Change Your Brain Every Day - Paul Wesley: Vampire Diaries, Mental Health, Mood & Happiness

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

In this week's episode of Change Your Brain Every Day, Dr. Amen sits down to evaluate actor Paul Wesley. Paul discusses his childhood, start in acting, goals for his mental health and happiness 00:00 Intro 01:47 Sponsor 02:57 Paul 05:24 Growing Up In New Jersey 08:18 Acting in New York City 15:03 Intention/The 18/40/60 Rule 20:30 The Four Circles 22:19 Head Trauma 27:05 Paul’s SPECT Brain Scans 31:02 Dr. Amen’s Recommendations 34:13 Turn Bad Days into Good Data 35:19 Sponsor 36:44 Wrap Up

I was in a car accident. I honestly probably shouldn't have been alive. I was asleep. It was a senior year in high school. Somebody else was driving. And I woke up out of nowhere. And my seat was down all the way. And it was the middle of the night. And I remember I had this very strange feeling. I had woken up out of a dead sleep. And I never wore my seat belt back in the day, which is the most idiotic thing in the world. And I woke up and I just had this strange feeling, put the seatbelt on, and then closed my eyes and then literally eight to ten seconds later the person who was driving the car fell

asleep. Went off the highway, flipped over. I think it was nine or ten times the police told us later. Landed upside down in a ravine, pitch black, blood everywhere, all the windows shattered. I mean, the car was like a pancake. I remember my head, you know, I went to the hospital and my head was severely concussed, but nothing, you know, no life-threatening injuries, but I remember that and thinking to myself, God, my brain got so rattled during that accident. 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. In this episode of the podcast, I'm gonna interview Paul Wesley. And we're gonna look at his brain. Paul is an actor best known for the viral sensation vampire diaries.

We're gonna talk about brain fog, issues with focus, head injuries from ice hockey, fights, and a brutal car accident. And then we're gonna talk about his spec scans, and one of my very favorite rules called the 1840-60 rule. Are you struggling with anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking, past emotional trauma, ADHD or brain fog and don't know where to turn?

Are your relationships a mess and you don't know why? Have you had a brain injury, concussion, or just don't feel the same after COVID? Is your memory worse than it was 10 years ago, or do you have a parent or grandparent with dementia and want to work on prevention? Yes, prevention is possible, but the sooner you start, the better. For 35 years,

we've been changing people's brains and their lives using brain-spec imaging and a personalized natural approach to brain and mental health care, and we have some of the best published outcomes anywhere. Go to amonclinics.com to learn more and when you call us, mention Podcast 10 for a 10% discount. I often say it's not mental illness, it's brain health. Right. Get a better brain. Everything in your life is better. Right. Relationships are better. Business is better. Health is better because you make better decisions, which all come from the three pounds between your ears. So thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, it's something that is sort of, you know, when this opportunity presented itself, I was thrilled because it's not something that is often done. We don't look under the

hood of the, you know, car in this way. And so I'm, you know, wildly curious, but also very excited about embarking on this type of brain health journey myself. So tell me your goals. How can I be of the best service to you? Yeah, so I mean, look, I definitely, you know, I'm at that age, I'm 42, where, you know, I've sort of hit this, you know, I've definitely lost a lot of the steam that I had in my 20s and 30s. And sure, being productive, I think, is an issue. I definitely feel more lethargic. I have more brain fog. I have more memory issues, things that were not as big of an issue in my 20s and 30s. So that obviously just from a productivity standpoint

of the work, my work, and then also just like focus. Sitting down and reading a book, you know, used to be so easy for me, and now I get easily distracted. You know, things like that, that I find, you know, I start thinking to myself, well, why? Why is this happening? And I think it's because of lifestyle issues and choices that I make.

So I wanna be, I would love for you to guide me and help me be a better version of myself. And then also, frankly, to be happier. Because I do think sometimes we have all, we have all sorts of our habits and our lifestyles that affect our brain can also affect our mood, obviously, or your brain is your mood. And so I find sometimes, you know, I'll start getting agitated or I'll get depressed. And I won't even know why.

