Change Your Brain with Dr. Amen

Summary

THE ED MYLETT SHOW

Episode: Change Your Brain with Dr. Daniel Amen
Date: February 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this edition of The Ed Mylett Show, Ed welcomes back Dr. Daniel Amen, renowned brain health expert, psychiatrist, and founder of Amen Clinics. The discussion centers on Dr. Amen’s latest book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, which explores the intricate connections between emotional and physical pain, the pathways in the brain responsible for suffering, and practical strategies to rewire the mind for healing and resilience. The episode is densely packed with science-based insights, actionable tools, and candid dialogue about trauma, brain health, supplements, trauma therapies, and controversial subjects like psychedelics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pain as a Brain Story, Not Just a Body Signal

[02:29 – 03:20]

• Dr. Amen reframed pain as not only a physical signal but as a story the brain tells itself, impacting both emotional and physical states.
• Quote:

  “Pain … ultimately comes to live in your brain. And if your brain isn’t healthy, you’re in a lot of pain. The same circuits that create emotional pain are also involved in physical pain.” — Dr. Amen [02:29]

2. Brain Pathways of Pain

[03:20 – 07:06]

• Lateral Pain Feeling Pathway: Originates in the thalamus and parietal lobes, localizes pain (“My back hurts”).

• Medial Pain Suffering Pathway: Involves deep emotional centers (anterior cingulate, insula, basal ganglia); when overactive, it transforms pain into suffering (“dread, awfulness, angst”).

• Calming Pathway (Prefrontal Cortex): Calms pain by inhibiting overactive circuits; damage here makes turning pain off difficult.

• Notable Research:

  • Overactivity in thalamus and emotional brain links depression and physical pain.
  • Medications and supplements that work for depression often relieve pain as well.

• Quote:

  "[The] thalamus and your emotional brain are overactive in depression. If you’re depressed, you’re more likely to have physical pain."
  — Dr. Amen [03:52]

3. Epigenetics: How Stress Alters Genes Over Generations

[08:13 – 10:22]

• Chronic stress, trauma, toxins, and sleep deprivation can flip genes on/off, affecting not just you but your descendants.

• Aspartame example: Dr. Amen’s personal recovery from pain by quitting aspartame—a habit shown to create generational anxiety in mice.

• Quote:

  “Our habits are not about us. They’re literally about generations of us... our behavior every day is impacting us, but also our children and grandchildren.”
  — Dr. Amen [09:32]

4. Supplements for Brain & Mood: Saffron, Zinc, Curcumin

[10:22 – 12:07]

• Saffron’s efficacy rivals several antidepressants, enhances mood, boosts memory, decreases pain, and increases sexual health.

• Combining saffron with zinc and curcumin amplifies benefits.

• Quote:

  “Saffron is pro-sexual, enhances memory, decreases pain… I added zinc and curcumin to saffron for exactly that reason.”
  — Dr. Amen [11:55]

5. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the Hijacked Brain

[13:27 – 15:08]

• High ACE scores (exposure to trauma in childhood) robustly increase the risk for major illnesses and premature death.

• However, healing is possible through targeted trauma treatment and self-care.

• Personal relevance: Both Ed and Dr. Amen share histories touched by family addiction and trauma.

• Quote:

  “If you score [a] six or more [on the ACE scale], you die 20 years early, but you don’t have to... My wife’s an eight and she’s not going to die early because she’s had treatment for trauma.”
  — Dr. Amen [14:15]

6. The Pain HQ Doom Loop & The Healing Loop

[17:10 – 22:33]

• PAIN HQ Doom Loop:

  • Pain: Any source—physical, emotional, relational, spiritual.
  • Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)
  • Nervous Tension: From negative thoughts and repressed emotion.
  • Harmful Habits: Alcohol, sugar, drugs; attempts to self-soothe but increase pain.
  • Quagmire/Quicksand: The spiral deepens.

• The Healing Loop:

  • Recognize pain, get curious, calm the suffering pathway (e.g., through saffron, curcumin, omega-3, havening).
  • Positivity Bias Training: Start and end your day with positive focus: “Today is going to be a great day,” and “What went well today?”

• Quote:

  “Negativity is bad for you... Start every day with ‘Today is going to be a great day.’ End every day with ‘What went well today?’”
  — Dr. Amen [21:26]

7. Unpacking & Releasing Repressed Rage

[22:33 – 27:32]

• Chronic pain often relates to unexpressed rage.

