Let's Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari - Picking a Brain Doctor’s Brain on Kids Playing Sports, What Supplements I Should Take, and Bipolar Disorder

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

I sit down with Dr. Amen to discuss everything brain-related: how looking at the brain changed the meaning of mental illness for him, how drugs and alcohol impact your brain health, tricks to calm your nervous system down, brain injuries that we may not even be aware of, every day harmful things were doing, plus simple things we can do to help the health of our brain, why flossing is so important, why thoughts can be too positive, what to be doing with our boys who play football, and why it's so important to get anger out.A word from my sponsors:Nutrafol - Get results you can run your fingers through! For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering listeners ten dollars off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter code HONEST.Bon Charge - Go to boncharge.com and use code HONEST to save 15% off my favorite Red Light Face Mask and other wellness products.Farmer's Dog - Get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at TheFarmersDog.com/honest. Hero Bread - Keep the carbs out of fall without compromising flavor with Hero Bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HONEST at checkout.LMNT - Get a free Sample Pack with any drink mix at DrinkLMNT.com/HONEST. And if you're an LMNT INSIDER, you have first access to LMNT Sparkling - a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. Eharmony - Get who gets you, on eharmony. Sign up today. For more Let's Be Honest, follow along at:@kristincavallari on Instagram@kristincavallari and @dearmedia on TikTokLet's Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari on YouTubeProduced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This is Let's Be Honest with Kristen Cavallari, a podcast all about getting real and open on everything from sex, relationships, reality TV, wellness, family, and so much more. And just a fair warning, there will probably be some oversharing. Welcome to Let's Be Honest. I am so excited for today's episode. Today's guest is a double board certified psychiatrist and 12-time New York Times bestselling author. He's on a mission to ending mental illness using neuroscience to help people control and improve the health of their own brain. He has scanned over 250,000 brains, including mine earlier today. Dr. Amen, welcome.

Thank you so much for helping me spread this message. Oh, I am so excited. You know, we met because you work closely with my high school friend, Jason Waller, and you guys put on an incredible event in Nashville. I was lucky enough to attend. And one thing that you said was that mental illness is essentially brain illness. Mental illness is the only illness where we don't look at the actual organ. Every other physician treats the organ that's having the issue. And that made so much sense to me. What else you said was mental illness is not what most people think. Get your brain right and then your mind follows. So explain what that means. Well, if you think of the brain really is the hardware of your soul.

When it works right, you work right. And when it doesn't, as depressed, as panic disorders, OCD, PTSD, whatever, without ever looking at the organ. And that's insane. And we started looking at it 34 years ago and it just changed everything because it's like, it's not mental illness, it's brain health. Get your brain healthy. And if you think of it as mental illness, so how do we make diagnoses? We make diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data. So I almost think of it as a symptom cluster fuck, if you will.

Right? Excuse me for saying that. You can swear on this podcast. It's like a symptom cluster fuck, if you will. Excuse me for saying that. You can swear on this podcast. A symptom cluster fuck. Why? Because being depressed is like having chest pain. And nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain. Why? Because it doesn't tell you what's causing it, and it doesn't tell you what to do for it. There's dozens of causes of chest pain, heart attack, heart arrhythmia, heart infection, pneumonia, gas, grief, an ulcer, so many different things, right? So you don't give everybody one treatment for chest pain, that would be malpractice and crazy. Depression's exactly the same thing. It can be due to grief. It can be due to a loss. It can be due to head injury. It can be

due to your thyroid's too low. It can be due to your estrogen and progesterone are too low and you go through menopause. It can be due to so many different things. So giving everybody Lexapro is stupidity, but no one's calling out the stupidity. And I'm like, no, we have to call it the stupidity. Last year, there were 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants without anyone looking at these people's brains. When you think of it as brain health, all of a sudden you have to act better. You're right. Right? If it's mental illness, you're depressed, take Lexapro. Well, maybe go to therapy and then you're done.

The problem is you're not better. If it's brain health, you really need to stop drinking and you really need to stop smoking pot and you really need to get to a healthy weight and you really need to think about eating right and exercising and taking supplements that nurture your brain. So it's a wildly different paradigm, right? Rather than the symptom clusterfuck, diagnostic stupidity, it's, oh no, we're going to act like the rest of medicine. Your brain is an organ.

You have to get your brain healthy. And it just changes everything. And I actually think it has societal implications because it means then we should teach children to love and care for their brains. And you don't, right? In all the time you were in school, nobody ever taught you to love and care for your brain. And so I have six kids. And when Caitlin, my child, who's your age, when she was in ninth grade, she came home with doing factoring and quadratic equations in algebra. And I'm like, this girl's going to fashion school. She is never going to use this again.

