The Viall Files - E319 Dr. Amen - Your Brain & Your Relationship

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Today we are joined by Dr. Amen, one of America’s leading psychiatrists and brain health experts. He has authored or coauthored 80 professional articles and more than 40 books, including New York Times mega-bestseller Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. On this episode we talk about how our brain can influence our relationships, and how looking at our brain type can help with compatibility and happiness with our partner. We also spoke about how many of the things we do daily can be harming our brain, and how to make changes to keep our brain healthy.  “Your brain creates everything in your life.” Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to mailto:[e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  For merch please visit http://www.viallfiles.com today! THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Ritual: http://www.ritual.com/VIALL Viall Files listeners get 10% off for their first 3 months. Headspace: http://www.headspace.com/VIALL Viall Files listeners get a free one-month trial with access to Headspace’s full library.  Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @doc_amen See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the vile files i am your host, Nick, and we have just a great episode for you today. The one and only Dr. Amen is with us. He is a leading psychiatrist and brain health expert. We're talking about the brain today, people. And you might have seen Dr. Amen on social media. That's where I found him. Real fascinating stuff that he puts out there. You probably don't even think about this, but

like understanding our brains and our brain health and the health of our brain then obviously can help our mental health. But, you know, the brain being an actual organ that we need to be mindful of and how we go about doing that and what we do to our bodies, whether it's diet or the situations we play around and how it affects our relationships is something we talk a lot with Dr. Amen on this episode. And it's a really fascinating stuff. And like I said, you know,

something we, you know, I think often take advantage of that. Our brain is just, you know, it's almost like we're just like, Oh, it's there.

We have a brain, you know, I guess I can't do anything about it. You know, I was born with this brain and, and I'm going to die with this brain. But really, yeah. So we won't spoil too much of what we talk about with Dr. Amon,

but we are glad to bring him to you in our audience. If you don't listen to the Ask Nick episodes, Chrissy is leaving the show. She decided to be a superhero park ranger and she is starting her journey i don't know i don't know what the fuck you're doing uh bison population control yeah she's montana's really it's in her blood and she's lost the passion for producing podcasts and she's lost the passion for producing podcasts. And I'm sure when we check.

Gained a passion for populating bison. There'll be more antlers in her living room, I'm sure. As we check. It's a rack. It's a rack. Oh, I'm sorry. See. We are sad to see you go, Chrissy. But I'm sure the trees of Montana are happy to see you go Chrissy, but I'm sure the trees of Montana are happy to,

to have you. They enjoy my laugh. The trees. People will miss your laugh. Maybe not Howie Mandel, but you know, we love you, Chrissy.

How many more episodes are you with us here? Only like three more. Montana needs you, Chrissy. How many more episodes are you with us here? Only like three more. Montana needs you. The bison need me. Allie and Amanda, what are you guys up to? Loyal. Loyal employees. Loyal employees.

Oh, I was going to tell you. And another exciting adventure updates on what Allie is doing to her body. There's been this one tooth in my mouth that's like a little jagged, had a little bit of a point, and it wasn't really matching the one on the other side. And I've asked my dad to fix it. He didn't want to. Is your dad a dentist?

My dad was like a dental inventor. So he like invented a little sanding disc for teeth for this exact purpose. He refused to do it, which I was like, interesting. I've asked dentists to do it. They're like, so bit by bit, I've been using a nail file and I've been filing my little tooth down and it's looking a lot better. So that's what I've been doing. This is probably not the right question.

Has it ever nipped a dick? Her long tooth that she feels the need to file down. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. She feels the need to file down. It's like a long pinky nail. Is that why you're going to such extremes to file down your tooth? Because you scratched some guy's dick? No, I've never received that feedback

am i even allowed to ask that question curious i don't know for a lot of shit we talk about at work that like in a normal workplace setting would immediately land us in hr yeah thank god thank god we don't have hr i'm always wildly uncomfortable it's often you guys bringing up these stories i will say though i do have like spikes on my teeth right now because I have Invisalign and it's actually a, okay, I can't believe I'm sharing this.

Is there a, do you give a disclaimer? Well, okay, so they're just on the top of like my teeth, like the front of it. So not super relevant

for blowjobs, but I do, it's become kind of a move where like sometimes if I kiss someone, I'm like, oh, heads up,

I have like spikes on my teeth. And they're always like, what do you mean? Okay. I can't share the rest of this. Why not? No, it's just,

it's just, I don't think people want to know. I don't, people want this, this level of insight into my, well, now we're just going to imagine. Okay.

Probably it's going to get weird. There's an Invisalign community out there. Yeah. Okay. So to the other, other guys, gals, days with Invisalign, um there that's with you, Amanda. So to the other guys, gals, theys with Invisalign, you ask them if their hands are clean. And then if they are, I'll take their finger

and run it gently over my teeth. And it works like a charm. So that's how you get action? That's more alarming than anything you've ever told me. It's like just to do it a fun, stick a finger in the mouth. Fucking horny 20 year olds. Oh my goodness.

Men, horny 20 year old men. Anything works on them. 31 year old men, Nick. Oh. You know what? Men. Men, I guess.