• ISTDP Therapy and Emotional Freedom Journaling: Write a five-year timeline of your life, noting joys and wounds, to locate and process deep emotions.

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is recommended for childhood trauma.

• Quote:

  “If the rage could come out, where would it go? ... in your mind, you have to be able to express the rage. Otherwise it’ll come out in neck pain, back pain.”
  — Dr. Amen [25:05]

8. Triggers, Diaphragmatic Breathing, and Bodily Relaxation

[29:06 – 35:02]

• Identify and “covet” your triggers; they point you to work needing to be done.

• Diaphragmatic breathing: Four seconds inhale, 1-2 second hold, eight seconds exhale—shown to double HRV (heart rate variability), indicating better heart and brain health.

• Progressive Relaxation: A guided hypnotic technique for body-wide tension release.

• Quote:

  “Diaphragmatic breathing is so powerful… my HRV is 40, it’ll often go to 80 right afterwards.”
  — Dr. Amen [31:27]

9. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

[40:43 – 41:35]

• Increases brain blood flow, decreases inflammation, helps prefrontal cortex activity, and acts on major pain pathways.

• Shown effective for brain injury and emotional crisis recovery.

• Quote:

  “Hyperbaric oxygen lowers [inflammation], and then it increases blood flow, especially to the prefrontal cortex, the calming pathway.”
  — Dr. Amen [41:11]

10. Psilocybin, Ibogaine & Psychedelic Risks

[42:45 – 47:59]

• Dr. Amen warns against the growing casual use of psychedelics, citing increases in ER visits and psychosis, especially among unsupervised youth.

• Differentiates potential, supervised benefit from widespread recreational use, which is dangerous without proper screening or guidance.

• Points out famous failures (Will Smith’s experience) and remains skeptical until more imaging and research confirm who benefits and who’s at risk.

• Quote:

  “For some people it’s helpful… But visits to emergency rooms for psilocybin psychosis has skyrocketed. ... We’re taking something that under good supervision could be helpful, and now everybody’s doing it. That is the prescription for huge trouble.”
  — Dr. Amen [44:27]

11. The Ultimate Brain Health Question

[48:32 – 49:03]

• Dr. Amen’s key question to guide daily choices:

  “Is what I’m doing now good for my brain or bad for it?
  And if you can answer that with information and love ... you just make better choices.” — Dr. Amen [48:45]

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Notable Quotes

• “Don’t believe every stupid thing you think.”
  — Dr. Amen [02:54]

• “You recognize, and then you get curious about it. How did I sleep last night? What are my relationships? Am I blocking some of my emotions?”
  — Dr. Amen [19:12]

• “Your body was created or evolved to heal. You just have to put it in a healing environment.”
  — Dr. Amen [27:12]

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Segment Timestamps

• [01:34] – Warm welcome and book introduction
• [02:29] – The brain’s role in pain
• [03:52] – The lateral and medial pain pathways
• [08:13] – Epigenetics and the impact of habits
• [10:24] – Saffron and supplement strategies
• [13:27] – Adverse Childhood Experiences research and personal stories
• [17:10] – The Pain HQ doom and healing loops
• [22:33] – Rage, journaling, and therapy for release
• [29:06] – Identifying triggers, diaphragmatic breathing explained
• [36:24] – Progressive relaxation and hypnotic aids
• [40:43] – Hyperbaric oxygen and brain healing
• [42:45] – Psychedelics: psilocybin and ibogaine, Dr. Amen’s skepticism
• [48:32] – The guiding brain health question

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Memorable Moments

• Dr. Amen’s confession of personal struggles: quitting aspartame, and the epiphany around his own repressed rage and emotional pain ([08:13], [22:33]).
• Candid warning about the normalization and casual use of psychedelics, grounded in clinical observation and a sense of medical and societal responsibility ([42:45]).
• The practical, everyday tools: journaling timelines, daily breathing routines, positivity training.

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Takeaways

• Your brain health determines your experience of pain and resilience.
• Trauma and stress shape not just your present but your genetic future.
• Healing is possible and practical, through awareness, supplementation, evidence-backed therapies, and self-directed daily habits.
• Be careful with new trends; seek healing methods with solid safety and science behind them.
• Ask daily: “Is this good for my brain?”

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For deeper strategies, protocols, and personal stories, Dr. Amen’s book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, comes highly recommended by Ed and is available now.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Dr. Daniel Amen]

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[Ed Mylett]

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[Dr. Daniel Amen]

This is the Ed Milan show.