I knew it. I'm like, why aren't they teaching you something practical to love your brain? And so I actually, we created a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25, where we teach kids to love and care for their brain. And we studied it in 16 schools and it decreases drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decreases depression and improves self-esteem. Why? Because it's the brain, right? Better brain, better relationships, better grades, more independence because your parents trust you more, less pain, less illness, more money, better brain, better life. It's so fascinating. Well, it's interesting you bring up drugs and

alcohol because that is one area that I wanted to talk to you about. And we scanned my brain, we just went over it. And I've never been shy about talking about the partying that I've done from eighth grade through my early twenties. And it showed on my scan. And I want to get your opinion because I think, well, the drug category is so vast. I mean, that can be anything from, of course, hard drugs, marijuana, cocaine, whatever, to prescription pills like you just mentioned, or even Tylenol, Motrin. I mean, how do those things all play a role in your brain health? So you want to ask yourself this one question and you want to teach your kids to ask themselves this question. When my daughter Chloe was little, we used to play a game called Chloe's Game. But ultimately, this is the mother habit. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? And so

I would go avocados and she would go two thumbs up, God's butter. If I said blueberries, she'd put her little hands on her hips and go, are they organic? Because non-organic berries hold more pesticides than almost any fruit. I'm like, of course they're organic. God's candy. I said, hitting a soccer ball with your head. She'd go, are you stupid? Brain is soft. Skull is hard. Skull has sharp bony ridges. No, very bad. I said, how about talking back to your redheaded mother? Oh, very bad for the brain. But it's, it's that one question is there. So when you think of staying up late to get a project done, it's like, no, that's bad for my brain, right? Because when I sleep, my brain cleans and washes itself. If I don't go to sleep,

trash is going to build up and then I'm going to make bad decisions tomorrow, which is why I don't ever take red-eye flights because I'm just more likely to make a bad decision when it comes to food or saying things I shouldn't say to my wife. I love that. But, you know, because I think a lot of people will have a glass of wine every night. So what is your stance on alcohol? It's don't drink at all, right? So I'm not a fan of alcohol. I haven't been for 30 years. And mostly, I've been a psychiatrist 40 years. That's the number one reason people come to see me, because they made a bad decision when they drank. This is poison. And everybody knows when you start to drink, it tastes terrible. And it tastes terrible for a reason, because it's a poison.

I love during the pandemic, Jim Beam, the famous whiskey company, turned its whiskey plants into hand sanitizer plants. I did not know that. Now, just think about this. In your gut, you have 100 trillion bugs. It's called the microbiome. And they're your defense force. They protect you. They make neurotransmitters.

They make vitamins. They detoxify your food. It has 60% of your immune system. It's in your microbiome. Why are you going to put an antibiotic, something that kills bugs, into your body every night thinking somehow that's helpful for you? And the reason you're drinking even a little bit every night is your withdrawing every day. And you're managing the addiction and the alcohol, the rebound from it. And people go, oh, no, I never have trouble from it.

No, you're just chronically having trouble from it. And then a couple of years ago, so grateful for this, the American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol because the research is so clear. Any alcohol is associated with seven different types of cancer. And so why? Like, what's the payoff? And it's like, well, I don't like how I feel. Okay. You love hypnosis.

Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Immediately changes how you feel oh yeah so do a simple hypnotic exercise yeah or there's another technique i teach all my patients called havening where we've learned that bilateral hemisphere stimulation almost immediately calms you down. So if you're really upset about something, think about it. And then just stimulate both sides of your brain by rubbing your hands together like this. So think about, hate my wife. I don't. Hate my wife. And then go, I'm going to think about the beach.

Oh, okay. And do this for just like two minutes. Okay. And all of a sudden, you don't hate your wife. Oh, wow. And your nervous system calms down. It generates, it's a theory, generates delta waves in your amygdala, the fear center of the brain. And it just sort of calms things down. I like that.

Or, you know, my favorite one is to this. Okay. And I remember terrible Havening story, but it makes the point. My dad died early in the pandemic and it was awful. And a couple of days later, I'm at my mom's house just helping her sort through things. And some idiot left a picture of my dead dad in the mortuary in a random stack of papers. Oh, gosh. And I'm so irritated. Yeah.

And I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I was mad. And obviously, I'm sad. And later that day, I'm still thinking about it. And then I have this funny supervisor in my head that goes, you treat people that have this problem. And so I haven't it. So I sat in the chair and I thought about the picture and I thought about how angry I was.

And I started about the picture and I thought about how angry I was. And I started doing this. And after two minutes, I wasn't so bothered. Wow. And I did it for two minutes more. And I fell in love with the picture. Oh, wow. Because it was the last picture of my father on earth. Oh, wow.

And it's like, there's so many ways to calm your brain down that do not involve poison that learn how to manage your physiology. Even the simplest thing is diaphragmatic breathing. Oh, right. Just breathing really deeply. With your diaphragm. So diaphragm is this bell-shaped muscle that separates your lung, your thoracic cavity from your abdominal cavity. And so when you're a beautiful woman like you, you hold your belly in a lot.

I know. And it's very bad for you. I know. Very bad for you. So it's like, don't ever wear tight clothes unless you hate yourself. Wait, really? People are going to think you're beautiful anyways. It's because tight clothes, you have to stick your head in, which means you're taking all

the contents in your belly, shoving them up into your lungs, making it harder to breathe. Yeah. And so loose clothes or at least stretchy clothes. Oh my gosh. And when you breathe in, stick your belly out as far as it'll go. And then when you breathe in, stick it in. Because if you ever watch a baby breathe or a puppy breathe, they don't breathe with their chest. They breathe with their belly. And so here's the exercise. Four seconds in, hold it for a second or two, eight seconds out. So if you take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in,

it triggers what's called a parasympathetic response. And you just? In like five breaths. Okay. You feel calm. Yeah. So it's like under two minutes. And so do you need the alcohol to come?

