On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Dr. Daniel Amen: ON The Most Powerful Habits For A Healthy & Productive Brain

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon.Jay Shetty sits down with the most popular psychiatrist in America, Dr. Daniel Amen, who’s also Justin Bieber’s doctor. Dr. Amen has spent his career studying correlations between brain health and mental illness. He is forever discovering new ways in which the brain is shaped by environment, trauma, and health.Dr. Amen will tackle some common misconceptions about mental health and the brain and learn the 11 things you should avoid for a healthy brain. Text Jay Shetty 310-997-4177 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets.

Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nunehm. I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bon vivant, but mostly a human just trying to figure out what it's all about. And not lost is my new podcast about all those things.

It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place and to really understand it, I try to get invited to a local's house for dinner where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party, it doesn't always work out. Ooh, I'll have to get back to you. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

The world of chocolate has been turned upside down. A very unusual situation. You saw this taxocation in our office. Chocolate comes from the cacao tree, and recently, Varietta's cacao fought to have been lost centuries ago where we discovered in the Amazon. There is no chocolate on earth like this.

Now some chocolate makers are racing, deep into the jungle to find the next game-changing chocolate, and I'm coming along. OK, that was a very large crack it up. Listen to obsessions, wild chocolate. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcast. Thoughts are automatic, they just happen. They're based on complex chemical reactions and things from the past. And maybe not even your past, it could be your parents past or grandparents past and they lie.

They lie alive just because you have a thought has nothing to do with weather or not. It's true. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you who come back every week to listen, to learn and to grow. Now, I am so excited to be talking to you today. I can't believe it.

My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out and I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to eight rulesoflove.com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love.

So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour. Love rules. Go to jsheddytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to see you this year. In our 12 months that we've been live, that we started 14th of February in 2019, there's only been one guest who's been on

the podcast twice. And obviously that's my wife. But out of all the other guests, there was only one other guest that we've had on in the same year. And he is our guest today. Now he was one of the most popular and one of your favorite episodes from last year. So I'm so excited for this conversation. This was truly one of those podcasts that I remember recording. And anytime I'm asked in an interview or a conversation, who is your favorite podcast? This is the one I talk about. So I literally feel that today's guest,

as you all know, Dr. Daniel Aiman is one of the best guests we've had, hand down. And I'm so excited for today's conversation. Now, for those of you who missed it, the Washington Post called Dr. Daniel Aiman, the most popular psychiatrist in America. He's a double-board certified psychiatrist, and 12-time New York Times best-selling author.

Dr. Daniel Aiman is on the forefront of a new movement within medicine and related disciplines that aims at ending mental illness. Dr. Aiman draws on the latest findings of neuroscience to challenge an outdated psychiatric paradigm and help people take control and improve the health of their own brain, minimizing all reversing conditions that may be preventing them from living a life that's emotionally healthy. Dr. Amin's research team has published more than 70 scientific articles. He's the lead research on the world's largest brain imaging study on professional football players. His credentials

can fill a book, so I'll stop there. And I'm so happy to have him on today's show and talk about his new book, The End of Mental Illness. So we're going to be putting the link to this book into the comments and the captions. And of course, I highly, highly recommend you go and grab a copy of the book. Dr. Daniel Aiman, thank you for being here. Say what a pleasure. This is honestly the best. I mean it every time I'm asked, what's your favorite episode? I talk about this episode. No, thank you so much. And it's not an overstatement. It's everything you share, the way you share it, the way you talk about it, your ability to go between spirituality and science and faith and facts.

Like for me, that's kind of where I get so excited and you're just that person that embodies all of it. So thank you for being there and thank you for doing the work that you do. Well, you're welcome. I have to do it because if you don't look at the brain, how the heck would you ever know? And these aren't mental illnesses, their brain illnesses. And I opened the book with actually a story of when I was coming to your podcast.

You know, I was so excited about it. And in the corner of Hollywood and Vine, there's this homeless person who's disheveled and has blood on his face. He's talking to himself. And most of my colleagues would have went, how he gets frened or he has unstable bipolar disorder, why won't he take his medication? And in my mind, I'm like, well, when did he have his last head injury? Does he have Lyme disease?

Is his gut a complete mass? I mean, why is he not able to make sense of his life? And it's not what most people think. It's not that he has a psychiatric illness or a bad attitude. It's something physically wrong with the health of his brain. And what I've learned is get your brain right, and then your mind follows. Yeah, and I love that approach. It makes so much logical sense to me.

And as someone who's fascinated by neuroscience, I couldn't agree more when you start looking at the stats and the data. But I want to start a bit personally this time with you before we dive into all of that. You were named after your grandfather. I was. And you had a very close connection, and you know, really close friendship growing up. What was key to that connection that you had? Well, I was named after him. Yeah. And he was my best friend. I'm one of seven, and I'm completely not special. So in 11ese family, the oldest boy is the golden child. Well, I have an older brother and I have older sister.

And so I was completely not special, but I was totally special to him. And he was a candy maker. That was his profession. So my earliest memories are standing at the stove, making fudge, making pralines. And I actually have a company called BrainMD that makes healthy chocolate because he was overweight, he had heart disease, and his funeral is the saddest day of my life.

I would still make me cry because I was so connected to him. And that matters. I mean, he lives in me every day, because he was just such a kind person. Hmm. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. It's always nice to hear about that, because it sounds like it's inspired a lot of your work today

and the way you approach it, especially when someone's your best friend. And in 1979, you told your father you wanted to be a psychiatrist. Ha, ha, ha. How do you decide that? I feel like psychiatry today is such a rapidly growing industry. It's becoming even more important with the challenges that we're seeing today's generations have.

But how did you in 1979 think of this career path and know that it was something you wanted to dedicate your life to? So a little bit earlier, when I turned 18, the government still had a draft, and I had a very low draft number, which meant see you later. And I became an infantry medic, where my love of medicine was born. But about a year into that, I realized I didn't like being shot at. It was just not my thing. Some people like that, I didn't.

And I got myself retrained as an x-right technician and developed a passion for imaging. Because our professors used to say, how do you know unless you lock? And then I got out of the army, went to medical school. And in 1979, someone I loved tried to kill herself. And I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I came to realize if he helped her, which he did, it wouldn't just help her. It would help her children and even her grandchildren, as they would be shaped by someone who was happier and more stable. So I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it has the potential to change generations

of people. But I fell in love with the only medical, especially that never looks at the organ. It treats, and I knew it, then it was wrong. And so now I tell my dad, I wanna be a psychiatrist and unlike my relationship with my grandfather, I had a really lousy relationship with my dad, who was never home.

He worked all the time. His favorite word growing up, I don't know, can I say this, it was bullshit time, his favorite word growing up. I don't know, can I say this? It was bullshit. His second favorite word was no. I mean, bullshit now. And I tell him I want to be a psychiatrist and he asked me why I don't want to be a real doctor.

