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The 11 Risk Factors That Are Destroying Your Brain - Dr Daniel Amen

Dr. Daniel Amen is a psychiatrist, brain-health researcher, founder of the Amen Clinics & New York Times bestselling author. You only get one brain, so how do you keep it healthy for life? Dr. Daniel Amen has scanned over half a million brains and knows exactly what helps and what hurts your brain. Using cutting-edge research and science-backed strategies, Dr. Amen reveals the keys to keeping your mind sharp and your body thriving. Expect to learn how to kill your automatic negative thoughts (ANTS), what a healthy brain should look like, what is contributing to the mental health crisis of the younger generations, the true impacts of alcohol, weed and other substances on your brain, the best supplements to take for brain health, how to rewire your brain to be a better romantic partner, how to get rid of brain fog, the best exercises and activity for a better functioning brain, and much more… - 00:00 Brainscans For Psychiatry & How They Work 08:42 Why Are We The Unhappiest Generation? 23:28 Brain Fog & Negative Impacts On The Brain 41:47 Immunity, Infections, & The Brain 47:09 How To Protect Your Brain In The Modern World 1:00:42 The Perfect Environment Where Mental Illness Thrives 1:07:28 Why Is Anxiety So Prevalent In The 21st Century? 1:12:32 The Best Supplements For Your Brain 1:31:32 Can We Rewire Ourselves To Be Better Partners? 1:40:59 Daily Habits That Improve Brain Health 1:47:26 Find Out More About Dr Amen - Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostDr. Daniel Amenguest
Jun 23, 20251h 48mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 8:42

    Brainscans For Psychiatry & How They Work

    1. CW

      Is it right that your clinics have got the world's largest database of brain scans for psychiatry?

    2. DA

      Yes.

    3. CW

      Two-

    4. DA

      By far.

    5. CW

      ... nearly quarter-of-a-million SPECT scans?

    6. DA

      More. Yeah.

    7. CW

      How does that level of data and information change the way that you approach mental health treatment?

    8. DA

      Changes everything. Um, most psychiatric problems are not mental health issues, they're brain health issues. Get your brain healthy, and your mind will follow. And when I first got scanned, ultimately, it changed everything in my life. Changes the time I go to bed, changes what I eat, changes how I think about other people. It was liberating because it took psychiatry, which I think many people would agree is a soft science-

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. DA

      ... in that it's the only medical profession that virtually never looks at the organ it treats, and it turns it into hard science because now I have data on your brain, and I'm going to make it better, right?

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm-

    12. DA

      If you work with me, we are going to make it better. It completely upends psychiatry, whose outcomes are actually no better than they were in the 1950s, which is shameful and horrifying.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm. So mental health as a term being the manifestation, behavior, thought patterns, et cetera, uh, brain health being the structural, uh, underpinnings that are sort of causing that to grow out of it. Is that the distinction that we've got here?

    14. DA

      When you call someone mental, you shame them. When you call them a brain, you elevate them. And it's very clear to me that your brain, the physical functioning of your brain, the moment-by-moment function of your brain creates your mind. And when your brain is healthy, your mind is better. Now, you still have to program the mind, but if you think of it like hardware and software, if the hardware's not working right-

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DA

      ... the software will never run properly. Um, and then when it comes to relationships, I think about network connections. It's how's this hardware and software connecting with this hardware and software?

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. DA

      And so you can see if a couple is having trouble, maybe you should look at their brain because it could be one or both of them are having hardware problems.

    19. CW

      It's interesting that because our conscious experience is so salient to all of us, right? It's front and center of our daily, uh, the, the way that we interact with the world, the way that we just interact with ourselves. It doesn't surprise me that the focus in psychiatry and psychology and talk therapy is on, okay, how are you showing up? How's this manifesting? As opposed to structurally what's going on underneath because structurally what's going on underneath is completely opaque to us until we can use imaging to actually get down and in there. And the alternative is, "Well, tell me about how it makes you feel, and please explain to me about what this, what these, uh, word associations are." And, uh-

    20. DA

      Which can re-traumatize you.

    21. CW

      How so?

    22. DA

      'Cause if you just talk about the trauma in your life, it's just like you went and relived it as opposed to, "Let me get the circuits right." And it's not just structurally, it's also functionally, right? Um, if you took an MRI of the brain or a CT scan of the brain, that's looking at the structure. We do a study called SPECT that looks at function, looks at how it works, and most psychiatric problems are functional problems, right? The hardware sort of, the structure looks fine, but it's not functioning right.

    23. CW

      Can you give an example?

