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Dr. Daniel Amen: Any alcohol cuts brain blood flow on scans

Amen runs SPECT scans on people who drink and finds lower blood flow: even moderate alcohol raises risk of seven cancers. Screen time and sugar harm kids too.

Dr Daniel AmenguestSteven Bartletthost
Feb 10, 20252h 18mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:30

    Intro

    1. DA

      There are, in fact, many roads to Alzheimer's disease, and it's things like marijuana, alcohol, and football. And then a study found that people that had a simple carbohydrate-based diet had a 400% increased risk of getting Alzheimer's. But one of the major causes is...

    2. SB

      Gosh.

    3. DA

      Dr. Daniel Amen is the renowned psychiatrist and brain health expert...

    4. SB

      Who has scanned over 260,000 brains, including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Kendall Jenner. To determine what we need to do for optimum brain health. In 2024, the word of the year was brain rot. Why?

    5. DA

      Because people are worried that their habits are shrinking their brain, like food, gaming, social media, pornography.

    6. SB

      What about working with assholes?

    7. DA

      Bad for your brain.

    8. SB

      And then is there anything non-obvious that we do to our children's brains?

    9. DA

      Yes, and this is so important because this is one thing a lot of parents do without knowing the consequences for their children. And we'll talk about that.

    10. SB

      What about negative thinking?

    11. DA

      Well, we just published this huge study on this, and the science is really clear. It decreases activity in your prefrontal cortex, which impacts your motivation, focus, and mood. It is detrimental to your brain. So how can you kill the negative thoughts? Well, there's a whole bunch of things. One is saffron. Head-to-head, it's been shown to be equally effective as antidepressants. And then whenever you feel sad, or mad, or nervous, what I want you to do is... It's so simple.

    12. SB

      I have been forced into a bet with my team. We're about to hit 10 million subscribers on YouTube, which is our biggest milestone ever, thanks to all of you, and we wanna have a massive party for the people that have worked on this show for years behind the scenes. So, they said to me, "Steve, for every new subscriber we get in the next 30 days, can $1 be given to our celebration fund for the entire team?" And I've agreed to the bet. So if you want to say thank you to the team behind the scenes at Diary of a CEO, all you've gotta do is hit the subscribe button. So actually, this is the first time I'm gonna tell you not to subscribe (laughs) because it might end up costing me an awful lot. (laughs)

    13. NA

      (Crowd cheering)

    14. SB

      Dr. Daniel Amen. If someone's just clicked on this conversation now, and they have no idea who you are, which is highly, highly unlikely, can you tell me why

  2. 2:30 – 4:03

    Why This Conversation Is Important

    1. SB

      listening to you and this conversation and the work that we're about to go through now is so important for everyone, even those who believe that right now they have no issues?

    2. DA

      Everybody has a brain that's listening. It controls everything they do, how they think, how they feel, how they act, how they get along with other people. And most people know it but don't, your brain is the organ of intelligence, character, and every decision you make. And when it works right, you work right. And when it doesn't, you have trouble. And most people have no idea that their bad decisions, their sadness, their anxiety, their insomnia, their poor relationship has to do with the physical functioning of their brain. So if they want to be happier, they need to think about loving and caring for their brain. Optimize your brain, you optimize your mind's ability.

    3. SB

      You mentioned scanning brains there. Remind me again how many people's brains you've scanned now.

    4. DA

      So it's now about 260,000.

    5. SB

      260,000 people's brains. And you've scanned some famous brains?

  3. 4:03 – 4:50

    How Many Brains Has Daniel Scanned?

    1. SB

    2. DA

      Yes, actually, people from nine months old to 105-

    3. SB

      Oh.

    4. DA

      ... from 155 countries. And it's public knowledge I've been in Justin Bieber's docuseries Seasons. I scanned his brain. I've scanned Miley Cyrus's brain. Um, Mel Gibson just went on Joe Rogan and talked about me scanning his brain. Um, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Jake Paul.

    5. SB

      (clears throat) You also scanned my brain, and you actually taught me a lot from scanning my brain, which I'm eternally grateful for.

    6. DA

      And did you think about your brain after we talked about it?

    7. SB

      Of course, I think about it all the time now. It's also interesting that in 2024, the year just gone, the word of the year was the word brain rot.

  4. 4:50 – 5:43

    Brain Rot: Why Are People Caring About Their Brains Now?

    1. SB

      And that's interesting because the subject of the brain I don't think has been given the credit and the attention it deserves really until recently, and much of your work has played into that. Why do you think, if you had to guess, why do you think Oxford University's word of the year was brain rot?

    2. DA

      Because people are worried that their habits are shrinking their brain, especially social media and digital addictions. I'm so hoping they'll go to brain health as... (laughs) Be more aspirational.

    3. SB

      We've talked about a lot of things on this show. Um, one of the things that really stuck with me is how the content we consume can have a profound impact on our brains. We often think of the chemicals, the, the drugs, the

  5. 5:43 – 8:39

    Is There a Link Between Porn Consumption and Brain Health?

    1. SB

      alcohol, and all those things which I wanna talk about. But one such piece of content which I don't think we have talked about is the impact of pornography on the brain. Is there a link between brain health and pornography consumption?

    2. DA

      You know, it's such an important question, and the first thing that comes to my mind is...Exposing developing brains to pornography is so dangerous. And eight, nine, ten-year-old boys are being exposed to the internet, where they can see all sorts of pornography when their brains aren't anywhere near the ability to discern-

    3. SB

      Hmm.

    4. DA

      ... what's good, what's not good, what's healthy, what's not healthy. And it's deadening, and I use that word purposefully, the nucleus accumbens, which is the area of your brain that produces, that responds to dopamine. So, dopamine, and I know you've done podcasts on dopamine, it's the neurotransmitter that helps us with motivation, which helps us with focus, which helps us with happiness and mood. And when the nucleus accumbens gets hit repeatedly with pornographic images, it's like dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. It begins to deaden that area, and then you need more and more to begin to feel anything at all. That's why fame is so hard on the brain. But pornography, especially in the young, is incredibly damaging to the brain.

    5. SB

      So is that applicable to all things that cause like a really sharp burst of dopamine and stimulation? So you said there fame, pornography, I mean, potentially gaming or gambling, those kinds of things. Um, alcohol's obviously one of those things as well.

    6. DA

      Cocaine.

    7. SB

      Cocaine.

    8. DA

      Methamphetamines.

    9. SB

      Especially for a developing brain.

    10. DA

      Especially for a developing brain. If there's any message, protect your brain until you're 25. And then y- your brain will protect you. But until then, your prefrontal cortex, that from third of your brain, is not fully developed, which is sort of why God gave you parents. It's like, so you supervise. It's like, "Oh, my teenagers hate it if I supervise them." And yeah, they hate it more if you don't. Um...

    11. SB

      But what if you get to 25, and you're listening to this now, and you go, "Jesus, I, uh, does this mean that I can do nothing about my brain?"

    12. DA

      Of course not. I mean, what I've s- shown

  6. 8:39 – 9:57

    Can I Fix My Brain?

    1. DA

      is, let's just take the NFL work. High, big damage, right? Let's stop lying about this. Football is a brain-damaging sport. And soccer as well is a brain-damaging sport. So high levels of damage. 80% of my NFL players got better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. So if you've been bad to your brain, like nonstop gaming, lots of pornography, terrible food, and all of a sudden you go, "Oh, I can have a better brain," your brain can be better in as little as a couple of months, where you just feel better, think better, your mood is better. But it has to start with this concept. I think we've talked about brain envy. It's y- you have to want to have a better brain.

    2. SB

      When pe- when people come to you, what is it they're typically motivated by? Like in terms, when they come to you, why do they come to you? Is it because they've heard of your work on the internet and they, they

  7. 9:57 – 11:15

    Why Do People Come to See Daniel?

    1. SB

      want to just, they're curious about getting their brain scanned or is, do they usually come with a symptom or some other ailment?

    2. DA

      No, usually they come because they're in pain, that they're anxious, they're depressed, their, um, marriage is falling apart, or, um, their wife says, "Come or I'm going to divorce you." It's not an uncommon thing. Or they're struggling in school. They're not living up to their potential in one way or another. Now, about 10% of the people come to us go, "I'm fine, but I want to see, and I want to be better, and I don't want Alzheimer's." So a lot of people come because they love a parent or grandparent that has Alzheimer's. They realize there's a genetic component to it, and they don't want to have that. But that's really someone who is forward thinking. I think more people come because they're hurting.

    3. SB

      What evidence have we got that alcohol is bad for the brain and bad for the rest of our body, especially in moderation?

