WHOA That's Good Podcast - Don’t Believe Everything You Think — Battling Anxiety

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Dr. Daniel Amen, one of America’s leading psychiatrists, joins Sadie to discuss the importance of brain health. Dr. Amen also discusses the difference between "mental health" and "brain health," how to stop automatic negative thoughts, and how to control the "what ifs." Plus, Sadie and Dr. Amen touch on the importance of a healthy church and the effects of social media on your brain's health. You can learn more about Dr. Amen, his books, and his clinic at danielamenmd.com. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the world that's good podcast. Y'all, I am so excited for today's podcast because I have someone on here who has really helped me so much in my life and I know has helped so many people. We have Dr. A. Menon. Let me give you a little back story on him. He is a husband, he's a father, but he also does so many things with his incredible life. He's an author of several books. He's a doctor, he's a father, but he also does so many things with his incredible life. He's an author of

several books. He's a doctor, he's a psychiatrist. He's a million things and he knows so much about the brain and he helps people become healthier in their life by really focusing on their brain. So I'm really thankful for him and the impact he's made on my life and y'all will hear more about that as I interview him. But without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Dr. Aiman. Thank you, Sadie. What a joy to see you. Yes, this is awesome. So I can't wait to dive in, but first I have to ask the question of the podcast, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? So I thought about that, and it reminds me of a friend of mine. Her name is Byron Katie. She wrote this great book called Loving What Is and the piece of advice

is when you argue with reality. Welcome to hell. Wow. And I just I think about that all the time if I'm having a bad day. It's like rather than fight it, just try to be curious about it, not furious. Yeah. I think that's something you and I chatted about. Curious, not furious. And, you know, except what is, I sort of wanted to be a center for the Los Angeles Lakers, but, you know know at five, six, just not good. So if I argued with it, it just, you know, it's like go do something else.

Yes, that's so good. I love that because we could sit and argue for a long time and get nowhere. So that's such great advice. Obviously a lot of people know who you are. You have been a part of being a lot of celebrities, doctors. You also have TED talks with millions of easy written books and all that stuff. But what was your journey to getting where you are? Why did you, why are you so fascinated by the brain? How did it start?

Well, when I turned 18, Vietnam was still going on and I became an infantry medic where my love of medicine was born. But about a year into it, I realized it didn't really like being shot at. Some people like that. It just wasn't for me. And so I got retrained as an ex-roy technician and developed really a passion for medical imaging. As our professors used to say, how do you know unless you look? And then I got out of the army and I went to Finnish college, I went to medical school,

and when I was a second year medical student, someone I loved tried to kill herself, and I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I came to realize, if he helped her, he wouldn't just help her. That ultimately it would help her children and her grandchildren, now that you have a baby, you realize your mental health completely impacts the baby's mental health.

And so I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it has the potential to change generations of people. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ. It treats. And I knew it was wrong because of my imaging background and I knew it would change. I just had no idea I'd be involved in change. And over the last 30 years, we built the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior. We have 185,000 scans on people from 150 countries. And it just taught me that so the big lesson is that most psychiatric problems, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD are not mental health issues at all.

They're brain health issues that steal people's minds, get your brain right, and your mind will follow. And one of my favorite stories, I'm in Justin Bieber's new docu-series, seasons, and you know like many celebrities, he'd sort of do what I said some of the time. But one day, he walked into my office and he said my brain is an organ like my heart is an organ If you told me I had heart problems, I'd do anything you said He said I'm gonna start doing everything you say and then it just got dramatically better And if we can just stop calling These things mental illnesses right when you call somebody mental that shames them right but when you call them a brain

It elevates right so let's start talking about brain health issues Rather than mental illness. Well, that's so cool. That's great I remember you sharing with me how your mental health directly affects your child's mental health And you told me that before I was pregnant with honey And I was so thankful that you did because I started getting my brain healthy not knowing that months later I was gonna be pregnant and I Really focused on that whenever I was pregnant with her I really focused on the things that you gave me to work through anxiety

So I didn't you know have all that anxiety sitting on me whenever I had her in my womb, you know. And so I was so, so grateful for that. And I kind of shared with people in the last podcast how much anxiety I was going through after I had honey, which is when I called you. But I really didn't struggle with it when I was pregnant with her. And a huge part of that was because I really worked on it. And so we'll get to that later.

