DO THIS Everyday To Completely Heal Your BODY & MIND | Dr. Daniel Amen & Jay Shetty | Transcription

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Introduction

Intro (00:00)

You want a drip dopamine, don't dump it. Because when you dump it with the fries and the alcohol, the porn, you don't have much left. And so then you have to go back and do it again. And all of a sudden the best-selling author and host. - The number one health and wellness podcast. - On purpose with Jay Shetty. - Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now you know that I'm fascinated and committed to introducing you to people who can expand your mind, your brain that can help you heal internally and externally, that can help you 360 degrees take care of your life. And today's guest is someone who is the first guest whoever has been on the podcast twice. And now the first guest who's ever been on the podcast three times, which shows us how much you all love him and how much I really appreciate all his insights and guidance as well. He's my go-to person whenever I hear about a new treatment or a new therapy or a new, whatever it may be, I'm texting this person and saying, "Hey, what do you think about this? Like, what do you think about this?" And I really appreciate how he lives an extremely holistic life from a, from a spiritual point of view, from a scientific point of view. And having someone that I can ask these questions to openly helps me. So I hope today helps you. I'm speaking about the one and only Dr. Daniel Amman. Dr. Amman's mission is to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Dr. Amman is a physician, adult and child psychiatrist and founder of the Amman Clinics with 10 locations across the US. Amman Clinics has the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry, totalling more than 200,000 spec scans on patients from 155 countries. He's also the founder of BrainMD, a fast-growing science-based company and Amman University, which has trained thousands of medical and mental health professionals on the methods he has developed. Dr. Amman is not new to books or TV. He's produced over 16 national public television shows about the brain and his online videos on brain and mental health have been viewed over 300 million times. And Dr. Amman is a 12-time New York Times best-selling author. I've got a long way to catch up. And today we're talking about his latest book. It's called You Happier, The Seven Neuroscience Secrets of Feeling Good Based on Your Brain Type. This is the book I want you to go and get. The link is in the caption right now. Dr. Daniel Amman, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for allowing me to have you in my pocket at all times to be able to text you and ask you weird and wonderful questions. And most of all, thank you for being just, you know, such a kind, warm, hard person who always brings their best energy to serve others. So thank you for being here. - Well, it makes me happy to be with you. You know, I think of happiness as a daily practice and appreciating the people you love is just critical to it. - Yeah, yeah. And I really appreciate you. You said you were happy to be here when we were just filming a couple of seconds ago and then you were telling me that I looked good. And I was saying to you, it's because I've been doing all the right things and following your advice. And I remember, I think it was our second interview, not our first one, our second interview, I was saying to you, like, I have only one cheat day a week now. And you just look to me and you were like, well, you know why they call it a cheat day, right? And I didn't. I was like, what do you mean? And you were like, yeah, because you're cheating your brain. Like, you know, and you gave this beautiful explanation. And I was thinking, you always have these things that you say that stick with me. And if anyone doesn't follow Dr. Daniel Amman on Instagram, make sure you go and follow him because I love how you post the brain scans of befores and afters of on a certain drug and without a certain drug, on weed, without weed. Like, I just think that the way you communicate brain health is fantastic and so great for, you know, my generation, the generation after me. I think we have so much to learn from you. So thank you for what you're doing and how you're doing it too. And always makes me happy to see you and your wife as well. And this has probably been the longest I haven't seen you since you scanned my brain. So that was so much fun. That was so much fun. I was very relieved to know that my brain was doing all right. So... - Well, when you see it, you develop a relationship with it and you want it to be better. And it's hard to hurt it once you see it. - Yeah, that's so true. And it's crazy to me that we don't get exposed to our brains. Like, you don't ever see your brain, which we use every day that works for us every day. And you have no access to it apart from, see your body, you see, you know, different organs, maybe sometimes, but the brain's not talked about a lot. What is our brain?

Understanding Mental Health And Happiness

A healthy mind starts with a healthy brain (04:53)

What does it do? And how do we develop a relationship with it? Because I feel that people are very confused with what is the brain, what is the mind, you know, what does it do, what does it not do? I think there's a lot of stuff out there. How would you describe it? - Well, it's very clear to me after all the scans I've done that your brain, the physical functioning of your brain, the moment by moment, physical functioning of your brain creates your mind. And if your brain's not right, your mind's not right. And there are a lot of spiritual teachers that'll separate the mind from the brain, but you can't because just think of Alzheimer's disease, you know, very damaged brains, and they're very damaged minds. I mean, people that act in ways they'd never act if their brain was healthy, that they don't remember people that they're deeply in love with. And so if we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. And, you know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over a hundred murderers, and their brains are very damaged. So if your behavior is so bad, you end up in a cage. And they're not thinking, "Oh, I have to understand, evaluate, "rehabilitate that person's brain," and then that better. And that helps all of us. Dafszowski once said, "You can tell about the soul of a society, "not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, "but by how it treats its criminals." And it's, you know, when I first started scanning people, I didn't really have an opinion on the death penalty. I just really hadn't thought about it. I thought of free will as black or white, you have it or you don't. And then as my work became known, defense attorneys would send me, people did really bad things. And their brains were so damaged. And when I would go to court and a lot of people hated me for that, you know, if you have a bad brain and you did something terrible, you don't get to go home. But should you kill them? I mean, it's a really important question. And I'm like, no, you know, it's not the sign of an involved society to kill sick people. I mean, you have to protect society from them. But what I've seen is if we rehabilitate their brain, they can have a meaningful life. And people just aren't connecting, it's your brain. It's easy to call people bad. It's harder to go, why? And, oh, can I fix it? - What are the things that damage our brains? Because I think what we find is we often think like, oh, that person was totally normal. And then one day they just changed. Or we say things like, oh yeah, if you just met them, like they were just quiet and calm. Like you would never have noticed anything. And then they did this horrific thing.

