THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Science-Backed Secrets to Brain Health and Mental Resilience

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Revolutionize your well-being with Science-Backed Secrets to Brain Health and strategies to build Mental Resilience! I’m excited to reconnect with my good friend and a titan in the realm of neuroscience, Dr. Daniel Amen. With an illustrious career that spans 5 best-selling books, pioneering clinics across the country, and transformative health strategies, Dr. Amen's insights have the power to change lives across all ages.  Stress, digital overload, and lifestyle choices constantly challenge our mental equilibrium, which means understanding the fundamentals of brain health has never been more critical.  Here's a sneak peek of the insights from today’s episode: Mind vs. Brain: What’s the difference and how to nurture both  Learn about Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) and practical steps to counteract their harmful effects on our mental state Explore the impact of diet—caffeine, sugar, and beyond—on brain health, mental clarity and resilience The critical importance of bonding and attachment, not just for children but in relationships at all ages Discover strategies to build resilience in the face of adversity, enhancing your ability to bounce back stronger from life's challenges Learn the value of holding oneself accountable and the role of physical activity in maintaining a healthy brain. Addressing the modern challenge of screen time and social media, offering balanced approaches for healthy engagement. Dr. Amen's expertise extends beyond individual wellness to also include strategies for raising mentally strong and happy children, making this episode a vital listen for families too.  Explore the science-backed secrets to unlocking a healthier, more resilient mind and brain. Whether for yourself or your loved ones! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is The Admire It show. All right, welcome back to the show everybody. I have a real friend here today and somebody that I admire tremendously. He's helped me, he's scanned my brain, as a matter of fact. And I have referred friends to him who were in need of his work because I believe in him. Interestingly, I've also referred a few young people to him who were in need of his work because I believe in him. Interestingly, I've also referred a few young people to him over the years that were the children of people that I love that needed help. And I'm really grateful that he's written a book that he

has coming out right now called Raising Mentally Strong Kids because of all the people that I've referred to him over the years, I felt the best about the children that he was able to help and catch whatever was going on there a little bit earlier and turn it around. He's only done about 160,000 brain scans from people from over 121 countries. So I think he's just about ready to be qualified to talk about this topic today. I think he's a foremost expert on brain health on the planet. He's a great friend of mine. I love him very much. He's a strong man of faith as well. Dr. Daniel Amon, welcome back to the show brother. Thank you so much for helping me spread this message about brain health and mental strength. Kids are in trouble more than ever before. It's horrifying. There's a new study the CDC put out that 54% of teenage girls report being persistently

sad, that 32% have thought of killing themselves, 24% have planned to kill themselves. Just think of that. A quarter of teenage girls and 13 percent have tried. These are statistics unlike anything in recorded history. Why? Well, it's an interesting question, but we're living in a toxic society. So if you take the toxic food, we feed them. The toxic products that go on their bodies, the toxic social media

that creates this high level of self-absorption and self-absorbed people are never happy people. And then the toxic news, which really drives them to negative thinking patterns, because you and I both know is the news is no longer the news. The news is like the crisis news network because if they scare you, you'll pay attention. And so you buy more copper underwear, but the negativity,

and actually I've been studying negativity bias. So does your mind tend to go to what's wrong or does it go to what's right? And if your mind goes to what's wrong, you're much more likely to be anxious, to be depressed, to have an addiction. And so I train kids to have a positivity bias and to take care of their brains.

In the book, you reference the fact that they need to be working on their brains and their minds. Tell me, did I misunderstand that, or is there a difference between those two things? Well, your brain, the physical functioning of your brain, moment by moment, creates your mind. And like all the parenting books on the bookshelf, nobody's talking about brain health, but it's the health of your brain that then creates your mind.

So if you think of it like hardware and software, you have to get the hardware right first. And then you have to program it properly. Like in the book, we talk about brain health and brain reserve and how to have a healthy brain. But once you have a healthy brain, how do you have a healthy mind? And we talk about killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal people's happiness. I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency

before I learned I didn't have to believe every stupid thing I thought. The brain is a sneaky organ, right? We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear, but there's nothing in school. I'm friends with Paul Simon, love Paul Simon, especially his song, Codochrome, which starts off with when I think back

on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all. And if you think, schools really have not been redesigned in 120 years, we need to redesign them to create healthy people. Well, I was 48 years old before I learned about the ants, which was from you, and I remember leaving you that day and saying to my son, who was the first person I saw,

I go, hey Max, I just had a revelation. He goes, what's that, Dad? I said, I don't have to believe everything I think. And one other thing I have a tendency to do, I wanna know if this affects children, because really this book and today's conversation will be about mental health in general, but more specifically how it applies to our children.

I do something when I have a negative thought, Dr. Eamon, where I do what I call it, like thought stacking. So I get a negative thought. I don't do this with my positive ones, I do it with my negative ones, where I repeat it over and over and over, and then I stack it. If this happens, then that happens, and this.

