Doctor & Therapist To The Worlds Superstars: Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus & Bella Hadid!: Dr Amen

33:55I think it's one of the big gifts that I was given that he looked at me and said, what do you want me to do? Is that I'm assuming from hearing that? Because that was the moment where he kind of accepted you and your worth and your job and your... Yes. And he told everybody, besides me, how proud he was of me. And the first time he told me, love me was when I was 50. Which is just nuts when you think about it. I mean, he's from a different generation. But I just can't even imagine it.

34:44When we have someone in our lives that maybe wasn't fair to us in some way, whether it's a parent or an ex -partner or whatever, how do we not let the resentment or the negative emotions or the negative experiences, or that feeling of injusticeness, that we, this situation, wasn't fair, how do we get to a place of empathy with those people so that we can live without the burden of that resentment or regret or whatever it might be? I have a perfect example. So I started Imaging in 1991. I am a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. I want to research a word. I am respected by my colleagues.

35:35But I start Imaging. And initially there was acceptance. And then because the Imaging doesn't really go with the diagnostic orthodoxy, they're like, you shouldn't do that. And now I'm caught and abined. I love being connected to my colleagues. But there's no way I'm not looking at your brain if I can. And so there's this tension. And for three or four years, I feel challenged. I feel blittle. I feel anxious. And I'm starting to become ostracized from my group. So I'm anxious and I'm furious. And then in 1995, my nine -year -old nephew Andrew attacks a little girl on the baseball field for no reason.

36:30So my brother's youngest son. And my sister -in -law calls me up and she's crying. And she said she went into his room that day and found two pictures. He'd drawn one of them. He's hanging from a tree in a suicide attempt, nine years old. The other one, he's shooting other children. So he's like Colin Bein or Parkland, Florida or Sandy Hook. I mean, we're into that kind of darkness. And 999 child psychiatrists out of a thousand would have put them on medicine and put them in therapy. But because now four years I've been looking at the brain, we'd already correlated violence to the left temporal lobe, left temporal lobe dysfunction often went with violence.

37:18I'm like, I want to see him. And so they drove eight hours. And I'm sitting with my nephew who I'm also as Godfather. And I'm like, buddy, what's going on? He said, Uncle Danny, I don't know. I'm mad all the time. I said, is anybody hurting you? I said, no, is it anybody teasing you? He said, no, is there anybody touching you in places they shouldn't be touching you? No. And when I held his hand while we scanned him, when the scan came up on the computer screen, he had a cysts the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his left temporal lobe. It's the first time I've seen it. I've seen it a hundred times since.

38:01And when the neurosurgeon drained it, his behavior completely went back to normal. It was that moment the war began for me. It's like, if you don't look, you don't know. Stop lying about it. And I became a warrior to change psychiatry. But there's a lot of negativity with being a warrior. I was also in the army. I was an army psychiatrist. And what I came to realize is a wonderful psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, Worthington, who came up with a method for forgiveness. Because when you're holding on to that toxicity, it's sort of like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

38:57And he did this method and someone murdered his mother. And he said it even worked for him when he was dealing with the grief of losing his mother to a horrible crime. And so I can recall the hate that I've experienced. So that's the R. So we're called it in detail. The E is empathize. It's like, so what are the haters feeling? You're doing something they don't know. You're doing something that's different than them. You're doing something that threatens them. See if I'm right and I'm right, everything in my body notes, I'm right, 230 ,000 scans later. This isn't fake. This is real. And if you don't look, you mess all sorts of important things.

39:52But they don't know that. And if they don't know it and they're threatened, well, of course they're angry. I mean, I still hold on to they should at least come visit. Right? I mean, my work is so public. The A is altruistically give them the gift of forgiveness. Because and I actually don't really pay attention to them because I do what I can, we publish studies. But I don't need the negativity. So you altruistically give them the gift of forgiveness, commit to it and hold on to it. And if you can do that for that relationship, you have more control over your happiness. Plus, if you're me, you're like, I don't know what their brain is like.

40:54And so one of the first things the scans did for me is they increased forgiveness. So I asked my dad to get scanned 1991. My mom came because she's like, what can I do to support you? I don't want to do that. My dad, 12 years in a row. No, I don't want to do that. Why do you want me to do that? No, I don't want to do that. And then he came. And I'd never seen this in a 72 year old person. His anterior singulate. So we should talk a little bit about different parts of the brain, how they influence work. The anterior singulate, it's the brain's gear shifter. It allows you to go from thought to thought, move from idea to idea.

41:38Be flexible, go with the flow. And when it's busy and he had the busiest anterior singulate of any older person I'd ever seen, worry, hold grudges. My dad was masterful at holding grudges. Argumentative, oppositional. I used to joke that I'm like, dad, why is it every time I ask you for something? You say no. He goes, I don't do that. I'm like, no, you do it. Why? He's like, I don't know. It's just easier. And Tony Blair, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, said the first hallmark of a leader, his ability to say no. Well, my dad was just masterful at it. But I have to tell you, seeing that part of his brain so busy was helpful for me to forgive him.

42:33That it was a brain misfire rather than it was a soul. Misfire. You took a lot in your book about how we can reverse a lot of these things and we can change our brain, which I guess is the hopeful optimistic side of all of this. So in the case of your father, you see that in his brain. Is there something that can be done to change it? Absolutely. I mean, that's sort of the big, exciting message of my life. Is you're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better and I can prove it. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was lying that it had a problem about traumatic brain injury and football.

43:15I scanned 350 NFL players and high levels of damage. Stop lying about it. But 80 % of my players get better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. And there's a story in the book about a mixed martial artist who I was giving a lecture at the clinic and he raised his hand. And he said, I just really love your work, but you're not going to like what I do. I'm like, what's that? He said, I'm a mixed martial artist and I'm like, well, I can like you, but yeah, you're right. I'm not a fan of people bashing your head in. And I said, let's look at your scan and it was troubled. I said, you know, I know these supplements work because they were my NFL formula, but I don't know how fast they work.