    4. DA

      Well, the sur- US Surgeon General just came

  8. 11:15 – 15:16

    Alcohol Is Bad for the Brain

    1. DA

      out wanting to put cancer warning labels on all alcohol. Um, that's sort of big evidence. I mean, three years ago, the American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol because drinking any alcohol increases your risk of seven different cancers. And that's a big deal. And then the evidence I have in my first clinic was outside of the Napa Valley in Northern California. So alcohol is a big thing, and as I was looking at scans, I'm like, "Your brain's older than you are." That alcohol is not a health food. It is detrimental to brain function. And then, of course, you know, so I've been a psychiatrist now, I decided to be a psychiatrist 46 years ago.The number one problem I see is someone drinks and they make a bad decision. Someone drinks and they say something to their partner that they just shouldn't have said. Or they drink and they go to work, or they drink and they drive, or they drink and it just causes so much trouble. And in 1999, I did a show, uh, called The Truth About Drinking, and we took a young adult, um, who had trouble with alcohol, got him sober, scanned him, and then on national television, we got him drunk, just like he got drunk, and it just crashed his frontal lobes. And he just... it's so clear that alcohol takes the brake off your brain. And so people use it to calm the brain down, but there's certain parts of your brain you really don't want to go offline. The part that says, "Don't say that. Don't do that."

    2. SB

      Is that just when, when I've had one drink and then when I sober up, I'm back to normal? Or is this chronic?

    3. DA

      Well, it depends. One drink will decrease, um, in a mild way, your decision-making. When it becomes chronic, y- your life begins to get out of control.

    4. SB

      'Cause I'm wondering, you know, if, if people drink in moderation, are they going to see long term impacts to their brain? What... is there such thing as, um, drinking just a little bit and being fine?

    5. DA

      Well, I, you know, I think there's always sort of a dose response. There was a study in Spain that looked at people who had mild, moderate, and severe drinking, and they compared them to people who didn't drink at all.

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. DA

      Even the people who only drank a little had disruptions in the white matter of their brain. Now most people have heard about gray matter and white matter. Gray matter is nerve cell bodies. White matter is nerve cell tracks. So if you think of gray matter is where the computation, uh, is happening in the brain, and white matter are like the highways. And so even a little bit of alcohol is creating potholes. It's disrupting the highways in the brain. And if you're drinking a lot, you are prematurely aging your brain.

    8. SB

      You've scanned a lot of people who are alcoholics.

    9. DA

      Lots.

    10. SB

      I mean, I've got some scans here, um, which I'll put on the screen, but can you explain to me exactly what a brain looks

  9. 15:16 – 16:44

    What Does a Brain Look Like After Heavy Drinking?

    1. SB

      like when the person has been drinking heavily for a long period of time?

    2. DA

      So again, we do a study called SPECT, and SPECT looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how the brain works. And for people who know the mitochondria, those are the little powerhouse energy plants in your cells, the SPECT tracer, 49% of it is taken up by the mitochondria in the brain. So we're also looking at energy metabolism. And what we see with alcoholic brains is something we call scalloping, which is this global decrease in activity. So a healthy brain, full, even, symmetrical activity, it sort of looks big, fat, and round. With alcohol, or other drugs too, you see the brain begin to shrivel, and you see it, uh, gets this wavy appearance, and I'm like, "The real reason not to drink is it damages your brain."

    3. SB

      So if you drink, then you have a smaller brain than you would have otherwise?

    4. DA

      Correct.

    5. SB

      That's pretty scary. And what does it... why does brain size matter? You know when people say it's going to shrink your brain?

    6. DA

      (laughs)

    7. SB

      Why does that matter?

    8. DA

      So I often say the only organ where size

  10. 16:44 – 20:15

    Why Does Brain Size Matter?

    1. DA

      really does matter is your brain. Um, because you don't want to lose brain tissue, right? There is a part of your brain called the hippocampus, which is on the inside of your temporal lobes, right here, and it's really important. And, um, it makes new stem cells every day, about 700. And if you're drinking, it's not allowing those new stem cells to take hold, to take root. You want to strengthen them so they will continue to support mood, memory, um, spatial orientation, spatial processing.

    2. SB

      So that's the symptoms. You're, you're naming there, inadvertently, symptoms of someone who has damaged their hippocampus, right? So poor memory, probably poor spatial awareness, brain fog.

    3. DA

      And mood.

    4. SB

      And mood issues too.

    5. DA

      And judgment and impulse control. Um, but it, it impacts the brain globally, so the cerebellum, so they're not gonna process as quickly. Their decisions are not gonna be as good. And, um...I worked with my friend, B.J. Fogg, who wrote a wonderful book called Tiny Habits, and he's the, um, director of Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab, which is really on how people change. And he and I work together 'cause I'm always interested in how I can help my patients better. Um, and I met him at a conference, like, 18 months after we worked together, and he said, "I just want to thank you." I'm like, "Why?" He said, "I wake up 100% every day." I'm like, "Why?" "I stopped drinking." 'Cause people wh- and they're around me enough, (laughs) they either drink more, I suspect, or they stop. And isn't that what you want? You'd wake up 100% every day. Why would you ever do anything that damages stem cell production in your brain?

    6. SB

      One might argue that it's serving me in the short term.

    7. DA

      Of course. But there are lots of things that are, like you see, you know, so let's say you're married, but you're at a conference and you see this really cute person and you're like, "Oh, well in the short run that could be awesome."

    8. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    9. DA

      And in the long run you lose half your net worth and visit your children on the weekends. It's like... (laughs)

    10. SB

      (laughs)

    11. DA

      That's not a good thing. (laughs) And, you know, in the short run, you feel more relaxed, right, with alcohol, you feel more relaxed, and in the long run it increases your risk of Alzheimer's disease. I'm like, "That's not a good trade-off."

    12. SB

      On your blog, you published a study from 2019... Sorry, from 2009. It was a study on monkeys that showed a decline in new brain cell development, and in that study there was a 58% decline

  11. 20:15 – 21:41

    Alcohol Is Aging Your Brain

    1. SB

      in new brain cells and a 63% reduction in the survival rate of new cells from alcohol use. They had monkeys drinking alcohol?

    2. DA

      Yes. They had monkeys doing all sorts of-

    3. SB

      (laughs)

    4. DA

      ... things they shouldn't be doing.

    5. SB

      Which is effectively like premature brain aging.

    6. DA

      Right. And it's worse if you do it before your brain is finished developing. And so if you think of fraternities-

    7. SB

      Yeah.

    8. DA

      ... and sororities, it's like I'm not a fan of sending children away to college and, um, it's 'cause you have all these underdeveloped brains or not fully developed brains (laughs) and you put them all together without appropriate adult supervision and a lot of bad things happen at fraternity parties and sorority parties.

    9. SB

      They're drinking less though now.

    10. DA

      No, they're still drinking all the time.

    11. SB

      Oh really? Those ones, okay.

    12. DA

      And now they're adding mushroom parties to it, so it's alcohol and psilocybin and marijuana because everybody thinks marijuana is innocuous, which is a lie. And, uh...

    13. SB

      Is it? Ma- marijuana?

    14. DA

      It's a lie. Yeah. And I was actually really upset. Um, so President Biden,

  12. 21:41 – 26:43

    How Bad Are Drugs for the Brain?

    1. DA

      during the time he was running for president, so this is 2019, he's on the debate stage with a lot of other people and they ask him if he would federally, uh, legalize marijuana and he said, "I don't think the science is decided" and "No, I don't think I would." And Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, shamed Biden on national television. He said, "Man, are you high?" Which is just horrifying. And I'm watching this going, "The science is actually really clear marijuana is bad for the brain." I published a study on 1,000 marijuana users. Every area of their brain is lower in activity. And just today, a study came out in the Journal of the American Medical Association on 1,021... 1,027 marijuana users, um, it decreased activity in the hippocampus that affected their memory centers. If you're a teenager and you use marijuana, in your 20s you have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression and suicide. This is not innocuous and we've been advertised this load of crap which is, "Oh, it's just good medicine." And for some people it is helpful, but let's not say it's innocuous because that's a lie. And we are now... So many states have legalized marijuana for recreational use, including here in California, and the mental health crisis is not better. If anything, it's dramatically worse.

    2. SB

      There's two issues here, isn't there? There's the impact cannabis has on the brain and then there's the whole issue of legalization. And I was re- as you were speaking, I was just looking at some of the research and it, it says exactly what you said. It says that there was a study published in JAMA Network which examined over 1,000 young adults' brains and almost 70% of heavy users exhibited reduced brain activity during working memory tasks. The decline was associated with poor, poorer performance in retaining and using information. Long-term cannabis use has been linked to smaller hippocampus volume, which again impacts memory and learning.So, I mean, the, the science is clear th- of what it's doing, but the, the question of legalization is a whole nother issue, because I would s-

    3. DA

      Well, please don't put people who use marijuana in jail.

    4. SB

      Yeah. Yeah.

    5. DA

      Like, that's just a bad use of money.

    6. SB

      Yeah.

    7. DA

      That, that's not smart.

    8. SB

      It's crazy, yeah.

    9. DA

      But the, the problem becomes we're not educating kids on the potential damage to brain development, which nobody really argues about. N- nobody's really... nobody reputable I know of is going, "Yeah, give it to teenagers and let them smoke all they want." No, it's just dumb. So I th- it's a bigger question, and I think the answer... uh, I have a high school course in... um, it's called Brain Thrive By25, and we actually studied it in 16 schools. Decreases drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decreases depression and improves self-esteem. Why? We teach kids to love and care for their brain. You got your brain scanned and now you love your brain more. You, you want it to be better. That's the answer. It's not scanning everybody, it's educating everybody, "Your brain controls everything you do, and when it works right, you work right, and when it doesn't, you don't." So let's love it and let's learn together how to optimize it. But the big innovation, Steven, for 2025 in psychiatry are marijuana, psilocybin, and ketamine. The street drugs of the '60s are coming back. And I'm like... I feel like I'm living in this insane world where we're not talking about, "You should eat better, and exercise, and learn not to believe every stupid thing you think. And meditation could calm your mind probably more effectively than alcohol or marijuana, and it's not hard to learn."

