Change Your Brain Every Day - What if Mental Health was Really Brain Health?

Episode Date: October 23, 2018

In his new book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, Daniel G. Amen, M.D., stresses the importance brain health has on your overall well-being. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Amen and his wife Tana continue with their tips on maximizing your brain to feel better fast, tackling such topics as immunity, infections, mental health issues, and toxins.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We are so happy you're staying with us. This is our series on feel better fast and make it last based on my brand new book, Feel Better Fast and Make It Last. And you can pre-order it at feelbetterfast.com. And when you do, there's four free gifts for you. Your new cookbook, The 10 Day Brain Boost, the introduction in chapter one, which you can download immediately.

Also, we have a quick start guide. So I think of it as sort of the cliff notes for Feel Better Fast and Make It Last. In addition, we'll give you Feel Better Fast audios, which are hypnosis audios I actually do for you. So we're in the middle of the B on the BrainXL formula, and B is brain. You've got to get your brain right in order to feel better fast. And we're talking about, so what's the tiny habit for brain health that you ask yourself every day? Is this good for my brain or bad for it? Right. And we've been going through bright minds and bright minds is if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And we've talked about blood flow, retirement and aging, inflammation, genetics, head trauma.

Well, the T in bright minds is toxins. One of the big lessons from the imaging work that we've done is that if you're exposed to toxins, that it can clearly damage your brain. And you are a volunteer for the city of Newport Beach, where we live. A CERT volunteer means an emergency-like response volunteer for the city of Newport Beach where we live. A CERT volunteer means an emergency response volunteer for the city. And you just spent time with some of the firefighters. Right. And they were describing when they go out to... I always thought it was house fires that were the big problem.

It's the wildfires. What these guys are exposed to is crazy. They do 24 on, 24 off. And they're in the middle of this like horrible environment, inhaling these fumes for 24 hours at a time. I was like, and they're like, yeah, then they have to give us 24 hours off so we can go get some fresh air in our lungs. And I'm like, 24 hours is insane. It's insane. So almost all the firefighters that we've seen have toxic-looking brains. It's overall bumpy and low blood flow. And, you know, initially I saw clearly that drugs and alcohol cause toxicity in the brain.

But then with firefighters, it's clearly inhalants, air pollution can do it, mold, heavy metal exposure. 60% of the lipstick sold in the United States has lead in it. So we need to talk for a minute. I call it the kiss of death. So hold on because now there are some cosmetics, cosmetic companies are getting smart and there are some cosmetic companies that make all natural cosmetics. A lot of them don't work quite as well as the regular cosmetics. So like I know for me for filming, I sadly, a lot of times we'll have to wear regular cosmetics, but I try to limit how much I wear,

how often now of the more, the less natural stuff. But you asked me a question the other day, and this is where it gets harder, because the older we get, we're in this like lotions and potions stage, and I know a lot of people listening to me are thinking the same thing, the women. We get this lotions and potions stage just in order to like maintain ourselves.

Like I'm gonna be 50 in December, and I'm like, you asked me this question, and I almost fell out of my chair. You're like, well, how great would you be if you didn't color your hair? I'm not finding out. Okay. Cause I think I'm finally, probably the platinum color that I used to think I wanted to be, but not the platinum I want to be. Right. So not the, not the platinum I used to dream about. So that's not happening. I'm not going to not color my hair. So it makes you wonder how much can you get away with,

you know? Well, it's always a trade-off, right? Between what you want and what you're willing to do to have the best brain, because with your best brain comes your best life. Right, but you're the one who put me like out in the public eye in the public eye, so it's your fault. It doesn't matter. It's completely- If I didn't put you in the public eye, you'd still have that. The public life, you would still- But it's worse now, because it's frequently like, yeah.

Well, I'll take it. It's all my fault. Always, if you can just say- It's my fault. Yeah, it's easier. Yeah. So how do you deal with toxins? You never answer my question.

You support the four organs of detoxification. Women are more exposed to that stuff. Women are more exposed. So we have to be careful. And women also have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Oh. So I want you to be serious. You can actually download an app.

I talk about it in the book. It's called Think Dirty. It's not what you to be serious. You can actually download an app. I talk about it in the book. It's called Think Dirty. It's not what you think it is. It allows you to scan all of your personal products. So two products I found that were the worst, sunscreen and hairspray. There's like almost nothing healthy in those two. There are some sunscreens you can find that are okay, but hairspray is, yeah, not going to happen. It's bad.

