The Dylan Gemelli Podcast - Episode #14 Featuring Dr. Drew Ramsey M.D Part 1! THE MENTAL HEALTH EPISODE! The importance of mental fitness, the role of nutrition on mental healt...

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Episode #14 Featuring Dr. Drew Ramsey M.D.!! THE MENTAL HEALTH EPISODE! Tune in to learn EVERYTHING mental health. Dr. Ramsey takes a deep dive into the importance of mental fitness, his NINE TENETS to building mental fitness, the role of nutrition in mental health, differentiating stress from mental health, stigmas around mental health medications, how to take control of mental health and so much more!! Dr. Ramsey also discusses his NEW book, "The Nine Tenets to Building Mental Fitness" DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE!! Get a copy of Dr. Drew Ramsey's NEW BOOK, "Healing the Modern Brain" https://drewramseymd.com/books-publications/healing-the-modern-brain/   Visit Dr. Drew Ramsey's Homepage Here https://drewramseymd.com/   Follow Dr. Drew Ramsey on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drewramseymd/?hl=en ______________________________________________________________________   Today's episode is sponsored by Apollo Neuro!   Get the Apollo Neuro for $90 OFF!! USE CODE GEMELLI to save https://apolloneuro.com/gemelli _______________________________________________________________________________ To PURCHASE MITOPURE visit Dylan's landing page and use code DYLAN to save 20% OFF!! https://shop.timeline.com/DYLAN     TONUM supplements for the MIND AND BODY!   USE CODE "DYLAN" to save!!  https://www.tonum.com/DYLAN     THE BREAKTHROUGH MIMIO HEALTH FASTING MIMETIC SUPPLEMENT!  20% OFF with code Gemelli  https://mimiohealth.sjv.io/c/6588260/3323599/30611     TRULY Increase Your NAD LEVELS with WONDERFEEL NMN: https://getwonderfeel.com/?utm_source=DylanGemelli&utm_medium=podcast     MESCREEN: The world's first and only at home mitochondrial efficiency test Save $100 with CODE   DYLAN   https://mescreen.com/cart/47561239626013:1?discount=&ref=DYLAN       HIRE DYLAN ON THE MINNECT APP HERE: expert.minnect.com/@DylanGemelli     Follow Dylan on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok @dylangemelli and PLEASE SUBSCRIBE and leave reviews!!   MAKE SURE TO GO TO DYLAN'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL for MORE video content!!    https://www.youtube.com/@DylanGemelliBiohacking Email Dylan for booking, collaborations and/or to apply for the Dylan Gemelli Podcast [e-mail] Visit Dylan's Homepage https://dylangemelli.com

Today's episode is sponsored by Apollo Neuro. Apollo is the leading doctor recommended wearable technology. Apollo's award-winning smart vibes AI works effortlessly behind the scenes, automatically integrating into your life to deliver gentle, personalized vibrations that activate your vagus nerve, helping you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up balanced, focused, and ready each day. Not only that, but the Apollo Neuro is the first and only wearable that improves your HRV. Apollo is effortless. Simply wear it throughout the day and night and let it do the work

for you. It's safe for anyone and everyone with no side effects and is the only wearable that can be worn anywhere on your body. Optimal health requires both the mind and body to be in line and Apollo is the key to establishing that connection. Check the description below to save $90 with my special discount. Take control over your health today with Apollo Neuro. All right everybody. Welcome the Dylan Jameli podcast. Now, today is a really special podcast for me because this is my first guest that will be focusing on the mental health side of things. So I cannot tell you how excited I am and how much I've been looking forward to this. So today, I have Dr. Drew Ramsey. He is a board certified psychiatrist, psychotherapist. He's an author. Now, his work is very specific. It focuses on

evidence-based integrative psychiatry, nutritional psychiatry, and also male mental health. He's found at the Brain Food Clinic. He's a digital mental health practice that he has. And he also has a new book coming out here towards the end of March that we're going to discuss called Healing the Modern Brain, which I have had the privilege of already previewing and reading bits and pieces of. So thank you again and welcome Dr. Drew. It's great to have you, man. Dylan, thanks so much. It's awesome to be with you. I'm so excited everybody listening to talk all about healing the modern brain and just what we need to be doing every day now. We need to be doing something to take care of our mental health and build this idea what I'm calling mental fitness, right?

Just like your physical fitness, Dylan, you and I, I'm sure, could work out. You'd have some tips. I'd have some tips, right? There's so many different aspects of our physical fitness, our strength, their endurance, our flexibility. the same really exists for our mental health. And I think, you know, I call these tenets of mental fitness because a tenant is something we all know, is something we all agree on. It's not a, this isn't some secret little hack that I figured out. This is something that you and I know is true about our mental health. And so how can we create frameworks that we're always taking care of that?

Yes, definitely. And I was certainly one of the things that I was going to get into because I am well aware of your tenants and different aspects of things you talk about. I've actually taken quite a bit of time to look into what your beliefs are, what you teach, because it's very, it's very intriguing to me to see different approaches. And one of the reasons why I had wanted you on so much more and kind of went towards, gravitated towards you was your approach and your belief system. So I definitely want to convey that to the audience.

Can we just, I just want to start because, you know, thinking about why somebody approached wanting to teach mental health and what drew you to that. All of us have some sort of backstory that led us into the direction we're going. So what exactly was yours? Well, I think it's, Ray, what you say, that everyone has a backstory. And so I've always been very interested in our stories and how they influence our health. The stories of who we are and where we came from, the stories of how our minds work, what we tell ourselves, our beliefs, our beliefs, systems. So I got really interested in mental health because I've always felt that's the most important aspect of health, especially when we look at the data. When we look at what causes

disability in America, so often when it comes to health, we focus on cancer and heart disease and diabetes, and these are important, but these are things that kill us. What actually makes our life more difficult, what is the biggest drag on our economy, what really I would argue is the biggest danger to you and a kind of healthy, vibrant life are mental health concerns. And so, and we know mental health concerns, you know, are challenging for a variety of ways. One is there's a lot of stigma. You're struggling with your mental health. It's hard to get help. Two, there's a lot of controversy on what's actually a mental health problem. So I got really interested in this probably because of my own family's history as so many people get interested in mental health.

We just, we got a lot. And so I wanted to. to understand everything I could about that. I also just got really intrigued by the notion of being a physician, being a healer, and that I had the equipment that I needed, I just had to train it. So learning to train my mind to help other people with their minds was really a very exciting idea to me.

And then I'd been in a lot of psychotherapy in medical school and in college. And I found that to be a really engaging conversation really helpful. Perfect. Well, it makes sense. And that's why I always like to see what draws people towards what they're doing and kind of see what leads them in their path. So, you know, you have done so many different things, written so many different books and have your new book coming out. I don't want to jump too far ahead because I want to get into different aspects of mental health. But I want to talk to you about that book in general because like I said, I've taken some time to take some notes on it and read about it. What inspired you to write this particular book? And let's just kind of talk about what the main objective or focus here is on your writing. Well, let's start there.

The first objective, everybody listening is I want to get into your mind a little bit and pester you about taking better care of your mental health and building your mental fitness. I think that there are so many people who are kind of asking for a patient's or a person's ear and have information and a lot of misinformation these days about mental health. And so my motivation was really to inspire people and to give them clear things to do. If you're struggling in your self-awareness, I've got some ideas for you. If you don't really love exercise, that's great. Data says, by the way, in terms of depression, the most effective intervention is to go dancing quite seriously.