And I think I want to demystify that. So what was it like growing up in your house? My parents were, you know, I always thought I was going to have this academic life. I worked hard, I studied hard, you know, they always told, I felt that I needed to get good grades. So I think I was a pretty good kid. Although I grew up in kind of a, grew up in a nice neighborhood in New Jersey,

but for some reason got into a lot of trouble. I was always good with grades and I always did well in that regard, but as far as just getting into mischief and trouble, that was one of the things. I got kicked, I went to three different high schools, got kicked out of two of them for fighting. And, um, What was that about? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, actually. Um, I kind of look back and laugh at it, but

I, but I guess it was a little, I don't know. I don't know. I, you know, New Jersey, we grew up in this kind of like environment where we thought we had to be tough to be cool. You know, we didn't. There was no, you know, the hierarchy was like who can kick whose ass. And so that was like there was no like, oh, well, this guy's, you know, funny or this guy is smarter than you. It's like, no, he can kick your ass.

And so therefore he's the, you know, he's here and you're there. And so we all had this mentality of we need to be tough in order to, you know, excel in the social, you know, ladder of New Jersey. So like the gorilla hierarchy. In a way. Yeah. And so I think the gorilla hierarchy? In a way, yeah. And so I think we just got into a lot of trouble. And I had one of my best friends growing up was a troublemaker.

And we just, that was it. So I'm really curious. So the trouble started in high school or earlier? I think the trouble started, yeah, right around, yeah, high school. And, and what would your Elementary and middle school teachers say about you? They really liked me But

They you know, I didn't fit in with the the jocks and I didn't fit in with you know I didn't go I didn't even though I played ice hockey, I never was part of that whole like, the varsity jackets and that whole thing. Like it just never was my, so I didn't fit in with them. And I didn't fit in necessarily with, you know, the kids that wanted to just excel academically. And so I kind of fell in the middle and I just sort of, I don't know, I think it was

maybe a trying to fit in thing. And I remembered also, I just struggled a little bit with that, I guess being in the suburbs was tough for me. So when I discovered New York City, which was 45 minutes south and I discovered like this whole other world of like you know oh my god look at all these cultures and look at all this art and like people are I met these you know I met people that were going to acting class and some of them were poets and this guy's a painter and all of a sudden I was just like this is what I want like oh my god this is what I want. So that's where you found your

people. That's when I remember when I want. So that's where you found your people. When I remember, when I went to New York City and I found my friends, I made friends with a bunch of these still really lifelong friends of mine, these artists that were living in Brooklyn at the time, and I just was like, this is what I want. And then I moved to Manhattan, I got a bunch of acting jobs, and I thrived.

I was so happy. I couldn't, I started doing theater and I started to like really understand. And the fights continued or the fights stopped? No, and then everything stopped. Everything stopped. Then I got out of that whole sort of, you know, trouble making phase of my life and I started.

How did your mom and dad explain it? If I asked them. And I'm like, tell me about Paul as a teenager. I think they would say that I was a good kid who who about my you know My dad probably not as much my mom was just constantly worried about me. She was always worried about me, you know running around You know at the time there were no cell phones or anything like that So you can really so she probably didn't there was a lot of sleepless nights, but you know wasn't anything wasn't anything severe It's not you know, we weren't you weren't, thank God I wasn't doing anything

illegal, we weren't robbing. It was more just getting into trouble, getting into fist fights and things that I shouldn't have been doing anyway, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. When you were in school, how was your focus? I think my focus was quite good. It's funny because I kind of excelled actually in math even though I found myself to be more

interested in liberal arts and English or writing. But for whatever reason, that was something that I did better in in terms of scoring, you know SATs and whatnot but I thought my focus was pretty good until until you know, like my Maybe my senior year my junior year I started to getting into trouble, but then also kind of realizing that maybe school wasn't for me And that maybe I wanted to be an

actor and maybe I could do something with it. I did go to Rutgers University for a short time, but then I dropped out because I was working as an actor and I said, well, I'll just go back one day and then I just never went back. But I enjoyed school. I mean, I enjoyed science. This is why this is so fascinating to me. I enjoyed learning about the solar system or the way that things, chemistry, I love the way that things, the sort of things that were more tangible. I enjoyed that aspect of things. I didn't enjoy necessarily algebra.