Activities that damage our brains (08:12)

Like what are those habits? What are those patterns that start damaging our brain? Because I don't think we're aware, as you said, we never see our brain. We don't really talk about it. We don't really know much about it. What are the things we do since birth? That damage our brains. That could lead to something as extreme as that. - Well, even before birth. - Yes. - So since marijuana has been legalized in many states, babies born with marijuana in their bodies has gone up 1700%. I mean, it's a ridiculous amount. So even before you're born, what happens in utero can damage the trajectory of your life. They have more behavior problems. They have more attention problems. They have less empathy for other people. And then, as you go through life, this standard American diet is damaging brains. You talked about how healthy your diet has been. I follow this guy on TikTok. For some reason, my TikTok's has gone crazy. And he looked at his blood sugar before and after Poptarts. And Poptarts was like the worst thing he looked at, almost worse than Coca-Cola. And, but what are we feeding children? I mean, in public school free lunches, Poptarts, which means we're damaging their blood sugar levels, we're damaging their weight and we're damaging their brain. And I have a mnemonic called Bright Minds, which helps me remember, you know, like B is for blood flow, low blood flow, number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. So, Netflix, right? Not in front of the TV too often, not exercising. That damages your brain. Probably the number one thing that causes brain trouble. Your brain is soft about the consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and has sharp bony ridges, mild traumatic brain injuries ruin people's lives. If you said, "Hey Daniel, single most important thing "from 210,000 scans, mild traumatic brain injuries." Don't let you go. Physical, right? From snowboarding, falling off a horse, football, soccer, hockey. Physical abuse to a yes to a master mind. Yeah, physical abuse will do it. Falls, car accidents, you know, and people are texting and driving and texting and walking. And there's 3 million new concussions every year in the United States, which means over the last 30 years, there've been 90 million people that have had concussions. It's very common and a common cause of depression, homelessness, addiction, suicide, panic attacks, ADHD. Well, yeah, I mean, when you spell it out that clearly, I think what I love about you is, I think the two times I have done an interview with you, and then when I was with you, I just go away going, "Oh, I need to do something for my brain. "I need to figure it out." And it's a good thing. Like, I enjoyed that healthy sense of an awakening and a healthy sense of fear, because I think we are so scared of being scared in society today. Like, we don't want to listen to the truth, because it's scary, it's inconvenient, it forces us to change something. If someone could do something starting tomorrow, what is the thing that someone could do waking up tomorrow that could be better for their brain?

Brain and mental health is a daily practice (11:55)

What would you say that is? - Well, you know, when you're happy, I talk a lot about the tiny habits, the smallest things that'll make the biggest difference. And brain and mental health, it's a daily practice. Just like physical health, right? So I said, "You look really great." That's a daily practice, right? You just don't do that one day a week. You do it every day. If you want a really great brain and a really great mind, there are habits every day. And some of my favorite, every day, is this good for my brain or bad for it. I just, like, when my daughter, she turned 19 yesterday. - Oh, I'm a refator. - And when she was little, we played Chloe's game. And Chloe's game was, is this good for your brain or bad for it? Frozen blueberries. Oh, two thumbs up. God's candy. Avocados. Oh, two thumbs up. God's butter. Hitting your head with a soccer ball. No, very stupid. Thumbs down, right? And so just playing with her, with that question that takes three seconds, right? I mean, it doesn't take long. And people go, what's good and what's bad? Second graders know it. I went into her second grade class, put 20 things on the board and I went, separate them for me. And they got 19 out of 20, right? So they got a 95% and the only thing they got wrong was orange juice, which they put in the good category, which is like way too much sugar. And so whenever you unwrap sugar from its fiber source, right, turn fruit into juice, it turns toxic in your body. So you have to be really careful with that. So that's one, two. Whenever you wake up in the morning, today is going to be a great day. You have to nudge your brain, right? We have a conscious mind, we have an unconscious mind, we have a self image and your subconscious is paying attention to the words that the conscious mind is saying. And so if you're like, oh, I don't want to get out of bed, today is going to be a bad day. You're going to have a bad day because you just programmed your subconscious mind to do that every day when my feet hit the floor. Today is going to be a great day. And then my favorite of all of them is when you go to bed at night and bed is so important. Because if you want to have a good day, it starts the night before is what went well today. So when I go to bed, I say a prayer, and then I go what went well. And I go on a treasure hunt because I'm purposefully looking for what are the right things that happened. And I look for the micro moments, you know, like what's the smallest thing? And for me, where I live, I see a lot of hummingbirds and butterflies. And I just focus on them. And I've been doing this for years and it's so helpful. And about two and a half years ago, my dad died. And it was an awful, awful day. And when I went to bed that night, I said a prayer and then went, what went well today? And then the voice in my head, you know, started criticizing me like you're a bad kid and you don't love your dad and whatever. But because it's my habit, I went what went well today. And I saw this interaction between my mother and the police officer and it was so funny and so beautiful that it just made me smile. And then I thought of all the texts I got from my friends who found out about my dad and that was peaceful. And then I just thought about holding his hand before they took him away. And I went to sleep because I'm mastering my mind and not being a victim of the situation. It didn't mean I didn't grieve. I still grieve. I still miss him, but it's these habits like every day to direct my mind, to help me while taking care of my brain. - Yeah, I love those practical tools because in effect what we're trying to do is change our thought pattern, right? We have a pattern, as you said, to wake up and say, I'm tired and we put it on snooze and then we get up and then we're having breakfast and we're like, I'm still tired. And then we get to lunchtime and we're like looking at the clock and we're like, I'm still tired. And then by the end then I'm still tired but then we're up at midnight watching Netflix or whatever it may be saying, I'm still tired. And then that becomes our reality that we just continue to feed that fatigue and we're just more and more and more tired. Whereas when you nudge your brain in a different direction, as you said, and you said today's gonna be a great day, you now start making great choices because you want it to be a great day. But what I love about what you've defined, and this is different and I appreciate it, is that you don't talk about positive thinking, you talk about accurate thinking as being a healthier way to live. And I really like that clarification because I think the positive thinking approach can also be quite toxic. Like you just said about your father, it's not that you didn't feel grief, it's not that you don't miss him. Like of course, those are very real human emotions but you know how to direct them.

