A (3:30)

That's 70% of Americans.

C (3:32)

That's 75% of Americans.

A (3:34)

What is the mistake most Americans make when protecting their brain? Or not? All right, Daniel. Amen. Psychiatrist, New York Times bestseller, Amen Clinics, many of them around the country. I would, in fact argue you do more for America's brain health than any single individual. You're a great scientist, you're a great doctor, but you've learned how to resonate with individuals at every level, from social media on up to the most sophisticated equipment to diagnose the brain and to fix it.

C (4:11)

And.

A (4:11)

And I just think what you do is amazing. We met actually on Instagram and I watched your avuncular, no nonsense, short videos. And you have this way of making people feel like you're their doctor and that you know them individually and you understand the temptations, you understand what our environment does to damage our brain. And you have these meaningful, scientific based, no nonsense approaches to keep our brains healthy and to fix them to a certain extent, the extent we can. And so the reason I so wanted to sit down with you, first of all, we're friends, Full disclosure, we had a few dinners together. And, and, but secondly, and I looked at your brain. You know me from the inside out, which is really frightening. But also for people who are interested in blue zones, we know this from all of the feedback we get. I would argue people are most interested in keeping their brain healthy. You know, we talk about the microbiome and we talk about cardiovascular health, but at the end of the day, if your brain isn't sharp or if your brain isn't working for some reason, nothing else matters much, does it?

C (5:38)

No. Because your brain's involved in everything you do. How you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. It's the organ of who you are. You can transplant your heart, your liver, your kidney, but if you transplanted the brain, you wouldn't be you.

A (6:00)

I hear you've named your brain after a raccoon.

C (6:05)

It was so funny. I did a TikTok video on something I teach all of my patients. Give your mind a name. That way you can gain psychological distance from the noise in your head. And the New York Post picked it up. And then I'm on Fox talking about it early Wednesday morning, and it's like, what's the name of your mind? And I named my mind after my pet raccoon. I had a pet raccoon when I was 16, and I loved her, but she was a troublemaker. She TPed my mother's bathroom. She ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium. She'd leave raccoon poo in my shoes. And that's my mind. It just like stirs up trouble. And so metaphorically, if I notice I'm getting a storm of bad thoughts, I put her in the cage. Or lately I just put her on her back and tickle her. And I'm like, you don't have to believe every stupid thing Hermey says, and it's all going to be fine.

A (7:09)

This underscores my, my point. You're a world class psychiatrist, yet you understand people enough to know that if you can name your own brain after a raccoon, it's going to resonate with just about everybody. And it's a beautiful metaphor, by the way. Probably name my, my brain after a dumpster or a yard sale or something. But. But what is the mistake most Americans make when protecting their brain or not?

C (7:38)

They don't think about it. They never really develop a relationship with it. And it's arguably the most important relationship you will ever have. And I started looking at the brain in 1991, and in 1991, I'm already a double board certified psychiatrist. I'm a physician. I was the top student in neuroscience in medical school. And I didn't care about my brain that much at all. Interesting, because I hadn't seen it the week before. So I just started doing brain SPECT imaging. That's a study we do at Amen clinics. And I was so excited. I was like a little kid. And I scanned my mom and she had a stunningly beautiful brain. And then I scanned myself, and it wasn't healthy. And I played football in high school. I had meningitis twice as a young soldier. And I had bad habits. I was only getting four hours of sleep at night. I was overweight. And I had just never really thought about the physical health of my brain. And my work taught me brain is an organ, just like your heart is an organ. And if it's not healthy, your mind isn't healthy. And I was anxious and angry and chronically stressed. And as I got my brain healthy, I was calmer. I was happier. I was more consistent, less irritable. And I'm like, everybody's got to have a healthy brain, right? And I love that about my work. When I graduated from medical school, I had two goals. I wanted to be a really good psychiatrist and I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to teach other people about what I was learning, not just the 30 or so patients I would see in a week. I wanted to make a bigger difference.

A (9:40)

Yeah, and you know, some of the books for which you're famous, The Daniel Plan, which is a huge hit. Number, number one New York Times bestseller. You happier? Another place where our work intersects. And you have a new book out now or recently. What was your most recent book?

C (9:56)

Raising mentally strong kids.

A (9:58)

Oh, gosh, who doesn't want to do that?

C (10:01)

I love that book so much. And then change your brain, change your pain is coming out December 2nd.

A (10:07)

If listeners aren't familiar with you, what book should we start with?

C (10:13)

Change your brain every day? It's a daily reader.

A (10:16)

Oh, I like that.

