is when you get upset. Mm-hmm. So my dad died six years ago. And a couple of days later, I'm at my mom's house and we're going through papers and stuff. And someone paid a picture of my dead.

dad in the mortuary in the random stack of paper. So all of a sudden, I'm looking at my dead dad. And it's so irritating. I'm so angry. And I, you know, I'm sad, but I'm just so pissed off. What idiot could do that. So I had that same feeling. And it was bothering me the whole day. And when I came home, I'm like, you treat people that have this problem. What do you tell them to do? Haven. So havening is, did you ever do EMDR? It's bilateral hemisphere stimulation, stimulating both sides of your brain while you go into the pain. And so with that situation, if that happens again,

it's like think about it. But then do this. With your hands. Or my favorite, what I did with my dad, is grab your shoulders from the top, go down. blow your elbows. Oh, I like that. And just go into it.

And for the first 30 seconds, think about that woman. Or I thought about that picture. And then distract yourself for like another 90 seconds. Go somewhere else. Go to the beach. Go to the mountains. Go to Disneyland, whatever. And after the first two minutes, it's less bugged.

I did it three times. After the second time, I was fine. And after the third time, I fell in love with the picture. This was the last picture of my dad on earth. And so whenever you're upset, Haven. And so 30 seconds, bilateral stimulation. I have some of my NBA players do this. You see them on the bench.

They're doing this when they're bugged about a call or something. And that's interesting. It's just to calm your nervous system. Yeah, sometimes when I'm really agitated, I'll remember and I'll do this with my eyes, like go back and forth, like EMDR and hope that that helps. It's the same thing. It's the same process. But just do it with your hands.

But go into the irritation rather than drink or. eat ice cream or get angry, right? The things people do to medicate their pain that don't. This is a new trick. I can't believe I'm so happy. I just learned this. I got something to work on. So, fighting the traffic down here is worth it.

Very true. So thank you so much for coming. I adore you. I adore you. This podcast is brought to you by the Change Your Brain Foundation dedicated to ending the concept of mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Go to change your brain.org to learn how you can support our mission. You have been listening, watching, Change Your Brain every day with Jenny Garth.

Her new book, I Choose Me, in New York Times, best-selling. author I Choose Me is also a podcast on IHeart. How else can they learn about what you're up to? Well, my website, jenigarth.com. Lola runs it. So it's very nice. Yeah, I think just following along on socials, I talk, you know, I do a lot of advocacy on my social platforms,

educational things to help people learn more about heart health and Alzheimer's. I'm starting to work on brain health too more and more. So I always drop little nuggets in there. Love that. So subscribe, leave us a review, comment. Thank you so much for being part of our community.