>> Here with another episode of Curious Mike, I'm sitting here with Dr. Amen. Appreciate you being on the podcast my bro. >> Thank you so much. >> Yeah. So we just got done. I just got done with my brain scan. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while.

But you actually, you worked in the army for 10 years, and then you were helping on the medic side. So you've always wanted to help get people better. How did you get into the more this side of it, looking at people's brains and helping people get better from that standpoint?

>> So when I was an infantry medic, about a year into doing that, I realized I didn't like being shot at, that it wasn't for me. Some people like it, and I got retrained as an x-ray technician, and developed a passion for medical imaging. As our professors used to say, how do you know unless you look?

Then I got out of the army, went to medical school, and when I was a second year medical student, someone I loved tried to kill herself. I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist, and I came to realize if he helped her, it wouldn't just help her, that ultimately it would help her children and her grandchildren.

So I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it can change generations of people. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. Most people go, "I'm depressed," and they get medicine, with nobody looking at their brain, and I'm like, "That's insane." So we started looking at the brain about 30 years ago, and it's been so exciting.

Because what I learned is depression is not one thing, or having ADD, it's not one thing, or people who are anxious, sometimes it's from a head injury, or sometimes it's from toxic exposure, or sometimes it's because no one knows how to manage their mind. But if you don't look, you don't know.

And then I realized, well, your brain's an organ like your heart's an organ, so you've got to keep that healthy, or you're more vulnerable to not being your best. Right, and we went through kind of my stuff. Self-control was an area I wanted to get better at. But a lot of people, like you said, deal with depression, anxiety, making poor decisions, whatever it is.

You get judged for what you do, and a lot of people just will tell you, especially, you know, we're both men of faith, like the church a lot of times will judge people and say, "You know, just don't do this." But you're saying there's a deeper issue, and it can stem from a head injury, it can stem from toxins in your body, all this stuff that could be affecting your brain.

So you're looking at it from a completely different standpoint and saying, "No, like, when your brain gets more healthy, "you'll be able to go out and live better "and do the things you want to do more effectively." And what roadblocks do you think you have? What do you think could be better?

Um, I think... I was just talking to them about this, but I think I'm very, like, disciplined in some areas, but then in other areas... Like, when it comes to, like, my workouts and my health and all this different stuff, I'm very disciplined. But then other areas, I'm sometimes not consistent, and then that plays a toll on my mental because I feel like when you...

A lot of it is your systems, like, you know, getting on a schedule and then maintaining it and, you know, consistently making the right choices. And then, obviously, you're more mentally, like, there. When you're making mistakes or things you don't want to do, then it can take a toll on your mental, I feel like.

So I feel like some of those things, for me, that's something I want to improve on, like consistency off the court. Consistency as far as the decisions you make... -Decisions... -...on what you eat or what you drink or... Not... Nothing at all with health or what I put in my body or things like that, but more, like, you know, consistency, practicing, like, my faith, like, getting into my Bible every day or consistency, you know, hanging around the right girls.

Things like that, for me, are kind of like a hindrance at times. Like, I don't feel like I have an addictive personality as far as, you know, drugs or alcohol, but some of the other stuff, like, I just have a certain pull towards it that I wish wasn't there, you know what I mean?

-And so if you had a bit better self-control, that would help. -Yeah, that'd definitely help. -Ever have a concussion or a head injury? -I didn't have a concussion. Never had a concussion, I don't think, but I hit a car with my head. I don't know if you can see that scar right there, the little scar right there.

Yeah, this is when I was young, young, probably 12 or 13-ish. 10, 9, 10, probably 9 or 10, and I'm riding with my friend on a bike, and I'm looking back at him, and his mom was with us, and his mom was like, "Michael, look," so I turn, and that car, like, a parked car is right there, and I hit it with my head right here, and I, like, flip over the car.

Ended up going to the emergency room and everything. Just had stitches. I don't know how severe it was, but I definitely hit my head. That's the only, like, major head trauma that I've had, though. -You have a scar there. What's that from, the other side? -Right here? -No, in your eyebrow.

