Sex With Emily - Healthy Brains, Healthy Bedrooms with Dr. Daniel Amen

Episode Date: February 29, 2020

On today’s show, Dr. Emily is joined by bestselling author and one of America’s leading psychiatrists Dr. Daniel Amen to talk about his book, The End of Mental Illness, why mental health needs to be rebranded as brain health – and how that change can alter how we see relationships. They discuss why looking more closely at the brain can severely help people get a better understanding into their own psyche and actual tools to heal, how trauma work like EMDR therapy can reprogram our brains to release or cope with said trauma, and ways that our neurohormones have a direct impact on our libidos and how we act in relationship. Plus, an exercise in killing your ANTS or automatic negative thoughts.Follow Emily on all social @sexwithemilyFor more on Dr. Daniel Amen, visit https://danielamenmd.com/For even more sex advice, tips & tricks, visit sexwithemily.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We don't think about genetics properly. I think genes load the gun. It's your behavior that pulls the trigger. It's what happens to you that pulls the trigger. And so, yes, we want to know your genetic vulnerabilities, but we also want to put your body in a healing environment. So, for example, I have a genetic risk for heart disease. I don't, because I don't give in to the behaviors

making it likely to be so. I also have a genetic vulnerability for obesity. I'm one of seven children and a couple of my siblings are obese and I'm not. Why? Because I don't give in to the, I know it's a risk. And so by getting a few pounds, I literally start counting my calories.

And I'm like, no, I'm not going to be fat. I'm just not because, as your weight goes up, the size of your brain goes down. So know your risk and then get serious. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and on today's show, I'm joined by best-selling author and physician Dr. Daniel Aiman to talk about why mental health needs to be rebranded as brain health, and how that change can alter how we see relationships. Topics include, while looking more closely at the brain can severely help people get a better understanding into their own psyche and actually give you tools to heal. How trauma work,

like EMDR therapy, can reprogram our brains to release or cope with said trauma. An exercising killing your ants or automatic negative thoughts. And ways our neurohormones have a direct impact on our libidos and how we act in relationships. All this and more, thanks for listening. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm got to understand. Oh my! The women know about shrinkage. Is it a common knowledge? What do you mean like laundry? It shrinks. Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh my god, I'm off here. I'm so drunk.

Being bad feels pretty good. You know Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with. You're listening to Sex with Emily. We're talking about sex, relationships, and everything in between. For more information, check out sexwithemlee.com. You're going to love our site. That's a great, amazing blog post on there to help you have the sex you want. You crave, you deserve, and sex Emily across the board on all social media. Intentions for the show. Okay, guys, join me in setting an intention for the show. Why are you listening to it? What do you want to get out of it? I find that it really helps

to set an intention, seeing something like, well, I'm fascinated what we could learn from the brain. Or, I don't think I've been given the right information about mental health. I want to know. My intention is to take a deep, deep dive into the world of mental health and the brain and see why changing the ideas and the ways we do with our brain and health could make a huge impact on the world. All right, guys, enjoy the show. huge impact on the world. All right, guys, enjoy the show. I'm so thrilled to welcome my guest today. Dr. Aiman is one of America's leading psychiatrist and brain health experts.

And you called one of the most popular psychiatrists in America by the Washington Post. You've written over more than 40 books, 10 best sellers in the New York Times. And this new book coming out on March 3rd, The End of Mental Illness, how neuroscience is transforming psychiatry in helping prevent or reverse mood and anxiety disorders, ADHD, addictions, PTSD, psychosis, personality disorders, and more.

So basically, Dr. Aiman is a leading expert on brains and we need a lot more information on this as a whole. So this is gonna be an information-packed interview if you've got a brain which you do. He can tell you what's right, what's wrong and maybe save you from a misdiagnosis. There's a lot to discuss here. Thank you for being here today.

So honored, thank you for having me. I'm so honored. I have been following your work for so long that I was thrilled to be able to sit down with you. So I've always been fascinated with psychiatry, psychology. I went to undergrad. I studied psychology, but I first went to see a therapist when I was like 10 because my parents got divorced. And then I had some trauma going up. My dad died when I was 19. He had a heart attack when he was 49. And when I first came across your clinics in the late 90s, I was like, what is wrong with

my brain? Like I feel like, and I kept saying this, like, why can't I focus? I know that I'm smart. My mom is like, well, there's all these exams. You test high and I'm like, but I can't remember things or focus and in reading your book, basically the statement that you make is reframing mental health as brain health. Like you just start the book saying that and my mind is blown and then you go into all the brain scans.

And I'm thinking, no one ever scanned my brain. How did you, and I don't ever hear anyone saying they're getting brain scans. Let's go to the distinction, mental health, brain health, whatever you want to go. We're going to be talking. So I'm a classically trained psychiatrist, a mouse with child psychiatrists, and it's the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats. And that's wrong. So when I was young, when I was 18, the government still had a draft because Vietnam was going

on and I became an infantry medic where my love of medicine was born. But about a year into it, I realized I didn't really like being shot at. It's just, you know, some people like that, it's not. It's not your jam. And so I got retrained as the next right technician and that's where I developed a passion for medical imaging is our professors used to say How do you know unless you look and then in 1979? I'm a second year medical student and 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, it wouldn't just help her, it would ultimately help her children and her grandchildren.

So I fell in love with psychiatry because I realize it has the potential to change generations of people. And I've loved it every single day for the last 40 years. Amazing. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ and treats, and I knew it was wrong.

And so when I was a psychiatric resident, I start meddling and pushing my professors. It's like, why aren't we looking? And they go, well, it's not part of our training. It's not part of our tradition. And a long time ago, neurology and psychiatry, they used to be the same and they got divorced. And it was a bad divorce.