So there's research like this that I found exciting or intriguing. And I think part of the motivation for me is, you know, people really don't like coming to see me. It's a bummer of this profession in some ways, you know, that a lot of times people are in a crisis, they're rock bottom, you know, and they're really struggling. And I get a little envious of my other colleagues who, you know, I get to see patients in preventative ways. And because almost everyone I meet, if you start telling me about your mental health, start telling me about some of where you're where you're struggling or where you might need a little bit of help, almost always, there's a great conversation to be had and a lot of evidence-based recommendations. So you don't have to fully meet criteria for depression or anxiety to start working on your

mental health. And in fact, if we're going to be preventative in our country or actually going to give people tools so their mental health is stronger, more robust, more resilient, we've got to do it preemptively and preventatively. And we're just not. there isn't a preventative model in mental health at all, right? We were really focused on things like suicide prevention and treatment, which we should be. But I want people engaging in their mental health in a more active way earlier in their lives, building more clear skills that we know

help people take better care and have more mental health. Yeah. So, okay, that's great. And that's where I wanted to go with this. And I'm really glad you went that direction. So everything that, that I stand for and believe in now is prevention, not treatment prevention. Let's start this early. I teach people we're going to run your blood panels a lot earlier than they tell you to. We're going to start taking XYZ to be preventative so you don't have this occur later, you know, whether it be some sort of cholesterol problem we can prevent later or a liver problem. So with mental health, a couple questions. One, because this does sound tricky. How do we prevent mental health from even occurring? What is your method?

And when do we start in doing that? Because I have my own ideas, but I really want to hear from the professional here, like what your whole basis is you're teaching here on when to start and what to do. Yeah, well, let's start where most of people found me, which is through food. And nutrition is a great example. Lots of people eat whatever they want throughout their lives. They never have any mental health problems. You know, they may be run into some problems with their physical health. We've all kind of separated things like that, right, Dylan? But when you kind of walk that back, you can't have a physical problem without having a mental health aspect to it. You can't have heart disease without it doubling your risk of depression. Same thing with diabetes. Same thing with obesity.

And so, you know, there's this false dichotomy we've made, right, that the physical health is somehow separate. In terms of preventing mental health, as I said, a lot of people know about nutritional psychiatry these days, this idea of what we eat really influencing our brain health. And that's the arena I've really been working in over the past decade. My last book, Eat to Beat, depression and anxiety, right? It puts it right out there. I think you can eat in a way that helps you beat those illnesses. And I think you can eat in a way, based on the data, that promotes those illnesses. And so I think the nutrition example is kind of perfect, right? You can eat in a way, Mediterranean diet is what seems most clear, but let's just break that down, right? That means

more plants than most people are eating. It means healthier fats than most people are eating. It's less sugar, less refined carbohydrates. It's going to be more fiber than the vast majority of Americans are eating. More B vitamin, particularly things like B9, folate, and B12. There's a set of nutrients that we kind of identified that are particularly important for our mental health, and most Americans aren't getting enough of those. Now, that doesn't mean you're instantly going to have a mental health problem, but it does increase your risk. So that's a great example of prevention.

similar thing with movement. If you get depressed, what's one of the most powerful, reasonably low-cost, side-effect-free interventions that we have for clinical depression? It's exercise. Why will we want to wait until you're really, really depressed? Because, by the way, that's a real hard time to start exercising, to get you into some habits, get some patterns in your life where I call it movement in the book, because I think exercise is hard for some people.

Yeah. Just getting in the habit of you're always moving your body. You're stretching at night, maybe a little stretching in the morning. You're going out for walks. Maybe you're, as I said, going dancing. These are the types of ideas in terms of, again, prevention of building a set of healthy skills. I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Galloway, the great business marketing influencer. He has this dialed in plan when he starts to feel what he calls when he's depressed.

he calls it hollow. And he has this dialed implant. It's like he starts to, got to go sweat. It's the first thing. I got to go get a good sweat. And so he's in the habit of that. He knows that and it's an example of where then he can mobilize that more for his mental health.

When he finishes that workout, he knows he's doing the right stuff for his mental health, even if he doesn't feel better right away. And almost all of us, you know, once we get some movements and exercise, we feel a little bit better. Okay. That's always my go-to. Anytime I'm down or problem or whatever the case may be, the workout is, aside from prayer, that's my other go-to. It's like, I got to go work out. I have a question.

I'm going to relate this to myself for the audience. I have not discussed this in detail until just recently. I've been quite ashamed and embarrassed, but not anymore the older I've gotten. So, you know, I've battled an eating disorder most of my life starting at like 11 years old. And so when you start talking about that, about the way that the New Jersey. nutrition affects the mental health side of things. I just want to attest to people and tell people the importance of talking about something that I wouldn't talk about for 20 and 30 years and wish that I could change time and do. But just to relate, that caused me so much stress and strain over so many

years living in a dark hole by not addressing that. And the biggest contributor to what I would say led to my anxiety or my mental health if I'm being honest with myself and with you right now sitting here was not addressing that and talking about it and fixing it and thinking I could just either hide it or beat it on my own when I knew in my heart I couldn't. And so I see what you're saying in these problems. It's important to, one, be honest about them with yourself and then with somebody else, but two, figure out how to address it and prevent it early instead of going 20 and 30 years like I did without any sort of anything. And so as soon as you brought that up, it just resonated with me immediately. And like, you know, the points that you made about the foods that were eating and the effects they have. And if you're lacking in certain areas, that's can cause a lot of significant problems.

So I thank you for bringing that up and for letting me share this and have comfort to share it just by talking to you. Do you find the like eating disorders or things like of that nature lead to a lot of mental health problems? Do you deal with that and see that? Or is it common? Yeah, well, Dylan, first, I just appreciate you being upfront and honest about it. eating disorders or something so often we think about is, you know, in the land of women. And I've treated a number of men in my career who have eating disorders. Eating disorders just so everybody listening, they generally in psychiatry, they fall in kind

of more restrictive eating disorders where people are either over-exercising or aren't taking in enough calories and get, you know, very thin and dangerously thin. Anorexia nervosa is actually the most lethal of all the psychiatric disorders, about 5% of people who have anorexia pass from anorexia. And then there are the more binging type and purging, sort of more bulimic type eating disorders, as well as some, you know, not fully meeting diagnostic criteria right now, but something like what's called orthorexia, where people have a set of food rules that really prevent them from eating a well-rounded healthy diet.

But these are all around rigid ideas around food that prevent people from taking in the healthy nutrition that they need. So, Dylan, again, just thanks for saying something, because being open and, and honest about ourselves is something that, you know, times we all can struggle with, especially when there's something that is challenging, like an eating disorder. It reminds you of the tenets later in the book. One of the tenets is about unburdening. And Dylan, I think you just gave a really good example of that.

You're on the other side of something that for years, you probably wouldn't imagine you would never tell anyone. And now it's something that, as you say, you just started talking about it. You kind of put your foot down a little bit, and it said, you know, it's something that I am talking. about now. And so, you know, in terms of your personal mental health evolution, having that out in front of you, and having your loved ones and people that you're eating with and your community and your friends know about that, it creates a milieu or an environment where you're really able

to set a new set of mental health and mental fitness goals for yourself. You're not spending time with the secret. You're not spending time, you know, kind of figuring out how to facilitate these behaviors. You're spending time, I would guess, when you're having challenges, talking about them with people. It makes it a lot easier. Yeah. It's taken a long time to, I think, A, to just come to grips with it and to accept it, that it's like, because like you said, it's, it's more of a female type of thing in terms of perception, not necessarily in action, but perception. What I found is that in, you know, I've been in fitness and health. And so I understand the male problem with it because I've been surrounded by it.

I've coached it. I've dealt with it for 20 some odd years. So to me, it's very common in both men and women, but the normal perception for the rest. And so it does make it more difficult. And people like more men don't admit it. I see it. I know it because I have it, you know. But, I mean, you wouldn't know on the surface, especially big bodybuilders and people that have it.