And if you do, there's theanine, one of my favorite supplements from green tea that has a calming but also a focusing effect. Okay. So don't take too many because it'll put you to sleep. But just a little theanine could be like your glass of wine. Okay. I love that. It doesn't increase your risk of cancer. Right. Exactly. Or take your supervisor, your moral supervisor offline. Yeah, exactly. All right, pet lovers, as I'm over here telling my dogs to be quiet so I can tape these ads,

let's talk about the farmer's dog. The farmer's dog makes real fresh dog food and they deliver it right to your door. Recipes are developed by vet nutritionists made from real meat and veggies and they're portioned just for your dog, making it easy to say goodbye to burnt brown balls and feed your dog real food with real benefits. Not only do my dogs go completely bonkers for this food, but I can just tell their breath is really great. Their coat looks great. And they of course just have a ton of energy. It's smart, healthy pet food. You can feel good about feeding your pup. It's the best option for dogs of all life stages because it's not kibble. It's not canned goo. It's real healthy food. Traditional dry and wet dog food options are highly processed. They can use much lower quality ingredients than they claim to, and they're extremely difficult to portion accurately. The farmer's dog isn't just

fresh, high quality food. They also send the food pre-portioned specifically for your dog based on their unique needs. This makes it easy to help your dog maintain their ideal weight, which is one of the biggest predictors of a full healthy life. Dogs at a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer than overweight dogs. Doesn't matter if your dog is young or old, it's always the right time to begin investing in their health. That means more happy, healthy, and full years together. Get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog.com slash honest. Plus, you get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash honest to get 50% off. That's thefarmersdog.com slash honest. You guys know I love this brand, and that is Bon Charge. Bon Charge is a holistic wellness brand with a huge range of evidence-based products to optimize your life in every way. Founded on

science and inspired by nature, all Bon Charge products adopt ancestral ways of living in our modern day world. Their extensive range of premium wellness products help you sleep better, perform better, have more energy, recover faster, balance hormones, reduce inflammation. I mean, the list is endless. From blue light glasses and infrared saunas to red light therapy to EMF management and circadian friendly lighting, Bond Charge products help you naturally address the issues of our modern day way of life effortlessly and with maximum impact. My personal favorite product from Bond Charge is their red light face mask. I think we've all been hearing about the benefits of red light. It helps with wrinkles, acne, scars. It's really good to also balance out all of the blue light that we're being thrown all day long. I also just love how

easy their red light face mask is to use. You just throw it on. You can go about doing the laundry, cooking. You could just do whatever you're doing around the house. It's lightweight. It doesn't get crazy hot. So you can just even put it on and kick back and watch some TV. I've tried all the other brands, you guys, and they do not compare to the Bonn Charge one. Bonn Charge also removed circadian and sleep disrupting blue and green light from their red light face mask. Other brands keep these light frequencies in their masks, which can disrupt your sleep and circadian clocks. So go to Boncharge.com and use coupon code honest to save 15%. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com and use coupon code honest to save 15%. Okay, guys, let's talk about Nutrafol. I've been taking Nutrafol for, I guess, going on a year now. And I've shared a little bit of my hair drama in

the past, but long story short, I had a lot of breakage. So I've been really trying to grow out my layers. So I've been cutting length while growing out my layers. And I've really noticed improved hair growth. I've turned so many friends on to Nutrafol as well because they've seen firsthand what it's done for me. And did you guys know that hair thinning affects approximately one in two women? It's normal, but it's certainly not ideal. Whether you're actively struggling with hair shedding or you want to get ahead of the problem and improve your hair health, now is the perfect time to add Nutrafol to your daily routine. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over 1 million people. See thicker, stronger,

faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months with Nutrafol. Everyone's root causes of hair thinning are different. So a one size fits all approach to hair growth doesn't cut it. Nutrafol has multiple formulas that are tailored to give your hair what it needs to grow throughout different stages, such as postpartum and menopause, as well as different lifestyles, such as plant-based diets. Physician formulated with 100% drug-free ingredients, Nutrafol's supplements support healthy hair growth from within by targeting root causes of thinning, including stress, hormones, aging, nutrition, lifestyle, and metabolism as they evolve throughout a woman's life. Get results

you can run your fingers through. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering my listeners $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code HONEST. Find out why over 4,500 healthcare professionals and stylists recommend Nutrafol for healthier hair. That's Nutrafol.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code honest. That's Nutrafol.com, promo code honest. Well, I do think we're living in a time where there's this shift right now where people are stopping drinking. I've even seen sober bars pop up. So I actually think everyone is starting to kind of catch on and realize how bad it is for you. But what about even the Motrins of the world and Tylenol? How does that have an effect on your

brain and your gut? So I'm not a fan of Tylenol at all because it can disrupt liver function. Okay. Except if you're going through a breakup. Okay. They actually found that if you have pain from a breakup or from feeling disrespected, that Tylenol decreases that pain. Isn't that interesting? That's fascinating. Because physical pain and emotional pain run on the same circuitry in the brain. Oh, wow. And I'm working on a new book called Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, looking at the intersection between physical pain and emotional pain.

