Habits and Hustle - Episode 77: Dr. Daniel Amen – 12x NY Times Bestselling Author, Psychiatrist, & Founder of Amen Clinics

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

Dr. Daniel Amen is a 12x NY Times Bestselling Author, Psychiatrist, & Founder of Amen Clinics. Too often mental healthcare attempts to medicate as a solution to a problem they don’t seem to understand. Dr. Amen seeks to adjust that style of thinking by analyzing the brain the way we would approach any other physical ailment. Taking a biological approach to psychiatry, the doctor attempts to remove the stigma of “mental illness” and replace it with “brain health” in a way he believes can be treated, in many situations, without pharmaceutical interference. With a focus not only on the trauma and complications of adulthood but also on those from childhood that may even lend to patients’ current struggles, this episode delivers a dose of education and scientific study to the everyday brain health issues that plague so many of us. Whether you’re caught up inside depressed through quarantine, or forced to work in the middle of a pandemic spiking your anxiety, maybe you’ll find some relief in what the doctor has to say. Youtube Link to This Episode Dr. Amen’s Website Dr. Amen’s Instagram ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vitamin Water Zero Sugar just dropped in all new taste. It was zero holding back on flavor. You can be your all feeling it. I'll play and all self-care you. Grab the all new taste today. Vitamin Water Zero Sugar. Nourish every you. Vitamin Water is a registered trademark of glass O.

Ugh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Uh, sorry. What did I miss? I teach just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro? That's the... Online whiteboard.

For team collaboration, we can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Miro boards. We can share ideas, feedback, and updates on them whenever. Actually see what we're talking about. It's all online. Mirror will make our flexible work set up so much easier, with one virtual space for our brainstorms, projects, presentations.

Oh, that sounds kind of amazing. So I don't need to wake up for 6am calls with the London Office anymore. Now you're getting it. Don't let time zones get in the way of your team working well together. See why 99% of the Fortune 100 trust Miro to get good work done from anywhere. Get your first three boards free at Miro.com. That's M-I-R-O-D-C-M. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast.

A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits, and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by Habit Nest. Now here's your host, Jennifer Cohen. Thank you for coming on Habitson Hustle today. Well, thank you for having me. Well, you're very welcome. I've been anxious to have you. Maybe that's a mental, I don't know if that's considered a mental disorder, but I've been

very anxious to have you because I've heard so much about you over the last few years. And I've read your books the newest one This is great. I love it the end of mental illness. You're very welcome and I'm just happy to have you so thank you Where are you? Not today Where am I at? Well, I'm not where everybody else is. I'm at my house because we have to obviously do this virtually. Normally, we do this podcast on treadmills. I don't know if you know that or not,

but normally you and I would be walking face to face on these behind me, and we would be speaking while we're moving. So kind of help, I'm sure I don't have to tell you why, but you're the brain doctor, but to kind of help enhance your focus, your alertness, get the blood flow going, exercise is very important for overall brain health, right? Brain-brained doctor.

So I need all my meetings in the morning walking. See, there you go. You do, how many meetings, how much do you walk you're in the morning, see there you go. You do how many meeting how how must you walk? You're in the morning when you start with with your What's your morning with you? The About 20 minutes each so Okay, so walking to start the day

Oh perfect. That's great. That's great because it's not one of your tips of how to kind of improve your overall brain health is exercise. Yeah, gotta get the blood flowing. Absolutely. What I can't believe in when I was shocked about and why I was so I was actually so interested to speak to you is that I can't believe you're the first first your double-bore certified, correct? Right? I can't believe you're the first, your double-bore certified, correct? And the Bored certified child, natalescent psychiatrist, and also adult general psychiatrist.

Right, so you're specialized in children, but yet now also, you also, I guess, specialize in overall mental health or disorders of some kind. That's what your bio was saying. overall mental health or disorders of some kind. That's what your bio was saying. Yeah, I have to do the overall adult thing first. And then I added kids because most of the adult problems start when you're a child. Right. I have two kids. So that's why that's another reason why I love I love all of this stuff to kind of see to kind of pick up on things early. But what I was going to say is I cannot believe that nobody ever until you has done brain imaging. I mean, if you go see a heart doctor, any other type of doctor, they do some type of x-ray. And yet, being a psychiatrist, I

found, I always found it curious that nobody ever took any kind of imaging of your brain. You just, it's all really subjective to what the doctor would think possibly what may be going on in your brain. So what kind of made you, I mean, it kind of feels like it's kind of obvious, but sometimes the most obvious things are not that obvious. What kind of prompted you to figure that out and start doing that with people, the imaging respect? start doing that with people, the imaging, the spect. Well, not the only one or even the first one. I'm just the loudest.

Maybe you're the loudest one. Okay. Before I went to medical school, I was in the army. I was in infantry medic and then became an ex-rate technician and that's really where my love of imaging was born. Our professors used to always say, how do you know unless you look? And then when I went to medical school, someone I really cared about tried to kill herself. And I took it to see a wonderful psychiatrist and I went, oh, I love this. Because when you help someone's mind, you help them for generations. But I fell in love with the only medical,

especially that didn't look at the organ they treated, and I knew that was dumb. That making diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data, it's just subject to way too much subjectivity. And so I started pushing, it's like we should look. Why don't we look? Everybody else looks.