-Oh, right here? That's just swag. -Oh, that's purposeful. -That's swag, yeah. That's just swag. -Your brain controls everything you do, how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. It's the organ of intelligence, character, and every decision you make, and when your brain works right, you work right, and when your brain is troubled for whatever reason, you have more trouble in your life, and it's easy to judge people.

It's harder to go, "Why?" -No doubt, and I know, like, even for me, doing this whole session right now was so -- It, like, it almost lifts a weight off your shoulders 'cause you realize, no, not everything is your fault. You could have gone through some trauma or something that caused you to be the way you are, but, like you showed me, there's a way to reverse some of this stuff, and there's a way to heal and things like that.

So, for me, looking at my brain and everything, what did you see was, like, my kind of issues and how I can get better? -Okay, moment of truth. -Let's do it. -So, we did a study called SPECT, and SPECT looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how your brain works, and it basically shows us three things.

Good activity -- you have a lot. Too little activity -- there's some going on we have to talk about. And too much, and that's not the issue. So, here's an example of a healthy scan. We're gonna look at it in two ways. This looks at the outside surface, and it should be full, even, and symmetrical.

So, this view, we're looking underneath the brain. Top is the front part of the brain. Bottom is the back. This is your cerebellum, which I would expect in an NBA player to just be great. Here, blue is average activity. Red and white are the most active parts of the brain, which should be back here.

This is the cerebellum. And then the visual cortex here. We look at your scan. I don't like it so much. It's low in activity. And is that from trauma? I think part of it, 'cause I can actually see here in the back, your head got whacked. And as you described it, you're going on a bike, and you're turned this way, and someone says, "Hey, Michael," and you go here, boom, and then you flip.

That's a lot of force. Your brain is the consistency of soft butter, tofu, custard, somewhere between egg whites and Jell-O. And if you look inside a skull, it has sharp, bony ridges. So I've asked God many times, "Why haven't you put bumper guards?" He goes, "Who knew they would play football?" But it got whacked at some point.

So if I can make this better, and I'm gonna show you how to do that, you're gonna have more mental horsepower. And when you go, "I want to make this decision," you'll be more likely to follow through. But we need to fix this, 'cause five years from now, let's say you didn't care about your health, and you went out drinking and not sleeping, and some of the things you see other NBA players do, you won't make good decisions, which means you won't last as long, right?

Now, here, blue is average activity. Your cerebellum is awesome, it's healthy. I like that. Emotional brain's up a little bit, but I'm not concerned about this. If I fix this, you will love me forever. - So there's supposed to be no holes? - Supposed to be no holes. With the holes, and you don't have holes in your brain.

How I make these pictures is I tell the computer I want to see a certain level of activity. Anything below it shows up as a hole or a dent. But what it means is your brain isn't healthy, and we need to fix it. If I get you a healthy brain, you'll have the best season you've ever had, right?

'Cause it's about consistency, and decision-making, and mental energy, right? And with blood flow, caffeine decreases blood flow, so I'd limit it. - Everybody wanna say caffeine's good for 'em. - Yeah, it's not. - I knew it. - Nicotine, not good. Do you vape? - I don't. - Good, don't.

So, for probably a couple of different reasons, when you were eight or nine, your head hit another car, right, in a bike accident. That mattered, I mean, I can still see evidence of that. You've had heavy metals in your body, and you had general anesthesia. All of that led to lower blood flow.

And the cool thing is we're gonna reverse that, but it'll make you struggle more, and you don't want to, right? 'Cause you and I both never wanna be normal. We wanna be optimal. And in order to be optimal, the computer has to work right, right? So, I almost think of it like hardware and software.

If we get the physical function of your brain as healthy as it can be, you can then be the best you can be. - Gotcha. So, like I've heard it all the time, like around 25, your brain stops, like you're fully developed. But you show me some brain scans of people who are 55, and then you scan 'em again at 65, and their brain is more healthy.

