Change Your Brain Every Day - The Second Beginning: Life After Traumatic Brain Injury with Erik Johnson

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen sits down with Stanley Cup and NHL champion Erik Johnson for a groundbreaking look inside Erik's concussion recovery. Using advanced SPECT imaging, Dr. Amen scans Erik's brain to reveal the hidden impact of his traumatic brain injury and maps areas of damage, dysfunction, and remarkable resilience that standard imaging often misses.   Together, they walk through the results in real time, translating complex brain scans into a clear picture of what TBI actually does to blood flow, activity, and function. Erik gets an unflinching look at his own recovery — the progress made, the challenges still ahead, and what the science says is possible from here.   This isn't just a conversation about brain injury. It's a rare, visual journey into what healing looks like from the inside out — offering hope, clarity, and actionable insight for anyone navigating their own recovery.

I kind of got hit from the back and I fell and bang. Right away I knew I was not in good shape. Sound went out, eyes went out, stars. And I came to, I skated off the ice, got into the room with the doctors and the trainers. You're like, are you okay? And I was just like, no, I'm not. Eric Johnson is a Stanley Cup champion and veteran NHL defenseman. Dr. Aiman and Eric discuss his career, his history of concussions,

and the impact they've had on his brain health. General anesthesia can cause concussion. like symptoms. You're in a brain damaging sport, and you've had a dozen or more concussions, and probably thousands of sub-concussive blows. And now on top of it are these five or six general anesthesia from shoulder surgery, knee surgery.

It stacks, which is why you had the brain that just looked hurt. Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you, You can change your brain for the better every day. I never get tired of hearing stories of hope. Gregory shared that after taking Happy Saffron Plus for several weeks, he felt more hopeful, less overwhelmed, and experienced no negative side effects.

Hope changes everything. When people feel better, they think better, make better decisions, and create better lives. That's why stories like Gregory's mean so much to me. Visit BrainMD.com and use code podcast 20 for 20% off. I'm so excited today. Welcome to change your brain every day. We have a very special guest, Eric Johnson, who is a former defenseman who played 18 years in the national hockey league. He won the Stanley Cup in 2022. after he and I met, with the Colorado Avalanche. And in 2010, he won the Olympic silver medal with Team USA in Vancouver.

Eric is one of just a handful of American defensemen to play a thousand NHL games. Eric is now an NHL analyst on ESPN. I've watched them. I text them. I'm like, oh, you look so good. Eric came to the clinics in 2021. We'll talk about that for a serious concussion that almost ended his career. So, so nice to see you. Welcome. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. So like a thousand NHL games. How did that start for you? that's a lot of blows to the head.

That probably makes you quiver. Thinking of that many games. Makes me nerve. Yeah. Well, I grew up in Minnesota, so that's kind of like religion in Minnesota's playing hockey. And I remember growing up as a kid and that's really all I wanted to do. And yeah, when you grow up in Minnesota, that's just kind of right of passage as being a hockey player. And I loved it.

And you go through youth hockey and high school hockey. and college hockey, and then before you know it, you're 17 or 18 getting drafted in the NHL like I did, and then you're staring at a professional career, a long one, 18 years that I had and very grateful for it. But it didn't come without some ups and downs and adversity and question marks and things where I thought it was maybe the end a few times with injuries, like the concussion that I saw you for in 2021. So I'm very grateful for a long career that I had and a long and successful hockey career in the NHL. And I think back to a lot of different moments

throughout my career where the chapters could look a lot differently and the ending to the book could have looked a lot differently, but thankfully it ended the way it did. And I do have to thank you a lot for that and other people along the way because my journey and my experience and my hockey career might look a lot different if I hadn't seen you in 2021

and all the success that followed after that. So was there someone in your childhood who played hockey that you lived up to, or it was just sort of part of what the kids in Minnesota did? Yeah, it's kind of just part of the fabric of Minnesota is people just love and they live and they breathe hockey. But I did have some family connections. My mom's uncle, Ken Yackel, so my great uncle, he was an All-American in football, baseball, and hockey at the University. University of Minnesota and then he played, I want to say, 20 games in the NHL in the, I want to say in the 60s or the 50s. And I thought that was like the coolest thing ever. That's just a cup of coffee.

But I thought, I'm like, wow, if I could play any amount of games in the national hockey, that would be incredible. And Ken Yackel played 20. He was, I think, an Olympic silver medalist in Norway for Team USA. So there's some family history there. My mom always says I got all of my athletic ability from her side of the family, and my dad has absolutely nothing to do with it. So he really appreciates when I say that. But, yeah, so I did kind of have someone to aspire to looking back on my childhood is my great-uncle Ken Yackel. But I just loved hockey in general, yeah.

