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impact Theory enjoy the
episode hey everybody welcome to another
episode of Health Theory today we are
joined by a psychiatrist best-selling
author and a brain scan Ninja Dr aan
thank you so much for being here I
always love spending time with you and
reading your books they are incredible
have been life-changing for me and the
most recent one your brain is always
listening is no exception so thank you
so much for being here well thank you
for helping me spread the word about
brain health So speaking in the brain if
it's always listening what is it always
listening to and what is this idea of
dragons that you talked about in the
book I find this really
useful well your brain is always
listening it's listening to your past
it's listening to the food you eat it's
listening to marketers it's listening
when you say it's listening to your past
is it listening to what you say about
your past or are you using listen as
sort of an umbrella for
reliving the past for many many people
is always present for them and I got
this idea of dragons from the past that
still breathe fire on your emotional
brain so I was doing a podcast with Dr
Sharon May who's a friend of mine
relational therapist and she started
talking about dragons from the past that
were ruining relationships and then she
and I started collaborating it's like
well let's identify the dragons and we
came up with 13 of them and a couple the
pandemic just exploded like the Death
dragon or the grief and lost
Dragon um but my whole life I was living
with the
invisible abandoned or insignificant
Dragon one of seven um I was in the
middle I'm a second son in a Lebanese
family which means you're
Expendable um which turned out to be
beautiful cuz I didn't have to go on the
grocery business right and lean's family
is the oldest child the oldest male
child goes in the business is your
brother still in the business my brother
is the president of the business wow um
I don't think I'd ever heard you talk I
mean your dad was really successful in
the business that he built I didn't
realize just how much sort of I guess
ended up not being familial pressure for
you but certainly would have been for
your brother well it's pressure when you
grew up with a dad that's very
successful I me end up being the
chairman of the board of A4 billion doll
company um you often just go like I can
never live up to that and so you're
struggling in that comparison which is
actually the second dragon the inferior
flawed dragon and I had that one in
Spades you know being short and second
and
um you know it helped me in so many many
ways right the dragons have
downsides but they also have upsides if
you have Felts insignificant well I
built a life based on being significant
and it sort of worked so how do you help
people reconcile that like when I when I
read the book I'm hearing about these
dragons they mostly sound negative but
you in terms of if they go unchecked
your prefrontal cortex is offline it
really does become pathological and it
becomes a problem but I'm obsessed with
this idea that there's pathology on both
sides so if you have too much drive it's
going to spill into pathology you know
if you're feeling too broken too
inadequate whatever but if you don't
have enough there's also pathology on
that side how do you help people walk
that balance is it the prefrontal
cortex well it's always this balance
between your prefrontal cortex so think
of that as the break in your brain but
you don't want it too strong when it
works too hard
people have OCD it's sort of like the
brake is always on and so if you think
of a car like I like going to Big Bear
and think about coming down the hill you
need a good prefrontal cortex you need a
good break because if the brak's not on
you die because you go off a cliff which
is apropo people don't break their
behavior and they make bad decisions and
so they die early but if the break is
always
on you can't get down the hill either
because it's like stop stop stop stop
think of people have OCD so it's about
balance between the front third of your
brain prefrontal cortex and your
emotional brain because we need passion
we need purpose we need a reason to do
something but if it works too hard we
get sad or we get too anxious or we come
traumatized uh the wounded Dragon just
so common way more common now since the
pandemic and wounded dragon is I am
broken in some way or something else
it's I've had trauma okay and I tell the
story
of reliving it was so hard for me but
when I was little I had this beautiful
white Goat Who Um was our pet sugar yeah
and um I actually have this video I did
a public television special on the new
book and actually showed the video of me
when I'm five playing with sugar andurs
kissing me and and it was just beautiful
but sugar also liked my dad's
roses and so one day sugar went off to
the farm which means sugar got
slaughtered right and a couple of nights
later my dad and his brother were joking
that they were feeding us sugar for
dinner which was incredibly traumatic
for me and years later how old were you
at this
point like six five or six and I mean I
and I remember it like it's
yesterday but years later I was in
Monterey Mexico giving a big talk and
they have goat meat for sale in Street