So hard. And women. I flirted with a girl at a party and I was telling my roommate about it later and she went, you mean the one with the face tattoo? And I was like, what? And apparently she was standing looking to the

side and on the other side of her face she had a face tattoo did not see spent like 10 to 20 minutes flirting with this girl ellie can you stop filing your teeth but it's almost perfect i'm so close just the thought of that gives me like nails on chalkboard vibes like i can feel the tingles see i get way more of a wooshy thinking about amanda putting someone else's finger in her mouth to touch those ask them if their hands are clean first it doesn't matter no one's hands are clean unless you like you don't take it right from the right from the yeah unless you're going directly from a five minute hand scrub with soap to your mouth they're not clean well it's usually like if we're leaving like if we've just left a restaurant i'll give people hand sanitizer

after we leave the door i always have hand sanitizer in my fanny pack wait so you have hand so instead of asking them you just hand sanitize them or are you just giving me no this is like the context of like i've sanitized their hands earlier typically and then if not i'll ask if their hands are clean why why do they why do they need to touch them that's my biggest question oh you know don't knock it until you've tried it Oh, you know, don't knock it until you've tried it. What a team. You've got a team?

Yeah, Nick, you pick all stars. What a team. What a team. Well, we'll be lucky to have Chrissy for a few more episodes until she goes on her journey. Or quest. Well, again, we have a great episode for you we're talking about the brain today how does that impact our lives we need to start start start start taking care of our brains a lot more clearly clearly yeah how do you feel how do you feel about your choices in life everyone in this room after i'm surprised i even have a brain after listening to it it's fascinating uh it really was um well let's get uh to dr amin

dr amin thanks so much for joining us it's a real pleasure to have you well i'm so excited to talk about the brain and relationships actually Actually, one of my favorite topics. Oh, really? Well, great. It's ours, too. We talk a lot about that on this show. And I came across your social. I found you on TikTok and just kind of just spent, I don't know how long I was on there,

but I learned so much about the information you put about the brain. And I think what was kind of fascinating for me is, and I wonder if you get this a lot, I feel like we often almost take for granted our brain health or the things that we can do to take care of our brains. You know, we spend all this other time and energy on other aspects and we're not necessarily thinking about that. And hopefully today we can try to understand how the brain works a little bit better, how it affects our lives, our relationships,

and then things we can do to help us treat our brains a little bit better. Well, thank you so much. You know, I actually think very few people actually care about their brains. And I live in Newport Beach, where we have more plastic surgeons than almost anywhere besides Beverly Hills. And I often say we care more about our faces, our boobs, our bellies, and our butts than we do our brain. And how insane is that when your brain creates everything in your life? And when I first looked at my brain,

1991, I was a double board certified psychiatrist. I was the top student in neuroscience in my medical school. And I didn't care at all about my own brain. And then when I saw it, and I saw it wasn't healthy, because I played football, I didn't sleep much, I had bad habits. I was horrified and developed a concept I call brain envy. Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. It's brain envy. You have to like start caring about the three pounds between your ears. Yeah, it's perfectly said. And you're right. We definitely take it for granted. I remember, you know, as a young man, you watch movies and TV shows, and you might see characters with mental health problems or people losing your mind, so to speak.

And I think as a young person, you just kind of like a lot of young losing my mind, but there are times where I feel like, you know, there's a brain fog or whether it's my anxiety or my rumination or overthinking. be like you said this disconnect between you know what's going on and my mind and the actual like physical brain and what and how that might be impacting my thoughts and feelings and my perception of the world well if you marry those two if you get your brain right your mind will follow yeah i wrote a book i love called the end of Mental Illness. I hate the term mental illness. I hated it when I was a medical student 45 years ago because it shames people. It's stigmatizing and it's wrong. They're not mental issues. They're brain health issues.

Get your brain right and your mind will follow. I'm in a new docu-series with Justin Bieber. It came out last year. I've been his doctor. And, you know, like many celebrities, I see sometimes he'd do what I say and most times he wouldn't. One day he came into my office and it was so smart. He said, I get it. My brain is an organ like my heart is an organ. If you told me I had heart problems, I'd do everything you said. I'm going to start doing what you say. And he just got dramatically better. And if we can stop with, oh, these are mental illnesses, take this medicine for this symptom

and first work to get your brain healthy. We'd just be better as a society. Yeah. So what are some of the just, and just basic things that we often are taking for granted that is damaging our brain function? And what does that mean to damage your brain function? And yeah, let's just start there.

So, you know, I think brain health is three things. Brain envy, got to care about it. Avoid anything that hurts it. Know the list. And some of the listeners are not going to like the list. And then do things that help it. And so what hurts the brain? Not exercising.

Exercise is great for the brain because your brain is 2% of your body's weight, but it uses 20 to 30% of the calories you consume. We'll talk about food. 20% of the oxygen and 20% of the blood flow. So anything that lowers blood flow, like a sedentary lifestyle, is bad for your brain. Alcohol is not a health food.

Alcohol prematurely ages the brain. Ever since I started imaging the brain 30 years ago, I've been going, alcohol's bad for you. And I had to weather the storm of, no, alcohol's a health food. You should have two glasses of red wine a day. And you just have to look at the brain to go, people who drink have brains that look older than they are. And then last year, the American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol. They said any alcohol is associated with an increased risk of seven different types of cancer. It was my biggest blog last year. I titled it, I told you so. And marijuana is not good for the brain.