Because neurologists got the brain and psychiatrists got the mind. And what I've come to realize is psychiatric disorders are brain disorders and they're not mental illnesses. They're brain health issues that steal your mind. And this one idea changes everything. Get your brain right and your mind will follow. So when you're really struggling, nobody's looking,

they're coming up with all sorts of theories. She doesn't care, it's her dad's death. You're lazy. You're lazy. Let me tell you a story. When I first started scanning people, I scanned everybody I knew. For dinner, you're like, Hey, can you? Including my kids, right? But at the time in 1991, I only had the eyes of someone who'd seen very few scans.

My daughter, Brian, beautiful, actually she looks like you, sweet. This is going to sound terrible, but I never thought she was very smart. And it hurts me to say that. But I had to teach her the time stables like over and over and over and fifth grade she still didn't know them. And so I took her to psychologist and who said, you know, she's not very smart. Basically she didn't say that but I read the testing and she said she'll be okay because she worked so hard.

And here I am, I'm a child's psychiatrist. But in 10th grade she fell apart. She stayed up every night till one or two o'clock in the morning, getting her homework done. And one day, she comes to me and she's crying. They're studying genetics. She says, I just don't get it. I can never be as smart as my friends. And it broke my heart. And so the next day, I scanned her again. Now, with the eyes of someone who'd seen thousands of scans and she had a really sleepy brain. She had really low activity in the front part of her brain and in her temporal lobes. I'm like, oh my God, how'd you miss that your

own child has ADD? And on a little bit of a stimulant, the next day it normalized her brain. Now, this is a child who worked so hard, and really had never gotten great grades, but the next grading period straight-aise. Wow. Straight-aise for the next 10 years, and she actually got into the University of Edinburgh's veterinarian school, which is one of the best veterinarian schools in the world. And if I wouldn't have looked, I could have come up with all sorts of explanations on why she struggled, but if you don't look, you don't know.

And wholesale around the world, I mean, you try and kill yourself today in L.A. or Hong Kong or Beijing or London and no one will ever Look at your brain and that's insane. It is insane. So I and our people still resistant to your work and saying like I Are other people now psychiatrists saying you know what, I want to start scanning brains. There was just not, like, we don't have brain, you come into my office and we talk. I don't have access to that.

Is that, is that why there's a resistance? Because this makes so much sense. I'm like, I want to come in and get scanned tomorrow, you know? I, well, there's been a lot of controversy over my work. Although we've had about 10,000 medical and mental health professionals refer to us. So the idea that everybody thinks I'm crazy is probably not correct, but if I'm right, and I believe I am, then 40,000 psychiatrists are wrong. And so people don't go, oh, you're right, I'm wrong easily. It actually changes the paradigm. And the

paradigm's broken. Our outcomes in psychiatry are no better than they were in the 1950s. There are more people, despite all the new medications, there are more people on disability for mental health reasons than ever before in human history. It's four times the number of people who are on disability in the 1980s. We're not making progress. Since 1999, cancers declined 27 percent, but suicide went up 33 percent. Why? We're working on the wrong paradigm. It's not mental illness, it's brain illness. Get your brain right and your mind will follow.

Well, this is just some, so how do you know that if you have a, okay, let's say we can't get a brain scan tomorrow, which I'm going on, we're going to talk about after. How do you get, how do you know them? Because you do have the five brain types, then you break it down into subtypes, but how do you know if you're have a healthy brain or not, or should we just all assume your brain's good?

It could be better. Now, let's not all assume our brain's good. Okay. If you go, hey Daniel, sing a most important thing you've learned from 160,000 scans. Smile, traumatic brain injury ruins people's lives, and nobody knows about it. Because they don't look. Brand new study out on the homeless, 50% of homeless people had a significant brain injury before they were homeless. On average, there are 3 million new traumatic brain

injuries every year in the United States and most people live. So think about that. Over the last 40 years, that means there's more than 100 million people who have the effects of traumatic brain injury increases your risk of suicide, depression, ADHD, addiction. Nobody's looking, so nobody knows that this epidemic is part of the mental health challenge in this country and in the book, actually a big part of the book. So how do you know if you have a problem? If you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And we know what they are.

There's a mnemonic called bright mind, so bees for blood flow. But I was actually just doing research on 20,000 patients. And all I did was look at their BMI, their weight, their body mass index, and brain function. And it was just really clear, as your weight went up, the actual physical size and function of your brain went up, the actual physical size and function of your brain went down, which should scare the fat off anyone. Exactly. Think about that.

We 72% of us overweight, 40% of us obese. It's the biggest brain drain in the history of the United States. In fact, now it's a national security crisis because 72% of people try to sign up for the military are rejected. Why? Because they're not healthy. And so with obesity at epidemic levels, with diabetes now at epidemic levels, it's like... Diabetic, like diabetic and obesity. Yes. And so I'm diet and health. And 60 million people have sleep related problems.

It's no one's thinking, right? This is not a pro-zac or riddled deficiency. This is a brain health disaster. It's a disaster. I mean, my mind is just exploding. Are my brain which one's exploding? I'm thinking like my mind is because, okay, so there's a disaster. I mean, my mind is just exploding. Or my brain, which one's exploding? I'm thinking like my mind is because, okay, so there's a lot here because you talked about the traumatic brain, just the film actually hasn't had an injury.

And it could be like a mild concussion, like me, who I'm trying to remember, like, did I ever fall in hurt myself? Other people might have just something that happened when they were five or ten. But what about other kinds of trauma? Because that was the other thing. I kind of, I was excited to hear what I'm telling you, all my stories about my dad. I also had some physical abuse with a stepdad. There was a lot of things going on in my life.