When I started looking at the brain in the late 1980s, it just changed everything. I did. And I thought at the time, all of my colleagues would come along, but it's hard to change behavior. If you're used to, if you make all your money, making diagnoses just based on talking to people, when there's a new way, many people don't go, oh, yeah, this would be so cool. So it's been a food fight for the last 30 years.

Well, I'm surprised, I mean, I guess my point overall was, I'm surprised that more people don't do it. It's not the norm at all, right? That you would go to a psychiatrist and they would do something like that. But it would seem to me that it would make the most sense. I had someone on here recently who did neurofeedback. They were like, they did, they had a clinic.

And you know, I went to them and they did a whole thing on me and they did stand my brain. And I was like, wow, this is interesting because why would it be that that person would do it, but not a site, not somebody who you're going to, who's putting you on, major medication, usually lifelong medication doesn't do that, right? So, what is your take on neurofeedback? Do you find that even something to be helpful as well in in in combination with

everything? Because they also scan your brain. what do you think about neurofeedback? So I love neurofeedback. It's actually how I came to do the imaging work I do. I was the chief psychiatrist at a place called Fort Irwin in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and it's 1987. And I'm like, oh, we should get state-of-the-art biofeedback equipment. And as I did, I, we should get state of the art biofeedback equipment.

And as I did, I learned how to use it. And that's when I learned about neurofeedback. So biofeedback is you take instruments to measure things going on in your body. And once you know what's going on in your body, you can teach you to change it. And then I learned about neurofeedback. And then from there, something called quantitative EEG. So that's probably how they scan your brain. And then a couple of years later I learned about SPAC.

And I like both. We use both. At AIMON Clinics, we do neurofeedback. And it's one tool to look at your brain through the quantitative EEG. And one way to optimize it is you do mental workouts. But you don't do mental workouts in the dark, that's sort of like psychotherapy. It's you're doing it based on physiological data on what's going on and the electrical activity of your brain, or the other study we do spacked looks at blood flow

and activity. So I've always been a huge fan of neurofeedback. I mean, it's just a natural way to train your brain to be healthier for you. Right. How does it work? I was playing a car when I was doing it, right? I was watching a screen.

It doesn't feel like it's anything's really kind of happening. I was a little skeptical, to be honest. How does that work? And how does that actually train your brain, or they call it brain fitness? How does it actually tweak or change the neuroplacicity by staring at a screen, looking like it's if you're playing a video game?

Well, there's much more going on in your brain, but if your brain learns how to get into the right rhythm and the technologist is setting, okay, your brain is doing too much of this, we wanted to do less is doing too much of this, we want it to do less of that and more of this. So it'll actually, he or she will set the parameters. And when your brain gets into that state, then it gets reinforced. And the movie gets brighter, or the car goes, or however they set up the game, and over time your brain learns how to get in to the right state. That, of course, you have to cooperate,

but they do it with autistic kids, with ADHD kids, people with traumatic brain injury, but it's just one way to optimize the brain. I mean, the first thing you have to do is fall in love with it. You have to start caring about it, which means you stop hurting it. Right. You know, all marijuana drugs, bad food, hitting soccer balls with your head. I mean, you know, it's just the whole host of stupid things.

People do to damage their brains. Well, yeah, that's what I want to talk to you about. Like, you're trying to, you're reframing, especially in the last book I read at the end of this one, the end of mental illness, is about, you don't like the word even. You want to refram it to be talking about it's not mental illness It's more brain health, right? That's kind of the conversation shift Yeah, I hate the term mental illness. I've always actually yeah

Ever since I was a young psychiatrist. It's shaming It's stigmatizing, you know when you call someone mental. That's not a good thing you know, when you call someone mental, that's not a good thing. And it's wrong what we've learned from now this massive database of brain scans we've done is that these are brain health issues. Get your brain right and your mind will follow. Now, psychiatry and neurology actually used to be

the same special. But I don't know, a hundred years ago they got divorced and neurology got the brain, psychiatry got the mind and psychiatry lost in that divorce because your brain creates your mind. And if your brain is not right, your mind is not right. And so I'm just like not okay giving the brain over to the neurologists. I think psychiatry has to own it. And you know, that means that your diet matters, and your level of exercise matters, and the supplementation matters, and giving people medication. And I'm not opposed to medication.

But once we start them, they're insidious in that they change your brain to need them in order for you to feel normal. And so it's just never the first thing I think about. I know that's what I was like going to talk to you about because it seems to me that's what people typically go to psychiatrists for, right, to get that prescription and then take off. And you talk a lot about the fact that you use other modes, like nutraceutical supplements, and all other types of holistic ways of feeling your brain, or getting it to an optimized level. But what do you see?

Can you walk me through what, when you look at these scans and these images, how do you know, I mean, I know you're an expert on this, but someone who's severely, I've always heard, like someone like, I know you're saying, it gets a frenzy hour by pull, or you're not gonna put those types of illnesses on medication, right? But other things like anxiety, depression, ADHD, you'll first try other things.