I published a study on a thousand marijuana users. Every area of their brain is lower. Now, I'm a huge fan. It should be legal. Please don't put people who use marijuana in jail. That's just a waste of resources. But let's not say by and large, it's good for us. Because if you use it as a teenager, your chances of being anxious, depressed and suicidal in your early 20s is dramatically higher. And I'm like, you know,

there's a whole bunch of other things to do before marijuana for anxiety. Diaphragmatic breathing, the right music, learning how to kill the ants, not believe every stupid thing you think. The standard American diet. So sad. The real weapons of mass destruction. ISIS has nothing on our food industry. I often say, I have this great graphic of the real weapons of mass destruction are highly processed, pesticide sprayed, high glycemic, which means raises your blood sugar quickly,

low fiber food like substances stored in plastic containers. So you just have to sort of drive down the street in LA or Orange County, where I live, see all the fast food restaurants and realizing we are damaging the health of America by the foods that are just so freely available. I published another study, three of them actually. It's horrifying. As your weight goes up, the actual physical size and functioning of your brain goes down in every area. Not sleeping seven or eight hours a night is hard for your brain.

Playing football, I played football in high school and i did the big nfl study was at a time when the nfl was not telling the truth about traumatic brain injury and football and i love football i mean i played it i was like a crazy ram and washington redskins fan. And then I started seeing high school players after I started doing imaging. And I'm like, oh, my God, it damages their brain. And then I'd see college players. And then I've now seen over 300 NFL players.

And it's bad news because your brain is soft about the consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and the constant pounding, it not only damages their brains, it damages their lives, damages their relationships. It damages their ability to feel happiness and joy. relationships. It damages their ability to feel happiness and joy. Well, we're talking about the brain today and how we can improve how our brains operate. And I'll tell you what, meditation is on that list. And Headspace is the app that is making meditation easier than ever before, whether it's a daily dose of mindfulness in the form of guided meditation or uh just uh maybe you want to you know meditate those kids get them all get them all together and just say calm the fuck down

and start meditating headspace also has three minute sos meditations for you and for the kids headspace is the only meditation app achieving the field of mindfulness and meditation through clinically validated research need to find better Well, meditation can help with that too. Headspace helps us wind down. And I'll tell you what, it's a great way to take care of our brains, to reset our brains, to not fall into those funks that we often do with all the other crazy toxic things

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to add essential protein today. That's ritual.com slash V I A L to add essential protein today. That's ritual.com slash V I A L L. So I guess my question of all these things that we can do to potentially damage and the things that we are all doing on some level, is there hope in the sense that you mentioned you looked at your brain years back and it didn't look good and you want to make changes? Can our brains heal? You know, if want to make changes can our brains heal you know if we start making changes in our lives and you know reduce the alcohol increase our fitness change our diets uh is the damage done and we can just stop the bleeding no pun intended or or what or maybe we want blood flow um but our can our brains heal and improve so So my favorite thing that I've ever said

based on our work is you're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better even if you've been bad to it and I can prove it. So take my NFL study, high levels of damage. I mean, it's like,

let's just stop lying about the whole issue, own it. I think most people in America now get it that football is a brain damaging sport. 80% of my players get better. So if you work to have your brain better, we do a series on Instagram called Scan My Brain. We did Dr. Emily Morse recently, who does this great podcast, Sex with Emily. And I have her brain 18 months apart. And the improvement was breathtaking. I was so happy for her. Because once you see it and you go, oh, it's not what I want it to be, then you can intervene. And if we do the right things, your brain can be better.

How exciting is that? Especially if you get the foundational message, your brain's involved in everything you do. And when it works right, you work right. And when it doesn't, you don't. So if you learn to love your brain, and then you just ask yourself this simple question every day, is what I'm doing good for my brain or bad for it? And you choose good because you love yourself, because you love your energy your mood

your happiness your mission your wife your boyfriend the doing the right thing is never about you should do it it's about love um because your brain controls everything. Yeah. How much does sugar impact the health of our brains? Because I feel like that's something we all might have too much of and the inflammation it causes. I mean, I have a sweet tooth, and I'm always constantly trying to reduce it. And I've always thought about, again, the other aspects of my health. But then you think about your brain and how impactful is, you know, your simple sugars to your brain. So in the weapons of mass destruction, that fits in the high glycemic. So the glycemic index is

how quickly does a food turn to sugar. Sugar is high. The problem with sugar is it's addictive. It's pro-inflammatory, which means it increases inflammation. Blood sugar issues are a monster problem in the United States. 50%, 5-0% of the population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. And what you see, diabetes shrinks the brain. Diabetes actually damages every organ in your body. And like you, I have a sweet tooth. My grandfather was a candy maker and I was named after him. And he was my best friend when i was growing up and so candy fudge ice cream was all about love and connection to the most important person in my life

and um i still have a sweet tooth, but I figured out. So, for example, I'm like a huge fan of frozen blueberries. That's my snack every night. I get a few Stevia-flavored white chocolate chips with a cup of frozen blueberries, and I'm just like happy as a clam. Or I do a brain healthy hot chocolate every night for my family. And it's basically unsweetened organic vanilla almond milk

from Costco, cocoa powder, which is a super food. And there's a company called Sweet Leaf that makes chocolate flavored stevia. I mix those up, put them in the blender. It tastes amazing. It's sweet. It's good for me. And it's something I love that loves me back.

And I know we're going to talk about relationships, but you're in a relationship with food. And are you in a good relationship with food that serves your brain and your body? Or are you in a bad relationship? Like those cupcakes or gelato, they're bad for you. They damage your brain. But, you know, the frozen blueberries or the brain healthy hot chocolate, they love you back. Yeah, that's a really great way of looking at it. Before we dive into the kind of correlation between the brain and our relationships, one last thought I had in terms of like my core question. You've been studying the brain for years. the internet, social media has drastically changed and turned into this behemoth of a thing that has changed the world, changed our lives. If there's any one addiction I have, it's to my phone.