And the research on Tylenol is fascinating. Now, Motrin's interesting. Motrin actually works for women who, if they go through a breakup, but it doesn't work for men. And I have no clue why that is yet. But I think that's interesting. Chronic use of Motrin is bad for you because it increases this thing called leaky gut. And so if Tylenol hurts your liver, well, obviously that's a bad thing. Motrin hurts your gut. Let's not do that.

But curcumin is anti-inflammatory and can decrease pain. There are many studies showing that, and it also helps your mood. Yep. Okay. I love that. And then what about prescription pills? You know, everyday stressors that people are doing that maybe they aren't aware of the harmful effects they're having on people. And I know that one can be tricky because if you're prescribed a prescription pill. But you should ask yourself why. Mm-hmm. The pharmaceutical industry got really smart. I once heard John Paul DeGioia speak. He founded Paul Mitchell and he's brilliant. And he said, you never want to be in the order business. You want to be in the reorder business. And the people who make psychiatric drugs, they don't want to make something that fixes you. Yeah. They want to make something that you're going to reorder over and over and over.

Again, 340 million prescriptions last year for antidepressants. That is crazy. In the United States, a quarter of our population is taking a psychiatric drug. Think of how ridiculous that is. And now sometimes you need it and it can save your life, right? We talked about your brother diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but your dad didn't believe in medicine. And if he got properly treated, that may have had a different outcome, right? I mean, we don't know that for sure, obviously, but your brain can have problems just like your heart can have problems. Do you go, oh no, you have heart problems. We're not giving you the meds, right? The government will take that child

away from you because that's a neglect, right? But when it comes to medications for the brain, we don't think of it the same way. We almost applaud you. Your child has terrible ADHD. I'm not drugging my child, but sometimes the medicine might just save his life. Okay. Yeah. Right. Right. So it's a case by case, you know, cause that was a question that I had. You have to be thoughtful about it. A couple of my kids are ADHD and one of them was just so obvious from the time she was born. Oh, really? She's hyperactive from before birth. And yeah, I still have trauma from her. And I love her to pieces, but the medicine helped her so much. Her older sister didn't have the same hyperactivity, impulsivity, but she really struggled in school. And when I scanned her and go, oh, she has ADD too.

She just has the non-hyperactive form of it, more common in girls called inattentive ADD. On medicine, she went from all B's and C's working her brains out to straight A's and got into one of the world's best veterinarian schools. And so not treating her because I am a forward-thinking parent is actually condemning her to a life of mediocrity. Mm-hmm. Wow. Because that's a question that I think my parents and I always ask. We talked about earlier, my brother passed almost nine years ago. He was bipolar. He was diagnosed when he was young. My dad didn't want him taking

prescription pills. And a question that is always in the back of our heads is, could we have done something differently? And so, yeah, I am just curious what your stance is on that. Like, what would your opinion on that be? You know, is there something concrete that we could have done or? Well, one, you could have scanned him, right? They made a diagnosis of a serious lifelong mental illness with no biological data based on symptoms, which is just insane. Right. I am so angry that this continues. You know, why are psychiatrists the only medical doctors who never look at the organ they treat? Right. never look at the organ they treat. Because I often see bipolar disorder is the result of a concussion or a traumatic brain injury that no one remembered. Or he could have had a bad fall

or he could have had a car accident and damaged one of his temporal lobes, often on the left, mood instability, irritability, temper problems. They go, oh, you're bipolar. But then parents go, oh, no, we're not going to treat a mental health issue. But if somebody would have showed him the scan, it's one of the reasons I fell in love with imaging. I'm like no no no his brain is not working right right we need to balance it with a better brain comes a better life and parents don't go oh i don't believe in neuroscience right right no i don't believe the scan and we always like is there a natural way to do it? I own a supplement company, for God's sakes.

It's like, let's first do no harm. But if you need medicine, please take it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, because it is interesting, because something that I've thought of is, my brother and I came from the same place, right? And he had bipolar. I've managed to be okay. And so you're saying it is maybe this brain trauma, a brain injury that he experienced. So is that typically what you see?

Well, often. I mean, sometimes you really have bipolar disorder. You generally see it in their family history. And you often see it in a family history where there's a fair amount of substance abuse. And people are trying to medicate the storms that happen. And if it really is bipolar disorder, lithium can be life-saving. Or we use mood stabilizers like Lamictal or Depakote. And they're, I mean, literally they're life-saving, but you have to get the right diagnosis that's just not based on, well, let me tell you the symptoms I have. Right. And so let's talk about brain injuries, because I think when people think of brain injuries, they think concussion from football or soccer or whatever it may be, but it can be falling down. It can be from a car accident. So what are ways

that people can develop brain injuries that maybe they aren't even aware of? Well, and they also forget. You know, one of the things imaging taught me is I have to ask people 10 times whether or not they had a brain injury. And, you know, because I can see it on the scan. And like for you, I'm like, when did you have a concussion? Yeah. Which as far as I know, I haven't had one. And then you told me about you were T-boned. I was.

And, you know, and you hurt your elbow, but attached to your elbow is your spine and your brain. Yeah. And if you got whacked really hard, your brain goes boom. And you could actually see where that might be. So it could be a fall. Yeah. It could be a fight. It could be something on a swing that happened.