Who does? Yeah. Not me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And tell me about acting. How did that happen? When did that become an interest of yours? So I got kicked off the hockey team for whatever.

And then I was going to this all boys Catholic school. I was bored out of my mind. And there was a theater program there. And it was the only time that you could interact with girls because they actually had girls from different schools in the plays alongside the boys. So it was almost like the theater program was like not really part of the school, but it was. And I said, well I need to do this. And so I

started doing theater and I was pretty good. At least that's what they told me. And so I started taking a bunch of acting classes in New York City and an agent saw me doing like a performance on stage. Some I don't know what I was doing. And he said, do you want to audition for things? I said, yeah, sure, why not? And I ended up booking the second thing I auditioned for. And that was it. And my parents were shockingly supportive of it.

They were like, great, go for it. They weren't like, oh, what are you doing? You need to get back. And they were like, okay, if you think you can do this, I think they believed in me. And I give them a lot of credit for that. And then you moved to New York when you were 16? Yeah, I had like, I was doing like a soap opera

and I was, instead of commuting, I think I was even 15 or something, I ended up getting an apartment in the West Village and I had this apartment and I was kinda going to school apartment in the West Village. And I had this apartment and I was kinda going to school but not really and I was barely graduated kinda thing. And I was doing the soap opera on the Upper East Side and just having the time of my life. And yeah, it was great, great time.

And what are your favorite projects that you've done acting? You know, the things that I'm probably most proud of, nobody's ever seen, or maybe even a play that I've done off Broadway in a 99 seat theater that of course is probably my best work that nobody's ever seen, so you'll have to trust me. Take my word for it, Dr. Amon, but the things that things that I'm the most known for, obviously I did a big show called The Vampire Diaries for eight years, which was a huge worldwide phenomenon and a show that I am

very proud of. And there's some great, I mean, it's 160-something episodes, so not every one of them could be Shakespearean, but some of them are quite good. Now I'm on a show called, well, Star Trek. I play Captain Kirk, which is like the new, well, the prequel to, it's a new series, but it's the prequel to the Enterprise. So it's Captain Kirk before he was Captain.

So I'm doing that and I'm actually- Is that out? It is out, it is out. It's called Strange New Worlds is out. It is out. It's called Strange New Worlds. Yeah. It's really great. It's on Paramount.

And there's some stuff coming out next season that I'm particularly proud of that I can't wait for people to see. So this is a little plug for those who are watching. So that's something that I'm very excited for people to see. And then, you know, smaller things. You know, smaller independent films that nobody's ever seen that I think are quite special. It's always the small things that you're most proud of

and then it's the commercial successes you're also proud of but it's definitely more, I would say, widely appealing. Okay, so here's the big question. What's the goal? What do you want? So you're 42, I just turned 70, it happened so fast. I'm like shocked.

But what do you want between now and 70? It's a great question. I'd like to have another big success in my entertainment, in the entertainment field. A, because I want that, because I'm someone who likes to accomplish and achieve things, but also because I do feel a little bit pigeonholed. Even though I'm doing Star Trek and Captain Kirk is his iconic role, I do feel that most people come up to me on the street, it's typically from the Vampire Diaries, and it would be nice to have one more thing in the portfolio, in the resume, that people go, oh, and that

thing. Oh and that thing, you know and so because it's sort of like to just be sort of known for one thing It can be a little Kind of in a way suffocating because you people identify you as that and you want to be identified as as as more You know, although I have a rule for you. Tell me this rule It's called the 1840 60 rule Okay, as when you're, you worry about what everybody's thinking of you. And when you're 40, you don't give a damn

what anybody thinks about you. That is true, by the way. And when you're 60, you realize nobody has been thinking about you at all. I've heard that before. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves Not you. So if you want them whoever them is