Accurate thinking versus positive thinking (17:31)

Can you clarify for our audience today, what is the difference between accurate thinking and positive thinking? - Well, positive thinking is I can have this third beer and it won't negatively impact me. Or I can drive at 125 miles down the freeway in the rain and it won't hurt me. Positive thinking is I can stay up and beyond my phone until two in the morning and it won't have a negative impact. They did this great study out of Stanford, Lewis Terman, 1921, evaluated 1453 10 year old children and then they followed them for 90 years, looking at what goes with success, health and longevity. And then don't worry, be happy people. Actually in the beginning of the book, I talk about the lies of happiness. And this is one of the lies, don't worry, be happy. They died the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. I have an older brother and I adore him, but he's like out in 50 pounds overweight. I always sort of wanted to be like him 'cause I'm intense and I work hard and I've always got projects. And he's like off at three o'clock playing golf and you know, he just seemed to not have a care in the world, but my health is so much better than his 'cause I worry about it. And so you wanna have the right dose of anxiety. People with low levels of anxiety go to jail because they don't like think, oh, if I do this, this bad thing could happen. But obviously too much makes you suffer. And I love the verse in the New Testament, John 832, know the truth and the truth will set you free. And I wanna live my life in truth. So I wanna tell myself always, so what's the truth? So if I think, Tana never listens to me, I'm like, well, is that true? It's another little habit, right? To always carry around those three words. I don't have any tattoos, but if I did, is it true would be one of the tattoos? 'Cause I don't wanna believe everything I think. And that's very important. Your mind creates trouble. You know, thoughts, they come from all sorts of places. They come from your ancestors. They're actually written into your genetic code. I don't know if you ever read the book, it didn't start with you. - Yes, of course, that's great book. - Amazing. I love that book. And trauma and successes actually get written in our genetic code. And our thoughts come from the voices of our moms, our dads, our siblings, our friends, foes, the news you listen to, which by the way, is no longer the news anymore. Let's just be really clear. They bastardize that industry. And it's about tribalism and money. And it's not about news. I start every day with the Good News Network. It's just a cool app. I have no financial interest in it. I just love it. I'm always smiling, you know, sending articles to my kids. And the music you listen to. I actually did a study on rap, country, rock, and classical music and heavy metal. We did a memory task with high school students and heavy metal was the worst. Classical was the best. The second best was country, which shocked us. - Where did Redwood rap fall in the... - Right behind heavy metal. - Oh, wow, wow. 'Cause that's like one of the biggest forms of music today is rap and hip-hop. - And music so influences how we feel. And so you wanna be careful with the inputs because you might not think they matter, but you're subconscious minds listening. - Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's why I wanna ask you. This is really interesting to me because so I've been listening to jazz in the car now. Jazz is my new, jazz is my new. I usually don't listen to anything. I usually just talk to myself when I drive. That's been like my habit for years is I see driving as a moment of spending more time with myself. So I generally drive to nothing. But when me and my wife run the car together, we both liked music. And recently we've been listening to jazz music together. But what I find really interesting about what you just said is that there's a difference between what feels good and what is good for you. So someone may say, I feel good when I eat junk food when I listen to music that isn't good for my brain and when I drink. But when I miss out on that meal, I don't feel good. When I choose classical music, I don't feel good. And when I choose to eat healthy and maybe don't drink as much, I don't feel good. And so what I'm fascinated by is our relationship with feeling a certain way versus being a certain way. So when I started to have to remove refined sugar from my diet, which my wife encouraged me to do, I didn't feel good about that. Like that was painful. I didn't enjoy that feeling in my mind, right? Or when I started to go to the gym every day or hike, where I hike outside here every day now. And when I'm working out, I don't feel good about it, but it's good for me. So I started to discover that the things that are actually good for me don't always feel good. So how do you approach the idea of feeling a certain way? Because I feel like everything that I do that's good for me, I didn't feel good about when I started doing it. Now I choose it because now there's. - Because you're getting the benefit from it. - Correct, the benefits, I'm also feeling the pattern shift. Now if I, so I still get a craving for junk food, I still have that craving sometimes. And maybe once a month now I'll be like, all right, I'm gonna have a burger. Like I'm gonna eat, you know, like a burger and fries and whatever. And now I don't like the taste of it. Like after I feel really regretful and I'm like, I didn't even like that. I need to remember that. Then now I've changed my tastes.

Love food that loves you back (24:02)

So now it's changed. So talk to me a bit about that. Like why do we always wanna feel happy and feel good but we don't often make the right decisions? - Secret number four is love food that loves you back. And you're in a relationship. I want you to love what you eat. But I also want it to love you. And so if you're in love with alcohol and alcohol is clearly toxic to your brain for so many reasons, brain and your body, then it's sort of like you're in an abusive relationship. And you know, I just want people to think about what do you really want? Do you want that mountain of fries or that swimming pool of alcohol? Or do you want energy? Do you want clarity? Do you want memory? Do you want vitality? Do you want creativity? And ultimately what I want is I wanna feel good and I wanna be good and I wanna do good. And that comes from a brain and body that work right. So I don't wanna feel good now but not later. Right? That's a four year olds mindset. I wanna feel good now and later. So the things I do day in and day, I love. Now it just takes a while sometimes to change your habits. The brain is lazy. It just wants to do what you've allowed it to do. So what you said is just so beautiful. It's like, well, I still get the cravings and I'll give in and then I'll like, why did I do that? Yeah, that's right. Genuinely feel right now. 'Cause then I just don't feel awesome. So for that momentary pleasure, it's like, well, is it worth it? Does it fit? So another tattoo I'm going to get someday. Does it fit? So I recommend, this is actually part of Secret Seven, live each day based on clearly defined values, purpose, and goals and quite frankly, hedonism. It's not on my goal list. It's not in my value list. And hedonism, so giving in to every craving I have, is the enemy of happiness. Because it ends up wearing out your dopamine or pleasure centers in your brain. And I always talk about you on a drip dopamine. Don't dump it. Because when you dump it with the fries and the alcohol, the porn, you don't have much left. And so then you have to go back and do it again. And all of a sudden chemicals are controlling you rather than you are controlling you. The dopamine gets so addictive. And as you said with the pleasure centers, now we're having to, the same amount of what we had doesn't even fulfill the amount of pleasure. So we have to have more to hit the same amount of pleasure as far as I understand. Is that correct? It's absolutely true. And fame wears out the pleasure centers in your brain. And I've been blessed, I mean I'm friends with you. Oh no, you were a good one. Justin, Miley, and you know we talk about this over and over again. How fame is just such a trap. Because you know once, you know like I had a video go viral and it was like 40 million views. And I'm like oh it's so exciting. And so when the next one gets eight million views, you're like well that sucked. And you realize just you know how stupid that is, you have to be very careful and you want to drip dopamine. How do you drip dopamine? How does someone do that? Let's say someone who's not getting 40 million views or eight million views but they're posting on social media, they're eating a burger, they're having that glass of, you know alcohol every night. Whatever it may be like how does someone learn to, I love that idea.