And I create this entire, almost, narrative in my mind of what I determine, I coin thought stacking. Is that a common thing in people just like me, or is that something that happens in children as well, where maybe they're being bullied at school, they have a thought, I don't want to go, and then they repeat it and repeat it, and it gets bigger. Is that a common thing in people just like me, or is that something that happens in children as well, where maybe they're being bullied at school, they have a thought, and then they repeat it, and repeat it, and it gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger,

and now you believe the bigger lie, it's even worse than the original lie you were telling yourself. Thoughts stack, the ants, the automatic negative thoughts, they link, they stack, they link, and then they attack you. And it's not hard to kill the ants, but it needs to become a practice. And I have my patients, especially the ones

that are anxious, depressed, or obsessive, write down 100 of their worst thoughts and then take them through a process to get rid of them. And it doesn't work after you do it the first, second, third, or fourth time. But after you do it the 20th or 30th time, pretty soon your brain is making new connections to attack and eliminate the ants. And in the book, I talk about nine different types of ants. So whether-

Let's go through three or four of them if you don't mind. We wanted to get the book, but let's give them a good- Fortune telling. What's that? I know what it is, but you tell them. Where you're predicting things are gonna turn out badly, even though you don't have evidence for it. There's mind reading, where you believe you know

what another person is thinking, even though they haven't told you that. And I have 25 years of education, and I can't tell what anybody else is thinking. A negative, you know, a negative look from someone else may mean nothing more than they're constipated. You don't know, right? It's like clarify it.

Blame is the worst and it's a big red and because when you blame someone else for the problems in your life, you become a victim and you become powerless. So I wrote my first book many moons ago. It was called The Sabotage Factor, all the ways we mess ourselves up from getting what we want. And the number one hallmark of self-defeating behavior is blaming other people for how your life is turning out. There's guilt-beating, ants.

And one of the worst ones that's happening when we're in a political year is labeling. Whenever you label yourself One of the worst ones that's happening more in a political year is labeling. Whenever you label yourself or someone else with a negative term, your liberal, your conservative, your jerk, he's an idiot, you lump them with all the liberals, conservatives, jerks, idiots that you've ever known,

and you can't deal with them anymore because you're not dealing with them. You're dealing with a group of them. So, here's the exercise. Whenever you're sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. And then identify what kind of ant it is. And then we take them through this process that actually borrowed from my friend

Byron Katie is like, Tana never listens to me. So that's an all or nothing thought. Whenever you think in words like always, never, everyone, every time, it's usually wrong. So Tana, my wife, never listens to me. I've had that thought. And so you write it down. And then you go, is that true? And if you're really irritated, you go, yeah. And then you go, is it absolutely true? With 100% certainty. I've written and produced 18 national public television specials

about the brain. She has listened to all of the scripts. So it's like, no, that's actually not true. The third question is, how does that thought make you feel sad? How does the thought make you act? Man, what's the outcome of the thought? Separation. So the fourth question is, how would I feel if I didn't have the thought? Happy. How would I act? Connect didn't have the thought happy? How would I act connected? What's the outcome? We have a better relationship. And my favorite question of all of them is five. Take the original thought, Tana never listens to me, and flip it to the opposite.

Tana does listen to me. Now, don't go to the narcissistic opposite, which is she always listens to me, because that's not true either. And then I'm completely not bugged by my thought. And you have to understand, thoughts are creations of your mind. And they come from all sorts of places. Sometimes they're not yours. Sometimes they actually come from your mom or dad. And they're not yours.

And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they're not yours. And they sorts of places. Sometimes they're not yours. Sometimes they actually come from your mom or dad or from your grandparents because we know trauma, for example, gets transmitted epigenetically.

So it actually comes through our genes. And so if my grandfather, because he had a big trauma when he was 19 years old, that can actually impact my dad's genes and then impact me. So this whole thing of epigenetics is so interesting. So thoughts can come from a different generation. They come from the voices obviously of my mom, you know, I'll give you something to cry about. Or my dad, who told me...

What did he say? I told him I wanted to be a psychiatrist. Why don't you want to be a real doctor? Why do you want to be a nut doctor and hang out with nuts all day long? So voices come from our parents, from our siblings, from our friends, our foes, from the music we listen to, the news we watch, and they lie.

I mean, that's the one thing I didn't know until I was 28. Thoughts lie. Just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, whether or not it's helpful, and you can learn to direct them or you can become a victim of them. And one great strategy I talk about in the book is give your mind a name. It's based on this concept of gaining psychological distance from the nonsense in your head. So I named my mind after my pet raccoon. When I was 16, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley.

I had a pet raccoon. I loved her. But she was a troublemaker. Would leave raccoon poo in my shoes, ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium. And that's my mind. My mind will just, like, stir up trouble. And I'll see, you know, everything's gone away,

and I die this horrible death. And, you know, my mind used to do the same thing you were talking about. It would stack and link and this horrible death. You know, my mind used to do the same thing you were talking about. It would stack and link and then attack me. Like, if I almost got into an accident, I wouldn't go, oh, thank God, I'm fine. I would see the accident play out.

I'd then see the car burst into flames. I'd then see the ambulance driver probably had ADD and got lost to the accident, and that I would be in the hospital and I'd be burned over 80% of my body and the nurse was not cute. I was thinking two things. One, the separation from the thought.

These exercises are separating you, that word that you use. And when you get distance or above your thought, you can begin to see sort of the folly of them and the ridiculousness of them. As you were describing it also, I'm processing, because this is something that I really work on myself. You and I have talked about this.