C (10:17)

It's 366 short essays, bite sized on the most important things I've ever said. And so when you've written as much as I have, it's like, do you have a summary? Although most people now go to ChatGPT and they go, give me change your brain every day and 20 bullet points.

A (10:38)

Yeah, but that doesn't stick with you as much as a daily practice of, of a, of an essay that's embedded in a story. You know, though I've learned at National Geographic, if you want to get people to remember a health message, you don't enter through the brain with a bunch of statistics or facts. You enter through the heart with a story.

C (11:00)

And that logic is not the heart, it's the brain. But you end.

A (11:03)

Yes, metaphorically, the limbic brain. Okay, right. Yeah.

C (11:06)

You attach to a story that makes them feel something.

A (11:10)

Yes.

C (11:10)

It's like, I don't love you with all my heart. But it doesn't sound right to say I love you with all my brain.

A (11:16)

I love you though. My limit.

C (11:17)

You broke my heart. It's like, no, you broke my brain.

A (11:23)

So what are the things that we should be doing? If you're an average American and there's a lot of headwinds, you know, we live in an environment of, I would say, toxic food, too much sugar, too much processed food, there's air pollution. And I came down in the 405. There's. We increasingly spend time in our cars. That means we're not spending time on our feet. What are the four or five things that the average American can do to protect their brain or indeed or to. To augment whatever cognitive capacity they have.

C (12:02)

So three big things. And then you have to know the lists. So the first thing is you have to love your brain. It's like there's a term I created a long time ago called brain envy. Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I've been a psychiatrist for 46 years. I haven't seen it once. Brain envy. You want to learn to love and care for your brain. It is the organ where size really does matter. So care about it. Avoid things that hurt it. You just have to know the list.

A (12:38)

Give us that list quickly.

C (12:41)

Being sedentary. No new learning. Pro inflammatory food like sugar and processed foods. Not knowing your genetic risk and being on a prevention program your whole life. Head injuries. If you go, hey, Daniel. Single most important thing from 300,000 SPECT scans. Mild traumatic brain injury ruins people's lives and nobody knows about it. Toxic exposure, whether it's air pollution, polluted food, drugs, much alcohol. Believing every stupid thing. You think having a low vitamin D level, you know, the dermatologists won. They made us afraid of the sun. And that has been a huge problem.

A (13:37)

Disservice, right?

C (13:38)

Huge disservice. Because skin cancer didn't go down when we started.

A (13:43)

Interesting. Slathering with sunscreen.

C (13:46)

The sunscreen and all sorts of other bad things happen. You know, vitamin D, normal levels between 30 and 100. If you're over 40, your vitamin D levels over 40, you have half the risk of cancer of those who are under 20. And when I first tested my vitamin D level and I live in Southern California where the sun's out 300 days a year, was 17 because I wasn't exercising during the day. I was exercising at night because I work during the day. And I'm like, no, you have to get in the sun. And it's like, but what about being burned? It's like, don't be stupid, right? But 20 or 30 minutes a day in the sun without sunscreen is important to get a healthy vitamin D or take a supplement.

A (14:33)

You know, parenthetically, we were talking. Interviewing Laird Hamilton is this famous surfer. The other day on this podcast, and I asked him one of his top health tips, and he said, get in the sun. And, you know, I said, same thing. What about skin cancer? And he said, it's not nearly as threatening as not being out and playing, getting your physical activity and getting exposure to the sun. Vitamin D synthesis and so forth.

C (14:59)

We were made in the sun or evolved in the sun.

A (15:02)

Yeah.

C (15:03)

And now we're in boxes all day with artificial light. And then get your hormones tested. Low testosterone is a major risk for dementia. And don't be overweight. It's really important. Of the 11 major risk factors, so I'm actually going through, I have an acronym called bright minds. You want to keep your brain healthier, Rescue it to prevent or treat these 11 things. Well, the D in Bright minds is diabesity, high blood sugar and or being overweight. If you're overweight, you have 10 of the 11 risk factors for dementia and aging. That's 70% of Americans at 75% of Americans are now overweight or obese. And sleep, Go to bed a half an hour early. You want a better memory. Tomorrow, go to bed half an hour early tonight. Sleep is so important. An untreated sleep apnea. Snore loudly, stop breathing. Chronically tired triples your risk for Alzheimer's disease. And so those are the things to avoid. But then the flip side, the things to do. Exercise, new learning, omega 3 fatty acids. Know your risks and be on a prevention like, I have heart disease and obesity in my family. I don't have heart disease. I'm not overweight because I'm on a heart disease obesity prevention program every day of my life. Don't text and drive because you're more likely to get a head injury. Detoxify, you know, avoid toxins and support the organs of detoxification, especially saunas. And you've probably seen this with your work. People take the most saunas, have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Don't believe every stupid thing you think. From a mental health standpoint, know your vitamin D level. Optimize it. Test your hormones. And one reason to avoid sugar. If you get a sugar burst, it decreases testosterone by 25%. So if you share, share the cheesecake with your sweetheart at the restaurant, nobody gets dessert when they get home.