    24. DA

      So SPECT basically tells us three things: good activity, too little, or too much. And, um, I was on the Kardashians. I scanned Kendall Jenner after she got COVID-

    25. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    26. DA

      ... and she had this intense anxiety. And when you look at her brain, she has inflammation in the anxiety centers of her brain. You look at it, and you go, "Whoa, that's working way too hard." Not normally an anxious person. So if I would've scanned her before COVID, those areas would've been healthy-

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. DA

      ... and now they're dramatically overactive. And is that her mind, or is that her brain that's inflamed that's disrupting her mind?

    29. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    30. DA

      And that's what I would argue.

  2. 8:42 – 23:28

    Why Are We The Unhappiest Generation?

    1. DA

      down.

    2. CW

      Why do you think that this is the unhappiest generation at the moment? What's contributing to that?

    3. DA

      Because they have brain problems. They think of alcohol as a health food. They think of marijuana as innocuous. They think of psilocybin as the cool new thing that I should do because it treats PTSD and depression, and I think I should do it at the party I'm at Friday night. Uh, I think there are a series of lies that are driving the problems we have. And then, if you take on top of that social media, where you think everyone else's life is better than yours, the negative news that is actually designed to hook you to keep watching even though it makes you angry, um, so that they can sell you more copper underwear. And then take 70% of the calories the young people consume are ultra-processed. Uh, so we're poisoning their food. We're putting toxic products on their bodies. Um, we're feeding them negative news, negative comparisons on social media. It's a shit show. And the way out, I believe, is brain health, 'cause when you ask yourself this one question, and this is really the one question to unpack, whatever I do today, is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if I can answer that question with information and love, love of myself, love of my family, love of the reason God put me on Earth, I just get better.

    4. CW

      Dig into the effect of alcohol, marijuana, mushrooms on the brain. I think we're seeing a huge downturn in alcohol use and a huge uptick in THC use at the moment. In fact, Gen Z are more likely to smoke weed than they are to drink alcohol, and that's, you know, in the space of 50 years, a big pivot. Uh, so I'm interested to know what even short term and then slightly more protracted, you know, social normal, normal use, whatever normal recreational use of alcohol, weed, and mushrooms does to the brain.

    5. DA

      Well, and you see the disaster we have with our mental health. Teenagers who use marijuana in their 20s have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide, and psychosis. I'm not a fan at all. Uh, I published a study on a thousand marijuana users, until recently the largest imaging study ever. Every area of the brain is lower in blood flow and activity. Makes your brain look older than you are. Um, now I've known that for a long time. I'm also a child psychiatrist, and parents would bring me their 16-year-old child and they go, "I think he has ADD. I heard about your work with ADD or ADHD. I think he has it." And I'm like, "Well, did he have it when he was 10? Did he have it when he was 8? Did he have it when he was 12?" "No, no, no." I'm like, "We're gonna do a drug screen." And he came through-

    6. CW

      He had it when it started hanging around with little Johnny from-

    7. DA

      (sighs)

    8. CW

      ... two doors down?

    9. DA

      That's exactly it.

    10. CW

      What's happening functionally with THC use that's causing that effect in the brain?

    11. DA

      It's decreasing activity and blood flow in the brain. And then just recently, another group, has nothing to do with me, published a study-... on a thousand marijuana users, young marijuana users. Significant areas of their brain involved with learning and memory were underactive. And it's like, that's not loving your brain.

    12. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    13. DA

      And it's like, "But I can't deal with the anxiety." It's like, "Well, have you tried diaphragmatic breathing or learning not to believe every stupid thought you have? Or theanine." I'm like a huge fan of theanine.

    14. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DA

      From green tea, of all things. Decreases anxiety and helps you focus.

    16. CW

      It's interesting that the salve that some people are using acutely to try and treat a symptom is predisposing them to more of that symptom once they come out the other side of it. There's a poetic irony going on there.

    17. DA

      Yeah, I wrote a book called Feel Better Fast and Make It Last, and it's like, I want you to do things that help you feel good now and later, as opposed to now but not-

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. DA

      ... later.

    20. CW

      Yeah, you don't want to be borrowing health and wellbeing from tomorrow to pay today.

    21. DA

      No.

    22. CW

      What about alcohol?

    23. DA

      It makes your brain look older than you are. And when I first started scanning people, I was the director of a substance abuse treatment program, and their brains looked so bad I actually put them on a poster. And the poster hangs in 100,000 schools around the world called "Which Brain Do You Want?" Alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, nicotine.

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    25. DA

      Not good.

    26. CW

      None of them were pretty brains.

    27. DA

      For ... No. Um, and it was, it was like so impress- I was so impressed with the visuals, um, that actually f- for now, I make my patients' posters. It's like, "Here's a healthy brain. Here's yours. Here's yours if you get it healthy, and here's yours if you don't, five years from now."

    28. CW

      Pick your future.

    29. DA

      And the title is Which Brain Do You Want? Very motivating.

    30. CW

      Mm-hmm.