Focus on the micro moments of happiness (28:20)

I'm thinking how does someone practically drip dopamine? Because that's really- It's the micro moments of happiness. So for me, I mean it's like holding Tana's hand. And then but noticing and feeling her skin and feeling the warmth, the softness, it's like being present, being connected or seeing the hummingbird, watching the sunrise or the sunset depending on where you live. It's being present, noticing what you like way more than what you don't like. Plus sunlight, drips dopamine. Pumpkin seeds, drip dopamine. Omega-3 fatty acids, I just gave you a present of our vegan. Omega-3, as I know you're vegan and people have been wanting it for so long. But all the vegan Omega-3s, they don't have EPA in them. So Omega-3s, there's EPA and DHA, they're almost all DHA, but EPA is critical for mood, for focus, for circulation. And it's the first product on the market that I know of that is just loaded with the right balance of Omega-3s. What is the difference between EPA and DHA? They work on different systems in the body. Both of them are absolutely essential. And they're essential, which means you've got to get them from an outside source, your body doesn't make them. And people who are vegan, it's really hard to get healthy EPA and DHA levels from flaxseeds and avocados, for example. - Yeah, no, I can't wait to start taking them. I'm really excited. What am I gonna know? It's what's gonna be like-- - Well, your skin's already good, but your skin, your hair, your nails, that's the things people notice. But their mood is better. Brand new study out just today, Omega-3 fatty acids help decrease the incidence of depression. Also helps with focus and helps with memory. It's just critical 'cause they make up the fats in 25% of nerve cell membranes in your brain. I mean, that's hugely important. - The reason why I find this so fascinating is I think so many of us are trying to solve a mental challenge when actually it's a physical brain tangible challenge. Right, like I'll meet a lot of people who are saying, "Do you have to feel focused? "I feel cloudy? "I feel no energy? "I feel lethargic? "What do I do to get motivated?" And it's like, "Well, no, no, no. "The motivation's not the issue." It's like you're dealing with a lot of other stuff. Physically, tangibly, that could be solved. And then with good values, good purpose, good goals, you can actually go in the right direction. But just having a good set of goals and targets and values is not gonna solve the fact that your body is crying out for attention. And I think I was definitely in that space for a long time in my life where I had such a strong mind that I didn't realize how much I was weakening my brain. And actually, if I strengthen my brain, my mind was even stronger, my body was even better, and it was all interconnected. And so for anyone who's listening to this, I want you to remember that if you've got an energy issue, a fatigue issue, a focus issue, this is the podcast for you. This is what I want you to listen to because chances are it's because you're missing out on some of this stuff. There's a part of your diet or something that's not going into your body.

Why are we the unhappiest generation? (32:04)

- Well, and if you think of it like hardware and software. - Yes. - That setting goals, which is so important and not believing every stupid thing you think, which we'll talk about is so important. But those are software programs. And you gotta have the hardware that will run it. Plus, I hate the term mental illness. And you and I've talked about that before. It's not mental, it's brain. And when you call someone mental, you shame them. When you call them a brain, you elevate them. So we need to change the discussion. And mental illness is in, right? Everybody's talking about their mental illness. And, but it's the wrong discussion. The discussion is about brain hell. And yes, you have to program it. But what's happening in our society now, it's one of the reasons I wrote the book, we're the unhappiest we've been since the Great Depression. That depression tripled from February of 2020 to August of 2020. Unbelievable, never seen anything like that. And children, suicide, skyrocketed, depression, anxiety, drug abuse, skyrocketed in children. And it's like the pharmaceutical industry is winning that the incidence of antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications like Xanax, one of 20% in teenagers. That is a nightmare because it's the wrong solution. And I'm not opposed to medicines. It's never the first thing I think about. It's like, let's get your brain and your habits right. And then we'll see what you need. And more than half the people taking medicine really don't need it. Last year, 337 million prescriptions for antidepressants in the United States. That's insane. - I mean, yeah, it's alarming. I think we've all experienced it in little micro doses of our family, our friends, the news, but then when you hear it as a collective, it's super painful. I mean, how does a society that's going to be so much pain? How do we collectively heal? Because that's like, we're further behind because of the pandemic. It's like it was already tough. Now we're really dealing with it. If someone's dealing with a friend or family member or someone in their life who's going through that, it can feel overwhelming for anyone. Like not everyone's a trained psychiatrist, not everyone's trained as a therapist to be able to support that kind of individual. Where would you suggest someone starts if someone in their life is really spiraling or struggling?