Have you looked at scans and studies on the impact of social media and the screen time that we have and its impact on the brain, whether healthy or unhealthy? Yeah, you have to be so careful with it. I mean, obviously there are benefits of it. That's how you and I found each other. It can connect people, but the more screen time, the more anxious people are, the more depressed they are. I have a new book called Your Brain is Always Listening. And I talk about the societal dragons and social media is a societal dragon because the more you spend on it, the more you begin to compare yourself to others in a negative way. The more it decreases the time for sort of the real relationships you have.

Plus, if people watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix, it'll just flat out horrify you. Because you realize these companies are making money developing algorithms that piss us off, that scare us. And the constant feed of negativity is harmful to the brain because what we're doing is taking very rare events and making them seem very common, whether it's a fire, a flood, an earthquake, a mass shooting, a robbery.

And it's lighting up. I call it global amygdala hijacking. So the amygdala is the part of your brain that responds to fear. And social media is lighting that up, giving you a little hit of fear because that's what keeps you coming back. The brain pays attention to fear way before, or threat way before it pays attention to happiness. or threat way before it pays attention to happiness.

And is that like an evolution thing, which is like our brain does that because back in the day it was more our survival mechanism? Is that why we're paying attention to fear or are we just made to torture ourselves? Like, why is that? Well, yeah, I think it's an evolutionary thing where there was a time that we really needed to wake up afraid because something was going to have us for lunch or breakfast. And even though that's not true today, our brains are still wired that way.

And social media takes advantage of it for money and I just don't want anybody making money off of my early death that that just makes me unhappy yeah totally so diving into relationships obviously we talk about all the things in the world diet exercise alcohol marijuana you know social media that can hurt our brains. And I'm assuming if our brains aren't healthy, that is going to affect our any type of relationship that we have in a negative way. I guess I was also curious, though, you know, how do how are our brains affected by just kind of toxic situations? You know, like whether it's a bad relationship at work or just, you know, we talk a lot, you know, we have a lot of people call in and they're in

these relationships and yet, you know, maybe it's the romantization of relationships and movies to fight for something and stay in it and yet it's just causing them a lot of pain and sadness and yet they still want to fight that relationship is that having a negative effect in our brains in terms of staying in kind of these these toxic spaces and environments that you know almost like a chicken before the egg thing you know um how does that impact our brains well chronic stress shrinks the memory and learning centers of your brain and mood centers. So if you're under chronic stress in a bad relationship, it totally is bad for your brain and for your mind. And the brain does what it's used to, not what's good for it. So for example,

if you grew up in a family where your parents had a chronically conflicted relationship, that's what you're used to. You're much more likely to pick that rather than pick someone who may be a better fit for you. And that's what I often think of is who's the right fit for your brain. And one of the things I discovered, so at Amen Clinics, I have nine soon to be sent, 10 clinics around the country, we do brain imaging work to help us understand and treat our patients. And one of the big lessons we learned is everybody's brain is sort of different.

They're balanced brains, spontaneous brains. They tend to have sleepy frontal lobes. They're persistent brains that have to have things a certain way. They're sensitive brains, deeply empathic, but tend to be sad. There's anxious brains. And so knowing your brain,

because your brain type is going to interact with someone else's brain type, and does it work or do they clash? So often you know in the marital couples i've seen i have a spontaneous add like person who's married to a persistent ocd like person and that causes chronic conflict but most marital therapists never look at the brain. And so they don't understand there's some wiring that's causing problems here or, you know, some function that's causing problems. I first started doing imaging in the spring of 1991. And it was a time I was seeing this couple who I was just failing miserably with. Like, we're at nine months and I know I'm not going to help them.

And I'm in the shower one morning getting ready to come to work. And I realize they're on my schedule. And I hate being ineffective. I hate it. And I realize they're on my schedule. My stomach starts to hurt. And I'm like, OK, today I'm going to tell them to get divorced. But I grew up Roman Catholic.

Like my mother was not kidding. And the Catholic voice, anybody listening to me grow up Catholic will understand this, start screaming at me because you're not a good enough therapist. They're going to get divorced and damn their eternal souls to hell. And I know the Catholic Church is much more flexible than that, but that was the voice. And I got out of the shower and called my friend on the imaging center and I said, would you give me two scans for the price of one?

I have a couple and I have no idea what to do with them. And Jack, the guy that owned the center, said, you know, I've been married twice. I can't figure this out. Maybe we should do a business called brainmatch.com. And so we scanned them. Her frontal lobes were on fire. They work way too hard.

His were really sleepy. And when I balanced their brain, they liked each other. And now they're still married 30 years later. And I'm like, oh, the brain matters. Your type of brain matters to how well you do in relationships. Yeah. So in that couple, so was it about understanding how their brains were currently working? And then like you said, you're not stuck with the brain that you have, so to speak.