But I want people to understand the importance of taking care of their brain because honestly, when you showed me the scans, I was like, wow, like, okay, brain health is important and there are things that we do that really affect our brain and how we think. And so from your perspective and a nutshell, what is the importance of really taking care of your brain? Why is it so important? Well, and nobody cares about their brain. Why? Because you can't see it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly. And you can do something when you're unhappy with those. But in 1991 when I started looking at the brain, I didn't care about my own brain.

And I was the top neuroscience student in medical school. I was a double board certified psychiatrist. And I just didn't care. But when I saw it, and saw it wasn't healthy because I played football in high school, I had meningitis when I was the young soldier. And I had bad habits. I was in sleeping, I ate bad food.

I looked at it and I developed a concept I call brain envy. How we say Freud was wrong, penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. It's brain, you gotta love and care for your brain. And when I did years later, my brain's better. And I'm like, oh my goodness. With a better brain, your mind is better, your energy is better, your decision making is better.

Your relationships are better. Everything is better. People don't really sort of connect it even though everybody really knows your brain controls everything you do how you think how you feel how you act I get along with other people and When it works right you work right and when it's troubled You have trouble in your life that then people start medicating you for without ever looking. And that's what I'm like, no, that's not okay. You want to see, like with your brain, part of it, it was hurt. And you told me about an accident you had when you were 16. And it's like, no, we have to fix that.

And your emotional brain worked too hard, like there was trauma. And there was trauma. And so working through all of that, not as there's something wrong with you because you're amazing. But it's just like balancing it. I saw a year old boy, the other day, he was really struggling with his moods and his temper and I'm like, you have a great brain. It's sort of like a Ferrari engine that's just not tuned right. So let me tune it so you can use it. See, there's no shame in that as opposed to you have this, so you should take that and you have to get to the rest of your life

and it's like, no, no, that's not like that. I remember whenever you showed me my brain skin and you were explaining it and it all made so much sense. And I remember one of the things that you saw was how active the part of my brain is were things spiral, like that spiral. And I was like, yes, like I get stuck on a thought. And that was kind of even what I share with you after having honey, like the thought of is she okay, is she gonna be okay?

Am I gonna be okay? And it's just over and over and over and over and over that thought. And then of course it leads out as an anxiety attack because I get so anxious, I get so worked up. But I loved how you explained everything and showing me my brain. And I know there's so many practical things

for how to help that. I remember the reason I went to you is because I heard that you don't just give people medicine and that was kind of the thing. When I shared with the doctor, I had bad anxiety. They're like, here, here's medication. I'm like, no, I don't want to take that because I know I can work through this.

And so when I shared with you, when I talked to you, with the things that I went through and the things that I was struggling with, and just simple things that you helped me walk through and guess what we talked through, but even the breathing, which we'll get to in a minute and the ants and all those things, like I actually saw such improvement on my life that I didn't have to get on medication.

I was very thankful for that. And so I love how you look at things and I love how you work things out. And I think for people,, for people, you know, they might say, well, what if my brains are already bad, right? Well, that's the thing. You're not saying, hey, everybody come with a perfect brain. You're like, even if your brain is bad,

these are the things that help. And so I wrote down some of the practical tips, the Aimee, that I wanted you to kind of talk about a little bit. Share with them what the concept of ants are in your life because I was a classic fortune teller ant. You know, anybody that has panic attacks, they're masterful at predicting the worst. Yes. And then they make it worse still.

Still, and many years ago I had a really bad day at work. I saw four suicidal patients, two couples who hated each other and two teenagers who ran away from home. Wow. I got home and I was so stressed and I came home to an aunt in the station in my house. And as I was cleaning up all the ants, I thought to myself, automatic, negative thoughts. My patients are infested, just like my kitchen was infested. We need to get an anteater, so I have an anteater. Oh, that's awesome. You need an anteater in your head an anteater in your head to help you not believe every stupid thing you think. Yes.

Thoughts lie. They lie a lot. And it's our uninvestigated thoughts that ruin people's lives. Thoughts come from our genes, right? If your parents or grandparents had traumas, that trauma actually get written into their genetic code. Babies are not born as a blank slate. Everything that happened to our ancestors

sort of gets written into our genes. They come from the traumas we experience. They come from the voices of our parents and siblings and friends and enemies, the news, the music we listen to, and just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true or helpful. That's good. And one of the things that you and I worked on is whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control right down what you're thinking. And then just ask yourself, is it true? Can I absolutely know if it's true?