A (17:26)

What do you mean by that? We tend to think that luxury means more. More plans, more movement, more stuff. But everywhere I've gone to study the world's longest lived people, I found the opposite. In the blue zones, the real luxury is time. Time to walk instead of rush. Time to sit at the table a little bit longer. Time to finish a conversation without checking the clock. That's not indulgence. That's how people stay healthy and happy. For decades. When I'm at my lake house in Wisconsin, slowing down happens naturally. Mornings start quiet, meals stretch out. Evenings End early. It's not flashy, but it's deeply restorative. When I head back on the road, I like knowing my home doesn't sit still. I host it on Airbnb so someone else can experience that same pause, so that same sense of ease. You don't realize you're missing it until you feel it again. Hosting fits seamlessly into my life. It's a simple, practical way to earn extra income while staying connected to a slower, more intentional way of living. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com/host.

C (18:50)

That's.

A (18:51)

You know, I want to go back to the one thing you said was the most damaging, which is head trauma. You very generously invited me here, and we spent an afternoon, and you gave me. You put me through the battery of tests you do at the Amen Clinic, the diagnostic test, which I found fast. I learned so much about myself that I had no idea. You ended by taking a scan of my brain. Spec. Is it spect? The spec scan. And you put it up on a big screen, like where we see the Dan Buettner podcast here. And you literally spun my brain around, and you gave me good news and bad news. The bad news was I had a concussion about a year earlier. I wiped out my roller on my inline skates. And you could see it. And I remember you pointed to it on my brain, and it was so clear, like, oh, my God, there's the damage. But then the good news, you said, I've seen 30,000 scans or something. I can tell you you don't have a sign of Alzheimer's. And I'm wondering, what do you remember that scan and how you were able to make those two conclusions?

C (20:07)

Yeah, spect Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography. It's a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity. And our database now is almost 300,000 scans. And traumatic brain injury, really clear, right? You see focal decreased activity. So a discrete area of decreased activity right next to a very sharp bony ridge. But Alzheimer's, which I can tell years, probably decades ahead of time if your brain is headed that way, bilateral, both sides, parietal lobe, top back part of your brain decreases. That's why people get lost and decreases in their temporal lobes. And you.

A (20:57)

The shape of the brain turns, you're.

C (20:59)

Saying, well, as these areas start to die, and so on my study, you see decreased blood flow in those areas. But what a lot of people don't realize is you can make it better. Like I did the big NFL Study when the NFL was sort of not telling the truth about traumatic brain injury in football. High levels of damage. Stop lying about it. It's a brain damaging sport. But 80% of our players get better when we put them on a rehabilitation program. You might have heard about that kid that went to New York and shot all those people. He was going to the NFL offices because he said he had cte. The problem is the messaging around CTE is flawed. It's yes, chronic hits to the head is bad for you, but the messaging is CTE is chronic, progressive and untreatable. And that's a lie that we have seen. You can absolutely reverse the damage if you put the brain in a healing environment. And that's what I recommended for you. It's like getting a hyperbaric chamber. Here's some supplements that, that can be helpful. Avoid things that hurt your brain. Do things that help your brain. And if I scanned you today and you did the things I asked you to do, your brain would be better.

A (22:21)

Yeah, I did. I took your. It was brain MD supplements and well, I took it easy. I got more sleep, I ate healthy. I feel my brain is as sharp or perhaps sharper than it was. I was for sure cognitively challenged after I got, I actually, I got, I had two concussions in a row.

C (22:46)

But in general, on your bike, if I remember.

A (22:48)

That's right, yeah. Good memory.

C (22:49)

Like hit a chain or something.

A (22:51)

Oh my God, I can't believe you see all these patients. You remember me from a year and a half ago? That's exactly right. Yes. I, I biked to dinner and then on the way back from dinner, somebody put a chain over the path, which I didn't see. And I was doing about 20 miles an hour and all of a sudden my bicycle was doing zero miles an hour and I was flying head first into the pavement. And that was concussion number two in about a six month period. And yeah, that was not good. Luckily I was wearing a helmet. But just to drill down a little bit because a lot of people listening here will have had. They would have played football or they would have hit their head significantly. What's the general protocol? And maybe a little bit more detail. I suspect I've had a concussion. What should I do?