It wasn't like, oh, your brains don't line up, get divorced. It was, here's the conflict. And then how do we address and have them work better in unison is that how you approached it right no they're still together yeah so he had sleepy frontal lobes front part of your brain is the most evolved part of your brain it's involved in focus forethought judgment impulse control um i strengthened it so you know either with a medicine or a supplement to activate frontal lobe function. And her brain was working too hard. So I gave her something to calm it down. So in balancing their brains, they could actualize their goals, right? I have all of my couples go,

okay, what's the goal what kind of relationship do you want and it basically boils down to the goal i have with my wife kind caring loving supportive passionate relationship always want that don't always feel like that yeah i get these rude thoughts that come into my head but if i can kick in my frontal lobes, I'm like, is this helpful? Will it get you what you want in the relationship? And when your brain is healthy, people are kinder. They have more empathy. They communicate better.

You know, I often say no forethought equals no foreplay right you can't hurt someone's feelings and expect them to want to be intimate with you yeah totally my brain um is just kind of thinking of all the things that you're saying right now how much of a difference are there in the types of brains or how they work between men and women? Are they pretty much the same with some minor differences or how do they work? And have you found if so, if there is a difference, understanding that difference helps your heterosexual relationships understand each other a little bit better. So I did this, one of the Stand My Brain videos with Daniel Sherman, an actor who I just love, and Leggy Landon. And we were talking about differences between male and female brains.

And we put a little clip of that on TikTok that got 8 million views. We're not even the same species when it comes to brain function. Women's brains are dramatically more active in their frontal lobes and in their emotional brain. Overall, women's brains are healthier, which is why they go to jail 14 times less than males. Women make great leaders. They're better at multitasking, but they're also more vulnerable to things like anxiety and depression. And guys, their visual cortex is better and our ability to shoot things. So we have better sort of central vision where women have better peripheral vision. So if I'm checking out a cute girl, I have to turn my head so I get caught. My wife's checking out a cute guy. She doesn't have to turn her head so I get caught. My wife's checking out a cute guy, she doesn't have to

turn her head so she doesn't get caught. But it's so interesting and so different. And estrogen helps the language centers of the brain develop, but also the empathy parts of the brain and their olfactory or your sense of smell develop. Testosterone, you know, more of the coordination centers. And, you know, yes, I mean, there's all sorts of variations. You know, there's some women that have sleepy brains and some men that have busy brains. But I published a study on 46,000 scans, looking at the difference between male and female brains. And it's just like, we're not even the same species. And God punished me because I have five sisters and five daughters. So I'm like, I know more about this than I want to. That's wild.

While you're talking, I was thinking about anxiety. I suffer from anxiety like a lot of people do. And obviously that can affect our relationships. Would you say anxiety is caused by the things we do to our brain more than, like, is anyone just generally a more anxious person just because of how their brain was made? Or is it what we're doing to our brains that's causing the anxiety more often? You know, there's a couple of reasons why. And your brain is always listening to my new book. I talk about the dragons from the past that breathe fire on our emotional brains. And there's the anxious dragon, but there's also

the ancestral dragon, which is sometimes the anxiety we have is not ours. Sometimes it's our moms or our dads or our grandparents. Genetic stories get written in our genetic code and they play out in future generations. So finding a way to manage your anxiety and sort of take care of it will actually be good for your children. Sometimes, you know, I had an older brother that beat me up like every day for seven years. And that'll make you anxious, you know, always watching for something bad to happen. So childhood trauma can sort of get stuck in the brain. You know, it's one of the problems with the brain. It has memory. It's a really good thing,

but it could also be a really bad thing that trauma can get stuck. And sometimes it could come from an undisciplined mind. And, you know, we have this great new movement on mental health, and I love it. But we should be starting to teach preschoolers about good mental health habits, like physical health. And I can see you're in really great physical shape. Mental health requires a daily practice.

So, for example, I start every day with, today is going to be a great day. Why? Because my mind will find out why and focus on that rather than why it's going to be a bad day. Everyone should learn diaphragmatic breathing. If you struggle with anxiety, there's a great app I like called Awesome Breathing.

It's a breathing pacer. And if you program it to breathe in four seconds and out for eight, and just did that a couple of times a day, will help you so much begin to reset your nervous system to be at a calmer state. And then one of the things I love doing with my patients is teaching them not to believe every stupid thing they think. Thoughts come from all sorts of places. They come from our ancestors. They come from the voices of our parents. They come from teachers, coaches, the news that we listen to, the music we hear. And there's nowhere in school where they taught you not to believe every stupid thing you think. So I have my anteater here. And whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or anxious or out of control,

write down what you're thinking and then ask yourself, is it true? Can I absolutely know if this is true? And learning how to direct your thoughts to help you rather than the undisciplined mind has thoughts that attack you um learning how to win that battle if you will is incredibly helpful yeah and i imagine that you can apply that in your relationships too. One thing my therapist talks about, writing things down a lot. And if I'm in a conflict with my girlfriend,

kind of like you said, changing the narrative or stepping away for a second, does this really matter if I feel like she's doing something to me or not communicating in a way to, you know, look at the other side. You know, if she's, you know, like when people, I feel like in relationships we often like to say to each other, well, you always do this. Or you never do that for me and things like that. And is it what you're saying kind of like in those moments to take a step back and maybe think of the times they might have done that or to try to give them the benefit of the doubt? Is that what you're saying and how we can apply that into like in our everyday lives and relationships? Well, I'll give you an example.

You know, I'm married to my best friend. We just had our anniversary on Monday. And so I have bad thoughts like you never listened to me so one of those you statements yeah but i'm smart enough rather than to blame her because blaming other people for how you're feeling it's the number one hallmark of self-defeating behavior. As soon as you blame someone else, you become a victim and you can't change anything. And so I just write it down. Tana never listens to me. And then five simple questions. Is it true?