How does the thought make me feel? Who would I be without it? And then my favorite part of killing the ants is take the original thod honey is going to get sick and flip it to the opposite honey is not going to get sick and just go so which is true. And it's just about questioning your thoughts and not just believe them because you have them. thoughts and not just believe them because you have them. And no life. I was 28 years old before I learned this that I don't have to believe everything I think. It was so freeing that I just had to share it with everybody. I love that. I love it. You don't have to believe everything. And I think that was the problem.

Because I was like, Oh, well, if I'm thinking it, then it must be true, then it must be true Then it must be about to happen or even you know We do that in silly scenarios like with friends like I bet they're thinking that they have to be you know I bet that they don't like me I bet that this and like if you believe all that you've become really insecure about yourself And you think no one likes you when in reality that's just not true But it all stem from this original thought

um and yes when you totally start questioning my thoughts that's just not true, but it all stem from this original thought. And yes, when you totally start questioning my thoughts, it was so good for me. And now I'm like, is that true? And I'm always like, no, is it absolutely true? Nope, not at all. And has that been a fitting my life at all to think about? No, so I need to stop thinking about it.

I love whenever I was talking to you about, you know, just the initial call when I called you, a postpartum, I was telling you all that was going through. And you're like, okay, first of all, let's get rid of all the what ifs or what could have happened or what should have happened because it's not helping you and it's not helping anyone. And I was like, you're right.

And even just in that one sentence, like it just freed me from so many thoughts because I didn't even realize like 80% of my thoughts were like, what could have, what should have, what if, that didn't even happen, you know? And so why am I focusing on all of those things and when it's just making me incredibly anxious, whenever I could be incredibly grateful?

And so that really helped me. Another thing that you've taught me that has really shaped, you know, even just moments in my life before I go on stage, I do this before I enter into a hard conversation, I do this, is my breathing techniques that you've taught me. So, share with people how breathing is actually really important to the way that your brain responds to things. So your brain is about 2% of your body's weight, about 3 pounds, but it uses 20% of the oxygen and the blood flow in your body. And when we get anxious, our breathing tends to get shallow and fast and inefficient.

And the simplest way to break a panic attack. So there are four quick steps, but one is don't leave the situation when you're having a panic attack, unless it's dangerous. Right, if you're walking in downtown to try to do it too in the morning, leave it. Leave it.

That, by the way, I just want to make a note, Rufaz. That really helped me because I remember sharing with you in your office. You said, what do you normally do when I have a panic attack? I say, well, normally, get up and go to the bathroom or something to like try to like calm down or a member when I was on the plane and I walked up the plane because I thought the plane was going to crash. All these fortune teller things and I would just leave.

And you said, don't leave. And I was like, oh, that's my my first step so that was already good to hear. The second one is breathe and in a very specific way I want you to take four seconds to breathe in. So big breath but then eight seconds to breathe out and try to breathe diaphragmatically, which means let the energy of breathing go lower in your body. And that breathing pattern takes twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in will actually trigger an automatic relaxation response in your body. So what you're doing is you're flooding your brain with oxygen so you're becoming more

efficient and telling your brain it's time to settle down because when you breathe in that fast inefficient way the world sort of starts to close in on you and you get anxious and you feel panicky. Now you have to practice. There's an app I like called Awesome Breathing actually. Program it to go for seconds and eight seconds out and it's so simple, so easy and to sort of break the panic attack quickly. And then write down what you're thinking. Right, so don't leave. Breathe with your belly slowly. Write down what you're thinking, correct it. And then if you're still anxious, something simple like GABA or magnesium or theaning, because

too often people go to the family doctor and they go, I'm having panic attacks and they give them Xanax or clonipin or adivant, which are addictive. And it's like once you start them, you won't be able to stop them. And I'm not opposed to medicine, please, if you're listening to podcast, don't stop your medicine, doctor or doctor. But let's give you skills, not just pills. And then I love that because you learn them and then you implement them. And then you feel that. Right. Yep. Even I love whenever you told me to put my hands under warm water, which was such a simple thing.

