This is StRest! Kerstin Lindquist sits down with Dr. Lee Warren — board-certified neurosurgeon, Iraq war veteran, trauma survivor, and author of The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery — for a raw conversation about PTSD, grief, chronic stress, prayer, brain health, and the connection between neuroscience and faith.

Lee shares how serving in Iraq, performing 200 brain surgeries in a tent hospital, and surviving repeated mortar attacks left him with PTSD — and how the 2013 murder of his son Mitch forced him to confront what healing actually looks like. He explains the brain scan moment that changed his life, why he believes thoughts can reshape the brain and body, and how gratitude, breath, and attention can shift the nervous system out of panic.

Then the conversation turns practical and deeply personal: how feelings can mislead you, what chronic stress does to the brain over time, how breath work and the vagus nerve fit into anxiety recovery, when therapy and medication can help, and why meditative prayer may physically change the brain. Dr. Warren also shares his daily non-negotiables, what he does to stay grounded, and the hope he wants people to hold onto when life falls apart.

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CHAPTERS

(00:00) Brain Surgery, War, and Loss

(01:05) Why This Episode Matters

(06:32) Meet Dr. Lee Warren