44:09Will you come tomorrow at eight o 'clock? I'm going to give you the supplements that give my NFL players. And then I'm going to scan you two and a half hours later. His brain was remarkably better two and a half hours later. Now, it didn't mean it would stay that way. Right? He had to stay on the program and stop doing the things that hurt his brain. But how exciting is that to know even a couple of hours from now? If I do the right things, my brain can be better. And going back to my dad, what we found is low levels of serotonin go with high activity in the anterior cell. So if he would have chosen, I could have calmed it down and helped him be more flexible.

45:02Now, he chose not to do that. But I just remember my grandmother, my mom's mom, when she was 92, she went in the hospital, diverticulitis. And my mom's mom had always been mean. She was not kind when she met my wife for the first time. She goes, oh, your daddy's next victim. Grandma, I said, I'm going to talk bad about you after you're dead. She had that same brain. And when I put her on medicine to increase serotonin, she became sweet. Which just goes to make you wonder how many people end up divorced because of a brand dysfunction that could be fixed. It's just given me great empathy. It's easy, easy, easy to call someone bad.

46:04It's harder to ask why. In the case of your father or your grandmother, is there brain and the mood disorder that you've observed in it? Is that a consequence of chronic bad habits in terms of brain health in your view? It's always both. That whenever you give in to say no, you make saying no more likely. You develop these ruts in your brain. Which is why behavior changes hard. Because you have these ruts in your brain where it's after dinner I smoke or it's after dinner I have ice cream or it's the first thing in the morning I have sugar syrup. And there's become like pathways. They become ruts, like deep pathways in the brain.

46:54And I've had them for years. I mean, for a long time before I got healthy. I go by jack in the box and get a diet coke and get a chicken for you to pizza and it was habit. And so sometimes I'll see a jack in the box. And then of course my supervisor comes in and like really. And I think of it. Your supervisor is in your bed of sense. I think of it like children that too many people are run by the four year olds in their head. Like I have five grandchildren and haven is four. And haven is funny and smart and sweet. But if she doesn't get away she totally can have a fit. And the rule in my house is if you have a tantrum to get your way the answer is no.

47:49It's always going to be no go for it. And so I didn't have tantrums with kids growing up. But too many people the four year old in their head is running the show. It's like no I go by jack in the box. I get curly fries and a coke. I want it. I want it. I want it. I want it. And their parent cell doesn't go doesn't fit your goals. You don't want it. Right. You crave it. And there's a difference between craving and wanting. And it's like inhibit behavior. And that's where we haven't talked about this yet. I knew we would on this podcast. The CEO in the brain. So the front third of your brain is called the prefrontal cortex.

48:41It's called the executive part of the brain. And so you talked about some of your friends who don't make good decisions, who don't wait or delay their impulses, their frontal lobes are probably sleepy or smaller. And that will give them huge problems in their lives. And my work, I've seen tens of thousands of people have ADD of one form or another. And it often goes with decreased activity in their frontal lobes. Is that natural nature? Nature with input from nurture. Because they did this great study in Holland where they took 380 D kids, put them on an elimination diet. So they basically eliminated all the crap in their diet.

49:37And three months later, 72 % of the children did not have ADD anymore. But when I diagnose someone with ADD, I generally see it. You know, coming down there, mom's side or their dad's side. It generally doesn't occur in isolation. It is that strongly heritable. In fact, if I have a kid who's really ADD and I can't find a mom or dad, I'd look at the kid to see if he looks like mom or dad, wondering if they got switched at birth. Just my experience. Really? And really? No, not kidding. So say that again. So if the child's brain doesn't resemble the mother or the father, you suspect that. So I wonder if the child's not really dead.

50:28The child has been switched. Because you're that confidence. Because I'm that confident about the heritability of this. Now, there are other causes of ADD -like behavior, like traumatic brain injury. The child fell down and flight as stairs and was unconscious, even for just like 15 minutes. That can damage their frontal lobes. The child was a head banger. That can damage their frontal lobes. And so... Psychological trauma? I saw him with gabbo -mattex. Ah, interesting. We're just doing a study on ACE scores. Do you know about the ACE quiz? It stands for adverse childhood experiences. And it was first done in combination with the CDC and Kaiser.

51:16They looked at 17 ,000 people. And they just gave people this simple questionnaire. And it's 10 of the most common childhood traumas. So physical, emotional, sexual abuse, having a parent with mental illness, with an addiction, incarceration. And you get scored zero to 10. So I have a one. My dad could really be nasty to me. So there's some of that sort of psychological abuse. But I didn't get beaten. No one sexually molested me, so on. My wife, and she wrote a book about this, called The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child, has eight out of ten. My two nieces, who Tan and I adopted, are both nines.

52:14And they found if you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top ten leading causes of death. If you have six or more, you die 20 years earlier. Now, it's not a death sentence. If you know it and you work on it, like Tan has, you know, you have normal lifespan. But how wild is that? And so when I learned about it, I started giving it to all of our patients. And I now have 10 ,000 ACE scores on my patients. And we looked at their brains. And what we found is it tends to activate the medial frontal lobe and they become hyperalert. They begin to watch what bad thing is going to happen.

53:16And I love a therapy. Have you ever heard of EMDR? Yes, I've heard of it. It's a psychological treatment for trauma. It stands for eye movement, desensitization, and reprocess. My favorite psychotherapy. I love doing it with patients. And when I met my wife, she's beautiful. She's smart. I mean, I like fell for her. And then I'm learning about this. So one of my first gifts to her was 10 sessions of EMDR, which I know is pretty weird. But she went for two years. And I think it changed the trajectory of her life, because she doesn't live with the past still present. How did it help her? And what exactly does the therapy involve?

54:07So trust a good history. And then, so for example, if you came to see me, I would have you write down, we'd do a timeline of your life. I just want to know for each five -year period, what were the great things that happened to you and what were the horrible things that happened to you. And I do that purposefully, so you'll have a balanced view. If you just talk about the crap in your life, you feel like crap. And then I'd have you write down the top 10 traumas. And then it's a structured process, but I'd have you bring up the worst one. We always go for the worst first. And while you bring it up, I get your eyes to go back and forth, and we'll let your brain direct where you need to go.