And what do you think it was about your childhood that prepared you to keep going? I think my parents had a lot to do with that. I think, you know, your parents are really the two people, your mom and dad, who they want their children to do better than they did. And I really had that with my mom and dad. And I'm really lucky to have that. And they had unconditional love for my sister and I. And they just wanted us to do what we love to do. So to have parents that backed you like that was really important.

And to know that they supported you in all of your dreams and your journeys is very, is very, very. very amazing to have as a child. So I think that was big. And then just having that intrinsic drive to want to do something that you love is what I had that I've just been born with, I think, and I loved it and always wanted to play hockey. And I was gifted by God with athletic ability and work ethic. And I'm very grateful for all those things. And then add on top of what my parents wanted me to do what I loved. So at what point in your life do you remember that you wanted to be a professional hockey player? Oh, from the get-go.

And that's a good question because I don't think I was ever at a point where I was like, I'm going to play in the NHL because that's what I wanted to do with my life. Because I remember being, you know, in grade school and thinking, like, I want to be a history teacher. future when I grow up. But I always loved hockey and I played it because I was good at it and all my friends played hockey and it was fun. But as you take steps throughout your life, there's just different goals that you check off. Like when I was a squirt, I wanted to make the squirt A team. When I was a Pee-Wea, I wanted to make the P-WI-A team. And I was a BANM, I wanted to make the Bannam A team. When I was in high school, I wanted to make the varsity team. I wanted to play college

at the gophers. I did that. Then I, you know, you check off these steps over the course of your life. So I, of course, I wanted to play hockey as long as I could, but I wasn't like, you know, I'm for sure going to do this. I just, every step I checked off the next goal was right there and I tried to achieve the next goal in front of me. I never tried to think too far ahead. So you stayed more in the moment than too far ahead. Which as I've gotten older, I find harder and harder to do because I'm very impatient. And I look and way far along where I should probably just stay are centered and grounded in the moment. When I was a kid, I think you're just in the moment because that's all you know.

And when you get old, you get maybe too smart for your own good or you think you're too smart for your own good and you look beyond of where you should be. So I think as a kid, I was just kind of in the moment and doing what was right on my plate in the moment. Yeah, it probably makes you happier. Yeah, exactly. Although I was, you know, so many kids, I think me too. It's like, oh, I can't wait until I'm 16 and I can drive or I can't wait until I'm 18.

Well, those things, I did think those things, too, you know, when I got my license. But as far as hockey and the journey of my hockey career, it was very in the moment. My goals weren't set too far ahead. I think that they looked unrealistic. I tried to just hit singles, you know what I mean? Not try and hit the home run right away. What was the hardest thing about playing hockey players? professionally. I think I looked at it like, and I changed this tune as I got further along in my

career. It's funny, I retired at 37 and I was considered the old guy. And now I'm considered young. So it's very funny how it switches. But as I got as I got older throughout my career, I would always think what a blessing this is, no matter how bad of a game you have or how bad of an injury you have, you are getting paid to play in the National Hockey League, the greatest league in the world. What a blessing that is in itself. All these other things, you know, you think about people that struggle to put food on the table,

and I tried to think of it from a perspective where I might be having a bad day at what I do, but in the big picture, that's not a bad day. So I try and think about when I was playing low moments, bad injuries, maybe times of not living up to expectations, maybe times of regret and guilt for having a bad game and letting your team down. So those are all things athletes experience and that I experienced. But as I went through my career,

I really tried to look at the big picture and just see how blessed I was to do what I did for so long and how much success I had. And I always look back, Doc, and say, if you offered this to me when I was eight years old, the career I had, I would sign up a million times out of a million. And I had a ton of tough injuries and, you know, maybe some letdowns and heartbreak and maybe not living up to certain expectations at times in my career. But then I try and look at the big picture and it's like, wow, I was very blessed. So even if the downs are big and they affected me and I was sad at the time, I mean, what a blessing of a career I had and didn't the big picture as how I try and think about it.

For sure. Yeah. For sure. How many concussions did you have? So this is a good question because I think people that grew up in my generation, it was called getting your bell rung. and I think probably when 2010 hit in hockey or the NHL, they really started to look at concussions harder or it wasn't just getting your bell rung. It's like, okay, you have a significant injury.