And the techniques that you just went through, and more of them that are in the book, the lack of them, that pattern that we get in, is like you truly become a prisoner of your thoughts. And the techniques on the way out creates, what I was thinking when you were saying it is freedom. There should be some freedom. If you could actually flip that, that strategy

that you talked about, you go from being a prisoner of your thoughts to freedom. I just talked about this in the last interview and there's this great quote that I mess up all the time from Gandhi that says, I will not allow you to, um, trample through my mind with your dirty feet. Mm.

And in my own life, a lot of the time, I'm the guy walking and trampling through my mind with your dirty feet. And in my own life, a lot of time, I'm the guy walking and trampling through my mind with my dirty feet. And I don't have to believe everything. I think if we were to look at the scans of an unhealthy brain of one of these children or one of ourselves, what would we see? Number one, would we see this evidence if we

looked at a scan and to the traditional world's? prescription for that is literally a prescription most of the time which is some sort of medication and So I want your thoughts on that What would we see if we looked at the scan of someone who's healthy versus unhealthy in these situations? And how do you feel about prescribing? situations and how do you feel about prescribing prescription medication to children for the most part as a general answer for these ailments or problems they think they have? Oh, two huge questions. I did a study with Noelle Nelson who wrote a book called The Power of Appreciation and

we scanned her when she was appreciating her life, and then, and her brain was really healthy, and I'm like, we need to scan you when you're hating your life. And she goes, oh, I don't wanna do that, that'll make me unhappy. I'm like, come on, you have to suffer for science. And so, I remember it like it was yesterday.

Right before I scanned her, her dog was sick. And so her thoughts linked. My dog is sick, I have to stay home, I'm gonna lose my job, I won't have money to take care of the dog, the dog will die, and I'll be sad and I'll end up homeless in Malibu. I mean, like within five minutes, that was the trail. And then I injected the medicine that we do the scans with and the spec scans we do are

so cool because we're getting that moment in time of that couple of minutes. But that couple of minutes seems to be your brain over time. And healthy, when she thought what she appreciated about her life, and when she thought what she hated about her life or her fear, her frontal lobes dropped. So the frontal lobes is the break in your brain. Her left temporal lobe dropped, which is often a source of really dark thoughts,

like suicidal thoughts. And her cerebellum dropped. Cerebellum's the back bottom part of the brain that's involved in physical coordination, but it's also involved in thought coordination. So she's not coordinated, she's irritated, and she has less control. And when I saw that, I'm like,

oh, this is negativity is the pattern that creates athletic slumps. Because if you think you're gonna strike out, you're a little less coordinated, and you're more likely to strike out. Isn't that interesting? If I think I'm going to miss the free throw, I'm more likely to miss the free throw. And so negativity is bad for the brain. And I'm doing this study now on negativity bias and it's just associated with every bad thing. every Monday from myself and other influencers. There's an opportunity for you to get courses that would cost thousands of dollars completely for free.

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Terms and conditions apply. You need to hire. You need Indeed. Now, medication, that's a huge topic. And it's not the first thing I think about. I own a supplement company. So if you're depressed, I want you to be on a good multiple vitamin. I want you to take omega-3 fatty acids and I want you to take saffron because there are now 25

randomized controlled trials showing it's equally effective to antidepressants, but rather than knock off your libido, it enhances it and it enhances your memory. So the science of saffron, very exciting. Now if nothing is working, generally with kids, I don't give them antidepressants because they have black box warnings and can increase the risk of suicidal behavior. Now, if I'm really stumped, I might. The issue with ADD is different though.

And I know everybody thinks all the kids are over-medicated and they are, but there are a lot of kids that aren't medicated that should be because having untreated ADD, right, whenever the doctor says, oh, I think maybe we should treat them for ADD, you want to go, I want to know the side effects. And the general can lose their appetite, can develop tics, can have problems sleeping. I mean, it has side effects.

But you have to ask the other question, what are the side effects of having untreated ADD, which are things like school failure, friend failure, incarceration, bankruptcy, divorce. It's a lot. Identity and confidence starts to stack the wrong way. If you're really have ADD and you're not diagnosed by the age of nine, your self-esteem generally is problematic

because you try and it doesn't work Because you try and it doesn't work. You try and it doesn't work. And my first thought is not medicine. I have natural solutions like decrease their time on gadgets, get them to exercise, more sunshine, simple supplements like multiple vitamin, fish oil, rhodiola is one of my favorite supplements to help with focus and decrease stress. But if those things don't work,

I'd think about it, stimulant. Okay, you would. I would. Is it saffron, is that how you said it? Saffron. Spelled how, so everybody knows. So, S-A-F-F-R-O-N. So the spice, it's the world's most expensive spice. But if you just look at the science, it's stunning.