And I'm like, no. I've written 16 national public television specials about the brain. She's listened to all of the scripts. So no. Question number two, is it absolutely true with 100% certainty? No. Three, how do I feel when I have the thought, I feel sad and I feel mad and I feel disconnected and isolated and lonely?

It's our negative thoughts that are often not true that drive bad feelings. For who would I be without the thought? So much happier, so much more connected. And that was four. And five is take the original thought, you never listened to me, and turn it to the opposite. You always listen to me. Well, that's not true. But when we turn it around, we turn it around three ways to the opposite to ourself and to the other person. And it turned around for me as I never listened to her. And I'm like, Oh, cause I'm busy.

But if you play with the thoughts, they don't have to torture you. Learning to direct them to help you. And I have a mnemonic for relationships I like, and it's relating. And the R is responsibility. And people often say, well, relationships should be 50-50. And I'm like, that's a prescription for disaster. Relationships need to be 100-100. What's my behavior today?

Is my behavior getting me what I want in this relationship? And when you have good frontal lobes, when you have a healthy brain, and you get this concept of response ability, so break that word into two, response, ability, what's my ability to respond based on my goals? I almost always act in a way that's helpful, which is important because that wasn't modeled for me when I was growing up. You know, I grew up in a Lebanese family and my dad thought he was, you know, the emperor and was often rude to my mom. And if I just did what was modeled for me, I'd be divorced.

Is our brain or ability to have a healthier brain help with being less reactive? I feel like the world is, you know, COVID, social media, you know, words like being triggered. You're seeing more and more. I feel triggered, whether it a justification to react, you know, a little bit more, you know, aggressively or harshly. And a lot of things you just spoke on kind of talk about how maybe we can not react so quickly and then be more reflective to control our thoughts and then therefore respond better to our feelings. Is that something that we can continue to try to work on? And how much does our brain impact that? Well, think of it, Nick,

like hardware and software. When you get the hardware right, it's so much easier to run the software. If your brain's not right, even if you have good training, it's harder. But once your brain is healthy, you still have to program it, right? So I always think of people in four big circles. What's the biology or the brain health issues? What's the psychology or your mind? What's the social circle? How are my relationships?

And the spiritual circle is ultimately, why do I care? What's my sense of meaning and purpose? The foundation, brain health. But then we still have to run the programs. And blaming other people for how your life is turning out, that's a bad program. Now, it may have been modeled for you. It's certainly what you see on news programs, right? Especially if you watch CNN or Fox. Somebody's always blaming somebody else for the problems that we're in.

You know, that's just such bad mental health. But then if you watch these television shows, so many of them, the writers haven't been in therapy because people are always interrupting. They're not letting people finish thoughts. The communication patterns are just god awful. You know, we need to do a better job of modeling healthy relationships. But, you know, I guess what's the formula in hollywood it's like you know third of the way through there has to be some terrible crisis yeah that usually comes through bad behavior yeah i totally agree the more the more i watch you know everything that's out there is is is the opposite of what we're, you know,

having more of a sense or realization of what makes a healthy relationship, whether it's The Notebook or Sex and the City or The Bachelor. You know, maybe fun to watch, maybe entertaining, but we definitely need to stop romanticizing them and look up to these shows as the blueprint of how we should look for love or how we should act in love, so to speak. It's kind of fascinating in a crazy, sad way. Right. And when you were on The Bachelor, you probably saw how the producers would set up because that's what sells. We just have to be very careful to look for better models of relationships.

And who talks about brain health as the foundational piece when your brain is right? And I love this. So when my guys, you know, my male patients really understand this, as their brains get better, their sex lives get better. Because one, they're more empathic. That's the E in relating. And two, blood flow is better. Because if you have blood flow problems anywhere, they're everywhere. And I used to say, whatever's good for your heart is good for your brain. And then I wrote a book called The Brain in Love, and I extended the analogy. And I

went, whatever's good for your heart is good for your brain, is good for your genitals, because it's all about blood flow. So, you know, your performance is better if you're taking care of your brain. Oh, yeah. I mean, there always seems to be a misconception, especially with a lot of young people. Guys are generally always horned up and ready to go. And then if they don't climax, there's always like a misunderstanding. Well, is it me? A lot of women will say. And I'm always trying to, you know, communicate with my audience too.

It's, you know, and as that, even for me, as you get older, the more active my brain is, the more I'm ruminating, the more I'm in my head, the greater chance that I won't be performing well in the bedroom or I'll have a hard time even getting started because just that brain activity and whether it's toxic thoughts or just not being able to be you know, again, these four circles in the bedroom. There's a biology. And as people get older and, you know, Nick, I have never seen the epidemic of low testosterone in young men. It's horrifying to me. And I think part of it is all the products they put on their body just came out this year they had to pull um johnson johnson sunscreen because they realized it caused cancer but if

you just look at the ingredients of the powders and potions and lotions that we're putting on you know young boys bodies to keep them safe from the sun. We're damaging their testosterone levels. So that's going to impact libido and function. And then we have all these people with undisciplined minds, which leads conflict in relationships. in relationships. And so getting right relationally is physically and psychologically, spiritually even, which is, you know, why are we here? What's your deepest sense of meaning and purpose? All of that matters every day. Yeah. The brain or how our brains differ and how they're designed you know there's all these like personality tests or love languages and things like that a lot of people and relationships like to look at uh to figure out their compatibility is there any science behind

or from a brain standpoint uh you know i mean there is but like from a personality standpoint you talked about the brains matching up but how does that play a role in the different types of personalities whether you're introverted or extroverted or uh you know and things like that so there is a science with introversion um a busier brain extroversion i need to be around other people to be happier. Brain tends to be a bit sleepier. And people can actually, we have a test online that's free called Brain Health Assessment. And they can tell which of the 16 brain types that we think you would have. If we scanned you, not everybody can get a scan.

