Dr. Daniel Amen On How To Fix Your Brain & Reverse The Effects Of Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol and Fame
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The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Mari has grown her to fitness and nutrition brand. Co-founder of Bloom Nutrition. Forbes 30 under 30 list. A successful entrepreneur. Someone who has lost 90 pounds. Today's guest is Mari Llewellyn. Mari Llewellyn. My friend Mari. Welcome to the Pursuit of Wellness. Today on the show, I am honored to be joined by Dr. Daniel Amen. He is on a mission to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health.

He's an adult and child psychiatrist, founder of Amen Clinics, which has the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry, totaling more than 200,000 scans on patients from 155 countries.

He's the brain doctor to the world's most well-known celebrities, such as Bella Hadid, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and more. Plus, Dr. Amen is a 12-time New York Times bestselling author. I think we have a lot to learn about our brains today. Dr. Amen, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for helping me spread the message. It's not mental health, it's brain health. Brain health. I can't wait to hear more about it. Let's start from the beginning.

Where did your interest in brains begin? So it's a funny story. I'm one of seven children. I was irrelevant growing up, a middle child. And in 1972, here in the United States, when I turned 18, we still had a draft. And I became an infantry medic where my love of medicine was born.

But about a year into it, I realized I didn't like being shot at. It just, it's not my thing. Some people like it, not now. So I got retrained as an x-ray technician and developed 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 in 1979. I am a second-year medical student. Someone I love tries to kill herself. I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist and came to realize if he helped her, it would not just help her. It would help her children and her grandchildren. So I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it could help generations of people.

but I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. Think about that.

If your heart has problems, they look at it. If your liver has problems, they look at it. If your bones have problems, they look at it, psychiatrist gas. And I knew it was wrong and I knew it would change. I just had no idea. I'd be part of the change. Then in 1991, I ordered my first brain imaging study called SPAC and literally changed everything I do. And in 1991, I'm 37.

as the top neuroscience student in medical school as a double board certified psychiatrist and i didn't care about my own brain and that's sort of insane and then i looked at it with spacked and the month before i looked at my mother's brain and it was beautiful and i looked at my brain it wasn't beautiful because i played football in high school

And I had bad habits and I had meningitis when I was a young soldier. And it was at that moment I developed this term I call brain envy.

Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. He was like two and a half feet too low in the body. It's your brain. And I've spent the last 32 years working on getting my brain healthy and the brains of my patients and family and the people that follow me. I'm curious, did any...

PTSD show up in your brain from being in the war being shot at? Could you see anything from that? So I have a very busy brain. I believe it. I have a very busy brain and I was actually blessed in the sense that I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Europe and I was involved in protecting West Germany against the Soviet Union. And

We have studied, actually published some big studies on trauma and it's your emotional brain is lit up. Yeah. And clearly mine was that way. Yeah. I can't wait to talk more about that because I personally have had a lot of issues with mental health and I would love to hear your feedback on that. Why do you think you have such a personal deep rooted? Why are you so personally deep rooted in this mission?

Oh, it's clearly, it's personal to me, you know, from someone I loved who tried to kill herself that got me into the field. When I started imaging in 1991, I was so excited. I was just like a little kid. But whenever you do something that's different than your colleagues, your colleagues hate you.

for it. They belittle you, they demonize you, they try to marginalize you. And I wasn't ready for that. And then in 1995, I'd been pretty much brutalized by a lot of my colleagues and I was struggling with it emotionally. And then Andrew came into my clinic. So I got a call one night

from my sister-in-law, Sherry, who told me my nine-year-old nephew, Andrew, who was also my godson, attacked a little girl on the baseball field for no reason. And 999 child psychiatrists out of 1,000 would have put him on medicine

and put him in therapy. Well, I'd already been scanning the brain for four years, and I'm like, I want to see Andrew tomorrow in the clinic. And they drove eight hours to my clinic, and I held his hand while he got scanned. And he was missing his left temporal lobe. He was missing the function of a very important part of his brain. And it turned out he had a cyst the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his temporal lobe.

And when I got a neurosurgeon to drain it, his behavior completely went back to normal. And it was at that moment, I did not care if you criticized me. I mean, I really see that is when I became a warrior to change this whole concept of mental illness. I hate that term because it shames people. It is stigmatizing.