vendors like we don't do that in the
United States right and as I walked by I
got flooded with that memory and all of
a sudden I'm 43 or something have a
panic attack wow because the past is
always connected to the present and so
if there's trauma learning how and I
talk about this in the book how to
recognize it and disconnect from
it okay so that's recognizing it
disconnecting doing the unwinding is a
tall order before we get to that can you
what are some of the most common dragons
and if you have one of these running
rampant in your life your prefrontal
cortex isn't putting the brakes on it
what what does that manifest as in in
the more common dragons well so we've
had over 100,000 people take the quiz
knowyou dragon.com so people can do that
it's free
and on average people have six of them
so it's common to have issues and the
anxious dragon is the most common the
responsible Dragon where you feel like
you have to take care of other people
which actually can breede this thing
called codependence and entitlement in
others you have to be careful with
that the wounded Dragon the inferior
flawed Dragon very common and it's
basically I compare myself to you in a
negative way um social media is driving
that epidemic um
and the Death Dragon sort of surprised
me but you know we did the study during
covid and is that a fear of death it's
the fear of death
dragon and a lot of people haven't come
to
grips with death like one of the
strategies I have actually played out
today is write down 10 good things about
dying whoa and um
it's like oh well that's okay because if
it's inevitable it is right it's it's
like you have to learn to embrace it and
there's a lot of writing exercises in in
the book because actually want people to
write their story and give it the ending
they want and then ask themselves every
day then kick in your prefrontal cortex
is my behavior getting me what I want
because too often people go for fixes
that fail rather than fixes that
fix okay so first we're going to
identify our Dragon okay so I have the
fear of death dragon or I have the
anxiety dragon is somebody who suffered
with the anxiety dragon that one's very
easy for me to relate to okay so I have
the anxiety Dragon I'm obsessing about a
future that I'm practicing the failure
unintentionally this was my thing I
would find my what I thought of exit
ramps like if this situation becomes
problematic what's my exit ramp but in
thinking about all of my exit ramps I
was rehearsing it going wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong
and when I'm journaling the idea I want
to bring together with this so I I
identify my dragon but now when I'm
doing the journaling how do I get to
Accurate thinking because the problem in
the first place is that I have a
cognitive distortion I have a a tendency
to think of how the things could go
wrong or at least that felt like the
right way to plan for the future I've
since stopped doing that
um H how do you recognize what accurate
thinking actually is and you go through
this in the book because you you have
that like four questions that you have
people do I think it was four and
there's a a part in there where they
would often say like I'm going to fail
are you going to fail yes like to them
that seems self-evidently true so how do
you help them recognize that that isn't
actually accurate
I help them question it whenever you
feel sad or mad or nervous or out of
control write out what you're thinking
and then it's five questions but it's is
it
true is it absolutely true with 100%
certainty and that's the one that
usually cracks it like um worthless is
it absolutely true now you're getting
thoughtful it's like well I'm a mother
and I'm a sister and I'm a daughter and
no it's not absolutely true it's
ridiculous the third questions how do I
feel when I believe I'm
worthless
dead
withering sad
lonely and the fourth question is who
would I be without the thought or how
would I feel if I didn't have the
thought the most common answer to that
one is free
and then you flip it around to the
opposite it's like I am worth something
or I have worth and then give me an
example or two or three or four and you
have to do that exercise at least a 100
times to begin to retrain your automatic
response I mean I've been teaching
people to kill ants for a long time
automatic negative thoughts but I just
found these five questions they're just
so
elegant to just have a dialogue with
yourself I'll never be successful or I
won't have enough money um or my life
has no meaning it's like well let's put
that under a
microscope not positive thinking
accurate
thinking Okay so putting myself in the
shoes of somebody that's trapped in one
of these dragons my gut instinct and
you've done this so much more than I
have but my gut instinct is the part
that they're going to struggle with the
most is they're going to say the
opposite right so I have worth I have
value it just isn't going to feel true
or it's going to feel true at such a low
rung level like yes okay fine I have
some value but Jesus is it enough to be
worth everything that I'm going through
I find that people are so IL equipped to
accurately identify what their abilities
are their capabilities their worth their
value all that but I'm like don't even
worry about what's true ask yourself