So, where does that come from? And like what stops happening at 25? And then like what is there you can do after that? - So, for girls, their brains are pretty much fully developed at 25. For boys, we're always behind. It's more like 27 or 28. So, there's this process in the brain called myelinization where nerve cells get wrapped with a white fatty substance called myelin.

And when they get wrapped, they become more efficient. They work like 100 times faster. And myelin starts to be deposited in little kids at two months in their visual cortex in the back, and then slowly, about 25, finishes myelinating their frontal lobes. And that's why early drug abuse is a disaster because it stops that beautiful developmental process that's what maturity is about, right?

Maturity is you just don't make the same stupid mistakes you made before, right? You're learning. But if the organ of decision-making isn't healthy, it's not properly developed, that's a problem for you. Now, we have a lot of experience of taking brains that are troubled and making them better. And so, every day, your brain is becoming better or worse depending on how you slept, what you ate, the nutrients you took, the amount of stress you're under.

I was on TV yesterday, it was just terrible. A new study came out. Depression in children doubled during the pandemic because of the isolation, the fear, the social unrest, the political divide. And it's just horrifying. We need to teach children to love their brains, take care of it, and then discipline their minds, right?

People think of physical discipline. You're a professional athlete. It's not something you do once. It's something you do over and over and over again so you can maintain a high level of performance. Well, mental discipline's the same way. We have to do that over and over and over so we can maintain a high level of mental performance.

- That makes sense. And you just, I actually was gonna get into this, but you're saying, you said before COVID and after COVID, you've seen a big difference in especially young people's brain, but general population, it's a big difference that you've seen? - Big difference, in part because of the stress.

And we also talked about COVID. And COVID can activate the emotional centers of the brain and put people at higher risk for emotional issues. - That makes sense. So obviously not everybody has the money or the time to come scan their brain, although everyone should. So what's like, for the majority of brains you saw, especially for young people, and then we'll go to old people, what are some practical things everyone can do to keep their brain as healthy as possible without even scanning it?

Like what's some day-to-day things? - Well, I mean, the first thing is to love your brain. And nobody loves their brain, why? Because you can't see it. You can see the wrinkles in your skin or the fat around your belly, and you can do something when you're unhappy with it.

But because most people never look, they don't care. When I looked at my brain first time in 1991, I was the top neuroscience student in medical school. I'm a double board certified psychiatrist, and I didn't care at all about my brain. And then when I saw it and it wasn't healthy, 'cause I played football in high school, I had bad habits, I'm like, no, I have to care about this.

And then I've spent the last 30 years making it better. So one, you have to care about it. That's the first thing. And then avoid things that hurt it. You just have to know the list. I went to my daughter's second grade class and I put 20 things on the board.

And I go, okay, you tell me, good for your brain or bad for it. Football, everybody put bad for it. Hitting soccer balls with their head, bad. Smoking, bad. Marijuana, bad. Even the second graders know it, right? I mean, there's this whole discussion in society, but second graders know it's not good for your brain.

Alcohol, bad. Ice cream, they love it, but bad. The only thing they missed was orange juice, which they put in the good category, but it's way too much sugar. Whenever, eating the sugar from six oranges, how does that make any sense? Eat the orange, don't drink the juice. - Eat the orange, don't drink the juice.

I actually, that's surprising to me 'cause I'm someone that eats a lot of fruits and vegetables and I was always told like the sugar between the two are a lot different. So I thought that oranges would actually be good for your brain, like orange. - Oranges are good for your brain, not the juice.

So whenever you unwrap sugar from its fiber source, it turns toxic in your body. So fructose can actually give you fatty liver. It's really interesting. There's a wonderful YouTube video called "Sugar, the Bitter Truth" by Robert Lustig. If you watch that, you'll never drink fruit juice again. - That's crazy.