[Ed Mylett]

All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So I was just telling him I love him and I'm deeply grateful for him. So I should probably say that live on the camera as we start the show today. You gotta be great when you've been on the pod three or four times. And I think this is his fourth time, I think, as a guest on the show. And it's because you all love him and he makes a difference in the world. He is one of the world's leading brain health experts. He's helped a lot of people with their brains, including me. And his clinic. The Amen Clinic's done over almost a quarter of a million scans from people from 150 different countries. And every time he has a book out, I read the entire book. And it's always enlightening, always insightful. This one, for me, the most of all of them. And I say that today because he's got this book out called Change youe Brain, Change youe Pain. You guys, we're gonna take a deep dive into your noggin, see if we can help you be happier and less stressed and for some of you, not quite so depressed in your life, and an explanation as to why you might be with my good friend. Such a kind, good man, and he's the smartest dude in the room, and he never makes you feel like he needs to be Dr. Daniel. Amen. Welcome back to the show, Ed.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So great to see you. Just makes my heart happy, actually, my brain, but you know what I mean.

[Ed Mylett]

I know exactly what you mean. Well, like always with you, I don't like to waste moments because there's not very many people like you in the world. And so let's. Let's start with some basic foundational stuff from this book. And I mean it. You know, I've read all your stuff. You've worked on my brain. I've been to the clinic, and I think this one hit me the most deeply because I think I suffer from a lot of the stuff in it, and it gave me some understanding of myself. Some of it kind of overlaps with work I do as well. But let's start with some foundational stuff that I got out of the book in the beginning, which is you talked about the pain that many of us feel and that it's not just a signal from our bodies, but it's actually a story your brain is telling. Is that accurate description of what you're saying, that it's a story your brain is telling? What does that mean?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, pain, you know, if it's your back, your hip, your neck, sadness ultimately comes to live in your brain. And if your brain isn't healthy, you're in a lot of pain. And the same circuits that create emotional pain are also involved in physical pain. And so getting your brain as healthy as it can be and not believing every stupid thing you think and not suppressing emotion is critical to both healing physical and emotional pain.

[Ed Mylett]

You talk about these different pathways in the book, like, so it's not just a general concept, you guys, because, I don't know, I think I've lived with a lot of stress in my life, and it has as I've aged, my audience knows this. It's manifested itself physically over time, whether that be some heart issues that I've had, some back pain that I just. Now after reading this, I'm like, I think this is a result of this brain thing I got going on with my. With these different pathways. What is the lateral pain feeling pathway?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Oh, it's a part of your brain called the thalamus, which is deep in the brain. Sort of looks like a little leg and your parietal lobes, top back part of your brain, your sensory brain. And it's when you go, ouch, my back hurts. And it tells you where it is. And the thalamus, part of the deep limbic brain or emotional brain, when you're depressed, it's overactive. I just published this monster study with actually one of my haters. It's a really fun story. He told 2020 I should be arrest 20 years ago. And now we're publishing research together. So I love that so much. But what we showed is the thalamus and your emotional brain is overactive in depression. So if you're depressed, you're more likely to have physical pain. And one of the reasons I wrote the book was, why does Sami, which is a supplement s adenosyl methionine or the antidepressant Cymbalta, work for depression and pain? Like Cymbalta is FDA approved for pain, and Sami has many studies showing it decreases pain from things like arthritis. It's like, why is that? It's because they work on the same circuitry of the brain. And so pain comes into our consciousness, into our awareness through the lateral pain feeling pathway. Lateral just means toward the side. Our parietal lobes, top back part of our brain toward the side. And if that gets activated, it then triggers our medial pain suffering pathway. Now, this is more toward the middle. Anterior cingulate, gyrus, insular cortex, basal ganglia, when that is overactive, now begins to smear the pain with dread, with awfulness, with angst, with. I hate that. And so the first thing that happens, lateral pain feeling pathway, activates the suffering pathway. And then the third one is little brain here. It calms the front part of the brain. This is called the calming pathway. So the prefrontal cortex is in large part inhibitory. It sort of puts the brakes on what you say and what you do. Right? It helps you with things like forethought and judgment, but it also settles down pain. And so if you've been hitting soccer balls with your head, if you played tackle football and damaged this part of the brain, you're going to be in more pain because your brain can't turn it off.