Why I want to be a nut doctor and hang out with nuts all day long. Now, great story. He is now my best friend, but it took a long time. And 40 years later, I really get why he said that because we don't act like real doctors. I mean, what other medical doctor doesn't look at the organ their treating cardiologist look, neurologist look, your orthopedic doctor looks, your GI doctor looks every other physician evaluates the organ, their treating, psychiatrist's guess. And I knew it was wrong. And so part of my path was how do we look at the organ we're treating?

It's the brain, right? People go, it's your mind. Well, where does your mind come from? Your brain. Damage your brain. You damage your mind. Yeah, and tell it's incredible that you kind of clucked onto that so early on. Like, that sounds crazy to believe that even now, since you've been involved in this world and writing so many incredible books that we haven't caught on with that conversation.

I feel the conversation is still mental illness. That's still, and that's obviously what you're trying to solve. Tell me what we're missing in the conversation. Why are we missing that in the conversation? Why are we not talking more about the brain and why are people not as focused on improving their brain as they should be? In the 1680s, a feisty opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover.

In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. negotiated her cruise way to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about.

I'm your host, Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leave feeling amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Mi'amla, and on my podcast, the R-Spot, we're having inspirational, educational, and sometimes difficult and challenging conversations about relationships. They may not have the capacity to give you what you need and insisting means that you are abusing yourself now. You human!

That means that you're crazy as hell, just like the rest of us. When a relationship breaks down, I take copious notes and I want to share them with you. Anybody with two eyes and a brain knows that too much Alfredo sauce is just no good for you. But if you're gonna eat it, they're not gonna stop you. Yup. So he's gonna continue to give you the Alfredo sauce and put it even on your grits if you don't stop him. Listen to the art spot on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or him, listen to the R-Spot on the iHeart video app Apple Podcast or wherever

you listen to podcasts. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oh, pro. Everything that has happened to you can also be a strength builder for you if you allow it. Kobe Bryant. The results don't really matter.

It's the figuring out that matters. Kevin Haw. It's not about us as a generation at this point. It's about us trying our best to create change. Luberyns Hamilton. That's for me being taken that moment for yourself each day, being kind to yourself, because I think for a long time

I wasn't kind to myself. And many, many more. If you're attached to knowing, you don't have a capacity to learn. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. So you remember when Sandy Hook happened. Yes. And President Obama came on television that night and said we need more money for mental health. And I'm like, oh great. Almost all of these young school shooters had seen psychiatrists. Almost

all of them had taken medication before they committed their heinous acts. More money for what we currently do is going to get us more of what we currently have. Did you know 23% of women between the ages of 20 and six year taking antidepressant medication? That's insane. You were not born with a pro-zact deficiency. It's because our brains aren't right. Our habits aren't right. We have no love on our respect for the brain. I mean, here we are in this incredibly beautiful place in LA where homelessness is skyrocketing. And people don't know, 50% of people who are homeless had a significant brain injury before they were homeless. So you can do whatever you want from a societal standpoint to help the homeless, but if you

don't help their brains, you're not going to help the situation. Absolutely, that's a great answer. What are the causes of brain injury? Let's say someone's listening or watching right now, and they're saying, yeah, Dr. Daniel Aiman, I agree, but I've never had any serious brain injury. I've never had an accident. I've never been a American football player.

I've never done boxing. Tell us some of the things that actually cause brain injury and some of the ones that might surprise us. So in the book, actually, bulk of the book, I talk about if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if it's headed for the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. That's still your mind. And there's a mnemonic I have called bright minds.

Well, the agent bright minds is head trauma. And if you said, hey Daniel, single most important thing you've learned from 160,000 scans, mild traumatic brain injury ruins people's lives and nobody knows it. So yes, it could be a concussions from plane football. Even if you never had a concussion, it's the sub-concussive blows just from playing. I just saw a professional soccer player this week and he told our intake person, never had a concussion. And I asked him because his brain was damaged.

I'm like, so many times if you had a soccer ball with your head and he's like thousands, tens of thousands of times your brain is soft, your skull is hard, your skull has sharp, bony ridges. Don't let your children play taco football. Don't let them hit soccer balls with their head, but it also comes from skateboarding accidents, from falling out of a tree, from falling down a flight of stairs from being in a car accident and go, oh, I had a whiplash injury, but I didn't have a head injury. Well, if you had a whiplash injury, that meant you had a head injury because what's on top of your neck, it's your brain. And what about emotional trauma or emotional challenges with parenting growing up or any of that? How does that kind of emotional trauma, I published two studies, actually,

21,000 people showing I could separate PTSD emotional trauma from traumatic brain injury with high levels of accuracy. So with brain injuries, what you see is decreased blood flow in the brain, but with emotional trauma, their limbic brain, their emotional brain fires up. And so I dedicated this book to my two nieces. And they grew up in traumatic families, and they were taken by the police at the direction of child protective services and put into foster care. It's very traumatic for them.

And they have bad genetics. They have family history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, very traumatic for them. And they have bad genetics. They have family history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, multiple suicides, criminal behavior addiction. I mean, anything you can think of that. So, but genes only love the gun. It's what happens to us that pulls the trigger.

Well, unfortunately, they had both. And we actually didn't know them until we got the call from child protective services, at which point I knew my wife knew we needed tin or vene. And so the end of mental illness is how do I end it in them and their babies and grand babies? And you can see the emotional trauma in their brain, which the cool thing about that is you know it and then you can calm it down through some of the processes I talk about in the book. What are some of the things that we're doing wrong for our brain on a daily basis? Because I want everyone listening and watching now to gain some self awareness that they

can start recognizing some of the practices or some of the habits that they're actually causing more damage to their brain. Well, the first thing we're doing wrong is we don't care. When I saw my brain, so it was 1991 when I started doing spec'd what we do now. And I scanned my mom, she had a beautiful brain, and then I scanned myself, and I was 37 at the time, and it looked terrible. I'm like, why is my brain look terrible? I don't drink, I've never smoked, I've never done drugs, but I played football in high school.

And we were taught then to use your head as a weapon, right? Tackle people with your head. I had meningitis twice when I was a young soldier, and I had bad habits. I thought I was special, that I only needed four hours of sleep at night. I could get away with that.

And now I realize I wasn't special, I was stupid. I was overweight. I ate fast food like it was, like my best friend. And so not caring. And when I saw my brain, and I saw it was worse than my six-year-old mother's brain, I developed something I call brain envy. Freud was wrong.

He was about two and a half feet too low in the body, not once in my 40-year psychiatric career of my seeing penis envy, not once. It's brain envy. You want, I wanted her brain. So what do you have to do? Care, that's brain envy. And then avoid things that hurt it and do things that help it.

But the first thing we're doing wrong, I live in Newport Beach. And I always say we care more about our faces, our boobs, our bellies, and our butts. Then we do our brain. How insane is that when it's your brain that makes every single decision you make? And when it works, right? You work right.