54:54And so initially you could feel relive the trauma, but then it tends to dissipate. As opposed to just talking about the trauma, generally you relive it and feel like crap. The bilateral hemisphere stimulation helps it sort of... just sucks the life out of it. You still remember it, but it's not haunting you anymore. You can go. Yeah, that happened, but you're not sweating, or you're not having nightmares. And it just takes therapy to a whole different level. It's sort of like doing mushrooms with outside effects. If I wanted to, you know, earlier on you said, you gave like three points. And the second point was you just got to know the list.

55:46So you said, if you want to damage your brain, if you want to hurt your brain, you've got to know the list. If you want to help your brain and have a healthy brain, you've got to know the list. Going to the damaging my brain part, if I was intent on damaging my own brain, what would you advise me to do? So in the book I talk about it in a monocle called Bright Mines. You want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it. You have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. So if you want to damage your brain, Bright Mines, the B is for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease.

56:32How do you get low blood flow? Caffeine. Oh, shit. Nicotine. Marijuana. Alcohol. Having a sedentary lifestyle. Being overweight. The R is retirement and aging. Can we pause on this low blood flow? You are the first person I've ever spoken to who has a comprehensive and very believable hypothesis that caffeine has a side effect. I've asked my guests over and over again because I think people refer to caffeine often as this miracle drug that comes with no cost. But you're the first one through my research that seems to be very clear that caffeine does have a significant cost. It's a drug. It's the most common drug.

57:24It's addictive. I mean, a little bit's fine. But more than a little bit is not fine. It increases cortisol. You know what? Increased cortisol. It puts fat around your belly. It shrinks your hippocampus. But you know, the reason I started really paying attention to it is on -spact, the study I do, which is a blood flow study, it constricts blood flow 30%. I have all my patients hold caffeine the morning of their scans because I don't want it to artificially show me they have less blood flow than they really do.

58:05It fakes you out to think you have energy. What it does is it blocks a denocene, the chemical that tells you to go to sleep. And so often people rely on caffeine because they're sleep deprived. But it's just this bad cycle. And so many of my patients stop. And uniformly they tell me they feel better. They said their energy is better. You talk about one particular patient in the book who was struggling with a variety of difficulties. I think it was like brain fog and memory issues and so on. And then one of the things you advised him to do was to cut coffee. Jeff, yeah. Jeff, I remember Jeff. He was a pilot and I live on caffeine.

58:52I'm like, you got to get rid of it because brain looked terrible. And he's brain looked terrible. His brain looked terrible. And he's like, no, no, no. And he's like, all right, I'm going to do it. And so he didn't get headaches. We cut it down by 5 % a day. So three weeks it was gone. He didn't have any withdrawal. Didn't have any headaches. And he's like texting me. Unbelievable energy. Unbelievable clarity.

59:26And it's a drug. And why, you know, I want to teach my pill, my patient's skills. I don't want them to just take pills. And caffeine's a drug. Do you drink caffeine? A little bit, not much. How much was Jeff having? Jeff was having about 600 milligrams a day. Jesus Christ. Which is two venti Starbucks. One venti Starbucks is 330 milligrams of caffeine. And you know, we've supersized everything in this country. I don't know if they do that in the UK. But we certainly do it here. And it's not a good strategy. And so long -term restriction of blood flow to the brain through these things. You've described caffeine, marijuana, all of these things.

1:00:16Has a detrimental impact on the development of the brain. Pretty straightforward. I get that. So that's the B. Squares retirement in aging. You want a prematurely age? Your brain? Drop out of school. Do not engage in new learning. I mean, you're doing this podcast. You're always learning new things, which is great for you. But the lack of... When you learn something new, your brain makes a new connection. When you stop learning, or you start doing the same thing over and over again, your brain starts to disconnect itself. Being in a job that does not require new learning is a risk factor for dementia.

1:01:05Being lonely is a risk factor for dementia. So be an ass. And it's more likely to hurt your brain. At my workplace, we have the no -asshole rule. So there's a book by a Stanford professor called the no -asshole rule. Love that book. And the no -asshole rule, as the CEO, starts with me. So I don't get to be one, but I'm not tolerating anybody who has asshole behavior at work. And if you're not an asshole, you're less likely to be lonely. And loneliness is terrible for brain function. If you want to prematurely age your brain, eat a lot of red meat as if your iron and ferritin levels are high. Because ferritin, it's just stored iron, 10 stage the brain.

1:02:11The eye is inflammation. If you want to increase inflammation, which is a root cause of so many medical and mental health issues, never floss. Don't really care about your teeth. So you want to love your brain. You have to love your mouth. It's absolutely critical for you not to have gum disease. Because if you have genjevitis, off odds are your increase risk for heart disease and depression and dementia. It's fascinating. Like I didn't learn about this, and I didn't really care about my teeth. And so I started seeing the links between gum disease and heart disease, gum disease and brain disease.

1:02:52And now I'm a flossing fool. But if you want to damage your brain, don't care about your mouth, about your teeth. Don't ever eat fish. People who have grilled or baked fish once a week have more gray matter in their brain. People have low levels of omega -3 fatty acids, have smaller brains. And if you want to damage your brain, eat the standard American diet. So process food, like eat most of your calories from the gas station. And from the fast food restaurants nearby. And they spend billions on getting those foods to the perfect crunchiness, the perfect meltingness, the perfect aroma, because they hire neuroscientists to addict your brain.

1:03:49Be suspicious. The G is genetics. You want to damage your brain? Blame everything on your genes. Like I have obesity and heart disease. My family, but I'm not overweight. And I don't have heart disease. Why? I'm on an obesity heart disease prevention program every day of my life. Because genes load the gun. It's what happens to us and what we choose to do that pulls the trigger. So I adopted my nieces because their parents couldn't stop using drugs. And I'm like adamant. If you want my help, you have to cooperate. There's no vaping. There's no drug use. There's no alcohol. And it's working. I taught them a new word last week.

1:04:45Scramidium. Have you heard of scramidium? I haven't. It's a combination of screaming and vomiting. And because of the legalization of marijuana and the increased use, teenagers are getting this. And in record numbers, they're in emergency rooms, screaming and vomiting. It's called scramidium. So, genes load the gun. But know your risk. And beyond that prevention program, I mean, that's just the sign of intelligent life. The H's head trauma. You want to damage your brain, play football, play soccer, play rugby, and box. And text while you're walking in LA. I mean, you're just more likely to have a brain injury.