And I realized lately, I've been in EMDR therapy the last 14 years, 14 months. I'm sort of obsessed with therapy. I've tried a little bit of everything. And what I found was in this trauma work that, first of all, so many of us have trauma and it's like, you know, they say it, do you know about EMDR? I published a study on it.

Okay. I'm like a huge fan. Okay. Yes. Huge, it's been life changing, actually. And so that's part of it is that kind of trauma as well. And to me, that has felt like a lot of progress, but I also know I've got the other stuff that I deal with too. So what about other kinds of trauma if you've had even like a sexual trauma or abuse? I know you've got a lot of trauma in your

brain. So I published a study on 21,000 people showing I could separate emotional trauma. So if I scanned you, your limbic brain, your emotional brain would be working too hard. So trauma can get stuck in the brain. And that's what EMDR does, is it helps to calm those emotional areas down. And I showed I could separate emotional trauma from physical trauma, traumatic brain injury,

with high levels of accuracy. And then I did a study on police officers. We're actually working on a program with the Newport Beach Police Department. Over six months I've been creating a brain healthy police department. You want your first responders to have brains that work right because they're

in chronically stressful situations. And so I did a study on police officers who couldn't go back to work because they were involved in shootings and the shootings traumatize them. And after an average of eight sessions, all of them went back to work. And it helped to balance their brain. We did before and after scan. With the EMDR or with the... With the EMDR. Okay, so I have the EMDR that I've been doing. And I do feel like I'm able to feel more

that I'm connecting my brain, my thoughts, I feel like I had a lot of disassociation. I was sort of shut down. But this book, what you talk about in all of your work, the end of mental illness, which I think is like a must read if I think we all can learn something from this. But where would you suggest that you start? Because I believe that this is all helping, but then I'm like, oh, what I've never had my brain scanned. And maybe I am doing some stuff that isn't that healthy.

And you talk about toxic environments. So I'm like, do we need to get it checked? And this is an old building we work in. So we talk about where to start. Thank you. Think of it as hardware and software. You would never try to do software programming on a computer that had hardware problems. That's just stupid. But people go for therapy over and over and over again and they're not working on getting their brain healthy. So the first thing is let's get your brain healthy

because then when you go to therapy you'll remember what you talked about. You'll be able to put into place the insights that you get from therapy. Plus when I do therapy with people, I really want to give you skills, not just let you talk about whatever you want to talk about. I want to teach you how to kill the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. We use those all the time. It's steel, your happiness. But that's a software program.

The first thing I want to do is get your brain right. How do you do that? It's three simple things. The first thing is brain envy. Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I have not seen it once in the 40 years I've been a psychiatrist. Except once I was on Broadway and it was the intermission of a play and the women's restroom had a line like around the building and there was nobody

in the boys' restroom line and I'm like penis envy that's it I have you right that I've never seen it that's not the cause of people's problems it's I don't we don't care about our brains what we don't get it right because we can't see them right you can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly, you can do something when you're unhappy with it. And so when I looked at my brain in 1991, it wasn't healthy because I played football and I wasn't sleeping. And I had meningitis when I was a young soldier.

And so I developed brain envy. I wanted a better brain because ultimately it's the three pounds of fat between your ears that creates happiness, that creates wealth, that creates health because your brain is involved in absolutely every decision you make. And so when your brain works right, you work right. So the first thing is care. And then avoid anything that hurts it. Know the list.

We'll talk about bright minds. And then the third thing is do things. The help it. Again, know the list. And I work with B.J. Fog, whose professor at Stanford, he has a book called Tiny Habits. And I worked with him for six months on creating brain healthy, tiny habits. And here's the number one thing you should do that will cause really a domino effect of brain health before you go to do anything or eat anything or drink anything or even say anything, ask yourself, is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if you can answer that question with information and love, love for yourself, love for your spouse, love for your children, love for your mission on the

earth, if you can answer it with information and love, you'll start doing the right things. Well, let's, you have those little, when I like in the book, you have the little icons, little tiny habits, which I got bright minds and like the brain love stories, which I love because I feel like if you even just are like going through this, it's really great tips. So bright minds, be as for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. And so you can see it on a scan, but what if you can't get a scan? If you're not exercising, you have low blood flow to your brain.

If you have hypertension, 60% of Americans are either hypertensive or pre-hypertensive, you should be measuring your blood pressure at least four times a year. This blood pressure goes up, blood flow to the brain goes down. If you have any form of heart disease, if you have erectile dysfunction, I mean, you know, sex with Emily, we should absolutely talk about it. We should talk about erectile dysfunction,

no, it's true. 40% think about this. 40% of 40 year old men, according to a study from Harvard, have erectile dysfunction. What does that mean? It means 40% of 40 yearyear-old men have brain dysfunction. Because if you have blood flow problems anywhere,

it likely means they are everywhere. And 70% of 70-year-old men have erectile dysfunction. And 70% of 70-year-old men have brain dysfunction. And so one of the big benefits of the end of mental illness in my program, so your sex life is gonna be better because it's about blood flow. And I often say no for thought equals no for play,

because you won't make good decisions and she'll remember every bad thing you said just because of the difference between male and female brains. And so how do you get your blood flow right? Exercise. Walk like you're late, 45 minutes, four or five times a week, and lift weights twice a week.

It's amazing how to increase blood flow. There's certain foods that increase blood flow. Like beets, oregano, thyme, cayenne pepper. This isn't hard. And certain supplements, especially ginkgo. I love ginkgo because I've seen it increases blood flow. So that's just one of the rest of the So no, if you have it, and then go after it. The R is retirement and aging. When you stop learning, your brain starts dying. And so we all should be on a learning journey. Because it just keeps your brain healthy. You have these two structures in your brain called the hippocampus.