And it's wrong. These are brain health issues. So, you know, not just the person I love to try to kill herself. This is my nephew, my godson, who I love so much. And he was drawing pictures of himself shooting other children, of hanging from a tree. I mean, he's homicidal, suicidal. So in retrospect, you think of Columbine or you think of Sandy Hook or you think of

Parkland, Florida waiting to happen. And it's easy to call people bad. It's easy to call them weak. It's much harder to go, why? And if you don't understand why, how do you appropriately intervene? I mean, what we're doing in this country now is just fricking disaster. There are 337 million prescriptions last year for antidepressants without anybody ever looking at the brains.

of these people. That's insane. And that's the easier option as well to have to give someone medication and get them in the system rather than doing the extra work. So easy on the short term, a disaster in the long term. I can speak to that personally when I

I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in college and I was self-harming. I was having suicidal thoughts and the first thing that doctors did would put me on a cocktail of medication. So I was on mood stabilizers, antidepressants, anti-anxiety and it wasn't until my fitness journey where I looked at everything I was eating, removed alcohol, making those lifestyle changes, I

began to have less and less symptoms. And now years later, I don't self-harm. I don't have the same thoughts. I'm a completely different person. I'm still very curious to see

what my brain looks like, but I can attest to what you're saying for sure that the medication I was put on made me gain 60 pounds. I had no grip on reality. Yeah, it completely ruined my life. And nobody looked at your brain. No, no. Which is insane because if you give someone the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, it means they're really messed up. Yep. Without no biological data. Yeah. And so they shame you. That's a very shaming thing.

diagnosis. And in my experience is we have to look at and then I have to get you to stop poisoning your brain. Right. Because if you're using alcohol, of course, your behavior is not going to be awesome. Yeah. And they they say that borderline personality disorder is a trauma disorder. So I would be curious to see what that would show up as in the brain.

It comes from sexual abuse, childhood trauma. There's a number of reasons, but they say it's built up over time. Whereas when I first was diagnosed, I believed it was genetic. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.

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today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash pow, P-O-W. So I'm interested to know what your thoughts are on that, but to get a bit more big picture, why do brains matter?

So much. But your brain, the physical functioning of your brain, the moment by moment, physical functioning of your brain controls everything you do, how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. Your brain is the organ of intelligence, character, and every decision you make. And when your brain works right, you work right. And when your brain is troubled for whatever reason,

you have trouble in your life. Yet I spoke at a big education conference in California. There were like 2,500 teachers there. And I was sitting next to the curriculum director. And I'm like, how many classes on brain health do you have? And then she looked at her shoes. And when she looked at me, she said, none.

I'm like, okay, so your brain learns, your brain loves, your brain creates, and we get kids through college with no information on their brain. That's insane. And I'm a double board certified psychiatrist, and I had no training on brain health. No training on brain health. It's like we just don't know that the brain creates your mind.

See, some people go, oh no, the mind is separate from the brain. It's complete crap. Your brain, physical function, creates your mind. And so if it's not healthy, think Alzheimer's disease, clearly not healthy. They clearly lost their mind. Get your brain right and your mind will follow. And that's why I've been very passionate about changing the conversation. I have a nonprofit called Change Your Brain Foundation.

And its mission is to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. If we want to reverse this epidemic of mental health problems, we have to change conversation. It's not mental illness. It's brain trouble.

get your brain right your mind will follow and the more you optimize the brain and brain health is three things brain envy got to care about it avoid things that hurt it do things to help it i mean that's the answer the answer is whenever you go make a decision today this is good for my brain or bad for it and if you can answer that with information

and love, love of yourself, love of your family, love of the reason you're on earth, you just make better decisions. I just don't know other people that are going, it's not mental illness, it's brain health. Of the 200,000 plus scans you've done, what has been your most shocking discovery? Most psychiatric illnesses are not mental health issues. They're brain health issues. That's one. Two.

Mild traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric problems that nobody knows. So a lot of people diagnosed with personality disorders, they've had a car accident or they've had a fight or they've had a

It's just 3 million new head injuries every year in the United States. And most of them live. So what does that mean? Over the last 30 years, there's been 90 million people affected with traumatic brain injury. It's a major cause.

of trouble that can be reversed. How exciting is that? I did the big NFL study at a time when the NFL was lying. They had a problem about traumatic brain injury in football. So around 2007 to 2011, and the NFL was in active denial. Roger Goodell in front of Congress said, we don't know if playing football causes long-term brain damage. We're studying the issue, which it's a conflict of interest.

and high levels of damage. But 80% of my players get better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. Well, how exciting is that? You know, if you're an NFL player and you've hit your head thousands of times, really, you can make that better? Yes.