So yeah, and that's when I read about your tenants too, and I see it all correlate and it's all coming together right now. So I feel like this was something that needed to kind of be out there and said that we weren't planning on here that was super helpful. And I appreciate your efforts and your work and the ability to help people to speak to and to see things because you have a good way of conveying it and make it real easy to talk. Well, thank you, Bill. And I appreciate that. and I know that these are hard things to talk about. I've had a lot of different mental health things in my own life and in my own family. And there's nothing worse about these conditions than when we feel we're alone with them.

And there's nothing worse than struggling with your mental health when you feel there aren't answers. That, you know, nobody's figured this out. So I really wanted people to see both the research, but also I'm glad the tone comes across. Because when I meet people and they're struggling with mental health, I don't sit there thinking, I'm like, wow, what are we going to do? Usually there are a number of really clear steps. One of the tenets, the first one is self-awareness, and I talk about this thing, everybody listening can see this in their own life.

It's fascinating to me. I'll sit with a patient and they'll tell me the whole thing. Really great detail about what's going on, what the problem is. A lot of times, like what the solutions and next steps are, and then they'll look me right in the eye, and they'll say, I don't know. kidding me you just is it like a most beautiful illustration of what you know what to do you know i'm kind of almost bearing witness of the solution in progress right and and it really uh in the book i talk about this called disavowal where we really uh lose our sense of agency our sense of knowing things and so i ask

people to look for this tick when you find yourself kind of rattling off of these things and then you you say i don't know i don't know and if you switch that was like i'm really clear about where I really know that and repeat some of the things you've just said because the idea is in a very kind of micro acute way to get more confidence in your ability and in your perspective on the challenges in front of you. Yeah, you know what? You just said that and when you said it, when I know that when I do that, oh, I don't know. It's a twofold answer and there's a reason behind it. One, you feel the pressure to have to answer. that question immediately. And if it doesn't come right into your head, you then in turn have the fear of

saying something that the person that's asking you is not going to be right. So your quickest response or protective measure is, I don't know. And if you just sat and thought a minute and just relaxed, you probably would know. So that resonated right when you said that. I was like, oh my gosh, I do that. I'm sure a ton of people do it because I see it all the time. It's easy to say. How do you overcome that? That, that like how do you teach people to just take a second and sit there and just think a minute and not get so overwhelmed and consumed with a question that they do that with? Well, I think one, when I see it, I pointed out to people right away. Yeah.

The benefits of being in therapy and is that some of what we struggle with is just on display for you and the therapist. Ideally, right? And so you can kind of observe it in real time. And so I'll get curious on whether people, you know, first of all, have a lot. awareness of it because a lot of times people don't. I'll note, hey, you know, it's interesting, you just told me a lot of things it feels to me like you know and that you know about the situation. You ended with, I don't know, and it really echoes this feeling you have. Yeah. You know, this is an unknowable kind of situation or that you're not prepared in some way.

You know, this is certainly also a symptom of clinical depression. I treat a lot of clinical depression where people really lack self-esteem, they lack confidence in their opinion. And so I don't want to belittle this or make light of it, that it's, you know, all you do is decide that you know and now it's all fine. But it's more of how mental fitness works, which is seeing this, right, that your language and your kind of automatic language contributes or degrades or contributes to the degradation of your self-esteem. If you have a powerful voice constantly telling you that you don't know things, especially when there are things that you obviously know. Yeah. I just, I kind of want to clean that up as much as I can for somebody.

So they can be more in the language of confidence. They can be more clear. Sometimes we don't know. Right. We don't know anything. That means we're not sure. That means we only know some of it. Right.

And even that, I mean, not to sound silly, but not knowing, not being fully sure. That's a very common state for all of us. And one that's really important to be clear about. It's not like a binary thing where we know nothing and we are all knowing. and unifident, we know everything, right? Usually we're kind of in this mix of things we're very clear about and things we're wondering about. So here's something I'm wondering. When you have patients that come in and they kind of do that, for instance, that I don't know, or do you find that people that are maybe struggling more with their mental health or like borderline depressive

or there's clearly a problem or more like impatience, for instance, if you start, I'm sure in your profession, you've got to dig and you got to ask us, you know, a lot of questions to get to the core roots of a lot of problems. Maybe some are easier to ascertain than others, but I'm sure that you have to, you have to ask a significant amount of questions. Do you find people that are, you know, quick to be impatient or snappy with their answers or maybe suffering a little more or or having more of an issue or how does that correlate? Because I guess from what I observe with people, I see a lot of people that are so quick to just like get angry or upset if you ask a question. And then I have to ask myself, like, why?

Because questions are good and we're trying to get to the core of the problem. So what does that mean to you, I guess, is my question. Because I've tried to overanalyze that in people and I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't, you know, I don't know. We call that being defensive or defensiveness, that might feel. And so psychological defenses, usually almost always or because there's something that we're insecure about. Okay. That the question bothers us, right?

If we're really secure and you ask me about something, you know, answer. You're going to have something I disagree with. But if we're struggling, if we're insecure, if we're not sure, sometimes those questions, you know, kind of hit a nerve. And so this is really in some ways central to this tenet of self-awareness. You find yourself, we sometimes call it being activated or being triggered or having a powerful emotional response to someone's questions. I love these moments because they tell you something. They tell you something more is going on. There's something going on underneath the surface.

For example, you're at work. And you keep getting into it with women who are a little bit older than you are. Just kind of, and boy, you know, I'd want to really quickly start to understand more about your dynamics with women, more about the women in your life and how they've helped you out and how they've let you down, right? There's a pattern going on here that's going to undermine your professional success. Yeah. Now, it's probably something very personal and sensitive. And if I came to you and said, like, hey, I think you've got issues with women at the workplace.

You probably get a little defensive. And you probably employ what happens a lot where people start externalizing. Well, you know, Beth, she's really tough. Well, you know, I think about defense. and being triggered is those are symptoms, right? That's a symptom of something. It's a signal in some way, more than a symptom. It's a signal that something is going on underneath the surface.

It deserves your attention and you're going to be motivated and driven by that. Let's say insecurity. Right. What do you want to be? Okay, so I know this is maybe, it's a broad question, but I'm sure that like with a lot of broad questions, there are some similarities here. Can you just point out? Some of the key issues or factors that you see when you can tell somebody has like either an onset mental health struggle or, you know, they definitely do have one.

What are some things that maybe we can look at in ourselves too that we know like, okay, I think I have some mental struggles here that I'm dealing with. That I think that would be helpful for us. Everybody listening, I'm going to be clear with you all. The reason I wrote this book is I think you have some mental health struggles. And I think a lot of them are maybe subtle. Right. And they don't get talked about. And you might never meet criteria for depression or anxiety, but I think your mind and your mental health are worth the effort and they're worth your attention.

So I appreciate what Dylan is kind of illustrating. And I hear this a lot from patients. You know, is it a problem? Is my drinking a problem? It's like only two beers a night. And so how we kind of draw that line, hey, you've got a diagnosis. You meet five out of nine criteria for depression. And in some ways that I appreciate that model.

I work in that model. But if you have three out of nine symptoms of depression, I want to talk about them. I want to hear what's going on. If those three symptoms are irritable, you're hopeless and you're not sleeping at all, I think you're going to have a few more criteria pretty soon. And so, you know, as a psychiatrist, when I sit with individuals, I'm thinking about a few kind of arenas. I'm looking for people's mood, their moods, stupid. their mood resilience, the range of their mood. They're feeling good.