Do you see something in those images that make you turn to supplements or diet? What do you see? What's the common commonality? So in the end of mental illness, there's actually a chapter called mind meds versus neutrosuticals. And I list for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. So what do I do first? And first I look at the brain because I want to know the underlying physiology of what I'm dealing with. And as you said for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, I usually start with medication just to stabilize the situation. But for all the other ones, I'm like, here, 10 things to do first.

The scans, like, you're going to tell me if you're depressed or if you're anxious or you can't focus. The scans will give me the underlying physiology because what I learned is depression is not one thing. ADHD is not one thing. Anxiety disorders are never one thing. Even bipolar schizophrenia, they all have some types. So it'll help me know what's your type so that then I could target treatment. And so for example, if you have the classic ADHD pattern,

which is healthy at rest, and when you try to concentrate, your brain shuts down, what does that mean? The harder you try the worse it gets. I'm gonna use something stimulating. Now, stimulants can be exercised. Stimulants can be exercise. Stimulants can be a ketogenic diet. Stimulants can be green tea, rodeola, ashwagandha, gin, sang,

el tyrosine, or it can be a stimulant. And so, you know, in my mind, well, let's try the natural things first. And if they don't work, well, then I'm going to think about a stimulant. And I never think of myself as the boss. It's like, we have a relationship and the coach. And it's like, well, we could do this or we could do that. Here are the pros and cons. What do you want to do?

I mean, it's called inform consent in medicine and that's what good doctors should be doing is inform consent. The problem with most psychiatrists is they have no clue about natural ways to heal the brain because it's not part of their training program. They just go to this drug or that drug and then, you know, when I trained, this drug or that drug. And then, you know, when I trained, we saw our patients for an hour to every week. In fact, when Fred would do it, he did this thing called psychoanalysis, where he would see them four or five times a week. I mean, he'd really get involved in their lives. And I like that because I want to know about your life, I don't want to know just your symptoms and then give you a drug.

But in the early 90s, when managed care came over and took over medicine, psychiatrist, because they're the most well-trained of the group, or also the most expensive, they went, oh, well, we can get your therapy done much cheaper with a marriage and family therapist or a psychologist. And so we'll let them pay them to do the therapy and you just do the medication. Well, I want to know part of that. And it was at that point in 1992, I stopped taking insurance. And I'm like, no, I'm not playing that game.

I want to treat my patients and I'm not the pharmaceutical rep right I want to get there whole lives I always think of people like if you came to see me I want to know your biology so we'd scan you and do some lab work I want to know your psychology how you think and what sort of environment you grew up in I want to know the social circle. Are you and your husband getting along? What's going on with the kids? How's work? And also get involved with your spiritual circle, which is, why the heck do you care? You know, why do you think you're on the planet? What is your sense of meaning and purpose? Because people get sick in those four circles, right? And often when they get suicidal, there's trouble in all four of them.

Or if they go to jail, there's trouble in all four of them. Or if they go to a psychiatric hospital, there's trouble in all four of them. And people get well in those four circles. So how do you do that 15 minutes a month? It's ridiculous. Right. So, you know, the business of medicine, force psychiatrists into working for Eli Lele,

or Pfizer, which is just, it's bizarre. And I'm not okay with it. It's not my training. And my experience tells me it's the wrong thing to do. Wow, yeah. I mean, so do you actually see patients still one-on-one? Because you have all these clinics now and you're you have like all these other business. You still see people one-on-one. I do. I have my own set of patients.

Yeah, it just came out this year that I've been Justin Bieber's doc and Miley Cyrus's doc. And you can't have more than one or two of those. No, I was going to say, you know, because they're really special and I adore them both. But I spend maybe 20% of my time seeing patients and I'm also writing and supervising the businesses because if there's no margin, there's no mission. I criticize it's like, oh, it's just for the money. It's like, absolutely never has been just for the money. I'd have done something else. Right. But, but money's important because we don't take money from anybody except our patients. We don't get government grants and, you know,

we don't take insurance. So we have to be really good if people come to see us. Keep coming back. You got plenty of space. Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can see us. Keep coming back, you got plenty of space! Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on, like USAA, who has helped guide the military community for the past 100 years. USAA, get a quote today.

Vitamin water just dropped a new zero sugar flavor, called with love. Get the taste of raspberry and dark chocolate for the all warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water, zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glasso. I mean, I have a question. I mean, you just said something that I'm curious about.

Like a lot of these people, like a lot of Justin Bieber's other worlds, who maybe that's a bad example, but I'll use myself as an example. I took that brain assessment test that you have for free on your website. By the way, I've sent that test to probably 400 people. I kid you not. Everyone comes out of the 7. I'm a 4, I'm a 2, I'm a whatever. I came out with a type 7, right? And I find this interesting because if I suffer from, you know, you're saying that you

give people supplements and all these other holistic ways to kind of help with any type of brain issue. But if someone, and I know, not just me, but a lot of people, we eat really well like my group of friends. We eat really well, we exercise a lot, we sleep okay, we do a lot of those other things, we don't smoke, we don't drink, you know, when we're taking care of ourselves.