And so if we could make their brains better, just imagine the average person who had a concussion, we put your brain in a healing environment. You can't get better, but you have to have brain envy. You have to care about it. I live in Newport beach where we have more plastic surgeons and almost anywhere except 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 that's insane. If we don't recall having a fall or a hit to the brain, is it possible that emotional trauma can also show up and impact mental illness? Absolutely. So if you grow up, for example, in an unpredictable environment,

your mom or your dad was a drug addict or an alcoholic and life is unpredictable. It causes your emotional brain to start working too hard because you start looking

for what's wrong because it protects you. And for people who come to our clinics, we scan everybody pretty much, but we also do cognitive testing. And there's this one test we do where how good are you at recognizing faces? And do you tend to recognize positive faces faster than negative faces?

Well, people who grow up in trauma are really good at recognizing faces, but they recognize negative faces way faster because the trauma heightens.

their nervous system to go the world is dangerous and we do a questionnaire and everybody called the ace questionnaire have you heard that adverse childhood experiences so it's on a scale of zero to ten how many bad things happen to you when you're a child and here are ten of the big ones like physical abuse emotional abuse sexual abuse having a parent that went to jail or your parents got divorced

And I scored one on it. So I had a pretty stable environment. My wife is an eight.

And when she took the test, she's so recognized negative faces faster. And I'm like, I can help train that. So you recognize more. She goes, why would I want to do that? She's looking out for danger. She's looking out for danger. I can relate so well, even to the point where when I'm speaking to someone, I'm dissecting their facial expressions the entire time and kind of looking for what

Oh, how are they feeling about me? Am I saying the right thing? I think that hype, is it called hypervigilance? You can literally see that on a brain scan. Yes. And so physical trauma, we see decreases in activity in the brain. Emotional trauma, we see increase. And one of my favorite tools, I don't know if you've had EMDR, but I love it.

It is just one of the most effective forms of psychotherapy to get the trauma out of your body. What is that therapy? So EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. So what I would have you do is write down 10.

of your big traumas. And then we go after the first one and I would want to like learn all about it. And what do you think, you know, what is, what's the image? What are the thoughts? What would you rather believe? Have you rate it? And then have you sort of picture yourself on a train, bring up the trauma. And then I get your eyes to go back and forth. Your brain will guide us.

on where you need to go, what are the things you need to remember. And it's that bilateral hemisphere stimulation, the eyes going back and forth, that you can integrate it, process it, not as a four-year-old, but as an adult that corrects the four-year-old's distortions. And it's so powerful and often helps people understand

make sense of the trauma, integrate the trauma and stop. So if something happened early, children see themselves at the center of the world. And if something good in the family happens, they sort of think it's because of them. And if something bad in the family happened, they sort of think it's because of them. And they end up with guilt and shame that had nothing to do

with them. So huge fan of EMDR. How do you handle people who can't remember the trauma? Like let's say they have something blacked out and they're not able to access. Well, I don't let them make up new stuff. I think that's really important because a lot of people, they can't remember and they can't remember in part because sometimes they did have a head injury and it caused a disruption in their temperament.

temporal lobes, but too often people will begin to fill in the blanks when they do not have clear memories. They will fill in the blanks with sexual abuse and it will rip apart a family. I am not a fan of false memories. I think if you do not remember, you have to be super careful with that.

Because sometimes therapists, and I know therapists who will go, well, then you must have been sexually abused. So they plant that thought and the person will germinate on it and all of a sudden they'll remember it. I had one patient, for example, she saw a man

in a blue suit on top of her and she couldn't breathe. So for years and in therapy with others, she had talked about, he must have molested me. Well, I like hypnosis as well. And so I put her in a trance, took her back to that. She couldn't breathe. And it turned out it was her uncle was a fireman who was tickling her.

And so you just have to be so careful not to find trouble that might not be there. When it comes to trauma,

emotional trauma, how much of it is therapy and how much of it is brain health? Well, brain health is foundational to everything because if you're like, oh, it's trauma and I'm drinking, I'm like, it's not going to help. Or it's trauma and I'm putting toxic products on my body. That's not going to help. Let's get your brain really healthy. And then the therapy tends to go way faster. So I think of it like hardware and software.