And so I couldn't tell you how many concussions I had because was getting your bell rung a concussion where you see stars and you're dizzy? Yeah, probably. So I would say doc. documented in the NHL, I would have had five for sure documented. Was there a few that I maybe didn't say anything about because I wanted to keep playing? There's probably a few of those two, and I bet you there's a lot of guys that have done that as well. And I'm not, I'm not some hero for saying, oh, I played through a concussion.

Guys have played through far worse, and I guarantee guys have played through brain injuries, concussions in the NHL and other sports. But from my perspective, I definitely played with five or six-ish, I would say, in the NHL, had those injuries. And then growing up, I don't know, has to be a handful, I would say for sure. I remember getting rocked with an elbow when I was 16 years old, right to the face. And, you know, in the NHL, you wear the visor. So this part of your face is exposed. But when you're growing up, you wear the full cage. And I took an elbow right to the head and, you know, dizzy and all that.

but you keep playing because, you know, you just got your bell rung. So bell ringings, probably like 10, documented concussions in the NHL, half a dozen. Yeah, your brain is soft 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 sharp bony ridges. And probably all of those impacted. your brain. But every day your brain is getting better, it's getting worse, by the habits you engage in. I started our NFL work in 2007. So Anthony Davis, the Hall of Fame running back from USC, came to see me confused, memory problems, temper problems, and brain was

terrible. But five months later, it was so much better. And I think of him as, the father of my concussion work because I then spoke to the Los Angeles chapter of the NFL Players Association. We did the world's first and largest study on active and retired NFL players. So we scanned and treated 400 of them. Our first NHL player was Paul Korea. Yeah. That's who referred me to you. So he's my teammate.

Yeah. And I love Paul. And he had headaches every day for 12 years. And I think three weeks later, he lost his headaches doing neurofeedback and hyperboric oxygen. And hockey can be a brutal sport. And fighting is sort of appreciate it. That's part of it. Yeah, that's part of it.

Yeah, I've had a few nasty knuckles of the skull. Yeah. And some of the enforcers. have come out publicly. Oh, yeah. They end up having CTE or dementia. But, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is I wanted to talk about CTE, chronic, traumatic, encephalopathy and how the messaging around it, I think, is flawed.

That, because the idea, did you see the movie concussion? I did. Yeah, it was very well done. Yeah. Yeah. So I was a consultant on it. They actually wrote me into the script, and then they wrote me out of it. because it was sort of like the NFL versus Dr. Amalu,

but Peter Landisman who wrote it, said, you're the only one that has hope. And it's like, it's not all negative. It was so negative that the idea in our society, and probably around a lot of hockey players, is CTE is chronic, progressive, and untreatable. And I think that's a lie.

I think if you don't do anything, if you had not done anything, it would have been chronic, progressive, and untreatable, but you're really smart, and you're like, oh, no, I have to get this taken care of. But it was like, no, I don't want this. And when we scanned you, your brain was hurt. So walk us through that concussion. Yeah.

So it was the COVID year. It was 2021. And leading up to this point, I've had a lot of injuries over my career, like a lot of injuries. Both shoulders have been done. My knee twice, multiple concussions, broken feet, high ankle sprains. These are all new teeth. These are all gone and mostly not there. So a lot of trauma in and around my head as well.

And that's not unusual. There's guys that have played through far worse. a ton of injuries. So I'm not a victim. I'm just stating that I've been through a lot as far as injuries. And so 2021, shortened NHL season because of COVID. So it started around January,

it ended in June. Typically it goes October to June. So it was shortening condensed. I had just come off a high ankle sprain. We're maybe 10 games into the season. I had just missed a full week with COVID. And, you know, I'm coming off this other injury.

I'm like, geez, I can't catch a break. I get COVID. Two games back, maybe three. I receive a pass like this, and I'm going to put the puck in, and I get hit kind of late. It was my fault because I didn't expect to get hit that late. I was in a position to be hit. And I kind of got hit from the back, and it took me backwards,

and I fell like this. and bang like flat on the side of my face on the ice which is concrete essentially and right away I knew I was not in good shape like sound went out eyes went out stars and I came to I skated off the ice got into the room with the doctors and the trainers are like are you okay and I was just like no I'm not I'm not okay. And went to the doctor, the hospital for a CT scan. Everything checked out fine as far as that. And then I had a huge gash right on the side of my skull,

or it would have been this side on my ear and my skull from the, from the impact as well. And I was out of commission for a while. And our team did a great job because they were treating my neck and my shoulders and everything to try and, you know, get me some relief. But I just was not getting any better. A lot of tinnitus ringing in the ears. That was not going away. That was really tough at night trying to sleep.