[Ed Mylett]

Can I ask you something connected to that? And we'll keep going. By the way, the best thing about having Dr. Amen on the show, you guys, unlike most guests, he's willing to talk in specificity about what's in the book. A lot of guests don't because they're afraid. Oh, well, then you won't go get the book. But just so you know, when a book is this big and this loaded, there's no way in an hour you're getting it all. So you still need to go get the book. More than anything you need to do is get this book. But let me ask you a question. This is an outside, though it's not in my notes. It's just something I've wondered about based on these pathways and what we're going to talk about in a minute, which is this loop idea. Do you think, and I know this would be probably just speculating, but do you think that what goes on in your brain, this trauma, stress, toxins, this anxiety, this stuff you start to have, do you think that long term it can affect gene expression in your body? Like, could it be that profound meaning if you're predisposed at some point to getting cancer, that maybe you turn those genes on sooner in your life because of the stress and inflammation that causes in your body, that potentially there's a correlation between those two things? Or am I reaching way out there on that one?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

No, you're absolutely correct. And ultimately, it's not just about you. It's about generations of you, it'll flip on or off certain genes that impact you, but also your babies and your grandbabies. Fascinating study. So I talk about aspartame in the book and when I was 35, I had arthritis. And one of my patients said when she stopped aspartame, her arthritis went away. And I'm like, and I think I've learned the most from my patients. And I was drinking diet soda then like it was my best friend, like Jack in the Box, it was across the street. And I go get a 32 ounce diet Pepsi and yeah, I just feel so bad about this. Like, you know, I'm a doctor, I have no clue about nutrition until I started looking at my brain and I stopped the aspartame and my pain went away and I'm like, no. And now there's a new study on mice. They gave mice aspartame. It's in 5,000 products. They became really anxious and they gave them Valium and it calm them down. Why they did that, I have no idea. But what they discovered, Ed, and this was the very disturbing thing. The babies of these mice who never had aspartame, their baseline was more anxious, their grandbabies were more anxious. So our habits are not about us. They're literally about generations of us. So the question you ask about epigenetics, if you don't sleep well at night, it turns off 700 health promoting genes. So our behavior every day is impacting us, but also our children and grandchildren.

[Ed Mylett]

Are you still big on Saffron for sleep?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Huge. I'm big on Saffron for so many things. There are 28 randomized controlled trials showing it's equally effective to Prozac, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Zoloft. I mean, there's a brand new study on 100. It combined 192 studies on 17,000 patients on which are the supplements that actually work for depression. And Saffron was the first most effective. And then it said if you're on an antidepressant or saffron and you add zinc and curcumin, it significantly enhances the effect. And so my company, Brain MD has made happy Saffron for six years. Came out right before the pandemic. And I've taken it every day because not only does it help your mood, the reason I fell in love with Saffron, most antidepressants decrease sexual interest and ability. It decreases your ability to have an orgasm. And I'd have patients come back, I'm happy But I don't want to touch my wife. And I'm like, no, no, no. Saffron is pro sexual. It enhances that and it's pro memory. And there are studies showing it decreases pain. And I think what's happening is it's calming the medial pain suffering pathway. And I added zinc and curcumin to saffron for exactly that reason.

[Ed Mylett]

Very interesting, isn't it, you guys? So let's talk about this unhealthiness in the brain a little bit. What's contributing? So you said earlier you listed some things. It could be injury, it could be toxins, stress. Sleep is a biggie. Right, but what about this unresolved? Like in my case, I'm trying to figure it out. Like, I sleep pretty well, but I did, you know the story. I did have an alcoholic dad, drug addict dad when I was young. He ended up getting sober. I just feel deep inside me that some of that. This is the wrong word. So I please everybody and I don't marked scarred my brain somehow and put me into.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Changed your brain.

[Ed Mylett]

It changed my brain. And I measure my HRV now and it's just trash. It's like last night, doctor, my HRV was eight, right? So I'm in fight or flight a lot, right. Like I. If you all know all these correlations. And so I, I just wonder, like you say in the book, like, your circuits can literally be hijacked. And you talk about this, I think you call it the pain HQ doom loop. And I'm like, that's familiar. I think to me, could you explain that to me and explain me to me a little bit? Even though we've done this in person, I think this is interesting.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

For everybody's edification, I published a monster study on 7,500 patients and their ACE score, Adverse Childhood Experiences. So on a scale of 0 to 10, how many bad things happened to you growing up? And physical, emotional, sexual trauma or abuse, being neglected, watching your mother be abused, having a parent with an addiction, incarceration or mental health problem. So there's 10 of these things. If you score four more, you have an increased risk of seven of the top 10 leading causes of death. If you score six or more.