Like if you have a computer and the hardware is not optimized, you're not going to be able to program it. So the first thing you do is you optimize the hardware and then you work on the software. So I think of therapy as software.

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What are the most common bad brain health habits you see? Not caring. I think that's number one.

Our society sees alcohol as a health food. It's a complete lie. Moderate drinking, you die early. There was a brand new study out just a couple of weeks ago on 5 million people. And they looked at those studies that said moderate drinking causes you to live longer. And they found it was bad methodology. And they would compare it against people who were sick or people who previously had a drinking problem. So, bad methodology.

Marijuana is innocuous. You know, alcohol is ubiquitous. During the Superbowl, there were 30 beer commercials. We are being inundated. And no matter what Netflix series you watch, there's a ton of alcohol being consumed, right? So we're being fed alcohols, normal alcohols,

Everywhere. And no, it's bad for you. As a psychiatrist for 40 years, the biggest problems people get into are when they're drinking.

Marijuana is innocuous. That's another lie. Mushrooms will open your mind. I just, I hate how we're unleashing the street drugs of the sixties and calling this progress in psychiatry. Sugar is your friend. It's absolutely the enemy. It increases inflammation, not sleeping.

digital addictions. We are lonelier now than ever before, even though we are more connected because people have their faces buried in their phones or their tablets. When people are watching television, they often have three gadgets. So it is hard to have a relationship with another person when your brain has been hijacked by gadgets.

Blue light, especially after dark, turns off the production of melatonin so you're not sleeping. Well, I have a mnemonic I like called bright minds. Keep your brain healthy or rescue it. You have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. And those are sort of the things to avoid, like B is for blood flow. Don't be sedentary. And kill the caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, alcohol that drop blood flow in the brain.

R is retirement and aging. No new learning, new learning keeps your brain young. Or we could have the red meat discussion. If you have low iron in your body, you're going to be anxious and having trouble sleeping. Red meat's awesome for you. As long as it's sustainably raised. If you have high iron, you should stay away from red meat and go donate blood. I is inflammation. One of the surprising things. So

So low omega-3 fatty acids increase inflammation, processed food increases inflammation. But the surprising thing is not flossing increases inflammation. So gum disease is a major cause of heart disease, which then causes brain disease. And so making sure you're really taking care of your teeth

It's critically important to brain health. G is genetics. People like, because you had mentioned earlier, I think this is genetic. Genes load the gun. It's what we do that pulls the trigger. It's what happens to us that pulls the trigger. So I adopted my two nieces.

Because both their parents are drug addicts and unpredictable. And they were terrible parents. And I'm going to be 69 this year. So sort of not my first choice, but I adore them. And I'm like, you have a family history of addiction. If you never drink, you're never going to have a problem.

If you drank, you could have a very severe problem. So every day of their lives, I want them on an addiction prevention program. I have obesity and heart disease in my family.

and I don't have heart disease and I'm not overweight. Why? Every day of my life, I'm on an obesity and heart disease prevention program. So that's how I want people to think about genetics. People go, oh, well, I drink because I have problem drinkers in my family. It's like, dude, that's why you shouldn't be drinking. I mean, it's like, come on, let's be thoughtful about this. And the H is for head trauma. So...

on your phone while you're driving, more likely to have a head injury. Tea is toxins. And there's so many toxins. I mean, we talked about alcohol and marijuana. It's the products you put on your body. We have this epidemic of young males

with low and continuing to go lower testosterone levels. That's a huge problem. And I believe it's because of the plastics where we're consuming poison. And so thank you for the glass water bottles and the toxic products you put on your body. So you probably know the app Think Dirty. It allows you to scan your personal products.

products. And it'll tell you on a scale of one to 10, how quickly they're killing you. Wow. So for example, I shaved with Barbasol for 50 years and I read food labels. I'd really never read product labels. And then when I wrote my book, the end of mental illness, I'm like, oh, you need to read product labels. And there's an app called think dirty

that allows you to scan your personal products. And it'll tell you on a scale of one to 10, how quickly they're killing you. So one is live longer. 10 is die early. Barbicels is a nine. So for 50 years, I'm putting this crap on my face. And now I shave with something called kiss my face and it's a two and it's actually not more expensive because it lasts so much longer.