  3. 23:28 – 41:47

    Brain Fog & Negative Impacts On The Brain

    1. CW

      I want to talk about brain fog. I think this is something that everybody sort of has a sense it's going, "I'm just not functioning quite as sharply as I would like. I feel like my thoughts should be more agile, more nimble, and I'm struggling to recall words. Maybe A- A- I'm not getting to the point as quickly as I would like." What is brain fog? Where's it come from?

    2. DA

      Well, there's many different causes of brain fog. Uh, I have an acronym maybe we should talk about. If you wanna keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind, and the acronym is BRIGHT MINDS. And this is actually my Alzheimer's prevention program. I wrote a book about it called Memory Rescue. And then I'm like, "Oh, this is my end of mental illness (laughs) acronym as well," right? If we assume your brain creates your mind, if your brain's not healthy, your mind's not healthy. So I wrote another book-

    3. CW

      How can you have a healthy mind without a healthy brain?

    4. DA

      ... called The End of Mental Illness, and I really dive into each of these 11 risk factors. So, brain fog, B stands for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. It goes with brain fog. So what gives you low blood flow in your brain? Caffeine constricts blood flow to the brain.

    5. CW

      Mm.

    6. DA

      Nicotine. Marijuana. Alcohol. Not sleeping. Being overweight. I published three studies on 33,000 people. As your weight goes up, the size and function of your brain goes down.

    7. CW

      Mm.

    8. DA

      Which should scare the thought of anyone. Being sedentary. Um, you know, little kids, when I was a little kid, were out all the time, out playing, play, play, and now kids are in front of screens with, using their thumbs, uh, playing video games, and so they're not getting the level of exercise they did before, which, oh, by the way, will increase the expression of ADD or ADHD. Um, so blood flow. R is retirement and aging. Does your brain look older than you are? Uh, and of all things, high iron levels accelerate aging. And so I look at ferritin levels, iron storage, in all of my patients.

    9. CW

      Mm.

    10. DA

      And I, naturally I have the gene that causes me to accumulate iron.

    11. CW

      Me too.

    12. DA

      And so I'm always donating blood.

    13. CW

      Mm.

    14. DA

      Because I don't want my brain to age faster than it should. I is inflammation. And it's like, what causes inflammation? Uh, having a leaky gut or having an unhealthy mouth. So periodontal disease is a major cause of inflammation. So I became a flossing fool. Um, low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. I did a study on 50 consecutive patients who came to Amen Clinics who are not taking omega-3s. 49 of them had suboptimal levels. Isn't that crazy? And then another study was 93% of the population have suboptimal omega-3 fatty acids. And so to improve that, get rid of the processed foods, take, uh, fish oil, or we actually make a vegan omega-3 from algae. Floss. Get your gut healthy.

    15. CW

      Mm.

    16. DA

      Um, G is genetics. But I think, we think of genetics, "Oh, my dad's an alcoholic, that's why I drink." You could have the o- opposite thought, many people do, "My dad's an alcoholic, that's why I don't (laughs) drink." Um, but genes aren't a death sentence. What they should be is a wake-up call. I don't know what you have in your family, but I have obesity and heart disease.

    17. CW

      Mm.

    18. DA

      But I'm not overweight, and I don't have heart disease, because I'm on an obesity/heart disease prevention program every day of my life, 'cause my grandfather had his first heart attack when he was a year younger than I am now. Um, H is head trauma. Major cause of psychiatric problems and nobody knows about it because people don't look at the brain. When you start looking at the brain, it's like, "So when did you have a head injury?" And they go, "Well, I didn't." And I'm like, "Are you sure? Have you ever fallen out of a tree, off a fence, dove into a shallow pool?" And you cannot believe the number of people who go, "No, no, no. Oh, when I was seven I fell out of a second story window," or, "When I was 13 I fell out of a moving car," or, "I played football." And even if you never had a concussion, you had hundreds or even thousands of subconcussive blows.

    19. CW

      Mm.

    20. DA

      So brain is soft. Skull is hard. Skull has sharp, bony ridges. Don't hit soccer balls with your head. Did you play sports growing up?

    21. CW

      I did. I played cricket. Uh, much smaller ball. Um, but I also did s- a lot of boxing, a lot of Thai boxing-

    22. DA

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      ... stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, you, you, you, you're, you're, the entire-

    24. DA

      So when we look at your brain-

    25. CW

      ... sport is being hit in the head.

    26. DA

      ... we might see some of that.

    27. CW

      I'm sure that you will, yeah. Uh, okay, we've gone B, R, I, G?

    28. DA

      H, head trauma.

    29. CW

      H, yes.

    30. DA

      T is toxins. And so we talked about marijuana, and we talked about alcohol. Clearly toxic to brain function.

  4. 41:47 – 47:09

    Immunity, Infections, & The Brain

    1. CW

      I?