But I remember one night, I kind of woke up in a panic attack, which was so strange because you know, I didn't have a chance to even do all of my things because I just woke up and I was in a panic attack. And I remember Christian said, go put your hands under warm water and in the moment I looked at him like what like why would I do that? That was this was before I'd ever tried that but I he remembered you saying that because he came with me to our Session and I went but my hands are in warm water and literally I stopped shaking I stopped I wasn't afraid like it was so weird and so it's just weird how your body

You know response to fear sometimes, even in moments that you're not necessarily afraid, like even when your brain gets overworked in a day or, you know, all day I had been thinking so many thoughts about everything I have to get done and whatnot. It all just kind of caught up to me. And I guess that just really calmed me down. And so I just love how practical these tips are that really help because there was a time in my life where I thought, like, oh, this is just the way that I am. Like, I'm just an anxious person, you know, this just happens to me, you know, but not

realizing that I can actually do something to help it. And that's not just the way that I am. That's the way that my brain tends to think, but I can help myself. And so that was really inspiring for people wondering how they can help myself. And so that was really inspiring. For people wondering how they can help themselves. What are some things that are just bad for your brain in general? Well, you know, let me push on what you said a little bit more. You are in good shape. And that takes a lot of work to be in good shape. And it's like day in and day out. You have to eat, write, exercise,

and do the right things to take care of your body. But nobody thinks that about mental health, or brain health. It's these are practices we need to do all the time. Right. And another technique, I don't remember if we talked about it, but it's called give your mind a name to psychologically distance, to separate from the chattel in your head. And when I first heard of this, I'm like, what I name my

mind. And I named it actually after my pet raccoon when I was 60. I had a pet rat cone. Her name was Hermie. And she was, I'd loved her, but she was a trouble maker. She got me into all sorts of hot water with my mother. She teapeter bathroom ate my sister's gold. And that's my mind. My mind and your mind is a troublemaker. It's just like holds up signs like you're an idiot or you're a failure or bad things are gonna happen. And when you give your mind a name,

you can actually separate from it and you can choose to listen to it or not to listen to it. There's a new Disney movie out there, I love called Luca and there's a whole part in there where one of the boys tells the other one to give his mind a name and tell it to shut up. It was really fun. And so one mental discipline like physical discipline, you want to be mentally healthy, you have to work it.

And these are practices to do every day, not believe everything you think, breathe, especially diaphragmatically or breathe with your belly. Brain health is three things. It's brain and V, gotta care about it, avoid things that hurt it, know the list, and do things that help it. So what hurts the brain? Not sleeping. Sleep is so critical. See, when I first saw my scan, it wasn't healthy, because I thought I was special that I could get by on four hours of sleep at that. I was so excited about my life and my clinic and writing that I didn't sleep much. And then I, as I read the research, I realized I wasn't special. I was stupid. Because when you sleep, your brain cleans and washes itself and actually tighties it up.

It gets it ready for the next day. And so if you're, and this is very important for new mothers, if you're only sleeping three or four hours because you're up at night with the baby, you're not your decision making is not going to be quite as good. So making sure you get that involved to really help or you know, some of your other family if you have them it's just absolutely critical to have six, seven, eight hours of sleep at night. You know one of the reasons for postpartum depression is you felt so good when you were pregnant because your progesterone levels are really high and then you felt so anxious because they dropped right. And so getting your hormones checked is really important,

which means we should always avoid hormone disruptors. And what are those? Things like parabens and thalates and fragrance. And often the products we put on our body are disrupting our hormones. So I probably had you download the app ThinkDirty, which is you get to scan all of your personal products, and they'll tell you on a scale of one to 10,

how quickly they're killing you. That's right. And so getting your hormones checked and optimized, sawdust are so good, because they help detoxify us. And they've actually studied in JAMA's psychiatry that showed one infrared saunah had antidepressant effects. Wow.

And of course we should talk about alcohol. It is not a health food. It is not a good anti-anxiety. It helps you feel better quickly, but makes you feel bad in the long run. So I'm not a fan at all of alcohol. War marijuana, marijuana will help you feel better for some people quickly, but then it stays in your body 30 days and has a negative impact on brain function. And bad food, you think it tastes great. I always love this. I just want you to love food that loves you back. That's good.

You know, I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship, but I've been in a bad relationship and I'm not doing it anymore. And I'm for certain not doing it with food. So whenever I go to eat something, it's like, well, do I love it? And does it love me back? So food really matters because your brain, again, is 2% of your body's weight, but uses 25% of the calories you consume. So how you E determines how you think and how you feel and how you act.

It's incredible. Well, it's so good to think about these things because you're right. These are things that are so important, but we just don't think about. But they have such a huge effect on our life if we do think about them. One thing I wanted you to share, because I talked about this in my post-partum episode, when I talked about how I was dealing with so much fear, but I like didn't want to admit to it, because I was also so happy and joyful.