So that's the first thing. The second thing, well, we just go through the Bright Minds risk factors because all of them have simple things that people could do. So bright minds be is for blood flow, low blood flows the number one number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease, but it's also associated with depression, schizophrenia and ADHD. And my older niece, Alize, when she first came to see me, really low blood flow. I didn't know why. She had mold in a house. She had some sort of environmental toxin. So I put her in a hyperbaric chamber and hyperbaric chambers increase blood flow. I also got her

exercising more because exercise increases blood flow. So if you've been wanting to exercise, but you haven't found the time, it'll save your brain, right? So that'll help you with motivation and brand new study out this week. So excited about this. Love you forever. I've been telling people, table tennis is the world's best brain game. What? Why? You got to get your eyes, hands, and feet all to work together while you think about the spin on the ball. It's a Robic chess. Brand new study was presented at the American Academy of Neurology this week that table tennis

improves Parkinson's disease. And I love it. So what kind of exercise should you do? People who play racquet sports live longer than anybody else. So ping pong, table tennis, squash. You want to do a coordination exercise. And dance is also incredibly good for your brain. As long as you're not drinking while you're dancing that sort of ruins the benefit

So for blood flow it's exercise Simple things supplements like ginkgo increase blood flow foods like beats or a regano cayenne pepper the spicier the better as long as it's not artificial spices The R is retirement and aging. When you stop learning, that's why I envy your job because you're always learning. When you stop learning, your brain starts dying. Do you sell stuff online? Well, I have a way to help you make 2020 a lot less crazy and a lot more successful. It's called shipstation.

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slash on purpose. That's joinhoney.com forward slash on purpose. That's joinhoney.com forward slash on purpose. And so new learning has to be part of everything you do. And then if your ferritin level is high, that's a measure of iron storage. If your ferritin level is high prematurely ages, your brain. So I know there's all this controversy on red meat. Should you have it? Shouldn't you have it? Well, it depends on your iron level. If you have low levels of iron, red meat can actually be really helpful. Just make it healthy red meat. But if your iron level is like mine, they tend to run too high. I donate blood on a regular basis. Good for me. Good for someone else. It's like the perfect exercise. The eye is just devastating in this country now. It's inflammation. And inflammation

comes from low levels of omega-3 fatty acids, 97% of people have low suboptimal levels of omega-3s when we test them, horrifying processed food. And of all things gum disease. Gum disease increases inflammation in your body, which increases heart disease and brain disease. So, flossing and then getting your gut healthy. Probiotics can help. The G is genetics, but we think of genetics wrong. I think people go, oh, I'm diabetic because my parents are

that because my parents are, you know, my grandfather had heart disease and he was overweight, but I don't have heart disease and I'm not overweight. Why? Because I see genes not as a death sentence, but as a wake-up call. What do I need to do to prevent those? And one of my favorite stories in the book is Lisa Gibbons, Lisa's a friend of mine. She's a well-known media personality whose mother and grandmother died with Alzheimer's disease. And I was on her television show a lot, and I'm always sort of, no, come on,

you need to come see me. And she's like, oh, I don't want to know. And I'm like, no, you want to know. If you knew a train was going to hit you, wouldn't you at least want to get out of the way and so she went through a hard time and I saw her when She's 51 and a brain look terrible. I'm like no you're vulnerable and she's so smart She just did everything I asked her to do and I just scanned her again 10 years later I asked her to do and I just scanned her again 10 years later who brings dramatically better. Wow.

Which is the theme of my life. You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. And you're not too old. And I. You lay it's. Yeah. It's only too late when you're dead.

Right. Because even people with dementia, if you feed them crappy food, they are going to lose their mind at a more rapid pace. If you feed them healthy food, they will retain or maybe even improve their cognitive function. The H we talked about, which is head trauma, so avoid it. T is toxins. There's so much to talk about here. And when I first started scanning people, I was the director of a substance abuse treatment program. And it's, there's no question in my mind, alcohol, marijuana, meth amphetamines, cocaine, heroin, um, and he's ecstasy bad for your brain. Now at some point when I get, we can talk about ketamine and things like that and how it

can, for some people be helpful, but no question, drugs and alcohol are not good for your brain. And I'm a little horrified by the marijuana discussion now. And I never tried to take political sides. I love everybody. But when one of the Democratic candidates says, yes, I'm going to legalize marijuana in day one. And then I'm gonna teach the black, brown,

and American Indian minority communities to sell it. I'm like, that's insane. You're gonna keep people down by doing that. You're just not thinking. I published a study on a thousand marijuana smokers. Every area of their brain is lower. Now, I absolutely think it should be legal, really. Let's not put people in jail, that's a bad use

of everybody's resources, but let's not say it's good for us. And here in LA, I mean, just coming to the podcast, I must have seen six dispensaries. It's like, I'm not a fan. But what I learned through the imaging is there's a whole bunch of other things that are toxic for us like mold or Environmental toxins. So I love firefighters and first responders. I've scanned hundreds of them

They almost all have toxic looking brains because of the carbon monoxide that they breathe in or the cyanide that comes from burning furniture So what do you recommend to them because that's their career and their job and what change is amazing? Well, it's sort of like football. You know, my professional football players are going to still play. One of them signed an $80 million contract. If you're going to do something that's potentially bad for your brain, you have to do everything else. Right. So rather than wait until firefighters retire, they have double the risk of suicide. I mean, how that's shameful for us

that we're not taking care of the people. Our first responders, because football players really aren't heroes, they're not entertainers. Firefighters are heroes. You need them. We should be rehabilitating them all the way along. We should just own it, be it a firefighter, it's brain damaging, profession, it just is. And if it is, let's protect them from it.

And you know, one simple thing the listeners can do is don't put toxic things on your body. When I wrote my book Memory Rescue, I learned about how toxic products are for us, you know, if you put on shaving cream, for example, Barbosol. It was what I've used since I was 14. It was like 50 years, this stuff on my face, that on a scale of one to 10 of how quickly it's killing you is a nine. And now I put something on my face called kiss my face and it's a two. Why? Because I love myself. And they go, oh, it's expensive. It's like no, being sick is expensive. This stuff is inexpensive. And by the way, it lasts like 20 times longer than barbersol. So it's cheaper. Yeah. So products. The M is mind storms.

It's abnormal electrical activity that often increases with sugar. And so if you're having problems with anxiety, with your moods, with your temper, kill the sugar, right? Your diet can just make such a difference. The second eye is immunity and infections. Know your vitamin D level. I'm in a new docu-series with Justin Bieber. It came out fantastic. I've been watching. second eye is immunity and infections, know your vitamin D level. I'm in a new docu-series with Justin Bieber. He came out. It's fantastic. I've been watching.