    10. SB

      What's wrong with, uh, psilocybin, magic mushrooms?

    11. DA

      Yeah, everybody's so excited about microdosing and it's a treatment for depression, and I think I've seen this story

  13. 26:43 – 33:06

    What's Wrong With Magic Mushrooms?

    1. DA

      before. So in the early '80s, benzos, you know, like Xanax and-

    2. SB

      Yeah.

    3. DA

      ... Klonopin and Ativan, they were mommy's little helper. And, "This'll really help your anxiety." The problem is, they make your brain look older than you are and they're addictive as hell. Then there was alcohol was a health food, marijuana is innocuous, pain is the fifth vital sign, which led to the opiate epidemic, and now we're into mushrooms. Psilocybin-associated psychosis has gone up 300% in the last couple of years. That, not for everybody, but for some vulnerable people, and we don't know who they are, it can flip them into a psychotic episode. I'm like, "We need to be careful. We need to be thoughtful."

    4. SB

      So psilocybin hasn't yet been legalized in the US. A lot of-

    5. DA

      In Oregon.

    6. SB

      Oh, it has been in Oregon. Um, are, i- is it being delivered yet in Oregon in a therapeutic setting?

    7. DA

      I think just now.

    8. SB

      Is it?

    9. DA

      So it, th- there was a two-year waiting period.

    10. SB

      Yeah.

    11. DA

      And they were training, uh, people to do psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.

    12. SB

      But there isn't a psilocybin compound that's been approved yet by the FDA. So there's still, I think it's stage three clinical trials, from what I understand. I was quite involved in that world as an investor once upon a time, and so I understand the, like, rigor to get these compounds clinically approved. And you're right. So in the early, like, clinical trials, there's, I mean, groups of, like, 20 people in some of the early clinical trials. And as they're progressing now and I think getting to stage three, they need to have bigger sample sizes and make sure that th- these compounds are safe. And from what I've seen, a lot of people are trying to get it approved in a clinical setting for ca- cases of treatment-resistant depression, where you do see, even in those, the studies that I've read, you see some people have adverse responses. So some people get worse, and there's, you know, if you take a, someone who's s- treatment-resistant depressed and potentially suicidal and you give them a, a qu- a strong compound like psilocybin, some people can get worse. But for the ones that get better, it's pretty remarkable. It's like I've been... I remember the first study that I read, I think, c- coming out of the Lun- uh, one of the London universities that's really leading on this, maybe Imperial College London or something, and it said something like 30% of people that did one dose of psilocybin were... went into clinical remission after 12 weeks after one dose. And there's really, like, nothing else that I can think of that can deliver that kind of response in that period of time.

    13. DA

      Ke- ketamine.

    14. SB

      Ketamine. I mean-

    15. DA

      Ketami-

    16. SB

      ... MDMA's, I think, been g-

    17. DA

      Ketamine can do it, but then ketamine can also be addictive and can be problematic. So I'm like, "Well, why wouldn't we scan them first and then try to figure out why you're depressed?" 'Cause if you think about it, depression is like chest pain, and nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain. Why? It doesn't tell you what's causing it and it doesn't tell you what to do for it. All sorts of things can cause chest pain, right? From a heart attack, a heart arrhythmia, a heart infection, gas, an ulcer, grief. All of those can cause chest pain.Well, there's a whole bunch of things that can cause depression, like loss, negative thinking, low thyroid, having a head injury, um, being exposed to mold or mercury, lead. It's like if you don't look, if you just give everybody, "You're depressed based on these nine symptoms," and now we go give everybody an SSRI, which is ludicrous because that's assuming everybody with... It's sort of like giving everybody with chest pain nitroglycerin, which is stupid, r- right? You would never give everybody who has chest pain one treatment. You'd go, "I have to target the treatment to the cause." But if you never look, you have no idea. So for example, I was on the Kardashians, and so it's public that, um, I saw Kendall, and I saw her for post-COVID anxiety. Her brain was on fire from COVID. And a lot of people don't understand that COVID and other infections can cause inflammation in the brain. Well, that's not a psilocybin thing.

    18. SB

      Hmm.

    19. DA

      That's an anti-inflammatory cocktail to help post-COVID anxiety or post-COVID depression. If you don't look, you don't know, you end up flying blind, and that's what I've been fighting (laughs) with my colleagues for the last 33 years is, how do you know unless you look? And what other medical specialists never look at the organ they treat? So we could talk about, "Oh, I've seen these amazing results," and I think we should see, well, what's the scan pattern that you're gonna respond to psilocybin or Lexapro or ketamine or Lamictal, right? I mean, it's great we have all these treatments, but let's not fly blind when we don't have to.

    20. SB

      There's this graph I saw the other day circulating around the internet which I'm gonna show you, and I'll put it on the screen for anybody that can't see it. But it shows globally which countries distribute the most

  14. 33:06 – 39:31

    Are Antidepressants Being Oversubscribed? Proven Alternatives

    1. SB

      antidepressant pills, SSRIs, and the United States leads the way by a long margin. I mean, I think in- in looking at that graph, it's almost ten times more antidepressant pills per person are handed out in the United States than other parts of the world, and I wondered why. Why does the USA hand out antidepressant pills like, like they're water or something?

    2. DA

      It's such an interesting graph, um, because here in America, we want the fast answer. "I don't feel well. Fix me." And what doctors have... Do you know 85% of psychiatric drugs in America are prescribed by non-psychiatric physicians in seven-minute office visits that do standard of care 12% of the time?

    3. SB

      What does that mean?

    4. DA

      And, that they do what most doctors would consider good medicine 12% of the time. So you go to your family doctor or your nurse practitioner and you go, "I'm sad, I'm anxious, I'm not sleeping," you might, and we hear this all the time at Amen Clinics, I have 11 clinics around the United States, we hear it all the time that, "I went to my doctor and he gave me a prescription for Lexapro, Xanax and Ambien." And I, it just blows my mind that they would put you on something that changes your brain to need them in order for you to feel normal. See, people don't understand. And I am not opposed to medication. I use it when I think I need to. But let's be clear, they do not heal, fix, anything. What they do is they suppress symptoms, but then once they've suppressed the symptoms, they've changed your brain so you need them in order to feel okay.

    5. SB

      Wow.

    6. DA

      I don't like that. Like, what can I do naturally head-to-head against antidepressants? Saffron has been shown to be equally effective, the spice saffron, head-to-head against antidepressants. Walking like you're late, 45 minutes four times a week, equally effective. Head-to-head against antidepressants, taking omega-3 fatty acids, equally effective in a study from Australia. Head-to-head against antidepressants, learning how to not believe every stupid thing you think has been shown to be equally effective. So why not, if you're depressed and you can't get scanned, start walking? Take omega-3 fatty acids and saffron and learn how to kill the ANTs. ANT stands for automatic negative thoughts. The thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And we grow up, I don't know if the same thing is in England, w- w- there's no training on how to manage your mind.Right? I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency when one of my professors said, "You have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think." And I'm 28.

    7. SB

      Yeah.

    8. DA

      And I, I'm in my residency, which means I finished college, I finished medical school, and I believe every stupid thing I think. That no one had ever taught me how to manage my own thoughts.

    9. SB

      I can't believe that thing you just said about saffron. (sniffs) I was reading about it here, it says, "Research indicates that saffron may be as effective as SSRIs in treating mild and moderate depression, and a meta-analysis of eight studies found no difference between saffron and SSRIs in reducing depressive symptoms." (laughs) But in fact, the side effect profile is probably better for saffron.

    10. DA

      Well, so I got interested in saffron about 25 years ago because I saw a study. So there are now 25 randomized controlled trials showing that saffron is as effective as SSRIs and other antidepressants. But the thing that caught my interest, this may speak more about me, is they didn't decrease sexual function. In fact, they enhanced it. And so I've been a psychiatrist a long time and SSRIs for the right brain, they work, but they make it harder to have an orgasm. They decrease your libido. And I don't like that. I don't want to separate... If you're depressed, you're already separated from your partner.

    11. SB

      Yeah.

    12. DA

      If you're depressed and you can't have an orgasm or you're not interested, that's damaging not only to you, but it damages your partner. And so then I thought, saffron can enhance sexual function. And I'm like, okay, I'm paying attention.

    13. SB

      (laughs)

    14. DA

      And so I have collected every study ever published on saffron and brain and mental health. There's actually five studies showing it enhances memory, that it was as good as Aricept in people. Aricept's a medicine we use in Alzheimer's disease. And it's as good as Aricept, so it helps memory, it helps mood, it helps sexual function. I'm like, mood, memory, and sex. I'm going to take it.