C (23:45)

Well, if you notice a change, sadder, more irritable, very common memory problems, forgetting names. It's a good idea to look at your brain to actually go, let me look. Right. I often say psychiatrists are the only medical doctors who virtually never look at the organ they treat. Think about that last year, there were 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants. And virtually none of those people had their brains looked at. So they're flying blind. And so I think looking is a good idea. And then care about it. Avoid things that hurt it. So one of the things that hurts your brain is sugar. Isn't that interesting? So they did this study at UCLA where they took rats, gave them a head injury purposefully. Not nice. One group, they gave them their regular healthy diet. The other group, they added fructose or fruit sugar to their diet. After three weeks, the group with the added sugar couldn't remember the mazes they were running. The group with the healthy diet could run the mazes just fine. So what's on the sidelines of football games? Gatorade. Which is sugar water.

A (25:10)

Yeah.

C (25:10)

And we're not even thinking about what we put in our bodies. And are we encouraging the brain to heal or not? What we used in the NFL study is we taught them to love and care for their brains. Multiple vitamin with high doses of B6, B12, and folate. Because those three have been shown to decrease the conversion of mild cognitive impairment on the way to Alzheimer's disease to actually getting Alzheimer's disease. We also did high dose, high quality omega 3 fatty acids to decrease inflammation. Almost 95% of the general population is low in omega 3 fatty acids. Crazy.

A (26:01)

Where's the best place to get omega 3 fatty acids?

C (26:04)

From fish. Healthy fish.

A (26:06)

Yeah.

C (26:06)

Or taking fish oil. And then we put them on a brain boost that works in six different ways. Ginkgo. One of my favorite supplements. The prettiest brains I've ever seen take ginkgo because it increases blood flow. Huperzine A, which boosts acetylcholine phosphatidylserine for nerve cell membrane stabilization. And those three supplements. And 80% of our players were better just by caring about their brain and using supplements.

A (26:40)

Yes. You have to care and you have to know what to do.

C (26:42)

Simple. Right? And ultimately, I'm working on this big idea of a national brain health revolution. So imagine if America became the world's first brain healthy nation. What if everybody, like, we got schools, prisons, churches, families, businesses to just ask one question every day. Is what I'm doing good for my brain or bad for it? And if I can answer that with information and love, love of myself, love of my family, love of the reason I'm on earth, I just start making better decisions. But most people never ask the question.

A (27:26)

That's right. We don't think about it. And it starts with thinking about it, then. Then given the right information, and then, of course, you have to take action. And it all starts with that.

C (27:38)

And I'm working on this whole four program, which I think you'll like. It's whole four is what can you do for your brain and body? What can you do to support your mind? What can you do to support your relationships? And what can you do to truly live with a sense of meaning and purpose? And too often in psychiatry, it's like, oh, here's your brain. You have a serotonin deficiency. Take an ssri, which I think is completely insane. And there's actually new research that suggests SSRIs increase your risk of dementia. Swallow that one. No, it's all for. It's physical, psychological, social, spiritual.

A (28:29)

I want to go back to sugar for a minute, because what you said is alarming. And most people do not make the connection between eating this delicious piece of chocolate or jelly beans or drinking a soda and cognitive decline, brain damage, quite literally. Is there a safe amount of sugar? Do you know the average American eats 110 pounds of sugar a year? And most of the time you don't even realize it? You put ketchup on French fries. That ketchup has more sugar than maple syrup or a yogurt. Most people. I'm eating fruit yogurt for breakfast. That must be good for me. Look at the label. More sugar per ounce than a Coke. So. And it's just so hard living in the food environment that we live in and avoiding sugar. So is there a safe level or is there a way to.

C (29:29)

Yeah.

A (29:30)

Dodge the.

C (29:31)

Well, I think it's just being aware of it. And there are 14 different names for sugar. Like organic cane syrup.

A (29:41)

Yes.

C (29:41)

Or brown rice syrup.

A (29:44)

Yeah. Reduced sugar cane. Organic sugar cane, you know?

C (29:48)

Right.

A (29:49)

It's same thing.

C (29:50)

Right. Or it has apple juice in it. It's like apple juice crystals.

A (29:54)

Can I have a cookie after dinner or no?

C (29:57)

Well, it just depends how much you love yourself. Do you want. What do you want? Right. And I just turned 71, and I'm like, so, what do I want? Yes, I want the cookie, but not when I go, what do I really want? Energy, memory, independence. I don't want my kids worried about taking my driver's license from me. And I love my six children, but I never want to live with any of them. It's like, I don't want to be a burden. And, no, I don't. I want my brain to be healthy. And if I know sugar increases my risk of diabesity, which then means I'm going to have all the risks. Now, Drew Carey said it the best. He said, eating crappy food isn't a reward, it's a punishment.