To have a different opinion of you. They don't care. Yeah, they don't have an opinion They have an opinion in the moment on the street. Yeah, exactly, right? It's like oh dr. Amon. I love you. Yeah, no, but I mean as far as you know. Great, I love that. Right. But it's like, do I love me? No, yeah, of course. No, but it's funny, because I find my taste is always, you know, I've got a very specific taste

that is probably more skewed towards, you know, kind of, I don you know, kind of, I don't know, niche sort of filmmaking or European style filmmaking. Or I'm a bit of a cinephile, like I can really name, you know, a wide array of movies that probably no one's seen that I just love. And so it's just funny for me to be associated with sort of a very pop culture oriented

sort of younger skewing show, not that there's anything wrong with it. That you created the pop culture around it. Absolutely, absolutely. And there's nothing, and I'm so grateful for it. But it's just funny as a 42 year old man to sort of have to, and so you almost wanna do it for yourself.

You're doing it for them, but you also wanna do it for yourself and for your peers and also as an expression of your craft. You want to be able to do more so that you as an artist are expressing yourself to the world in a way that, you know, is a real indication of who you are. So one big goal is to continue your craft and to elevate it as you can.

Yes. What else? So I have a company with Ian Summerholder and I've always wanted to start a company. I've always worked for somebody else. I've always been hired and I love the idea of creating something from the ground up. And I want to be able to make that company as successful as possible and hand it off to my children if I ever have any. I gotta hurry up. And so that's another goal of mine.

And then... So you want to be good at business. You want to continue acting. Yeah. And be better, more creative. What else? In terms of my relationships, romantic relationships, I've come a long way. I'm in a fantastic relationship now for the last two years with an amazing girl

that I'm very lucky to have. And so that is something that I feel very grateful for and I am luckily sort of nurturing that and we're both very mutually committed to creating the healthiest possible relationship and supporting one another. And that's something that I'm already doing and so maintaining that and then yeah,

and then having family eventually. I mean, just talking to you, sort of worry a little bit about the fights in high school, but you've been working consistently, productively, have had many successes, but you're not sleeping well, you have brain fog, you can have periods of depression, and we're smart people.

We could come up with all sorts of reasons for that. But if you don't look, you don't know. I'm like, stop lying about this. And so we wanna optimize the physical functioning of your biology or your brain. But then we also have to look at your mind. So this is how I work. I believe you're not your diagnosis.

The first week of medical school, the dean at Oral Roberts University that's where I went to medical school, he said never think of your patients as their diagnosis Always think of them in four big circles. What's their biology? Right and most psychiatrists never look at the brain. So they have no idea what the biology is. We look because How would I know what's going on in your brain, unless I looked, right? So there are spec cameras in every major hospital in the world, because they do spec heart studies, spec bone studies, spec lung studies. And they, BrainSpec has been around for 30 some years.

Okay. And it was really exciting in the early 90s, but the American Psychiatric Association said, oh, you shouldn't do it, because it doesn't go with the diagnostic Bible, the DSM. That's the reason you do it, because how do you know why someone's depressed? How do you know why they're addicted?

Or how do you know, and could that car accident, when you were 15, impacted the decisions you make when you're 40? And if you don't look, then you just guess. And the guessing leads to, oh, you have a personality problem. Right. Oh, you're anti-social or you're borderline.

And I think that's name calling. Right. That's the ultimate form of gaslighting. If you don't look, you don't know. Head trauma. This, I think, is important for your scan, as we try to explain it. So I want you to sort of walk us through

some of the head traumas you've had. Yeah. Ice hockey is, you know, it's very, it's legal to just, you know, do a hit. And so, you know, I've been hit many times, open ice and against the boards and I've definitely had blackouts. So that's, that's something that- How many times did you have blackouts? Blackouts? In my life? No, playing hockey when you were young.

Oh, playing hockey. When did you start? When I was six years old. Seriously? You were on the ice when you were six? Yeah. Six years old. Very serious.

And you played until you were how old? Five days a week until I was, you know, until I started, very serious. And you played until you were how old? Five days a week until I was, you know, until I started acting very seriously, probably until about 16, so yeah, very seriously playing though. 17, something like that. You know, it was...