And then just the constant like brain fog and headaches and really didn't go away after a while. And I did reach out to Paul Kree, my former teammate who saw you. you for his concussion and he set me up with you. And I kept thinking, it's not what happens to you. It's how do you react, whether it's anything in life, right? An injury, anything. How do you react to something bad that happens? And for me, I chose to be progressive and not just sit in a dark room.

like they told you to do in the past for a concussion and hope it gets better. Which is actually one of the worst things you can do. Yep. Now we found that out, right? Yeah. But that used to be the protocol in the NHL. Just sit in a dark room. Maybe you get your heart rate going a little bit on the bike after a few days,

but it was like you're in a dark room alone with your thoughts. Anyway, I chose to reach out to you. And since I have a place out here in Southern California, I was just like, I am going out there and I need to just, not only do I need a physical reset for my body from all the injuries and now I have this new concussion. I need a mental reset and just get to the bottom of everything. And then I saw you for the brain spec, right? It's the spec, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And you told me after that scan, he was like, your brain looks like a beat up boxer, I think you said, or something like to that effect. and he's like, you need to do something about it. And so like I just mentioned, it's not what happens to you. It's how do you react to it. What do you do about it? And so I decided to go forward with the treatment plan that you put forward. And I ended up getting better.

I could go on for a lot longer, but we will. What were the things you think that made the biggest difference? So there were supplements, there were hyperbaric oxygen. And you said something interesting that I don't want us to gloss over. You had also had general anesthesia a lot. Many times, many times. And most people don't know. General anesthesia is not good for your brain.

And like, I'm a psychiatrist. Why would I know that? I had a patient who is an alcoholic, she had a terrible brain. But then she stopped drinking. Her brain got way better. She had knee surgery. And she called me up and she said, I have Alzheimer's disease. She was just complete mess. So I scanned her again. And her brain was back to being toxic with no alcohol. It was anesthesia. Wow. And in the scientific literature, there's a lot of evidence that general anesthesia can cause concussion like. symptoms. And so not only you're in a brain damaging sport

and you've had a dozen or more concussions and probably thousands of sub-concussive flows. Absolutely. Right? And now on top of it are these five or six general anesthesia from shoulder surgery, me surgery.

And so it stacks, which is why you had the brain that just looked hurt. Yeah, and I think it's no different, and I think concussions where you still fully don't understand them, I think. I think players are getting more and more educated as the years go on, but a brain injury is no different than if you hurt your knee. What are you going to do?

Are you just going to sit there on the couch and hope it gets better? No, you're going to treat it with therapy, and you're going to treat your brain injury just like any other injury. just like any other injury. Are you just going to sit there and hope it gets better? I mean, yeah, it'll improve over time if you just sit there. But are you going to be... If you do the right thing.

Sure. So there's this great study out of UCLA where they took rats. And they gave them a head injury. And then one group they gave them healthy food. The other group, they gave them healthy food with fruit tips or fruit sugar. And the group who had the head injury with a healthy food, three weeks later, they could run the mazes they knew how to run. The group that got the extra sugar was still confused at six weeks.

But did they tell you they talked to you at all about your diet after the head injury? I mean, no, I would say nothing that stood out as far as, you know, some type of treatment protocol to help you improve. But on every football, in every football game, there's Gatorade, which is basically sugar water. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, let's see, are playing a brain damaging sport? Why don't we at least own it?

That's what I wanted to do with my NFL work. It's like, own it. And then be the leader in brain health, right? I mean, there's always going to be jobs that are brain damaging. We're just finishing a big firefighter study. That's a brain damaging job because of the toxins, the emotional trauma. If we own it, well, then we can always be protecting ourselves, right? It's like if you're going to do that, you should do everything else.

Right. Absolutely. And I was just getting to that as far as you need to be proactive about a brain injury. I mean, it's, like I said, it's, you need to treat it like you would treat any other injury with care, therapy. And I just, I don't think people know how because it, right, like it's just, it's so new as far as the recovery and how do we make it better. Like what you're doing, how is there not a, in my opinion, there should be a brochure or board or. or video that every team watches as far as accessibility to brain rehab or therapy.

Like I just think guys aren't educated enough. One of my favorite things is hearing how better brain health impacts entire families. Marie told us she and her husband started taking Happy Saffron Plus and both noticed improvements in their mood. better mood, better relationships, better life. That's why I always say when your brain works right, you and the loves in your life work right too. Visit brainmd.com and use code podcast 20 for 20% off. Better brain, better life.