Okay, that's crazy. And when I learned about saffron, it was 25 years ago, I'm reading the studies and they're pro-sexual. And that's the thing that got me because all the SSRIs I've prescribed, people don't wanna to have sex, or it takes longer to have an orgasm. Now, if somebody has premature ejaculation,

that can be really helpful for them. It was like one of those little tricks with Prozac. I'm like, you'll last longer, sometimes you'll last forever. Forever. Wear your partner out, very bad. But I saw it was prosexualxual and I'm like pay attention. And then so there's five studies showing sexual enhancement for females and males but 25 studies

on mood. Interesting. So small thing, well not small. One thing you emphasized with me was caffeine. And I'm just curious if you still feel strongly about that because I'm thinking about kids in general and I'm thinking of all these energy drinks. Everybody drinks coffee at about age three, it seems like nowadays, right? And I remember in my case, you were saying, hey, listen, this may seem insignificant and small

and yeah, I have omega-3s, but also like your caffeine intake is making an impact on your brain health. And I just want people to have children right now that are pumping them full of caffeine and soft drinks and all these other things, there's gotta be an impact on your brain health. And I just want, if people have children right now that are pumping them full of caffeine and soft drinks and all these other things, there's gotta be an impact on brain health for them as well. And why would you do that?

It's clearly a drug. And it's just a bad idea, caffeine. And the reason, you know, I pick on lots of things. I pick on alcohol, I pick on marijuana. But I pick on caffeine because it constricts blood flow to the brain. And what we've learned is neurons, brain cells, don't age. It's blood vessels that age.

And so what you want, I often talk about brain envy. You know, you wanna want to have a better brain. Freud was wrong, penis envy is not the thing. You want to have blood flow envy because you want to keep their blood flow, your blood flow, right? Because to be mentally, to have mentally strong kids, you have to model that, right? So it always starts with the parents being mentally strong.

But you want to lose the caffeine and sugar. I mean, energy drinks are just a disaster. I have one sitting right over there. That's probably why I'm doing such a bad job in the interview. Now, they're not good for you because, I mean, one, the sugar is pro-inflammatory. Brand new study out today on inflammation

damaging the dopamine circuit in the front part of your brain. So kill the sugar. And whenever it comes to food, you just wanna ask yourself this question. Do I love it and does it love me back? Gotcha. And so with kids, when my daughter was two, we played this game called Chloe's Game.

Is this good for my brain or bad for it? And so I'd go avocados and she'd go two thumbs up, God's butter. If I said blueberries, she'd put her little hands on her hips and go, are they organic? Because non-organic blueberries hold more pesticides than almost any fruit. I'm like, no, of course they're organic.

She'd go, oh, God's candy. Oh, God's candy. I love that. Hitting a soccer ball with your head, oh, very stupid they're organic. She goes, oh, God's candy. Oh, God's candy. I love that. Hitting a soccer ball with your head. Oh, very stupid. Brain is soft, skull is hard, skull has sharp bony ridges. Right? And playing these games, I talk about this in the book, playing these games with kids

just to get them to love and think about and care about their brain. And a lot of parents, especially parents and teenagers, go, I just don't have any influence. It's because you don't have a good bond with them. And in the book, I talk a lot about attachment, or Dr. Fay and I talk a lot about attachment, because my dad and I were not bonded. We didn't really like each other.

And when I was 18, another political year, it was 1972, my dad told me if I voted for Senator McGovern, the country would go to hell. I voted for McGovern because I did not, was not bonded to my dad. And the country went to hell, but it had nothing to do with McGovern, right? It was all Richard Nixon and Watergate and all of that craziness. If you want influence, you have to be attached. And for the kids that are attached to their parents, they tend to pick their values. And what does bonding require?

Time, actual physical time without your phone. And listening. And there's one exercise in here that's so good, it's gold. Give us one. It's called special time. 20 minutes a day with your kids, doing something they wanna do,

and during that time, no commands, no questions, no directions. It's just to be in their space. And I don't know if when you were a kid, that would have been special to you. For me, I'm one of seven. That was so much. I mean, not so much for my dad, because he was harsh, but with my mom, I just craved.

So did I. In fact, it's so special and profound. I can think of the only two or three of those moments I had with my dad, and I can picture them right now, right so special and profound. I can think of the only two or three of those moments I had with my dad. And I can picture them right now. Right when you said it, I flashed. I know literally at a park playing catcher with my dad, he was the catcher. I was just literally, it was like one of these very rare, you imagine that?

I'm 53 years old this month. And those moments are so special. I can recall the only two or three of them that I remember as a child. They're that big of a deal. I want you to say more about that. Okay. That's so important. Well, so here I sit here,

and I can picture really only two or three of them in my life. Now, by the way, even when I picture them too, my whole internal state, I can feel changing when I say it. There's another part of me that's sad that my recollection is only two or three of these moments. And the reason I think I recall them,

which I wanna ask you about that in a minute, is because they were so unique and stood out emotionally for me. That they appear to be more, from a neurological standpoint connected to me and my brain than other experiences of my life because my emotions were so high during those moments.

And that's how memory is formed. It's anchored with emotion. So the higher, that is true then Dr. Amos, so the higher the emotional state during a moment, the more likely the memory is anchored to us. Yes, good or bad. And so, you know, if it's really bad when I was six, my mom said, I told a lie, I don't remember it,

but I do remember her starting to cry and say, I never thought I would have a son who's going to hell. I'm like, I think that imprinted that you're bad at some level. And overall, my mom was great. And overall, my dad was. But, you know, they made mistakes, right? And so being forgiving is important.

