Change Your Brain Every Day - If I knew Then What I Know Now, I Never Would’ve Played Football – Part 2 of an Interview with Anthony Davis

Episode Date: April 18, 2017

In Part 2 of an interview with former NFL and USC football star, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana discuss growing up with sports, and how choices made on the field can affect all aspects of life down the road. Learn which sports are the worst for your children's health, as well as which ones could actually help them live longer.

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. So we're back with our friend Anthony Davis. We're really loving this series about football and brain damaging sports, not just football. And this segment is going to be really important to people like me, mama bears, right? Because we want to make sure that our kids are happy

and doing things that they love. But at the same time, it's really important we do things that are really healthy and that we're protecting our kids. So we want to hear from somebody who's actually experienced this, Anthony Davis, who just got done saying in his last podcast with us that if he knew then what he knows now, he never would have played football. And we're talking to someone with a high level of success in his sport. Hall of Fame running back from USC. He was runner up for the Heisman Trophy.

And an NFL player. And an NFL player. And is known, I mean, literally all over the world for his prowess on a football field. But as you had said, you actually were really good into sports. Why did you pick football over baseball? Let's go back to my coach, the great Rod Dato. I was part of 11 of his national title teams. I was on three straight. His favorite word was called, and he called everyone, Tiger. He says, Tiger, your number one draft choice. We really wanted you to play baseball at USC along with football. He says, your career is in baseball. He said, despite what you did on the football field, your so-called success and fame, your career is baseball.

But the main reason back in the day, it was all financial. It was the thing where there was more opportunity financially in football than baseball at the time. I came out of school when there was no free agency. I was a year away from free agency. So 1960s, 1976, they no free agency. I was a year away from free agency. So 1960s, 1976, they have free agency. I missed it by a year. If that had been happening,

that would have changed everything as well. So it was all financial while I went football. And there's probably a lot of kids who feel that need. Right. Well, nowadays you have all the benefits in both sports. So if I was coming out today, there would be no choice of me, what sport I would be in. But for kids who don't have your natural athletic ability in two sports, and they do have that athletic ability in football, but say they're coming from a neighborhood. I grew up poor, and I know it's not fun being poor.

And they want out of that. They want out of that neighborhood. So that's a big draw. I mean, that's a hard one to say no to. Well, that's true. And what I say, if you're really passionate about the game of football, you have to know the consequence. You've got to know if you're going to play this game, there's going to be some consequence physically. And from the brain standpoint, those collisions were very damaging.

So I tell all parents who approach me now that they know i'm with the aiming clinic they said well i said well just know the consequences because if they play there's going to be some damage yeah there's no question there's no anyone who puts a helmet on their head on any level youth high school college and professionally it's going to be trauma well and so the mayo clinic actually did a study they got 600 they had autopsied brains of people who played football at any level right and they found a third of them one third of them had evidence of cte so cte stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy what we you know think of is football dementia that was discovered by our friend benedict malu and would you ever allow a child to do something

where they had a 33 chance of ending up with chronic long-term brain damage. And I played for two years in high school, and I wasn't that good or very big. But you can see evidence of damage in my first scan. And I'm not okay with that. So I have a question, though, because as a mom, this is really important. Aren't developing brains more at risk or not absolutely yes right i mean if you start smoking pot when you're 14 the level of damage in your

brain is much higher than if you started when you were 25 and so early and boston university came out with guidelines and they said children should not play contact sports before the age of 14. And I wrote an editorial, and I went, why don't you like 15-year-olds? That the brain is actually not finished developing in girls until they're 25, in boys until they're about 28. That it's just a bad idea. i was at a conference and the father who was a billionaire he said but my son really wants to play what should i tell him i said well what would you tell him if your son said well i really want to do cocaine because the level of damage is the same i said would you go get him a coach to do cocaine because you know he was at a

billion billion dollars i was go getting him a football coach and you go get him a coach to do cocaine? Because, you know, he was at a billion dollars. I was getting him a football coach and, you know, giving him all the opportunities. And I'm like, that's just not a good idea. But there are things. I mean, exercise, obviously important. It's obviously important for your health and for the brain. So what are sports that are brain healthy? As you've thought about this, Anthony?