    2. DA

      Immunity and infections, and I think there's gonna be a whole subbranch of psychiatry in the future. If you overlay a map (hands tapping) of schizophrenia, so one of the most severe psychiatric disorders where people who lose touch with what's real and what's not real, highest incidence in the United States is the Northeast, the North Midwest, and the West Coast. If you overlay that map with the highest incidents of Lyme disease, they're identical. So is it possible that an infectious disease is causing some mental illness? And the answer is absolutely yes, and we have so many great stories of people like Adriana, 16 years old, beautiful, normal, goes to Yosemite on vacation-... when they get to their cabin, they're surrounded by six deer and they think it's a magical moment, and 10 days later, she starts hallucinating. She becomes aggressive, um, paranoid, goes to a psychiatric hospital. She's diagnosed with schizophrenia, put on medication. The doctor, trained at Stanford, said to the mother, "She's gonna have to be on this for the rest of her life." And six months later, she's a shell of herself. She comes to see us. Her brain's on fire. Why is her brain on fire? Um, she had Lyme disease, and on an antibiotic. She's no longer suffering.

    3. CW

      Ehrlichia and babesia are all do that to a person, yeah.

    4. DA

      And, and we saw that with COVID. COVID causes this inflammatory bomb that goes off in the brain.

    5. CW

      What a-

    6. DA

      And we've known that. Like, syphilis, for example, can pretty much-

    7. CW

      Used to turn people insane.

    8. DA

      ... make you crazy.

    9. CW

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    10. DA

      HIV can change the way you think and when I saw many HIV brains, they're so negatively affected. Um, now thank God there's treatment for it, um, but I think infectious disease is a major cause of psychiatric problems.

    11. CW

      What are some of the other common infectious diseases? You mentioned Lyme. That's pretty common. COVID, everybody at some point was probably exposed to that.

    12. DA

      And-

    13. CW

      What are the other ones?

    14. DA

      ... um, herpes, uh, cytomegalovirus, uh, and something called PANDAS. Have you heard of PANDAS? Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep infections.

    15. CW

      Hmm.

    16. DA

      So you know if you get strep throat, you have to treat it because if you don't, you can develop some very serious heart problems. Well, about 30 years ago, researchers at the NIH found the same antibodies to strep that attack your heart, attack your brain, and they can create new onset OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, in the brain from an infection, which is why it's important if you have a psychiatric disorder to get the infections assessed. I had this one boy, um, as a consultant on the movie Concussion with Will Smith about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, football dementia, and one of the people who were... was involved in the movie had a nine-year-old son who was on three psychiatric medications.

    17. CW

      Mm.

    18. DA

      And they said, "Would you see him?" And when I saw his brain, I'm like, "He's got an infection." His... Uh, and it turned out he had Lyme and PANDAS, and when they were treated, he got so much better.

    19. CW

      M-I-N.

    20. DA

      Neurohormone abnormalities. If your estrogen's not right and you're a woman, your brain's not right. If your progesterone's not right, your brain's not right. Obviously if your thyroid's not right, your brain's not right. If your testosterone's too low, your brain's not right. And if it's too high, you lose half your net worth and visit your children on the weekends because your libido goes up and your empathy goes down.

    21. CW

      (laughs)

    22. DA

      It's a very bad thing. (laughs)

    23. CW

      Yeah.

    24. DA

      And did you know that if you get a sugar burst, it drops testosterone levels by 25%? So if you share the cheesecake with your partner at the restaurant, no one's getting dessert when you get home.

    25. CW

      Mm. Okay, D.

    26. DA

      (laughs) Diabesity, probably, well, they're all bad but this is super bad. So diabesity is your blood sugar is high and/or you're overweight, and, uh, both of them are just a disaster for brain function. In fact, if you're overweight or have high blood sugar, you have virtually all of the risk factors, um, because you have low blood flow. It ages your brain. It creates inflammation. It alters your genes. So maybe not a head injury, but fat stores toxins.

    27. CW

      Mm.

    28. DA

      They give you mental health problems. It ruins your immunity. It takes healthy testosterone and turns it into unhealthy forms of estrogen. Um, you don't sleep well.

  5. 47:09 – 1:00:42

    How To Protect Your Brain In The Modern World

    1. DA

    2. CW

      How does anyone have a functioning brain in the modern world?

    3. DA

      Loving your brain. I just talked to one of my patients who I was a miserable failure with for eight years and a wild success the last six, and she just loves her brain and loves her life because every day she just asks that one simple question, "What I'm doing today good for my brain or bad for it? And if I just stay with what's good..." and people go... We have a high school course called Brain Thrive By 25.

    4. CW

      Mm.