And the only reason I knew about it about coming to you is word of mouth from an old teammate, right? And I mean, guys do find things out that way, but I just don't think there's enough. And teams, all teams in all sports, like to keep things in-house. They don't like guys going outside of the bubble. They like to keep things very tight. So how did your team deal with it when you decided to come to see me? Well, they were great. They were great.

But I also was a veteran player. I'd been in Colorado a long time. and I just said, listen, I'm going to do this. And they were great about letting me do it. But if you're a younger player that might be just entering the league in your second or third year, you don't know. And how intimidating would it be for a 20 or 21-year-old kid with a concussion to go tell their 50-year-old general manager or 60-year-old athletic trainer that I'm going to go do this? Probably not a lot because they'd be intimidated.

and they're just going to listen to their parents or their agent or whatever. So I just think there's a opportunity for guys to be more informed. And I think guys are as they've gotten more information, as these things about concussions have become more documented. But for me, I was lucky that I felt comfortable enough to say, I'm going to do this. But I don't think everybody is in that situation, because there is a hierarchy in pro sports.

And there are times where guys feel uncomfortable about maybe going to do something that they want to do, but they don't feel comfortable asking the team, and maybe the team won't let them do that. But Colorado was great with me as far as letting me go do this. And I'm thankful that they did because my story looks a lot different sitting here with no Stanley Cup, no thousand games. my my resume looks a lot different without me coming here and getting better. Yeah. And there's just so much hope that I want people to have that CTE is real.

But there's a brand new textbook that just came out last year called Diagnostic Imaging Brain. And for the first time, a medical textbook said you can diagnose CTE. before death, so before autopsy. And they list brain spec. Imaging is one of the tools, which endlessly excites me. Yeah. Because, I mean, I can't tell specifically you have CTE, but I can tell you've had a lot of concussions.

Sure. And I can tell how much better it can be. So I likely showed you, here's your scan, and if you do it, I say, this is how much better it can be. And then we did your... scan a couple of months later and you were better way better was better how many hyperbaric oxygen sessions did you have i was just going to say that because i didn't answer your question about what do you think benefited me the most and i was going to say the hyperbaric chamber and i started on the

soft side so there's two different hyperbarics the soft shell and the hard shell i personally got way more out of the hard shell for me but i probably did i was here every day five days a week for three months, I want to say. Yeah. Four days a week. And sometimes we did two a day, if I remember, right? I think a couple times we did. And then I got on the full supplement train.

And my, I mean, this, I don't know if this helped. I'm sure it didn't hurt. The diffuser with the essential oils, I mean, that's just constantly going in my house. I mean, I love that thing with all your essential oils just smells so good. Eucalypice and Jasmine are my favorite. But the hyperbaric was the biggest for me. and then the second, I would say, was just the eye stuff with the brain cap that you put on, where you move things with your brain on the TV screen.

Yeah, the neural feedback. But the eye movements as well helped a lot. But for me, I would say hyperbaric and, you know, a consolation would be the diffuser. I love that thing. That's hard. Right. Well, and so many people, hockey players, football players, boxers, they worry about CTE without doing anything about it. Yeah. And the message is, no, your brain can be better, but you have to put it in a healing environment. Yep. And so, like, I want brain health in every firehouse in the world. I think brain health.

I think brain health should be in every high school, college, professional hockey. Air traffic controllers. Air traffic controllers. High stress job. DHS. Anywhere where your brain is vulnerable would be great. We're working on the decade of brain health with the White House. I'm so excited about it.

hope it comes to pass this year. And then every area of government, it's like, what can you do to support the decade of brain health? Like the VA, it should be obvious. The Department of War should be obvious. But air traffic controllers, for sure. Yeah. And then the one thing that stood out to me in your book, I think it was the, I forget

which one, because you've written 100, but the line that stuck out with me the most as far as treating concussions and getting ahead of all that if you think you have a traumatic brain injury or even diagnosed with one. If you saw an oncoming train coming and you were in the way, wouldn't you try and get out of the way? That one stuck with me because there's things you can do to make it better. And if you see that high speed train coming at you and you're going to be taken out, wouldn't you try and get out of the way? And that's what I did coming to see you. That's what other people have done coming to see you is, yeah, you might have this diagnosis, but what are you going to do about it to make yourself better?

Are you going to be proactive or are you going to be reactive? I think that's just the big one that stuck with me. It's just so important that that quote just stuck with me. GE did a study. How many people would want to know that their brains headed for trouble? even if you couldn't do anything about it. And 75% would want to know. The exciting thing is you can do something about it.