Did you experience childhood trauma? (34:42)

- Well, I would start by following me on TikTok or Instagram or you happy or the end of mental illness. There is, this is a completely new way to think. And I dedicated my book, The End of Mental Illness to my nieces. And right at the beginning of the pandemic, we adopted them because their mom and dad couldn't stop using drugs. And I am so proud of them because of how well they're doing by just getting the right supervision, the right love, the right food and the right habits. Now, they grew up in trauma. Do you know that ACE test adverse childhood experiences? - No, I don't. - Oh, we should talk about it. - Yeah, please. - It's a test and originally done by the CDC and Kaiser. And it's 10 questions on did you experience early childhood trauma? So things like physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, parents who divorced, parents who were addicted, incarcerated. You watched one of your parents being beaten in domestic violence. Okay, so 10 of these questions. So how do you score? Do you score zero? Like you had no trauma, I score one. My wife is an eight 'cause she grew up in trauma. She wrote about it in her book, The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. The nieces we adopted, it's a nine. If you score four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top 10 leading causes of death. If you score six or more, you have a 1200% increase risk of killing yourself. You have a higher risk of depression, addiction, virtually every bad health thing. And our daughter is a one. So eight to one, that's the goal, right? How do you take your trauma, heal it, and not give it to the next generation? And when I met Tana, I just dearly loved her. I mean, she's beautiful, she's smart, she's awesome. But when I learned about the trauma, I gave her 10 sessions of EMDR. It's a specific psychological treatment for trauma. It stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. She ended up going for a year 'cause there are a lot of stuff to work out. But change the trajectory of her life. She's like my best friend. We like never fight, we get along, we have the same goals, we don't live out of the past, we live out of the present and what we want for the future. And so many people live. With trauma and they're living being controlled by the traumatized eight year old in their lives when they don't have to be. And so part of being happy is dissipating the traumas from the past. - Way can people do that test, that sounds fascinating. - So they can go online and just search for adverse childhood experiences. NPR has a free version of it online. And you pretty much know once you take it. - How long does it take to do, just like three minutes? - Oh wow, it's very short. - It's like super. It's just 10 questions. - Oh wow. - And it's basically yes or no. - Got it, got it. - But you know, if you're four more getting help and EMDR is so cool. - I wanna hear more about it. - I'm so glad you raised it because I've had a few clients I'm coaching right now and they've been working with someone else in the EMDR space, obviously that's not my expertise. But yeah, I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Explain if anyone who doesn't know what is the EMDR, not the name, but what is it as a practice? - So what you do, it's actually an eight step practice. You take a good history and you're looking for like, what are the top 10 traumas you've had in your life? - And you do this with the-- - You do it with the therapist. With somebody who's trained and certified in it, then you begin to target, so what's the worst one? And what's the negative belief with that? And what's the positive belief that you would rather believe? And where do you feel it in your body? And so you hold that image and then imagine just being on a train. And we get your eyes to go back and forth. Or sometimes they'll do alternate tapping on your knees or there's a thing called the butterfly hug to do alternately. While you bring that up and while you're on the train, you just sort of see where it goes and it'll often go to the early traumas, heighten them. But then with the eye movements, it helps the brain integrate it from an adult perspective rather than living as a four year olds perspective. And it takes the distress from like an eight or nine out of 10 to zero. And it's so cool. And it's one of the fastest therapies. 'Cause a lot of times people go to a therapist and they'll talk about the trauma. And they just feel worse. Because what they've done is they've brought it up. They've like say subconscious, let's pay attention to these awful things you've been trying to forget. But it's the integration. And I did a study that we published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience's A Great Journal on eight police officers who were involved in shootings. And they couldn't go back to work 'cause they were traumatized. Because you know, whatever you think about the police, I work with a lot of police officers. Most of them are just kind carrying service oriented people. And they don't wanna hurt anybody. And so they were devastated, couldn't go back to work. I scan them and in their brain, there's a pattern for trauma where their emotional brain was working too hard. And after an average of eight sessions, their brain had calmed down and they all went back to work. - With the MDR. - With the MDR. - Wow. - And so with the MDR, there's no, you're not under anything. There's no substance, it's just. - No. In fact, just sitting down talking to you, I began to, I made this connection because what psychedelics do and people asking me about that all the time. - Yeah. - I'm not a fan of it. Because I think it's risky. And I get to see the fallout of people doing it that have bad trips. What psychedelics do is they begin to fill in some of the holes and the ruts in your brain. Like, you know, if you've been traumatized and I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm bad, or it's my fault, it's my fault, my fault. It can help dissipate that for some people. But there are side effects with EMDR. There's no side effects. And you come out of it freer. So my first experience with EMDR, so what I do in my profession is, you know, I've often said I've been bleeding on the cutting edge because psychiatrists don't look at the brain, which is completely insane. But when I started doing that 30 years ago, my colleagues like hated me. It's like, no, you shouldn't do that. That's not what we do. We make diagnoses based on symptom clusters. We don't need to know about the brain, which I'm like, you people are insane. But I got investigated by the medical board in California for like a year. It was the worst year of my life. And I EMDR therapist working for me in my office. And one day I went into Dr. Lendall and I'm like, I am not okay. Do this thing on me. And after an hour, I left her office and I didn't care. I'm like, it'll whatever will happen, it'll happen. You know, I love to say my friend Byron Katie says, "Argue with reality, welcome to hell." And my anxiety just went away. And ultimately they dismissed any complaint against me. And I've obviously been doing this a long time. But I just saw how powerful it was. I didn't have to stay attached to the pain. - I mean, I'm fascinated to try it myself now. And like, I think that's the only way to know. But it's great to hear that, again, just to clarify, I think what you're saying is that this is a great practice. It helps you move along and then all the habits still have to be in place. Because do you feel like people doing it? Yeah, right? It's like others you can just go back and like-- - Well, dancing is a great brain exercise. But if you drink while you dance, you're completely messing up the benefit. - Yeah, yeah, that's great. - Or ping table tennis, brand new study out today. I was so excited that racket sports, people who play racket sports live longer than everybody else. 16% longer, longer than runners, longer than anybody else. - I love that because I play ping pong tennis and pickle balls. - But beer pong is not going down. - You know I don't drink, so yeah. But no, I literally play, I play all three of those. I'm getting a ping pong table, I play tennis and I start playing pickle ball. And it's like, it's so much fun. It's easy, you only need one other person, easy to do. - And it's good for you. - And it's fun and you don't have to be that good at it. - You love it. - And it loves you back. She's just have to find what are those habits, what are those activities? - I love that love me back. - Yeah, that's fantastic. I wanna let everyone know if you don't have you happier already, which is the book that we're talking from, make sure you grab a copy because we're literally touching the surface, but the lies of happiness are fantastic. There are 11 lies in here that we're told. We've talked about a lot of them today, having more and having more of something like love sex, fame, drugs. Don't worry, be happy. We talked about that positivity mindset. We talked about advertisers and fast food. We talked about needing technology. We talked about, and we'll talk a bit more about that too. We talked about constantly being aware of the news. We talked about alcohol, marijuana. We've touched on a lot of those lies, but I really want you to dive into it because I think those lies are what's governing our pursuits. But focusing on the seven secrets of happiness to talk about that no one else is talking about, you said the brain needs targeted nutrients every day to boost happiness.