Oh, yeah, when you're young. Or the jungle gym. The first time I saw a scan and I'm like, so when'd you have a brain injury? And he said, I haven't. I'm like, are you sure? Have you ever fallen out of a tree, fell off a fence, dove into a shallow pool, had a concussion, played sport, been in a car accident. No, no, no, no. Oh, when I was seven years old, I fell out of a second story window. Do you think that counts? Like maybe. And I've had people go, no, no, no, no, no. In fact, one of my NFL players,

Marvin Fleming, he played in five Super Bowls. He's like, no, no, no. And I'm like, seriously, it was a tight end. It started tight end. And it turned out he was going from Utah to California in a Volkswagen bug with four other big football players. I'm like, how did that happen? And it was on a snowy pass. They got into an accident and their car fell 150 feet into a riverbed below. He was knocked unconscious. And I'm like, Marvin, how do you forget this stuff? Yeah. Wow. It's a big thing to forget. Oh my goodness. Right. And sometimes it's pre-verbal. Sometimes, you know, like you had a babysitter over and she got mad at you and shook you,

you know, shaken baby syndrome and nobody ever knows. Or she dropped you from a changing table because you have hair, not me, obviously, but because you have hair, parents don't see the bruise. And that can cause significant head injury. Jeez. It actually breaks my heart to think about. Three million new concussions or traumatic brain injuries every year in the United States, which means over the last 30 years, 90 million people are living with the chronic effects of traumatic brain injury. Don't you think we should at least look? I know you would think. Right. If you're going to get a lifelong mental illness diagnosis like bipolar disorder,

schizophrenia, somebody should look at your brain. And you're saying emotional trauma shows up the same way that a brain injury would? No, they're different. Oh, they're different. So one would show up generally as decreases. Okay. The other one, your emotional brain shows up as increases. Okay. Okay. And then I want to talk about just everyday harmful things that we could be doing

that we're not even aware of. I want to talk about a cup of coffee in the morning. How does caffeine affect you? What about getting on social media right away in the morning, the blue light that's constantly being thrown at all of our faces all day long? Let's talk about these things that we're all doing and what's actually harmful and what's not. So a cup of coffee, depending on how big the cup is. Jumbo. Right? If you go to Starbucks and get a Venti, it's 330 milligrams. It's an addiction dose.

Yeah. Right? And no wonder they're everywhere. If you have an eight ounce cup of coffee, it's 100 milligrams. It's probably fine. Okay. But if you're having three or four, if you stop and you get headaches, it's way too much. Okay. That's, yeah, great barometer.

That's an addiction dose. Looking at social media, first thing, it just will mess up your day, but it's not the blue light. It's the blue light after dark. Okay. That's a problem for you. Right. Because it messes up your melatonin production.

You need to put blue light blockers on your phone or on your computer so that you stop. You can change your phone to switch over. I have that actually at 8 p.m. 8 p.m. I think I have the color switch over. Yeah, you should have it switch over depending on the time of year at dark. Okay. Good to know.

Yeah. So I think that's important. You know, one of the common causes when I did your evaluation, we talked about bright minds. You want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it. You have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. So let me give you 11 super quick things. So B is for blood flow. Exercise is just like the best thing that you can do. And it's consistent. Like walk. Every 30 minutes, just go walk for a minute. Just go get up and go.

Exercise is so important. And if you're going to take a supplement, my favorite is ginkgo. So of the supplements I'm going to give you, ginkgo's in it. Great. Because the prettiest brains I've ever seen take ginkgo. Oh, I'm excited. And R is retirement and aging. When you stop learning, your brain starts dying. So this podcast is so good for you because you're always learning.

Yeah, that's true. Right? I is inflammation. And there's so many things you can do, but the number one thing is floss. If you have gum disease, you have brain disease. And so taking care of your teeth is so important. And you know if you floss and you're bleeding, that is inflammation, right? That means you have gum disease. You have periodontal disease, which means you have more risk for heart disease, more risk for Alzheimer's disease. You need to see your dentist.

I get no money from the dental association. That's fascinating though too. She has genetics and people don't think about genetics, right? It's, oh, well, I'm overweight because my family's fat and my family is fat, but I'm not overweight. Why? Because genes, you want to know your risks. Like I told you, we adopted our two nieces because their parents were drug addicts. And I'm like, you should be on an addiction prevention program every day of your life. For me, I need to be on an obesity prevention program every day of my life. H is head trauma. So stop texting while you're driving, stop texting while you're walking, right? There's so much distracted society we're in. T is toxins. And you know, my stance on substances, I'm not a fan, but there are many more toxins like the products you put

on your body. There's a great app I like called Think Dirty. It allows you to scan all of your personal products and it'll tell you on a scale of one to 10 how quickly they're killing you. Oh, I love that. And so like for 50 years, I shaved with Barbasol. Yeah. So one is live a long time. 10 is kill you early. It's a nine. Wow. And now I ordered it today. Shave with something called kiss my face. I have no financial interest in it. It's a two. Why? Because I'm very fond of me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would I put something on my body that hurts me? Yeah.

But think of the deodorant or the makeup you use or the sunscreen. Things like parabens and phthalates, they're hormone disruptors. And hormones are really important to brain function. M is mental health. And so the one habit is stop believing every stupid thing you think. Just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, whether or not it's helpful. So whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. I love that.

And then just go, is it true? Mm-hmm. The second I is immunity and infections. Garlic, onions, and mushrooms. They boost your immunity. Oh. And know your vitamin D level. Okay.