And if it was more extensive, who cares? It's me. I like me. I want me to not live in a toxic soup. So from underarm deodorant to shampoo to makeup, all you want non-toxic products because whatever goes on your body goes in your body and becomes your body.

And we just live in this toxic environment. Plus, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. We had smog days. Clearly bad.

for your brain. So you'll always want to be detoxifying, whether it's a sauna. I like infrared saunas a lot. Eating detoxifying foods like brassicas, they're Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, cabbage. They help detoxify your body. Back to the alcohol. I think a majority of people listening are consuming at least

a glass of wine a week. Let's say you are someone who's having a glass or two of wine a week. What does that look like in the brain scan? It ages your brain. People who drink even a little bit, their brains are older than they are. I published this huge study on 62,000 scans

on how the brain ages. And it's fascinating. Little kids have really busy brains. And then it stays pretty stable until you're about 60. And then it starts to drop off. Having schizophrenia, a severe brain health problem, your brain looks 10 years older. Using marijuana, your brain looks significantly older. Nicotine, significantly older. Alcohol, significantly older. Something like schizophrenia, how does that

happen in someone's brain? Is that brain damage? No, schizophrenia has some genetic components to it, but there's a fascinating study in 1991 where they looked at the places in the United States with the highest level of schizophrenia. It was the Northeast, the North Midwest and the West Coast. And then they overlaid a map of the highest incidence of Lyme disease.

they were identical. Shocking that I think infectious disease is a major cause of psychiatric problems that very few people focus on. And COVID taught us that's absolutely true. That if you got COVID, you have a 25% increased risk of having a new onset psychiatric disorder within the next four months. Wow.

So I think infectious disease is going to be a big deal. You have scanned the world's most famous brains. I listed some of the names earlier. Have you noticed any overlap between them? I remember when I scanned Kendall Jenner, she really, her emotional brain was just on fire. I think it was post COVID and that it caused an inflammatory reaction.

I'm in Justin Bieber's docu-series, Seasons. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but he clearly wasn't. He had a damaged brain and ended up, infectious disease was a major cause of the problem. Their dopamine centers tend to be worn out.

Fame is lethal. And I'm pretty unhappy with, you know, when a child, think of Justin and Miley, becomes famous, they often don't protect them. The level of things these children are exposed to just should be illegal. But when you give a brain that is nowhere near being developed

a lot of money and freedom. You know, God gave you parents so you have somebody supervise you until your brain is developed. I've just seen fame be so disruptive. Miley has a beautiful brain and she actually has the number one song in the world right now, Flowers. I'm so proud of her because it's about self love. But she had to do a lot of work on it. She loves her brain, which is why, you know, likely she'll be a star for decades.

Yeah. And I noticed Bella Hadid is now sober from alcohol, which I'm sure is due to your influence. Yeah. And for some reason, Inside Edition decided to pick on me. Controversial psychiatrist. Bella Hadid stops alcohol, you know, with the controversial psychiatrist. And then they tried to hate on me, but she's awesome. And love your brain. When you love your brain, you go, well, why would I drink? Why would I drink a disinfectant?

because alcohol is a disinfectant to feel better because when you stop drinking, you then withdraw and then you want to drink more. So have you heard of the Stockholm syndrome? I think so. So the Stockholm syndrome, many people actually older like me remember when Patty Hearst was kidnapped, the famous media heiress, and she then fell in love with her kidnapper. And it was actually named after

people in 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden who were kidnapped. And then they went on to protect their kidnappers. I think of alcohol and marijuana and sugar the same way that people fall in love with their captors, because once you start drinking, it changes your brain to need it in order for you to feel okay. I'm not okay with that.

Any alcohol increases your risk of seven different types of cancer. And cancer is clearly bad for your brain. The American Cancer Society. And they probably lost millions or more donations from the alcohol industry because they came out with a statement that any alcohol is a problem.

But yeah, you know, we have LeBron James or other, you know, famous athletes coming out with their vodka brands. And what does that do? It's like, oh, to be cool, you have to drink. And I'm like, to be stupid, you have to drink just because why do you want to lose your mind? So I'm confused. And it tastes terrible.

I mean, it's like, that's why things taste terrible because it means they're poisonous. And yet, but you know, we can put maybe enough sugar in it or the flavors or we can lie to ourselves and go, no, this tastes awesome. Yeah. It's like, no, it tastes terrible. It really is the most normalized drug that there is. I guess it's everywhere. That along with caffeine. Yeah.