A (30:54)

And when you look upon ourselves, when.

C (30:56)

You get that mindset and you know, do you see the movie City Slickers with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance? It was great. So Billy Crystal is having a midlife crisis. He's like a Manhattan workaholic and he goes to a dude ranch and an old cowboy keeps telling Billy, you just have to know the one thing. And Billy's like, well, what's the one thing? Well, and then the cowboy dies, so he never finds out. The one thing. Well, I figured out what the one thing is.

A (31:31)

Here we go.

C (31:31)

The one thing is when you do the right thing, really praise yourself, feel good about that, and kick your ass when you do the wrong thing.

A (31:42)

There you go.

C (31:43)

Rather than, oh, I can't have this, I don't want to deprive myself because that's really. It's the four year old running your life. You don't want the four year old running your health. When you do the right thing, be proud of yourself. Rather than, oh, I can't have this and I can't have that. That's a four year old's mindset.

A (32:04)

I have a corollary to that. I have very strong opinions and research, I think, to back it up. But weighing yourself every day. One of the things we do at Blue Zones is we have what we call a self weighing moai. So we have a group of five people who weigh themselves every day and then we text each other our weight. But also maybe it's another nice little affirmation or nice little greeting, or when you step on the scale and your weight is trending in the right direction, going down for 75% of Americans, you feel a little reward, a little dopamine. A little dopamine. And when you see that weight going up, you feel a little kick in the ass to use, to use your word. And I find that daily reminder I'm either going in the right direction or I'm going in the wrong direction. Helps keep me on the right, helps keep me thinking about the things that are going to give me the little dopamine reward tomorrow. But also one of the things we've learned in Blue Zones, that if you're not doing it alone, that if you can find your little cohort, we call it a moai in, in Blue Zones, a, a committed circle of friends, it's a lot easier to Stay on the path. It's a lot easier to keep doing it on a daily basis because I'm sure longevity, as with brain health, you could do the absolute perfect thing for a week. And that has zero impact on how your brain's going to be in 10 years.

C (33:30)

Absolutely.

A (33:31)

You have to do the right thing almost every day of your life. For most of your life. For most days. For most of your life. And so I think a lot about the mechanisms around which you surround the right behavior. So they. You keep doing them well, you become.

C (33:51)

Like the people you spend time with. Yes. I mean, behavior is contagious. People are very contagious. If they're negative, you're more likely to be negative. If they're positive, you're more likely to be positive. If they eat in a healthy way, you're more likely to eat in a healthy way.

A (34:08)

Exactly right.

C (34:09)

It's. When we did the Daniel Plan, people who did it with another person or with a group that doubled their success, however they defined it.

A (34:20)

For those people who haven't read the Daniel plan yet, what. As I recall, it's a series of essays again, Right. For the most part. So we are prescribed a series of essays.

C (34:33)

So the short story is, I went to my church here in Newport Beach. I just finished writing change your brain, change your body, my second book on the connection between physical health and mental health. And I was very happy as a Sunday morning. And I went to my church and I said, tana, my wife, who you met, why don't you drop Chloe off at children's church? I'll go save us seats. And I walked by, hundreds of donuts for sale. And I've been going to church since I was 4 years old. And that day, they pissed me off. I'm like, I'm going to church to get my soul fed. These people are trying to kill me. And then I walked by, bacon and sausage cooking on the grill. And then hundreds of hot dogs for after church. And I just felt like I was being slugged. Like I'm in a prize fight and I'm just getting hit. And then I sat down, and the minister started talking about the ice cream festival they had the night before. And I'm furious. So I've been going to church since I was a kid. I'd never seen it before like this. And when Tana found me in church, I'm typing on my phone, and she hates that. She gave you the look like, why are you on that thing in church? Don't you know you're going to hell And I showed her what I was typing. Go to church, get donuts, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, ice cream. They have no idea they are sending people to heaven early. Save them, then kill them. This is not the plan. And I prayed that Sunday that God would use me to change the culture of food at church and during the prayer. So non religious people notice this is intention. I'm like, this is the dumbest prayer you ever prayed. And if you know me well, you know I have an attitude problem. And I'm like, God's my prayer, you deal with it what you want. Two weeks later, Rick Warren, huge church America's pastor, on the COVID of Time twice, wrote the purpose driven life, our generation's best selling book, calls me up and I'd never met him. He said, I'm fat, my church is fat. Will you help me? I'm like, you had me from a low note, you know, remembering the prayer. And January 15, 2011, we launched the Daniel Plan. It's based on five pillars, faith, why do you care? Food, fitness, focus, which is brain health, and friends, which is community. And the first year, the first week, 15,000 people signed up. The first year they lost a quarter of a million pounds. And thousands of churches have done the program around the world.