what's useful and if it's useful to tell
yourself I'm a good person I have worth
and that gets you moving towards doing
the things that are actually worthy then
we're going to do it does that make
sense to you or do you think there's
something better well well not better I
like it it's with each of the dragons
and the
book I have their origin story so where
do they come
from what's the upside because all the
dragons have upsides my abandoned
invisible and insignificant Dragon had
tremendous upside for me
um how do you tame it so it's more than
just correct your thinking so there's
strategy so for for one seeking
significance well that's useful and it
could be volunteering a church it you
know whatever
fits your definition internally of
significance and then I have meditations
around each of them
um so think of that as foundational like
the wounded Dragon for example I talk
about EMDR IE movement desensitization
and reprocessing and it's so powerful
it's when you're traumatized it actually
gets stuck in your brain and we see a
pattern we call it the diamond pattern
in the brain so your emotional brain
gets turned on and it can't go back to
normal or healthy and EMDR they actually
have you bring up the trauma while they
get your eyes to move back and forth and
it settles it down so is an example 1996
so been doing Imaging for 30 years the
first 20 years it was like a horror film
in my life because I was getting picked
on and I mean had the New York Times
pick on me the Washington Post pick on
me and my colleagues calling me bad
names and I'm like I just want to look
at the brain what's your problem um and
in 1996 I had the state of California's
Medical Board investigate me yeah i'
never that before it's crazy and that
was
traumatizing and I couldn't sleep and
one of the original EMDR trainers worked
for me and I walked into Jennifer
lindel's office in my clinic and I'm
like you need to help
me after an hour of this treatment I was
absolutely fine if they took my license
from me I could get a job I could take
care of my family I was going to be fine
but you can just imagine you spend
a big chunk of your life trying to do
what you do and now someone's trying to
take it away from you why does the
lateral eye movement shift the brain so
profoundly that you go from I can't
sleep this is a total mess to one
session and now I'm good I think it's
more than just eye movement um there's
another technique that's somewhat
similar that's a part of the same
technique it
no but it's similar it's called havening
okay and but they're both bilateral
hemisphere
stimulation so for
example um off camera we talked about
how my dad died last year and a couple
of days after he died um in a random
stack of papers I'm at my mom's house
just helping her organize things is a
picture of my dead dad in the mortuary
and I'm like what idiot what because it
just bothered me and I noticed it was
just bothering me throughout the day you
know I'd see the picture and I'd be
irritated and and then I'm like oh you
help people who have this problem and
havening is bilateral hemisphere
stimulation so it's either rubbing your
hands like this while you think of the
trauma um it's rubbing your face
probably not cool in a pandemic um or
what my favorite thing is and I do this
a lot with my patients is I have them
hold their shoulders and then rub down
to their forms and they do it for 30
seconds and the idea is to get
stimulation on both sides of your body
both sides while you bring up the trauma
do you have to do it yourself or can
someone else do it for you either way
interesting and people can learn about
it at
havening org like Safe Haven haven.org
and so I did that with the picture and
you rate it like on a scale of 1 to 10
and it was like a nine I was pretty
irritated by this and after I did it for
30 seconds it's p a four and then after
I did it again the irritation was gone I
did it two more times for 30 seconds and
I fell in love with the picture because
it
was the last picture of my dad on Earth
and
so there are techniques so that you
don't have to live with trauma spinning
in your brain whether it's EMDR other
people do tapping which can be helpful
or
havening I want to speculate about why
that's working so when I meditate what's
useful about meditation the only times
that it works for me are when I can
really lock into the pleasure cycle of
the breath so I have to be thinking
about optimizing the pleasure of each
part of the breath by doing that I
really pull my brain to like what is
happening right here right now one it
helps because it's truly when you're
breathing in a meditative way it it just
feels good like purely hedonistically it
just feels good and then my mind can't
wander to whatever is freaking it out
because I'm there in my breath and I'm
wondering if this is a there's something
about stimulating both sides of the
brain that's the important part or if
this is just your focus is now locking
in on the sensation of being touched or
touching yourself and that disrupts cuz
I I think a lot about pattern
interrupting that you're just hitting
the brakes on this runaway thought and
by touching yourself by tapping by
whatever that you you're grounding in a
physical sensation which stops your
brain from thinking about the traumatic