So this is sort of a big deal, because it's repetitive and it's for a long time. Do you know who Paul Carey is? No. He's in the Hall of Fame in the NHL. Oh wow. He's one of my patients. Oh wow.

Played for the Anaheim Ducks, and had some wicked. I'm sure. Concussions, and. I also, you know, I went through a period where I got into boxing. So I was boxing for a short time so that, you know, I'd never had some severe knockout in the ring, but definitely, you know, sparred and got all knocked up. And then, you know, the stupid high school fights. I've been laid out.

I mean, I've been knocked out multiple times. So I wonder, right? So that's my brain. Yeah. You're playing hockey since you're six years old. Your brain is soft. It's about the consistency of soft butter, tofu, custard, somewhere between egg whites and jello. And it's housed in a really hard skull that has multiple sharp bony ridges. And when we look at your

scan in a minute, it's your temporal lobes that are hurt. If you just feel that, it's almost as sharp as a knife. And so you get knocked against the board, your head hits the ice, your temporal lobes, which are right here, they get hurt. It tears neurons, it tears blood vessels, it causes swelling and inflammation. It's not a good thing. No, it's not. And I also was in a car accident

when I was, again again in high school. And it was one of these situations where I honestly probably shouldn't have been alive given the fact that I was asleep. It was senior year in high school, somebody else was driving, and I woke up out of nowhere. And my seat was down all the way, and it was the middle of the night, and I remember I had this very strange feeling. I'd woken up out of a dead sleep, and I never wore my seatbelt back in the day,

which is the most idiotic thing in the world. And my mother would always beg me too, and I'd be like, whatever, who needs a seatbelt? Like an idiot. And I woke up, and I just had this strange feeling, put the seatbelt on, and and I woke up and I said this strange feeling put the seatbelt on and then closed my eyes and then literally eight to ten seconds later the person who was driving the car fell asleep, went off the highway, flipped over. I think it was nine or ten times the police told

us later. It landed upside down in a ravine, pitch black, blood everywhere, all the windows shattered. I mean, the car was like a pancake. And got out of it. I remember my head, you know, went to the hospital and my head was severely concussed, but nothing, you know, no life-threatening injuries. But I remember that and thinking to myself, God, my brain got so rattled during that accident. And who knows, that may have been a factor as well

And you were how old when that happened 17 17. Yeah, so so now The trauma is stacking. Yeah, right hockey every day Five days a week from the time you're six to the time you're 16. That's a long time Yeah fights at school, boxing, bad car accident where you nearly die. This is where I believe in Guardian Angels, where it's like put your seatbelt on. Yeah, yeah. That was really something.

Because you're here for something. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about your brain. So we do a study called SPECT, and SPECT stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography. It's a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity, how your brain works. And it basically shows us three things. It shows

us healthy activity, you have a lot, areas that are too low, that's the problem, and areas of the brain that are too high. So good activity, too little or too much, and then my job is to balance it. And here's an example of a healthy scan. Color doesn't matter, it's the shape. You can see this, but your temporal lobes and your frontal lobe on one side, if you had an ADD, it would be decreased on both sides. This is trauma.

This is traumatic brain injury. When you get that asymmetrical decreased activity here in the left. So it wouldn't surprise me if you had ADD-like symptoms, but probably you didn't have them in fourth grade. Probably you developed them after the repeated concussion. That's right. That you have.

Brain is soft, skull is hard, skull has sharp bony ridges. And these are your temporal lobes, and they're damaged. We need to make them better. Now, if I was you, I'd go, can you make them better? Yeah, that was my next part. So here it is. And now we can play with it.

Now we can rotate it. I love this technology so much. So if we look down from the top, not too bad. But if we look toward the front, you can see the dent right there. What is that? It's a dent from a concussion. And then we see this low activity in your temporal lobes. And that's not good, because those are your hippocampi. And your hippocampus is so important.

Hippocampus is Greek for seahorse because it's shaped like a seahorse. And every day your brain makes 700 new baby seahorses or 700 new stem cells. And it's why you don't want to ever poison them because they want to grow into the big hippocampus and the big seahorse. And I have a program that tells me in the future, if you do what I ask you to do, it can be better, it can be normal.