    15. SB

      (laughs)

    16. DA

      Mood, memory, and sex. So yeah, I love saffron. So why wouldn't we start with that and exercise and learn to manage your mind rather than start with Lexapro or even psilocybin or ketamine?

    17. SB

      One of the things when people are talking about psychedelics that they're trying to treat is trauma.

    18. DA

      Right.

    19. SB

      Early childhood trauma. Um, is that something that you can see if you looked at my brain? Could you see trauma on

  15. 39:31 – 43:04

    Can You See Trauma on the Brain?

    1. SB

      my brain?

    2. DA

      Yes.

    3. SB

      And have you looked at trauma-

    4. DA

      There's a diamond pattern that I've written about, I published in... Actually, Discover Magazine in 2016 listed my study. So, I published a study on 21,000 people showing we could separate post-traumatic stress disorder from traumatic brain injury with high levels of accuracy, and then we repeated the study on soldiers and showed the same thing. And this year, I just published the world's largest study on childhood trauma. So do you know the ACE score?

    5. SB

      Yes, which is a measure of childhood trauma.

    6. DA

      Childhood trauma, adverse childhood experiences. So it's on a scale of zero to 10. How many bad things happened to you as a child? Physical, emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, um, being raised with a parent that has a mental illness, that's incarcerated, addiction, watching, um, your mother be abused, so domestic violence. So, zero to 10. I'm a one. My wife's an eight. We adopted our two nieces who are both nines. And so I'm very interested in childhood trauma.

    7. SB

      So, sorry, a nine is good or bad?

    8. DA

      Nine is terrible.

    9. SB

      Okay, so higher the number, the more the trauma.

    10. DA

      So zero is means you have none of those.

    11. SB

      Okay.

    12. DA

      Eight, you have a lot. And we... If you have four or more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top 10 leading causes of death. If you have six or more, so my wife's an eight, my nieces are nines, you die 20 years earlier than the general population. And in our study, what we showed, the more ACEs you had, the more activation of your limbic structures, especially a very interesting area called the anterior cingulate gyrus. I think of this as the brain's gear shifter, lets you go from thought to thought, move from idea to idea, be flexible, go with the flow. And when this is overactive, people worry. They hold onto things. It's like the trauma is always in front of them. And I often do timeline. I ask people, "Do you see your life, um, going from left to right or from front to back?" And I see the past behind me. My wife sees the past in front of her. And that's often what you see with trauma, and their brain becomes overactive in their emotional brain, which makes them at higher risk for pain syndromes, um-... higher risk for anxiety, higher risk for depression, higher risk for insomnia. That they're sort of always looking for bad things to happen.

    13. SB

      Is there anything someone can do at home? Because, you know, not everybody can afford to go to a therapist. It's hard to get access to th- these kind of treatments. If, if I have some kind of

  16. 43:04 – 45:32

    Things You Can Do at Home to Help Trauma

    1. SB

      trapped trauma or traumatic experience, PTSD, that I've been through, and I don't have any money at all, it- what would you recommend for me?

    2. DA

      Well, I mean, the first thing I want everyone to do is love their brain, right? The healthier your brain... And before we, we started, we talked about this idea, it's the brain you bring into trauma that often determines how you deal with it.

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. DA

      And to get well, you have to get your brain healthy. So that's the first thing.

    5. SB

      So that means getting off the alcohol, exercise, eat well.

    6. DA

      Certain simple supplements, yes.

    7. SB

      What supplements?

    8. DA

      And then, um, multiple vitamin for basic nutrition. Know your vitamin D level and optimize it. And most people need to supplement vitamin D. And if you have darker skin, you need five times the level of sun as someone from Northern Europe to get a healthy vitamin D level. So you should know your vitamin D level and optimize it. Like I always say, can't change what you don't measure, and vitamin D is a very important number to know. So multiple vitamin, vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acid. I did a study, 50 consecutive patients stay in my clinics who are not taking vitamin D. We measured their omega-3 index. 49 were suboptimal.

    9. SB

      Wow.

    10. DA

      And so I think most people would benefit from an omega-3 fatty acid supplement. And then it sort of depends. If you have issues with your mood, saffron would be great. If you tend to be anxious, don't go for the benzo. Um, theanine, ashwagandha, magnesium, GABA, diaphragmatic breathing, hypnosis. So many things to help anxiety before you ever go to something that's addictive, that makes your brain look older than you are, that increases your risk of dementia.

    11. SB

      One of the really, really interesting things that you mentioned, which I had never heard of or thought, thought of before, is the impact of negative thinking on your brain.

    12. DA

      We just

  17. 45:32 – 46:53

    The Impact of Negative Thinking on the Brain

    1. DA

      published this huge study on negativity bias, and it's not good for your frontal lobes. And so I love doing positivity bias training. Like I train all of my patients, start every day, "Today is going to be a great day." I mean, somebody asked me today if I believe in manifestation. Um, sort of. I think you have to tell your brain what you want, and then your brain will figure out how to get it. And so if you go, "Today is going to be a great day," your brain starts looking like, "Well, why is today going to be a great day?" And when you go to bed at night, "What went well today?" That's so helpful to just start programming your brain to look for what's right, not just for what's wrong. Virtually every depressed patient I said have a high negativity bias. And so training them to be more positive... Now, not irrationally positive-

    2. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. DA

      ... 'cause you need some anxiety. People who have low levels of anxiety die early from accidents and preventable illnesses.

    4. SB

      People who have low levels of anxiety?

    5. DA

      Low levels of

  18. 46:53 – 48:51

    Low Anxiety Will Kill You

    1. DA

      anxiety. So I always... I have an older brother who I love, um, but he's one of the don't worry, be happy people. And I sort of always wanted to be like him 'cause I'm much more serious-

    2. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. DA

      ... much more driven (laughs) . And I'm like, "No, I wanted to be like him," until I read the research. The people who live the longest... So there's a study from Stanford. They started in 1921 and they looked at 1,548 10-year-old children, and they were looking for what goes with success, health, and longevity. And what they found was shocking. The don't worry, be happy people died the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. The people who lived the longest, the one theme was they were conscientious. If they said they were gonna show up and they showed up reliably, consistently, they lived longer than everyone else. And that just shows they had good frontal lobe function. It's like if I say I'm gonna do something and I commit to it, I do it, you live longer.

    4. SB

      Could that be also linked to like discipline? Those people are more likely to be disciplined with other areas of their life, habits, eating, gym?

    5. DA

      Yes, which means they had better frontal lobe function. So why would we ever take these guys', frontal lobes, "offline"? No, love your frontal lobes. This is why when you have children, don't let them hit soccer balls-

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. DA

      ... with their forehead. It's just not a smart thing to do.

    8. SB

      I think that's probably a big thing people are thinking about this time of the year. So recording now in January 2025. Wow. Um, and everybody's thinking about...... new year, new me. They're thinking about their

  19. 48:51 – 53:26

    How to Become More Disciplined and Motivated

    1. SB

      New Year's resolution becoming a new person. Habits, motivation, discipline, these are like the trifecta of what I, I see people talking about the most at this time of year. When you... With everything you understand about the brain, how do I become a more disciplined, motivated person who has better habits?

    2. DA

      So one, you take care of your brain. And two, you know when relapse happens. Relapse happens when you don't sleep.

    3. SB

      Okay.

    4. DA

      When you've gone too long without eating. When blood sugar levels go low, relapse happens. You start making bad decisions. When... If you're a female, when you're in the last week of your cycle, because blood flow to your frontal lobe drops for many women. So I have five sisters and five daughters. I completely believe in PMS. And I've scanned people, best time of their cycle, worst time, it's like they are two different people. Sort of like they have multiple personality disorder, 'cause their brain is just so different. Now, obviously not with all women, but for certain ones, it's a big issue. And if the ANTs are taken over, so if the automatic negative thoughts, which also tend to go up if you haven't slept, if you've gone too long without eating, if you're at that time of your cycle, or you're under chronic stress, or you're drinking or using other drugs. So you might suppress them, but then they come back and they attack you. So then you have to suppress them again, and this is how addiction starts.

    5. SB

      So is it fair to say that if you're trying to change who you are, and you're trying to establish a new habit or crack motivation, then the goal shouldn't be necessarily to get a six-pack? It should probably be, be something further upstream, like sleep well or...

    6. DA

      Better frontal lobes. And so how do I get better frontal lobes? And it's three strategies. Fr- frontal lobe envy, right? Brain envy, gotta care about it.

    7. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    8. DA

      Avoid things that hurt, damaging my frontal lobes, and do things that strengthen my frontal lobes.

    9. SB

      We talked about two of these points earlier, but you t- we talked about alcohol, but in the context of sleep. I've heard on your... I think it was in your podcast, Change Your Brain, after two drinks, your REM sleep drops to roughly an hour. After four drinks, your REM sleep drops to 30 minutes. And after six drinks, your REM sleep drops to less than two minutes for many people. Um, obviously these aren't s- specific numbers because everybody's dr- brain is different. But it just goes to show, I guess, the relative drop in REM sleep, which is your restorative sleep based on alcohol consumption. And so if I drink, I'm not gonna sleep well. I'm not gonna get restorative sleep. I wake up the next day, I'm gonna struggle more with motivation and keeping any habit that I have.