[Ed Mylett]

Wow.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You died 20 years early, but you don't have to. My wife's an eight and she's not going to die early because she's had treatment for trauma. And like you, she takes really good care of herself. But what we found was childhood trauma. And I don't know if I told you this, my first Wife grew up in a severely abusive alcoholic home. And when I married her, it's like two months later she tried to kill herself. And she's the reason I'm a psychiatrist and I studied children and grandchildren of alcohol alcoholics. It activates your emotional brain. So that suffering pathway, it's probably more active than is healthy for you. And so.

[Ed Mylett]

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[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Oh, the doom loop is really the star of the book. It helped me so much get out of chronic pain. So it starts with Pain for any reason. So Pain hq, that's the acronym, Pain for any reason. And it can be physical pain. You broke your ankle. It can be emotional pain. You feel disrespected. Can be relational pain. There's a breakup. That's one of the major causes of suicide. Or it can be spiritual pain. You can have a moral injury. And many of us during the pandemic, we were morally injured by how the government handled the pandemic. Or if you think of a moral injury, I grew up Catholic and the whole priest pedophile scandal. The church lost billions of people who were injured by that particular scandal. So it could be pain for any reason, which is the lateral pain feeling pathway. It's like, okay, we hurt. And then that then activates the suffering pathway. And that's already active in people who are depressed, in people who have childhood trauma, which then leads to an invasion. That's the I events, automatic negative thoughts, the thoughts that just come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And then that goes to N, which is nervous tension, because whenever you have a negative thought, your brain releases chemicals immediately and your muscles get tight. And it happens immediately. But also in that N is repressed emotion and repressed rage, which makes your muscles sort of chronically tense. Then that leads to age, which is harmful habits a lot of people. Then, whether it's alcohol or sugar or marijuana, psilocybin, things that are really not good for your brain. And I know your audience just went on tilt. It's like, oh, I thought psilocybin was the new happy pill. It's like, we'll talk about it. And then you get to Q, which is the quagmire or quicksand of the doom loop, and it spirals. And the other star of the book is the healing loop. It's like, well, how do you get out of this doom loop? And it's relief, and it's. You begin to recognize the pain. And I love this. So much public knowledge. I've been working with Julius Randle, the NBA superstar, for the last year and a couple of months, and it's. He doesn't fail anymore. He wins or he learns. We're curious. We're never furious. And I love that so much. It's. You recognize, and then you get curious about it. How did I sleep last night? What are my relationships? Am I blocking some of my emotions? It's. We start getting really curious about the pain. And then we go after calming the suffering pathway, whether it's saffron, curcumin, omega 3 fatty acids, a technique I talk about in the book I like a lot, called havening. And then we let go of the negativity. There's a whole section on positivity bias training. The more negative you are, the less activity you have in your frontal lobes. Negativity is bad for you now. Unbridled positivity is not the answer. You know, I can drive at 125 miles an hour down the freeway. And the rain, it's like, no, I want you to have enough anxiety. You do the right thing. But start every day with, today is going to be a great day. And end every day with what went well today. Force, push. Noticing what's right way more than you notice what's wrong. But really, one of the secrets in this book, and I learned it from John Sarno, who I'm a huge fan, he wrote a book called Healing Back Pain and the Mind Body Prescription. And he talked about how chronic pain is. Is repressed rage. And I'm like, that's so interesting. But I didn't think he did a good job of teaching people. Well, how do you get rid of the rage? Because when I was in pain, I'm like, yeah, my brother beat me up every day when we were children and trying to change psychiatry. I've been brutalized. Like, you know, the guy that said, told 2020 I should be arrested.

[Ed Mylett]