Are they feeling bad? Are they appropriately, you know, maybe sad or tearful? As they're telling me about a trauma? Are they excited and full of, you know, good feeling? As they're telling me about work promotion or their kids? So you're paying attention to someone's kind of feeling and mood state and how they describe it. We pay a lot of attention in psychiatry and just someone's thought process, right?

Whether it's goal directed, whether people are distracted, whether folks are overly inclusive or go off on tangents a lot or just are a little disorganized in their thought process. We pay a lot of attention to what people are saying, the kind of thought content in terms of whether people are focused on, say, negative things or really fixated on their worries. Then we're also paying attention to things like insight. Like how much awareness do you have about the problems?

if you come in and you know and you're describing a problem and really don't don't seem to have some insight into your own maybe role in it right we take a lot about people's judgment and the decisions they make so those are there's kind of some of the parts of what we call the mental status exam where I'm sitting with an individual and I'm thinking about really how they're presenting what they seem like how they're thinking and really trying to do this in a way that doesn't seem in any way like you're judging or scrutinizing anyone right yeah we really really want to be in a collaborative conversation. To get to the meat of your question, though, when do I get worried or when am I concerned? I get concerned about functioning when people begin to, their symptoms of depression or anxiety or other mental health concerns interrupt their ability to engage in productive work, whatever that is, whether an artist or an energy healer or massage therapist or a doctor. And then when things interfere with relational functioning. which, you know, is quite common that when we have a lot of,

mostly focus on anxiety disorders and mood disorders, but when people are struggling with a lot of symptoms of anxiety or panic disorder or they're struggling with a lot of symptoms of depression, of course it makes it harder and more challenging to engage in work, engage in relationships, feel your best self. And so those are some of the kind of in some ways criteria. Depressive disorders are usually around kind of symptoms that have to do. with mood and how you're feeling, how hopeful and positive you are. But also, there are a lot

of symptoms of depression people don't know about, like depression often clinical depression affects appetite, affects sleep, causes us to gain weight or lose weight, can involve scary symptoms like suicidal thoughts, whereas usually anxiety disorders are much more around kind of worry, catastrophic worries, panic attacks, specific phobias, things like that. How do you different, differentiate stress from mental health. I've always wondered that. What is the, what's the differentiating factor there? I think about mental health is kind of a state that you have and are working towards improving.

I think almost all of us with our mental health, well, even if it's okay, we're often working on some aspect of it. Because so many different aspects of life and different phases of life challenge our mental health. If you're middle-aged like me and you know, you're kind of in that in that caring for elderly parents, caring for kids, you know, the mental health challenges are different than when I was a medical student. And the challenge there is, you know, studying and getting enough sleep and just keeping your nutrition up and trying to see your friends. So, you know, stress and one of the reasons that I hope healing the modern brain is a really helpful resource to people. Stress is just going up.

And whether it's the stress of you realize you just have been on the potty for an hour doom scrolling, or whether it's the stress of all of the news that you're sharing in disasters and events happening all over the world in real time. Those are the stressors I think about as the waves that are crashing on the shore of our mental health. That stress is always coming, and a measure of your mental health is how you deal with those stressors. You know, when you are struggling with anxiety, depression, or other mental health disorders, stresses get overwhelming really quickly because you're just working on keeping your head above water, feeling good, getting through the day. So, is stress like a lead-in to like a longer-term mental health problem if we don't manage it properly, then?

Is that one of the lead-ins that can create a longer-term problem? For sure. I mean, I talk about in the book a couple of my patients who, you know, I kind of meet them or sort of walk into a clinical scenario where someone's sleep starts to deteriorate because they start working nights. Right. And how that, you know, that's a stressor in some way, right? It's a shift.

But over time, if it's not managed properly, this person is inevitably going to have mental health concerns. I think everybody varies. I mean, it's one of these, you know, we know people who are really, let's call them stoic and they don't, you know, seem to be bothered by stress. And then, you know, lo and behold, we learn that, you know, they are really struggling. We see people who are just great at this. They just thrive on stress, people will say.

But it's something that everyone agrees when it comes to your mental health. Learning better coping skills, as we call it, a deal with stress. And learning some of the techniques in healing the modern brain, which are really designed around the management of stress. If you're sleeping better, moving your body, if you're unburdening your traumas in appropriate ways, if you're building more connections with people, these are all these fundamental tenets

that inevitably help you managing stress. Okay. I've got one more question for you than I would have attendance, but because you brought this up and because I see it and I know. So one of the things that I was trained on as I started doing influencing or videos or whatever you want to call it was to ignore all of the negative comments, you know, and just don't let it bother you. Now, thankfully, I'm a little bit more thick skin,

so a lot of it didn't bother me, but I'm human. some of it did bother me. And I guess where I'm going with this is when you brought up the term stoic, now I immediately, and it's people don't know what that means, it's just like, you're just not showing a lot of emotion. Things just kind of bounce off of you. You just kind of even keeled throughout the time. You're not really up or down too much. Or negative things or crazy things don't seem to bother you. Now, do you find, and I know this is a broad question too, but I guess I'm wondering, do you find that you uncover a lot of people that do come across? Because I feel like a lot of people put that up, that wall when they're trying to hide something. Some people are just stoic. I get it.

But I feel like a lot of people that I've encountered put this shield up or this wall up because they're kind of hiding something and keeping it back there or trying to not let certain aspects of their life out because they're trying. Like, part of my eating problem was I always tried to act like I was perfect with everybody. I didn't want to show weakness. I didn't want to show that I was, you know, bothered by this or eating this or that and when inside it was killing me. But I put this wall up and I had this stone wall face. Do you find you see that a lot or is it just kind of, you know, hit and miss with people that have that kind of attitude or, you know, kind of way of life? I don't know how frequent is. I think that there is a lot of value culturally that's been

placed on being more stoic, especially for men. Yep. I got to interview Jimmy Butler, the basketball star. We're talking about vulnerability. And everybody, all the guys are trying about, oh, vulnerability is so great. Vulnerability is so great. And he's like, you know, vulnerability is really dangerous if you don't do it right. Right.

You can't just go and, like, share everything with everybody. And so I think stoicism, if stoicism is our selective ability to express our emotions, as long as you get to the expression part, what I think about stoics in general that, you know, isn't really, uh, particularly interesting is, is when there's a denial of emotion. Yeah. If you're weathering it, thoughtfully, carefully, you know, you're journaling about it and you don't express a lot of feeling or you're a little more reserved, you know, kind of classic stoicism. Okay.

But I think a lot of times people aren't expressing emotion, as you say, because, you know, there's stuff going on. Usually, and especially for men, it's because the experience of sharing emotions has gone crappy. Right. A lot of patients used to stress to say, you know, why would I give someone a stick to hit me with? And that's their experience of sharing emotions. When you ask them how they're doing, how they're feeling what's going on, and they get up the courage to tell someone, a lot of men have a kind of trauma of either not using the right words or having things misinterpreted, but not having that feeling of like, wow, I was vulnerable and I shared and now I feel better known and safe. And so I think that's where, you know, these kind of stoic attitudes of not sharing emotion over time. No one, I would say that stoics wouldn't want to be exactly categorized that way. I think the modern stoics really think about a deep thinking state and a state of control over your emotions and understanding your emotions.

but that kind of classic not sharing your feelings, not expressing emotion, you know, I tend to think that's not so good for you because it shuts down the quality of your connections. Now, certainly there's situations we're all in where we want to be a little bit more stoic. Yeah, I'm in a clinical scenario a lot. And so, you know, it's very important that if I'm struggling in some way, that that's not a prominent piece of the session, right? So that type of functional stoicism where, you know, weather the storm, I think it's one of those skills we really want people to build. I think that stoicism, that more cliche, where people aren't expressing emotions, aren't feeling emotions.

