Change Your Brain Every Day - Why Your Kids Should Care About Their Brain Health- Pt. 3 with Michael Peterson and Colonel Jill Chambers

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

Country music star Michael Peterson and his retired army colonel wife Jill Chambers have unquestionably changed their lives through the pursuit of better brain health. Now they’re taking the lessons they’ve learned and passing them on to schoolchildren through their own special programs. In part 3 of a series on these brain warriors,  Michael and Jill share their stories of teaching brain transformation with Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen.

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. Welcome back. We're with Michael Peterson and Jill Chambers. We're having an amazing time. And let's talk about how when they change themselves, they actually got involved in changing the lives of thousands of children. Yes. In my early 20s, somebody asked me if I would speak to a group of kids.

And I was stunned at the end of my presentation how many kids came up to me and said, Wow, you know, you survived some pretty traumatic things. My father was murdered when I was 15. My stepdad committed suicide when I was 17. So I grew up in a family where there's multiple marriages, a lot of trauma, abuse happening. And so I shared my story, and I was surprised at how many kids said, thank you for sharing your story.

So it put me on this path 30 years ago of feeling a calling to speak to teenagers. So over the three decades, it's had a bunch of different iterations, if you will. But all of them really focused on inspiring and encouraging young people who are dealt with trauma that they're going to be okay, that there are things they can do to help themselves. So in the mid-2000s, Jill and I were given a grant to deliver some programs in 13 high schools in Huntsville, Alabama, Madison County there. And so we began to look for, like, what could we bring to these students that would be new, be fresh, would be interesting. And, you know, not coincidentally, at 2009, 2010, 2012, I guess it was, we were at the place where we were, you know, trying to figure out with the

third year of our contract, what we were going to do. Well, that was right around the time that we had met you, that we had had a brain scan. And I looked at Jill and I said, man, if I had only had this information when I was a teenager, my life could, I could have really avoided a lot of heartache and all problems in my life. And so we looked at each other and said, why wouldn't we put this into a format where students could experience it as an assembly program, as a way to be introduced to the work of Daniel and Tana? And so, you know, we did. And we contacted you and said, what do you think about this?

So as a result, there were 13 high schools in Madison County who got introduced to the idea of when your brain works better, your whole life works better, and students started getting brain envy is what you say. We're currently working on developing this in Walden Grove School District outside of Tucson, Arizona. We've applied for some grants. We're hoping that really this can spread all over the state of Arizona. And our vision, our mission is that every student in America should have the opportunity to understand that there's a free resource available to them through a thing called brainchangers.org. It's a free curriculum. And every student that

you've tested that has gone through this has had real positive results in terms of their life getting better, their studies getting better, their relationships, everything getting better. So why wouldn't every school district in the country pick up on this? And so, you know, we're working together with you guys to develop assembly opportunities and with Jesse, Dr. Jesse Payne, your son-in-law, to develop opportunities for this to be seen in every high school, for every high school in America to become a brain healthy high school. That's awesome. And of course, now you made me super curious about your story because I don't think I know your story before the time that we met you. Yeah, no. Somebody heard me make a comment to Tana and will not understand it. I said, yes, your family

was a six. We were talking about on a scale of one to 10, what was the environment? No, it was so dysfunctional. He keeps saying it was a six. It was way, way worse. So mine was like 2.5, right? I had a great family, but it wasn't, it definitely wasn't perfect. I was one of seven. Nobody paid attention to me. Parents are amazing. My dad was sort of a jerk. They're amazing. But it was like a 2.5, right? We always had clothes. There was no... 1.52. 1.52.

So, and then, but, you know, we see people who've grown up in serious trauma. One of my first patients at Amen Clinics was the grandmother who was taking her grandson to jail repeatedly because her son had murdered his wife, the boy's mother. And so that was sort of like an 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. And so, you know, Michael's describing like an 8 of, you know, horrific and yeah i i'm now i'm so curious but well you still think mine's worse than a six but well when you grow up in the middle of whatever you're experiencing it's just what you know right you know i have a lot of fun memories from my childhood and i know that my parents did the

best that they knew right so um you know but when you step back and you say, wow, you know, all this stuff that happened in my life. And on top of that, I was having some brain health issues or some brain balance problems even as a young person. I had real trouble with comprehension, reading, math. I was left-handed, right-handed. I couldn't decide. I couldn't tell you left from right

till I was about 12 years old because I broke a front tooth and they told me that was my left tooth and so when they said which hand is your left hand I would reach up with my tongue and feel that tooth I mean I just had a hard time was our right brain dominated the left brain dominant this you know so it was just challenges yeah and then And then you played football, right? If I remember right. Played college football, high school football, basketball, sports, as an outlet to try to find some way to build my self-esteem, was involved with music. But you know, when I was 15, my birth father was shot to death and my stepdad killed himself when I was 17. So those were, those had a profound impact though he beats me

well it's not yeah it's not a contest i know but we're on the scale of one to ten but it's all relative i love we're in church on sunday and they talked about there's actually not one normal family oh no the bible is full of. So if you think of Adam and Eve, so they're like right out of the gate. You know, they have a child that murders the other child. David, God's chosen one, was a complete disaster.

Right, and Jesus' parents left him for three days alone in the temple. The CPS would have come and taken Jesus away from Joseph and Mary. I'm like dying. Yeah. So somehow we survived. Right.

So I think of myself as a survivor. I think of myself as stronger now, but, but yeah, looking back, you are both normal. And I think I'm amazing. I'm not easy, but I'm amazing.

I would agree with that. I would completely agree with that. That you are amazing. But I'm not easy. All right. Drink, Swear and Lie. It's available now. I can't wait to hear it. It's gorgeous and has so many great songs. And the name of your high school program, Michael,

that people can learn about. So they can go to brainchangers.org and learn about the work Jesse's been doing, Brain Thrive by 25, the work that I've been doing. But how can they learn more about the high school work you've been doing? Yeah. And just go to michaelpetersononline.com. Michael Peterson. And look under our segment, a section called moving people. I love that Peterson. And under our section called Moving People. I love that. Well, we love you both very much.

And we're so grateful for your time. Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Thank you for sharing your stories. We love having you guys, our friends. And we love the work that you're doing to change the world. Absolutely. It's fantastic.

Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Bye. 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.