But yet, a lot of us still have anxiety, a lot of us still have like, you know, you know, not depression some people, not me, but like other OCD, ADD. I think I have a lot of that ADHD, but I'm doing all the other things and it's not working. So what would you say for that group of people, right? Then at what point are we just taking the wrong supplements? Is that when you medicate people?

What do you? Or you do the right supplements. I know. I might take over to take the line. You know, without looking. Why, I mean, without looking in type seven. So the types are really based on five primary types. So there's the balanced type, type one, that they don't have any of those issues.

Type two, we're our spontaneous people. It's my ADD group. Type three is the persistent people. The warriors, things have to be a certain way or they get irritated. Type four is our sensitive group, they can get sad. But they also make great counselors Type 5 is cautious

Sex is sensitive and persistent and seven is I'm sorry spontaneous and persistent Seven is spontaneous persistent and sensitive and so From a supplement standpoint, I'd use we make focus and energy to help you really with the ADD symptoms and serotonin mood support that can actually help your serotonin levels, your mood, and your worry. And so in my mind, that's how I think of it. If I scanned you, what I would see is your emotional brain is working hard. And a lot of women, their emotional brain, works hard. It's a big difference between women and men. Your singular is probably up, which means you can worry and hold on to things. If somebody hurts your feelings, you have trouble letting it go.

Your frontal lobes may be a little bit sleepy. We want to wake them up. There's no role. People get one thing. When I see that type, it's often—you and I just met, so I have no idea. But you know, there's often a family history of alcohol use or some sort of addiction and, you know, your aunts and uncles or stuff like that. And ADD, unless it's from a head injury. It runs in families that, you know, you got it from your mom or your dad, other people.

I mean, it's not something that just shows up. So, I mean, those are just some of the things I think of when I go, oh, type seven. And you're all the types. Well, no, I'm just saying, like, my point was more that a lot of people, like a lot of friends of mine, we're doing a lot of the other things that we're gonna touch upon soon

about how you're saying the diet makes a difference about to really improve your brain health, what you eat, other ways sleep, all these other things. My point was more that when you're doing all those ancillary things, and it's still kind of, you still have anxiety, you still have ADHD, when you have all these other things still creeping up Is that when you start up? Is that when you start like implementing medication when it's not or is it all just like? It's all relative right like you could be at a 10 and then you start doing these things and get down to a 6 and that could be good enough

Well, it could be good enough. Well, it's only good enough. You know, I think people should see us today, men and clinics, when they're mood, they're feelings, they're behavior, or they're thinking, is not what they want and not getting them to the goals they have, relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. When you feel like there's something blocking you. Now, 20% of the people see us. They have no problems. They just want a better brain.

It's like, brain health is the most important part because without my brain I'm not me. And so about 20% of people just come because they want to know and they want to plan to optimize it. Most people come because they want to feel better. You think of medication when you've done the things you can do that I talk about in the end of mental illness, like your thyroid is right and your vitamin D is right and your testosterone level is right and your hemoglobin A1C is right. It's like your physiology is good and I still feel anxious. Then when you know we think of something like GABA calming to settle that down or feigning and for some of making progress then it's like here are medication options, but it is 10th on the list,

is opposed to 1st on the list. More from our guest, but first a few words from our sponsor. So when you start your hiring process, you may have questions where you find good applicants to choose from, what about education and experience? And how will you know you've made the right hire? Indeed is here to help. Millions of great candidates use indeed every day to find their next opportunity.

You can post a job in minutes and use screener questions to help create your shortness of applicants fast. Also, add skill tests to your job posts so you can be confident in your applicants' abilities. They're a library of more than 50 skills test ranges from industry-specific skills like accounting to general aptitude tests like critical thinking. Indeed gives you the smart tools to make hiring decisions quickly and to be confident that you're making the right hire

for your team. Post your job today at indeed.com slash hustle and get a free sponsor job upgrade on your first posting. That's Indeed.com slash hustle, terms, conditions, and exclusion apply. Offer valid through June 30th. And now to our next sponsor. So do you want your team to develop habits that will help them thrive? You need rise.com. The all-in-one online training system employees love. Rise makes online training easy to create, enjoyable to take, and simple to manage. With Rise, anyone can easily create guides, courses, and other training content. You can start from scratch or

customize hundreds of pre-built lessons, helpful course templates, and gorgeous sample courses to build content even faster. Your learners will love rise because rise courses are beautiful, interactive, and engaging. Your managers will love rise because rise makes it fast and easy to create, distribute, and analyze online training. And your IT department will love rise because it has everything your team needs to manage online training in one secure enterprise class system. See why you'll love rise by starting a free 30-day trial at rise.com slash hustle. That's rise.com slash hustle.

Can we just talk about just optimizing someone's brain a little bit, because you're saying that could be, that's 20% of your business, right? A lot of people who are hackers or just overall high performers or whatever want to optimize their brain. What are some, I did see one thing that you said that that was very interesting, that people who play racquetball or any racquet sport, they tend to live longer, their blood flows better, therefore it's very helpful.