thing that's sort of bullet point one
but bullet point two is that you fell in
love with the photo but let's take these
one at a time do you think is it the
bilateral activation of the brain that's
critical or is it just the
focus I think it's the bilateral
hemisphere stimulation because a lot of
times people will bring up trauma and
focus on it and it doesn't make them
feel any better it makes them feel worse
but I did a study on EMDR we took police
officers who were involved in shootings
and they developed PTSD and couldn't go
back to work
and I scan them and then I scan them
during their first EMDR session so while
the therapist was bringing up the trauma
and the person scanning them in that
moment or you scan them after it in that
moment interesting and so okay before
you go lights up their emotional what
does it look like when they're PTSD out
so when they have PTSD if you look at
the scans I do it looks like a diamond
pattern where their limic or emotional
brain is more active compared to a
healthy brain and then in that trauma
activation it gets bigger gets more
intense but after they did an average of
eight sessions calmed it down
and that psychological intervention had
biological
effects okay so that all makes sense now
when I'm stroking
myself I I am recalling the memory I'm
activating bilaterally my brain I don't
understand why that breaks the elevation
of the
emotion why yeah and I'm not sure we
know why we just know it does was
actually discovered by Francine Shapiro
when she was in Meno Park that when she
looked left and then right and did it
over and over again what she was obsess
about didn't upset her as much and it
was really from that moment she's then
started working with soldiers from the
VA and did she comment on why she did it
the first time was it accidental it was
accidental so intriguing okay yeah and
now we have other groups like the
havening group there's another group
called brain spotting but they all seem
to be bilateral hemisphere stimulation
tools to bring up the trauma and sort of
suck
the
emotion out of it so you still remember
it you know I still remember being
investigated by the medical
[Music]
board but I don't get freaked out do you
tell yourself a new story so you pull so
one of the things I find Most
Fascinating about memory is that every
time you pull it into your working
memory you're affecting it and so you
can change the tenor of that memory the
emotional Resonance of that memory as
you hold in a working memory and then
store it back so as you're doing this
you're doing the havening you're or the
bilateral eye movement or both you're
pulling the memory forward are
you to optimize the process do you need
to tell yourself a different story about
it do you need to focus on the positive
things that came out of it I mean you
talk about being able to find positives
and death is that what we're doing or
you literally just need to think about
it in the normal way that you always
think about it in your I'm sure
obsessive way but as long as you're
doing that bilateral contact it's going
to lower the emotion for many people
that's exactly what happens um other
people not so much and so then you have
to go what else is going on and do they
have a hurt prefrontal cortex so a lot
of the soldiers that we work with they
PTSD and traumatic brain injury people
just didn't focus on the fact that they
were round three IED blast and so when
things don't work like you hope they
would that's where the Imaging work I do
becomes so helpful about the second
fascinating element here so we
understand now how lower the emotional
resonance but how did you fall in love
with that photo it so even when you
retold it to me it sounded like a change
in story that you went from that's a
photo of my father's death to that's the
last photo of somebody that I loved and
cared about is that a narrative shift
that's required to get that new
emotional anchor or or the the
association with that physical sensation
is pleasant and therefore it paints that
new emotion on an old memory so part of
it is
skill um my children get horrified if I
want to watch poana one of my favorite
movies ever paana teaches people to play
the the Glad game whatever situation
you're in what is there to be glad about
in this situation so I've trained my
brain to do that over time and when you
take the emotion out something's going
to replace it and if you have skill in
managing your mind you'll often look for
what's right rather than what's wrong
and and I've worked really hard on that
cuz it wasn't my nature growing up I was
pretty anxious and I was masterful at
predicting what's the worst thing that
could happen and then I'd make it worse
so it's Hallmark of people that have
panic attacks um but I've worked really
hard and it's the blessing of my job I
get to help people and in that I always
help myself okay so we need to identify
what our dragons are we need to engage
our prefrontal cortex to make sure that
we pum the braks on that stuff we need
to reframe things get good at the Glad
game the polyana game whatever we're
going to call that um we need to engage
with reality so how are things really
instead of trying to run or hide from it
both the good and the bad so don't over
um think you're a loser failure whatever
um yeah it's completely not helpful