And don't have it normal. Have it optimal. Yeah. Okay. Mid-range to high normal. Okay. So people who have a level, so normals between 30 and a hundred people who are over 40 have half the risk of cancer of those who are

under 20. Oh, wow. And I live in Southern California where it's sunny most of the time and my level was 17. Wow. And. And I go outside, but generally at night because I work during the day. And so I take 7,000 international units of vitamin D and have for many years and I rarely get sick. And I think that's one of the reasons why. And is neuro hormones and they're so important. So stop putting hormone disruptors on your body and you should get them tested every year. D is diabesity. 74% of the American population is overweight.

43% are now obese. It's the biggest brain drain in the history of our country. I published three studies on over 30,000 people. Your weight goes up, the size and function of your brain goes down. Wow. It should scare the fat off anyone. Yeah. And then high blood sugar is also terrible for you. So high fiber, low glycemic foods is where you should be when you're thinking of what am I going to eat? And so berries are awesome. Apples are great.

Lots of vegetables. And then S is sleep. Less than six hours. Your brain just doesn't have enough time to clean itself. Okay. So you want to target, you know, probably best is seven to nine hours of sleep. Okay. All right, guys, as we head here into the fall months, and I think everyone now is

officially back into the swing of things with school. So that means school lunches are priority. At least in my house, I make my kids lunches every single day, which includes a lot of sandwiches. Hero Bread reinvented the bread and buns that make school sandwiches great. Fluffy, delicious flavor and texture with no net carbs, zero grams of sugar and fewer calories, plus protein and fiber. And now you can also try their sweet melt in your mouth Hawaiian rolls for guilt-free sliders. You guys just this morning, Saylor specifically asked for three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in her lunch today. And because she was getting three, I decided to cut them into heart shapes and just make them

really cute. And hero bread is so awesome because it does have that perfect texture. It's fluffy, it's delicious. And so if you do want to cut out little shapes, it's perfect for that. They also have tortillas and we love quesadillas at my house. That's kind of the last minute, you know, lunch idea. What should we do? So I always have tortillas in my fridge. And again, their hero breads tortillas are the perfect texture. They are light and fluffy and amazing. They do not taste like they are really low in carbs or like they have no carbs. I also personally love that there's protein and fiber in them.

Those things keep you full longer. They're so good for you. So really just a win-win all around. Keep the carbs out this fall without compromising flavor with Hero Bread. Get 10% off your order at hero.co and use code HONEST at checkout.co and use code honest at checkout. That's honest at H-E-R-O dot C-O. Okay. I think we almost talked about this brand every episode.

And for good reason, Element, you guys have heard me talk about them. I love them so much. Electrolytes. Element helps anyone stay hydrated without the sugar and other dodgy ingredients found in popular electrolyte and sports drinks. Electrolyte deficiency or imbalance can cause headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, and weakness. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix born from the growing body of research revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times the government recommendation. Each stick pack delivers a meaningful dose of electrolytes free of sugar, artificial colors, or other dodgy ingredients. Element is formulated for anyone on a mission to restore health through hydration, and it's perfectly suited for athletes, folks who are fasting, or just those following keto, low-carb, whole food, or paleo diets.

Hydration isn't just about drinking water. Being optimally hydrated is about optimizing your body's fluid ratios. This fluid balance depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of electrolytes. I love electrolytes so much since I've really made them a part of my daily routine. I can just tell my whole body is more hydrated. I just feel better. I have more energy. I work out consistently. I regularly use a sauna and with traveling too, you know, all of these things deplete our body of electrolytes. So I make sure that I always have a couple of sticks with me when I travel. So guys, definitely check them out. If you have not already get your free element sample pack with

any purchase at drink element.com slash honest. Also try their new element sparkling. It's a bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. I've been mixing that with half water, half of this sparkling drink and on a warm day, it's heaven. Okay. All my singles. Let's talk about eHarmony. The best relationships are the ones where we feel comfortable being ourselves. They're with people who really see us for us, someone who really gets us. So why not use a dating app that's designed to do specifically that? eHarmony helps you find someone you can be yourself with. The eHarmony signup process gives each person a distinct personality profile that shows what makes them them. Based on a set of questions,

everyone on the platform answers. eHarmony members see how shared personality traits with people feel instantly relatable and differences can complement one another. That's actually what I love so much about eHarmony. I just feel like their profiles are way more robust than a lot of the other apps. And I think just from the get-go, of course, we're looking at photos. We want to see if we find someone attractive. But knowing what you have in common with someone or maybe what you don't have in common because that could be a deal breaker or maybe opposites do attract. Get Who Gets You on eHarmony. Another thing that I love so much about eHarmony is that they disable copy and paste for the first messages. So you get better messages that lead to better conversations.

First messages that say more than, hey, oh, imagine that. eHarmony makes it easier to have better conversations. So you're already one step ahead when it comes to meeting someone who gets you. So definitely check out eHarmony. Take their compatibility quiz to get started today. Get who gets you on eHarmony. Sign up today. I want to go back to thoughts. Have you seen that positive thoughts have a positive impact on a brain and negative thoughts have a negative impact? So that's a very important question. And I just want to add, your thoughts can be too positive. Really? Like in a fake way almost? No, but I can have this third piece of cheesecake and it's not going to hurt me. Okay, yeah.