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You guys know I have absolutely been through it with my skin. I've had adult hormonal acne since I was about 21 years old. So I recently decided to bring on Danielle and Kaylee of Clear Stem Skincare onto the show. And I got to ask them so many questions and learn so much about acne. Both of them have also dealt with acne. So it's not like they are

preaching to someone that hasn't dealt with it before. They know exactly what it's like to experience acne. They've been through it and healed it themselves, which is why they invented their brand Clear Stem Skincare. It's a revolutionary skincare brand. It's anti-aging, anti-acne with zero hormone disruptors or toxins. And since talking to them, I have completely switched over my skincare.

I actually went through every single product that I'm using with Danielle and she pointed out to me so many products in my skincare line that I was using that had acne clogging characteristics. So I was really happy I went through that with her and I've now switched. All of their products are based on over eight years of clinical work in the San Diego Acne Clinic and their products are formulated by the Acne Group.

guru. They also are well known for their hormonal acne supplement, MindBodySkin. That is the best natural alternative to Accutane. I love the fact that they're focused on internal health as well. Acne has so much to do with what we eat, the supplements we take, what's going on with our bodies on the inside. So guys, I

I have absolutely loved using these products. I love Danielle and Kaylee and I love their brand. Go to clearstemskincare.com and use code POW for 15% off your order. That's clearstemskincare.com. Use code POW, P-O-W for 15% off. Caffeine. What is that doing to the brain? Constricts blood flow.

which means it prematurely ages your brain. You know, we talked about brain envy. I want you to have blood flow and V because when you're doing anything that damages your blood vessels, you get older and caffeine powerfully constricts blood flow. And yes, you feel more alert and then not. And because of its half-life, you still have about 20% around when you're going to bed. If you had coffee in the morning,

that's going to disrupt sleep. And if it disrupts sleep, then you're going to be tired in the morning and you're going to like, oh no, I need my caffeine. So we're always chasing withdrawal. And I want people to do things that help them feel good now and later versus now, but not later. I mean, alcohol is a great example. I worked with this consultant on how people change

It was really awesome work. And then I saw him a year later and he said, because of you, I wake up a hundred percent every day. I'm like, thank you. That made me feel good. He said, I stopped drinking. So I used to wake up often feeling badly. So why would you do something on a regular basis that makes you say stuff you shouldn't say, do things you shouldn't do. And then you pass it off. Like I love it.

And I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. Yeah, of course. Me too. I feel like we all have. Me too. I'm not doing it anymore. And I'm for sure not doing it with food or with drinks. So when I go to drink something or I go to eat something, do I love it?

And does it love me? So like I make my family a brain healthy hot chocolate every night. What's in it? So raw cacao, raw organic cacao, unsweetened organic almond milk. And there's a company I like called Sweet Leaf. They make liquid stevia. They make 11 different flavors. My favorite is chocolate. And so you put, that's it.

Right? Eat up the milk, put in the raw cacao, a little bit of chocolate stevia. It's 84 calories. So it's calorie smart. I think calories matter. I love it. It loves me. We have a good relationship. Or I love lemonade. So I take sparkling water with a lemon, a little bit of chocolate stevia. I'm like happy as a clam. It's virtually no calories. It tastes good. I love it. It loves me.

And that's the relationship. And people go, oh, but how can you have any fun? Who has more fun? The kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain? The 69-year-old with a good brain or the 69-year-old with a bad brain? Who has more fun? Because what do you really want in life? I mean, for me, I want energy.

clarity, memory, focus, creativity. I want passion, connection, purpose. Those are all the things I want. Alcohol doesn't fit any of them. What are some other small steps everyone listening can take today to better brain health? So the most important thing, it takes three seconds, is to ask yourself, whenever you're going to make a decision today, is this good for my brain or bad for it?

And if you can answer that with information and love,

love of yourself, love of your family, love of your mission. You're going to start making better decisions. And honestly, most seven-year-olds would get a 95% on a test. This is good for my brain or bad for my brain. Start every day with today is going to be a great day. So you start directing your mind rather than having your negative mind direct you and

And when you go to bed at night, and this is my favorite of all of them, I say a prayer and then I go, what went well today? And I start at the beginning of my day and I go on a treasure hunt looking for what's right and what I like, because probably like you, I'm busy and I have cool things happen and I don't pay attention to them enough. And so I'm directing my mind

Too often people are watching the news or listening to negative music or scrolling and there's lots of negativity and they're not the ones in charge of their mind. I want to be in charge of my mind. Another fun technique I talk, I have a new book, change your brain every day. It's 366 short essays on the most important things I've ever said.