1:05:36Because you fall over just because in case that wasn't clear, people are going to think texting is bad for their brain. The T is toxins. So, see alcohol is a health food. It's total crap. See marijuana is innocuous. It's total crap. I'm happy they legalized it. Please don't put people who use marijuana and jail. It's a really bad use of resources. Really stupid. But let's not say it's good for us. Because teenagers who use have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide, and psychosis. That's not okay. The brain undergoes wild development. And people sort of don't get this. I think little kids, their brain, is undergoing wild development.

1:06:23But from the time you're 15 to 25, it's gone through wild construction. In fact, that's when the highways are being malinated. If you've ever heard of malin, malin is a white fatty substance that gets wrapped on your neurons. And when a neuron or brain cell becomes malinated, it becomes 10 to 100 times faster. It's more efficient. And when a baby's born, there's very little malin in the cortex laid down. When they're about two months old, they're occipital lobes, they're visual cortex, becomes malinated. And when you smile at them, they smile back because they can really see you. Well, slowly, malination goes from the back all the way to the front, but it doesn't get to the front until you're about 25.

1:07:16So this masterpiece building, if you will, is under construction until you're 25. So many teenagers, it's the crappy food. It's just like throwing poison into the construction zone. Marijuana is innocuous. We're going to the parties and getting drunk and they're damaging the building. And yes, they're ways to repair it. But what it is, it would damage the most beautiful building in the neighborhood. And I often say to my teenage patients, I said, hey, if you had a million dollar resource, would you ever feed it junk food? Would you ever get it stoned? Would you ever get it drunk? And the smart ones would go only if you were an idiot.

1:08:08But aren't you worth so much more? And we have a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25. We studied it in 16 schools, decreases drug alcohol and tobacco use, decreases depression and improves self -esteem. And one of the weeks is things to avoid. To have healthy brain. And at the end of the lecture, it's a boy, never a girl, that's really irritating. Raises his hand and goes, how can you have any fun? And we play a game with them called Who Has More Fun? The person with the good brain or the person with the bad brain? Who gets the girl and gets to keep her because he's not an ass. The person with the good brain or the person with the bad brain, who gets into the college they want to get into, who has the best life.

1:08:57And ultimately, it's the person with the good brain. So we're at T and you want to damage your brain, undergo general anesthesia for plastic surgery over and over again. General anesthesia is bad for the brain. Never read the ingredients on your personal product labels. Because you know there's an epidemic of low testosterone and young males. Crazy, I was reading the stats the other day. What is it like? It's because we're poisoned in them. It's not why? That's why. What is the headline start there regarding testosterone in men? It's decreasing, isn't it, year of year? Year over year. And more than half have either low normal or low levels.

1:09:49I've never seen anything like it. I've been measuring testosterone levels in my patients forever. And we're poisoned in them. There's an app I like called Think Dirty. It's not what you think it is. It allows you to scan your personal products. And it tells you on a scale of one to ten how quickly they're killing you. So for example, I have shaved with Barbara Saul for 50 years. And when I learn this decade ago, I like to scan it. One is good. Ten is kill you early. It was a nine. And I was horrified. Because the parabens and thalates are known hormone disruptors. So now I shave with something called Kiss My Face.

1:10:36It's a two. Last longer than Barbara Saul. And I do that because I love myself. I mean, why would I poison myself unless I was not that smart? And so just start reading the labels of your toothpaste, of your deodorant, of your shampoo, of your body wash, of your makeup. And what am I looking for? Because if I read the labels of my toothpaste, I mean, I wouldn't know if it was good or bad. So you can scan it with the, yeah, or EWG, the environmental working group has an app similar to that. And you just educate yourself because it's not just about you. It's about generations of you because the health of your body matters when it comes to what babies you may make.

1:11:32Okay. M is mental health. I believe every stupid thing you think, be masterful. You want to damage your brain? Be masterful of predicting the worst and then making it worse. How does that have a bad impact on the brain? Negativity increases stress. Plus negativity drops activity in your cerebellum. So we talked a little bit about the CEO, the prefrontal cortex. Well, it's intimately connected to the processing part of your brain, your cerebellum. It's about 10 % of the brain's volume but has half the brain's neurons. And negativity tends to deactivate it. So it actually makes you more confused.

1:12:17So if you think of an athletic slump, they're focused on, I'm going to miss. I'm going to miss. And of course, they miss. The second eye is immunity and infections. So much to talk about with the pandemic, but people who have low vitamin D levels are much more likely to die from a coma. They're actually much more likely to die from virtually anything. Low vitamin D, which occurs in about 60 % of the population, is associated virtually with every bad thing, including a smaller brain. So if you want to have a smaller brain, never go in the sun, never test your vitamin D level and never take a supplement.

1:13:05Brand new study out just last week. People who take a vitamin D supplement have 40 % decrease risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. How simple is that? How do they establish causation in these studies where you wanted it also assumed that people that take vitamin D supplements have like, you know, general? So this was a prospective study where they gave half the group vitamin D and then they followed them. It was a fascinating study, but there are tens of thousands of study on vitamin D and its impact. And the darker your skin, the more sun you need. So an interesting study from the Bahamas, they looked at people who were raised in the Bahamas, who then migrated to the United Kingdom.

1:13:59So healthy vitamin D to no vitamin D because of the weather. So from Botswana and the incidence of psychosis went up. Interesting. So and how simple is it? It's a blood test. Get your vitamin D measured. Everybody listening to this, you should know it like you know your BMI, like you know your blood pressure, and optimize it. Either get in the sun more if you can or take vitamin D3 with vitamin K2. I mean, it's super simple. And I mean, it's like that's easy. That's something you can do right away. If I wanted to mess up my immunity, I would encourage myself to have leaky gut. So I'd encourage myself to damage the lining of my gut with antibiotics and alcohol and pesticide laden foods.