Which is Greek for seahorse. So you have these two seahorse-shaped structures in your brain called the hippocampus, which is Greek for seahorse. So you have these two seahorse-shaped structures in your brain, and most people don't know, but they're very special. They're involved in memory and mood, and every day they produce new cells. Every day your hippocampus produces 700, they're about new baby seahorses. And your habits are either growing the seahorses so they become part of you or they're murdering the seahorses so they're gone. So if you're a smoking pot, if you're drinking alcohol, if you're not exercising, if you have a digital addiction, murdering the seahorses and shrinking your brain.

Okay, so I want to go back to the penis here, the erection, because you know, hey, sex with the family, is that I, so I have a urologist on my show last night, and he was saying that the penis, that if you are not having blood flow, you're having erection problems, that it probably has to do with your heart. He's right. But now I'm feeling like the brain is trumping, like I almost, because this is why I'm turned on my idea that so really then we should just start there.

Like is it kind of like you going to your heart? I mean, no one's gonna agree with, right? Because I feel like I should go get checked by my cardiologist, being everyone should, but are we saying now though that this, is it that easy to get a scan to get checked? Is that, are we wasting our time with all these other things? Like, are you saying that that's where we need to start?

Well, remember, blood flows one of the 11 respect. Right. And like, we're never going to find the one pill for Alzheimer's disease because there are many roads to the problem. So you have to know of these 11 risk factors, well which ones do I have. But you're absolutely right. The guest you had on,

whatever's good for your heart is good for your brain. So your brain is only 2% of your body's weight. It's about three pounds, but it uses 20 to 30% of the calories you consume, and 20% of the calories you consume, and 20% of the blood flow and the oxygen you breathe. So if your heart's not right, your brain's not right. And I learned this when I was in medical school.

The air I graduated from medical school, my grandfather died, and I loved him. He was just an awesome human being. I'm named after him. He's my best friend when I was growing up. He was a candy maker. That was his profession. So my earliest memories are standing at the stove, making budge and prowlings with him. But the sugar was terrible for him. And it killed him too early. But after he had his first heart attack, he got very depressed. And there's this connection between heart disease and mental health issues because of blood flow and inflammation, which is the eye in bright minds, the first eye.

As inflammation goes up, people have more problems with depression and dementia. So you have to be on an anti-inflammatory program, which is basically you've got to get your food right, you've got to get your gut healthy, take omega-3 fatty acids, a supplement I like called curcumin and get inflammation under control. You're happier. Well, that's hard. How do you know if you're having an addiction? and get inflammation under control. You're happier. Well, that's hard. How do you know if you're having an issue? So there's a couple of tests.

It was a blood test called C-reactive protein. If it's high, you have inflammation in your body. Your omega-3 fatty acid level, I mean, it's like one drop of blood. And we eat too many omega-6s, which are pro-inflammatory, and not enough omega-3s, think salmon. And as omega-3s go down, there's fascinating study from Australia. They looked at two outer islands. One had fast food restaurants, the other didn't. They island with the fast food restaurants,

low levels of omega-3 fatty acids, five times the level of depression in the population. It's the food. It's food, right? It is the food. And so, and I went to- It's, yeah, I mean, there's so many, it's like, we gotta change our food,

we gotta check our blood flow, we gotta check our brains. But I want to ask you a question though, you talk about all the different regions of the brains and what they control, what about sex drive, desire, a rousal, how come it's like, so that's your limbic brain. But you want to have a balance between your limbic brain

and your prefrontal cortex. So the front third of your brain, largest in humans and any other animal by far, and it's involved with focus and fourth thought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, empathy, learning from the mistakes you make. And so your limbic brain will give you desire, your frontal lobes will actually help you direct it

in a healthy way or an unhealthy way. So I've actually scanned hundreds of sex addicts. And we did a study and found 70% of them had low function in their prefrontal cortex. and we did a study and found 70% of them had low function in their prefrontal cortex. So it's like, think of it as the elephant and the rider. It's, you know, your libido is like the elephant, but if it doesn't have a rider, it can cause a stampede and destroy your life.

Does it change or we born this way? Like, is it the kind of thing? Is it everything, right? Well, the G is genetics. And genetics, we don't think about genetics properly. I think genes load the gun. It's your behavior that pulls the trigger. It's what happens to you that pulls the trigger. And so, yes, we want to know your genetic vulnerabilities, but we also want to put your body in a healing environment.

So, for example, I have a genetic risk for heart disease. I don't, because I don't give in to the behaviors making it likely to be so. I also have a genetic vulnerability for obesity. I'm one of seven children and a couple of my siblings are obese. And I'm not. Why? Because I don't give in to the bag. I know it's a risk. And so by getting a few pounds, I literally start counting my calories. And I'm like, no, I'm not

going to be fat. I'm just not because as your weight goes up, the size of your brain goes down. So know your risk and then get serious. We're going to take quick break and we come back more with Dr. Daniel Aiman. I have a new show coming out on public television at the end of February and Lisa Gibbons is one of my friends and one of my patients and she lets me talk about her mom and her grandmother died with Alzheimer's disease and she used to have a show on television. I've been on it like many times and I'm like I've started talking to her. I'm like come on you need to come and get scanned. Because with that genetic history, we need to know if you're vulnerable. And when she was 50, she went through a divorce and she got sad.

And she says, okay, I'm coming. And her brain looked terrible. I mean, her brain was headed to the dark place. But she's super smart. And she just did everything I asked her to do. And 10 years later, I just scanned her again last year, her brain's fuller, fatter, healthier. You are not stuck with the brain you have.