    10. DA

      And anxiety, and then it, it'll gonna be more ANTs, and then you're gonna drink more to shut up the ANTs.

    11. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DA

      And then when they come back, they come back stronger.

    13. SB

      And by ANTs you mean?

    14. DA

      The automatic negative thoughts.

    15. SB

      Okay.

    16. DA

      It's the chatter that hurts you. And we talked about how to kill them. So whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, what I want you to do is just write it down. And then ask yourself a series of questions. Um, and I have, I have this cute diagram of the different types of ANTs, and I always ask my patients, "So which, which are your ANTs?" Are they like all or nothing ANTs, where you're thinking words like, "Always," "Never," "Everyone," "Every time"? Are they less than ANTs given to us by social media, uh, where we compare ourselves to others in a negative way? Guilt-beating ANTs, mind-reading ANTs, fortune-telling ANTs, blame ANTs. Um, so identify the type. D- do you have a example of a bad thought that just sort of runs around your head?

    17. SB

      Ooh, gosh. Um, I think I live in a permanent state of assuming I'm gonna get bad, bad news. And it doesn't haunt me, I think I'm generally quite

  20. 53:26 – 59:55

    How to Calm Your Worries

    1. SB

      a, a calm person and quite focused and peaceful in my brain. But I think because I've ran companies for the last 10 years or longer, you're always just about to get bad news. So I think that can be... that can be playing o- on the radio in the background somewhere. Like, I'm gonna open an email and it's gonna be bad news. There's so many opportunities for bad news in my world. So, yeah.

    2. DA

      Yeah. So I think you write it down, "This is gonna be bad." And then my friend Byron Katie has this process that I've refined a bit. So that's a fortune-telling ANT.

    3. SB

      Right.

    4. DA

      And so, "This is gonna be bad news," or, "I always get bad news." Fortune-telling, an all or nothing. And so the first question is, "Is it true?"

    5. SB

      Right.

    6. DA

      The second question, "Is it absolutely true with 100% certainty?" And if one is no, two is automatically no. The third question is, "How does that thought make me feel?"

    7. SB

      Mm-hmm. On edge.

    8. DA

      On edge. "How does the thought make me act?" So the third question has three parts: "How does the thought make me feel?" Tense, on edge. "How does it make me act?"

    9. SB

      R- uh, r- removed. Uh, what's that word? Is it apathetic?

    10. DA

      Reticent.

    11. SB

      Yeah. Yeah.

    12. DA

      And th- the third part of that, "What's the outcome of believing it's always gonna be bad?"... news.

    13. SB

      I mean, there's no good outcome really.

    14. DA

      Suffering.

    15. SB

      Yeah. Suffering, yeah.

    16. DA

      The fourth question is how would you feel if you didn't have that thought?

    17. SB

      Free.

    18. DA

      And how would you act?

    19. SB

      Uh, happier and, uh, more present.

    20. DA

      And the outcome of not having that thought?

    21. SB

      Better relationships. Better life.

    22. DA

      Right, 'cause you're more present.

    23. SB

      Yeah.

    24. DA

      Yeah. And then the fifth question... So the first one is, is it true? The second one, is it absolutely true? The third one, how would I... f- how do I feel, act, and what's the outcome of having this thought? And the fourth question is how would I feel, act, and what's the outcome of not having the thought? The fifth question's my favorite. Just take the thought and turn it to the opposite and then ask yourself, "Is that true?" So it's gonna be good news, or it's gonna be innocuous-

    25. SB

      (laughs)

    26. DA

      ... news. And then go, "Yeah, 99 times out of 100 that's true." And then I would, 'cause I'm also a CEO, I'm like, "Well, how many of these things can't I handle?" Virtually none of them. I can handle all of them, right?

    27. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    28. DA

      So I'll be okay. And then I meditate on the opposite of the thought that's bothering me, and so I take these thoughts captive. I like that. And people who are depressed are infested with negativity, but you can train that. If your brain is healthy, it's easier to do. You can train that. But you imagine, there's no second grade class in the world where teachers teach children not to believe every stupid thing they think. In fact, I was watching one of the confirmation hearings today, and the senators were filled with ants.

    29. SB

      Oh, yeah?

    30. DA

      They were distorting things, they were angry, they were making things more negative than they needed to be. We are modeled bad thinking.

  21. 59:55 – 1:00:34

    Can Extremely Negative People Become Positive?

    1. DA

      lot. But you gotta do the process, it's... You, you've gotta do the work. When you love yourself, you do the work. Like, I come from a family of fat people, but I'm not. Why? Because I know it's a risk for me, and so every day of my life I'm on an obesity prevention plan. And I wish I didn't have to be, right? I wish I could just eat anything I want and it would be okay, but it's n- not the reality of my life.

  22. 1:00:34 – 1:01:33

    Ads

    1. DA

    2. SB

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  23. 1:01:33 – 1:03:40

    Who Is Elizabeth Smart?

    1. SB

      Now for people that don't know who Elizabeth Smart is, who is she, and what did you learn from scanning her brain?

    2. DA

      So Elizabeth is someone who made really international news many years ago. She was kidnapped when she was a teenager and virtually raped every day for nine months. And then she was found, um, that she was actually very smart, and she manipulated her kidnappers to bring her back to Utah, Salt Lake City, where they kidnapped her from, and she was found by the police. And one would think she would have severe lasting post-traumatic stress disorder, and I was very interested to scan her and be helpful to her. She, in fact, did not have post-traumatic stress disorder. She had post-traumatic growth. She took her trauma and made something special out of it, where she actually runs an organization for women who have been abused. Um, and I just remember s- sitting there, and her brain was actually quite healthy. I think she helped me more than I helped her. Just so fascinated by how she could take something that's truly horrifying and come out of it and be quite okay.

    3. SB

      And she's how old now? She's in her 20s?

    4. DA

      She's in her 30s.

    5. SB

      And she's, mm, in a relationship? Married?

    6. DA

      She's married. She has children. She's running an organization. She speaks around the country.

    7. SB

      (sniffs) I mean, when people hear that, they

  24. 1:03:40 – 1:05:28

    Horrific Events Don’t Necessarily Define Who You Are

    1. SB

      might begin to question how they think about trauma, because we think of trauma as a very deterministic thing, i.e., if that happens to you, I can predict that you're gonna be X. You're gonna be, you know, maybe depressed. You're not gonna be socially, uh, functioning. You're probably not gonna have functional good relationships. That's the kind of thing we think when we hear about such a horrific event. We kind of see it as deterministic of who you then become. But she's proving that, well, that's not the case.

    2. DA

      Now, in fact, of people who go through something really terrible, about 10% of people will develop PTSD, and about 10% of people will develop post-traumatic growth, and most people sort of land in the middle. I wrote an article, (smacks lips) 1982, when I was a resident at Walter Reed, um, called Post-Vietnam Stress Disorder: A Metaphor for Current and Past Life Events. And it was when I was a resident I got the idea, it's the brain you bring into Vietnam that often determines the brain that comes out of Vietnam, that if you grew up in an alcoholic home, or you grew up with a lot of stress, you are much more likely to become a heroin addict and much more likely to come home and struggle. Um, obviously, not always. But we sh- There's a concept since I started imaging that I just dearly love so much called brain reserve. So brain reserve is the extra tissue you

  25. 1:05:28 – 1:09:08

    The Impact of Stress During Pregnancy on Your Child

    1. DA

      have to deal with whatever stress comes your way. And brain reserve actually starts before you were conceived, so if you get your brain wrapped around that a little bit, it's the idea of epigenetics, that if your parents grew up in trauma and abuse, it changed their genes to make you more vulnerable. And if... So your genetic history matters. The health of your mom while she's carrying you, your brain starts to develop three weeks after she gets pregnant. Three weeks, like about day 21. And so her stress level, her infectious disease level, pardon, her nutrition, her sleep, all of these things matter. One of my patients' wife is pregnant. I'm like, "You need to be nice to her."

    2. SB

      (laughs)

    3. DA

      "You need to, like, lower her stress (laughs) because your child..."That this has generational consequences. And then when you're born, how did the birth go? And then as a child, what was your nutrition like? What were your stress levels like? Did you play football? Did you fall off the swing? All of those things are either building your brain reserve or stealing your brain reserve. So when you get kidnapped, or let's just take two soldiers in war. They're in the same tank. They go over an IED, so they're both... the tank is blown up. One walks away unharmed, the other one's permanently disabled. Why? It's their brain reserve. The brain they brought into the explosion often determines how they are. So I argue we should always be building reserve. And I turn 70 this year, and I know 50% of people 85 and older have Alzheimer's disease, one in two. Horrifying statistics. And so I know that, so between now and 15 years from now, what are the things I can do to build my reserve so the gravity of age has less impact on me?

    4. SB

      Because your brain is gonna shrink with aging regardless of any...

    5. DA

      It, it's gonna show, although I have a whole group of super brains, people that are 80, 90, 105, and like, stunningly beautiful brains. But they're people that had stunningly beautiful brain reserve habits.

    6. SB

      Okay.

    7. DA

      That they didn't smoke, they weren't drinkers, they ate well, they were not overweight.