Targeted nutrients to boost happiness (45:45)

What are some of those targeted nutrients because you also gave me, along with the vegan amigas, you also gave me, what's your thing? Could you tell us a bit about why that's so awesome for calm, clarity and focus? Well, especially if you tend to be anxious. Right. Theanine from Green Tea helps you focus and calm you at the same time. And yes, Green Tea does have a little bit of caffeine, but why Green Tea is better than coffee is the theanine helps calm down the effects of the caffeine. And but theanine by itself is just magical for so many of my patients. And those gummies, they taste great and they have no sugar, right? 'Cause sugar for me would be a brand violation and we don't do brand violations. Yeah, where does theanine come from? What is it? From Green Tea. Okay, it, oh, that's where it comes from, right? It's not the same, right? Yeah, it's one of the active ingredients in Green Tea. Green Tea Catechins are another great substance for your brain. My favorite of all of them, we talked about omega-3s, but my favorite is saffron. And I've been following the science of saffron for over 20 years because over 20 years ago, a study came out showing it was equally effective to Prozac. And I'm like, whoa. And there's folklore in India. India, yeah, my mom is gonna love this moment and this podcast. She tells me it's saffron all the time. That if you're too happy, you must have had saffron. So now there are 24 randomized controlled trials, head to head against antidepressants showing that it's equally effective to boost your mood. But as opposed to antidepressants, which can decrease sexual function, saffron increases sexual function, increases pleasure, increases responsiveness, even in some studies, spermotility, saffron has been shown to enhance memory. And I'm like, memory, mood, and sex. And at the beginning of the pandemic, right when my dad was sick, I'm like, I make something called happy saffron with saffron, zinc, and curcumin. I've taken it every day since. And I just think it's just a nice thing to help keep people balanced. But then the supplements in large part depend on your brain type. So that's secret number two, is what makes some people happy, makes other people miserable. And a one size fits all with happiness is just not reality. Some people need novelty and they love surprises where that's type two, there's five primary types. That's our spontaneous type. But type three, the persistent type, they hate surprises and love routine. And so know your type and the type of your spouse and children. And then ask yourself every day, I do something that makes me uniquely happy. - And this book's gonna help people figure out their type. You have the types in the book. So we have the balanced brain type, the spontaneous brain type, the persistent brain type, sensitive brain type, the cautious brain type. And the book helps you diagnose and figure out which brain type you have. So you can do this with your friends, your family, your partner, your kids. And that's gonna help you understand what they need more of or what they're missing. In fact, my nieces, they had friends over and they were in the spot home. And they were taking the ACE quizzes with their friends and knowing each other's brain type. - I love that. - That was such a great discussion.

What’s your brain type? (49:50)

- Yeah, I love that. How do people, as in walk us through some of the process you created to help people figure out their brain type? - Well, you know, based on my imaging work, I was looking initially for the one type of, where's depression in the brain? And then I realized, oh, there's not one type of depression. There's seven, where's ADD in the brain? Well, there's not one type of ADD. There's seven, that's why Ritalin's controversial. For some people, it's a miracle. For other people, it's a nightmare. And it depends on how your brain works. And then I realized I was seeing patterns of personality. Like if your frontal lobes work too hard, you tend to be worried and rigid. And if things don't go your way, you're upset. And I have of my five girls, two of them have this pattern. And I know no matter what I say to them, they're gonna dismiss it. It's gonna bounce off. It's like they wear Teflon. And so for what you're like, shopping, I love shopping with my girls. And I go, oh, do you like this? The answer will be immediately no. So for them, I know their type. And I wait for them to show me stuff. And if I want them to do something, I'll actually ask them the opposite of what I want them to do. Because they're just, you know these people. They're just sort of naturally oppositional. And if I want them to go to the store with me, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to the store. You probably don't wanna go with me. It's like, what do you mean I don't wanna go with you? We don't spend any time together. - That approach of personalization and individualization is just so needed, especially in healthcare. Because like you're saying, you can, and that's what me and my wife see that in us. Like our diets are completely different for us to be at optimal level. And our workouts are completely different. Like my wife is a high intensity workout person. I'm a low intensity workout person. I just don't enjoy high intensity. It doesn't work for me. I feel more inflamed. I feel, you know, more heated in my body. I don't need that. I'm pretty active heat as it is. And then my wife really enjoys it. It's really great for her body. She feels great for me. And so I just think it's so fascinating that we keep trying to take like whatever works for everyone must work for me and we get this trend or this fad. And I think this diagnosis of your brain type though, I think this is the best thing that you possibly could have done for us. - The persistent people, they need carbs. If you put them on a ketogenic diet, they get depressed and they get angry. I was on Rachel Ray's show and she was the persistent brain type. And on national TV, we're talking about this. And she said, "I went on a low carb diet and I was so mean. I wondered why my husband didn't leave me because the persistent brain type needs serotonin. And if you think about a higher protein, lower simple carbohydrate diet, it's a dopamine diet. It helps you focus. But if you give it to the persistent type, they focus more on the things that make them unhappy and make other people unhappy. So the wrong diet can cause divorce. And so you have to like target it to the person. But it's also why people get addicted to sugar because sugar is a simple carbohydrate and sugar raises serotonin and it makes you happy. Have you ever wondered when you go to a restaurant, why they immediately give you bread and alcohol? Because both of them drop your frontal lobe. So the bread, simple carbohydrate, raises your blood sugar and your pancreasies that introduces insulin, insulin drives tryptophan into your brain. Tryptophan makes serotonin and you feel pretty happy, which is why people get addicted to pastries and bread and pizza and donuts. And then they give you alcohol 'cause it drops your frontal lobes. So if they give you free bread and offer you alcohol, they're gonna make more money 'cause you're gonna order things you said before you walked into the restaurant, you weren't gonna order, including dessert. - That is so true. And I love it when they give me bread. It's like my favorite, it's not anymore, but that's like my favorite thing that I love it when I walk into a restaurant. Like, do you have a bread basket? Like, you know, it's such a habit, right? It's all habits.