And I felt like to admit that I was afraid it was taking away from how happy I really truly was. But I kind of realized that it wasn't that it was taking away, it was that they kind of went hand in hand. I was afraid because I love her so much. I didn't want anything to happen to her, but the fear wasn't helping me love her more, right? And I love one thing that you talked about, which was the idea of gratitude, happened to her, but the fear wasn't helping me love her more, right?

And I love one thing that you talked about, which was the idea of gratitude, gratitude being such a powerful force. And so share with people the power of gratitude in those moments that you are feeling so anxious. It's a daily practice, just like working out, if you can focus on what you love about your life. Your brain actually works better. When you focus on fear, it turns off your frontal lobes and just gives free rain to the anxiety.

So writing down three things you're grateful for every day. So I have a couple of daily practices that really help me. I start every day with today is going to be a great day. And that way my mind finds what's right rather than what's wrong. and I end every day with what went well today. So when I put myself to sleep at night, I say a prayer, and then I go, what went well. And I started the beginning of the day. And as I sort of review the day from a positive standpoint, it actually sets my dreams up to be more positive. It's cool. And my dad died about a year ago.

And the night the day he died, I did this. Now the raccoon popped up and goes, how can you go, what went well today? Your dad died. You are an awful evil person. But it's my habit, right? You do what you do. And because it was my habit, I said a prayer. And then I thought about this great interaction between my mom and the police officer. I thought about all the texts I got from the people who loved me. And then I thought about holding his hand before the mortuary took him away.

And I just remember how soft it was. And then I went to sleep, which is a night I usually wouldn't have slept very well, even in hard times. You can manage your mind, but you have to do it all the time. Because if you do it all the time, then when hard times come, you have skill to manage those things. And if you're a believer, you believe that really nothing is hard. Yeah, well, you're, that's so powerful.

That's so cool. And I just love that. You've really stressed on the power of the habit. Like having a habit can really get you through hard times because you still had that same healthy habit. Just like working out, I have a habit of doing that. I have a habit of being healthy and that really helps me even when I'm sick,

you know, to be healthier and stronger. And so that is really cool that these habits actually end up helping you through the hard times of your life. I know you mentioned being a believer and that's something that we've related on. And I love how you talk about how you are using your gift to actually help the church. And I think, I think that's so cool, because I think everybody has ministry, right? I mean, if you are in your position, you have a clinic and you're scanning brains, like you have an opportunity to minister.

If you're a teacher, if you're, you know, a lawyer, if you are a nanny, or if you are in ministry yourself, you're all, you all have an opportunity work for the kingdom. And so share about how important you think it is for the church to be healthy, because I love what you did with Rick Warren and stuff like that. them. And so share about how important you think it is for the church to be healthy because I love what you did with Rick Warren and stuff like that. Well, you know, I went to Oral Roberts University. I went to a Christian medical school and dearly loved it. But in the church, there's this sort of attitude where if you're struggling

with anxiety or depression, it's because you have sin in your life. And I've always hated that because your brain can have problems just like your heart can have problems. And so we've really worked hard to get the church to embrace brain health, mental health issues and be supportive rather than hurtful, which it can be sometimes. And then it was 10 years ago, almost 11 years ago now, actually, Pastor Warren called me

and said, um, that my church is bad. Will you help me? And we created the Daniel Plan, which was a program to get the world healthy through churches. And the first week at Saddleback, 15,000 people signed up. The first year, they lost a quarter of a million. And subsequently, thousands of churches around the world have done this program. And the idea is we get sick together, or we get better together. And the church is so important

that we really want it to be a place, a physical and mental health, because then spiritual health is better. Right. And it was really one of the biggest blessings of my life. That's so cool. I loved. I heard a quote from you one time where you said you're talking about how churches give out donuts and ice cream and have hot dog parties and you said here's the thing church. We're sending them to heaven faster. I was like, that is true. The one last question I had and honestly, I haven't talked to you about this, so I don't know if this is something that you have, you know, started looking at study.