So I created this assessment to help people know about their brain type. And people find it so helpful. I have this great story of a woman who had lost her children and she got suicidal and her mother came to be with her, but they were in chronic conflict. And the woman who lost her children, substance abuse issue, had type 2, spontaneous. She often goes with ADD. Her mom was the exact opposite, persistent.

And just some simple supplements helped them get along so she could get her act together to get her kids back. It was really pretty cool. What supplements are out there that are safe and helpful to our brains? Because, you know, in a world where, man, there's supplements everywhere, we don't even know what's going into our supplements. Are they even all good or how much of that it can be just dietary like vegetables you know i know people mention fish oils are all fish oils created equally even even saying supplements great and then it almost seems like just a mess trying to find the right

things for our needs well so i should make a disclaimer i I own BrainMD. I started it after I started looking at the brain and I went, oh, some of my medicines aren't that great for brain function. And that's so I've been studying the science of supplements for 30 years. Because there's a lot of people, like 80% have vitamin deficiencies, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, magnesium, zinc. So a great multiple vitamin, high dose, high quality fish oil. Fish oils are radically different. The one we make, for example, two capsules is equivalent to like six that you get in a standard big box store. Everybody should know their vitamin D level. Do you know your level? I don't. Last time I checked, I'm pretty sure I was low.

So with vitamin D, we're in a pandemic. People with low levels of vitamin D die earlier than people have healthy levels. And so you should get it checked. What does that do? What does the vitamin D level, how does that impact? So many things. It actually impacts all of your organs, but people with low levels of vitamin D actually have smaller brains. Vitamin D is involved in immunity. It's involved in blood sugar metabolism. It's involved in whether or not you're putting on weight. And so normal is between 30 and 100. I like to keep my patients somewhere between 50 and 100. And it almost always requires supplementation to do that. And then I recommend supplements based on someone's

type. So for our spontaneous people, I like green tea extract and rhodiola. For our persistent people, I like 5-HTP. For our sensitive people, I love saffron. I'm like a huge saffron fan because there are 24 randomized controlled trials showing that saffron enhances mood as effectively as antidepressants. But it's pro-sexual rather than it sort of steals your sexuality which many antidepressants do and i like gaba for people

who are anxious and too often people go to their family doctor and they go i'm anxious they end up on klonopin or Xanax, which you can't stop. I mean, that's why I don't start those things, because you can't stop them. And that should never be the first and only thing you do. It should be diaphragmatic breathing, not believing every stupid thing you think, lavender, smelling lavender, saununas hypnosis meditation all of those

things i actually gaba i uh before you go off to one of those meds that you may be on for 40 years yeah i uh i actually tried the breathing i was on your your page last night and i i i will like yeah i guess triggered like something will happen and i'll feel like this it's almost like a i feel like my body is an empty tank and there's like a waterfall of anxiety just i can just feel like just like overtake my body and then when that happens i just have a hard time letting go sometimes. And so I was feeling it the other, uh, the past couple of days. And I, I tried the, the breathing out and the breathing in. And it was, it was quite helpful because I'm, I've been trying to find, you know, methods to help me re like reset because I, if I don't reset, I'll feel that it's almost like the, my body fills up again with this

waterfall of anxiety and it only, there, there's like a very poorly, you know, it has to drain, it drains out slowly, so to speak, right? It's just a, a dripping faucet that sometimes takes days and I'm trying to find a way to just flush it all out. And that was, that was quite helpful. I tried it and I plan on doing much more of that because it really did work. I love that analogy of, you know, sort of the anxiety filling up and it's just not draining. Right. It's why zebras don't get ulcers. And there's actually a book by Robert Sapolsky called Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, because when something awful happens, like the lions chasing them, their nervous system knows how to reset itself back to normal.

And humans, we don't have that same capacity if you're under chronic stress and living in LA and being in the limelight, being a public figure, sort of chronic stress. And so having a daily practice to just retrain your nervous system, so helpful. No, it's really great. So thank you for that. How does heartbreak impact our brain? It's a trauma. And it's a trauma that can get stuck for some people, especially if they've had earlier losses and heartbreak. And I often say, if you have heart pain after a breakup, go see a cardiologist. At least rule out that the

stress isn't triggering an underlying heart disease. And the reason we have heart pain is under that kind of stress, our ventricles in our heart actually start to beat funny, and that causes pain. So the diaphragmatic breathing can be so helpful to, to reset. Um, but grief is, is hard. And when people lose an important relationship, even if it's sort of their fault, they can get pretty crazy for about six months. Yeah. And, and then they do things to hurt their brain, which only perpetuates the craziness. Yeah. I mean, there's usually an uptick in alcohol consumption or drug use or things like that, or just other toxic activities. Have you done any studies on, we talk a lot about,

or we get a lot of questions about porn, whether that's positive in a relationship for a couple to watch together? Is it negative? You've had, you know, people be addicted to it who will call in. Have you done any studies about that or it's ramifications, especially as it relates to the sex life? Or, you know, I'm seeing you're seeing a lot of single young men learning about sex through porn. And before they ever even have sexual partners, they've consumed hours and hours of, you know, pretty aggressive porn? How does that affect our brains?