because negative thinking disrupts brain
function um but at the same time too
positive of thinking
you could be driving down the freeway at
125 M an hour in the rain I mean
Positive Thinking by itself is harmful
that we have to be
thoughtful careful no doubt right and
that's the prefrontal CeX there's a
whole chapter in the book on the dragon
Tamer it's like how do you tame this
dragon thunder um and and you do it with
having forethought and judgment and
impulse control which means oh by the
way you have to feed it right there's a
whole section in the book on the
scheming dragons which is really how
Society is stealing your mind if you
scheming to make you worse basically
yeah like there's the holiday Dragon
right oh it's Thanksgiving let's eat
terribly uh or it's Halloween or
Christmas you know we're going to
celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus by
eating terribly and hurting people it's
like how is does that make sense and
there's a brand new 12-step program in
this book uh because there's the
addicted dragons I talk about the bad
habit dragons and as I was writing that
I'm like you know the 12-step program
for
addiction was written basically in the
1930s and there's not one Neuroscience
step in the 12 Steps it's mostly
psychological social and spiritual and
I'm like well if a neuroscientist
rewrote the 12 steps what would he
add that step one in the traditional 12
steps is admit your life is out of
control and I'm like no that's step two
step one is what do you want
relationships work money physical
emotional what do you want step two is
your behavior getting you what you want
if it's not then you need step three
which is get your brain right cuz I
really think better brain better
decisions better brain better
relationships better brain more money
better brain better life no doubt I've
never heard anybody talk about goals
before like I'm obsessed with that and
it just seems like people don't bring it
up uh but here we go this is from the
book you're more likely to be able to
protect yourself from dragons and ants
we've talked about those when you have
clear goals a healthy blood sugar level
plenty of sleep no alcohol in your
system system and you talk about
marijuana as well which would be nice
and controversial you don't mention it
in this quote but um you have in the
book and you are not hungry angry lonely
or tired and I thought that really sums
up the protective mechanisms the things
you have to look out for and what you
have to do um walk people through why
are goals so important why is a guy that
spent 40 years focused on brain health
talking about that and how did you come
to realize just how useful that is you
have to tell your brain what you want
because it's always listening and if you
don't know what you want and I ask all
of my patients what do you want they'll
talk about money or they'll like I have
a 17 almost 18 yearold daughter and
she's had two boyfriends and I've
dismissed them both but it's like what
you want and they talk about money and
I'm like no that's a side effect of a
meaningful
purposeful
life having that is the goal is a
terrible goal and I I like money I
always say to my team no margin no
mission right you have to make money but
if that's the point that's the
prescription for unhappiness
and I've
always and I got this when I was a
medical student
it's people get burned out when they
become
unbalanced and so when I ask my patients
what they want
relationships work money it's important
but it can't be the thing right physical
emotional spiritual health what do you
want in a balanced way because if you
know then you're more likely to get it
so for
example you've met Tana uh I want a kind
caring loving supportive passionate
relationship with my wife I always want
that but I don't always feel like that
but when I'm thoughtful when I know my
goals because they're
posted I'm so much more likely to act
like that which means I'm going to have
a great
marriage especially if she has clear
goals too and we have similar goals for
our
relationship do you guys talk about your
goals all the time and when you say
they're posted where are they posted so
I have them posted in my bathroom and I
have them on my phone very smart and and
and so everything it comes out I love
like three letter three-word sentences
or three word questions and like for the
ants is it true and for goals is does it
fit does my behavior today fit the goals
I have for my life so last night I was
at the Orange County Fair they had fried
butter Puffs doesn't fit the goals I
have right because one of my goals is to
be physically healthy if you're trying
to change medical specialty you want to
live a long time cuz it's going to take
a long time
and so I want to be healthy because that
gives me energy and happiness and so the
butter fried butter Puffs didn't F yeah
I think this is a a super underserved um
thing it it there's a great Tony Robins
quot if you don't know where you want to
be in five years you're already there
and I remember when I heard that I was
like oh my God like so many people have
dreams about where they want to go and
what they want to do but they stay these
sort of vague amorphous blobs and they
never get defined and therefore you
never achieve them and your future is