You could make it better by doing these bright-mind strategies. What about the, you talk about the end to the neural hormones. Those are the hormones that affect the brain. Because I also feel like hormones, I'm always saying to psychologists once, like, what, tell me about hormones. Like, what do you know about, like, you know, I was asking him something about, like, paramanopause and hormone.

He's like, we just, he's a Stanford trained. He's like, we just don't know much. There's like five years ago. We don't know enough. Well, he may not know enough, but the research is huge. Yeah, there's so much. If your testosterone level is low, if you're a guy or a girl, that it's associated with memory problems, low libido, depression, and low motivation. Now, if it's too high, your libido is getting out of control, and your empathy goes down.

So, I mean, that's the prescription for getting divorced losing half of your net worth and visiting your children on the weekends. It's like, no, that's not a good idea. So it's about balance. And I think of all the chemistry I talk about in the book, not about what's normal, but about what's optimal. So you want to have optimal hormone levels. This brand new study out just this week on thyroid,

that if your thyroid levels are low, you have low blood flow to your brain. If your thyroid levels are high, the anxiety centers in your brain go bonkers and you can't sleep and you can't stop thinking about negative thoughts. So balancing your hormones is a critical piece to solving mental health issues. At any age though, right? Because I feel like people don't often look at them

soon enough. Like they're not looking at them in their 20s or 30s. They're not looking to tell them like they feel like there's a problem with their sex drive, for example. Like the bioidentical hormones, right? But most women don't know is that progesterone. Progesterone's sort of like your brain's natural anti-anxiety medicine. And it goes low 10 years before women go into menopause. So what does that mean? So say you're 38 or you're 39 or 42 and all of a sudden you can't sleep and you're anxious

and you go to the doctor who puts you on Xanx and or you decide to treat yourself with two glasses of wine. Every night I have to have my wine and all of a sudden you're hooked on pills or alcohol when a little bit of progesterone could have been super helpful for you. And yes, people go, well, it's normal when you're 60 not to have strong hormone levels, but it's also normal to feel like crap. So, I'm never interested in normal.

I'm always interested in my best. What do I need to be my best and I need My hormones to be right. So do you recommend that then that people get their hormones checked every year? Any age every year. Yeah, I mean not for a year But the health insurance doesn't even, it's extra. I feel like it's so, if they don't make that easier. Well, you're not often won't do it because you won't know what to do for it. This is what I'm saying. No, no.

And you'll go, oh, you don't need that. And it's like, please don't be my mother or please don't be my father. You want to be my partner in health. And if you're not going to be my partner, I fire you. And I think doctors should get fired a lot. You know, MD stands for minor deity. I'm like, not okay with this. It's they need to be your partner. We're doing a six week brain health challenge. And one of the things on it is get your important numbers checked, right? Peter Drucker, the famous

business consultant said, you can't change, which you don't measure. And if you don't measure your important numbers, how do you know if you're inflamed? How do you know if your iron's too high, which is a problem or too low, which is a problem. So how do you recommend the best way to get hormones because there's like the urine test and then there's the blood work and people say people spit like you saliva. So I think it depends, but for us blood work really works well. And that's a really standard great place to start. Now if you've been under chronic stress, say you've raised an autistic child or you've

been in a chronically conflicted marriage or you're a firefighter, I think doing a four-point cortisol where you chew on these cotton balls so we can see your level of cortisol is really important because sometimes people end up with this thing we call adrenal fatigue, where the stress in their life that just have worn out their ability to manage what's going on. So hormones are really... But this is what I'm saying. So we fear doctors like, you know, no, I won't do it. We just go to another doctor.

We believe. Yeah, you have to find a healthcare provider that works with you. So stop thinking about them as your mother, your father. That's how I used to be like, oh, well, it's a doctor. Like they know. Right, but most of them, you know, I mean, most psychiatrists, for example, you come in and you have five of these eight symptoms

for a depression, you're going on a serotonin drug. And there's so many other things to do. And people don't know. And I'm not opposed to psychiatric medicine. I'm very told you. Yeah. One my daughter on a stimulant. I'm opposed to that's the first and only thing you do. And in the end of mental illness, there's a whole chapter on mind medicine versus nutraceuticals. And I go, so if you have anxiety disorder, what are the 10 things I'm gonna do for you before I put you on medicine?

Or if you have a depression, what are the 10 things I'm gonna do before I put you on medicine? And so many patients that come to the AIMON clinics, we have a clinic around the country. So many of our patients go, I don't wanna take medicine. What else can I do? Now, if I do the other things and they don't want to take medicine. What else can I do?

Now, if I do the other things and they don't work like I hope, I'm totally gonna give you medicine. It's just not the first thing I think. But usually it is, like so many people are on, what is it, what is it, three out of five women, I think are out of any depressants? What percentage is it right now?

23% of women, between the ages of 20 and 60 are taking antidepressant medication. That's a scandal. It is because you go in. My experience was when I went in and I was having really, because I want to talk about the birth control pill as well because I feel like there's been so much more.

I always felt that that was wrong. Now there's all this research out that shows that it really does wreak havoc on your system, starting it, stopping it and all the things. They were just like, take a pill. I don't know if this might, my problems were, it could have been the pill or could have just been what I was going through, but I was like 27

and I went to my gynecologist and I said, my periods are so bad that the week before, I was like, I am, you know, I'm so sad, I'm depressed. I feel like I ruined my entire life for a week. I can't leave the house. And then the day I get my period, I'm fine. I go back and then, but I've already just, so I spent, you know, a quarter of my life and say, what can I do?

And she was like, take, I think it was, it was kind of a pro-zac or something. It was pro-zac, I believe at the time. And I was like, okay. And I remember feeling this, like, I couldn't believe that I'd gotten the next month, I got my period, I felt great. And I was running again and doing all these things, but then I had the sexual side effects.