It's not dead, it's sleepy, it's hurt. But it's not, it can come back. I don't have the Lazarus treatment to bring the dead back to life, but I can get this sleepy tissue healthy So if you are serious and I'm smart That would be a good combination. So tell me now if you don't do it. I ask you to do this is very important In five years your brains gonna look like that

That's not good. No. Now you're gonna begin to get dementia. So your brain can be so much better. We just have to be serious about it. And what do I need to do? So I think hyperbaric oxygen is really important. I'm gonna give you a group of supplements

that I used in my NFL people, and then we'll talk about it. Brain envy, you gotta start really loving and caring for your brain. Avoiding things that hurt it and do things to help it. This one, the color matters. Blue is average activity.

Red and white are the most active parts of the brain. So we looked at the surface scan and I showed you the decreased activity in your temporal lobes and in your left prefrontal cortex. The hyperbaric oxygen supplements, I think also add focus and energy to you and get more energy to your brain. And also blood flow. Here, looking at the active scan,

if we just go back to what it should look like, and what it will look like in the future we should see lots of activity here and everything else quietly. Your brain is just too quiet overall. Your emotional brain is part of your thalamus, that's busy, but I want this better. Just wanna increase the activity. Not too much, but get it to be healthier. And so the question is, how do we do that? So we need to improve this. This is, I should put this in red.

What do you do for exercise? So I go through waves. I used to be like an exercise junkie fanatic. It's like six to seven days a week. And now I haven't worked out in about three months. And this is the longest I haven't gone in a long time. But I have a Peloton at home. I love to hike with my dog.

I just haven't been doing it. I love to hike with my dog. I've just haven't been doing it. I've been working and traveling too much lately and I just, and a little bit of resistance, but weightlifting, but. Do you do any coordination exercises? Such a good question. The answer is no, and I have terrible balance. And I have a terrible back and I have a terrible knees

and you know, I don't do any of those things no but I've watched a program where you talked about racket sports yeah I'm a huge fan of racket sports so I actually uh I'm just terrible at it but I love like I grew up playing ping pong and I love tennis um so I would get a ping pong coach. Okay. And like half an hour twice a week. And just go, make me better. Because what that's gonna do is activate your cerebellum,

right, that sleepy part of your brain. Better than tennis? Better than tennis because it's faster. And if you get good, it becomes more fun. But if you get good, it means you. But if you get good it means you're developing the connections in your cerebellum and in your frontal lobes. Wow, okay.

So when people come to see me they're not doing well. But they have good days and bad days. It's just, they come to see me. And then we intervene and they get better. But nobody just gets better. They're better and then they're not, and then they're better and then they're not. But if you look at the graph,

it's, you know, five or six months from now, you do what I ask you to do, you are gonna feel so much better. But I don't want you to let the down days set you back. I want you to think every day I win or I learn. And you probably had that mindset on The Vampire Diaries because you lasted eight years. Right, right. Or just even being in the profession of it. 99% of the time you're getting rejected. It's like 1% success rate and then that's a hit and thank God, that kind of thing.

So you got to keep going. Are you excited to optimize your brain and help the brains of those you love? Do you want to prevent or treat memory problems, anxiety or depression? Do you want to be happier? That's why I created Amon University, to take what I've learned over the last 45 years and help you have a better brain, a better mind, and a better body. You can take courses like our 30-day happiness challenge which was shown in research to increase happiness by 32% in just 30 days or memory rescue

or overcoming anxiety, depression, trauma and grief or healing ADD at home in 30 days and much more. We also have professional courses and courses for kids including Brain Thrive by 25 which was found in independent research to decrease depression and improve self-esteem. And as a special offer just for our listeners, you can save 20% on your next course. Visit amenuniversity.com and use the code podcast20. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Tana and I work really hard to provide free information that will make a meaningful difference in your life every day.

Change your brain every day. If you liked it, please subscribe, leave us a review. And if you have a story of transformation you want to share with us, you can do that by DMing us at doc underscore amen on Instagram. Thank you so much.