I don't think that's healthy for you in any way, but I'm a feelings doctor, so I'm a little biased, right? No, and I think it's, there's a good balance. I think that everybody needs to have some people can go a little too far one way or another, and I've seen that. But I think it's important to convey I've gotten a heck of a lot better at it, the older I've gotten. more comfortable, I guess, I've gotten realizing that things, you know, it's better to just get them out there, be honest with yourself and with others. And then that'll prevent, hopefully, not only will it prevent things from happening with you, but it'll help other people to prevent problems that could occur. And I think that a lot of us don't think about that. One of the things

that I figured out was a lot of selfishness that I didn't. When you think of selfishness, sometimes you just think of, oh, I just want this for myself or that for myself. But you can be selfish by not doing things that could help others or, you know, encourage others too. And I think sometimes when you hold back, it's kind of selfish because you could like somebody that has a voice like myself, if I hold back, I'm not really helping somebody. It could become a problem. So I'm trying to take note of that and I think it's helpful. I know it's helped me when I realized, man, this feels good to get it off. But I think it might be helping other people. You know, that's why I talk to you about problems that I have personally because it's like, dude, I'm human. You know what I mean?

And I try to, sometimes people in a position, not that I'm in any special position whatsoever, but I have a big audience and I always wanted to, I was always trained. If you make a mistake, go back and fix it or edit it out, do this, do that. And, you know, be perfect. And it's like, man, that's just not reality. So I don't want to make people think that's a reality when it's not. You know, I want to be a pro at what I do. But at the same time, be honest and show people, hey, you know, like we all wake up, you know,

brush our teeth, drink water, eat food. We all do the same things. You know, we just have different skill sets. So I appreciate everything that you're saying because, I mean, it's really, really helpful to think deeply about. And your message is just amazing. So, well, Dylan, I mean so much coming from it. I really appreciate you talking about your own mental health in this way.

I think for all of your listeners and everybody listening, you know, we just know it's true. It's a hard thing to do to find that space, find that language. And some ways, like find the confidence that Dylan has, to not. live in the dark with this. And I think you're exactly right, Dylan. There are people listening. There are men listening who've never thought that eating disorders were something that happened to men. And you've just opened the idea. Maybe it's just a Google search tonight. Maybe they just talk to another friend. Maybe they start making some changes. Maybe they book an appointment with someone. Yeah. I want to take care of this privately. I've never ever talked to a mental health specialist.

I think have an eating disorder. I love those sessions, by the way. Anybody out there who's scared of seeing a mental health professional. I got to tell you, you know, we're a lot different than we've ever been. The mental health clinician population, it's just there are more of us than ever before. I know it can be hard to find the right fit. That's really the most important thing that you're looking for in a treatment is somebody that you vibe with. Training is really important, too, but that vibe, somebody you can be accountable for and trust and talk to openly. And so, owning what you've got and being clear about it and that's really at the heart of self-empowerment and the more that we can stand up and be clear as you say you know none of us are perfect

um i think we've we've all learned that lesson over and over again we see all these people we idealize and look up to and then we see oh they they struggle right whether they're wealthier or more famous and yeah they still have struggles uh it's something kind of universal for us as human And it's not that we all have mental health problems, but it's a wonderful gift to having this human mind. That's right. It's also a bit of a burden. And so the hope of healing the modern brain is to give people some frameworks, some areas or arenas to work on. And to not only do that in the stance of, hey, this is a treatment for depression or anxiety or mental health problems, but that these are absolutely essential in the modern world.

if you don't take more proactive steps to care for your mental health and build your mental fitness, there is more coming for it than ever before, whether it's the devices and the phone, or whether it's the way that just socializing is a little harder. I have so many people who tell me, you know, I just never really recovered from the pandemic. I got isolated. I got Netflix.

I got on the couch and I'm just not as social. I feel that in my own life sometimes. I don't like, I used to love to throw a dinner party. I've not a few of those, but not as many as before the pandemic. And so that real necessity these days, right? Nutrition is a great one. 80% 70, 80% of the calories that most people eat are ultra-processed foods.

Ultra-processed foods and a dietary pattern that revolves around modern food increases your risk of clinical depression and clinical anxiety, period. You can debate on how much, but just the data seems pretty clear in that. So it's just that kind of idea, right? If you don't do anything active, you're going to end up eating most of your calories from ultra-processed foods. Right. And so it's very exciting when it's like, hey, actually in one of the studies, the Smiles trial, they took people with clinical depression and who were in treatment and put them

on a Mediterranean-style diet. 32.3% of them went to full remission from their depression. And on top of this, they saved about $140 a week. So, you know, you have this kind of really cool data now. And a similar data comes up with depression and exercise. When you look, you compare the antidepressant Zoloft to exercise. Now I'm not talking like, oh, a little bit, like regular, you know, several times a week, vigorous exercise. You find that they're about equal.

What I love about these studies, it's like, great. You know, Zoloft and exercise go really well together. So there are lots of interventions, whether it's food or movement. I'm sorry to keep going on or on about this, but it just gets me excited, this notion of like, you know what? What do we know the modern world does? Makes us more isolated. Makes us stuck on our screens. It makes us not have the type of depth and intensity that we have in our relationships.

And you can do something about that. You can do something about that today, right? It can be as simple as I do this all the time, especially as I'm busy where I have a little math of the people I'm really wanting to deepen things with. And I'm making sure I tell the patients all the time. I'm putting points on the board. Points on the board that can be a text. It can be a call ideally or a video call I like a lot more so I can kind of see my friends and my family. You know, simple stuff.

Nobody's really keeping track. But if you don't do it, you feel it. You see it in your life. Your connections, the quality of them, the intensity of them. It dissipates. And that then begins to create risk for us when it comes to our mental health. And I have a nutritionist. So when we start talking about food and everything,

I smile because I'm so intrigued by the way it relates, because I know it, but I don't correlate it a lot. So hearing it from you, while it may be something I know, I don't know it anywhere near to the level you do. And then it makes me smile because I'm like, okay,

more appropriate in my teachings now. You know what I'm? It's amazing to. This one of those cool things, I mean, I think a lot of people listening probably too, where we don't quite put it together. Like we all know,

when we eat better, we feel better, but we don't explicitly put mental health risk, right, and our risk of disorders like depression in, you know, in with our nutrition. We don't look at our plate and think, okay, this food is feeding my mental health or my brain or not. Sometimes we joke, right? We'll look at the cake or the ice cream or the soda or the beers and be like, oh, mental health meal here. But I feel like it's something that we all intuitively know, but that thing you said is always intrigue me, where even educated folks like yourself, they like don't correlate mental health risk and nutrition, even though your brain is the most metabolically active organ you have, like your nerve cells,

your neurons, your brain cells, they consume more of your food than any other cells. It's about a fifth of everything you eat. Get it's a fifth of all your calories. It's just three pounds. And so it's this really like huge opportunity for us to expand, really. I mean, the book, we didn't get into this too much, but the book really asked people in the very beginning, hey, the way you're thinking about anxiety, depression, and mental health, I think is probably wrong. I think you're probably thinking about it as like serotonin and meds. And there's so much to our mental health. We need to up-level your knowledge. I ask people to really look at these tenants and their mental health through these three new lenses. One is neuroplasticity. It's a fancy word that means your brain continues to grow in adult life. So stuff, you do, choices you make, as I say, mental fitness, right? The skills, the patterns, the knowledge, the right choices there actually creates more brain growth and more brain repair. It's via this

molecule, usually BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. You know, that goes up when you exercise. It goes up when you eat a Mediterranean diet. It goes up when you take antidepressants. It goes up when you're in psychotherapy. It goes up when you have more connections. What hurts brain growth? Isolation. So all these ways that, again, looking through our mental health through the lens of brain growth and brain repair, that's one lens. The next is inflammation. Big word that's thrown around all the time now in relation to all kinds of health concerns. Inflammation is when our body's alarm systems just get a little bit out of whack. You're just upsetting yourself up where a sort of joke, I say it's like going into school and you're going to take a big test and the fire alarm goes off.

you're just not going to do as well on the else well probably finish it but you're not going to do as well because you're so distracted by all this excess alarm now then the sprinklers go off how do you feel in the bubble so that's the example of inflammation we just know a lot of people are leading their life whether you know being overweight causes an extra inflammation being socially isolated causes extra inflammation eating uh you know a low fiber high sugar diet leads to more inflammation So not sleeping well leads to inflammation. So inflammation and the regulation of inflammation is something that's a big focus of the book. And then the last is the microbiome.