So if you knew a train was going to hit you, when you should at least try to get out of the way? Which is why I think looking at your brain is so important. And anybody that is in a brain damaging, potentially brain damaging job or sport, every couple of years, they should look at their brain to go, okay, how am I doing? And if it's troubled, it's good news because then it's like, okay, I have to do something about it.

So many people are like, oh, you can't do anything. So why look? And that's a lie I want people to know, is your brain can be better. Do you know Tarek El Moussa? So he's an HG TV star. He flips houses. And we just did an episode, our follow-up episode. So the first episode, his brain was like the cockroach-infested, moldy hoarder houses he flips.

It was just terrible because he had a birth injury. It was in the neonatal ICU for like five weeks. He did 89 hyperbaric oxygen sessions. And brain looked stunning. Wow. I'm like, I'm going in the J-Burr. Yeah. But that was one thing you mentioned to me was all of this brain health and people being able to heal their brains.

It shouldn't just be accessible to a select group of people. Like this should be a wide net of people being able to have access to stuff like this. It shouldn't just be people that can afford it or who are connected. And I think that's what you're doing is you're trying to cast this net wider and make it available to so many other people who might not even know about things like this. So I think that's amazing because I don't think people as a whole have any clue about what's out there and how they could be helped. You know what I mean? Yeah, we have to change the paradigm. Like psychiatrists are the only medical doctors who never look at the organ they treat.

Think about that. So if you were depressed, after you had the concussion, it's very common. My NFL players had four times the level of depression as the general. general population. Oh, think about that. Yeah. And if you're depressed, they go, oh, well, you have a serotonin deficiency, take Prozac. But it's like, well, what if you have a head injury?

Because then that's a completely different rehabilitation program than you just need an antidepressant. Yeah. So you're not masking a problem, right? You're trying to get to the root cause. Yeah. So what if mental health is really brain health? And then...

It goes hand in hand, right? And then if something traumatic happens later, it's really your brain that helps you process that. And if it's healthy, you can work through it. But if it's not healthy, it might become your future. Yeah, I mean, for me, I just, you know, I don't want to take lightly the fact that I feel grateful that I was able to have access to something like this.

And you kind of have to put yourself out there too. Like, I think it does take time, effort, and commitment. But you would do the same thing as an athlete for another injury, time, effort, and commitment to rehab that. Right. So I just think. I love that analogy. Yeah. It's an injury.

and you do everything you can to rehab it. I don't know why brain health sometimes takes a back seat. Because nobody looks. And if you don't look, you don't know. And not everything's the same, right? Not every concussion is the same, right? Something light contact to someone might affect them completely different than someone that, people react completely different

to different types of traumatic injuries to the head. Is that fair? It depends on the brain you brought into that accident. So there's a term I like called brain reserve. So brain reserve is the extra tissue you have to deal with whatever stress comes your way. And all of the prior concussions, all of the anesthesias decreased your reserve. By boosting your reserve every day, it'll help as you age. it will help if another trauma comes into your life.

And what I'm so excited for you is you're just going to sign another deal with the SBN, right? And that is because your behavior is positive, it's consistent, it's credible, it's interesting, which all comes from your brain. Sure. And if you wouldn't have rehabilitated it, how do you never know, right? Likely to be sad, more likely to struggle in your marriage, more likely to have problems. Yeah. Because your brain runs your money. Your brain runs your relationships.

Your brain runs your work. And your brain can continue to be better if you care about it. Right? Most people don't care. Yeah. I think there's just. And for me, like I, you know, there's still things I'm going to enjoy from time to time. And I know you're very disciplined and preach discipline to all your patients.

But like, don't get, don't get me wrong. I'm still going to have a cocktail and beer and wine every once in a while. I'm not a complete robot who just like, I follow Dr. Raymond. I'm perfect. You know, like I'm still enjoying myself. And yeah, I'll have you splurge and you have some food that you like in a cocktail and it's everything like that. but right i saw the beer after the Stanley cup yeah there was more than beer in there there yeah i might i might need to get that that spec scan again because i took i might

have taken a few steps back after that Stanley cup celebration but uh no i mean you follow the protocol you will improve but you can also enjoy yourself a little bit too from my experience yeah see i think doing the right thing is about love. It's like, how much do you love yourself? Well, that,

for me, I just, I never want to hurt myself. Because I, you know, I mean, and I'm going to be 72 in two weeks. It's like, what do I really want? Yeah. I mean, yes, I would love half that pizza and a brownie with ice cream and hot fudge.