always 5 years away and you're just
you're stuck in this Perpetual sameness
so it's really interesting to hear you
talk about that so now let's say that
they have their goal they've written it
down they posted it they see it multiple
places in their house how do they go
about getting the brain that they're
going to need to actually get there so
we know that we don't eat our butter
Puffs in fact what I'll ask is why don't
we eat our butter Puffs we want to a
long time I get that but specifically
what what is the problem with fried
butter yeah like what makes something
bad food I think that's the right way to
ask
it um I come up with this new phrase I
just love so much uh that you only want
to love food that loves you back that
you're in a relationship with food I
think 30% of the mental health problems
in America are related to our terrible
diet uh that that you are what you eat
in large part and if you're
eating I call them the weapons of mass
destruction highly processed pesticide
sprayed high glycemic low fiber food
like substances stored in plastic
containers you're not going to be
healthy you poison your gut you're
poisoning your brain and I published
three studies now the last one on 35,000
scin one of the world's largest Imaging
studies Tom you will not believe this
there was a linear correlation on
virtually every area of the brain as
people's weight went up the activity and
blood flow in their brain went down I
believe it
unfortunately healthy weight overweight
obese morbidly obese in a linear fashion
when I saw those graphs when I was doing
the re search I was just like horrified
and I come from a family of fat people
uh my dad used to hate when I'd say that
but I have a brother that's 150 pounds
overweight and a sister the same thing
and I know if I just ate everything that
looked good to me I would be too and no
I'm not having that especially because I
don't want a small brain right right and
and people go oh that's fat shaming and
I feel terrible about it cuz 72 2% of
the country is overweight think about
that I mean how insane is that 42% of
people are obese the pandemic made it
worse we should be worried about that
because the extra fat on your body
produces inflammatory cyto kindes and we
know inflammation is a major cause of
depression and dementia the fat on your
body takes healthy testosterone which we
need which men and women need and it
turns it into unhealthy cancer promoting
forms of estrogen that's a bad thing fat
stores toxins we need to get serious
about being at a healthy weight with
healthy food um and
so diet is critical exercise
supplementation I think is really
important I did a study 97% of the
population um low in omega-3 fatty acids
and so finding ways to supplement about
80% of us are deficient in vitamin D in
a pandemic that's not okay nope right
because people with low vitamin D
actually die more if they get
covid-19 so yeah going back to what
you're saying about fat shaming so first
of all I come from a morbidly obese
family as well and I've often said that
you when you love something you don't
hate on it look down on it like I don't
think less of people because they're
obese uh but going back to the idea of
facing reality at the same time I know
that I will lose them earlier than I
absolutely have to if they continue to
live that lifestyle and so getting
people especially now in a pandemic to
just face that it isn't fat shaming to
say you're more likely to survive this
disease that's ravaging you know the
entire human population if you are
living a healthy lifestyle get your
weight under control exercise Eat Right
workout all of that stuff um because
there's nothing worse than trying to
solve a problem when you ignore the
thing that's actually causing it like
you're just at that point it's really
about symptom mitigation versus figuring
out what's really going on
um do you think that this so going back
to weight specifically I want to pick up
on that for a second because I learned a
long time ago as a psychiatrist if you
don't admit you have a problem M you
can't solve it dude that is so true
until I finally admitted to my wife that
I was anxious I I couldn't make progress
and finally I just was like I have
to tell her and it really did not make
me feel good about myself because you
know there is something about the way
that she would look at me like I could
do anything and that felt so good and to
finally be like yo I'm over here I am
struggling homie like this is really
gnarly and of course it wasn't the
turnoff that I feared it was going to be
and it only brought us closer together
but that was really hard to admit but
then once I could say it out loud to the
person that was the only person I really
cared about impressing then it was like
okay now I can actually deal with
this because when you become more real
you become more relatable and this so
many guys don't understand this that
they deny that they have a problem
because they want to be perceived as the
person who has it all together but
nobody can relate to you um you know
that's one of the reasons I became
really vulnerable in the book and I
haven't gotten any haters I mean I have
plenty of haters don't get me wrong but
from writing from on that stand um but I
remember when I did the big NFL study at
a time when the NFL was sort of lying