Well, you have baseball, of course. But, you know, you can get hit in the head from a line drive, which that happened to one of my teammates. He ended his career. His name's Steve. He can't play with the Yankees. He was in pregame warm-up. He had a line drive hit him inside of the head.

That was a freak accident. But it's a freak accident. That's the key term. Well, the only thing i can think of is track you know track guy but tennis like tennis net sports you know yeah racket sports did you know you may not know this the new study that came out from england people who play racket sports live longer than everybody else that football players live less long soccer players live less long runners didn't live longer it was tennis badminton table tennis

racquetball they lived longer than everyone else because it works their cerebellum in the back bottom part of the brain so you remember when i first scanned you and your cerebellum was sleepy it wasn't which is you are a hall of fame athlete doesn't that seem crazy so coordinated and i felt like such a bozo when i when i said anthony you got to do coordination exercises. We have to work your cerebellum. And 10 years later, your cerebellum's better. So any coordination sport is good for a developing brain. And that also includes dance. The dance is awesome. And Chloe goes, she has what, two hours of dance every week? Oh, no. Like 14.

She's got a lot of dance. Chloe, you know, our daughter does a lot of, so dancing is awesome. Her cerebellum was sleepy. And that's one of the reasons she does so much dance is because she didn't like feeling uncoordinated. And now she's actually quite coordinated. So it's really helpful. Well, I dance all the time, too. High school and all that kind of stuff. I actually won a dance contest.

Oh, that's awesome. On Channel 9. It was called Boss City. That's awesome. How do we do that? Myself and a woman by the name of Simone Hinkle. That's awesome. Well, I practice martial arts, and that's actually also good for coordination.

As long as you're not doing the competitive martial arts where you're getting hit in the head. So, yeah. I love to hit things. I just don't like things hitting me back well that's what about mmm fighting yeah that's crazy that is it's a disaster so uh because they're getting kicked in the head their heads getting slammed against a whole different level i mean i do it for a very different reason yes no i mean you know uh being under the program, I know now from just the review of my 10 years on the program, I was very flawed. Looking back and reveal my life to this point, I was a very flawed individual. I mean, I did some decision makings were bad.

The kind of people around was bad. I mean, it was. But isn't it nice to know that there's hope and redemption? You know, since I've been on this program, I know some people tell their doctors, you know, Doc, you know, I'm taking your medication. I'm taking your product. I'm taking it. And I said to myself, I wonder if Dr. Amen really believes I really religiously takes the product and take the program serious. Well, after I left that day, they were so happy about the results of the scan.

Yeah, see, we've got proof. So I know Dr. Amon knows now that I've been religiously taking the product because of the scan. Right. We've got the proof. Got the proof. So I just want you to know I'm a religious guy in what I do. I'm a very regimented person. I'm a soldier.

That's awesome. And it shows. So many of our athletes. But it shows. They're okay with being coached. Right. They're okay with it. Once they have a plan, they usually are good about sticking to it.

If you stick to the plan, it works. And that's why 10 years later, now I can really go out and say, the proof's in the pudding with me. Go to the clinic and you can see it. Yeah, athletes and soldiers tend to have more of that warrior mindset. They just need to know that there's hope and they need to know what to do. It's that warrior mindset of I'm just going to do it, that really helps them be successful. So I don't know if you remember, but after we went to the meeting with the Retired NFL Players Association,

that we agreed to do 30 scans to try to answer the question, does football, playing football at a high level, cause long-term brain damage? But the problem, like with with you i fell in love with the players and their damage was so bad that i went well can you fix it because no one has ever shown that you can reverse traumatic brain injury in football players and for those players who did what we asked them to do when we did a follow-up scan 80 percent of that's incredible we're better so if you've been bad to your brain or if your children