But that's not what I want. What I want is energy. What I want is memory. I want passion. I want purpose. I want clarity. Yeah. Though I was sitting next to Lisa Trout.

There was this great lunch at the White House. And Lisa and her husband, Kenny, own Justified. Yeah. So Justify is the last Triple Ground winner. He sold for $75 million. And so I'm sitting here and we have a high school program. And I always teach the kids if you had a million dollar racehorse. Would you ever feed it junk food? And so I'm not sitting next to someone who owns

the most famous racehorse in America. And I'm like, would you ever feed him junk food? And she goes, no. I said, would you ever get him drunk? And she goes, no, no. I said, would you ever get him stone? And she goes, of course not. And I'm like, why? He would never live up to his potential. And I'm like, that's what I want. I want to live. of up to my potential. So, you know, justify covered over 200 mares this year. That's a good life. He's living up to live in the life.

Potential. Yes. Three times a day. Wow. Fertile. I'm speechless. No, I'm like so happy for him. Yeah.

But also, it's about our babies and grandbabies. because our habits change our genes in a woman's ovaries, her eggs, and man's sperm. And so am I passing on what's healthy or am I passing on trouble? I have another question for you. Because a lot of my athletes, they're either proving people wrong or proving people right when they play. So a lot of them play with anger because they're proven people wrong who didn't believe in them. But then a whole other group, they play with joy because they're proving people right. What was it for you?

Really good question. And I can easily say the first, my rookie year was 2007, I was 19. I can easily say from the point I was 19 to. 29, I was trying to prove people wrong. And the second half of my career, I was the opposite. I was trying to prove people right. And I wasn't necessarily thinking that in my head, but how I thought about the game,

how I came to the rink every day. Two things you can control as an athlete or a person every single day, no matter what, attitude and effort. You don't need any skill to work hard. You don't need any skill to have a good attitude. When I adopted that mentality, it completely changed how I approach plane. And I think I was young, you know, I was 19. And then 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and so on, you're just full of piss and vinegar, you know, screw the world. You know, it's like you just, I was playing

to prove people wrong. And then once I became more comfortable with who I was on and off the ice, I think that changed. And I started playing with more joy and realizing that I'm very grateful to do what I do. This is an amazing job. I feel very lucky. And then I think it changed to proving people right. So when you were drafted, your brain's not even finished. I know.

It just turned 18. Your brain doesn't actually finish until you're like 25 or 26. I feel like a different lifetime. And what was the culture of? of alcohol and hockey? I would say from that point to now, it's changed a lot because I think our world has changed a lot in a way that, like, there were guys that would smoke cigarettes in between periods of a game and blow the smoke into the dryer in the washing and dry in the laundry room. I couldn't believe it. Russian guys or whoever,

I'm like, this is crazy. You don't see that now. Now guys are vaping and stuff like that. There's just, there's different, life is different now. But I mean,

I never had any bad experiences as far as hazing. I didn't have bad experiences as far as being, you know, bullied. You know, I had a great experience. There's, there's beer on the bus.

After the game, there's usually 24 beers. maybe more depending on how heavy of a drinking team you have on the bus after the game. So you're always cracking beers on the bus, on the plane. Maybe at dinner you have a few glasses of wine. It's my experience, it was not. It was not crazy. And I know in the NBA you can smoke pot and then go play.

I've never seen that. I learned this from Julius Randall, who did this podcast, is my patient. He saw a scan stop smoking pot. I'm so proud of him. Can you smoke pot in the NHL? I never participated in that. I just wasn't my thing. I know guys did.

I think it falls under recreational and you get randomly drug tested throughout the year. I think, and I'm not 100% sure on this, I think it gets flagged, but it doesn't come back. You don't get suspended or anything like that. I think if your levels are high and you are positive consistent enough, you might have,

you might talk to somebody. But as far as I know, I don't think that would result in the positive. Because that game is so fast. Yeah. I think most people don't appreciate how fast that game is. And why would you put something in your body that makes you less coordinated and slows you down?

Yeah, I never saw anyone do it before. a game. No, never, never. A lot of Sudafed, a lot of, a lot of red bulls, a lot of energy drinks. I mean, before every game, I would take, you're going to hate this. I would take two Advil, Cold and Sinus, which is essentially Advil and Sudafed, just to get up and take a little bit of the edge off. Oh, I give you peak energy. A lot of my players, they take peak energy. Is that the powder? Yeah, I have that. I take that now.

instead of pseudifice. Yeah, because Advil decreases your gut microbiome, which ultimately leads you at higher risk to get sick. Well, that's probably why I was sick all the time. Yeah. Anyways, what else should I ask you? This has been so interesting. I don't know.

