Change Your Brain Every Day - Three Biggest Life & Health Lessons by Working @ Amen Clinics with Dr. Daniel Emina

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

Dr. Daniel Emina is a child/adolescent and adult psychiatrist who earned his medical degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, and completed his general residency in psychiatry and child/adolescent fellowship at the University of Hawaii Department of Psychiatry. His training was modeled on a bio/psych/social/spiritual/cultural understanding of an individual and featured a diverse patient population. In this brief interview, we'll get to know Dr. Emina's three most important lessons he has learned while working at the Amen Clinic.  FULL TRANSCRIPT Dr. Amen: Hey everybody. Dr. Daniel Amen. I'm here with Dr. Daniel Emina. Dr. Emina: Two Daniels. Dr. Amen: We are here in our Northern California Clinic in Walnut Creek. We are going to talk about the three biggest lessons that Daniel who has worked with us for the last two and a half years has learned working at Amen Clinics. Daniel is double board certified psychiatrist. He trained at UCLA and at the University of Hawaii. You know I did my child psychiatry training at Tripler along with University of Hawaii. In both of our psychiatric training they never taught us to look at the brain. Isn't that nuts? When you think about it, it's nuts. When you think after being here two and half years, what are some of the big lessons you've learned? What comes to mind? Dr. Emina: First thing is, I think I'm extremely spoiled being here. It's drastically changed the way I understand mental health. I don't even think of it as mental health anymore, I think of it as brain health. I think that almost everyone should come in and start to think of how can I make my brain better? No matter what diagnosis you may have had before, I usually start to think well, don't think of it like that, just think of it as how can I optimize my brain? You could come in and be a CEO of a company doing extremely well technically in life but there's things you can always do to optimize your brain. Lesson one for me is it's not really mental health anymore. I'm not necessarily a mental health doctor now, I'm a brain health doctor now. Dr. Amen: So whether it's ADD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and addictions, schizophrenia, or you're fighting with your wife or you're irritable with your kids- Dr. Emina: Or don't sleep as well or you just want to be even better at the tasks you do everyday, whatever that may be at home, at work, whatever it may be because ultimately it's your brain that controls everything you do. Dr. Amen: Okay so you see mental health as brain health. I think that's like a huge 'aha' for me. I've learned nobody really wants to see a psychiatrist. Nobody wants to be labeled as defective or abnormal but everybody wants a better brain. Nobody would argue with you, "No I don't want a better brain." They do. It decreases the stigma which is one of the things that hooked me early on with scans is patient stops thinking of it as a moral problem, as a problem of not trying hard enough, but as a medical problem. Dr. Emina: Yes. I should add that as being my second biggest thing in some ways. I've been so spoiled to have this tool. I'm trying to imagine not having this tool, practicing without this tool. It completely changes the way I see clients as they come in with whatever concern they may have. Even concerns related to people who have been labeled as personality disorders and things like that. Now you get to see what they were trying to deal with all this time. A lot of our coping mechanisms whether good or maladaptive, a bad coping strategy, are based on how we try to manage that brain we have. Lesson number two for me, the biggest was, you have to look at the organ you're treating. I'm trying to imagine if, you definitely talked about this, if I'm a cardiologist I have to kind of imagine, well based on what you're telling me potentially this is what's going on with your heart. This has completely changed the way I understand clients. Dr. Amen: Not acceptable. It's just not acceptable. I remember working on a new book and writing about chronic