There's.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I'm pissed off a lot. And it's like, but if you knew me, I'm sort of like, Pollyanna, it's like, whatever happens to you, well, what is there good to be about? What happened to you? And so I realized that Pollyanna had to meet Hannibal Lecter. And I remember the epiphany. My wife, who calls me Pollyanna, and when I came that epiphany, I'm like, she has to die now. Not all the time, but it's like, well, how do you get rid of the rage? And there's actually a psychotherapy that's a rage therapy. It's called ISTDP or Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. And when I first learned it, I'm like, oh, no, that, that's too harsh. And then I'm like, oh, no, you have to get in touch with the rage. So there's a whole section in the book on how do you get the rage out and so for your situation, what I would do, there's an exercise called emotional freedom Journaling. And for each five years of your life, so get a journal. And, you know, 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, draw a line down the page each five years on the left side, write down what awesome things happen during that period. So zero to five, I'm four years old, I'm standing at the stove. I'm with my grandfather, who I'm named after, who I loved, who is my best friend growing up. We're making fudge, and that's on that 0 to 5 page. But on the right side is being beaten up every day by my older brother. And I'm pissed off about that. And then do that for each five year period of your life. Well, pretty soon you have a good sense where the pain's coming from. And then write about it. You don't ever have to yell at someone or shoot anybody. Please don't. But you want to be able to express it. Like, if it could come out in your body, where would it go? And I don't know if you ever had EMDR for the childhood trauma. You totally should. I love EMDR and do it a lot with my patients. But when we do the therapy, we'll often go, you know, so say I have a patient who is sexually abused. We'll often go back to that event, process it, and then it's like, if the rage could come out, where would it go? And there are a lot of people who die in my EMDR sessions because I don't want people blocking the emotions. Now, I always want you to be appropriate. I never want you to go to jail. But in your mind, you have to be able to express the rage. Otherwise it'll come out in neck pain, back pain. And another very important thing in this book is there are a number of studies that show I'm 71. People my age. 80% of people my age with no pain have abnormal backs. 70% of people my age have abnormal necks who have no pain. They have abnormal necks. Every time I had hip pain, I had back pain, I had neck pain, I had shoulder pain. My MRIs are always abnormal, which activate the suffering pathway. And now it's like, I have to have surgery, but I know what general anesthesia does to the brain. It's not good. It's actually one of the risk factors for dementia. And in the book, I have a dementia prevention program. And so surgery is going to always be my last option. But because they see the abnormal mri. Oh, you have to have surgery. And of course they go to a surgeon who says, well, you have to have surgery because, you know, that's how they put their kids through school. And I've not had surgery and my back pain's gone. Your body wants to heal. Your body was created or evolved to heal. And you just have to put it in a healing environment.

[Ed Mylett]

You know, I want everyone to know this too, because he and I have worked together. I think things have been flowing your life. Like, just so you guys all know that, so many of the things that Dr. Amen and I have worked on and talked about have helped me. I think I've just caught myself during an interesting season again. And when I look at like you talk about both these things in the book, I'd like you to address them. But so I look at like, in my case, like, wow, I was really doing good for like two or three years. What happened recently that, you know, I think just my emotional, mental well being, my brain health, as you describe it and have corrected me before, it's not, you know, mental health, it's brain health. Literally, it's your brain. I think there's. There's two things. One is a way out for me that you've taught me, and another is the way in where I get into these loops. So when you talk about, I have some triggers and one of the things in the book you talk about is identifying what are triggers for you that can put you in these loops and then way out for me. And by the way, you know, he's already described many things, but you teach this diaphragm breathing that I do, that's been like, really a big deal to me. You think, how simple. But like, when I'm in a certain pattern and a way of thinking, I have a certain breathing pattern also, which doesn't serve me. And when I have changed my breathing, something that simple, I can monitor my hrv and it goes up like just by changing my breathing, just by changing that part of me has changed my brain health, my heart health. And so would you talk about what a trigger is and then just something as simple as the breathing that you teach.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So I would love for you to just write down your triggers, because if you do emdr, that's what you go after and you go, so what's the origin of the trigger? So you feel it get your eyes going back and forth, and then you get on a train and it's like, so when's the first time I felt that?

[Ed Mylett]

And.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And then is there a time before and it's so powerful to covet your triggers because they're teaching you what you need to work on. Diaphragmatic breathing is so powerful. And when you have a negative thought or when you get triggered, your breathing becomes faster and more shallow. If you ever watch a baby breathe or a puppy breathe, they breathe almost exclusively with their belly. The diaphragm is this huge bell shaped muscle between your chest cavity and your abdominal cavity. If you watch a baby breathe or a puppy breathe, when they breathe in, they stick their belly out because what they're doing is they're flattening their diaphragm. What we talked about before, four seconds in, hold it for a second or two, eight seconds out, and then hold it out for a second or two. And for anybody who has a panic disorder, it fixes it if you just do that 10 times. And I recommend people do it every day. So I wake up and I stretch and then I do diaphragmatic breathing. And if my HRV is 40, it'll often go to 80 right afterwards. So the more you do it, the higher your hrv, which is a sign of both heart and brain health, I think the more you do that, that's good. I'm so glad it's helpful. Even when you're doing the breathing, think about the trigger. And then even without emdr, it's the first time I felt like that. And then take your good parent self. And often it's loving the child that was afraid or the child that was mad. And there's another thing in the book that I love so much, on the Origin of pain. And that is when we're born, we want to bond. We have to bond because they feed us, they clothe us, they shelter us, they protect us. It's because of them we live. And so we desperately want to bond. And then say, something bad happens, your dad's unpredictable or angry, your parents get divorced, somebody dies in the family, there's an accident, one of your parents got fired, whatever it is. And then you feel pain, and then you feel rage.