A (37:16)

Wow.

C (37:17)

And this is somebody, you know, people get better together or they get sick together. And I'm going to reboot my version of it. It's called the amen, whole four, this one for faith communities because it's not something you can do for a season. Pastor Warren said, oh, we're doing this for a season. I'm like, yeah, you don't do health for a season, you do it for the rest of your life.

A (37:45)

That's right.

C (37:45)

If you care, right? You do it as long as you care. You want energy, care, you want a healthy brain. And I'm so excited about it.

A (37:56)

The beauty of church, whether you're religious or not, and we know this from blue zones, people who just show up to church, temple or mosque, it doesn't have to be any special God. But showing up to a faith based community 4 times per month adds about 4 years of life expectancy for the average person. And for inner city youth, it can be as much as 14 years of life expectancy. Why? I believe it's because people who show up to church are less likely to get involved in risky behaviors. They have that one time a week where they downshift, lower their stress, lower their cortisol, take their mind off of their busy lives and put it on higher being or maybe Just fellow parishioners. And you also have a community and you have a ritual. You're doing it every single week. There's very few things that we do every single week. People get excited about training and running a marathon, and that's six months or a year. They get excited about some diet and diets last on average about seven months. They get excited about some fitness program. They don't last very long. But a faith and a faith based community, that's a strategy for the long run. It's this great delivery vehicle for this type of brain health intervention you're thinking of. It's a great idea. Amen. Four coming soon.

C (39:22)

Pole four. Yeah.

A (39:26)

You've been very vocal about marijuana and alcohol. And I think a lot of, you know, I'll just say from the blue zones, people in blue zones making it to 100. In the Mediterranean blue zones, they drink a glass or two of red wine every day of their Life. About almost 90% of people making it to a 9800 drink. But your stance is no amount of alcohol is safe, at least for your brain.

C (39:53)

Well, the American Cancer Society came out four years ago against any alcohol because any alcohol is associated with an increased risk of 7, now 8 different cancers. As a psychiatrist, there is not a week that goes by where alcohol hasn't messed up someone's life and alcohol prematurely ages the brain. Now, if you're doing everything else right, a glass or two may not have a big negative impact for you. But I'm not a fan of drinking something that is a disinfectant. Right. I mean, my wife is a nurse. And why does she put alcohol on your skin before she gives you a shot? It's because it kills a lot of bugs. Well, how many bugs do you have in your microbiome? 100 trillion?

A (40:48)

Yeah. Yeah.

C (40:49)

And so I'm like, just not a fan of doing anything that alters your mind. And people go, but it relaxes me. I'm like, diaphragmatic. Breathing will relax you and it doesn't have any side effects. I did. In our program and in my work, we use lots of tiny habits. You know, what's the smallest thing I can do today that will make the biggest difference? And I worked with a professor at Stanford on tiny habits. And I met him at a conference a couple of years later. And he said, I have to thank you. I'm like, cool. Why? He said, I wake up 100% every day. I'm like, that's awesome. Why? He said, I stopped drinking.

B (41:35)

Wow.

C (41:36)

And marijuana, we've Been lied to. Marijuana is innocuous. Marijuana is legal, I guess in 30 years.

A (41:44)

How about innocent little gummies with tht thc?

C (41:48)

Yeah, it works on your brain to relax you and then it rebounds where you're not relaxed. And the problem is, and it's the same problem we talk about with psilocybin or magic mushrooms, it's when the population thinks it's innocuous, it use goes dramatically up. And teenagers who use, you know, we're in the biggest mental health epidemic for young people ever in recorded history. And they just believe marijuana is innocuous. But if you use marijuana as a teenager or young adult, you have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide and psychosis.

A (42:34)

Can you unpack the mechanisms behind that a little bit as a psychiatrist?

C (42:38)

Well, I published a study on a thousand marijuana users. Every area of their brain is lower in blood flow. And recently this year in JAMA Psychiatry, there's another group, not mine, published another study on a thousand marijuana users. The areas of learning and executive function were significantly low in activity. And then they compared smokers nicotine with marijuana smokers. The lungs were more damaged with marijuana.

A (43:15)

Interesting.