fatigue syndrome and back in the early '90s when I started doing scans the idea of chronic fatigue, oh you're a psychiatric patient, you're histrionic or there's secondary gain. There's a gain from being sick and then when you saw their scans, they were just devastated like the infectious scans you see. And all of the sudden it just completely changes everything on how you deal with this person. Of course they're hysterical. Their brain is not working right and they can't think. That'll make you terrible, act that way. Dr. Emina: In some ways that actually connects into my last big lesson is that because now that I can look at scans you tend to see that the other things that contribute to whatever someone is coming in complaining about. All of the sudden if you see a brain that looks extremely unhealthy, you probably have to think that this person isn't just depressed. Maybe there's something else that's happening in their life and whatever situation, something they've been exposed to that's now leading them to present with whatever illness. Things that I wouldn't have even fathomed or thought contributed to mental illness or whatever before now I have to start thinking about. It's actually even expanded my thinking even greater than that because now I'm doing pharmacogenomics which is looking at how your body reacts to supplements, medicines and such based on your genetics. It's completely changed the way I think of brain health just because I get to see ... Dr. Amen: So what are some of those things you've seen that have surprised you that can cause anxiety, depression, ADD? Dr. Emina: One really important one is head trauma. Take a hit to the head, the one that you forgot about. There's no family history of any brain disorders or mental illness or whatever. All the sudden you're the one that has severe anxiety and anger outbursts. We take a look and everyone thinks it's something wrong with you. Also we take a look at your scan and you see significant damage to the temporal lobe. Now everybody in the family can say this is what's going on, this is the medical condition. If you had a broken leg, people wouldn't get angry at you for having a broken leg and not being able to walk as quickly as them. It now gives you an opportunity [inaudible 00:06:33] this is why you actually abuse substances because you were just trying to cope and this became a maladaptive or bad coping strategy. Now let's work on creating better coping strategies. Dr. Amen: And often in the history they say they didn't have a head injury. You see it in the scan and then we have to ask over and over again and then we find they were in a bad car accident. They were thrown from a car ... whenever. Dr. Emina: And one of the other biggest errors I'm actually learning about and this is actually in this last year I've been picking up more knowledge related to this are infectious type processes that can lead to presentations again whether it's you were exposed to mold or exposed to lime or even just kind of chronic based infectious or inflammatory responses that lead to the presentation and just continue to have these symptoms. I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm tired all the time and it's related to this potential infectious process or the thing that was going on for a long time. I've even started to see a connection with that and how to treat headaches too. You see certain things on the scan and there's a tendency that the genes or the genetics will match up a certain way. And that changes the way you go about treating that client too. It's amazing stuff. Dr. Amen: Here at Amen Clinics we actually do a formal outcomes study on everybody we see. We have, 'cause people go what's your success rate using this scan? It's really high. If we treat you it's 84% of complicated people. On average, our patients and you know this, at 4.2 diagnoses, nobody's simple. They have failed 3.3 providers and 5 medications. That's our average. Daniel actually has one of the best success rates in the whole company so thank you. I'm very proud of you for that. But if you don't look, you don't know. Learn more about Amen Clinics and about our Northern California Clinic at AmenClinics.com. Have a great day.  