    5. DA

      And, um, decreases drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decreases depression, improves self-esteem. Independent research showed that. And in week four when we... It's 12 weeks. In week four, we go, "Okay, these are the things to avoid." Invariably, a 14-year-old boy, never a girl, boy raises his hand and go, "How can you have any fun?" And we play a game with the kids called Who Has More Fun, the kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain?

    6. CW

      Mm.

    7. DA

      Who gets the girl and gets to keep her because he doesn't act like an ass, the kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain? (laughs) Who gets into the college they want to get into? Who has the most meaningful long-term relationships? It's the person with the good brain, right? We have to get rid of the notion, I need to do something that harms me in order to have fun.

    8. CW

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's an odd trade. I think, uh, being British, the sort of larry drinking culture that was very popular in... when I was at university, and I went to university 2006 and I was there until 2011, and, uh, that was like a rite of passage. My, uh, master's dissertation was the effectiveness of anti-alcohol advertising on students at Newcastle University. Uh-... shock, horror. It's kind of hard to do if you're 21 or 22 years old and you're at university at one of the biggest drinking unis in the UK, that kind of has, uh, pride, I guess, in how hard it goes that it's very difficult to have that sort of an intervention, really, really tough, that people saw it as a badge of honor. You know, there's not many things that you bond over how painful they are, but nights out are one of them. So if you were to ring someone and say, "Hey, Alex, uh, how was the night last night?" And you go, "Dude, it was amazing. Josh nearly lost an eye." You go, "I w- that's not typically the sort of review that I get."

    9. DA

      (laughs)

    10. CW

      But it's this odd rite of passage badge of honor that people go like, "Oh my God, that's how heavy it was. It was, uh, crazy, you know, like, he ended up without a toe." Um, that's the situation that people get into and, um, I suppose especially guys like Jonathan Haidt, uh, uh, Jean Twenge, they've got these concerns about slow life strategy, about young people being too, um, coddled, this extended adolescence as they call it. But I do think that there's some advantages to this, which is that people aren't sending it in the way that me and the guys that I went to uni did from the age of 18 to, you know, 25, whether that's because they're too nervous to leave the house or because their brains are addled by Netflix and TikTok. Okay, right? There's a trade-off that's going on here. I'm not saying that it's necessarily net better, but, uh, we've got rid of one of the toxins.

    11. DA

      I'm actually not a huge fan of sending kids away to school to live with other underdeveloped brains. You know, your brain's not finished developing until you're 25. And when I was 18, I went in the military because Vietnam was still going on and thankfully for me, I didn't go to Vietnam, I went to Europe. But, um, for me it was great 'cause it was structure, but the brain's just not done until you're 25. Why would you send it away where basically-

    12. CW

      To be taught by other undeveloped brains.

    13. DA

      ... half the people are functional alcoholics and where that's just normal, and it can have a negative impact on their brain for the rest of their lives.

    14. CW

      I'm interested, you mentioned early childhood experiences earlier on. How do early childhood experiences shape the brain? Like what's going on?

    15. DA

      It changes it. It actually takes their emotional brain and heightens it so that they're always watching for something bad to happen. Um, we look specifically at how good you are recognizing faces and they're very good at it.

    16. CW

      How good are they doing?

    17. DA

      And then there's something called non-conscious negativity bias. Do you recognize happy faces faster or do you recognize negative faces faster? And they're masterful with the negative faces, so they're always out looking at what could hurt them, what's wrong. And that chronic cortisol exposure to stress hormones is just bad for them. They're more likely to get cancer, they're more likely to get sick. Um-

    18. CW

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    19. DA

      Yeah. I think in schools, we should teach kids to love and care for their brains and we should teach them how to manage their minds. So for example, I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. That's where I did my psychiatric training. One of our professors said, "You have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think." And I'm like, "But I believe every stupid thing I think." (laughs) Like, no one had ever taught me, even though I had 25 years of education, no one had ever taught me-

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. DA

      ... to question my own thoughts. Like, when I get a thought, "My wife never listens to me," to at least go, "Is that true?" And I've written and produced now 19 national public television specials about the brain, and she's listened to every script. But just, if I don't question my thoughts, I believe them even though they're a lie, and then I act as if they're true, which gets me no end of grief. So now I get that thought and I'm like, "Well, that's not true." And it just helps me so much to live in truth and live in the moment.

    22. CW

      How much can that impact from early childhood be reversed in your experience?

    23. DA

      So much of it. Um, I dedicated my book, The End of Mental Illness, to my two nieces, uh, Alizeh and Amelie. Um, it's about eight years ago now? Wow, almost nine years ago, they were taken into foster care, so I'd never met them. And my wife's half-sister, uh, and her husband were drug addicts, and so they were raised in a very stressful environment. So on a scale of 0 to 10, how many ACEs? They had nine. And, uh-And I dedicated the book to them because it's like you don't have to live, that is not going to be your destiny.