So if you're going to engage in toxic behaviors, you want to super support the four organs of detoxification. I mean, obviously the big thing about toxins is avoid them. Avoid pesticide-laden foods. Avoid things like parabens and phthalates because they're hormone disruptors. We'll talk about that. And then support the four organs of detoxification. Your kidneys, drink more water.

Your gut, eat more fiber to keep things moving. Your liver, stop the alcohol and eat foods like brassicas. So we go to this restaurant in Newport Beach we like a lot called Babette's and they actually have a dish on their menu called brassicas and they're amazing. And I always find restaurants. Cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts. Well, I love finding restaurants that just have green juices.

It's just a good way to get a little boost. I'd have green juices. But without the apple juice. Yeah, I usually ask for it without apple or with minimal, like a quarter of an apple just to take the bite away if you don't like it. I like it green. Some people don't. Or a little beet. Support your skin because your skin is the largest organ in your body and it's a detoxifying organ.

So sweat with exercise or take saunas. A study from Finland, people who took zero to one sauna a week compared to those who took two to three saunas a week. So the two to three saunas a week had 30% less risk of Alzheimer's disease. Those who had five to seven sauna sessions a week had 60% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. So, and we already talked about saunas, and exercise are two techniques to help you feel better fast. Right. The M in Bright Minds to keep your brain healthy is mental health challenges.

If you want to feel better fast, clearly anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, they age your brain. So getting treatment is really important, but treatment doesn't necessarily mean medication because head-to-head against antidepressants, exercise, omega-3 fatty acids, and learning not to believe every stupid thing you think, which we're going to talk about soon, has been found to be equally effective. The I in bright minds, the second I is immunity and infections. And you know, I'm a psychiatrist. Why do I care about infections and your immune system? Because we found that things like Lyme disease and infection or even strep can be a major cause of psychiatric problems. So if you're struggling with anxiety or depression and it's not

getting better, it's critical to work with your doctor to get tested for infections. Well, and people don't think about this. Like, if you've been on chronic antibiotics when you were growing up for those infections, I mean, the infections themselves can be problematic. But if you've been on chronic antibiotics to treat those infections, you've damaged your gut, right? And they found that even just, even antibiotics from when you were a child affect you later in life as an adult. Okay, they damage your gut and it's very hard for your gut

to recover and repair itself unless you are actively really working on it. So when your gut isn't healthy, it affects your brain. So it's really important to know this stuff and be consciously working on it. And in animals who got antibiotics when they were young, it actually changed serotonin production for the rest of their lives. And I know you had a lot of infections when you were a child. I was a very sick child. And that changed your gut. But fixing gut health and using the principles- Like now I consciously work on it all the time.

And using the principles in Feel Better Fast can totally make a big difference for you. So with immunity and infections, test your vitamin D level, optimize it. So normal is between 30 and 100. But there's a fascinating study. People who had a vitamin D level under 20 had twice the risk of cancer, twice the risk of cancer to those whose vitamin D was over 40. So I try to keep mine at about 80, which means I take about 7,000 units of vitamin D a day. Yeah, I take about nine. Seven to nine.

And that way I maintain a healthy level. So interesting. And I hardly ever get sick. We've just gone through this bout of sickness. Yeah, he never gets sick. It's almost irritating. I mean, I love him three times. For his sake, I'm glad.

But it's so irritating that I get sick whenever people are sick around me. I have to really be careful and always fight that because that's something that was effect that affected me. But what a lot of people don't realize is if your thyroid is not right, you may need more vitamin D. If your gut is not right, if you have a damaged gut, you will probably need more vitamin D until it's healed. And people don't realize it. They're like, why am I, why is my vitamin D not raising? So for a long time, I had to take 10,000 units just to get it up to where it was like 50. And then all of a sudden it started to repair. And now I take about seven just to maintain it. So it's not about like, oh, is that too much or not too much? You need to get your numbers checked and just go by that. Right. People go, oh, that's way too much. But if you check your

numbers and your numbers are within the, I like it to middle or high normal range. My doctor wants me like 80, at least 80. So I have one of those doctors who's like, he's really progressive. He likes the 80 to 100 range. I know if I kick off, you're going to marry him. I am. He's like probably late seventies, maybe close to 80. But he like, he's, I'm telling you, he's like a magician. He made me feel so much better fast. See, this is what it's all about. He made me feel better fast when I thought my other doctor was trying to kill me. So he is amazing. Yeah. I'm terrified he's going to retire. If you stay with us, we're going to talk about the last three letters in Bright Minds to help you feel better fast. To pre-order the book, go to feelbetterfast.com and download the free gifts we have for you.

Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.