You need some anxiety. Okay. A little worry if you do this. Think anxiety from zero to 100. The people who are less than 10 die early from accidents and preventable illnesses. And I always wanted to be one of, like, I have an older brother who's a don't worry, be happy person. But he's also 150 pounds overweight. And when I read this study from Stanford, so they looked at 1,548 10-year-old children in 1921.

And then they followed them for 90 years looking at what goes with health, success, and longevity. And the don't worry, be happy kids died the earliest. Oh, my gosh. So you want to have some anxiety. And so I like to keep my patients like 15, 20%. It's like, you know, these people are trying to kill us. And so think of it as accurate thinking with a positive spin.

Okay. Like that. So I want you to think accurately, but know the truth. Yeah. Right? The truth will set you free. The food supply in America is poisoned. Yeah.

6,000 products with aspartame in it. Do you know they gave aspartame to mice and it made them really anxious? And then they gave the mice Valium and it calmed them right down. This is not what we want in this country. But the really bad thing about that study, the mice's babies were anxious.

Oh. And their grandbabies were anxious. Really? It gets passed on generation to generation. And I used to love Diet Coke. Oh, wow. But I realized it didn't love me back. In fact, it hated me for generations.

Wow. Well, aspartame is even in gum. It's in- 6,000 products. Wow. Well, aspartame is even in gum. It's in everything. 6,000 products. Yeah. And sometimes they don't put it on the label. Did you notice on gum, they don't put ingredients anymore. I did not know this. Go to the website. Who goes to the website to look at ingredients? Well, I buy the healthy gum from Whole Foods. The flavor doesn't last, but I at least do get that. What about EMFs? I want to talk about EMFs. Have you seen the effects that EMFs have on a brain?

That they can have a negative impact. Yeah. And what about 5G? Well, yeah. Because 5G is no faster. I mean, they lie to us. Yeah. Right?

It's a complete lie. Yeah. And we have seen this fairly significant spike in cancer. Right. So I think you should be thoughtful. And I don't think everybody's sensitive to EMF, but I think there are clearly people who are more vulnerable. So is the key there just mitigating it as much as possible? Yes.

With putting the EMF blockers on your electronics, with turning your phone on airplane mode at night. What are some ways that people can be doing that? Yeah. Just turn it off. Turn it off completely. Turn the internet off in your house if you can at night. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, what other ways? It's kind of hard now with this modern world that we're living in. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to do everything else. Right. It's sort of like if you're going to play football, you have to do everything else. Right. Yeah. What of like if you're going to play football, you have to do everything else, right? Yeah.

What are good supplements to give my son who is now playing football? Speaking of, like, what do you do? Because I can't tell my son he can't play football. I can't. And what you could, I could, it would be an uphill battle for me because his dad played football and that's an argument that would be a challenging one for me. It's part of culture now. When we started our NFL work,

the NFL was in complete denial about the impact of traumatic brain injury. But when you have Barack Obama and LeBron James come out and say, I wouldn't let my children play because it's a brain damaging sport. I think you have the right to say, no, let's do something else. I do.

Because you have to sign. And the release form is not nice. I know. Right? When you sign it, you're basically saying it's okay. Mm-hmm. And yeah, so I'm just. But let's say I can't win that battle. So let's say you lose the battle. And, and I just always want you to remember the reason God gave us parents is to

help us make good decisions until our brains are developed, which not until you're 25. But if you lose the battle then i think you buy tb12 tom brady's book because he played until he was 45 because he did everything else right and you you see the people who get into the most trouble with football is they're playing a brain damaging sport and drinking, doing drugs, eating bad food, not sleeping, being chronically stressed and young people being more stressed now because you can get paid in college. And so now the pressure is happening early and earlier with undeveloped brains and the level of chronic stress and parents seeing they can

make money off their kids. It's a prescription for a lot of unhappiness. Yeah, it really is. I was blessed. I got to go to the Olympics because one of my patients is an Olympic pole vaulter and I was on her team. And from the moment she and I met, it's like, you want to get rid of the idea of being the best. You want to get rid of that idea and get the idea you want to be your best. You always want to be your best. Because when you have to be the best, you have to beat other people. And it separates you from others. When you have to be your best, you become inclusive because you help other people be their best too. I love that. I love that. Okay. But what are the things that Tom Brady did do well?

Because I'm not winning this battle. So it is- So sleeping was really important. Tom Brady, an adult married to a supermodels in bed every night at night. Okay. Only eats clean food. Yeah. Right. Diet was really critically important. Supplements were really. What are the supplements I could be giving my son? Multiple vitamins. Okay. Omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil. Yeah. And optimizes vitamin D level. Okay. So I think I start there. Yeah. Then we have a brain health assessment, sort of know your brain type.

And there are supplements directed toward what he may need specifically. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then just everything that we can be doing in our daily lives to be preventative. If people can't come and get a scan, because I know most people cannot come here to do a scan, unfortunately, What can people be doing? Well, we've done a quarter of a million of them.

Well, yeah, you really have. So a lot of people can. A lot of people can. Unfortunately, not everybody can come. We have 11 clinics around the country. Yeah, you do have a lot. I saw that. It starts with today is going to be a great day.