Couldn't, wasn't interested. All the other things that happened, but I feel like for many other people right now, probably listening to this too, they got pulled up, put on a medication, maybe they're gone to college this once, maybe they went to see a therapist once and then they're just still on it because if you stay on it long enough that it does change your brain, right? And you can't go off of it.

And then going off of it, I mean, you could read the horror stories of trying to stop antidepressants. Right. I had to go to the brain. Brains apps that people get. And nobody says that saffron, so the spiced saffron, has 20 studies comparing it to other antidepressants like pro-zag, zooloft, and mipramine, effects are, and shows it to be equally effective without the sexual side effects. In fact, it's pro-sexual, and there's even a study showing it helps your memory, and it helps with the...

Safron to Safron. The Spice, Safron. The world's most expensive spice, but there are a number of supplements. We make a supplement called serotonin mood support, which we use to support your mood that has 5HTP, which is the amino acid building block for serotonin and saffron. People love that because it doesn't decrease your ability to have an orgasm or it doesn't decrease your sex drive.

That's why I have problems with the SSRIs because I don't like that. If you are not interested in your husband, that could begin to cause problems in your marriage, which is going to accelerate your depression. Well, right, because then if you get on a medication, because you're so depressed, you don't want to have sex, you don't want to do anything, but then you go on the medication, you feel better in every other area, but then you don't want to have sex. So it's really, it really messes with you, but I feel like all the things you say, like when people should take these certain protocols

before they go out of medication, like do the 10 things you tell them to do, do you find that in many cases, what percentage of the cases is that work for people? That they're like, oh, I don't need the medication now. For them to do this. At least half. At least half.

And then, and also it's because it's called a lot to do because you have to be regularly, you have to be consistent and you have to do it every day. And then when they, if they don't work and they take medicine, they feel like they've done everything they should do. Right. Like for example, if you're depressed, head to head against antidepressants. Fish oil has been found to be equally effective. Head to head against antidepressants, exercise, walking like you're late, 45 minutes, four times a week, equally effective at 12 weeks, better than antidepressants at 10 months. Head to head, learning how not to believe every stupid thing you think equally effective. So why not? Before you

go on an antidepressant, you take a really good dose of fish oil, you start walking fast, and then you learn how to kill the ants, the automatic negative thoughts, one of the tiny habits, whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking,

and then just ask yourself if it's true. If you absolutely know that's true. Yeah, I love that you, because the ants is something that I think that is then. Yeah, I love that you, because the answer is something that I think that is so brilliant. And I'm not over here about how you came up with that about, we do, because it hears sometimes,

because I've always had that. And sometimes when I'm going through something, which I actually, I have been now this week, I'm just like, it's so negative. My friends, you've known me forever, like, okay, I'm like, the negative thoughts. And it's like I don't I know Like you have the one thought and then they all start running and how do you how do you stop them?

I mean, I've been meditating for 20 years. So you want to you want to get louder and yeah Yeah, totally. Oh my god. I will work on it. Just in the last minute or like in the last few days Well, they they stack once you have a negative thought They link to other negative thoughts and then they stack and then they attack you. And so you break the link. So the first thing is you write out, so what's the negative thought? Okay.

Yeah, I'm wondering. Yeah, I mean, the negative thought was, I mean, just, no, I just, well, okay, in this moment, I was like, there's so much I want to talk to you about, and I hope, is this a negative? I hope that this is coming across. I feel sort of scattered in this interview because I'm like, I so badly want this to go well, and I'm like, I hope that I'm able to meet you here

and do a good job for your book, and I've had so much going on this life this week, and it's just been a lot. So I'm like, I hope this is okay. That's a negative thought. I'm not doing well. I'm not doing well. I didn't do well enough to prepare.

I'm my brain is scrambled. So let's just say with that. So those of you listening, write down the thoughts that are bothering you. So I'm not doing well. Five simple questions. Is it true? I don't know.

If you tell me, is it true? Is it good? Okay, we're going for do well. Okay, so if you go, I don't know. I don't know. The second question is it absolutely true. With a hundred percent certainty, this is going terribly. No, because I feel that a lot and then people love the show.

So no. The third question. How do you feel when you believe the thought it's not going well? Horrible. What else? I feel sad. I feel it makes me angry. It makes me feel mad at myself really.

It's just a lot of work. Yeah, along with less than, not confident, all the things. So it's a thought that's not necessarily true that is making you feel like dirt. Right. Fourth question. Okay. How would you feel if you didn't have the thought, if you couldn't have the thought. I would feel like I feel when I'm good, I'm in flow, confident, grateful, helpful, useful. I'd feel like so much more like my listeners, everyone's getting stuff out of this and, you know,

I'd feel. So let's, let's, my favorite part, and part of this is a process I learned from my friend, Byron Katie, is take the original thought I'm scattered and this is not going well and turn it around to the exact opposite of the thought which is this is going well. Give me an example where that's true.

This is going well right now I think we're having a really good conversation and I think it already feels better I just wanted to be really honest when you ask me so an example is, even in this moment, that I feel like we're really, I feel very present and connected right now with you. If you don't question the thoughts that go through your head, you believe them. Even though they're lies, you believe them as if they're true, and then you act out of the belief, which can just devastate people's lives. So one example I'll give, you know, I've had the thought, my wife never listens to me. And so if I believe that, how does that make me feel?