It's this kind of wild to think that our mental health and our brain health are involved with and even dictated by some of the organisms that live in our gut. But that's what microbiome is. It's all the organisms that live in our gut. Boy, there's so much complexity here. but the advice is pretty simple. Eat more plants, eat more fermented foods. But it's very exciting to meet folks when they have not heard about fermented foods.

They've not thought about the microbiome. Just again, as an intervention and is something potentially that might help out. So this is all my wheelhouse. Like I just interviewed Dr. Gundry. We did a big focus on the microbiome. I do a ton of focus on understanding inflammation, the markers to look for. you know, I mean, those are key indicators for a lot of problems, especially, you know, cardiovascular health and many other factors. And one of the things that I'm learning right now, I'm in a cellular

health class and I'm learning about, you know, cells mitochondrial disease and functioning and how to treat that as well. But, you know, inflammation, like to your point, that can increase when you're stressed mental health, depression, problems like that. I see a lot of people that have that correlate and I see a lot of symptoms, high cortisol, for example, mental health problem, stress, high cortisol levels, which can lead to other issues. So it all kind of goes hand in hand. So once again, I know this, I think about it, but I never tie it into a long-term mental health thing or let's try to work on this so that maybe this will help. It's one of those things where it's like we need people like you that dig to the root cause as opposed to somebody that just is like

treat, treat, treat. We're not looking for the problem. We're not trying to prevent it beforehand or dig to the core. We're just trying to give you a pill and say, here, this will fix it. And I just, I can't stand that. And I think the more that I've learned and the more doctors I've worked with and the more experience I have, I've taken that holistic, naturopathic approach, the approach of trying to dig, dig, dig, find, find. So then I guess that would lead me into a discussion you and I had prior. about the use of these drugs and how often they're prescribed and how it's the answer to everything. You know, I struggled with this and a lot of my teachings with statins and cholesterol. So let's relate that to what you do, something like Zoloft for depression or, you know. Yeah. So I've been in that kind of integrated space for a long time and I came into this. I really wanting to make sure that all of the things that we know help mental health, whether it's meditation or yoga or having a spiritual life, get included.

What I found is that there's a real bias against any type of psychiatric medication to the point that it's almost impossible for someone to take one. And I had to ask everyone listening to name in the history of humans something that has been less expensive and more effective than SSRI antidepressants for public mental health. You won't find anything. You won't find anything that helps 50 to 60% of people with clinical depression and anxiety. How do we know this?

Well, I tend to trust women over 50. They just do. I feel like they've seen a lot. They know a lot. Why do I say women? Well, I just think the women in our society in general, I call them the matriarchs. They are just paying better attention than the men a lot of times. I guess that may be a controversial statement, but I'm just going to say.

I don't disagree. What percentage of men over the women over the age of 50 are taking an SSRI antidepressant in America? It's one in four. People hear that and they freak out. And I just think that's misogyny right at its core. What if we just trusted two things, really. Trusted one, the women are suffering maybe a more of mental health burden for some very specific reasons of how we treat them. and two, that they take them because they work.

Do they work perfectly? I don't think they work perfectly. No. Did they have side effects? Yeah, they have some side effects. You know, some that are concerning them. You're helping someone with their depression, but you're making the quality of their orgasm worse.

That is not a great compromise any of us want to make, but it's the situation with some of these meds. I think what you're talking about, the ubiquity of them, is because we have a massive mental health epidemic and we don't have a lot of solutions that our society has been oriented towards. Who is prescribing all of these antidepressants? It's not psychiatrists. It's our primary care doctors because you come in for a few minutes.

You describe horrible anxiety. They've got 7, 8, 10 minutes. What do they have besides Zoloft? Very little. Most primary care docs I know, you know, they don't have a deep well of mental health clinicians who have an opening right away. So when it comes to symptom reduction, and again, for some patients, and I think these patients are highly discriminated against, some people just do a lot better on an anti-depressant medication. They have less anxiety.

They have less fearfulness. They have less fearfulness. And I think right now, in particularly in 2025, there is a real big push. There's a big anti-psychiatry push that these meds don't work, that the serotonin, high. hypothesis of depression is false. I get into this in healing the modern brain because I really people want people to know more about the truth. And the truth is none of us who are in clinical practice and prescribing antidepressants have thought about depression as a serotonin problem for decades. No one. No one. We use the idea of a chemical imbalance to help people understand there's biology

involved in clinical depression. If you get the flu today, and tonight, you're going to be depressed. You're going to feel sad. You might feel a little tearful. Why? Because intralukins cause you to feel more depressed. If you're walking out with chronic inflammation all the time, you have a bunch of untreated medical conditions.

Sure, we feel maybe we know more of the root cause there, but a lot of folks will do much better with an antidepressant. Why? There's also one of my favorite stats. You know what Prozac is? It's a massive central, meaning brain, anti-inflammatory. it never gets pitched like that. All you're hearing these days is all these sound bites about the antidepressants don't work

and big fun and all this. And it's a bunch of hooey. It's really, really damaging for patients. I have a patient right now who has been on and off of antidepressants, Lexapro, for decades. She does incredibly well on the medicine. Feels better. Doesn't have the same types of thoughts. You know, the idea that, like, we haven't figured out the root cause of her depression

and she shouldn't take the medicine anymore. Like every time a New York Times article comes out, questioning the meds, she tries to stop and slowly, you know, the way that we recommend people taper off these meds, and her symptoms come back. She has multiple people in her family, many of whom are resistant. They've done really well. So, you know, I'm not here to tell people to take meds or not take meds, but what I would like, Dylan, probably in the world if I could order it up, I really would like for all of my

patients who take medication, I wish that we lived in a world where they could just do that without so much stigma and judgment. And whether it's the pharmacist, oh, my gosh, pharmacist, oh, you're still taking this? Or whether it's the friend, oh, my gosh, are you sure you need something that strong? It's just the amount of crap that people have to deal with to take care of their mental health and to really have freedom of choice. Again, name me a name, any mental health intervention that costs five, ten, ten, ten, bucks for one year of treatment.

Like for a while, all the big bucks spores were, you know, you could get a year of an antidepressant for about, I think it was five or seven bucks. I was a few years ago. And so I'm not trying to kind of give carte blanche to say everybody should take these meds. I'm just saying, I'd like to live in a world where patients could actually make a freaking choice based on what the evidence says. And that's not, you know, it's funny. I was really disappointed.