Seek happiness in the context of health (54:19)

I find that happiness is such an interesting goal. That's what I meant by like, we wanna feel happy, but the things that you have to do to feel happy are not necessarily the things you wanna do. If something-- - Initially. - Initially, that's what I'm saying. - Until it switches. - Until it switches. And oh, by the way, and I start the book with this, happiness is a moral obligation. 'Cause, you know, people are like, "Oh, you're writing a book on happiness. "That's fluff. "Can't you do something more serious?" And I'm like, but it's a moral obligation. Why? Because of how you affect other people. I guarantee you if you ask someone who was raised by an unhappy parent, or married to an unhappy spouse, or raising an unhappy child, whether or not happiness is an ethical issue. So this is important for us to seek happiness in the context of health. - I believe everyone that is, Dr. Daniel Aemon, speaking about you, happy, it is the book. I genuinely, genuinely recommend this book. I think, you know, there's certain books that will just transform how you think about your brain. I know that working with Dr. Daniel Aemon has been really powerful for my brain. So many of the habits I've developed consciously or subconsciously have happened through our conversations. I mean, when you told me about racket sports, that's what led me to stop playing tennis. And then I started playing pickleball, and then I picked, I'm getting a ping pong table. And it was just, there were these really tiny things that we've exchanged in our conversations that have made huge differences in my life. And so today, when you told me, I look great, I was like, yeah, thanks to you, Dr. Daniel Aemon. This is because of you. But I want you to go and grab this book, the seven neuroscience secrets of feeling good, based on your brain type, the book's called You Happier. Dr. Daniel Aemon, you're no, this will be no surprise to you.

Closing Remarks With Dr. Amen

Dr. Amen on Final Five (56:10)