    8. SB

      So on the subject of Alzheimer's, it's increasing,

  26. 1:09:08 – 1:14:08

    The Cause of Alzheimer's

    1. SB

      uh, globally. The, uh, I was reading something I think from like the Alzheimer's Association that said, uh, they're predicting by 2050 that there's gonna be 150 or 160 million people globally that have Alzheimer's disease. There's still a lot of question marks around what causes it, what increases its probability, et cetera, but what do you think the cause of Alzheimer's is?

    2. DA

      I think there are many causes of it. And th- the going wisdom until recently was excessive beta amyloid plaque formation caused Alzheimer's, and there's a lot of questions around that theory. I think, uh, I have a mnemonic I like called BRIGHT MINDS. You wanna keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors. So I think there are in fact many roads to Alzheimer's disease, and people go, "What's the difference between Alzheimer's and dementia?" Dementia is the umbrella category. You start losing your faculties. Alzheimer's is one of the types. But the more you get into it, you realize it's a pretty mixed bag. And so, um, BRIGHT MINDS, blood flow, retirement and aging, inflammation, genetics, head trauma, toxins, mental health, you know. If a woman is depressed, it doubles her risk of Alzheimer's disease. If a man is depressed, it quadruples his risk of Alzheimer's. And then the sleeper in all of these is infections, immunity and infections. Many of us think it's a major, one of the major causes of Alzheimer's disease. In fact, there's a new study out on COVID, people who had COVID had an significantly increased risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. And then neurohormones, and we have this epidemic of low testosterone in young males now, um, diabesity, and sleep. Diabesity is you either have high blood sugar and/or you're overweight. And that one risk factor, if you have that one risk factor, now all of a sudden you have 10 of the 11 risk factors because-

    3. SB

      If you have one, if you have diabetes?

    4. DA

      If you're overweight or you have high blood sugar, it lowers blood flow to your brain, it prematurely ages your brain, it increases inflammation. Fat cells produce something called adipokines, which is inflammatory molecules. It changes your genetics, fat stores toxins. You're more likely to be depressed. Your... it damages your immunity, um, takes healthy testosterone, turns it into unhealthy cancer-promoting forms of estrogen and impairs your sleep, o- obviously. And then people go, "Oh, but you're fat shaming," and it's like, no, I published a study on 33,000 people. As your weight goes up, the size and function of the brain goes down. Somebody's gotta like say the truth. The truth is being at an unhealthy weight is unhealthy for your brain and body.

    5. SB

      I was reading, uh, some studies earlier on when I spoke to a insulin resistance expert. One of the things he said to me was that they now almost describe Alzheimer's as...... type 3 diabetes.

    6. DA

      Right.

    7. SB

      That's a, a phrase that's often used. And when they look at brains that are insulin resistant, the person between 40 or 80% of the time, depending on which studies you look at, has insulin resistance, i.e. they've had elevated blood sugar levels, which have caused an insulin resistance or something else. It could be stress that causes insulin resistance, or many other things. But it's interesting to think of, to think of, as you said, that, that one thing, which is the high blood sugar levels, insulin resistance can have such a profound impact on the brain. And if I've ever heard a case for being a bit more careful about sugar and other things that will spike my blood sugar levels and chronically, I think that's probably it. You know, because your brain, as you said at the start of this conversation, drives everything in your life. And to think that sugar and overconsumption of sugar, should I say, has such a profound impact on the brain is, is pause for me, because I don't like sugar that much. Um-

    8. DA

      You don't like it as much as you like your brain?

    9. SB

      Yeah, and my life.

    10. DA

      So there's

  27. 1:14:08 – 1:16:17

    The Impact of a Fatty Fish Diet

    1. DA

      a study from the Mayo Clinic where they looked at people who had primarily a fat-based diet, so fish, healthy oils, avocados, nuts and seeds. They had 42% less risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. And then they looked at people who had primarily a protein-based diet, so think of a caveman diet, 21% less risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. And then they looked at people that had a standard American diet, simple carbohydrate-based diet, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, fruit juice, sugar, a 400% increased risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. It's the sugar and the foods that quickly turn to sugar, which goes with the insulin diabetes type 3 hypothesis. You have to manage it. And the reason this is so important to me is having high blood sugar makes your blood vessels brittle and more likely to break, which means it takes longer for things to heal and you're more likely to have a stroke, and having a stroke increases your risk of Alzheimer's tenfold.

    2. SB

      So you're a fan of the keto diet. I sound like a-

    3. DA

      For some people. I, I, I find that it doesn't have enough plants-

    4. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. DA

      ... in it, which means it's probably not gonna be awesome for your microbiome.

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. DA

      So I'm more a fan of a paleo diet that has healthy fat, healthy protein, and lots of plants.

    8. SB

      Mm-hmm. We've covered so much. There's, uh, the one thing we talked, we started talking about

  28. 1:16:17 – 1:24:00

    The Impact of Hope and Grief on the Brain

    1. SB

      briefly, I think before we started recording, was the subject of hope and grief. I've never heard someone talk about the impact that grief has on the brain, when we lose someone, when we're going through prolonged pain because of a loss.

    2. DA

      Oh, I know more about this than I want. It activates the limbic or emotional circuits in the brain. And so when you lose someone important to you or even a pet, like I had, (laughs) made me cry, a white shepherd, and so beautiful and so sweet, and he got cancer. And when he died, he still lives in my head, and I lost someone important to me about 20 years ago. And for, like, a year, I was just not okay. And so I scanned myself, and my emotional brain was so busy. And it's like when you have someone, they actually become ingrained in every fun place in your brain. So they get stored in multiple places in your brain, and when they're not there anymore, your brain still looks for them. And figuring out ways to sort of calm down your emotional brain can be so hopef- so helpful.

    3. SB

      What part of the brain is that? Is that the amygdala?

    4. DA

      No, it's more the insular cortex and the thalamus. And that's what we found with depression. I published a study with scientists from USC and Los Angeles Children's Hospital on depression, and what we found, those were the structures that were dramatically overactive compared to people who were not depressed.

    5. SB

      So in grief, the prefrontal cortex, I'm assuming, because that's the more rational part of the brain, that's probably gonna be quieter.

    6. DA

      Right.

    7. SB

      What do I-

    8. DA

      And, and so it's the prefrontal cortex you bring in to the loss that often determines how you deal with it.

    9. SB

      Okay.

    10. DA

      And so your emotional brain fires up. If you're drinking and taking the prefrontal cortex offline, it can't manage it. So one thing people don't understand-... is the fibers from the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain are inhibitory, which means they calm things down. So if this isn't working right, the emotional part can sort of override it and it becomes problematic. Um, and so protecting this is so important to managing so much of your life. I mean, it's really the human, most human thoughtful part of us. And what we found within hope was that insular cortex was low. It's really interesting to us. And hope is tomorrow can be better and I have a part in it. When you're hopeless, you don't believe you have agency to make tomorrow better. And so often there are hope training courses that can be good and I, with all of my patients, I do this exercise called the One Page Miracle I referred to earlier. It's like write down, what do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health, all these things. Write it down. And so we talked earlier about we're recording this in January. I have all my patients do it when I first see them and then every January for sure. And then you just ask yourself, does my behavior get me what I want?

    11. SB

      Hmm.

    12. DA

      But, but it starts with, well, what do you want? You have to write it down. Like with my wife, I'm very clear. I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Always want that. Don't always feel like that. I got these rude thoughts that show up or conflicting ideas that'll just show up in my head. And I'm like, "Oh no. Don't say that. No, don't do that 'cause it doesn't fit." And it's been the best relationship of my life because both of us have the same goals and we're pretty good at matching our behavior to the goal.

    13. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DA

      And as a CEO, right, what do you do with companies? You have a business plan and then you have regular meetings and key performance indicators to like go, "How are we doing?" And if we're not doing great, we change. But it always starts with plan and most individuals never have a plan.

    15. SB

      So they're kind of just being dragged around by whatever. I mean...

    16. DA

      And now in social media, it's very dangerous because you might want what the Kardashians have.

    17. SB

      Yeah.

    18. DA

      And it's like, wait a minute. Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. And then if I had tattoos, I don't yet. My wife got one that freaked me out.

    19. SB

      (laughs)

    20. DA

      It's my daughter's birthday. But the tattoo would be, does it fit? Know what you want and then ask yourself every day, "My behavior get me what I want?" And some people go, "Well, isn't that selfish?" It's like, absolutely not. 'Cause if I'm good, I'm good for everyone around me.

    21. SB

      Your goal could be to be a great father.

    22. DA

      It absolutely should be to be a great father. It's to be a loving husband, kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate. It's... And oh, by the way, when people do our program, their erections are better. Just saying, because blood flow is better-

    23. SB

      (laughs)

    24. DA

      ... when brain health is better.

    25. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    26. DA

      Because your brain uses 20% of the blood flow in your body and so if you're working to have a healthy brain, everything works better. Just saying.

    27. SB

      Why did that come to mind when I asked about your goals? (laughs)

    28. DA

      Well, 'cause I went passionate and I'm like-

    29. SB

      Yeah.

    30. DA

      ... "Okay."