    24. CW

      Mm.

    25. DA

      And by teaching them to not believe every stupid thing they have, to get them the right help. I love a therapy called EMDR, stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocess. You get triggered, think about it, go there, right? Don't drink it away. Go there, get your eyes goin' back and forth, tell me what comes up.

    26. CW

      Tell me what's happening with EMDR.

    27. DA

      It's calming down that diamond pattern or the trauma pattern in your brain. I published a study on it and police officers who were involved in shootings, they all had that heightened emotional brain and after an average of eight sessions, all calmed down.

    28. CW

      But why, what-

    29. DA

      Now if you grow up in trauma like these girls did, so they had years of it, takes more than eight sessions, but that plus learning to kill the ANTs, the automatic negative thoughts, plus not believing that Hot Cheetos is a health food, um, they're just doin' amazing.

    30. CW

      Why is lateral eye movement nice for the brain? Why, why, what's it doing?

  6. 1:00:42 – 1:07:28

    The Perfect Environment Where Mental Illness Thrives

    1. CW

      Imagine for a second that you were to design a protocol for someone to follow that would put their brain in the worst possible state. We want to take a well-functioning brain and we want to make them moody and slow and unable to regulate themselves emotionally. What would be your prescription to turn a healthy functioning brain into a totally useless one?

    2. DA

      So if I was an evil ruler and I wanted to create mental illness, what would I do? Well, if we just use the Bright Minds acronym, I wouldn't let 'em move. Right? I'd give them video games and just go, "Stay here."Don't go anywhere. Stay here. And I'd give them a little bit of alcohol that they could have whenever they wanted, and marijuana and caffeine. Um, I wouldn't have them learn anything new. I'm like, "No, you just do Netflix," uh, and not even let them have the documentaries. I would not encourage them to take care of their teeth and floss. Um, I'd give them a processed food diet, which increases inflammation. I would tell them, "Oh, your family's fat, so you're going to be fat." Um, I'd, I'd go, "If you drive, make sure you're texting while you're driving to make sure they get a head injury."

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. DA

      I would teach them that alcohol's a health food and marijuana's innocuous and, um, yeah, to just go under all the plastic surgery they could to get the ... anesthesia (laughs) that they didn't need.

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    6. DA

      Right? To believe every stupid thing they thought. I'd have them start the day by turning on the news, uh, and ... 'Cause people who watch the news are 27% less happy in the afternoon if they start the day with the news. Um, and I'd have them never check their vitamin D level, um, never eat onions, garlic or mushrooms 'cause they boost your immunity, never check their hormones, um, eat all the bad food they wanted and keep them up late at night. Like, get really interested in murder shows right before bed so they couldn't sleep.

    7. CW

      And that would take somebody that's relatively well functioning and turn them into ...

    8. DA

      Somebody who needed to see me.

    9. CW

      (laughs) That could actually be a good front end of the funnel for the marketing though-

    10. DA

      (laughs)

    11. CW

      ... if you promote that, and then you can give them on the other side. Um, something else that we sort of touched on earlier on. Let's say that someone's suffering from anxiety, what are the biggest dos and don'ts for them?

    12. DA

      So if you suffer from anxiety and you start to panic, don't leave the situation you're in, because if you leave, the anxiety's going to begin to control you. So that's the first step. The second thing is when you get anxious, learn how to breathe with your belly. Diaphragmatic breathing is as effective as Xanax, and there has no side effects. And do what I call it the 15-second breath and ... You know what I mean when I say diaphragmatic, when you breathe in, stick your belly out as far as you can, because when you do, there's a muscle between your chest and your abdomen called the diaphragm, and it flattens and it doubles your lung capacity. So most vain people, like, they hold their belly in when they're having a picture 'cause they don't want to be seen as fat. And ... But do that when you're taking a picture, but in everyday life-

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DA

      ... you breathe in, stick your belly out as far as it'll go. Four seconds in, hold it for a second and a half, eight seconds out. So take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in, hold it out for a little bit, so that's a 15-second breath. It'll break a panic attack in under four or five breaths. It's, like, so cool. And you're controlling your own physiology. And then write down what you're thinking, and odds are it's scary thoughts, "They don't like me, they're judging me. I'm going to fail in some way." And I teach all of my patients the 18/40/60 rule that says when you're 18, you worry about what everybody's thinking of you; when you're 40, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about you; and when you're 60, you realize nobody's been thinking about you at all. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves-

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DA

      ... not you. Um, and then if you need something else to calm down, I'm a huge fan of hypnosis. Um, just masterful at calming anxiety. I like supplements like theanine, GABA, magnesium, ashwagandha, um, curcumins help actually decrease inflammation. Um, there's so many things, but often people go to the doctor and become really anxious and they write them a prescription for a benzo, which I think should be malpractice, because once they start the benzos, Xanax, Ativan, Valium, whatever, they never stop them, and benzos are associated with addiction and dementia. So anything that's associated with addiction and dementia, you should only take that really thoughtfully.