We end every interview with a fast five, which is our final five every time that we do this. So you have to figure out nuances every time you come on, but these are your fast five. So the first question is, what is the best brain advice you've ever heard, receive or given? - Every day, ask yourself this question, is this good for my brain or bad for it? It's so simple. It's the mother tiny habit to have a great brain for the rest of your life. - Okay, second question. What is the worst brain habit advice you've ever received? So what is the worst brain advice are you've ever received? - Everything in moderation, which is the gateway thought to hell. It's the gateway thought to cheating. As soon as you hear someone say, everything in moderation, they're gonna do something bad for their brain. - Wow, let's dive into that a little bit because I feel like that's such a common misconception that people have, oh, I need to have a balanced life and a balanced diet, right? - Yeah, but balanced for them, when they're saying moderation means sugar, or it means alcohol, or it means marijuana, or it means fast food. - All the things that doesn't treat you well. - It means comfort. It's their excuse. It's one of the little lies people tell themselves that keep them fat depressed and feeble-minded. - Yeah, let's do, I actually wanna take a little segue. Let's talk a bit about marijuana, 'cause I think that that's become so popular. I did it a bit as a kid. I messed around with it in my teens and I never really got into it. You did my brain scan, there's no signs of it because I was never too deep into it. And obviously since I lived as a monk, I don't mess around with anything, so I haven't drank alcohol for 16 years or something like that and no marijuana for 16 years. But what is marijuana doing? 'Cause I feel like so many people do feel like they need it, or it's benefiting their life, or it's become so normal now. What are the issues? Well, they need it because it changes their brain to need it in order to feel normal. - What is it doing in a way to make people feel like it's helpful? - It's calming things down in the brain. So I published a study on 1,000 marijuana users. Every area of their brain is lower in activity. And then I published the world's largest imaging study on 62,454 scans, looking at how the brain ages. And I looked at what accelerated aging, and marijuana was the second worst thing to accelerate aging. The worst thing was having schizophrenia, but the second worst thing, it surprised me quite frankly. It was worse than alcohol, worse than marijuana. It dulls, slows down, nerve cell firing. So if you have a busy brain and you're anxious, you feel like it's helpful, but it's also been shown to damage some of the structure of neurons. And kids who smoke or use have an increased incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide in their 20s. Kids who use have a 450% increased risk of developing psychosis. And people have been, I've been a psychiatrist 40 years. We've all seen cases like that. They're cases now because marijuana is so much more potent than it was when I was growing up. That there's a word called squamiting, which is screaming and vomiting at the same time. That if you're in an emergency room, people are like, oh, this person's poisoned with marijuana, not to mention the 1700% increase in babies being born with marijuana and the trouble that that causes. It's like people go to that before they learn diaphragmatic breathing, before they learn meditation, before they learn self hypnosis, before they go for EMDR to deal with their traumas. And that's just not right. Like let's do the non-toxic things first, rather than, you know, and that's my problem with psychedelics. It's like, you know, maybe at some point, if you have severe PTSD, that's not responding to anything, that could be helpful. But have you done the basics first? - Yeah, and the challenge I find that most people say is that non-toxic things are slow, you have to learn something, right? It's not immediate, like meditation, for example. Actually, not meditation, let's take, what was the first thing you said? You said, - Diaphragmatic breathing. - Diaphragmatic breathing. - So I get you to break a panic attack in two minutes. If I just get you to breathe, four seconds in, hold it for a second, eight seconds out, hold it for a second. Do that for three minutes. - You're gonna feel so much better, so much calmer. This isn't hard, but it's not taught. And so people don't know. - No, yeah. - And then they're like, so where's my dealer? - That's the hard part. That's the hard part. We're not taught, and then we go for the quick fix, and then we get addicted to the quick fix, because it's a quick fix, and then that becomes our reality, and that's our reality. - But there are other quick fixes that are quick, if we just are taught. Like, you know, one of my favorite things is killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or adequate, write down what you're thinking. Just write it down, and then go, is it true? And then write the opposite. Tana never listens to me. Tana does listen to me. And then go, is that true? And you'll often find the opposite of the thought that's torturing you. - It's true. - It's also true. - And it blows your mind. - When you do that all the time with my wife. I feel the same way. Doing it with your spouse is very helpful. When I'm like, all right, he doesn't care about me. And then yeah, asking myself, "Radi does care about me." Oh, I can find lots of reasons. Yeah, it's beautiful. - And then you don't have to believe the negativity, because where you look determines how you feel. If you find the negative, you're gonna feel negative. And if you find the beautiful, you're gonna feel beautiful. - Absolutely. All right, question number three. This was, that was a great tangent. I'm glad we did that. Question number three, what is your current purpose? How do you define it? - My current purpose is to change how psychiatric medicine is practiced. To take it out of the dark ages. To end the whole concept of mental illness and create a revolution in brain health. - I love that. What a great purpose. We're here to support. - We have a big gala. I'm so excited. - Oh yeah, yeah. - So first seventh at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the end of mental illness. We're gonna be- - What's the goal of that? What's the purpose you do now then? - So the purpose of the event is to really raise money for the foundation for research and the whole concept of mental illness. For education, we actually have a new preschool course to teach kids to love their brain called brain thrive by five. And service to raise money, especially for first responders. 'Cause they got hurt really bad in the pandemic so that they can get this new brain health way. We're so excited. - Carrie Ananaba is gonna be the MC of the event. Miley Cyrus says she's gonna come, so we're excited. - That's awesome, congrats. Very excited for that. I've got two more questions for you and then I'll let you, there you go. All right, question number four is, and is that something everyone can come to, by the way? That's a public event. - Yes, we're gonna start advertising it soon. - Perfect. December 7th. - December 7th. - This is 2022, Beverly Hilton Hotel. It's a public event that people can buy tickets to come to to support the cause that you just mentioned. - Correct. - Amazing. Love that. We'll put the details in the notes as well so everyone has them. Question number four, what's something you wish you knew about the brain earlier in your own life? - So, 1991, I'm 37 and I'm a double-board certified psychiatrist. I was the top neuroscience student in medical school. And I don't care about my brain at all. And I was overweight and I was only sleeping for hours a night. I was chronically stressed. And I scanned my brain. 'Cause I just started scanning. So I scanned everybody. I knew I scanned my 60-year-old mother. She had a gorgeous brain. And when I scanned myself, it wasn't healthy. And I was horrified. And I come from a very competitive family. And I just really unhappy that my six-year-old mother had a better-looking brain than I did. So I developed a concept called brain envy. How I say Freud was wrong. P.N.S. envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I wanted a better brain. And I think I've spent the last 31 years just trying to get a better brain. - Wow. So you just wish you knew about that earlier? - I wish I knew about that earlier. I wouldn't have played football. And I wouldn't have drank diet soda like it was my best friend. - Do you wanna tell us a bit about that? 'Cause I feel like soda, people have agreed it's bad but now diet soda's become-- - I used to think diet soda was free. Right? I mean, it's like no calories. But the aspartame and what we know now with sucralose is really bad. So there's a brand new study out looking at sugar, sucralose or splanda and stevia. And they did brain scans and cognitive testing. And stevia, nothing happened before or after. It seemed actually pretty safe. - That's amazing. - Sugar, new learning dropped. Splendal was the worst. New learning dropped, long-term memory dropped. And you got a surge of slow frontal lobe activity which means it deactivated your frontal lobes. And the yellow packets are everywhere. - So it's so scary. It's like, I don't know how they haven't figured out a way to just improve the food market as a whole through all these standards. Like with all these studies coming out, how have most of these foods has not been bad? - Because of the agricultural lobby. - Right. - You know, I mean, just we've talked about pop tarts and how bad they are. But they're, you know, we're spending government money to give them to poor children, which will keep them poor. - Yeah, it's so sad. I find that's the hardest part for me where I'm like-- - But we can change it. - Yeah. - I know we can, that smart people can figure out solutions to dramatically shift the population. I don't know if we ever talked about the Daniel Plan, the big project at Saddleback Church. - We did, yeah. - Where-- - Tell us you're going money. - You know, thousands of churches have done the health program that I created with Pastor Rick Ward. So you just have to have intention. - Yeah. - Absolutely, there's lots of good-- - Purpose. - That's part of the revolution in brain health. - Yeah. Fifth and final question, what makes you happier? - Being here makes me happier. Seeing you, being with people I love, makes me happier. It was at the Beverly Hilton Hotel today, getting ready for our event. And they cooked a lot of Tana's recipes from her cookbook, The Brain Warriors Way, and they did such an amazing job. That made me happy and I'm walking out to the parking lot, someone recognized me, so I love your TikTok of all things. So making a difference. - Yeah. - Just makes me happy. I'm one of seven children and I'm in the middle, so I was completely irrelevant. And so not being irrelevant sort of helps make me happy. - I love that. Dr. Zane, it's always such a joy to spend time with you, honestly, it really is. And thank you so much for all the work you're doing. I know I lean on it constantly and I deeply appreciate it. And I hope that everyone's gonna go out and read the book, make a change in their life and start changing their brain. But thank you so much for joining us. Make sure that you follow Dr. Raymond on TikTok, on Instagram and all social media platforms. And make sure that you tag us with anything you learned, anything that stood out, any element of this podcast, feel free to share it with someone else who needs it. Feel free to cut it up and put it on TikTok. Like there's so many amazing insights here in the book, but also in the show. And I love to see what resonates with you. And I love to see what you're applying in your life. So make sure you share that. Thank you so much for listening and watching. And Dr. Zane Raymond, thank you for doing this so much. - Thank you. - Appreciate it. Thank you. - If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, think like a monk from thinklikeamunkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.