But when you're not bonded, it can create all sorts of unconscious mischief in your brain. So for example, our big goal as babies and small children is to be attached because they feed us, they protect us, they house us. It's life-saving. And when the bond becomes broken, we develop this internal rage. But then, because we need them, we feel guilt about the rage and we suppress it. But then we start attacking ourselves because we feel we feel guilt like we actually did something awful, right? The brain can often not distinguish an action from a thought and we live with this sort of chronic sense of being bad.

And it comes out in physical symptoms like back pain or neck pain or your guts not right and often healing people you have to get in touch with the broken attachment and the rage, but more importantly, the guilt about the rage. So you answered one of my next questions, which says that do thoughts have physical manifestations in our bodies, and clearly you're saying they do. Well, if I hooked your body up,

and when I was a young psychiatrist, I was a biofeedback therapist So I would hook up your hand temperature how much your hands sweat your Muscle tension breathing rate heart rate variability and then I would ask you questions I just say father and if your dad was like mine, which was an ambivalent stressful concept for me now we fixed it when he was 85, thank God. But immediately, if you would have said, Father, my hands would get colder,

they would start to sweat, my muscles would get tense, my breathing would become faster and more shallow, and my heart rate variability would go down. And it happens immediately. So whenever you have a negative thought, it impacts your physiology. Virtually every cell in your body responds to that. Whenever you have a positive thought,

a hopeful thought, a happy thought. And for the most part, with my mom, not that, but for the most part, my hands would get warmer, they'd get drier, my muscles would be more relaxed. I know you can't answer this definitively, but I'm curious about it. So I've never asked anybody this, and I'm not putting you on the spot here,

but I wanna take that to a level, maybe even beyond what we just talked about. In our bodies, we all have some genetic predispositions, could be to a level maybe even beyond what we just talked about. In our bodies we all have some genetic predispositions could be to a particular cancer, could be to heart disease, could be to Alzheimer's, etc. etc. Whatever it might be is a hard one. When my dad got sick you ever just have an overwhelming sense of something? You know in your life you just sense something. And in my dad's case my dad was my favorite human being. He got sober, he was not my favorite human being

when he was a drinker. Once he got sober, my favorite human, my best friend in the world. But my dad was a worrier. He inherited worrying thoughts from his father and from his father's father. What you said earlier is so profound that even from a neurological standpoint, I mean, genetically we're inheriting some of this trauma. That's fascinating to me. But my father lived with his father, who was a worrier, a good man, but a worrier, and I lived with my father and I became one.

And I just had this sense, my dad got cancer, what I still think is young, which is in his late 60s. And I have believed, this is just as a layman, I have not a scientific bone in my body, that perhaps the way that my dad lived with just chronic worry and concern may have flipped that gene on prematurely in his body. And I know that sounds like kind of a reach of shorts.

Do you believe that- Psychoneuroimmunology, which is your brain and the mind it creates, can either increase cortisol in your body's stress hormone or decrease it. And if you're putting yourself with your undisciplined mind, the worry habit that was also modeled for him and modeled for you, you're more likely to have an immunological disorder like an autoimmune

disorder or cancer. In my work, I talk about it in the book, if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind in it. We talk about them. And then mnemonic is bright minds. I think in our last podcast we went through some of it. Well, the G is for genetics. But people don't think about genetics right.

I'm like, I'm overweight because my family's overweight. I'm like, no, you're overweight because you're eating too much, but you have the genetic vulnerability. Like that's one of my vulnerabilities. I have family members that are morbidly obese, but I'm not. Why?

Because every day of my life, I know the risk factor, and I'm on an obesity prevention program. I also have heart disease in my family, but I don't have heart disease because I'm on a heart disease prevention program every day of my life. So if you know your vulnerabilities, I adopted my two nieces because they had massive trauma

and both parents were alcoholics and drug addicts. And I'm like if you never drink you're never gonna have a problem and you need to be on an addiction prevention program every day of your life and I'm like dead serious with them and they're doing awesome. That's awesome. Hey guys, I wanna talk to you about Shopify. You know, when I started this show, the furthest thing from my mind was doing online business and now I can't imagine my life without it.

So I love Shopify because they're a global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. So whether you're in the startup phase where you're just launching your online store or you're at that really big business where you're like Hey, we just hit a million bucks in order stage Shopify is there to help you grow. They've helped me through every single stage I wouldn't even know what to do without them So whether you're selling shipping supplies or promoting productivity programs Shopify helps you everywhere from their all-in-one ecommerce

Platform to their in-person POS system wherever and and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered big time. They help turn browsers into buyers, they convert their checkouts 36% better than all the leading competitors and I've used them for everything I do online. So every single thing you see that I market online, Shopify is somehow involved. I wouldn't even know what to do without them. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash MyLet all lowercase go to Shopify.com slash MyLet now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash MyLet. So hey guys I've been doing the podcast now for I don't know seven or eight years and I have been talking about NetSuite by Oracle the entire time because they have

helped me in every single business that I own. So if this is you, you should know these three numbers. 37,000, 25, 1. What does that mean? 37,000, that's the number of businesses which have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle already. It's the number one cloud financial system software on the planet, helps you with financial management, inventory, HR, and more. 25, NetSuite turns

25 this year, so they're making great deals. And one, because your business is one of a kind, so you can get customized solutions for all of your KPIs in one efficient system with one source of truth. Manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve your margins. Everything you need in one place. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netsuite.com slash my let. That's netsuite.com slash my let to get your own KPI checklist. Netsuite.com slash my let. Speaking of kids, in the book, one of my concerns that I see is, by the way, I sound like an old man, get off my lawn when I say this, but what I worry about for the generation that I watch now

is a resiliency deficiency. Because this last generation overall was, everybody got a trophy, everybody won, everybody's okay. I don't think they've experienced it. A lot of helicopter parents have come in and fixed things at school, and I don't feel like there's a resiliency that maybe has come with previous generations. I certainly don't mean that critically because there's an innovation in this generation that's never existed before. There's a kindness.