they had a problem and my letter to the
commissioner you don't admit you have a
problem you can't solve it and it's
going to get worse and and that came
from marriages where especially the guy
wouldn't admit that they were struggling
and it ended up falling
apart yeah I can certainly understand
that so okay we admit that we have a
problem whether it's about weight or
whatever um how do we begin to unwind
this stuff that's really I think the the
important thing is it does it just come
down to look there are are cuz you you
write in the book and I wrote them down
so I can read them out if we need to but
um there just are there just certain
things you just have to do and you just
you have to do them and until you do
them like this is never going to change
well and that's the bad habit chapter
you know I have the bad habit dragons
there's the overeater bad habit Dragon
the worst of all the dragons is the
oblivious Dragon the dragon is that an
intentional like you're intentionally
being oblivious or people that really
just don't know you just don't know and
you haven't taken the time you go I'm
fat because everybody in my family's fat
it's like no I have a lot of fat people
in my family and I'm not because I don't
give into the behaviors making it likely
to be so and so it's about being
intentional reading the labels of the
food you eat of the products you put on
your body it's asking yourself this one
question is this good for my brain or
bad for it
right I mean ultimately in all of my
books I try to create brain Envy I want
people to love their
brains um and is this good for my brain
or bad for it and the reason that brain
Envy works just to be clear is because
you can improve your brain how exciting
is that and I've proven that over and
over and NFL players and soldiers and
police officers that you're not stock
and intuitively people should know that
right if I don't sleep tonight I'm not
going to think well tomorrow but no
one's thinking about the physical
functioning of their brain so I'm in
Justin Bieber's um new docu series
seasons and he came out I've been his
doctor for a long time and like many
celebrities he do it I'd say sometimes
show up sometimes but then because he
went through a really hard time he came
into my office and he said I get it my
brain is an organ like my heart is an
organ if you told me I had heart
problems I'd do everything you say I'm
going to do everything you say and he
got radically better
and you got to love it and and we have
to stop this whole mental illness thing
I hate it because it's not mental
illness it's brain health right get your
brain right and you're mov is better
you're happier you're more focused you
make less bad decisions which will
decrease your anxiety speaking of
anxiety so you said earlier that you
think 30% of mental health brain health
problems are tied to um
diet in my n of one experience I think
it's even higher than that so when I
think about okay suffering from profound
anxiety I'm trying all the mental tricks
and there's no doubt they helped I mean
very very beneficial but I just couldn't
I felt like I was learning to better
cope with the symptoms but I wasn't
eliminating the symptoms and so I was
like what is going on and then of course
because of what my wife went through
from a health perspective become aware
of the gut start really thinking about
what I'm eating and that there are going
to be things that might be messing me up
that I just would never have guessed um
longtime listeners of my show will grow
tired of hearing the following statement
but but at the beginning of covid I went
through something really weird that I'd
never experienced before was getting
super tired all the time brain fog just
like almost losing my zest for life and
I was like this is really bizarre and I
thought okay well what would you tell
somebody if they came and describe those
symptoms and I was like no matter what I
would tell them it's something that
you're eating because that's just so
true in terms of the way if your body's
being affected your brain's being
affected it's almost certainly something
you're eating and I'm like but my diet's
so healthy like how could this possibly
be and I was like just eliminate
whatever you're eating a lot of and see
what happens and I'm like what am I
eating a lot of and I was like peans and
so I cut out pecans 48 hours later I was
back in business I was like how the hell
is it possible that peans of all and
they were like raw they weren't even
like roasted I mean these were like the
all but just plucked off a tree
so I was I anyway I couldn't fathom that
that was it but it was it and then that
got me thinking wait a second could my
anxiety be tied to is something I'm
eating and so then I started cutting out
anything processed cuz dude I love my
zero calorie drinks love them in a way I
can't even begin to tell you but of
course that comes with a lot of
chemicals that I've never even heard of
and I've heard of a lot of chemicals and
in cutting all of that out the what my
anxiety feels like to me now I might
still have a thought about something's
going to go wrong in the future and that
will trigger that that feeling of like
ooh something bad is coming but it never
escalates food is so
important
and when I put my patients on