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If your workouts feel flat, your recovery's slow, or you've just been feeling off, it might not be your training plan or your diet, it might be something a bit more boring, like your testosterone. So if you're not performing in the gym or the bedroom the way that you would like, or you just want to improve your testosterone naturally, Tongkat Ali is a fantastic, research-backed place to start. And when it's stacked with zinc, this can make a huge improvement to your testosterone production, your strength, your recovery and your energy, which is why I'm such a massive fan of Momentous's zinc. It supports testosterone, boosts vitality and helps keep everything running like it should. And if you're still unsure, Momentous offers a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it, use it every single day for 29 days, and if you don't love it, they'll give you your money back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com/modernwisdom, and MODERNWISDOM-... at checkout.

  7. 1:07:28 – 1:12:32

    Why Is Anxiety So Prevalent In The 21st Century?

    1. CW

      I'm interested in why we've got this massive onset of anxiety disorders. It seems to be the emotion du jour of the 21st century.

    2. DA

      So maybe it's aspartame. I mean, it was really clear in the study on animals that they got aspartame and they were anxious. And Valium, one of the benzos, calmed it down.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. DA

      No. (laughs) It's like... And not only did it make the animals anxious, it made their babies anxious, it made their grandbabies anxious. And that's not the only thing, but if you mix that with all the other ultra-processed foods, with social media, with the negative news, right? Our polarized culture now, which is quite frankly is great for psychiatric business, but it's a disaster for our society. I've had people suicidal after the last presidential election.

    5. CW

      Did you see that study that was done on the Boston Marathon bombing, uh, where they had two cohorts? One were either runners or spectators at the actual event, and the other were people who had watched at least two hours of news. And the people that watched two hours of news showed more signs of post-traumatic stress disorder than the people who were actually there and observed it firsthand. Crazy.

    6. DA

      And, and it's being done purposefully, right? You watch, whether it's Fox or CNN, it's breaking news, breaking news, breaking news. It's the same thing they've been talking about for days.

    7. CW

      Not everything can be breaking news, but apparently it is.

    8. DA

      But it's to keep your attention so they can sell you more things.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. DA

      And that should make you mad. And I'm very interested in your research, when you were studying alcohol prevention, because I'm working with the White House on, um, issues with mental health. And I wrote a drug and alcohol prevention program for them.

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    12. DA

      But it's mostly about getting young people pissed off at Anheuser-Busch.

    13. CW

      Okay.

    14. DA

      Because, you know, they spent $7.2 billion last year on sales and marketing.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DA

      I'm like, "They're not only taking your money, they are taking your life, and they're doing it with a lie." And so getting them angry about being manipulated-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. DA

      ... 'cause I think that's what motivates teenagers. It-

    19. CW

      Emotion?

    20. DA

      It's emotion.

    21. CW

      Yeah.

    22. DA

      And not wanting to be controlled, and often they're like, "Well, my parents said don't drink, so now I have to drink."

    23. CW

      This is revolutionary, but-

    24. DA

      "Don't control me. I am going after my own independence and my own identity. Don't tell me what to do." But-

    25. CW

      They don't realize it's Anheuser-Busch who are telling them what to do, just-

    26. DA

      It's Anheuser-Busch, and Jack in the Box-

    27. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. DA

      ... and McDonald's, and the food c- They're telling them what to do, and they just don't see it. They don't see the manipulation. Put someone, the m- a model like Charlotte McKinney in a bikini and have her eat Carl's Jr., and you know she's not eating that food 'cause she'd never look like she di- she does if she ate that food. And so I think it's motivating them with emotion, at the same time teaching them to love their brain.

    29. CW

      The emotion thing's interesting. That was the one area... Uh, my, uh, master's dissertation, although very, uh, well received by my tutors, was largely a massive failure, in that each intervention that I tried didn't seem to work in reducing. The one that did, interestingly, was looking at the externalities of how your behavior affects the people around you.

    30. DA

      Mm-hmm.

  8. 1:12:32 – 1:31:32

    The Best Supplements For Your Brain

    1. CW

      You mentioned some supplements there. What... I mean, there is an endless list of things that are supposed to improve brain function. What are the ones that are the, the biggest winners from a supplement perspective?

    2. DA

      Omega-3 fatty acids help mood, memory, uh, and pain. I love that. Um, my favorite of all of them is saffron. So, s- the spice, the most expensive spice in the world, uh, has been shown in 26 randomized controlled trials to be equally effective as antidepressants, with fewer to virtually no side effects.

    3. CW

      What's the mechanism it's working on?