1:15:06And I wouldn't need any fiber. So I would really lean into the standard American diet. Going back to your point about environmental toxins, I've always wondered if it was like pseudoscience that cosmetic products we have in our house are having an impact on our hormone levels. You were talking about hormone levels there. My partner has always said to me things like be careful with what's in that toothpaste or she'll look at products that I have and go nope. Oh yes, I'm like, where's the science? We talked about testosterone and the science is huge. There's a wonderful book. So if you ever, if you want to get rid of the doubt, it's called the toxin solution.

1:15:50By Joe Pizzorno, who started Baster universities, one of the most well -respected naturopaths in the world. Now if you want a shortened version, read my book, The End of Mental Illness, because there's a whole section on toxins with about 100 scientific references. So you don't want toxins. And you don't want to think it's pseudoscience unless you've actually gone to PubMed .gov and studied it. So many people called my work pseudoscience. And unlike GoToPubMed .gov today, you'll see I've published 80 studies. And oh, by the way, they're 15 ,000 studies on spec'd. So... Oh, I'm a fan of your sweet word.

1:16:41Yeah, she always seems to be right about everything. I seemed... I'm pessimistic on my way in. And then, God, this doesn't sound so great. But what she says registers, and then I speak to an expert and then go, your girlfriend is right. That is the story of my life. So she's just a little bit... And I'll say to her, I'll leave this podcast now and she's actually sat over there. I'll go and say, I'll, by the way, I spoke to him and he said the stuff you said about all the cosmetic products I use is right. She won't catch you going, I know. It happens literally every week, like three or four times a week.

1:17:11One of the things I read in terms of cause the impact of cosmetics on our hormone levels was that over the last 20 years, our testosterone levels have declined by about 50 % on average, which is absolutely terrifying. I have a lot of friends who are in... I have a staggering amount of friends, people that I know that are in sexless relationships and are struggling with sex and other hormone related issues. I've got a friend that has had a challenge with... It's a POS? PCOS. PCOS. Polycystic ovarian syndrome. And I just have a suspicion that it's not nature. That's causing some of these issues.

1:17:55So when I hear about how the cosmetic products we have in our life are influencing our hormone levels, maybe this is the guy that's stitching us. It's worth making sure someone does an ultrasound on our ovaries to see if that's in fact the case. But I have a funny story on PCOS when I first met my wife. She wouldn't attach. It was more like she was the guy. And we'd make love and I want to cuddle and she's like, okay done. I could... I'm like, I loved her and she'd come and she'd go and she'd like just make me crazy. And then I took her to... Our first fight was on the dog we were going to get.

1:18:49So I wanted like a King Charles Cavalier. I wanted it like a lap dog, something cute, something I could just have fun with. And she wanted a mastiff or she wanted some killer dog. And no, it's just on me. And so we got into a fight about that. Anyways, I get her to see a hormone specialist and she diagnosis her with PCOS. And it just made such sense. And what she did is an ultrasound of our ovaries. They were like loaded with these little cysts. And she treated the PCOS. And so PCOS, women's testosterone levels tend to be higher. And their blood sugar tends to be higher and they have more problems committing.

1:19:43So she fixes it and then Tana becomes like committed. I love this. But then she calls me at work one day and she said, I found this pocket poodle in Northern California. That's like two pounds. And I'm like, who are you? It's like change your hormones, change your dog. Do you recommend that we check our hormone levels frequently? Every year. Every year. DHA testosterone, thyroid, estrogen and progesterone for women every year. Because for women their progesterone drops about 10 years before they go into menopause. Progesterone is the natural anti -anxiety hormone. And when it drops, all of a sudden the woman is 40 and she can't sleep.

1:20:42And she's more anxious and she's more irritable and it's causing relationship problems. And she goes to the doctor and gets a prescription for Ambien, for Xanx. And for Lexipro, and no, by the way, she's drinking more or using more marijuana. And she doesn't know why. And it's easier to replace the progesterone than to deal with all those other strategies that help you feel better now, but not later. Is that really cool, parimenopause? It's earlier than that. Oh, right. Yeah, parimenopause is sort of for most women like late 40s. Hormones are so important. And if your hormones aren't right, your brain isn't right.

1:21:25One of the things I talk about in the book is that women have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Now, part because they live longer than men because they make better decisions. But a man's brain is used to not having estrogen. It's been raised primarily on testosterone. A woman's brain is used to having estrogen. So when she goes through menopause and doesn't have estrogen, blood flow in her brain drops. And it puts her at greater risk for things like dementia. And so I'm a big believer in the reason your hormones drop with age. It's the planet's way of eliminating you. And I'm not okay with that.

1:22:16I want to stick around as long as I can. And so hormone replacement can be super helpful for people who need it. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead. And over the course of my career, I've learnt just how crucial having the right systems in places, one which has helped me across many of my investments is NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system through their streamlined platform. You'll find all of your accounting financial management inventory and HR in one place.

1:22:52Their technology has been a real game changer, especially for my team at Flight Studio. As over the last year, we've moved out of startup mode and into scale at mode. We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and errors. Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsuite .com slash Bartlett. And free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite .com slash Bartlett. When I was researching UI, I read that you've dealt with patients who have chronic difficulty with sleep several times in your career.

1:23:30I've got a lot of friends that always talk about God a lot of friends. A lot of friends that have struggled with sleep. Often difficult to know what to say to them to give them advice. What would you recommend in terms of improving sleep? I was quite curious because I read about your hypnosis and hypnotherapy treatment, which seemed to be quite effective in helping people that were struggling with sleep. But what would you say to someone that's struggled with sleep? Three things. Sleep envy. God care about it. Avoid things that hurt your sleep and do things that promote it. So what hurts sleep?

1:24:06And most people know caffeine. You know, if you have it in the morning, it's still in your body at night. And so know how you metabolize it. If you're having trouble sleeping, I'd kill it. And just see if it has a positive impact. A warm room, in pairs sleep. A noisy room. A room with light. They all in pairs sleep. Blue light. So having blue light in your eyes after dark, impairs melatonin production. What about glucose increases in food? I'm sorry. If I eat before bed. You become a non -dipper, which is so interesting, that if you donate three hours before you go to sleep, write it sleep, your blood pressure will drop as you go to sleep.