Elimination Diet so we basically
eliminate the bad things um they
get so much better and the nutritionists
that work with us have more success
stories than the psychiatrist and used
to irritate me Food Matters what you put
in your mouth your
microbiome matters we have these hundred
trillion bugs in our gut and what we
feed them you know helps to grow the
ones that make you happy or they help to
grow the ones that make you angry and
sad um it's just so important and our
biggest blog last year uh I wrote one
called I Told You So and when I and I
started with when I dated Tana she told
me I will never tell you I so you so she
lied it's like her favorite thing to say
and
then I said but the American Cancer
Society just came out and said you
shouldn't drink why it increases your
risk of seven different kinds of cancer
not to mention it prematur when people
were giving that advice I was like like
this one just doesn't land for me it
just doesn't seem possible that it would
be essentially a health food what about
weed
marijuana is
uh in that it's very in my friend it's
in I published a study on a thousand
marijuana users every eror of their
brain is lower in activity now does help
some people like when my father-in what
what does it actually help with it helps
increase appetite for some people it can
actually decrease seizure frequency it
it suppresses activity in the brain
I I am very worried because as the
perception of dangerousness of a drug
goes down it's use goes up especially in
teenagers and if you're smoking or
eating Edibles as a teenager you've just
increased your risk of anxiety
depression and suicide in your 20s o so
that's it's not good and I you know all
child psychiatrist I'm also a child
psychiatrist have the experience of all
of a sudden this 16-year-old is not
acting right and we test them and they
end up positive for marijuana that it's
not innocuous and and I think that's the
important thing now is it worse than
alcohol well actually I published a
study on 62,000 this is the world's
largest Imaging study 62,000 scans on
how the brain ages and then we looked at
what accelerated aging schizophrenia was
the worst your brain looked 10 years
older than people who didn't have
schizophrenia the second worst and it
was a surprise for me was marijuana your
brain worse than alcohol worse than
alcohol worse than smoking what I am
startled by that yeah I was too and it's
like it's the data and I have no dog in
the fight right if you smoke if you
don't smoke you're just actually more
likely to see me if you do is it
lowering blood flow like it's lowering
blood flow to the brain wow I thought
for sure you were going to say alcohol
was the worst yeah but neither of them
are good man that's
crazy yeah so food can make you happy so
can drugs that's the that's the problem
like when I think about all the the
insults that people can do to their
brain how important the brain is for the
mind and that your mind if you don't
have your mind under control your life
your life will be determined by how well
you control your mind like I just
because ultimately all we are is a
string of emotions things either make
you feel good bad or in different and
when you spend a lot of time feeling bad
life sucks when you spend a lot of time
feeling good life is great and it
doesn't matter if you have all the money
in the world if you feel bad life sucks
doesn't matter if you're broke as the
day is long if you feel good life is
great so but the number of things that
insult our brain from just concussive
Trauma from certain types of contact
Sports to um sitting around
to uh weed alcohol a lot of things that
are fun over prescription of drugs oh my
God Gadget screen time like yeah
negative thoughts like it is bananas and
the amount of time that people have to
put into getting it right so we have a
high school course called brand Thrive
by 25
and I I love this course and we play a
game with them called who has more fun
the kid with the good brain or the kid
with the bad brain who gets the girl and
gets to keep her because he doesn't act
like an ass the kid with a good brain or
they get with the bad brain who gets
into college who gets the job they want
who has the most consistent positive
behavior it's the person with a good
brain this is not about not having fun
it's about having fun with all of you
intact yeah and over a prolonged period
of time over a prolonged period of time
Dr aiman thank you so much for coming on
dude I always love your books and time
with you where can people connect with
you and ensure that they have the good
brain over a long period of time well
they can find us at amen clinics.com so
amen like the last word in a prayer
clinics.com they can follow me on
Facebook or Instagram Instagram it's
_ Amen we're doing a whole cool series
called scan my brain have done some just
wonderful influencers it's super fun and
um we want to create a revolution in
brain health we want to end mental
illness and that whole discussion and
really start talking with a better brain
always comes a better life I love it I
love it and thank you for everything
that you do guys if you haven't already
uh followed him on every conceivable
Place do read his book books they are
transformative and speaking of things
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