I had a lot of wellness influencers. You know, they trot out these stats about statertonin that are totally irrelevant. They love to say like 95% of serotonins in the gut. Uh-huh. There's 500,000 serotonin neurons that innervate our brain. They're different than the ones in the gut. But it's just kind of like it's saying, you know,

there's a lot of iron other parts in the body and other parts of the body. It's like, it's not really like, it makes it sound like somehow the serotonin in the brain, brain and the serotonin and the gut have something to do with each other. Right. And they kind of don't. They're separate pools. Or when anytime there's a statistic about antidepressants, you know, working or not working,

you see the people in the wellness community who love to spread Sigma, right, where they love to jump on this and, you know, kind of make it a, I don't know, big pharma conspiracy. And it's just, it makes me frustrated because I'm, by the way, everybody listening, I don't take any money from big pharma, not on the dole of any big pharma. I'm just a doctor. I prescribe these medicines. I see them work. I'm in private practice.

Nobody would come back to see me ever, right, if what I was doing wouldn't work. No. I'm expensive and I'm in private practice. So the idea, I'll just say to get back to mental fitness is whether you need meds or not, it's not the question of this book. The question of this book is, can you improve your mental fitness? can you be more diligent in the care of your mental health? Can you engage in the tenets of mental fitness in a way that helps you achieve your goals?

That's more than the debate about meds. What I really wanted to illustrate in this book is that there's so much we can do for our mental health and that it's urgent we start doing it. Yeah, 100%. I mean, everything you said makes perfect sense. part of the problem is, is there's a lot of, this really happened over COVID. I would always tell my wife, there's a lot of web MD doctors out there now that just think they know everything by either reading something online or regurgitating something without actually

knowing. Look, I'm not going to act like I'm perfect. I used to do it like, you know, 10 years ago when I was just becoming an influencer and trying to get followers until I realized how much that was hurting my credibility. And now I'm blessed enough to be able to interview people like yourself where I can personally learn for myself and then help put it out there for others to listen to. So not only am I putting that out there for people, but then I'm adding to my own knowledge base. So if somebody asks me, I can say, hey, go watch this. You know, and this is what I know. And so it's helpful. And I wish more people tried to do that as opposed to just throwing stuff out there because a lot of people in that realm are just trying to get likes and views and people to watch and make

something viral is all it is. Well, and I also think you have a lot of. pointing out something that a lot of people who are talking online don't actually treat patients. Right. Those of us who are in clinical practice, I've been in clinical practice for 20 plus years. What that means is that there's someone sitting on that couch and they're looking at me, telling me their problems and their symptoms, and it's our job to come up with a set of solutions together based on their values, right? You've come in to see me and you never want to take a medicine. Okay, like let's get to work. You come and see me, you want to learn about medicines? Hey, I'm going to share with you everything I know.

But really, I think what you're speaking about is that it's easy to find a step, it's easy to find some studies that say antidepressants don't work. It's easy to find some studies that say they do. The art of medicine has gotten lost in all this. The art of taking

care of people, the art of healing the modern brain. It involves a lot of different factors for many people. And I really hope that, and I think people more than ever feel the wake-up call, And we've got to take control of our mental health. It shouldn't be a debate of meds or no meds anymore.

It needs to be a conversation about what you're doing in your everyday life to improve your mental fitness and build it, just like a muscle. And I think everybody has the capacity for that. And I know that even with all of my years as a mental health clinician and been in therapy forever, all that stuff, I still find regular challenges in my daily life, whether it's how I want to be a better parent. and more oriented. I realized the other day, like, I hadn't really studied my daughter's science with her. I love science. I love middle school science.

It's like the cell. It's like my favorite stuff. It's just kind of embarrassed, Dylan. What is the hell am I doing? I'm not like helping my daughter with like this, you know, it's like my favorite subject. And I just like, that's the tenet of engagement for me. That means that I'm very engaged.

I'm work all the time. It just means the pull of maybe some of the things calling my attention. It's not oriented with my values as much as I want it to be. And so I really made it this week in particular. I really have made it in this week, getting ready to all this book stuff, making sure to check in every night. I'm making sure I've understood also this problem I had. Like, I'm used to studying textbooks and everything's on the iPad.

So I was like, man, do I need to order a big science textbook just so at least we'll flip through it together? like how am I going to get more engaged with this aspect that I think is so important. So that's an example I think of mental fitness in my own life. And I just illustrate that tell people that, you know, sometimes you think it, you know, it's just like very abstract or obscure concept. It's like, no, it's right in front of you. And it's that if you don't have a connection in your marriage, it's like it's right now. It's today.

It's that phone call. It's setting up that date night. It's maybe getting something nice on the way home, right? It's saying this isn't where I want it to be in terms of how my life is feeling. And I'm going to take proactive changes, small little steps, like I said earlier, points on the board to move this in the right direction. That's just it. What you just said, it's so easy to just keep letting little things going, oh, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. And then before you know it, it's accumulated so much.

And it's just, it's almost, it's not, sometimes it's unaddressable. And sometimes it's gotten so large and the problems built for so long, it's sitting right there if you would just take the moment to say okay take a deep breath and say I better do something right now before it gets out of hand and I struggle with that with a lot of people and and you know people that I coach and everything where I'll stay on them and I'm almost like a father to some of these people that I'm even that are even older than me and it's like look we got to you just got to do this right now hamper down to do this and fix this because it's just going to compound and it's just going to get worse and worse and that's you know you start

seeing signs of mental struggles, mental health, tell tell science, do something about it. Talk to somebody like you, address it, do whatever it has to be done and address it early before it compounds into something else because it doesn't just affect you. It affects the others around you, too. Yep. And I really love that idea. It's like I say, like they say in the New York subway, if you see something say something. Yes.

I believe it's that way with mental health, you know, and I think everybody listening, you know the subtle nice language to say, right? We start something like, hey, I care about you and I'm, you know, I want to know how you're doing. Do you seem this or that? Not to have people feeling judged or watched, but having people feel seen. Yes. And if you're struggling in someone, people often wonder where to start, right? Do you start with a therapist?

You start with your primary care doctor. These are all great places to start. I also think starting with that friend in your community or in your group or your tribe who's a little maybe mentally health savvy or who, you know, has a therapist, that that can be a place to start. That notion of who you share this with, it's really scary initially. And so picking somebody who's either a professional or picking somebody who you know has an empathic ear towards these types of issues is really important. And not being alone in it, Dave.

I mean, that's a, you know, Dylan, that's a, that's the thing that's like, that said earlier, you know, however you're struggling, please don't think you're alone. something that's often helped me in my life is I think whatever you know these things that I'm working with struggling with that there is a long line of people who have also struggle with them and overcome them and it's important for us to remember that and I know we're at the end of the time here I'm going to talk to you about this after we're going to have to go to a part two if you have the time and the desire because I want to cover so much more with you because I didn't get a fraction of what I wanted to do here because this could go

for hours with everything that you've covered. Hopefully everybody feels the same way, Dylan, and you guys are eager to check out the book, Healing the Modern Brain and also have an E-course up on my site, but then same name. But I'd love to come back. I love folks like yourself who, as you said, some of these things, you know, you know about your nutrition actually, you hadn't quite put the nutritional psychiatry piece in there, that, you know, lentils and folate is not just great for our blood cells. It's like the nutrient that's most tied to clinical depression.

And what I think is great about nutritional psychiatrary and the opportunity, and what I found is so many of us have no idea where to find that. Like you asked a doctor, you ask a psychiatrist, you ask somebody with depression, like, hey, what's your favorite folate food? Like right away, everybody should say lentils, right? Because lunch is definitely the best folate food, in my humble opinion. But most people are like, ah, prenatal vitamin, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And you don't actually know where to find these nutrients. It was part of my like crusade of my first books. It's like when I say magnesium, I want you to say beans and greens.