Yeah. He came out with his mental health challenge and I've been his doctor. And he has Lyme disease, which is an infection that attacks your brain. And he has antibodies that actually attack the dopamine receptors in his brain. And dopamine gives you joy and it gives you motivation and gives you pleasure. And you know, my prayer for my young stars is dear God, please don't let me be famous before my brain's finished developing because it's damaging. And I'm just so proud of him that he's been talking about his journey to getting well. And he's just so much better. But the infectious thing is so important. And nobody knows about it. Right. You go to he went to a psychiatrist in LA. He said, Oh, you have bipolar disorder here. Take lithium.

And at which point, Haley said, no, we're going to go see Dr. Aiman. And I scanned him and have bipolar disorder. He had something was attacking his brain. And how would we ever know if we didn't look? And is neurohormone deficiencies? And so many young men have low testosterone. And you're like, oh, why is that? Gabi head injury can lower because it hurts the Oregon in your brain your pituitary gland that tells your body to produce hormones or it's all these toxins on

Our body that are called hormone disruptors. You don't ever want to put a hormone disruptor on your body because your hormones are like miracle grow for your brain. Anybody who has thyroid problems listening to this, no, you're either anxious, depressed, low energy, and so on. The D is diabetes city. We could just go on and on about this one. But I have published several studies now that say as your wake goes up, the physical size and function of your brain goes down. And if you're overweight, you automatically now have five risk factors because being overweight decreases blood flow to the brain. It increases inflammation.

It stores toxins and it decreases your hormones. So belly fat takes healthy testosterone and flips it into unhealthy cancer promoting forms of estrogen. This is a bad thing, right? And you go to the mall, almost any city in America now, and you're like, why are all these pregnant men here? Right? I mean, you just like you have to deliver that. Maybe it's not good for you. And then the S is sleep. 60 million Americans have sleep related problems. And in 1900, and I know I wasn't around 1900, but on average, we got nine hours of sleep.

And now on average, we get six and a half. That change, it's such a joy, evolutionary spirit. But we're all the wrong lights now. Yeah. It's disrupting the production of melatonin in our brain, which is why you should turn off your gadgets at dark. Yeah. Absolutely.

No, by the way, first of all, thank you for walking us through that. It's very generous of you because that new morning in the book is so powerful. And anyone who's listening or watching right now, I highly recommend that when you get the book, that's a great place to start and really look at those because you can go through that list and look at which are the ones that are affecting you the most, which are the ones that you'll notice seeing, the ones you're not aware of. Like, that's a great map to start with, I find, because it really helps you figure out what Which are the ones that are affecting you the most? Which are the ones that you'll know to seeing? The ones you're not aware of? Like that's a great map to start with, I find, because it really helps you figure out

what are you struggling with and what you're not. Now, when you look at those, one of the things I love that you do is, it's so practical to just start with one of them. Because oftentimes they're interconnected. Like you talk a lot about how, when we eat later on the day, then that's worse for our sleep. And when we eat close to when we sleep,

that's bad for our sleep. And then that's bad for our brain. And it's almost like this vicious cycle that one bad habit leads to another, leads to another, leads to another. And it just keeps imprinting negative impact on our brain, right? It's all interconnected.

It's not, and I love what you said. It's like just do one thing. Yeah, just start with one thing to start with, is this little tiny habit in the book. They're all these tiny habits. The smallest thing I can do today that'll make the biggest difference. And it's just ask yourself this question three seconds. Whenever you're going to do something, so whenever I'm going to drink this water, is it good for my brain or bad for it? I love that. And if I can answer that with information and love, I love myself. I love my wife.

I love my children. I love my nieces. I love my mission. I love where I work. You can answer it with information and love. You start doing the right things. Yeah, and I've said this a lot to my audience actually in my private coaching group, I've not said it so much here on the podcast, but what you're saying is so true that when you

ask yourself that question, is this good for my brain or bad for my brain? Am I acting in a way that I love myself or am I showing myself that I don't love myself? You can only answer that question authentically if you know the research. Otherwise it's really hard to convince yourself that you're doing the right thing or the wrong thing. So, when I'm having this conversation with you, now I know the next time I try and do any of these things that are bad for me, I've got your voice in my head, asking me this question,

I've got your voice walking me through which are the steps that I'm making mistakes on. And that's where anyone who's listening to this podcast right now, if you listen to Dr. Daniel Aiman's podcast, you're now in a better place to make better decisions all the time. Then if you listen to a podcast once a year or read a page of this book but don't really dive into it, you're missing out on your mind actually being able to help you. So one of the things I love that you talk about is ants, right? Automatic negative thoughts. And you talk about how sometimes our thoughts can lie to us. What walk us through that?

So I never knew this until my psychiatric training. It just blows me away that every time you ever thought your brain releases chemicals, every single time you have a thought. Whenever you have an angry thought, a hopeless thought, a helpless thought, a mean thought, your brain releases chemicals that actually change your body and it happens immediately. Your hands get colder, they get wetter, your breathing changes, your heart rate changes, your blood flow to your brain drops. I actually did a study on negative thinking patterns in the brain. But the opposite is also true. Whenever you have a happy thought, a hopeful thought, a loving thought, a purposeful thought, your brain releases completely different set of chemicals

that help relax your body. Thoughts are automatic. They just happen. They're based on complex chemical reactions and things from the past, and maybe not even your past. It could be your parents past, or your grandparents past. And they lie. They lie alive. Just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true. And one day after really hard day of work, I saw four suicidal patients, two couples who hated each other and two teenagers who'd run away from home. And I went home and I was tired,

and I came home to an ant infestation in my kitchen. They were everywhere. And as I'm wiping them up, I'm thinking to myself, ants, automatic negative thoughts. My patients are infested. And so I came the next day to work with a can of raid, and spray.

And then I'm like, okay, that's not good. So later I replaced that with an ant eater puppet, and an ant puppet. And that concept is just so helpful. You don't have to believe every stupid thing you think. And so here's the tiny habit. Whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking and just ask yourself, if it's true, my friend Byron Katie, I don't know if you've had her on the podcast. I haven't, but I know she is. She's one of the books I'm incredible.