1:25:08If you eat right before bed, your blood pressure won't drop, which puts you in a higher risk for heart attack and stroke, because it's putting more pressure on your blood vessels. And trust me, you don't want a heart attack and you don't want a stroke. So whatever you can do to keep your blood pressure healthy, and that's sort of a simple thing. People who eat before bed generally have the habit of doing it, which is why I'm a huge fan of intermittent fasting, because if you have dinner at six, you won't eat again until 10 in the next morning. But what that really means is you won't be eating right before bed.

1:25:50So, and then things to help sleep, talk about what not to do, what to do every night when I go to bed. I think rituals are wonderful. So, I say a prayer, and then I go, what went well today? And I've been doing this for a decade, and it's a treasure hunt now. I'm like on a mission to find what I liked about my day. And so, I start in the morning when I woke up, and I just go hour by hour looking for what I liked about the day. And usually, by early afternoon, I'm asleep, you know, as I'm going through my timeline. But I'm busy, and so often awesome things will happen, and I just sort of gloss over them.

1:26:46So, it's a time to consolidate, what sleep does, consolidates memories. But now, I'm focused on positive things, which set my dreams up to be more positive. And people who do that for just three weeks increase their level of happiness. How simple is that? It's amazing. You wrote a book about the subject of happiness in 2020, it's called You Happier, the seven neuroscience secrets of feeling good based on your brain type. Now, the concept of having a brain type, I find really compelling, you talk about it in this book as well, the idea that we have different brain types. Why does it matter to know what brain type I have?

1:27:29And what are the brain types? There's 16, there's five primary types, balanced, spontaneous, persistent, sensitive, and quiet. Two essential relationships, why do you want to know? Because they're going to tell you where you're going to suffer. And if you know your type and the type of your partner, or the type of your children, you'll actually be able to work on openness and the relationship better. And so, for example, the balanced person really has a pretty healthy brain and they tend to be pretty even. and they just basically need, they need basic foundational support. We all know that person.

1:28:15I'm sorry. I know a lot of those people that have a seemingly balanced brain. Yeah. And then they're the spontaneous people. You probably know a lot of them as well. They are spontaneous. They're creative. They're out of the box. Thinkers. They also tend to be impulsive, easily distracted, disorganized. They tend to be late. And they love novelty. And they love surprises. Entrepreneurs? They're often entrepreneurs. And they often marry the persistent type. Which is type three. Which is type three. Which they're like a dog with a bone. They stay with stuff. They're on time. They hate surprises.

1:29:04They like ritual. They like routine. It's safe for them. And so throw them a surprise party. And they'll be unhappy. It won't be joyful for them. It will be stressful for them. Pandemic was really hard on the spontaneous people because they're often extroverts. Where the persistent people tend more to be introverts. And they sort of liked not having to deal with a lot of other unpredictable people. In that way, is the phrase that opposites attract quite true because someone that's a bit spontaneous and maybe an entertainer or an entrepreneur goes for someone who's a bit more controlled and rigid and likes a schedule.

1:29:49You see it in relationships. You see one partner that's typically doesn't care about planning the holiday. And the other person who's done the itinerary perfectly. And they make for a good team. They do initially. And then they fight. Because the persistent person can hold grudges. The spontaneous person can say things that hurt their feelings and then end up seeing me. In fact, I did a study called The Couples From Hell Study where I scanned 500 couples who failed marital therapy, but still wanted to be together. And 80 % of them, the scan, showed one or both of them needed to tune up in their brand.

1:30:32And my first case, which I still remember, Gary and Judy. And I initially hated them because I knew I wasn't going to help them. They brought their kids to me. One kid got better. The other one didn't. I saw the other kid. And I realized he's not getting better because mom and dad hate each other. So I'm like, I want to see you guys in marital therapy. And they said, Dr. Aiman, we really like you. We don't do well. In marital therapy. We tried four times and it always makes us worse. And in my head, this was my own grandiose thinking. I'm like, well, maybe they just hadn't seen anybody really good.

1:31:11So I saw them in their first visit. They sat on the opposite end of each couch. It's a bad sign in marital therapy. And after about three months, I know I'm not going to help them. She has a PhD in grudge holding. And he's always late. He says awful, impulsive, stupid things. And I'm like, at the end of six months, I start getting physical stress symptoms. Because I hate being ineffective. I hate that. And nine months, I'm in my shower getting ready to come to work. And I realize I'm on my schedule and my stomach starts to hurt. I'm like, today I'm going to tell them to get divorced. Because it's not good for children to be in a home of chronic conflict.

1:31:56But I grew up Roman Catholic and the idea of divorce, especially 30 years ago, was awful. And the voice, the Catholic voice visited me and said, oh, great, because you're not a good enough therapist. They're going to get divorced and go to hell. I looked at the water faucet and went, how much therapy does this take to get over? And I got out of the shower, called my friend who on the imaging center. They said, hey, Jack, were you giving two scans for the price of one? And he's like, why? I said, Jack, I have this couple. And they're not getting better. And it's making me crazy. I want to see their brain.

1:32:33And he's like, we could start a business and call it brainmatch .com. Anyways, they got scanned. Her frontal lobes work way too hard, just like my dad. He had sleepy frontal lobes. And I'm like, how'd you miss this? He has ADD, she has OCD tendencies. I put him on Ritalin. I put her on Prozac. I just read it in an article, if you believe in random chance, the night before that Prozac comes down the singular gyros. And they were fascinated and engaged by the brain, because they knew it wasn't working. They took the medicine. I told them I didn't want to see him for a month because I was tired and I wanted them to have medicine to work.

1:33:18When they came back, they sat on the same couch. He had his hand on her leg. That's a good sign in marital therapy. And 33 years later, they're still married. Wow. And they don't see therapists, because they'd learn what they needed to learn, like responsibility and empathy and listening and assertiveness and noticing what you like more than what you don't like. Grace and forgiveness, they learned it. And their brains could process it, right? Go back to hardware, fix the hardware. The software is more likely to take it. I read that you had a divorce age 47 and you made a remark that you wouldn't get married again unless you got to scan your partner's brain.