have been bad to your brain it's so important to get serious about rehabilitation, which means you don't just try to rehabilitate it for a month that you may end up, this is what I need to do the rest of my life to take care of the damage that I've done. And we have together, we have been able to reverse that damage so that hopefully you have less episodes of confusion less episodes of wondering if you locked the door and and so on so imagine 10 years later if you hadn't met us and been so consistent

that your life would not be as good well i might not even be here i mean you know based on your diagnosis i was headed for, pre-dimension. I could have had full-blown dimension by now. Yeah, it's true. I mean, so, you know, based on what I've seen and some of the players that I played with are no longer here with us who passed away from that. So if we bring this back to sports for children, let's just quickly go through the ones we know are bad. So football, hockey, hitting soccer balls with your head um what else youth boxing mma boxing we have to we've got a race car driving well race car uh

well they certainly do street driving you gotta back that's how sandra's daughter died was somebody who was 21 he was racing drunk. And one of the sports that people never think about are horseback riding. And cheerleading. And I always think of what killed Superman. It was a horse that broke Christopher Reeves' neck. There's a lot of

falls on horses. And cheerleading. You're right. You were a cheerleader. And we got hurt a lot. Especially the little tiny ones The flyers that they're throwing up in the air Sometimes they get dropped Right So then let's talk about things that are

Let's recap on what is good for kids So racket sports Tennis Track and field Table tennis We just said, yeah Any racket sport You're always going to push on the table tennis

It's an Olympic sport. What about golf? Golf is great. There's actually evidence people that play golf have a larger hippocampus. It's the structure in your brain involved in getting short-term memory into long-term memory. So golf is good. Tennis is terrific. Dancing, track. good tennis is terrific okay um dancing and so we already track except but but there's some

track sports that are really not good for your brain like pole vaulting high jumping i knew you're gonna say that um but um but baseball is really is the goal you can get hurt in anything but that's not the goal and basketball yes you can have concussions but it's not the goal snowboarding is dangerous i can't tell you the number of snow i have to jump in there because i just i cringe every time my daughter i used to ski a lot but i stopped after i got pregnant with my daughter but i was a trauma nurse a neurosurgical icu trauma nurse and i worked at loma linda which is at the base of the mountains. Every year, these kids would come in. And see, they think that because they didn't always,

they think that their heads are protected sometimes. Some of the really crazy ones would wear helmets. They would come in with compression fractures and break their necks. Just the number of head injuries and broken necks, quadriplegics, paraplegics we got every year was crazy. Well, we know that there's a chance of getting hurt in any sport but the ones we're talking about staying away we know it's a high high level of risk high percentage of injuries absolutely it's and so know the truth and the truth will set you free in and 14 year olds or they're not adults and they

should not be making those decisions that's why god gave you parents and i always say you are your child's frontal lobes judgment forethought impulse control until theirs develop i want to jump in on one more thing because this was another one that we took care of ridiculous number of injuries was because it's often done as a family sport are the little dirt bikes or ATV, you know, the ATV, the little, they go people go out as families up to, you know, the sand dunes and they go out and do these crazy things. Same thing. They think the helmet's going to protect them. It does not protect you from like you said that shaken baby syndrome it also does not protect you against compression fractures in the neck i i just you traumatized me because i remembered um you and i actually hadn't met yet but jesse my son-in-law had been riding four

wheelers in the desert with his father. And he didn't tell me ahead of time because he knew I wouldn't approve. And his four-wheeler went over a big dip, but the front wheels didn't go over the dip. They hit the wall, and it flung him 40 feet in the air. And I had his before scan and his after scan and it wasn't good his father also had a concussion that weekend on the four-wheeler and he just went downhill after that and six months later he committed suicide that was really traumatic brain injuries are major cause of depression, of suicide, of panic attacks, of learning problems, of addictions, of homelessness. We're going to talk about that when we talk about in the shadows next.

Stay with us. You're here with us on the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We're going to come back with our friend Anthony Davis. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do,

go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.