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

Four of my patients have a billion followers: Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Bella Hadid. And we looked at their brains, and what we found is... Thank you so much, Dr. Amen. Dr. Daniel Amen. He's a clinical neuroscientist. New York Times best-selling author.

One of America's leading psychiatrists and brain health experts. Why do you do what you do?

I have to do what I do. Someone I love tried to kill herself. If she would have died, I think I would have always been left with a hole in my soul. Most psychiatric illnesses are not mental illnesses, they're brain health issues. When you reimagine mental health as brain health, it changes everything. So, you want to damage your brain? Do not engage in new learning. Don't ever eat fish, never floss, play football, marijuana, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine.

No.

It's a drug. You want to keep your brain healthy? Takes three seconds. So, (keyboard typing sounds) do you know about the ACE quiz? It's ten of the most common childhood traumas. 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, you die 20 years earlier.

Is there something that can be done to change it?

Absolutely. If you came to see me, I would have you...

Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (instrumental music plays) Dr. Amen, why do you do what you do?

It's, uh, part of my soul. I have to do what I do. Um, the short story is how I got to do what I do, is when I was 18, Vietnam was still going on and I had a low draft number, and I became an infantry medic where my love of medicine was born. But about a year into it, I realized I didn't like being shot at. It was irritating. It was horrifying. And I got myself retrained as an X-ray technician, and just developed a passion for medical imaging. As our professors used to say, "How do you know unless you look?" And th- that became a theme for my life. And then, I got out of the Army in 1975 and finished college, and when I was a second-year medical student, someone I love tried to kill herself. And I was horrified. I had no idea what to do. And I took her to see the Chief of the Department of Psychiatry, where I went to medical school. And I realized if he helped her, it wouldn't just help her. That ultimately, it would help her children and even her grandchildren, as they would be shaped by someone who was happier and more stable. I fell in love with psychiatry, 1979, so 44 years ago. And I've loved it every day since. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. And even back then, I'm like, "Why aren't we looking at the brain?" I mean, obviously, the brain is the organ of depression. The brain is the organ of bipolar disorder. The brain is the organ of anxiety. Why aren't we looking at it? And they said, "That's the future. We will, but not yet." And growing up, my dad thought I was sort of a pain in the ass. (laughs) And he called me a maverick, because I didn't just accept what he said. And it turns out, he's s- true. And I'm pushing, "We should be looking at the brain." In 1991, so I've been a psychiatrist almost a decade, I went to my first lecture on brain SPECT imaging. SPECT is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity, it looks at how your brain works. And it basically shows us three things: good activity, too little, or too much. And then, it rocked my world. I mean, it's explosion in my world. It's like, "I have to look. How do I know unless I look?" And the lessons just kept coming. That the first lesson, most psychiatric illnesses are not mental illnesses, they're brain health issues. If I get your brain healthy, well, your mind tends to follow, because your brain, the physical moment-by-moment functioning of your brain creates your mind. And if your brain isn't healthy, your mind isn't healthy. So that was the first lesson. And I'm like, "Thi- these are not mental illnesses." And when you reimagine mental health as brain health, changes everything. It changed everything I do as a psychiatrist. Most psychiatrists, you come, you go to them and you go, "I'm depressed," and then they'll give you a diagnosis with the same name of what you just told them, they'll go, "You're depressed," and then put you on an antidepressant, which in large-scale studies work no better than placebo. And I'm like... So, next lesson is depression is like chest pain....it doesn't tell you what causes it, and it doesn't tell you what to do for it. But we have whole industries built on money for medicine for mental health conditions, and I think it's complete crap because they're not looking at the organ. They don't know is it from head trauma? Is it from an infection? Is it from a lousy diet? Is it from being sedentary? Is it because you don't know how to manage your mind? And (smacks lips) I then learned that mild traumatic brain injury is a major cause of psychiatric problems, and nobody knows about it because they don't look at the brain. And I was just like a little kid, so excited. I still am 32 years later. We've done 225,000 scans and it's, it, it's so fun to be in the future helping people get well. So, I have to do it. I know that's a long answer. (laughs)