And one of the days I like a lot is give your mind a name. It's based on a concept of gain psychological distance from the noise in your head. You are not your thoughts. You are not the noise. And so I named my mind after my pet raccoon who I'd love. She was awesome. When I was 16, I had a pet raccoon.

And but she's a troublemaker, just like my mind. She TP'd my mother's bathroom, toilet papered my mother's bathroom, took all the toilet paper off the roll, put it everywhere. It was a bad day. Ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium. She'd leave raccoon poo in my shoes. I mean, a raccoon is an interesting pet choice. I loved her, but she's a troublemaker, just like my mind. I love my mind, but it can like conjure up all sorts of awful things are going to happen.

And I find that so helpful. My patients find that really helpful to just separate from the nonsense, the noise. How do we begin to convince the rest of the world to care about their brains? Well, you're helping me. So I'm very grateful for that. It's education, but we're up against evil. And I'm not kidding when I say that. We're up against evil, powerful forces that

make billions of dollars on our illness. If there were 337 million prescriptions last year for antidepressants, somebody's making money off of our sickness. And then they'll pick on me because I'm like, that's a bad thing. It's, it's,

not the right thing or big food that are shoving really toxic, terrible food down our throat that will kill us early. Social media companies, news companies, they're not on our side. They're not our friends. And so when you try to get the message out, there's a lot of obstacles. But I always say God gave us a big brain for a reason.

We just have to be consistent, persistent. Yeah. But we're in a war for the health of our brains. I have to ask, what are some of your favorite foods for brain health?

And least favorite? So least favorite, I think red dye. A lot of people react negatively to it. Sugar, foods that turn to sugar. Study at the Mayo Clinic, people have a fat-based diet. So I'm a huge fan of fat. Salmon, avocados, nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables. I had 42% less risk of getting Alzheimer's disease if that was the primary risk.

staple in their diet. And mine is very much like that. People have a simple carbohydrate-based diet, all the things you love, like bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, fruit juice, sugar. They have a 400% increased risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. You want to be very afraid of diabetes because it damages blood vessels.

And 20% of the blood flow in your body actually goes to your brain. So your brain is 2% of your body's weight, but uses 20% of the blood flow. Anything that damages blood flow damages your brain. Now, how I hook women is often your skin's going to be prettier if you go on a brain healthy diet. How I hook men is your erections are going to be harder.

because it's about blood flow. Yeah. Right? I mean, if you have blood flow problems anywhere, 40% of 40-year-olds have erectile dysfunction. 70% of 70-year-olds, I'm like, that's a bad thing. Well, I love hearing that the fats are good because I eat a very high-fat diet. Yeah. I had salmon last night. I did have a little bit of rice, so I should avoid the rice. You should...

Always know your blood sugar, especially your hemoglobin A1C. And so if you have, if you think of rice like a condiment, it's probably not that bad. If you think of it as the main part of the meal, that's a problem because it's rice, whether it's brown rice or white rice, spikes your blood sugar.

And I like on TikTok, there are a couple of people I follow and they're always like, here's a meal. And then they check their continuous glucose monitor. I think having a continuous glucose monitor is a cool thing. Like I love cherries, but they don't love me back. They totally spike my blood sugar. Blueberries don't. And so what are those foods that keep my blood sugar up?

Stable because when you have diabetes, you lose your mind. You lose your heart. You lose sometimes your limbs or your eyesight. Don't want high blood sugar. So now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? So wellness to me means consistent good decisions.

to optimize my brain and my body. You know, the whole point of your body is to carry around your brain. So, but you want your body to be as healthy as possible. Where can everyone find you and your books online? So brand new book, Change Your Brain.

every day. It is available anywhere great books are sold. You can find me on TikTok at DocAmen, on Instagram at Doc_Amen. Find out about our clinical work at Amen, like the last word in a prayer, amenclinics.com.

I really want to get my brain scanned with you. I'm so curious. Thank you so much for coming on today. What a joy. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next.

I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our Bloom Greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.