The coordination for it helps to optimize your brain, right? Is that why the racket is so good? Can you talk about that and give me some other tangible ways people can optimize their brain? Health? So, if we think of the mnemonic, I have in the end of mental illness, it's called bright minds. 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 when it comes to coordination exercises like racquets for it, the B in bright minds is for blood flow. Low blood flows, the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease, it's associated with depression, ADHD, and schizophrenia.

You need to keep your blood vessels healthy, pliable, and working right. And the low blood flow scans we see, it just goes with ADHD, brain fog, depression, and so on. And so it means you have to keep your vessels healthy. You do that with exercise. Exercise, that's it. And you also do it with your void things that hurt them.

So caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, high blood pressure, any form of vascular disease. You need to take that seriously. Right. And things like exercise, beats, oregano, rosemary, help increase blood flow, and certain supplements, like Ganko. So, you know, one of the 11, you're just thinking, oh my diet matters, exercise matters. Okay, most people know that. The R is retirement and aging when you stop learning, your brain starts dying. So, new learning should be part of everything you do. And oh, by the way, you should know your ferritin level. Ferritin is a measure of iron storage. If your ferritin is low, you're going to be anxious and look like you have ADD. And if your ferritin is high, it's associated with premature aging.

So know your important health number. So with blood flow, we talked about blood pressure. With aging, we talked about blood pressure. With aging, we talked about baritone. The eye is inflammation when your body is inflamed. Yeah, mental health issues. Because your brain becomes inflamed in your anxious or you're sad, an inflammation can come from low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. It can come from gum disease, it can come from a leaky gut, it can come from processed foods or fast food diet, and taking omega-3 fatty acids, flossing your teeth, taking probiotics, all of those things can help. Well, inflammation. The G is genetics. What's in your family?

Because we just tend to be vulnerable to that. The genes are in a desense. They should be a wake-up call to get healthy. The H is for head trauma, a major cause of mental health problems. And nobody knows about because most psychiatrists never look at the brain. And how would you know if that accident you got thrown out of the car at three years old mattered if you didn't look? And the litter-tron head trauma so clear, I didn't make this up, had trauma. I mean, I know that injuries are major cause of homelessness, depression, suicide, panic attacks, ADHD, learning problems. And so a strategy is always protect your head.

And so when my kids want to go snowboarding, I'm like, no, bad idea. Because you just want to have a concussion. When they want to play tackle football, it's like no bad idea because you just want to likely have a concussion. When they want to play tackle football, it's like no, it's not going to happen. Because my youngest is now 16 and I have grand babies from two to 10 and I adore them, but they're not playing football. Right. You know, I think that's, you know, neglect or abuse, depending on how you define it. But on average, kids have a concussion every year, they play football. You should never be okay with them. The T in bright minds is toxins.

Alcohol is not a health food. Marijuana is not going green. Both of those are directly toxic to brain function. But there's a whole bunch of other things that are toxic. General anesthesia is toxic for some brains. The product... I'm sorry. Lipstick can be toxic.

60% of the lipsticks sold in the United States has lead in it. The prosciutto. I'm sorry. Lipstick can be toxic. 60% of the lipstick sold in the United States has led in it. So I call it the kiss of death. And they were, you know, in this pandemic, and, you know, people are lathering their bodies with these antiseptics, which are just loaded with toxins. I know. Totally, you know, I'm a fan of green products because, you know, the cell can kill COVID, but you don't want all the other things you can

pronounce on your skin because wherever goes on your skin. All right, exactly. In your body and affects your body. Yeah, you said, okay, a couple things you just said, the ferritin that you mentioned, because I don't think many people have heard of that. What is that? How did people get tested for that?

So it's a measure of iron storage in your body. And is that like a normal blood test? Can you go to any of that? Just a normal blood test, baritone level. Is that like a normal blood test? Can you go to any of the other? Normal blood test, baritone level. And people who are low, anxious, ADD, tired, can't sleep, people who are high premature aging.

So if you're low, you need to take iron. And red meat is probably okay, you know, sustainably raised red meat. And if you're high, you need to donate blood. So I'm always high. It runs in my family. So I donate blood twice a year. And it keeps it at a whole lot. And when you say for inflammation, well, a couple things, the gut, you kind of touched

upon it with gum disease, but the other thing is, what's the correlation between gut health and brain health? They're completely connected. Right. If your gut is not right, say you had a lot of antibiotics when you were a child, because you have lots of your infections, and it really damaged the microbiome,

100 trillion bugs in your gut. Then you may be chronically anxious the rest of your life because you have an unhealthy microbiome in your gut. So just think of the microbiome as the bug population where all of us have about 100 trillion bugs in our gut, and they make our transmitters, they detoxify our food, they help us with digestion. And if they're not healthy, you feel terrible emotionally.