I love her. Yeah. She just teaches you to ask these five simple questions. You know, you had a bad thought, write it down. My wife never listens to me. And then just these five questions, is it true? Yes. You know, if you're mad, it's absolutely true. Second question. No, she listens to me all the time. She's listened all 14 of my public television scripts, like multiple times. The third question is really interesting. How do you feel when you believe the thought? I feel sad. I feel disconnected. I'm sort of angry. I'll give myself permission to be rude to her. That's not a good idea. The fourth question is, how would you feel without the thought,

like a good husband? And then you take the original thought and turn it to the opposite, my wife does listen to me, and just see if you can find one or two examples. But those five questions dramatically change the people I serve. If they can, I can just, and I tell people, they say it in the book, you need to do 100 bad thoughts and just do those five questions with the 100 bad thoughts and then the answer will begin to go away from your life. Yeah, I think, thank you for sharing that. I think that's such a practical and great system. Please, when you're listening to this podcast, when you get a moment today,

when you're finishing your commute, or you've stopped walking your dog, or you've stopped cooking, take a moment to actually do this activity, or you're highly, highly recommend it, because when you see yourself start getting through one thought and two, and then five, you'll start to see how you're rewiring your brain,

just by doing this very simple activity, just so, please, do not take that activity lightly, it sounds like, I'll just do it in my head, no, don't do it in your head. Write it down, do it step by step, break it down. Like take the advice really, really seriously. One of the things I love about in the book, you talk about different types of brain

and getting to learn about our different types of brains that we have. Tell us about the process of how we can become more aware. Can we do it without imaging and without scans or do we really need, obviously we need to do that to get the deepest. I can't wait to get my brain scanned with you. It's something I am 100% going to do. But how can we get to know our brains better? So a long time ago I realized not everybody has the same brain.

I mean, some people are lucky and they have pretty balanced brains. But there's a whole group of people who have what I call spontaneous brains. They have sleepy frontal lobes more with the ADD group. They're other people and these two people tend to marry each other. The spontaneous and the persistent, the persistent brain. Tell us more about that. Tell us more about my spontaneous. I want to figure out what me and my wife are.

So the spontaneous, they have sleepy frontal lobes. So they're creative. They're out of the box thinkers. They can interrupt. They get distracted easily. They might not be graded organization. Okay. So that's the spontaneous type, the persistent type, they get stuff done when they say it,

they're early, but it has to be their way or they get upset. They can worry, hold grudges if things don't go their way, they get upset. Now, you want your neurosurgeon to be a little bit like that. We're going to do it. We're going to do it this way. We're going to do it perfectly. We're going to do it all the time.

And then there's the sensitive brain where their emotional system is increased and they make really good therapists, but they tend to see the glass as half empty rather than as half full. So they can go to sadness quickly. And then there's the cautious people. And you need some anxiety. Let's just be clear. The people with the lowest level of anxiety, this spontaneous group, they also die early because from accidents and preventable illnesses,

these are the people that run with the bulls in Spain. It's like, why? But the cautious people, they tend to be more anxious, more nervous. And you want the sort of persistent and cautious to be, I hire them all the time because it's like, no, I want to do the best job possible. And then there's actually 16 types, but six through 16 are combinations of those types. So for example, if you grew up in an alcoholic calmer, you have a lot of alcoholism in your family. You tend to be type six, which is both spontaneous and persistent or what I might call impulsive and compulsive at the same time. I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of

my podcast Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior and words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took.

But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissists in your life. Each week you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our twenties are seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, full in love, make mistakes and decide what we want

from our life. But what can psychology really teach us about this decade? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, friendships, and much more to explore the science and the psychology behind our experiences, incredible guests, fascinating topics, important science, and a bit of my own personal experience. Audrey, I honestly have no idea what's going on with my life. Join me as we explore what our twenties are really all about. From the good, the bad, and the ugly, and listen along as we uncover how everything is psychology,

including our twenties. The psychology of your twenties hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Now streaming on the iHotRadio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever whatever you get your podcasts. This is what it sounds like inside the box car. I'm journalist and I'm Morton in my podcast City of the Rails. I plunged into the dark world of America's railroads, searching for my daughter Ruby who ran off to hop train. I'm just like stuck on this train, not where I'm going to end up and I jump. Following my daughter, I found a secret city of unforgettable characters living outside society,

off the grid and on the edge. I was in love with a lifestyle and the freedom of this community. No one understands who we truly are. The rails made me question everything I knew about motherhood, history, and the thing we call the American dream. It's the last vestige of American freedom. Everything about it is extreme. You're either going to die, or you can have this incredible rebirth, and really understand who you are.

Come with me to find out what waits for us and the city of the rails. Listen to city of the rails on the I Heart Radio appio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts or cityoftherails.com. And what are the good partnerships? Which are the ones that do work well together? Well, the ones I see in my office the most are the spontaneous guys married to the persistent women. She was so attracted to him because he was the life of the party and he didn't have the same inhibitions that she had, but his lack of follow-through just makes her crazy. I have great stories. One of my first imaging stories. I saw these, because I'm also a child psychiatrist and this couple, Judy and Gary brought their kids to me.

And the little boy had, they both had ADD, the little girl responded to the simple treatments I gave a little boy, didn't. And so I'm like, I need to see him. So I saw him in weekly counseling. And then I realized, oh, the reason he's not getting better is mom and dad hate each other. And I'm like, oh, so I said, you

know, I think I should see you guys to work on your relationship. And they go, Dr. Amen, we really like you a lot. But we saw for other marital therapists and they always make it worse. And I'm like, in my head, and never have this thought because in my head, I'm like, well, maybe they didn't see anybody really good. So I had that thought, boy, I regret that thought because so they saw me and I had two leather couches in my office and I sat on the opposite end of each couch. And that's how they naturally sat when they were. It was terrible. Okay.

And he was always late. He would always say things that would hurt her feelings. She would hold onto it. She, I would say she things that would hurt her feelings. She would hold onto it. I would say she has a PhD in grudge holding. She's holding on to stuff from 15 years ago that his mother dead. And after about four months, I actually knew I wasn't going to be helpful. But you know, I'm persistent. And at nine months, whenever I'd see him on my schedule, my stomach would hurt. And this one morning, I'd see him on my schedule, my stomach would hurt. And this one morning, I realized I'm on my schedule and my stomach started to hurt.

I'm in the shower and I said, today I'm going to tell them to get divorced because it is not good for children to be raised in chronic stress. But I grew up Catholic like my mother was not kidding about the whole thing. And, you know, divorce was like a really bad thing. And so the Catholic voice visited me in the shower and said, what? Because you're not a good enough therapist, they're going to get divorced and you're going to dam their souls to hell. And I just stared at the water faucet. Like, how much therapy does this take to get over? And then I got out of the

thing, I got out of the shower and called my mentor who taught me imaging. And I'm like, would you give me two scans for the price of one? And he's like, why? I said, Jack, I have this couple and I don't know what to do with them. He said, couple scans. What about brainmatch.com? It's just like so interesting. So anyways, we scanned him. He had low frontal lobes, just like my spontaneous group.

And I was mad at myself because I missed that. He had adult ADD and it's one of my specialties. And she had a brain that would just work way too hard. And so she had like a nocy. She there wasn't no CD, but she had no CD like brain. And so I put her on Prozac, him on Ritalin, just to balance their brain. And told him I didn't want to see him for a month because I was having trouble dealing with the stress. And when they came back a month later,

they sat on the same couch. She had her hand on his leg. That's a good sign in marital therapy. And now we're 30 years later, they're still married. No way. The children are like in their 40s. And they came to an event I did. And it just without knowing that, they could have done therapy forever. But if you don't have the map, yeah. How do you know what to do?