There's a wanting to give. There's a social consciousness that's even more elevated in some ways than ever. And so there's incredible things about this generation of young people right now. Did I sandwich that well? I think I did. And I mean those things. Having said that, what I see is resiliency, the first sign of defeat,

they give in a little bit more than I would like to see. Or criticism affects them in a way that is even more, there's not a lot of thick skin, so to and in the book you talk about strategies from a neuroscience standpoint About building resiliency in your children and some techniques and habits I have to think any parent listening to this or any human listening to this would love more Strategies for resiliency so throw throw something out of some that well one of the huge mistakes I made early on and I think it was because my self-esteem wasn't good, is I got self-esteem by fixing my kids' problems. And looking back on it,

huge mistake. And if a child comes to you and says, I'm bored, way too many parents scurry around trying to fix that for them. Please don't do that. Hand it back to them. It's like, oh, you're bored. I wonder what you're going to do about that. And if they put it on you, you have taught them that you will solve their problems. And when Chloe, I pick on Chloe a lot, when she was seven, she was a hellion.

We used to say she's going to be the leader of a gang or the leader of the free world. And her mother used to sit with her for hours trying to nudge her to get her homework done. And I'm a child psychiatrist. I like stop that you did second grade but she wasn't listening to me and three of her friends recommended this program called parenting with love and logic by Jim Fay it's spectacular in fact I co-wrote this book with Charles Fay, his son, who's the president of the Love and Logic Institute. And after Tana really got this, parenting in a way

that allows children to make mistakes and pay the consequences for their mistakes when they're young to build resilience, everything in the house changed, everything. She announced to Chloe one night, sweetheart, I'm never gonna ask you to do your homework again. I've done second grade, and if you don't do it,

it's on you. Teacher might be mad at you, you might not get to go out with recess, and if you really don't do it, you'll make new friends when you repeat second grade. And Chloe, like, had a fit, that doesn't make any sense, stormed off. 20 minutes later, came back. No one's ever asked her to do her homework. She's going to graduate from Chapman University. She's responsible. And oh, by the way, and some people are going to think

this is harsh, and I think it's incredibly loving. If she forgot her sweater at home, nobody brought it to her at school. She was cold. If she didn't bring her lunch, nobody brought it to her at school. She was hungry. But she only forgot it once.

If she didn't bring her homework to school, even if she did it with a group of other kids, nobody brought it to school. Because we were teaching her, you're responsible for your life. Now, of course, we're always protecting her. One of my kids would run in the street, I still have PTSD from her ADHD, but you protect her. But then there are consequences. Never hit a child. I mean, seriously, that is just not helpful. But consequences are important.

Whether it's time out or you drained my energy so you get more chores. And oh, by the way, all children should have chores that you don't pay for. This is your part of this family and you're important to make the family work. There's a big study from Harvard looking at 454 inner city Boston school kids.

They followed for 70 years. What goes with health success and longevity? And the only thing that went with self-esteem, whether or not you worked as a child. And it can be a paper route, it can be chores. For me, I went to my dad's grocery store. I had the guy who's the current host for that at Harvard on, and we talked about it.

And you literally, our vibrational frequency together is so good, because it leads to my next question. There's a nuance with kids, or friends, or ourselves, of what you just suggested, which is they forget their lunch, they don't eat, right? There's consequences, I'm not gonna tell you to do your homework. When I was a kid, I had a friend whose father I loved,

he was very kind to me. When my dad was drinking, I would go to their house. And this friend of mine, I think it's long enough that I could say this, this friend of mine was smarter than me. He was a little bit better athlete than me, better looking kid than me. But I remember, my dad would drink and do different things.

The one thing he never did that I can remember anyway was verbally beat me. So you tell him never hitting a kid. For some reason this dad who was a good man, he must have learned it from his own dad, when his kid would drop a pass, you idiot, right? The F is wrong with you. He would say something and he would shame him in front of me. And I remember it now that I'm 53. I remember it all my life. Remember, he's such a good,

why does he talk to him like that? And then life's happened with both of us. And I had no assessment of whether he's a happy or sad person, I'm not around him, but he didn't go out into the world and become what I know he was capable of becoming from an achievement standpoint, living on his own even. And I think he struggled through his life.