And almost a functional medicine doctor start by improving the health of your gut, which you need to do with your diet. And people who have heard of probiotics, a lot of people haven't heard of prebiotics, that's actually eating fiber to feed the probiotics. So you got to take care of the bugs in your gut by feeding them right and stop poisoning them. Alcohol plays the microbiome. God by feeding them right and stop poisoning them alcohol. Right. It's the microbiome.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's becoming much more known about the God health at the brain, the brain, and God connection. But you know what's interesting about you is like, I feel like you're like a combination of a functional doctor and a brain doctor, right? Because you do a lot of the same things that a functional doctor would look at. So when someone goes to a clinic of yours,

is that what happens? They take an overall, you said an overall thing where they talk about your lifestyle, they go through the gut, do they do like any type of blood test to find out what a bloods are gut, or is that, do you guys take a blood test like that there, or no? Not a blood test, but a stool bloods are cut, or is that, would you guys take a blood test like that there or no?

I got a blood test, but a stool test. A stool test, yeah. Evaluate your microbiome. And I think that at Aiman clinics, we've made three big innovations. And the first one's imaging, if you don't know, stop lying. The second one was natural ways to heal the brain, you know,

really become expert at diet supplementation. And the third thing is we do it in a bright minds functional medicine context. If your thyroid is not right, you're not going to be right in your mind. If you have your overweight or you have diabetes, your brain's not going to be right in your mind. If you have your overweight or you have diabetes, your brain's not going to be healthy. If you have sleep apnea, your brain won't be healthy. So I really think of going after all of the bright minds risk factors. And that's actually part of all of our evaluations. And you know, it's something that evolved over the last 30 years, 31 years now we opened AIMON clinics. And it's, you know, it was medication, psychotherapy, neurofeedback,

which then went to quantitative EEG, spacked. Oh, some of the medicines hurt the brain. We added supplements. Oh, if your thyroid's not right, your brain's not right. If you have Lyme disease, your brain's not gonna be right. And so over time, we just added the functional medicine component. So, but what happened? For people who don't live close by, you wanted your clinics, right? Because you have a bunch of them,

but a lot of them are, you have some at Atlanta, New York, close to Mesa,, other place in LA. Let's go over because I want to give people ways that they can kind of help themselves when they don't have access to your great clinics. So wait, finish the other principles. So you kind of talked about bright, what does mine stand for? M-I-N-D-S. What is mine stand for? M-I-N-D-S. So the M is mine storms. It's abnormal electrical activity in your brain. And that's where nerve feedback can be helpful.

It's kind of key to genetic diet. Can be helpful. Eye is immunity and infections, prophetic, with what's going on now with COVID-19. Right. The Herpes infections, Epstein bar infections, Toxia plasmosis, you can get from cats, a parasite, all of these things can damage your mind. So getting your immune system right,

checking and treating infections when possible is critical. And in the book, I tell people, this is how I do it. These are lab tests, I order. reading infections when possible is critical. And in the book, I tell people, this is how I do it. These are lab tests, I order. I mean, there's just no surprises. I try to give people a much more simple as can be. The N is neurohormone deficiencies,

or abnormalities, higher, low low thyroid, higher low testosterone. How do you balance your hormones because you need trophic factors, you know, factors that help you grow your brain. The D is diabetes. It's this very toxic combination of being diabetic and overweight. Having either one of those is damaging to your brain, have a new study coming out on 35,000 scans. It's the largest imaging study related to obesity.

And it basically says, as your weight goes up, the function of your brain goes down in virtually all areas of the brain. Oh wow. So diet is critical. And people have the COVID cushion because chronic stress puts that around your belly. And so it's even more important to exercise, to eat right, and keep your weight under control.

I'm a huge fan of knowing how many calories you eat. So calories matter as does the quality of the calories. They both matter. If you're having trouble losing weight, you should start weighing and measuring and counting things. I just think of it like a budget. But you know, you have an 800 calorie diet of Twinkies, you'll be fat and sick. So while it matters more. And then the S's sleep, 60 million Americans have trouble sleeping, sleep apnea is rampant to getting it evaluated and treated absolutely essential to having a mind that works. Right.

And you know, we talked about earlier, if somebody calls you mental, that's a bad thing. If somebody calls you a brain, that's a good thing. You will fail. So what? Everybody does. But your gym, your watch, your yoga pants, they pretend you won't.

So when you miss a day, eat the pancakes. Give up on a workout. You failed? Seriously, what the hell? We're body. We've been a part of that too, but not anymore. A body where rejecting perfection and embracing reality. Not in a pizza Monday kind of way,

in a loving your whole life kind of way. In a, this workout is fun, and it's okay if I take a whole life kind of way. In a, this workout is fun and it's okay if I take a week off kind of way. And then, I'm eating healthy and it's okay if I indulge kind of way. In a, I like myself no matter what kind of way. Yeah, you will fail. We all will. But we're not gonna let that be the end. You see that? We're already making progress. So let's keep going. We are body. Start your free trial at body.com. That's b-o-d-i- dot com.

That's a good thing, right? I mean, what I wanted to say is that right now, especially with the pandemic, everyone so isolated, right? Like, every time you think you're not going to be back in the home. Do you have any ways, any kind of, again, practical, easy way, not easy, practical, tangible ways? People can calm their anxiety. People can, because I think when your anxiety is high, people tend to overeat more, right?