I'm just not like a fan of guessing. It makes so much sense. I feel like what you're doing is, so it's almost like we've always talked about this, that with the body, it's very easy to see it before and after. You look at the body and you're like, oh, my muscle's getting bigger, am I losing weight, am I gaining weight, whatever it is.

And what you're literally letting people do is do the same with the brain. Right. Like, you can literally see it get better. I've seen and I share a lot of your posts on the brain because you're able to show us what a healthy brain looks like. You're able to show us what a brain on marijuana looks like. You're able to show us what a brain with specific diseases looks like. And it's like when you see it physically look different,

you know whether you're making progress. And I think that's half the issue with the mind. And the brain is that people think you can't see it. But based on the imaging you can, and talking about couple matching and brain matching, you just shared something with me before we started the podcast, which I love, by the way. It just shows how much you believe in what you're saying.

It's, this is the proof. I forget all the studies that Dr. Daniel Aiman's done, forget all the people he's guided. This is the real proof that he practices what he preaches. So Dr. Daniel Aiman before we started the interview, he told me that anyone who has once to date his kids, they have to get their brain scanned. Right? Absolutely. That is amazing. Like that to me is more. I have four children. Yeah, tell us about it. Yeah. How old are they now?

The oldest is 42. And then 35 and then 33. And the youngest is 16. And she starts dating Michael. And I love Michael. Michael's a good boy. But in my mind, they're really not dating until I see his brain. And when Michael was 12, his mother killed herself. And he found her. And I'm like, no, I need to know. And he's such a good kid. Scanned his brain. It was busy and he had struggled with anxiety. And on the things that I recommended for him, he's just done so much better.

And now he like refers people to us. And one of my kids, I scan the brain of his partner and I'm like, please don't marry her because it was not good. It was not healthy. And it turned out she had an addiction issue that he didn't know about, but he didn't listen to me. And that was trouble. And then, you know, I was married for 20 years and it was not a good marriage. And so I told myself, I got divorced in 2000. If I ever got married again, the first naked part of this person I wanted to see was their brain.

And I met Tana, my wife, and she's a neurosurgical ICU nurse. So we sort of bonded over the brain. So excited for you to meet her. And two and a half weeks later, I'm like, sweetheart, you haven't seen the clinic. Don't you wanna see the clinic? And we scanned her and it was good. So I felt okay marrying her. That's amazing.

That to me is the real proof. Above it, I love everything. That's the real deal. And we were talking about how like, your partner is so important to your brain health, right? Your partner is just so important. We were speaking about how like your partner is so important to your brain health, right? Your partner is just so important. We were speaking about how incredible Haley is earlier and, you know, love Haley. She's amazing.

And it's just like that your partner is so important to your brain health. And I think we underestimate that when you fall in lust or love or, you know, infatuation or attraction. Right, I mean, new love works on the same area of your brain, where cocaine works. And on the nucleus accumbens, it responds to dopamine. And that's why you don't marry somebody until the love switches from cocaine to then it has an opiate response, and you just feel happy when you're around them, but you don't get the fluttering.

Yeah, cocaine's chemistry, like it's the same feeling. And you want alchemy, where you're creating something beautiful, not just going, oh, that person didn't do it for me because they didn't make my heart go fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably the guys that made your heart go fast broke your heart. What does the brain on love look like actually? So I wrote a book called Brain in Love.

Oh, I didn't know that, okay, so I know that. Yeah, it's a great book. Okay, one of my favorite chapters is how to use your head before you give your heart away. Oh, amazing. How do we dive into this for a bit? How to do an interview based on neuroscience to see if this person could be a good partner for me or not a good partner for me

but This actually studies done on people who had just fallen in love and their basal ganglia This is a part of the brain that responds to dopamine become much more active Just a little bit like OCD where all you can do is think about them, all you see is the good parts of them, and it disrupts brain function for a while, which is why be patient and meet their friends and meet their family and see what they're like

when you go out. Then there's questions. Like I think you wanna know about their family, you wanna know about their mom or dad, you wanna know about their friends, and you wanna meet them, and just see, does this fit? The goals I have, but if you don't have goals, how do you know if it fits?

So it's what, you know, I get frustrated with A.A. The first step in the addiction programs is know when you're out of control. And I'm like, that's step two. Step one is know what you want. What do you want? And in the book, I talk about an exercise called the One Page Miracle on one piece of paper, write down what you want. And then you ask yourself, is my behavior getting me what I want?

And if it's not, then we talk about, what do we need to change and often it's your brain? Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that because I think what happened in society at one point is obviously parents and family were very important in matching couples and bringing people together. I think, you know, like, I don't know, I think I saw a study once, which was like maybe, maybe it was a bit

more than 25 years ago, but around that time, it was very common for most people to be introduced through family, or you married someone who lived in like a one mile to five mile radius of where you grew up. And that started to change. And I remember growing up and just thinking, like, why doesn't it matter between me and the person. And it's like, and when I met my wife, my wife is an amazing relationship with her father. She has an amazing relationship with her mother and amazing relationship with her family.

And I know that that is so integral to who she is today. But it took me to that because in the beginning, I was just like, oh no, it's just about me and her. As long as me and her get along, that's all that matters. You totally marry their family. Yeah. You do. You totally marry their family. Yeah. You do. You totally marry their family.

Everyone does either indirectly or directly we marry her. The person. Although I give you a secret. Yeah. So when I met Tana, and Tana's actually working on a book that I love called the reluctant courage of a scared child. So she grew up with a lot of trauma. And I really liked her.

She's beautiful, she's smart, she's sweet, and how do you get someone to fall in love with you? This is a neuroscience strategy. You do something nice, important for someone they love. And we're dating for like three months, and her father, who she was estranged from, had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And her sisters, her half-sisters had no idea what to do. And now, Tan is a nurse, I'm a doctor, and I'm like, well, I know what to do. Let's bring him down, which made her anxious because she was estranged. And let me scan him.

And it turned out he didn't have Alzheimer's disease. He had something called pseudodementia, which is severe depression that masquerades as Alzheimer's disease. Plus, he's on a toxic cocktail of medication. And so I changed his medication, got him on supplements, put him on really the plan in the end of mental illness. And six months later, he's doing all day seminars.

I mean, he went from being a recluse that basically was just seeing how am I going to die to someone who lived and through the whole process, they were able to mend their relationship. And she fell in love with me. I love it. That's amazing. So awesome.