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to the Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Hey, everybody. Dr. Daniel Amen. I am here with Dr. Daniel Amina. We are in our Northern California clinic in Walnut Creek. And we are going to talk about the three biggest lessons that Daniel, who's worked with us for the last two and a half years, has learned working at Avon Clinics. Daniel is a double board certified psychiatrist. He trained at UCLA and at the University of Hawaii. You know, I did my child psychiatry training at Tripler along with the University of Hawaii. And in both of our psychiatric training, they never taught us to look at the brain. Isn't that nuts? I mean, when you think about it, it's nuts. So when you think after being here two and a half years, what are some of the big lessons you've learned? What comes to mind?

So first thing is, I think I've been extremely spoiled being here because it's drastically changed the way I understand mental health, right? I don't even think of it as mental health anymore. I think it's brain health. So I almost think that almost everybody should come in and start to think of how can I make my brain better? So no matter what diagnosis you may have had before, I usually started to think, well, don't think of it like that. Just think about how can I optimize my brain? So you could come in and be a CEO of a company doing extremely well technically in life, but there's things you can always do to optimize your brain. So lesson one for me is it's not really mental health anymore. I'm not necessarily a mental health doctor now. I'm a brain health doctor now.

So whether it's ADD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and addiction, schizophrenia, or you're fighting with your wife, or you're irritable with your kids. Or you don't sleep as well, or you just want to even be better at the task you do every day, whatever that may be at home at work wherever it may be because ultimately it's your brain that controls everything you do yeah okay so you see mental health is brain health i think that's like a huge aha for me i learned nobody really wants to see a psychiatrist nobody wants to be labeled as defective or abnormal yes but everybody wants a better brain right i mean nobody

would argue with you no i don't want a better brain it's like they do and so it decreases the stigma which is one of the things that hooked me early on with scans is patients stop thinking of it as a moral problem yeah it's a problem of not trying hard enough but it's a moral problem, is a problem of not trying hard enough, but it's a medical problem. Yes. Actually, that ends up being my second biggest thing in some ways. I've been so spoiled to have this tool. I'm trying to now imagine not having this tool,

practicing without this tool. It completely changes the way I see clients, that they come in with whatever concern they may have. Even concerns related to people who have been labeled as personality disorders and things like that. Now you get to see, hey, what they were trying to deal with all this time. A lot of our coping mechanisms, whether good or maladaptive, that's like a bad coping strategy, are based on how we try to manage that brain we have. So lesson number two for me the biggest was you have to look at the organ that you're treating i mean i'm trying to

imagine if i think you definitely talked about this if i'm a cardiologist and i just have to kind of imagine well based on what are you telling me you know potentially that's what's going on with your heart i mean this is completely changed the way not acceptable i understand clients it's just it's just not acceptable i remember i'm working on a new book and i'm writing about chronic fatigue syndrome and back in the early 90s when i first started doing scans the idea of chronic fatigue oh you're a psychiatric patient you're histrionic or there's secondary gain you know there's you know a game from being sick and then when you saw their scans they were just devastated like the infectious scans you see and all of a sudden it just completely changes everything on how you deal with this person of course they're

hysterical their brain's not working right and they can't think and that'll make you terrible you know act that way in some ways that also actually connects even to my last big lesson is that because now that i can look at scans you stand you tend to see that the other things that contribute to whatever someone's can you know coming in complaining about all of a sudden if you see a brain that looks extremely unhealthy, you probably have to think that, okay, maybe this person isn't just depressed. Maybe there's something else that's happening in their life or whatever other situation, something they've been exposed to

that's now leading them to, for example, whatever illness. Things that I wouldn't even fathom, thought contributed to mental illness or whatever before, now I have to start to think about it's actually even expanded my my thinking even greater than that because now i'm doing pharmacogenomics which is looking at how your body reacts to supplements medicines and such based on your genetics so it's completely changed the way i think of again brain health just because i get to see so what are some of those things that have surprised you that can cause anxiety depression adb so one one really important one is that trauma

you know you take a hit to the head the one that you forgot about you know there's there's no family history of any brain disorders or mental illness or whatever. All of a sudden, you're the one that has severe anxiety and anger outbursts. And we take a look and everything says something's wrong with you. And also, we take a look at your scan and you see significant damage to the temporal lobe. It kind of now everybody in the family can say, oh, this is what's going on. This is the medical condition. You know, if you had a broken leg, people would be like, they wouldn't get angry at you for having a broken leg and not being able to walk as quickly as them.

It's now gives you an opportunity to see, oh, maybe this is why you actually abuse substances, because you were just trying to cope. And this became a maladaptive or bad coping strategy. Now let's work on creating better coping strategies. And often in the history, they say they didn't have a head injury. You see it in the scan, and then we have to ask over and over again. And then we find they were in a bad car accident, they were thrown from a car, whatever. And one of the other biggest areas I've actually learned about,

and this is actually in this last year, and I've been picking up more knowledge related to this, are infectious type processes that can lead to presentations again. Whether it's you're exposed to mold or exposed to Lyme or even just kind of chronic based infections or inflammatory responses that lead to the presentation that just continue to have these symptoms. I am depressed and anxious and tired all the time. And it's related to this potential infectious process, another thing that was going on for a long time. And I'm even starting to see a connection with that and how their genetics are too. So you see certain things on the scan and there's a tendency that the genes

or their genetics will match up a certain way. And that changes the way you go about treating that client too. So it's amazing stuff. So I didn't tell you I was going to say this. Here at Amen Clinics, we actually do a formal outcome study on everybody we see. We have, because people go, so what's your success rate using the scans? It's really high. If we treat you, it's 84% of complicated people. So on average,

our patients, and you know this, they have 4.2 diagnoses. Nobody's simple. They have failed 3.3 providers and five medications. So that's our average. Daniel actually has one of the best success rates in the whole company. So thank you. I'm very proud of you for that. But if you don't look, you don't know. Learn more about Amen Clinics and about our Northern California clinic at amenclinics.com. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com.

That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.