Okay. I'm a huge fan of directing your mind in a way that's helpful. Oh, I want to come back to that. There's a caveat. Sort of like Pollyanna meets Hannibal Lecter in a little bit. Start with today is going to be a great day. This is good for my brain or bad for it. Is it true? Right? Don't believe every stupid thing you think. Or see or read. I'm sorry. Or see or read. Or see or read. I have all of my patients, and I would have your son do this. I'd have all the kids do this. Write down what you want. We do an exercise with our patients called the one-page miracle. On one piece of paper, what do you want in want your relationships like with your mom and dad

your siblings what do you want what do you want for school what's your goal what do you want for your money what do you want for your physical emotional spiritual health what do you want And then the daily habit is, does it fit? Does my behavior fit what I want? So with my wife, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Always want that. Don't always feel like that. Rude thoughts just show up, but I don't say them because they don't fit. Right? See, if I had that two glasses of wine at

night, the thoughts would get out. Seinfeld said the brain is a sneaky organ. We all have weird, crazy, stupid thoughts that nobody should ever hear. So just own that. So does it fit? When you put the kids to bed at night but what went well today like do this as a practice yeah on a daily basis we have these gratitude journals that do that at night the three things that went well you know what you learned it's a good practice it's to get into a habit of yeah but pollyanna so yeah my nature is to look for what's right. And it's your nature. I can see it on your testing that you have very positive mindset.

And you said you've worked on that. Repressed negativity causes pain. And so when you're really angry, you have to be able to express it in a positive, rational, not positive, but in a useful, acceptable way. This is why Pollyanna meets Hannibal Lecter. When you're really filled with rage, there's got to be a way to get it out rather than stuff it. Because if you stuff it,

your back hurts. If you stuff it, your neck hurts. If you stuff it, you hurt. It comes out. And so rage journaling is something that I like, I think can be really helpful. I love this. Have somebody that you can talk to where you go, that just really pisses me off. So you don't always look on the bright side. Okay, that makes sense. I like that.

You know, one of the things my patients often tell me when they start living a brain healthy lifestyle, people in their lives ask them if they've gotten work done because their skin looks younger. Their skin looks healthier. Your skin is the largest organ in your body. And the health of your skin is an outside reflection of the health of your brain. Wow. So my brain, you told me, looks older than I am. Not happy about that. But if I get my brain to be a little bit healthier, that will then affect the way I look. Yes. That's incredible.

Yeah. If you want to look younger, then everything that you do that's good for your brain is good for your skin. That's amazing. And often people go, you know, since I started the multiple vitamin and the fish oil, my nails are better. And my hair person says my hair is thicker. Yeah. I mean, it all makes sense. So for a lot of people, if this is the first time they're hearing this information, it can be overwhelming. It can be a lot. And I think most people don't know where to start. So if

someone came to you and said, okay, I want to get serious about what I'm doing, but where is the most important place for me to start? That one question, is this good for my brain or bad? Okay. Yeah. And quite frankly, most second graders know the answer. Yeah. I went to my daughter's second grade class and I wrote 20 things on the board. And I'm like, separate these for me. Good for the brain or bad for it. They got 19 out of 20 right. Amazing.

The only thing they missed was orange juice, which they put in the good category. That's not good. When it really belongs in the bad category. Tell me why. Because whenever you unwrap fruit sugar from its fiber source, it turns toxic in your body. I didn't know that. We're living with a generation of children with fatty livers. It's not alcohol.

It's fruit juice. Yeah. There's a great YouTube video on this by Robert Lustig. It's called Sugar, The Bitter Truth. It's got like 10 million views. It's so interesting because fruit is one of those things that, you know, one year it's the worst thing for you. Stay away from it. And then it's like, no, fruit's so good for you. So, but you're saying just the juice itself and orange on its

own is great. Orange is awesome. Okay. It's just when you. But you also, you want to be thinking high fiber, low glycemic. So glycemic index is how quickly does this food raise your blood sugar. And I'm a huge fan of continuous glucose monitors. So it's because half the population is diabetic or pre-diabetic. This is a disaster for your skin and it's a disaster for your brain. And so if you want to keep your blood sugar at a healthy level, stop eating things that spike it. Yeah. And so orange juice spikes your blood sugar. But oranges don't because you're also consuming the fiber.

Right. No. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. That's so interesting. And parents think, I'm a good parent because my son eats drinks, boxed apple juice. And the boxed apple juice is filled with bisphenol A from the plastics.

And it's just sugar. Yeah. Right? Fruit juice is sugar. and it's just sugar, right? Fruit juice is sugar. I don't know why in my head I thought, oh, well, if it's fresh squeezed, that's better for you. Freshly squeezed sugar. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Well, Dr. Amen, you're incredible. I mean, you're helping so many people and I really, really appreciate you taking the time because I know you're very busy, but thank you so much. And then tell everybody where they can find you on socials, if they want to come and get their brain scanned, all the things. What a joy to talk to you. Thank you for having me on. Amen Clinics, like the last word in a prayer, amenclinics.com to learn about our work. They can follow me on Instagram, docamen, doc underscoreon on TikTok. Amazing. And I have a new book out called

Raising Mentally Strong Kids, where I talk about all of this. I'll make sure you have a copy. Yeah, I would love. I'm leaving here with multiple books today. I'm very excited about it. So thank you. You're welcome.