I love it. What I love about you, Dr. Daniel Aiman, is that you're so good at shifting between the micro and the macro. I feel like today we've talked about, we started talking about mental illness and how we need to change the language around it, we've talked about the actual changes we can make to our relationships and our particular habits and practices. Let's go back to the macro for a second. How would you like us in media, on podcasts, in this area, like us to change our vocabulary around how we talk about mental

illness, brain health, etc., which is going to help people actually get to the source of what's really going wrong. So the end and the government, everything, how do we have to change that vocabulary? Because I think that's a big part of it. So it's actually at the White House about 18 months ago, I'm part of a group called mental health leaders of faith and they're like, okay, big ideas. What are the big ideas? The end of mental illness will begin with a revolution in brain health. That we need to call these things what they really are. Just bring up mental illness, no one wants one. Parents will go, oh, we won't say anything about that. And it's shaming, it's stigmatizing. And it's wrong because they're not mental, they're brain. So we need to change the terminology

from a mental illness to a brain health issue. It's because when Justin came to see me and the switch happened When he came into my office and he looked at me and he said my heart my brain can have problems just like my heart can have problems If I had heart disease, I would do everything you told me I have a brain health issue I'm going to do what you tell me until then we were sort of fussing. Well, they do it won't even Yeah, All of that. But when you realize the brain is a physical organ that can have trouble, if somebody said you had cancer, you go do the one things to get it treated. If they said you had a liver problem, you'd go do the thing the doctor said, but because psychiatrists don't look at the brain, their patients actually

don't believe them. It's like, really, you made a diagnosis of bipolar disorder just based on my symptoms. Yeah, yeah. Without ever looking at it, which is, that's why one of the reasons I fell in love with imaging, because compliance went up and stigma went down. Those are like big deals. So my hope is we talk about these as brain health issues because, you know, how insane this is is you can have an addiction, go to an addiction treatment center and they give

you pancakes and waffles and candy. And it's like, are you people insane? He's got a brain problem. Why aren't you going to feed the brain? And there's a chapter in the book called Foods Made in Sainly Simple. And it's like, why aren't you going to feed it in a healthy way to get a healthy, I see that all the time. Response. So many of my friends struggling with so many main cancer, etc. And the diet sheet says no changes required as well.

Right. And I know that we want you to take more medication. Totally. Yeah. It's really. And we want you to take more medication. Totally. Yeah. It's and we're trying to do population control. Yeah. It's insane. It's crazy that we haven't changed that. Yeah. It's 50%. So this one study from Australia, I talk about it in the book. They looked at two outer islands. One of them had fast food restaurants. The other one didn't. And they measured their omega-3 index and the level of depression. The island with fast food restaurants significantly low levels of Omega-3 fatty acids in their blood and five times the level of depression.

It's the food. There's a linear correlation between the number of fruits and vegetables you eat today and your level of happiness up to eight servings of fruits and vegetables you eat today and your level of happiness, up to eight, serving some fruits and vegetables a day. I'm so glad I married my wife. She sort of that out for me. If I didn't have her, I'd probably be in the worst food.

She's been the one who's been so health-focused, exercised, she just brought all of that into my life. I was so focused on the mind and she helped me see all the similarities between the body and the mind. Well, because if you don't nourish your brain, it's hard to have a healthy mind. And that's that thing we need to understand. Plus, guys who are married live longer. But women who are married do not live longer because they have to deal with us.

That's crazy. I love it. Dr. Denny Neiman, you are amazing. We're going to go into the last couple of segments of the podcast. This is called fill in the blank. So I read out these sentences and you have to fill in the blank. So you ready? Yes. Okay. Great. So the first one is loving your brain means thinking about it every day. Nice. Yeah. Exactly. If you love someone, you think about them, right? I guess great. I love that. That's great. Ones. If you want to fry your brain, think of alcohol as a health food and marijuana is going green. Good answer. Good answer. I like that one. Okay. My best habit for my health is every morning I start the day with today is going to be a great day. Yeah, that people will have a great day. And every night, when I go to bed, I go, what

went well today? People love that from last time when you talked about it. I was huge for people. Okay. Meditation helps. Increase blood flow. We should brain and decreases the hyperactivity in your emotional brain. Meditation helps balance the brain. We should all limit sugar. So when I was a monk, I didn't eat sugar and I gave up sugar this January again. I've been having it. I've been cheating. I've been having one so weak. I've been having my favorite dessert. But it's changed my life. I remember it changed my life then, and I've been having it. I've been cheating. I've been having one so weak. I've been having my favorite is a But it's changed my life like I remember it changed my life then, but I thought maybe I was among there Let's talk about this once a week just for a second. I'll be your doctor just for a second. I'm like I'm scared now. Have you ever been in a bad relationship? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, me too

multiple times me too, and I'm not doing that anymore. I'm only going to love someone that loves me back. And I'm damn sure I'm not going to do it with food. So Drew Carey said it right. Eating crappy food isn't a reward. It's a punishment. And so whenever I go to eat something, I'm just asking myself, do I love it?

Because when I eat what I love, and does it love me back? Oh, that is so good. That is so good. I'm, oh wow. I feel terrible for last night now. I'm like, I'd really get it. That's so powerful.

That's like, that's like, That's the four-year-old. Yeah. What he wants, when he wants's the four year old. Yeah, wants what he wants when he wants Yeah, I'm gonna be good except here. Yeah, and it's like when is it rational for an alcoholic to have cheat days or a sex addict to have cheat days and you know, this is a pifty. I've just had a pifty. Yeah, I never thought about it like that. I love what you just said. It's not a reward. It's a punishment. That's huge. Wow. Okay. Can you be my doctor?

Yeah, absolutely. That was great. I love that. Okay. That was really good. The best foods for the brain are colorful fruits and vegetables, colorful low glycemic fruits and vegetables. fruits and vegetables. Healthy fat because 60% of the solid weight of your brain is fat, lots of fiber and high quality protein. And water your brain because 80% of it is water. What's the difference between an evil ruler and a good ruler? Some examples of it. It's one of my favorite parts of this book. I didn't want to end the philosophy. I just thought if I was an evil ruler, just looking at American society, and I went and

didn't crease the incidents of mental illness. What would I do? I put the worst foods on the bottom two shelves in the stores where children see them and beg for them. If I was an evil ruler, I would create addictive gadgets that steal people's attention span. If I was an addictive, if I was an evil ruler, I'd give the NFL a day of the week. I'd let them own a day of the week, which is basically had trauma glorification. If I was an evil ruler, I would tell older people to get up on ladders to clean out their gutters because falls are just so damaging.

If I was a good ruler, I would limit gadgets for kids, for sure, and get them out in the sun. Unfortunately, the dermatologist won. They made us afraid of the sun. And nearly 80% of us have low levels of vitamin D, which is a universal risk factor, not only for Alzheimer's disease and depression, but also for cancer. And by was an evil ruler, I'd continue to prescribe psychiatric medicines with no biological information, which is great for the pharmaceutical industry. It's just a freaking nightmare for our country. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. I love that too. It was just brilliant. And I just thought, if you get into that mindset for yourself, for society, for community, what would a good and evil rule

do? It becomes so clear what parts are tricking us. So thank you. That's beautiful. Okay. So these are your final five. You did remember them from last time. We have the rapid fire, fast fire, fast five questions.