I've watched the evidence of this, and I attribute that to the verbal hitting of the child when we were growing up. And I'm wondering, because there's a balance isn't there, there's a nuance, see all the parents that are helicopter parents, you've given them, you know, let them forget their lunch. But then there's the parents who are the tough parents,

and I think sometimes then they take permission for what we just said, and they take it a step further where there's the verbal hitting of the child that happens behind closed doors, and I have to believe that that is one of the things that impacted this man's life so deeply was the way his father spoke to him so negatively about himself. Because all I ever wanted was my dad's affection.

And that could be the birth of his own aunts, his automatic negative thoughts. I think of good parents like good coaches. They notice what you do right, and they teach you when you can do better. They teach you. Yeah, I got to do some work with the Miami Heat last year, and Eric Spolstra is just such an amazing human being,

and he's really positive, but he's also firm. And the research is very clear so there's four different types of parents we talked about in the book they're along two dimensions are you firm or permissive or versus being loving versus being hostile so that gives you hostile permissive, hostile firm, loving permissive, loving and firm. And so most people go loving and firm are the best parents by far, like not even close. And hostile and permissive, the worst parents. But then people go between loving and permissive,

or hostile and permissive. Which kids are the worst? It's loving and permissive. Interesting. Like, you don't want to be permissive where kids have no supervision. So firm and kind. If you just remember those two words from this book,

firm and kind. Whenever I come to make a decision with a child, like they didn't come home on time, okay, I need to be firm, but I need to do it in a kind way. Like, you know, you're probably not going out for three weeks. And I love you, and I'll look forward

to spending more time with you if you want. Right, right. What about physical activity, as it affects brain health? This is a gamer, phone, et cetera. So combination question, physical activity, and I've asked you two two-parters today because I think they're somewhat connected. And is there an age you think some child should not be on social media?

As long as possible. If you had kids again right now, would your 10-year-old be on social or no? No. No. Not 10? No. No, because why? Apple and Facebook and TikTok, they work with neuroscientists to keep you there longer. Their goal is mindshare. And that's not okay, because they're stealing

the minds of this generation. I mean, on average, people are spending three and a half, four hours on social media. Just imagine what you could do at that time. So put screens off as long as humanly you can and get them to exercise. But it's coordination exercises. Remember we talked about the cerebellum?

Yes. It's tennis and table tennis and pickleball, racketball. Those are really great for brain development because the cerebellum, I'm getting old and people don't remember Rodney Dangerfield. I sure do. Respect. So horrifying for me.

I get no respect. Sarah Belham's the Rodney Dangerfield part of the brain. Ten percent of the brain's volume, but has half of the brain's neurons. And when you do coordination exercises, you're developing that very important part of your brain. And yeah, I'm not a fan of hitting soccer part of your brain. I'm not a fan of hitting soccer balls with your head. You said that multiple times. Or letting kids play tackle football.

I did the big NFL study when the NFL was sort of lying and they had a problem with traumatic brain injury and football and now everybody knows it's true. Why would you put a developing brain in a position to have damage? Think about that. Your brain, and most people don't know this, but your brain is not finished developing until you're 25.

So there's this process called myelinization. So your neurons, your brain cells, get wrapped with a white fatty substance called myelinization. So your neurons, your brain cells, get wrapped with a white fatty substance called myelin, sort of like insulation on a copper wire. And once they're myelinated, they work 10 to 100 times faster. So this is where maturity happens, myelinization.

Well, it starts in the back when you're two months old, right, babies can see, and when you smile at them, they smile back. Your pre two months old, right, babies can see and when you smile at them they smile back. Your prefrontal cortex, largest in humans than any other animal by far, focus, forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization, planning, empathy, learning from the mistakes you make, it's not finished developing until you're 25. Which is why I'm not a fan of sending kids away to college and have them join sororities and fraternities with other underdeveloped brains.

That's just a prescription for a lot of trauma and bad things to happen. Hey guys, listen, we talk on this show a lot about the benefits of fasting. It's become very, very popular. And guess what? Now there's something called Prolon. Prolon is a revolutionary plant-based nutrition program that helps nourish the body by making cells believe they're

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Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. I got my hair cut this morning and it's a young lady that cuts my hair and she's always asking me for advice you know on life and I said well I said you know you'll see these And I said, well, I said, you know, you'll see these videos on social media often when you ask somebody towards the end of their life, they'll say, what are your regrets? And it's not typically, I wish I'd have worked more.

It's typically, I wish I'd have been more present with my family. I wish I'd have traveled more. I wish I had more memories. And I told her, and I wish I'd have taken more risks and pursued my dreams. I wish I wouldn't have played it so safe in my life. And it made an impact on her,

and I watched her kind of drift into her thoughts, and she says, you know, Ed, I think my generation, at the end of their life, when we get there, they're gonna say their biggest regret is they wish they spent less time on their phones. They wish they spent less time on social media, that they wasted their lives away on these digital devices and they weren't present in the real world. And I told her I said I think

you're 100% right. She goes I know 30 years from now we'll be watching my generation say this. So your point is so incredibly profound. All right this is as usual my conversations with you I want to go 11 hours with you. We've already filled up most of our time here today but I want to ask you this lastly. If someone's listening to this today, they have a child or themselves, they just have a sense that this person is in some sort of a spiral or a funk or a just they're not joyous and happy and productive. What did I not ask you about today that I should have that would be a technique or a strategy? That's in the book by the way, it's raising mentally strong kids

I gotta tell everyone this when I read the book it is about children But to be candid with all of you It's kind of you're your own kid and it's almost a way to raise a mentally strong you as well Even if you don't have children, but what is something you'd say to someone's like they're just not themselves Right now what is something they could be doing thinking a technique or a strategy right now for them Well, I would go back to bonding in special time I would make sure the first thing, and yes you can take them to see a mental health provider and that can be helpful, can be hurtful if that's not the right person. Sure, a lot of that. But I think step

one is know what you want as a parent. What kind of dad do I want to be? What kind of mom do I want to be? What kind of child do I want to be? What kind of child do I want to raise? Because as an entrepreneur, everything really starts with what do I want? What's the goal of my business? What's the mission statement? Parents hardly ever do that. Gosh, that's true.