I'm sad and I feel lonely. And I give myself permission to be sort of an ass to her. But is it true? Absolutely not. There's all sorts of times she's listened to me. I've written 14 public television specials. She's listened to every script probably four or five times. But you see, it's that why that I tell myself

that if I don't question it, I act out of the belief, which then I could actually make it possible because if I'm negative to her, she's not gonna listen. To me, you don't have to believe every stupid thought you have. And I'm learning how to take them. And catching them too in the moment is so important. And so when I get thoughts, because I've been attacked a lot by my colleagues, and it just doesn't bother me anymore.

Because I know it's, oh, I was devastated for the first three, four years. Because what's the definition of hell? Many theologians think that hell is being disconnected from God or disconnected from your group. And we're wired for connection as human beings. And when you get disconnected from your group, I mean, it's an evolutionary threat. And I was shunned, but I had all these stories of transformation from my patients. And the moment for me, I think anyone who does something really important, they have a passion moment. And the moment for me, I think anyone who does something really important, they have a passion moment.

And the passion moment for me is in 1995, my nephew Andrew attacked a little girl on the baseball field for no reason. How did the blue and his mother called me up crying. And she told me about it and I'm like, what's going on with the end? What else? And she said, Danny, he's different. He's mean. He doesn't smile anymore.

I went into his room today and found two pictures. He had drawn one of them. He was hanging from a tree in a suicide. The other one, he was shooting other children. And I was just horrified. But by the time in 1995, I'd already scanned over a thousand mile and people. And I thought he had a problem in his left temporal lobe underneath your temples and behind your eyes. And when I scanned him the next day, he was missing his left temporal lobe.

He actually had a cyst, the size of a golf ball, occupying that part of his brain. And when they took the cyst out, his behavior went back to normal. And it was at that moment, I didn't care if you liked me anymore. Exactly. Because if you don't look, you don't know. Stop line. Behaviour is more complicated than most people think. And you know, he was Columbine or... I was going to say this is like this whole thing waiting to happen exactly and it's easy to call those kids bad It's harder

to ask why and So I didn't care anymore because of I had the passion story that has supported me Andrew and thousands of people that have supported me through Andrew, and thousands of other people, that have supported me through the separation from my colleagues. And the end of mental illness is really, I'm putting the stake in the ground and go, these aren't mental, they're brain. And if you don't see it like that, you will hurt people

because you know, the stigma associated with mental health issues, it's, it's psychiatrist fault. It is. Because we don't act like real doctors in 1979 when I told my dad I wanted to be a psychiatrist. He asked me why I didn't want to be a real doctor. Why I wanted to be a nut doctor and hang out with nuts all day long.

And my dad never got father of the year award, but 40 years later, I sort of get where he's coming from. It's not interesting. You don't know. And so, I believe that this, I mean, to me, and I do, you've been talking about this for many years, but with this book, because there is so much, there is so much talk now about mental illness, but we're not really everyone saying it's mental illness.

So at least there's like celebrities and there's a media thing here for a month. I think it was like Selena Gomez talking about how we don't look at it. So I think people are getting it now, but you're also saying, but it's not just mental. It's brain. So you're kind of saying, great, we're looking at it. That's good that we shouldn't criticize people. We shouldn't shame them. It's like if people always say, well, if, great, we're looking at it. That's good that we shouldn't criticize people. We shouldn't shame them. It's like if people always say,

well, if you have diabetes, you would take something. If you've, well, if you've mental illness, you should, you shouldn't be ashamed. But the new movement's not going far enough because it's going to get people on more psychiatric drugs without ever looking. So when Sandy Hook happened to Connecticut, President Obama came out and said,

we need more money for mental health. And I just shook my head because you're gonna get more money to do the same thing we've always done. And the Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza, had seen psychiatrists, had taken medication. Virtually all the school shooters. Wow. Had seen psychiatrists and taken medication,

the Columbine killers, the Parkland Florida killer, the Springfield Oregon killer, and no, we need to break the paradigm and think of these as brain health issues. What if they had Lyme disease? What if they had mold toxicity? What if they had lead poisoning? The scans have taught me there's so many different things. So we just talked about a couple of the risk factors. The T is for toxins. And I've scanned hundreds of firefighters. They'll have toxic brains.

Of course, yeah. Because of breathing, the toxins, even when they take their masks off, the spoils are still coming up from the burning furniture, the emotional trauma. What are some of the other toxins that are in our environment that we don't really realize? So, well, the new, the new darling is marijuana. And I published a study on a thousand marijuana smokers. Virtually every area of their brain is lower in blood flow And we're going around thinking this is just innocuous when it is not innocuous

I don't know if you saw the presidential debate, but Joe Biden said, you know, I'm just not sure if I think it should be legalized everywhere. And Cory Booker said, are you high? I mean, he literally made fun of him because he wanted to take a thoughtful position and the imaging work I do, it's clearly toxic for the brain. But there are other things like painters. What about marijuana in smaller doses?

Like if you're not doing it all the time but you know because it could help with relax a more than taking an ad event or a anxiety you know well we don't know that we don't publish another study on sixty two thousand scans well I just got less interesting now that I listen to everything in here I mean I don't do I don't drink I you know I sometimes have smoke or not even smoke, like eat or you know what I'm saying? It does help with. And I would go, well, one, we should look at your brain for sure.