So one word to one sentence answers maximum no more than that. And I will probably go off tangent because you're so amazing. But we will try and stick to this. So I've got such a great choice here. Let's go with, let's start with something funny. Your favorite Justin Bieber song. Purpose. He sang it to me before it actually was released. Oh, wonderful. Great. Okay. I like that. I didn't actually, that was a good answer. Yeah. What do you think most people misunderstand about the brain? That it's the most important part of you. Yeah. I think I told you last time about one of my spiritual mentors has been an incredible

spiritual mentor to tens of thousands of people in London. He's got stage 4 brain cancer. I can't remember if I didn't mention it to you or not, but yeah, it's just been struggling. It's amazing because he was such a light and such a guide for so many of us. And even now in his weakest stage, such a light and such a guide for so many of us and even now in his weakest stage, he's just exuding gratitude. And it's amazing that after his brain's come back, so he's lost his pretty much a short to memories disappeared. His long-term memory is it's there, but you can tell that there's parts that are now failing to mesh together.

Now he's become extremely quiet, but the last I swam last year, he was just grateful to everyone for what they were doing to serve God and what they were doing to make a difference in the world. And that's all that was coming out. And it was just, yeah, it's one of those things that you don't notice how powerful the brain is until you see it, until you see someone lose it. And I almost tore it off. Yeah, we don't see that as much or we don't hear about it as much because I guess people struggle to talk about it. All right, question number three is, what question do you wish people would ask you more often? What's the best way to help my children? Oh, nice. Because this is a generational mission for me. It started with it's going to help her children and even her grandchildren.

Yeah. What you do when a little girl's born, they're born with all of the aches in their ovaries they'll ever have. This is so important. Yeah. Question number four, what's something you are once sure of and now have changed your mind on? Have found a new answer to you? you are once sure of and now have changed your mind on or found a new answer to. That your brain doesn't have to get old. Hmm. I've seen so many older brains, but not everyone's bad. Wow. That's really powerful.

All right. Fast, final question. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months? Could be personal, professional, anything. I'm actually working on a new project. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain. Hold your brain And my favorite dragon is the ancestral dragon. Is that sometimes your anxiety, your anger, your sadness may actually not be yours, that it may be somebody from the past. And so I was talking to my dad about the ancestral dragon.

I tell me more about my grandfather. He was 19 when he came to the country. And his brother was not a good driver borrowed his sister's car and was killed in a train accident. And my grandfather never drove because of the bitterness and the anxiety that he held. And that happened before he made my dad. And I know that changed my grandfather's genes in part to make my dad who he was. And then I got some of that as well. I'm certain. And so the thing in the last 12 months, sometimes our issues are in fact not our issues. Yeah.

They're from another generation. Yeah, we need to break those generational cusses and make the choice of breaking that pattern. are in fact not our issues. They're from another generation. Yeah, we need to break those generational curses and make the choice from breaking that pattern, but you need to know what pattern it is before you can break it. Great, great answers. I want everyone to go and follow Dr. Daniel Aiman

on Instagram, genuinely I look forward to his post. And Dr. Daniel Aiman, where can, if people are listening and watching and they're going, I need to get my brain scanned, like they're serious about it. How can they come and do that? Because I think that would be an amazing thing. We have eight clinics around the United States. And then go to amonclinics.com. So, Amon, like the last word, Nuprair, clinics.com. And we would love to serve them. Yeah, I would love that. Anyone who's listening and watching and you really

we would love to serve them. Yeah, I would love that. Anyone who's listening and watching and you really realize from today's conversation the impact and the importance of your brain health, please go and take that opportunity. I know I'm going to be doing it as well. And for everyone, including those and everyone else, please, please, please go and grab a copy of this book. It is going to blow your mind or your brain. And it's going to help you deeply understand what's going on in your brain,

your friends' brains and how you can start helping yourself and others. And remember, this is what self-love really looks like, right? It's not just bubble baths and walks on the beach. It's like this self-love for your brain is really what self-love is about. But I feel like you're going to say something and I stopped you. That's grateful. Yeah, grateful for no, I mean, I feel like this is the self love that we all know, you know, we're talking a lot about self love these days, but I feel like a lot of the other self love is like kind of nice to have and it might work, but this is kind of like the root of all of it. So I'm a big proponent of everything that Dr. Daniel Aiman does and I highly

recommend that you go check it out. Thank you, Dr. Daniel Aiman, for coming on the show again. Thank you, Dr. Daniel Aiman. Please share your best insights from Dr. Daniel Aiman on Instagram, tag myself, and tag him as well, so that we can see what you learned from this episode. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll be back with another on-purpose episode next week. Hey, guys, so this is bonus footage.

Just on my reflection from the interview that we just completed with Dr. Daniel Aiman, of course, he's been an incredible podcast guest before this was the second time we've had him on. And I was actually just sharing with him. And that's why we wanted to Swiss the cameras back on because I said this off to the cameras were off. When he came on last year and blew my mind and blew your mind and that podcast went super viral, I fell in love with him as an individual and I really

identified with what he was trying to do in the world and his expertise and his studies blew my mind and his understanding of the brain. So I was really impressed by him as an individual. And this time I'm sitting down with him after a year, I'm actually realizing that I missed the point. And I missed the point because I didn't yet realize that I need to go and get my brain scan so importantly, it needs to be the top of my agenda, because until I do that,

then I'm not even taking it seriously. And so maybe some of you listened last year and it was really powerful. You're like, I learned so much and whatever it's, but you're like, but wait a minute, I haven't actually changed what I'm doing for my brain. I actually don't understand my brain. So go and get your scans, get the new book, the end of mental illness as well. Read more about it because if you're not doing that, then we're basically saying,

oh, that's nice. That's another nice story. It's another nice podcast. It's another nice interviewer, cool ideas. But it's like, this isn't that, like this isn't that. This is life-changing stuff. And so I just wanted to let you all know that you should hide. Can I say one?

Yeah, of course, please. The end of mental illness begins with a revolution in brain health. And we would love your ideas on, well, how do we create this revolution? Because if we don't, the incidence of suicide is going to continue to go up. And what would I love about you and your group? It's like these are passionate people. So we'd love your ideas about, so how do we create this revolution in brain health to change the conversation

from mental illness to brain health? Yeah, loves that. Thank you. Yeah, please please, please send them food to us on Instagram, tag both of us, comment section, anywhere that you know, it's going to reach us. We're going to be looking out for your answers. The one you feed explores how to build a fulfilling life admits the challenges we face. We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth. I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily. Create the life you want now. Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHe Heart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions. Like, can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Intercosmos with David Eaglement on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The therapy for Black Girls Podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHort Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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