C (43:16)

So from my standpoint, it's decreasing blood flow, but also decreases myelinization of the brain. And what's happening when you're 13 to 26 is your brain is undergoing wild myelinization. So your nerves get wrapped with a white fatty substance called myelin. And it starts when you're a baby, like just a month or two old, where your occipital lobes in the back, they get myelinated because when you smile at a brand newborn, they don't smile back because they don't really see you. But at two months, you smile at them, they smile at you. Bonding goes because their visual cortex has been myelinated. Well then there's a slow march forward from the back to the front. And the front part of your brain does not get fully myelinated until you're in your mid-20s. So you're really not an adult where your brain is finished until you're about 25. So that's why you shouldn't let children hit soccer balls with their foreheads. Right? Oh, I'm not a fan of tackle football. Even though I played and loved it, it didn't love me back. And why would you throw poison into your brain when it's undergoing such wild development? And I think most people just don't understand that.

A (44:47)

So, you know, the human, the human species have been using different mind altering subst forever. You know, it's Almost we've evolved for that. And the reality is, let's just say a middle aged person whose brain is developed, they're going to do something. The reality is the best is that they wouldn't do anything. No intoxicants. But if they're going to do, if they're going to take a gummy, which is legal in many states, or smoke a joint, which is legal in many states, or drink some wine or beer, which is legal everywhere for an adult, which one would you rather see them do? I know it's going to be hard.

C (45:30)

For you as a doctor, but we post on this marijuana or alcohol, which one's worse?

A (45:35)

It's such a good question. Well, let's frame it the other way. More.

C (45:43)

Domestic violence with alcohol for sure. It, it's disinhibiting effects, causes more trouble in relationships yet. I just did a podcast here with Julius Randall last week. Julius Randall's the superstar power forward for the Minnesota Timberwolves. And he came to see me because his wife was very concerned about his marijuana use. You know, you can play in the NBA and smoke that day, that they don't test for it anymore. And it changed his personality in a negative way. And when he stopped, he became more of who he really was. Now I think for everybody, like, okay, yes, people are going to use intoxicants, but it's because we haven't taught them how to manage their minds, haven't taught them how to use simple rituals to calm themselves. And I'd be interested as you've gone to the blue zones, because I know when you went to Loma Linda, they weren't doing that stuff. That's right. And they were happy. My wife trained at Loma Linda and so what were they doing? Community. What else were they doing besides they.

A (47:13)

Take a nature walk every Saturday afternoon. They're big volunteers. They take a lot of the focus off their own problems, place that on others. They have very good social networks to a certain extent. The Seventh Day Adventists, they have the Saturday Sabbath, which makes them a little different than other people. Their kids can't play football and they don't go to dances on Friday night, et cetera. So they tend to hang out with each other. And my observation is that they form stronger social bonds. They eat mostly a whole food plant based diet. You're going to feel better, in my opinion, on a whole food plant based diet than on a meaty, cheesy, eggy, processed food diet. But I will tell you, if you look at the data, about 50% of Adventists drink, and that's even though their religion explicitly tells them not to. And, you know, I'm a big believer that perfect is the enemy of good. So I like to tell people, okay, you're going to do this. You know, I wish nobody ever ate meat, quite honestly, people are going to eat meat. And, you know, I could list off a dozen reasons why meat is not good for you and probably not good for your brain in a lot of circumstances, certain types of meat. But I know people are going to eat it. So I try to encourage them to make it a celebratory food. I try to encourage them to only eat it once a week. Small portion, the portion the size of a deck of cards. In my Blue Zones project work, we get hired by entire cities to raise the life expectancy of us. Insurance companies pay us and, you know, I know people are, are, are going to drink. And we've come up with a policy bundle that city councils can consider that tries to find the sweet spot by allowing individual freedom, but also in sort of unconscious way, engineering too much alcohol out of the, out of the system and alcohol at the wrong times. For example, alcohol between midnight and 3am on a weekend night. The worst time to make alcohol really freely available because that's when DUIs happen and that's when, you know, terrible car accidents happen. So, you know, I sort of take this. I would rather lower the alcohol consumption in a city of a million people by 10% than guilt or try to get 100 people to stop altogether. So the reason I asked the question about alcohol or marijuana is because my opinion, people are going to do what they want to do, which is intoxicating. I would rather give them nevertheless want.

C (50:23)

To take away their freedom. Yeah, but, but I want to engage in the discussion about, well, which brain do you want? And I have, I don't know, tens of thousands of substance abuse brains and they're not what you want. I did another person who did my show, Jonathan Cain, who's the keyboardist for the band Journey, and he wrote many of their iconic songs and he's drinking two bottles of wine a night and showed him healthy brain. I made him a poster. Healthy brain, his brain not great. His brain if he did what I said, much better. And his brain, if he, he didn't do it, I said, which is really an Alzheimer's looking brain. And then I had put it up on the tour bus.

A (51:14)

That's powerful.