Some evidence actually shrank the judgment centers of your brain, your frontal lobes. I think the biggest worry for me is 8- and 9-year-olds are being exposed to porn at an alarming rate. year olds are being exposed to porn at an alarming rate. So before their brains are anywhere near the ability to understand what they're watching, they're getting addicted to it. This is probably in the top five of the worst things about social media and the new digital age. It is going to have a negative impact on people's relationships

because it's being formed in no way by their imagination or with mentors who love them and care about them. It's going to be formed by whatever random video pops up on their phone. And I think parents have to be super careful. Yeah. How does our brain or the health of our brain impact our ability to weigh options and choices? I bring that up because like social media, for example, not social media, but like dating apps with social media are more

and more abundant in relationships. People are meeting on dating apps overall. I think it's a very net positive thing to meet people, but there's an abundance of choice with dating apps. And now we're having people, you know, you're matching with 15, 20 people. It's paralysis of choice. How are there ways we can do to help our brains control or in limit our options? Because it seems like while it's, it can be great dating apps, it's having a kind of a counter negative effect by giving us so many options to choose from. And therefore, uh, it, it seems that people get easily discouraged, uh, and stressed out and anxious when it comes to using dating apps.

Well, it actually can make them depressed. I did a whole show with Dr. Oz on dating apps in the brain where we would scan people while they were, you know, swiping left or swiping right. you know swiping left or swiping right and the people who got rejected you could actually see the sort of depression centers in their brain activate and all those little hits of dopamine wear out your pleasure centers so even when someone chooses you that's like oh that's like, oh, that's so awesome. The more that happens, you need more and more to begin to feel anything at all. And like you said, I'm sort of a fan. It's how people are connecting. But you have to be disciplined and careful. Otherwise, it will steal your current relationships. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, when you're just talking about, I'm thinking about that. Even this, the swiping right and getting no response, you know what I'm saying? Like using a dating app, there's all these various stages of validation or disappointment that can happen between going on the app

and actually just meeting someone in person and it's it's amazing and almost crazy or scary to think of how we're putting ourselves in these very vulnerable situations just by turning on an app thinking oh you know whatever i'm just gonna go start swiping and like you said it can be um it can affect us a lot. It can hook your brain. And clearly, I mean, because one of the most important things we ever do is connect with other people. And if we feel rejected, there's negative chemicals that go with that. I mean, that'll trigger stress hormones. And even being accepted too much and not knowing what to do can be stressful. That's a lot to think about. I know you have to get going, Dr. Amen. I can't thank you enough for, you know, sharing with us such fascinating things. And again,

what I love so much about it is like we opened up with, I think we definitely take our brain health for granted. Just before we let we go, is there any kind of final thoughts that you have? Just kind of reminders for people, if there's any takeaways they have from you with when it comes to like taking care of their brain, and how it affects their relationships? What would those be? With a better brain always comes a better relationship. And so putting brain health in the center of the relationship, you guys, you just will get along better. And then I always want people to activate their frontal lobe. So this most human, thoughtful part of you in a relationship, know what you want,

define it together and then ask yourself this little question every day does it fit you know i'm thinking i'm 67 but i'm thinking of tattoos now i don't have any yet but that'll be one of the first ones i get does it fit if i want a kind caring loving supportive passionate relationship with my wife does my behavior fit so not blaming her for how things have turned out always looking to me what is it i can do better because that's my power place and then go does does it fit? And with a healthy brain, you just act in a way that get much more likely to get you what you want. Yeah. I love all that. I love the talking about, you know, controlling what you control, your power play. That's absolutely great stuff. We talk about that

a lot. Can't thank you enough. Can you just let my audience know where they can consume more of the information you have out there, your social media, your website, the books you have out there. I think everyone would benefit from consuming more of the things that you're putting out there. So please let them know. Thank you so much. They can find me on TikTok at DocAmen, D-O-C-A-M-E-N. On Instagram or Facebook, M-E-N on Instagram or Facebook. They can also go to amenclinics.com. So amen, like the last word in a prayer, clinics.com or a supplement company, brainmd.com. Awesome. Maybe one of these days I'll have to come and get my brain scanned. I'm a little nervous about what I might find out, but maybe- Oh, but Nick, it's only good news because you have what you have. Sure. And if we could see it and then work to make it better,

well, how cool is that? Yeah, totally. And, you know, people's biggest fear when they come to see me is not that their brain will be troubled, is that their brain will be normal and they feel bad just because they're like a bad person. And it's transformative i know looking at my brain transformed the rest of my life because when i fall in love with it and do the right things

at 67 um every bit is sharp probably sharper than i was at 37 yeah almost like having a relationship with your brain right yeah well Yeah. Well, this is fascinating stuff. There's so much more. I'm sure you have to teach us. I'd love to talk more, but I know you have to go. But thank you so much. Don't forget to send your questions at asknickatcastme.com, cast with a K, subscribe, a five-star review, all that fun stuff. Make sure to follow Dr. Amon for more great content about your brain and how to take care of it. We will be back on Monday for our Ask Nick episodes. And until then, have a great week.