Yeah, I came in here knowing that some things were toxic for your brain. Obviously like alcohol or getting hit in the head that's bad for you or going to McDonald's every day, certain foods are bad for you. But there's like a big debate going on, especially now like all these places have legalized marijuana and are saying, all these studies are coming out saying it could be beneficial for you 'cause of this or that.

But you look at the brains. Like all these people that are making these assumptions about what it does, they're not looking at what it does to your brain and you've done extensive research and you're saying like no, marijuana's definitely a negative for your brain. - So when I first started scanning people, I would see people who were using marijuana, their brain looked toxic.

It looked older than they were. And now, is it bad in every situation all the time? No. For my father-in-law who had cancer and it was terminal, it helped him eat. That was good. Some people with resistant seizures seems to be helpful. But to just say it's innocuous is a lie.

I published a study on 62,000 scans on how the brain ages. It's the largest imaging study ever. And then we looked at, well, what accelerates aging? And having schizophrenia was the worst. Your brain looked 10 years older. Marijuana was the second worst. It surprised me. It ages the brain and I don't know about you, but I want a young brain.

I don't want an older brain. And Miley Cyrus is one of my patients and that came out public last year and I love her. But I couldn't get her to stop smoking pot for the longest time. It's not good for you. And then I figured out the secret. There's a part of your brain called the hippocampus.

It's on the inside of your temporal lobes. And the hippocampus is Greek for seahorse. And every day, it's one of the few areas of your brain that produces stem cells. So it actually makes new cells every day, like 700 new cells every day. And I was telling her, it's like your brain is making 700 new baby seahorses.

And her eyes got big 'cause she knew what I was doing. And she's an animal lover. She said, "Dr. Raymond, it's so unfair." I said, "You're murdering the seahorses, right? "If you wanna grow your brain, you can grow your brain. "You have to put it in a healing environment." And the problem with marijuana, it's fat soluble.

What that means is if you smoke today or you do an edible today, we can measure it for 30 days. So it's like you make this one decision today, you're sort of making this decision for a month. - That's a good point. I asked you this earlier, but I was like, okay.

So say you're not an alcoholic or you don't drink a ton, but you do certain things and you say, oh, it's just a balance. Like I'm gonna be good most of the time, but then I'm gonna make certain decisions like once in a while. Or I'm gonna eat bad once in a while.

Or smoke once in a while. But some of these things, even though you do 'em once in a while or as a balance, they have lasting impacts on your brain. And we talked earlier about is it helping heal my brain or take away from it? Or what's the consequences of doing these things?

And I thought that that was pretty interesting 'cause I know a lot of people, especially young people, like they'll justify making certain decisions 'cause they've been doing good for a while and now they just wanna wild out for a night, whatever it is. But it has lasting impacts for your brain.

- Well, and there's the little lies that, I would call 'em the little lies that make people fat, depressed, and feeble-minded. And one of the little lies is everything in moderation. Everything in moderation is the gateway thought to hell. Because it's like, well, I'll cheat this and then I'll do that.

And then I'll, and I'm like, it's my brain. I don't wanna be in moderation. I want to love my brain. And actually doing the right thing is never about deprivation. So Drew Carey, the famous comedian, he lost a lot of weight and he kept it off. And there's this quote that I knew he would keep it off.

He said, "Eating crappy food isn't a reward. "It's a punishment." Because he knew what it did to his body. And so when you go, I wanna reward myself, it's like, well, it's something that you love that loves you back. That if I ever open up a restaurant, I wanna call it loves you back because I love the shake I have in the morning.

I generally love a big salad with protein on it, with veggies, and I love that stuff, right? I pick things I love. Like I make a brain-healthy hot chocolate every night, raw cacao, unsweetened organic, vanilla almond milk, little chocolate stevia in it. It tastes great. I love it. And cacao's a superfood.

I love it back. It loves me back. - There's plenty of good things you can find, especially nowadays. People are becoming more health conscious than they used to be. There's so many good restaurants that have healthy food. My next question is, you see, like what are the biggest outwardly things that people struggle with or that they do in a bad brain that you see versus like a very healthy brain?