So everything is linked together, right? You're saying the more overweight you get, the less your brain works. But yet, when you have a lot of anxiety, that will be a trigger for a lot of people to... You have to... there are lots of other ways. To man in trans anxiety, I think that's in the end of mental illness, in the mind meds versus nutraceutical chapters. I'm not a fan of anti-anxiety medications like benzos, because once you start them people just don't stop them. Right, right.

Your body can be addicted to it, right? Like your body needs it. Yeah. And when hypnosis, I'm like a big fan of hypnosis, it has a powerful anti-anxiety of fact meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, singing for some people really helps calm them. Of course it depends on what you're singing. Diaphramatic breathing, and it's a big rhythm. I teach people so breathing more from your belly. Okay. And what you do is you take three seconds in so take a big breath and then hold it just for a second and then take six seconds to breathe out. So it's Hold it out for a second and then repeat that 10 times. And some people don't go to sleep. A lot of people just feel like their nervous system settles down.

It triggers a relaxation response. And so breathing so helpful, get a relaxation relaxation playlist lavender when Justin went through a really hard time. I told him about lavender and he got these great lavender sachets and actually ended up giving me one. And it's been found in scientific studies to decrease anxiety and improve your mood. And there's no side effects from laughing. Right. So, it's a great- It's a great-

It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great-

It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- It's a great- I mean, if you're actually active and you don't really care about that, fine, but you know, this one of supplements I love is called Happy Safron. It's made with Safron that's been found in 21 randomized controlled trials to be as effective as anti-depressants, but it's pro-sexual and it helps your memory. So why wouldn't I go with that first? And then if it doesn't work, think about, well, I could try this or that medication. Where would I get the happy saffron? Or not me personally,

or anybody, where would anyone find happy saffron? I've never heard of it before. But... So brain MD is our supplement company. It's the company we use from patients. And it has all sorts of wonderful supplements, but happy saffron's my favorite when the pandemic started. I went, this is going to be stressful. So I started taking it. And my stress level on a scale of one to 10 if one is not and 10 is terrible has sort of stated a three. Despite both my mom and dad got COVID, I lost my dad. Oh my gosh. I've had a fax.

And I mean, I'm sad I lost my dad, but I'm not, you know, I've worked every day. And I have these habits, you know, feeling bad is often a bad habit. So I do positivity bias training. I start every day with today is going to be a great day. That's a B.J. fog thing. Tiny habits. I actually work at B.J. for six months. Tiny habit. But He is our daughter. Today is going to be a great day. My mom got one.

The big brain health tiny habit, and he helped me create, was before I go do anything, I asked myself, is this good for my brain? Or bad for it? And so when I'm at the grocery store, I just ask myself that question for whatever I'll own on this is good for my brain or bad for it. And if it's bad for it, I make the one decision not to buy it, and then I don't have to make a hundred decisions at home, not to eat it. And you can answer the question with information and love,

love of yourself, love of your family, love of your mission, you just make better decisions. Yeah. Before I go to bed at night, I say a prayer and then I go, well, well, today. So I put myself to sleep every night. Or if I wake up in the middle of night, what went well? And even the day my dad died and the day was filled with stress and trauma. I must have gotten 500 attacks from my friends, from his friends, that were so sweet. And that's how I put Myself to bed that night and

You know where you bring your focus determines how you feel and you can train and you got to turn off the news Because the news isn't the news the news is about clickbait and you know breaking news every three seconds is complete crap. You need to find a site you trust like I like BBC because they tend not to be left to write, they just tend to give you what it's based up. And then I go to the Good News Network. So what cool happened? And it's training. You have to once you have the hardware right, which we've been talking about with bright minds, it's really a program, you get the brain right, you then have to program to get your psychological circle right. Absolutely.

I'm sorry, I'm still on the fact that your dad passed away during this whole thing. Did he pass away from COVID or just from something totally different? Well, he wasn't really healthy, in fact, in early March, he went to the hospital because he had a GI bleed. And they didn't really find out what it was from, but it really weakened him.

And then both he and my mom got COVID. They ended up in the hospital together. My sister got it. And I put him on hydroxychloroquine and his Z-pack and Zang. And five days later, they went out of the hospital. My mom just got, my dad was tested negative for COVID, but it didn't help him.

And I think it was just the stack of things a month later he died. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry to hear that. So you've had you're welcome. You've had a tough time this last few months then. Well yes and no. I mean yes, losing my dad. I've actually found the pandemic and a lot of my patients say the same thing that it just resets your life. I don't find it all not being on planes anymore.