    4. DA

      It seems to increase multiple neurotransmitters and decrease inflammatory markers. Um, and why I got interested in saffron is...Around 25 years ago, there was a study showing it helped mood and improved sexual function. And m- most of the antidepressants I prescribe decrease sexual function, and that was always something that used to really irritate me. I'm gonna help your mood and ruin your-

    5. CW

      Sex life.

    6. DA

      ... relationship.

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. DA

      And I'm like, "No, I don't like that." Um, and so I started paying attention to it, and then all this research, brand new study out just last week where they looked at 192 studies on 17,000 patients looking at what supplements worked for depression, and they compared them against antidepressants, and saffron came out the best alone.

    9. CW

      Mm.

    10. DA

      Interestingly, when you added zinc to antidepressants, dramatically improved their effectiveness. That's so interesting. When you added curcumins from turmeric-

    11. CW

      Mm.

    12. DA

      ... to antidepressants, dramatically increased its effectiveness. And so one of my favorites saffron, zinc, and curcumins-

    13. CW

      Mm.

    14. DA

      ... for mood. They also found SAMe-

    15. CW

      Mm.

    16. DA

      ... very effective for pain and mood.

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. DA

      Um...

    19. CW

      I've only heard that used to help you get over MDMA comedowns. (laughs) Again, you can tell I was a club promoter for a long time.

    20. DA

      (laughs)

    21. CW

      Uh, 5-HTP?

    22. DA

      Um, not as effective in the studies as saffron.

    23. CW

      Mm.

    24. DA

      I'd like it if I'm trying to specifically boost serotonin. And did you know women have 52% less serotonin than men?

    25. CW

      I did not.

    26. DA

      Which is why if you make them mad, they're never going to forget it-

    27. CW

      (laughs)

    28. DA

      ... because (laughs) it stimulates the part of their brain that keeps them stuck.

    29. CW

      Mm.

    30. DA

      Um, and why women are at twice the risk of depression as men.

  9. 1:31:32 – 1:40:59

    Can We Rewire Ourselves To Be Better Partners?

    1. DA

    2. CW

      Can we rewire ourselves to be better partners?

    3. DA

      Absolutely. I, I always start with an exercise called the one-page miracle. One piece of paper, write down what you want. Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health.What I want in my relationship? Kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relation- almost everybody I know wants that.

    4. CW

      Mm.

    5. DA

      And so, if your brain is healthy and you get a rude thought, well, you don't say it. Like Jerry Seinfeld once said, "The brain is a sneaky organ." We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. But when you drink, they get out.

    6. CW

      Mm.

    7. DA

      Um, and I have crazy thoughts, but I don't say them, and I question (laughs) them often.

    8. CW

      What does sex do to the brain?

    9. DA

      What does?

    10. CW

      Sex, the act of sex do to the brain?

    11. DA

      Oh. I wrote a book once called The Brain in Love, and I talked about weird sex fiends and fetishes and how the arousal template, wherever you were, however old you were when you first got aroused, that's gonna plant something in your brain that's gonna be very powerful for you. And it could be shoes. (laughs)

    12. CW

      Mm.

    13. DA

      Or it could be cows-

    14. CW

      Mm.

    15. DA

      ... or it could be all sorts of unusual things. Generally, sex produces a lot of oxytocin, that sort of cuddle connection, um, but also possessive, "You're mine, you're part of my tribe, don't let anybody take you from me." I think oxytocin's actually involved in racism, um, and dopa- oxytocin, dopamine.

    16. CW

      Mm.

    17. DA

      And stimulation and then relaxation. It helps heart rate variability go up.

    18. CW

      Mm.

    19. DA

      But it depends, right? There's so much wrapped up into sex about performance, about, um, mutual respect, and I- I think for people who are thoughtful, it's like, "Let's have really good communication around this and not get our feelings hurt if I didn't do what you wanted me to do." And I often say, "Guys have a short attention span. You have to teach them," sorta like shooting free throws, you know? How do we sh- learn to shoot free throws? We do a lot of 'em. (laughs) And that's a good coach, notices what you do right, teaches you when you can do better.

    20. CW

      Mm.

    21. DA

      If we had that sort of mindset with our partners, it would be better, and it's harder today because of pornography. The pornography changes the brain, for you have different expectations than perhaps before Pornhub was everywhere.

    22. CW

      Mm. Why do you think it is that people struggle to communicate more clearly around sex? Is it shame? Is it embarrassment?

    23. DA

      I- I th- yes, and I think it's a lack of really great education on communication.

    24. CW

      Hm. What role does brain chemistry have in how we choose our partners?

    25. DA

      Well, I think brain function and our past has a lot to do with how we choose our partners. Are we choosing them because they're really a great partner for us or we're filling a deficit in us?

Episode duration: 1:48:33

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