What is the outward difference in how they live, their mood, like all those things? What's the biggest few outwardly things? - Well, with a healthy brain, you're a better friend. You don't interrupt as much. You listen. You care about what's going on with the other person. You're better at managing your money.

You're more thoughtful. People sort of like you more because you're consistent, reliable, reasonably on time. The things that sort of make life work come with a healthier brain. - A lot of people these days, they try to separate like science and faith. And one thing we talked about earlier was how you take mind, body, spirit, all these different things and you put them all into one.

How do you kind of do that? Like how do they all come together? And you were saying earlier like your brain helps you even with your relationship with God or how you hear him or how you can be effective for him in your purpose, how do you put all those things together?

'Cause a lot of people will try to put one. If they're struggling in life, they'll be like, oh, let me just get in the gym, work on my body, then I'll be happy after that. And then they find, no, I got super fit and I'm still not all the way happy.

Or they'll try to fix just their diet and then they like, but like how do you, what do you need to put all of them together? - So when I was a young medical student, our dean drew four big circles on the board. And he's like, never think of people as their diagnosis.

Always think of them in four big circles. And this actually prevents burnout. It's what's the biology? So that person that's unhappy that's going to the gym, that's a good thing. But it's only a piece of it. It's they're getting physically healthy. So there's a biological circle. There's also a psychological circle, which is how do you think?

And what was your development like? People who grew up with a lot of trauma, it's hard for them to be happy because they're always watching for some bad thing to happen. Because a lot of bad things happen. So I call them ants, automatic negative thoughts that just come into your mind automatically and ruin your day.

I'll never be my best or whatever the negative thought is. So learning how to kill the ants is what I talk about. There's a social circle, which is how do we get along and what's going on in our society and our level of stress. So being effective at living is really helpful.

Being effective in relationships. And just one tip is if you notice what you like five times more than you notice what's wrong, your relationships are gonna be better. So you notice in my office I have penguins. There's a whole story around that. And then there's a spiritual circle, which is why do you care?

What is your sense of meaning and purpose? Purposeful people live longer. They're healthier. They have a reason to do the right thing. So for my patients, I'm like, so why do you wanna be better? How's your life gonna be better if your brain is better? - And as you go on this journey, you just gave me a lot of things that I could do to get better, but everyone has bad days.

And you show me the graph of there's this program that you put people on, but they have dips. But if they stick with the program, they'll see change. And if you scan your brain later, it'll be better. But another part you brought up was how you deal with the bad days.

Like gives you data and you don't look at bad days as like, oh, I just have a bad day. And I know a lot of people, me included, like I'll look at a bad day and then get guilty. But those bad days can turn into multiple bad days. But you were saying earlier how you turn it into data.

Okay, why was this a bad day? Like why did I make this choice that I didn't wanna make? So talk a little bit about that, 'cause I think especially people that watch this and okay, I wanna make a change. And then they try it for a while and then they have a few bad days.

It might turn into like a bad month or a bad year. How do you-- - And then they'll go to the doctor and end up with Lexapro or Adderall or sleeping pills, right? Because they didn't learn. So there's a phrase I love. Be curious, not furious. So many people, they'll make a bad decision and then they'll hate themselves and then they'll continue to make the bad decisions.

So I have a patient, a good example is I have a patient that has an eating disorder. She has bulimia and she's doing really well. And then she came in and she was ashamed of herself because she relapsed. And I'm like, curious, not furious. Walk me through the day.

And she hadn't eaten anything. And went out with her friends and had a drink and then a plate of nachos. So she came into that vulnerable time, more vulnerable 'cause she had a super low blood sugar, 'cause she hadn't eaten. And then the alcohol lowered it further and then the nachos, she hated herself, made herself throw up.

I'm like, so yes, you can shame yourself if you want to, it's just not helpful. What happened? So what we need to do is eat during the day so that you have a healthy blood sugar so when they offer you the alcohol you can go, not for me. And we just learn.