1:34:06It's absolutely true. There's no way I would marry someone unless I saw their brain. It was more important than seeing them naked. And I met Tana January 1, 2006. And her first scan was January 24th. You scan to the same month? I scan to the same month. I'm not likely. I liked her a lot. And she's a neurosurgical ICU nurse. So we sort of bonded over the brain a little bit, but she said it was one of the best lines that I want to see her naked brain. So I don't think I actually phrased it like that, but that's the story she tells. Is there a really a clear correlation between... When you think if you were to be a matchmaker professionally, you know, if that was if you pivoted to the matchmaking industry, what cut you talked about the five types of brain?

1:35:06What types of brain would you try and pair together? Because if type two, the spontaneous doesn't work with the persistent because they end up arguing, is there a pairing sequence that results in an optimal marriage or relationship retention? So balance brains tend to do really well. They do, don't they? With balance brains. The guy I was thinking about. Spontaneous brains, they need someone that just keeps their dopamine flowing because they have lower dopamine levels. So often getting their ED treated, that will help. Get them on a ketogenic diet, which helps steady their dopamine levels. That can be helpful.

1:35:46I think I'm a persistent, I'm sorry. I think I'm a spontaneous. We'll see. The persistent types tend to struggle because it's the my way or the highway part. The cautious persistent types tend to do really well because they're anxious enough that they're thinking about other people's feelings. I think we missed. So we got to three, didn't we? We got to number three, which was the persistent. Right. Number four is sensitive. Sensitive. Which is. So they're deeply empathic, often insightful, intuitive, can be empaths, but they tend to be prone to depression. And so they have a lot of ants running around.

1:36:40Unless they discipline them. They make great therapists. Do they have high levels of stress? No, that's the cautious type. Which is number five, five, yeah. They are loaded with the fortune telling ant. They often will get involved with these conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, some of the conspiracy theories tended to be true. That's really hard. Like, you know, I'm a psychiatrist for 40 years and because someone comes in my office and goes, the NSA is listening to my phone. And, you know, I'm thinking, it's freniad, do I need drugs? And it's like, no, the NSA is listening to their phone calls.

1:37:19So it's been an interesting time for a psychiatrist. But it's the predicting the worst. And I tell my patients, the only people should really predict the worst or contract lawyers. I mean, they should protect you from one bad things are going to happen other than that. You want to predict what's going to go right. So if I am a spontaneous, which of those five brain types, the balance, the spontaneous, persistent, sensitive, cautious, should I marry balanced? Okay. You want, now, if you're a CEO, you want a persistent, a persistent, cautious type. So that's type 11 to manage you. This is a really important point.

1:38:13If you are a business leader and you tend to be spontaneous, do not have a spontaneous assistant. Because it'll stress you out and stuff won't get done. And the IRS will come knock on your door. Because you're not going to be filling out the paperwork. Right. It's really important. You need to know your strengths, know your vulnerabilities, and hire to cover your vulnerabilities. Too many spontaneous people, hire people they like that are like them, or which leads to stress and chaos. Hmm. It's very true. In all of my businesses, I've always found managing directors who are karma, more organized, more risk, aware individuals.

1:39:09And it's always worked really well, because I tend to be very prone to taking risks, and my default position, which I've had to learn, so I've had to sort of become self -aware and counteract it, is to pursue multiple things at once. So I have this ongoing conversation with my brain, to say, focus. You're better self, your wisdom knows that focuses your biggest pitfall. So, well, a lack of focus is your biggest pitfall. And I guess that kind of brings me to another point, which was this idea you touched on earlier on about, disassociating from your brain. Are you giving your brain a name as you call it in your book, so that you can have a conversation with it?

1:39:51That sounds like a funny thing to do. If I call my brain, I'm gonna give my brain a name. My brain is now called, and I call it Daniel. So there's Stephen, who is me, and there's Daniel, who is me. But my, Daniel is my brain, and I am Stephen. And what is the upside in creating this operation? Psychological distance. I can't. I'm the noise in your head. So you don't attach to it. So if it's Daniel, then you can accept what he says, or you can reject it. Okay. So when I first heard about this from Stephen Hayes, I'm like, what would I give a name? And I named myself after my pet raccoon when I was 16.

1:40:39And like my mind, Hermie was a shitster. She teaped my mother's bathroom. She ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium. She'd leave raccoon poo in my shoes. She's, I loved her. I loved me. But my mind is a troublemaker. It'll like contrapple sorts of negative scenarios. So if I separate from it, I can put Hermie metaphorically in her cage. And now what I do, because I love her, is I'll put her on her back, and I'll tickle her. Or I'll cut her her. I'm like, it's going to be all right. You don't have to believe every stupid thing you think. Yes, we are going to die, but we're not going to die today.

1:41:28You know, when you can live in the presence by managing your thoughts, by not attaching to them, by separating from them, that's where peace lives. That's where happiness lives when you can sort of step outside and just go, you know, not my thoughts. My thoughts might come from my dad's generation, may it have been some of his trauma, or it might come from the voice of my mom and dad growing up, or the voice of the priest, or my siblings, or the music I listen to, you know. And just because you have a thought, has nothing to do with whether or not it's true, or whether or not it's helpful. The brain is a sneaky organ.

1:42:19We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts, and nobody should ever hear. I tell my patients this all the time, one of my patients goes, oh, I had an indecent thought about my teenage daughter's friend. I'm a pedophile. And I'm like, that's a big leap. Did you like climbing bed with her? Did you make plans to talk? No, no, none of that. I'm like, dude, you're not a pedophile. It's just your brain playing tricks on you, just because you have that thought. A whole bunch of people have that thought, but they don't do anything about the thought. But people don't understand that thoughts are just creations of neuronal function, and your frontal lobe should evaluate.

1:43:16This is a helpful thought. I should pursue this thought, stay away from this thought. This thought doesn't fit my goals. If I am a spontaneous brain type, then is there anything I can do without drugs to become a balanced brain type? So, first thing, one page miracle. Write it out. It's an exercise in the book. What do you want? Just like the CEO of a company, you have a business plan, and you have quarterly goals. Write it out. What do you want in your relationships? In your work, in your money, in your physical, emotional, spiritual home. Why write it down? Because you're telling your brain what you want.