And C is it toxic, few, it doesn't seem to be toxic for everybody. But then we should go, what are other things we could do? Hypnosis, biofeedback, meditation, certain kinds of music, bodywork. I love I have this one exercise where we stimulate all five of your senses at once with relaxation. And so you get the right smells like lavender, you get the right playlist, you look at images of nature, you get a massage, you eat certain foods, all of these things that can medicine, it decreases your effectiveness. No, I get that. I get that it's problematic. I'm just saying in general, we just talk about how, you know, with, instead of taking a

pill, but I get, I also know how much it damages the brain. So I understand that, especially at a young age. I mean, I never, I never, I never, you know, drop that's a thing. Yeah, and I never did anything growing up or even in my 20s, it was like, I was just so driven with what I was working all the time and very anxious, but, and I do understand also, I used to say, well, I'm not gonna take anything or do anything and I would try to do all the supplements

and all the things and it's just, there's a lot to do. So we should look. We're gonna look. Yeah, now we should look. It's like, well, how do we know? Unless should look. We're going to look. Yeah. Now we should look. It's like, well, how do we know? Unless we look. We don't know. Everyone asks, any doctor will, okay, so if you go to your regular doctor, your MD, and

they, you know, look at your brain, can everyone read it in the same way that you do? Well, no, because we have more experience than anyone in the world. And there are different ways to look at the brain. So we do a study called SPACT. We also do one called Quantitative EEG. And a lot of doctors do QEGs, and they're helpful. I like to have both.

And no medical specialty ever relies on one test. Right, if you have chest pain, they'll look at your heart in five different ways. And the brain is a whole bunch more complicated than your heart. And so I think looking at it in different ways is helpful for people. So if you came to Orange County Clinic,

we could look at the electrical activity in your brain, and then we could do a spec scan that looks at blood flow. And then what you do is you fall in love with it, and then you do the right things to treat it. But it starts with love, and then, and you can measure it that way and see. So your history is not your destiny. I love that. And in fact, I dedicate this book to my two nieces,

Amalie and Alize, because they're loaded for mental illness. They're genes. They have family history of schizophrenia, multiple suicides, depression, bipolar disorder, criminal behavior, addictions. But genes only load the gun. It's your behavior. And what happens to us,

it pulls the trigger. And unfortunately for them, they were raised in chaos with parents who struggled with domestic violence, depression, addiction. And they moved a lot. And four years ago, they were taken by child protective services into foster care, where yet more traumas occurred. And at the time, my wife was estranged from her half sister. So we didn't have any idea what was going on. And it was the worst week of my marriage because I'm a child's chiatrists. Like we need to take these kids in.

And she's like, I came from crazy. I don't want crazy in my house. I've been working really hard to keep crazy people away from me. Right. But I can't stand it. Even though I had met the children. Right, but of course. And we agreed to wrap services around their mother. And on Mother's Day 2017, she got the kids back.

And the end of mental illness. The whole point of the book is how do I prevent it in them and in their children and Grandchild. That's amazing. And it seems like God you've helped so many people over these years. I mean, I think your work is tremendous and I really think this book could be the end of mental illness as we know it. So congratulations on this and I want to ask you one more question about know it. So congratulations on this and I want to ask you one more question about you talked about the brain love stories like because we didn't we didn't get into sex but this is fascinating to me. If there's significant others are facing something and they're having some mental issues things are going on. How do we support each other in this? So the reason this book has brain love stories is I've written a lot about testimonials in other books because I love stories.

I love the stories, but I wanted to sort of write the origin of how they came to see us. And so the Brain Love Stories is, well, it's these five people we help that got this person to the clinic. And one of my favorite ones, starts chapter one, it's Jared out of control since he was little hyperactive, restless, impulsive school problems, friend problems, violence at home. Well, his mother was a friend of my wives when they were in their 20s together and so it was that relationship that caused her to reach out to my wife and said Jarrett's in trouble and

When I scanned Jarrett he was diagnosed with ADD failed five stimulant medications So somebody had a learning problem, but it was Gerrit's doctor. If you fail three of them, nobody should ever put you on them again. Right. And on supplements, calm down his brain, he got better in school. He's been on the honor roll now, literally for 10 straight years. That's amazing. And he wants to be a firefighter.

And I asked him recently why he said on someone's worst day, I want to make it better. So we literally changed the trajectory of his life. And then in chapter 1 I go through, well, how would they have treated Jared throughout the ages? So 6,000 years ago, they may have drilled a hole in his skull to let the evil spirits out. In the time of hypocrite, they'd'd changed his diet, got him to exercise, put him in a job he loved. So I liked that. But then they would have bled him to get rid of the

excessive fluids. I don't like that. Freud would have put him on the couch and talked about his relationship with his mother. You know, why are mother? There's always blame forever. If it's not one thing, it's your mother. And no, it wouldn't work. They'd given them ECT or prefrontal lobotomy and all of it. So you started with the brain. Yeah. So you started with the brain.

There's brain. That's amazing. Thank you for being here. Dr. Aiman. This is. I'm the way I want to joy. This is such a joy. Thank you. I feel like this is going to be super helpful. Your book going to lay one to joy. This is such a joy. Thank you.

I feel like this is going to be super helpful. Your book comes out on March 3rd. They can take your on YouTube. I saw that you had your... So we have a six week challenge. Six weeks challenge. Six weeks challenge. And we're going to give away all sorts of prizes because the whole point of the end of

mental illness, the end of mental illness begins with a revolution in brain health. And so if you're gonna create a revolution, you have to have brain warriors. And you've been on our Brain Warriors way podcast. But what we're trying to do when we have, 20,000 people have signed up, which is really exciting. It's amazing.

And so six weeks we give you something to do every day to get your brain right. Okay, we're going to have links to that in the show notes as well. And I do think this is starting over evolution because I, well, I'm going to be telling everyone about it. And I think it is really going to change people's lives. I mean, if you think about everything, we've touched people's sex life, you know, it could be the danger we see in schools with the shooters, with people's, you know, relationships everywhere. It just makes sense that all the talking and all the therapy could just have to be with, you know, starting with some brain health and go from there. So, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you to my amazing team. Can Kristen, Elisa, Brian, our interns, producer Jamie, and Michael. Was it good for you? email me, feedback at sexwithemily.com. You