  29. 1:24:00 – 1:30:12

    How Do You Raise the Perfect Brain?

    1. SB

      be. Um, I've got three little nieces. My brother's had three, three, two little nieces and one nephew. My brother's a year older than me and he's had three kids already. So I've got some catching up to do. But as I'm progressing towards this season of life, one of the things I think about having met you is how to raise healthy brains. Like what parenting style is gonna make sure that my kids have very healthy brains? There's so much conversation about parenting s- styles. Um, some people say just let them do whatever they want to do. Some people say be an authoritarian and put rules in place. I'm wondering from the perspective of someone who scanned 260,000 brains, how would you raise a perfect brain?

    2. DA

      Well one, you get rid of the idea that you're gonna raise a perfect brain.

    3. SB

      Okay.

    4. DA

      Because there's a little OCD in there.

    5. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    6. DA

      Um, the first thing you do is you have goals for yourself. What kind of parent do you want to be and what kind of child do you want to raise? And for me, I want to be present.... kind, and effective. And for my kids, I want them to be mentally strong and resilient, and I want them to feel good about themselves. And then, you bond with them. You wanna be a good dad? Bonding requires two things: time, actual physical time, and listening. So time. I have an exercise I love so much called special time. 20 minutes a day, do something with your child that your child wants to do, and during that time, no commands, no questions, no directions. Just time to bond. The most important thing to children is time with their parents. And people are busy. Doesn't have to be a lot, but if you do that 20 minutes a day, it's money in the relational bank. So my first literary agent, I think he was 42 when he had his first child, and he's like, "My daughter," she was two, "Laura never wants to be with me. I come home, she completely ignores me. She just wants her mother, she wants nothing to do with me. That's because she's a girl, right?" I'm like, "Absolutely not. Carl, you're ignoring her." "Grr, what do you mean I'm ignoring her?" I said, "You're ignoring her. Do this." And I told him about special time. And he's like, "That won't work." I'm like, negativity bias.

    7. SB

      (laughs)

    8. DA

      I'm like, "Oh, great. You represent an idiot. You represent me, and you're telling me it won't work." I said, "Do this, it works. And I'm gonna call you in three weeks." So I wrote him in my appointment book, we had appointment books then. And three weeks later, I called him. "Carl, it's Daniel." "Daniel, she won't leave me alone. All she wants to do is be with me. As soon as I get home, she grabs my leg and wants her time." I'm like, "I told you, it works."

    9. SB

      Hmm.

    10. DA

      "It works." Time, actual physical time. And then shut up. Listen. This is so important. Parents are awful at listening. You've heard of active listening?

    11. SB

      Yeah.

    12. DA

      So active listen- it's, like, so simple. C- child says something. Before you give your two cents, just repeat it back and sort of listen to the feelings behind the words. "I wanna have blue hair." I know what my dad would've said. It's not, "Why not have blue hair? No way in hell, as long as you live in my house, you can have blue hair." But what does that do? It just shuts down the conversation or starts a fight. Like, "Oh, you wanna have blue hair," and then just be quiet. And then the child might say, "Everyone's doing that." My dad would say, "I don't care what anyone else is doing. As long as you live in this house, you're not gonna have blue hair. If they're gonna jump off a cliff, are you gonna go with them?" Not helpful. "Sounds like you wanna be like the other kids." And then he might say, "Sometimes I feel like I don't fit in," which is really the conversation you wanna have. And my mother would've said, "Of course you fit in. You're a good boy. You're a good-looking boy." (laughs) And that's not helpful either. It's just helpful to listen. If you have time and you have listening, you bond, and then the kids tend to pick your values because they're bonded. And then when they make a mistake, don't rescue them. Today, parents do way too much for their children, and they steal their self-esteem. I often say, "If you do too much for your kids, you build your self-esteem by stealing theirs."

    13. SB

      Hmm.

    14. DA

      And you're gonna be tempted because you're gonna have such love for them, you don't want them to hurt, and that's a mistake because character is built through struggle. Character and self-esteem are built by feeling competent you can solve problems. So when a child says, "I'm bored," rather than, "Well, we could do this," or, "We could do that," or, "We could do this," go, "I wonder what you're gonna do about it?"

    15. SB

      In terms of their diet and lifestyle, am

  30. 1:30:12 – 1:34:02

    What Are the Non-Obvious Ways to Help Children's Brains?

    1. SB

      I right in thinking it's, it's pretty obvious here, sugar, chemicals, toxins, these kinds of things are really, really bad for a child's brain? Is there anything non-obvious that we do to our children's brains?

    2. DA

      Well, I think the most important thing is you model-

    3. SB

      Okay.

    4. DA

      ... the message.

    5. SB

      So what you do-

    6. DA

      And there's a reason that all of the sugar-poisoned cereals are on the bottom two aisles, or the bottom two rows, um, because that's where children can see them. And they're like, "Mommy, I want this." And I always want you to remember this rule, and I want you to consider sharing it with your children. If you have a tantrum to get your way, the answer is no, it's always gonna be no, go for it.I'm dead serious. We teach people how to treat us by what we tolerate. We train children to be bad by what we pay attention to. So I think that's always been a very effective rule for me. If you have a fit, the answer's no. It's always gonna be no and I'm not gonna be phased if you do. But what if they do it in a store? It's like, you want long-term pain or short-term pain? Short-term pain is not giving into the tantrum. And there'd probably be a consequence when you come home for acting like that. Um...

    7. SB

      So are you saying to ignore the tantrum?

    8. DA

      It's like, I'm not giving in. Like, have fun with it. I am not giving in. We're at a friend's house and you have a fit? Well, one, there's going to be a consequence, uh, when you come home, but I don't know what it is but I'm gonna think about it. That's such a great line that in my book, Raising Mentally Strong Kids, we, we have lots of great lines for parents and it's, "I don't know what the consequence is, but I'm gonna think about it," just to increase their anxiety about it, uh, 'cause we want them thinking about their behavior and like in life there are consequences to bad behavior. We want them to think about what that might be.

    9. SB

      Might that stray into neglect when they get ... They express their emotions? So for example, if my kid is i- in a supermarket and screaming and crying, "Wah, Daddy. Uh, give me this," and I just always ignore them, are they gonna g- be raised to be, like, neglected children or something?

    10. DA

      Well, if you do it in the context of special time and active listening, and I think rules are important, um, like tell the truth, put away things that you take out, we treat each other with respect, um, do what I ask the first time. That's one of my favorite rules. Um, it prevents the kids from, like, going on and on about being oppositional. Um, there's no way they're gonna feel like you're not listening and you're ignoring them. But if they're acting inappropriately y- you wanna, one, not give into it and two, have a significant conversation and consequence for

  31. 1:34:02 – 1:35:06

    Ads

    1. DA

      it.

    2. SB

      I've invested more than a million pounds into this company, Perfect Ted, and they're also a sponsor of this podcast. I switched over to using matcha as my dominant energy source, and that's where Perfect Ted comes in. They have the matcha powders, they have the matcha drinks, they have the pods, and all of this keeps me focused throughout a very, very long recording day no matter what's going on. And their team is obsessed with quality, which is why they source their ceremonial grade matcha from Japan. So when people say to me that they don't like the taste of matcha, I'm guessing that they haven't tried Perfect Ted. Unlike low-quality matcha that has a bitter, grassy taste, Perfect Ted is smooth and naturally sweet. And without knowing it, you're probably a Perfect Ted customer already if you're getting your matcha at places like Blank Street or Joe & The Juice. But now, you can make it yourself at home. So give it a try, and we'll see if you still don't like matcha. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you 40% off all matcha if you try it today. Head to perfectted.com and use code STEVEN40, or if you're in a supermarket you can get it at Tesco or Holland & Barrett or in the Netherlands at Albert Heijn. And those of you in the US, you can get it on Amazon.

  32. 1:35:06 – 1:40:37

    Is ADHD Increasing in Our Population?

    1. SB

      One of the big themes that I wanted to ask you about, it's the last thing I really wanted to, to focus on today, is there's been such a huge rise in the conversation around neurodivergence, which we talked about in part last time. You looked at my brain. You looked at my brain and we did some tests and such and you spoke to some of my colleagues and people that know me. I think they did some surveys about me as well, and you concluded that I had ADHD. So many people are being diagnosed with A- with ADHD it seems. Wh- when we look at some of the numbers around the increase in diagnosis, it's quite, it's quite alarming, and I wonder why that is. Are people being born with more ADHD or is it an increase in the diagnosis? Um, is there a pop culture element to it where it's become quite popular to say that you have A- ADHD if you, like, forget your keys or something? What is it, in your view?