We have covered a lot. Do you ever develop an alter ego? While you were on the ice. No, and I actually read a book about this. Chris Pronger, he's a Hall of Fame. He played for the Anaheim Ducks. And I just read his book that came out. And he established an alter ego that he was a completely different person that he created on the ice to make himself better and in practice during games.

I wish I did that because I think sometimes guys walk the line of when you're playing. you don't really want to piss people off as far as, you know, maybe doing something dirty or just being a, being a, some, some guys don't like to cross that line between clean and dirty as far as when they're playing. Chris Pronger created an alter ego and said, I don't care. What I do on the ice is not who I am off the ice. So I'm going to be this complete prick and just be the whatever it takes to win. And I wish I did that because at the end of the day, what's done on the ice, just business off the ice. Life is back to normal. But I never did that.

But I found it interesting to read his book and see that he did that. So there's another interesting book by Todd Herman called The Alter Ego Effect. He was Kobe Bryant's mental coach. And after I read it with Julius, we developed the Mamba disciple, his alter ego. and he played completely different. Yeah. Because, you know, if you know him, he's like sweet as can be. But on the court, he doesn't need to be as sweet as can be.

Yeah, right? There's a level of aggression. What's the most aggressive position on the ice? I mean, it doesn't really matter what position. I think sometimes in the past, defensemen have been known as more rugged and physical and big hitters and fighters, but there's some nasty forwards out there too. And there's been some nasty goalies.

So I wouldn't label one position as tougher or heavier than the other. There's a lot of bad people. I don't mean bad, but I mean like bad dudes out there that can mess people up in each position. So there's... And going out every night for a thousand games knowing you're on the ice with these. Some nights, yeah. I mean, I wasn't much of a fighter. I probably only gotten like 20 in my career.

So there were times where, you know, you know you're going to get a fist in the face from a pretty tough guy or take a hit from a pretty tough guy. And some guys, that's their job, is going out there and they have to fight almost every night. Those enforcers, that era has kind of phased out of the NHL. but there were guys that would only play two, three minutes a night. That's not a lot. And you're going to go out and fight. And that's a, I can't imagine the anxiety that those guys felt night before a game. We're playing Toronto tomorrow.

I have to fight this guy. I mean, that anxiety of just knowing that you're going to square off and exchange punches with someone. I have a lot of respect for people that. had to do that job is not easy and you didn't get paid a lot of money but you those guys were they had a tough job they had a tough job so I thankfully I probably more risk for CTE absolutely absolutely more risk so yeah fortunately I was not someone that had that position or that wasn't my role so that'd be a tough one to do so I want you to help me get the message out I mean, doing this helps me, get the message out that CTE is not necessarily chronic, progressive, and untreatable.

But if you've had concussions or you're in a brain-damaging sport, look at your brain, love your brain, take care of your brain, rehabilitate your brain, just like you said. Like you would rehabilitate any other part of your body. Yeah, I think, and I might be describing this incorrectly. but this is how I describe it. If you had a broken hand and you continued to punch a wall every day, would your hand ever get better? No. No, it would never get better.

It would get worse. So there's no difference if you have a concussion or you have a traumatic brain injury. Are you going to be proactive or are you just going to go on with life as normal? Are you going to do the right things to make yourself get better? Or are you just going to live in the status quo? So I think people have to just take control of there are resources out there, do your research, ask questions. And there is light at the end of the tunnel if you take the necessary steps to try and better yourself. You can't just punch the wall every day and expect to get better.

Right. So I think guys are getting better as our world has changed. And I think people are taking a more health conscious approach to these things. But for me, that would be my biggest thing is you can't just keep punching the wall and expect to get better. It's no different than a head injury. I love that. Right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. As a psychiatrist, I pay attention to subtle changes because they often tell the biggest stories. One parent told us, my son started taking Happy Saffron Plus, and within two weeks, he was whistling around the house and seemed so much happier. I love hearing stories like that, because when one person feels better, the whole family benefits. Visit BrainMD.com. and use the code podcast 20 for 20% off. You have been watching Change Your Brain every day here with Eric Johnson.

Leave us a comment, question, a review. How can people follow you or learn more about what you're up to? Yep, you can follow me on Instagram, 6, Eric Johnson 6. I post quite frequently during the hockey season of a lot of my shenanigans that I'm participating in around the country to talk, hockey and yeah, follow me there. It's a good time. Thanks so much.