1:44:05And then every day, you sort of know what it is. I mean, you memorize that thing. And then each decision you make, you ask yourself, does it fit? Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? And so what you're doing is you're activating your prefrontal cortex. So the part of your brain, that if you're really a spontaneous, that's the sleepy part of your brain. So the first thing is intention to have a business plan, or have a plan for your life. The second thing, you have to make sleep a priority. Because if you tend to be spontaneous, that goes way up when you haven't slept. That also goes way up when your blood sugar is low.

1:44:58So it's not just high blood sugar is a problem. It's often low blood sugar. It's a problem. One of my celebrities who kept getting arrested and trouble, I did a fasting blood sugar on him was 49. It was way too low. He had hypoglycemia. And when I got him to eat four or five times a day, he never got arrested again. So make sure your diet's right, and it's my spontaneous people, tend to do really well on ketogenic diets, or low simple carbohydrate diets. Now that diet will make the persistent type crazy. Because that's a focused diet where if you put someone who can't stop thinking on a focused diet, they think more on the things that bother them.

1:45:46So the diet really depends on the type, which we'll talk about in the book, exercise, tenser -robic exercise, boost dopamine, and there's some simple supplements like L -tyrosine. Or I make something called focus and energy that's got ashwaganda, ginseng, rodeo and culling, things that help you focus, but don't amp you.

1:46:14Okay, Daniel. So we have a new tradition on this podcast. At the end of the Darivisio episodes, we ask all of our guests to write a question and to put it into the book, the Darivisio. So you will be asked to do the same just before you leave. But recently, what we've done, because we understand that these conversations foster a sense of connection in people, because they're a little bit more vulnerable than your usual conversations, and we believe that that's the door to connection, is we've turned some of the questions in this book into cards that people can play at home. This is a brand new thing we've done.

1:46:47So one here, these are various cards that have been written by previous guests on the show. If you scan the QR code on the back, it takes you to a video of the person who answered it so the person that came after them. And then on the front, you can see the question they've asked with their name on it. I'm going to lay these cards in front of you. I want you to just pick one around them. I've just selected some for you, out of the full, almost, I think there's about 70 or odd questions in here. I've picked 10. So just pick one at random, and I'll ask you to answer the question that you pick. Is that okay?

1:47:18Sure. You're up for it? Cool.

1:47:25He's gone for the first one. What is one mistake that you have made that you have been scared to address or reconcile?

1:47:41You want me to answer that? Question, what is one mistake that I've made that I have been scared to address or reconcile?

1:47:57That I don't like firing people. That it's really hard. And I came to realize if I don't do it, I should fire myself. But that's the one thing. It's like, why did I hold on to that for so long?

1:48:26It's that when you have the no -asshole rule, firing people is really harder. But yeah, I've come to realize that it's an essential skill to prune. Because if you're a CEO, you're like a gardener. But it taps into something about me being bad that I don't like. What brings up if you go, I'm a balanced time. And my vulnerabilities, because we all have wings and vulnerabilities persistent and cautious. Can I ask you to pick one more card?

1:49:20Who is the person you'd most like to say sorry to, but haven't?

1:49:41I thought about this. My dad died three years ago.

1:49:48And I was so mad at him. I would be pretty vocal about how mad I was of him. But when you focus that, you don't see all the good things that happened. I had said that my A -score was one. And my wife's an eight. He provided a level of stability that I didn't appreciate. And so he knew the last five years that I loved him. And we spent a lot of time together. But I think I would apologize to him for holding on to the negativity. And that's exactly why we created these cards. If you want to get your own conversation cards, go to the conversationcards .com. That is the conversationcards .com. And I hope everybody everywhere gets their hands on them.

1:50:54I think the world would be a better place if we're all a little bit more vulnerable with each other, because that very much is the daughter connection. Packed the episode. Okay, so the question that's been left for you in the diary from our previous guest is, what topic is no one talking about now that historians will study in the future? Well, from my perspective, it's the insanity of the mental health industry that is destroying the mental health of America, making diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data than drugging people. Last year, there were 337 million prescriptions for antidepressants.

1:51:3827 % of all doctor visits no matter the specialty. 27 % of someone's leaving with a prescription for a benzodiazepine like Xanax or Ballium. This is an insane time. And they call me crazy. And I'm not crazy. They're going to be talking about this dark period in psychiatry for centuries to come. Daniel, thank you. For me, this is very much the culmination of so much work you've done over a series of books and your life's works. So I would recommend everybody, if they have the opportunity to go and get it, to go and get it right now, it is out. And it's one of those real pivotal books that sort of turns the lights on to something that, to a room that I didn't even know existed, which is my brain.

1:52:26And the brain is obviously the computer, it's the driving force. As you set at the start of this conversation of all the decisions I get right and wrong, and it's my duty to do everything that I can to love my brain. And that's exactly what your book leaves me with as a parting message. Is it this message of loving my brain and doing everything I can to treat it as if, with the respect and love that it deserves? Thank you for all of your work. Thank you for the inspiration you've given me. And thank you for the way that your work has nudged my life and the trajectory of my life. And therefore, as you say, the trajectory of those that come after me's life in a little bit more positive, healthy direction, because that is not nothing.

1:53:03That is significant, especially as you zoom out. So thank you so much, Daniel. So enjoy to speak to you. Well, thank you so much for such a wonderful interview for being prepared to help me actually go inside myself and see how these dots connect and helping me spread the word. I am trying to create a revolution. And I made people to help. So thank you. Thank you for helping me do this.

1:53:43Thank you.

1:53:58Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead. And over the course of my career, I've learnt just how crucial having the right systems in places, one which has helped me across many of my investments is net suite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast. Net suite is the number one cloud financial system through their streamlined platform. You'll find all of your accounting financial management inventory and HR in one place. Their technology has been a real game changer, especially for my team at Flight Studio. As over the last year, we've moved out of startup mode and into scale at mode.

1:54:34We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and errors. Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future -proof their business with net suite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsweep .com slash Bartlett. And free download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. That's netsweep .com slash Bartlett.