    2. DA

      So ADHD is real. There's a significant genetic component to it, but we're also living in a society that promotes its expression. So the more sugary cereals with red dye number 40 increases hyperactivity. The more gadgets you give them so they can't pay attention, um, the less they're outside in the sun, the more they're playing video games, all of those things increase the expression of ADHD. Um, again, something I know more about than I want to. Um, I, I have a book called Healing ADD and I write about my own personal experience being married to someone who has ADHD and having several of my kids who have it, um, that it's real and left untreated there are all sorts of consequences. So people always ask you, if you think of medicine like Ritalin or Adderall, people go, "What are the side effects?" And it has side effects. Sometimes it can increase tics. Sometimes it'll-... cause sleep problems. Sometimes you'll lose some weight or decrease your appetite. Um, but they don't ask me the other question, and I always wanna make sure they do, is what are the side effects of not treating ADHD? And there are things like school failure, incarceration, bankruptcy, divorce. It's serious. Now, for someone like you who's really driven and very bright, for you, the consequences, and this is gonna sound crazy, but it's underachievement, or it takes more for you to be at your best than if you had it treated. But... And this, an example of a 14-year-old who was literally failing in school and conflict-driven with everyone around him, so people didn't really wanna be near him. And I diagnosed him. I started with natural things, and they helped but not enough, put him on Concerta, a form of methylphenidate or Ritalin, and he went from failing to all As and Bs, and he got into the high school he wanted to get into which was very competitive. And he's easy to be around. That's a win because it's gonna change the trajectory of his life, and I like that.

    3. SB

      I remember you talking last time about your daughter. We have the clip, don't we, of, uh, Dr. Amen talking about his daughter? We can just insert it here.

    4. DA

      I have a daughter, and the truth is, and this is gonna sound awful, I never thought she was very smart. And, and I'm ashamed of myself for thinking that. And, um, she's staying up every night 'til 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning to get her homework done, and one night, she came just crying to me. And she said, "Dad, I don't think I can ever be as smart as my friends." And it just broke my heart. And I scanned her the next day. And I'd actually scanned her originally, but I had no experience in scans. This was like 1991. I'm like... ch- child psychiatrist and an expert in ADHD, and I didn't see it in my own child. And the next day, I put her on a tiny dose of Ritalin and scanned her again, and her brain normalized. Normalized. A week later, I had dinner with her, and I'm like, "Do you notice any difference?" And she said, "Oh my God." She said, "A, a class seemed like it always took

  33. 1:40:37 – 1:43:16

    Daniel Amen’s Daughter

    1. DA

      eight hours to just do that one class, and I was always lost. And I'm very religious. I was praying to God that the teacher wouldn't call on me 'cause I was lost." She said, "Now that same class goes by in about 20 minutes, and my hand's up because I track what's going on." And that child, who had always gotten Bs and Cs but with great effort, her first report card was straight As, the next 10 years, straight As. She actually got into the University of Edin- University of Edinburgh's veterinarian school, one of the best vet schools in the world where they cloned Dolly the sheep. And if I wouldn't have figured that out, she would've been condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity, hating herself, working so hard to get a mediocre result. Optimizing your brain, and medicine's never the first thing I think about, but it's one of the things I think about 'cause I just wanna use all the tools in my toolbox to optimize your brain, 'cause if I optimize your brain, I optimize your life.

    2. SB

      It was really powerful and something that I then spoke to lots of my friends about and such. Um, one of the things I've always struggled with, with ADHD, in terms of my understanding, is some people that I know ha- that have ADHD, they just, they're so remarkably different to me, and they're so remarkably different from each other. So if you think about one of my friends that has it, very, very different in terms of productivity, symptomatology, versus someone like me, who, for example, in my case, I'm very focused, I think. I can be very focused, not always, but when I'm into something, I can, I can focus on it for a long period of time. In fact, people don't know this, but it's worth me saying. Um, my last book, I went to Bali for, I think it was either 11 or 14 days, and I came out of the jungle with the book. So I went into the jungle with, um, basically 33 sentences, uh, individual sentences, I knew what the chapter titles were, and I came out of the jungle and handed my publisher, Penguin, the manuscript after that, that period in the jungle, which basically meant that for those 11 or 14 days, I can't remember the exact number, I sat there for about 10 hours a day and did... I was obviously getting distracted once in a while, but I, I wrote the whole book in, uh, a- about 14, about 14 days. Decent book, sold well.

    3. DA

      I'm so jealous.

    4. SB

      Um,

  34. 1:43:16 – 1:46:17

    Different Types of ADHD

    1. SB

      but I, but for me, it's an- an example of the... You know, when I think of ADHD, I think of, like, attention deficit. And again, I don't know much about ADHD, so I'm very naive. I represent most of the population probably in that regard. But I don't think I have an attention deficit necessarily.

    2. DA

      Well, for things that are new, novel, highly interesting, stimulating, or frightening-

    3. SB

      Yeah.

    4. DA

      ... people with ADD can pay attention just fine. That's why a lot of people who have it go, "I don't have it." Like, if I love my history teacher, I'm, like, focused. But then when I go to geometry, I can't do it at all.

    5. SB

      Yeah. Um, that's the story of me in school.

    6. DA

      It's, it should be... It's like love is a drug. If you love something, well, you can do it. But the problem is most of life you don't love. (laughs) And so you end up with this really sort of erratic attention disorder. Um, and they tend to gravitate toward things, you know, I- I see, hear the story a lot unfortunately, is they- they experiment in college, and they take a little bit of methamphetamine, and it helps them, and they're more focused, and... But then they don't know how to manage it, and they end up taking more and more, and they end up getting addicted, and it steals their soul.

    7. SB

      Love. Can you see love on the brain?

    8. DA

      (sighs) Helen Fisher, who's a neuroscientist in New Jersey, has actually studied love. And new love shows up as increased activity in the dopamine centers of the brain, and it makes you just a bit obsessive. I think of new love as dopamine, but lasting love more like opiates.

    9. SB

      Hmm.

    10. DA

      So, n- new love, when you break up, is sort of like getting off cocaine. Hard but not that bad.

    11. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DA

      Lasting love, if it goes away, and we talked about grief earlier, it's like it's ripping your skin off. It's really hard, sort of like getting off of heroin.

    13. SB

      Do people come to you that are heartbroken?

    14. DA

      A lot.

    15. SB

      What do they say?

    16. DA

      "I can't stop, think." That their brain gets into,

  35. 1:46:17 – 1:47:51

    Can You See Love on the Brain?

    1. DA

      um, anxiety, sadness, and that person just lives in every fun place in their brain, and they can't get over it, and it can be quite messy for them.

    2. SB

      What is the change that you would like to see in the world?

    3. DA

      Well, I'm actually working on it. Um, I want everybody to just ask this one question. And we mentioned my work with B.J. Fogg on how people change, and he, um, talks about tiny habits. What's the smallest thing I can do that will make the biggest difference? And if I could impact the world, it would be through one question. Whatever I'm doing right now, is it good for my brain or bad for it? I want to teach people to love their brains and to just make better decisions for the health of their brain, because then everything follows that. "Is it good for my brain or bad for it?" I'm 15. I have a developing brain. My brain is myelinating itself, which means it's wrapping all my

  36. 1:47:51 – 1:53:25

    What Change Would Daniel Like to See in the World?

    1. DA

      nerves, all my brain cells with a white fatty substance called myelin. And my frontal lobes are not done until I'm 25. Oh, I'm gonna love my brain. So, I'm not pouring crap in my body with what I eat or what I drink because it's bad for my brain. When I'm 60 and I'm stressed because my football team's not winning, I'm not going for an extra beer because I love my brain. And I'm gonna get to a healthy weight because I love my brain. That's the change. That's why I think God put me on the Earth.

    2. SB

      I wanted to do something. Um, I was just thinking about it as you were speaking then about the one simple thing that I can do to help my brain and to love my brain. A- when you think about behaviors and habits that are popular and trendy at the moment, are there any that stand out to you as being particularly good for the brain or particularly bad for the brain? 'Cause I had a couple come to mind that I wanted to throw at you. I mean, one of them that's exploding in the UK at the moment is Padel, which is kind of, I think you call it pickleball here. Good for my brain, bad for my brain?

    3. DA

      Good for your brain.Really good.

    4. SB

      Do you know what-

    5. DA

      For your brain.

    6. SB

      You, uh, when you scanned my brain, you told me that, you said, "For the next six months, Steve, I need you to take some Omega-3, do this, do this, do this, and I'd like you to play more racket sports." I built a paddle court in my garden.

    7. DA

      (laughs)

    8. SB

      So I have a paddle court in my garden, um, in Cape Town. And I love playing it now. And when I play it all the time, I said, "Dr., Dr. Amen said it's good for my brain." Um, but it's exploding. It's exploding across Europe really, but really across much of the world now, pad-

    9. DA

      And here-

    10. SB

      So that's good.

    11. DA

      ... in the US too.

    12. SB

      Oh, really?

    13. DA

      And it's so good for your brain because it's working your cerebellum. And I told you that because yours was sleepy. And as you activate this and you do that with coordination exercises, it then activates your frontal lobes.

    14. SB

      Does that mean that people that are uncoordinated have a cerebellum issue?

    15. DA

      Yes.

    16. SB

      Oh, really? (laughs) Okay.

    17. DA

      And the more you do it, the better coordination you develop. And that's why coordination exercises for kids, so we talked about kids, is you want to do that with them early. Play sports, but not sports where they're gonna get a head injury, right? I mean, we have to be smarter than we are. Um, but when I was young, my mother, who's now 93, was the ping pong champion in the neighborhood. And she was really good, and she never let us beat her until we could.

Episode duration: 2:18:09

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