Yeah. I have spectacular dinners with my wife and my kids. There's, I have three kids that live here, two of my nieces live with us. And we just had, it's just a time to reset and go what's important in our lives. I've been on Facebook 75 times, so I just, that's how, you know, drive so much community. And, and you know, I like teaching about what I do because it always reminds me to do it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Once you learn something, if you give it away,

it actually helps you keep it. Now, you know, our support group just helps everybody do better. Well, don't you also have a podcast with your wife? You do some kind of... Yeah, and I have, we've done about 700 of these crazy things, and they're all short like 10 minutes, but it's called the Brain Warriors Way. People go to Brain Warriors Way podcast.com and We have great guests. We just had Joan London on that was super fun and Del Bratis wrote the end of Alzheimer's But you know brain warrior the whole idea is You're in a war for the health of your brain. You need to be armed prepared and aware

to really win the fight of your life because when your brain is not right, everything suffers. Are there certain foods, I mean besides the obvious stuff like processed foods and gluten and sugar, is there anything particular that you think is really harmful for brain health and is there any real and what are the top three foods besides blueberries and salmon that are really optimal to increase your brain health. So the one that surprises people is corn. It is almost all the corn is raised with pesticides and even if it's not when corn falls to the ground, it kills all of the weeds around it. So corn has just got a very bad fatty acid profile. And yes, we killed the Indians, they killed us by giving us corn.

So not a fan of corn and soy, they are very high in omega-6 fatty acids making it pro-inflammatory. As far as good foods besides blueberries, salmon, nuts and seeds, and you just really want to think of colorful fruits and vegetables and avocados are loaded. They're also very calorie-dense. You have to be careful not to overdo it. Oh, absolutely. How about in terms of, I was going to ask you something,

but then we talked a little about the cerebellum. You said the front of your head for coordination and stuff like that. Because what you were saying and just to kind of rewind in bright minds to be for blood flow, that's why people with ADD or anxiety depression have to be moving and you know, that's to get the blood flow going. Is there a correlate, is there anything about that with the coordination or it doesn't have to be, as long as you're actually moving to get your blood flow? Is there something else in there that talks about the coordination portion that helps with your keeping you alert? You're talking earlier about that. You know, I'm going to have to run in just a minute. So the cerebellum in the back bottom part of the brain.

Oh, okay. It's the back bottom. Yeah, coordination, but also thought coordination. How quickly you can integrate new information. So it's just so important. And it's low in autism and low in ADV. It's low in autism and low in ADV. That's why these coordination movements, and one treatment that surprises people, actually surprised me, is horse therapy. Is that when you get on a horse, you have to use so many muscles to stay on. That it turns out to be a good brain exercise.

Now, of course, if you fall off, that's a very bad thing. That's a very bad for your brain. But how many people have a horse? Not very many, right? Is there anything other than, oh, yeah, you talked about the hyperbaric oxygen chamber can help with your brain and warm hands. How is it? So warm hands can lower anxiety, actually had a patient whose house was shot at and was

really, really anxious, woke up in the mull and I had panicked and she remembered I told her, she just ran her hands under warm water and it settled her down because it triggers a relaxation response. How? When you warm your hands, it increases blood flow to your hands, and that's triggering this thing called a parasympathetic response. When you get stressed, your hands get cold. Worming is telling the rest of your nervous system, it's safe, it's going to be okay. We don't have to be freaked out. So a quick way for people to lower their anxiety, especially in time like this, is just to put their hands under warm water?

Yeah, going in your spa or your take a hot bath. A hot bath. All right. And then the other one is a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. What is that? I mean, most people don't have access to that. I get it. But what does that do? How does that help brain health? Well, we use it a lot. We have it in each of the clinics.

It's when you go under pressure with increased oxygen. It increases blood flow to the brain. And there's actually some evidence of increases in stem cell production. Mm. And brain as well. And are your clinics currently open or they're not open with all of everything that's going on? They're open all the time. You know, mental health is the essential service.

And a lot of the work, not the scans obviously, but a lot of the work is done virtually. And we still see people from all over the world, but now that we're able to do it virtually You know people can make an appointment. They're near a clinic or they can drive to the clinic They can come get scanned, but you know, we do a lot more than scans Right They've relaxed some of the telemedicine rules so that we can even prescribe medication if needed through our video conference appointments. Oh wow, okay, and I want to ask you one last thing,

and then I'll let you go, okay. What do you think of one more, what do you think of peptides? It's a new, I feel like it's a new wellness trend right now. Do you see any, do you have any opinion on how it can help improve brain health at all or? Not, yeah. I just, I don't know enough research about it. I know some of my friends, my functional friends are doing it. Yeah. I've just not seen the research. And I tend when there's something new besides back, of course, I tend to wait and go, is this going to be real or not real? And then, you know, I just learn more about it. I just don't know enough about it.

All right, all right, that's fair enough. Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for sitting with me today and talking and giving me such insight on your brain on the brain. And how do people find, I mean besides the book, The End of Mental Illness, how else can people find out more information? Or actually, I want everybody to go and do the quiz, the free quiz on brainassessment.com, right? That's what the website is. right? That's what the website is. Brainhealthassessment.com. Brainhealthassessment.com.

And they can also go to amenclinics.com and learn about where clinics are and all the things we do. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Well, what a joy to meet you. Thank you for helping to spread the word. Thank you. Have a good one. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network.

Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever, and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me, I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show, so you can believe my listeners. I have been a longtime fan of Heather's,

no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched and I love her go getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence and reach that next level. Thank you!

I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes and I immediately subscribe to this podcast. It has not disappointed. And I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can, as quick as I can. Thank you, Heather, for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level,

click creating confidence now.