I'm sure you have, but what do you feel like social media's affect on our brain is? And do you think it's positive, negative? Can it be both? What are your kind of your thoughts on social media? Clearly, it can be both. So it's a way to connect. It's the way you connect with millions of people and they can be uplifted but it's also addictive and it can distract

people from real relationships. So we have to be really careful. I don't know if you've watched the social dilemma. Yes. Torrify. Yes. Because the social media companies are ultimately companies that make money and they make money on what sells. And what sells is anxiety. What sells is fear. What sells is disaster. And so they promote topics of conflict, fear, and anxiety, and that is worsening the mindset of America. If it bleeds, it leads. And so I wake up every morning with the Good News Network. I want to know what's right in the world because there's so much that right and people should

write this down where you bring your attention determines how you feel. And I wrote a book called the End of Mental Illness because I just I hate the term mental illness. And in it, I imagined if I was in the evil world and I wanted to create mental illness in America, what would I do? And I create social media and the news networks because they give us a bias, a negatively biased look at the world because that's what the brain pays attention to. Right. The brain naturally pays attention to fear as a way to protect itself. Yes. And they use that natural tendency. So as individuals and moms, we sort of

have to fuss with it. And I think with honey and any other babies that you might have, I think if you just start every day with today, it's going to be a great day. I like that. Why is your day going to be a great way? We do that at breakfast and we do at a dinner go with kids. What went well today? Just to get them trained to look for what's right not only for what's wrong. I love that. That's great. I am writing my next book right now. God, who are you following? And it's talking about following Jesus in a social media obsessed world. And so I was really curious to that. And I love that you said where you are giving your attention will affect how you feel because I was kind of talking about that. It's like what we give

our worship to, what we follow, what we even praise and comment on. Like that all is affecting where life is leading us, right? Because who we're following is who is leading, you know? And so I I love that you said that and that makes so much sense. Last thing I wanted to say, and I just wanted to hear the hope that you have for this because honestly, I love you talking about the inter-mental illness because mental illness is something that has become strangely almost like a popular thing to say. Actually, I went to several universities

about two years ago doing like a tour and I talked to so many sorority girls and really just asked, so what do you see on campus? What's kind of the biggest struggle? And everybody said mental illness. It was like, we all struggle with mental illness, duh, duh, duh, because either we struggle with perfectionism or we struggle with, we are so stressed

or we struggle with anxiety or we're depressed and all this stuff And you know, I look at that and I see the lifestyle that a lot of college students are living and I can see why you would feel as though You feel mentally ill right? No wonder you feel so anxious. No wonder you feel depressed and wonder you feel like you have to uphold a perfect standard because You know of kind of even the culture that you're in as a college student. However, it scares me to think about a generation growing up right now and about to lead all thinking

that they struggle with mental illness. And so what would be your encouragement to that college student, the hope that you have for that college student, that hey, you might think that you have mental illness, but actually there's hope for your future because. Yeah, let's not call it mental illness. Let's just call it on having a brain health issue

that I can impact. And whatever I think about people, I always think of them in four big circles. It's, what's the biology? Are you eating right? Are you exercising? Are you sleeping? Are you taking simple supplements, multiple item and fish oil, vitamin D? Are you nourishing your brains? So let's get the physical functioning of your brain right and too often and my daughter's just getting ready to go

off to TCU and you know they talk about the freshman 15 and you know when kids are away from home they're not doing quite the right structure for themselves and then let's get your mind right let's teach you not to believe every stupid thing you think can give your mind a name and learn really mind management techniques. And then let's make sure your relationships are right. So about, that it's, why do you care? What is your deepest sense of meaning and purpose? Because if you know why you're on the planet and you've enhanced your brain and managed your mind and worked on your relationships, it's just going to be happier. Because ultimately, ultimately, that's what we want.

We wanna be happy, but guess what? Purposeful people are happier. And pleasure is the enemy of happiness because when you get too much pleasure, it actually wears out your pleasure centers. That's why fame, early fame is really not very good for your brand because it wears out true pleasure centers and then you feel flat. Right. And so too many people are like, oh I want followers and I want fame and it's like,

I'm not so sure. That's a great thing. Yeah. Right. And Joe, you and I both know a lot of really famous people and their level of happiness is no better than people who are just going to a regular job every day because of the stress associated with it. Well, come on, man. I really could listen to you talk all day, but not everything you said is so important And I want people to really soak on that and really think about the things that you said and put it into practice

I can say from a true testimony that you have truly helped me a ton You have helped my brain you have helped my life you helped my with Christian, my relationship to my daughter as a mom, and I couldn't be more grateful for that. So thank you for caring about my brain. And I hope that people will care about theirs too. For more on Dr. Amen, he has several books out. You can Google him and see it all. You can also follow him on Amen Clinic. I think that's your Instagram.

Dr. Amenin clinics. Doc underscore. Doc is my Instagram. He has his own clinic. He's amazing and I'm telling you. You will definitely benefit from following some of these simple instructions. So thank you, Dr. Amin, for your beautiful heart and sharing with us today. Thanks, Eddie. It's so great to see you. You too.