What do I want? And then what's going on with the bond between me and the child? Am I spending time and am I talking less and listening more? And then, because then you'll be privy to their internal life and you'll be able to assess, oh, I need to get him help, or I just need more time with them. Time is so healing and then there's this great story in the book about why I collect penguins and what

it's the story so I just actually talked to my son when he I adopted him and he was hard for me argumentative oppositional he was hard for me. Argumentative, oppositional, he was hard. And I'm in my child psychiatry training program, this is 40 years ago, and I'm telling my supervisor that I'm having trouble, and she goes, you need to spend more time with him. I'm like, but I'm mad at him, right? And she said, and gave me some strategies.

And that weekend, I was doing my child's kaihachi training program in Hawaii. And there's a place in Hawaii called Sea Life Park on Oahu. So I took him to Sea Life Park, and just he and I, and we saw the Killer Whale show, and that was great. And then we saw the Dolphin show, and that was fun. And the Sea Lion show, which was hysterical.

But at the end of the day, he grabs my shirt, and he said, I want to see Fat Freddy. I'm like, who's Fat Freddy? He's like, the Penguin show, Dad. Don't you know anything, right? That's the quality of our religion. And so we go into the stadium, and this little, fat, humble penguin walks onto the stage,

climbs a high diving board, goes to the end, bounces and then jumps in the water. And I have my arm around my son and I'm like, this is so cool. And then Freddie, bold with his nose, he counted with his flipper, he jumped through a hoop of fire, and I'm blown away until the trainer asked Freddie to go get something, and Freddie went and got it, and he brought it right back. And time stood still for me then because I'm like, damn, I asked this kid to get something for me,

and he wants to have a discussion, and then he doesn't wanna do it. I knew it was my fault. I mean, it just crystallized. If she could get this bird to do all these really cool things. I'm doing something wrong. And I went up to the trainer afterwards and I said, that was really amazing.

How did you get Freddie to do all these really cool things? And she looked at Anthony, my son, and then she looked at me, and she said, unlike parents, whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug, and I give him a fish. And the light went on in my head, even though my son didn't like raw fish,

that whenever he did what I wanted him to do, I didn't pay any attention to him, because I was like my dad. But when he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a ton of attention, because I didn't want to raise bad kids. So I was inadvertently noticing the wrong things. So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself,

notice what you like about the people in your life, because every day you are shaping them to be positive or negative. And it's helped me so much in my life. I wish everybody could see your face right now. Yeah, you got me too. I love you brother. I love you back.

You're so cute. Thank you for having me. That's such a great story. That's such a great story. And it still impacts you that deeply now. You got me right there. You got me. So I love this man so much you guys. Man, I'm thinking, do I do that?

I hope I pay attention to the good things. I hope I give attention to the good things. What a lesson for a marriage. What a lesson for friends. What a lesson for being a parent. A boss. Supervisor. Ourselves.

Ourselves. I so often... Well, one more story. I'm public knowledge a Alicia Newman is my patient Alicia is an Olympic athlete. She has the Canadian record for pole vaulting She was the indoor world indoor pole vaulting champion Last year and when I first saw her she was so hard on herself. She had a concussion, which is why she saw me. And she's just amazing now and we know every tournament or

practice she wins or she learns. So it's not about losing anymore. It's about we win or we learn. And... That's beautiful. I'm so proud of her. And then just one more. It's also public. Miley Cyrus has been my patient.

And I love her so much. But her song, Flowers, which is about self-love, one song of the year. She just got two Grammys for it and That's the whole message right? It's not permissiveness. That's the right thing It's being firm with yourself and kind at the same time. Yeah. Yeah That's a hundred percent it being firm with yourself and kind at the same time. Yeah, yeah. That's 100% it. Being firm with yourself and kind at the same time. I'm proud of you.

I knew this would be good today. I don't think I knew it would be this good though. And I love you and I love your work. You guys, this book is raising mentally strong kids. You should get it whether you have a kid or not because there's a kid inside of you that needs to be mentally stronger and be more resilient and heal themselves as well. As usual, by the way, I'm getting all of these supplements that are in the book as well.

I'm on a lot of them already from you, but I'm going to get the rest of them. Thank you for today. Thank you so much. Love you, brother. All right, everyone. Hope you enjoyed today's show. Clearly, this is one I don't need to ask you to share. Share it with anybody that this applies to, which is probably everyone that you know, okay? God

bless you. Max out your life. This is the Ed Mylan Show.