When I say omega-3 fats, I want to hear a chorus of anchovies, sardines, and muscles, right? And wild salmon. Because if we don't know where to find the nutrients that our brain needs, it just, it kind of feels like, I don't know, kind of go back to square one. Yeah. You got the gift of a human brain. It's like the most incredible. It's better than AI. I mean, it is the most incredible thing the universe knows.

It's human consciousness. I mean, it's like amazing. Shouldn't we know the nutrients it needs and what foods to find those in? It just seemed like a basic thing that informed the nutritional psychiatry work. And I hope people feel that same kind of passion, but also the same kind of, as a way that when you hear those lentils are like the top folate food, man, they're on your grocery list. There's a way that, you know, you hear like, pesto, pesto, pesto. I haven't thought about Pestown a while.

It's a great thing to drop on those white beans tonight. It gives you something to do. I hope you will feel that same enthusiasm around these other tenets of mental fitness. Just like I want to upgrade your food, I want to upgrade how you think about movement and connection and engagement. So you are really pushing the limits of mental fitness. I think no matter what comes your way, because I think I also want to be clear, maybe this is a depressing place to end, no matter how much you do, no wonder how great my mental fitness is.

I've tried to work it so hard, Dylan. I still might really, really have problems. I still might have a horrible depressive episode. I might relapse and start drinking again. You know, all kinds of things can happen to us. And the reason to have mental fitness, I think the motivation is when those moments do happen, because they do happen, that we have a robust set of tools, right? That we're not caught off guard, that we've got community, that we've got a sense of purpose, that we have. lot going for us so we can overcome that mental health challenge. That's really my hope for everyone.

It's just like if you had this huge physical challenge and you've been working out and work on your flexibility, you'd be ready for it, right? I want that same thing to be true for your mental fitness and your mental health. Man, look, well, two things. One, you know, you and I have talked a little bit about the fitness side of things, but so just so you understand where I'm coming from. my whole life revolves around fitness. I'm, you know, the way that I train and work out. But now you've really made me and what I'm going to do now is work on conveying this to my fitness audience.

My clients is the importance of working on the mental fitness side of things like I want to when we get done, I want to go start looking into some things that I can do every day, even if it's 20, 30 minutes. I don't care, whatever it is to help my head. Because I know it's going to help me be more productive throughout my day. And when you need something or you want to do something, you just. make the time. You just figure it out. You get up earlier. You cut something else out. You cut something short that you don't need to be doing. So one, I think that what you've just given me and everybody

else now is the understanding that this is something that we need to work on daily. And by doing that, it shouldn't be a burden to us. It should be a, wow, this is going to make my life so much better. And then when we do it, you'll see it and you'll want to do it every day. I hope so. You know, I hope people, everyone, you hear that my recommendations is not like go bench 500,000 pounds. My recommendation is like, you should take up a dance class or you should start a running group. You know, when you think about nutrition, again, I don't have an extreme plan. I'm not asking you to eat all plants or all meat, but I'm asking you to look at a few foods that are what we call more nutrient deaths.

These give you more nutrients per calorie. Those are the ones you should eat. And so it's like that with each of the tenants, really trying to inspire you to reach for that next rung and to have the humility that I think we all need when it comes. comes to mental health, we don't know everything. We don't know every room. We don't know why people feel everything they feel. I try to understand that as much as possible. I spend all of my career trying to understand that with people. And I love that quest. But we do know, we do have a lot of science and evidence around things that protect our mental health and build our mental fitness. And yeah, I hope this is a wake-up call for those of you who need it right now.

that hey your mental health matters matters more than anything else and and i want you to take great care of it yeah i hope it serves an inspiration that there are things we can do there's we didn't talk about some of the favorites like nature like you know when you go into the forest you breathe in molecules that causes your brain to it enhances brain growth i mean like when i found that i was like this is like does it get any cooler than that i mean is there does it get any more exciting to go out for a walk in the woods for it. It's like, you breathe on that big, earthy smell, and it's like, wow, it just doesn't feel good, you know, for no reason. It feels good because it really is enhancing my health and my mental health. I mean, it's very, very cool science in the book, so I hope people will check it out.

Man, literally one of my favorite parts of my day right now is right when I get up in the morning going for a walk outside. And I'm talking some of these mornings, it's like five degrees or less. And I don't even, and I hate cold weather to the highest extent. And I'm out there loving. it like I get home and my wife's like, aren't you freezing? I'm like, no, I feel great. You know, and she knows I hate the cold, but it's so like, what's the word? I'm looking for like exuberance to feel the. It's invigorating, right?

It's invigorating. I mean, you're just a difference in you're out there and shivering. And, you know, you probably have on like the good gloves and a little headstand and, you know, everything. Vigorate. Everything. But I'm watching the sun come up. I'm smelling what I used to think, because I live in Iowa, like, what I would be like,

all this farmland, all this. And then I'm out there. there and I'm like, this is gorgeous. And it's like amazing to smell this, to see it, to watch it come up. And it's the appreciation and what I realize it's doing for me. And maybe that comes with age two is just amazing. So the things you're saying and they're free. They're, you know, all you got to do is get up and go do it. And then once you do it, see, what I tell people I do that, they're like, well, doesn't that suck or isn't that hard? I'm like, yeah, some mornings I don't feel like getting up or I don't want to. But as soon as I get dressed and step foot outside, even when I'm sore, I'm

tired. I don't feel great. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. It goes away, you know, because I'm experiencing what I need to start the day. So everything you say just resonates, man. It really does. And it's just amazing. Well, Dylan, I really appreciate the interview, but I also just appreciate you being so open and just saying that. It's, you know how it is when you put something like this out in the world. As much as I've worked on my mental fitness and my confidence, you know, you sit here with patients for a couple of decades, and you hope the ideas resonate. It means a lot to be speaking with you, and I hope everybody listening. Thanks for hanging in this long.

I really hope you'll check out the book. But more than anything, I hope that some of these tenants will inspire you today. And I hope somebody will see some lentils on the plate. I hope maybe you'll get a little, you know, get a little seafood going. I hope maybe you'll go watch that sunset or you will, you know, reach out to somebody that you have a meaningful. relationship with and just reconnect and you'll do it and and that you'll feel it. Yeah, 100%. Well, thank you again for being so generous with your time.

Tell everybody the best places to follow you when the book is released and can they pre-order it now or can they buy it, all of those things. And I'll put everything in the description for you as well. So yeah, well, thanks so much telling everybody. I'm Drew Ramsey MD and dramzymd.com's my website. I've got some free downloads there for you of some of my favorite antidepressant foods and Perfect Mental Fitness Morning. I've also got some e-courses. The book, Healing the Modern Brain, is available for pre-order right now. But if you're watching this after March, you know, it's available.

It's a Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books a Million, all the spots. You can read more about it on those websites or on my website. And I hope they'll check out the book. Check out the e-course, which is, you know, a little more intensive and involved. And most importantly, everybody, please take great care of your mental fitness today. and tomorrow and every day after that, you deserve it. We deserve it because when you're in that mentally healthy state, that's when you're doing your best stuff. So I hope this book and this idea helps you get there in some way. Dylan, thanks so much, man, for sharing. It's a great way to

just get inspired and excited about the book. And I really appreciate your enthusiasm. It means a whole lot. Absolutely, man. I can't thank you enough. And like I said, you're my first mental health guest here. And so it was an honor and a pleasure to have you and greatly appreciated, man. So thank you. Well, there's no, I always tell me, it was no greater honor than being the first psychiatrist you've spoken to. So I really appreciate that. Everybody, thanks so much for your time. And we'll see you on down the road. All right, everybody. Well, another episode wrapped up. I hope this resonates and that it helps everybody as much as it's helped myself. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Jameli and Dr. Drew Ramsey,

sign it off.