And it's like someone's struggling with an addiction. You don't shame them with a relapse is you go, what happened? What's the goal? And what can we learn from it? So that you can be what you want. And that's what I want. I want people to be clear with what they want and then just go, is my behavior getting me what I want?

- But you gotta be open too. Like you can't just relapse and then feel ashamed and keep it all inside. You gotta like have people in your life that you can tell, be all the way open. No, like I relapsed there. Even if I relapsed seven days in a row.

Like you gotta have people in your circle that you can talk to. How important is-- - And nobody's perfect, which is why Jesus died on the cross. - Exactly. How important is having people to be all the way healthy, having people you can talk to about when you're having those bad days?

- Yeah, people are contagious. So you have to be careful who you surround yourself with. So choose wisely. They're as contagious as COVID. But you wanna nurture your circle. So be careful with who you pick. But then you wanna nurture it. So important. 'Cause we're connected as a species, right?

Polar bears, they're good at being by themselves, right? Unless they're making a baby polar bear, they don't need anybody because that's not how they were made. We were made in connection. And it's essential. - I just got a couple more questions for you, my guy. So if you had three things to avoid and three things to do for everyone, what would be the top three things that you would pick for both?

- Three things to avoid. I have a new book called "Your Brain is Always Listening." And I would avoid the oblivious bad habit dragon. That's the first thing I'd do. I mean, I get conscious about loving my brain. Too many people, they're just oblivious that whether it's the air they breathe or the water they drink or the food they eat or the thoughts they think, there's just, they have no control.

And so I'd get rid of being oblivious. And then I'd be intentional about food 'cause food is so important. I think 30% of the mental health problems in America are due to the standard American diet, which spells sad, standard American diet. It's pro-inflammatory. Happy meals are not happy. They're sad meals.

When you think about it, it's like, no. And I turn off the gadgets and move. That the gadgets are causing us to be more sedentary, more overweight. - Totally agree. - So for do, it's purposeful. Love your brain and move and eat. - Gotcha. Was that three dos or was that three don'ts?

- Well, love your brain, move, eat, right. And avoid the oblivious bad habit dragon. And watch the digital addiction and the standard American diet. - Gotcha. Last question. - But it comes down to this one question. I worked with B.J. Fogg at Stanford for six months. He created something called tiny habits.

What's the smallest thing I can do today that'll make the biggest difference? And we have 50 tiny habits. But the mother tiny habit is just ask yourself as you go through your day, is this good for my brain or bad for it? And if you can answer that with information and love, love of yourself, love of your mission, why you're on the planet, love of your family and friends, begin making better decisions.

- Right, no doubt. My last question for you is obviously you've already made such a huge difference in the world. A lot of celebrities who have been addicted, all this stuff, you've helped heal them. What is your overall goal and what you wanna do and where do you see the world?

What's your main goal for the world? - So it's gonna sound crazy, but I wanna stand mental illness. I hate the term mental illness. It shames people, it's stigmatizing, and it's wrong. These are brain health issues. Call someone mental, you shame them. Call someone brain, you elevate them. So I wanna end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health.

And what I wanna do with my influencers is I want you to help me figure out how to make brain health cool. - No doubt. - And so for me to take an NBA player that is masterful at his craft and go, "Yeah, let's make brain health cool." A lot of people pay attention to that.

- No doubt. Well, I think you can do it because I know, I mean, the world's already moving in more of a health conscious state. The brain is a little ignored, but I think you got it going on and I see it firsthand, the benefits. You know, I thought everything was cool in my brain.

I did a brain scan and then I kinda told you about my issues beforehand and my brain showed the things that I was, and it's just, it's cool to look at it from that angle and I think it's super important. I think you can do it. - Well, let's make your brain the best it can be.

- Let's do it. That's a wrap though. Another episode of Kids, Mike. Appreciate it. (electronic music)