C (51:15)

Which brain do you today want? And that's the idea behind the brain health revolution. Yeah, it's just Getting people to love and care for their brain. And most people think of alcohol as a health food, which is complete crap. It's not a health food. But the wine industry or the alcohol industry, masterful at marketing. And I'm like, we have to be smart in how we approach this because as a psychiatrist, I see the devastation weekly.

A (51:59)

I know we're coming to the end of our hour here, and I want to sort of end on a really positive note. So I recently saw a study by the imf, International Monetary Fund. They've been surveying people, over a million people, for the last 20 years or so. And the survey, along with the survey, they asked people, they give them these cognitive tests of sort of arithmetic and recall and the quickness of their mind. And they found that comparing, and this is in 41 countries too, they found that comparing the cognitive ability of people living in 2022, that a 70 year old in 2022 had the same level of a 53 year old in 2007. So in other words, our cognitive abilities are actually getting better with time. Does that make any sense to you?

C (53:03)

No. So I would love to see the data because what I've seen, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been an epidemic rise in anxiety, depression and cognitive decline because of the inflammation caused by Covid and, and then, you know, all the other things that went along with COVID from the social isolation and so on. So. But I have to rethink it.

A (53:38)

I'll show you that. I'll show you the study. Yeah, I just thought it was kind of a bright spot that in, in this one very sort of tangible way that 53 is the new 70.

C (53:50)

Well, I believe that. I mean, I turned 71 this year and like feel as good as I've ever felt. But. But it comes from doing the right thing. Like just like you talked about, I love that, is that you weigh yourself every day. You can't change what you don't measure. So you keep it in front of your mind and then you connect with other people. That's. That's the way we live long.

A (54:22)

I do it every day. I have a group of people. Well, what, what do you do? So, you know, just looking around you, I'm looking at your 10 books there. You've started this supplement company, you have this giant building amen clinics. You're influencing the White House on giving them ideas on how to keep America's brain sharp. You're huge on Instagram, 4.2 million followers, I guess even bigger on TikTok. How do you do so much? Where does this drive come from? And where does the capacity to do as much as you do come from?

C (55:09)

Just passion and having a great team. I mean, ultimately, it's not what I do, it's what we do. And I believe it's why I'm on the planet, that I'm on a planet to get people to love and care for their brains. I believe that's why God put me here and gave me the experiences I have to help people have better brains and better lives and just endlessly excited about opening people's minds to. You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better, and I can prove it.

A (55:52)

Can you tell me where on that journey you were at your lowest? Or has it always been just thunderbolts and.

C (56:00)

Oh, When I first started looking at the brain, I was so excited. I was like a little kid. And then my colleagues told me I shouldn't do it. I grew up with a very hard dad. For me, he had two favorite words. No. Like everything was no, or bullshit no. That was my childhood. And when my colleagues told me I shouldn't be looking at the brain, I'm like, well, how do you really help someone who's murderous or suicidal or their marriages just keep falling apart if you actually don't know what their brain looks like? Why would I ever guess? But I got investigated by the medical board, and I. I'm flawed. I like. I want people to like me. And now they hate me.

A (56:58)

That must have been hard.

C (57:00)

It was so hard. In 2005, 2020 came to my office and they start the interview. They lied to me. They start the interview with Brad Peterson, a psychiatrist from Columbia says, you should be arrested for your work. Now, thankfully for me, I was on the speech team in college, and my speech coach said, when you don't know what to say, take a breath, smile. It'll come to you. I said, that's so interesting. Last week, they told me I should win a Nobel Prize. This week you're telling me I should be arrested. It sort of keeps me balanced.

A (57:39)

Brilliant. Last.

C (57:41)

Last year, Brad Peterson and I wrote a big paper in translational psychiatry on spect and depression. So that was a full.

A (57:48)

So you flip.

C (57:48)

But it was those moments of being called a charlatan, a snake oil salesman, that hurt. But I have so many stories that just kept me in the game. Right? You change somebody's life, you want to do it again, right?

A (58:10)

Well, it's not uncommon for academics to come under fire when they simplify things. So everybody can understand it and everybody has access to it. And I'm experienced version of that myself. And by the way, they wouldn't come after you if you weren't big and successful.

C (58:33)

Well, when I did my NFL study, one of my players who heard about the nonsense said, doc, they only try to tackle people who have the ball.

A (58:42)

That's even better. I love that. Well, on that note, thank you so much for taking the time. You are a true evangelist. You're doing a great service to America. You've done a great service to me. I'm here to thank you again, very publicly, for what you've done for me and my brain. So thank you. Daniel.

C (59:01)

What a joy. I'm grateful.