[Ed Mylett]

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[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, you really can't feel that and so you block it. And then you feel guilt about the rage, like you did something wrong and that becomes part of who you are. But it sets people up for pain and often getting to the rage. The origin of the rage is so important.

[Ed Mylett]

So good you guys. Isn't he Amazing. Yeah. I've known him a long time. I mean, this at 71. I'm not just saying this because we're friends. You're just getting better. You're just getting better. You actually. You really make me hopeful as I enter those years of my life that I can even be more effective and sharper and more contributory than I am now, because I'm watching you do it. This is a man who's changed, you know, millions of people's lives directly, almost a quarter of a million scans. You guys, there's something in the book that I don't think I understood that I want to ask you about, which is. So you have breathing. Guys, you know me. Every time I have him on, I'm like, okay, we understand the problems. What are the solutions? Right? Like, give me the. Give me the stuff. So the breathing has been transformative for me and everybody. You know, one thing he talks about in the book is having these habits, too. Like anything in life, like your diet, you're working out, you can get away from them. And I think for me, recently, that's just what's happened. I've just gotten away from the things that I know work. And in reading the book, which has a bunch of new stuff in it, I kind of. I'm reconnecting, especially talking to him live today. All right, I'm going to be on the diaphragm. I'm breathing every day after I stretch. Now, like, that's just done, right? That's done. But what is this progressive relaxation? To me in hearing it, I'm like, this technique, like, I should be doing this, just knowing how much I can feel, feel the tension in my body that you and I that you've been describing. What is that? How's that work?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So it's a hypnotic technique that is so effective. And on my app, Brain Fit Life, I actually have it, and a number of other hypnotic scripts or audios I do for people. It's basically close your eyes, roll your eyeballs up, and really stress them, feel them up. And as you let them come back down, you just notice how relaxed your eye sockets feel. And then imagine that relaxation spreading like a warm penetrating oil to the muscles in your face, your head, your neck. And just imagine the relaxation spreading from the top of your head all the way down to the bottom of your feet. And it's about 10, 15 minutes of just this beautiful guided imagery relaxation session. Psychiatrists have been doing it for a long time with patients. Well, not so much anymore, because psychiatrists have become the Prescriber, which just pisses me off so much. But it's a beautiful technique that I describe in the book and have resources for people. There's also a rage hypnotic audio for people where they go to a clearing in a forest. So put them in a trance, get them to open their subconscious mind to us. And then in the clearing, and I wonder what pictures you would see. There's a big tree stump, and on the stump are pictures of all the things that have stressed you, that have pissed you off, that have made you sad, that have made you mad. And next to the stump is an ax where you cut them all up with great energy. Just to sort of recognize that all of us have these memories that become like zombies, and they just, like, show up and they won't die. And so learning how to get rid of them is really important.

[Ed Mylett]

He said something in there. He said, you know, get your mind directing your body. And what occurs to me, the more and more I'm familiar with his work and my own life, it's like that's happening unconsciously anyway. So the more we begin to consciously take control of our mind, directing our body through our breathing, through some of these guided meditations or hypnosis, or just being aware of your triggers, or knowing what these ants are and understanding them, what for what they are when they show up, now you're starting to take charge of your mind directing your body rather than that happening in some unconscious, subconscious way all the time. And that's really why the work is so great. So I wanted to tell you about a year and a half ago, I think I went through about six months of the best mental health I've ever had. And ironically, it was through a very stressful time in business. Just some stuff with people taking advantage of me and some betrayals that took place in my life. And yet I'm weird in the sense that when things are pretty good, my mind finds reasons to worry and have anxiety. But when actually really bad stuff happens, happens. I'm actually typically a pretty calm guy. It's a really interesting way I go about my life. However, I went through some of the best, I just say, emotional and mental health of my life during this very difficult time. Ironically, I was going to do hyperbaric oxygen very regularly to recover from an injury that I had. And I didn't think about it. And then when I stopped, I kind of went back to baseline. And then I'm reading the book, and that's one of the things you recommend for your mental health or your brain health. Is hyperbaric oxygen. So I gotta let you talk about that for a second because I lived this just not knowing that was one of the benefits.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, I'm a huge fan. Published a study on soldiers who were involved in blast injuries. Significant improvement in blood flow, and it decreases inflammation. So this active suffering pathway is often due to inflammation. And so hyperbaric oxygen lowers that, and then it activates. Increases blood flow, especially to the prefrontal cortex, the calming pathway. So you can see just that by itself has benefit to two thirds of the brain's pain pathways. I recommended so often for people, especially if they have low blood flow on their scans, which I did, by the way.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay, we're coming to the end here, and I gotta ask you about this psilocybin thing. And also I want to ask you about ibogaine. So you mentioned war fighters there a minute ago. I have had friends of mine who have had, you know, severe PTSD recently. Just. Just before we came on here live, I was reading an article. So I want you to speak your mind about this. And maybe there's a distinction between the two. So I'm just reading this morning, Conor McGregor went to Mexico. Did you see this? Went to Mexico and says, my life's changed. I saw. And I'm not. I'm. I'm saying how he said it. I. I don't have an opinion about this because I've never experienced it, but he basically said it changed his life. He did an ibogaine therapy. I've had a couple. Rob o' Neill's been on my show. Who Killed Osama bin Laden? Has said, ibogaine's made a big difference in his life. And then I've had other people go do these trips where they do, you know, mushrooms. They did psilocybin. And they. Some have said, I had a good trip. And some have said, oh, man, I got really dark, and it wasn't good for them. So are they different to you? Are they the same? I know they're in different mechanisms, but are both of them fall into the same category to you? Do you have an opinion about one?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, they're. They're different, but. But I'm very worried. And the reason I'm worried is I've seen this party before. I mean, that's sort of the benefit or the curse of doing this as long as I had. In the 80s, benzos were Mommy's little helper. And they were not supposed to be addictive. No one talked about them causing dementia. But benzos are problematic. And then in the early 90s, it was alcohol as a health food. And it's just a blatant lie. They increase the risk of eight different cancers and they cause more destruction. Right? You experience that as a child. And then pain is the fifth vital sign. You should be on opiates, which, no, you shouldn't be, because I talk about it in the book that opiates actually piss off your white blood cells and increase inflammation. So short term benefit, that create more pain. And then, you know, the recent one is marijuana is innocuous. It's legal in 40 states, and it's created this nightmare in our society of people who are sad and anxious and suicid and psychotic.

[Ed Mylett]

Stay there. So there's, there's benzos, alcohol, weed. Okay, you take a leap that, that includes psilocybin, for example.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

That's so, so here's, here's the, here's the psilocybin thing. For some people it's helpful, just like for marijuana. For some people it's helpful. But the problem, because everybody's all excited and nobody's talking about the fact that visits to emergency rooms for psilocybin psychosis has skyrocketed in the last three years, that teenagers are microdosing on a regular basis, they're having mushroom parties. And what we're doing is we're taking something that under good supervision could be helpful. And now everybody's doing it. And that is the prescription for huge trouble. I have somebody I care deeply about who started dating someone that said, let's do mushrooms together. And she became psychotic. And I'm very worried that people aren't going, caution, caution, caution. Maybe in supervised settings, but just like you said, that one person had a good trip, another person had a bad trip. And how do you know? And we don't know. And perhaps I should do imaging and go, okay, let's see if we can predict who gets benefit and who doesn't. But I remember reading Will Smith's autobiography, and I loved him. I was a consultant on the movie Concussion, and I thought he should have got an Oscar nomination for that movie. But toward the end of the book, he said he went to South America and did ayahuasca 14 times. And then he just blew up his life on the Oscars hitting Chris Rock. And I'm like, well, this didn't fix him. And so I don't think there's enough. And I don't know if we've talked, but I've been working with the White House actually on creating a national brain health Revolution. Don't hate me. My God, I've gotten so much hate. If Obama would have said, hey, Daniel, will you help? I'm like, yes. And the White House faith office loves me and they are working with me to create a national brain health revolution. And there's a lot of pressure to, like, nationally legalize marijuana and get on board with the psilocybin train. And I'm like, I'm just not a fan. Especially like Conor McGregor. Did he do EMDR? Did he do hyperbaric oxygen? Has he done the work that doesn't have the risk of things like ibogaine? I have before and after ibogaine scans, and I don't like them. I mean, I know why they work. They quiet the chatter in your head. But there are other ways to quiet the chatter, like give your mind a name so you can gain psychological distance from the noise. It's so helpful.

[Ed Mylett]

Is that a full hour, everybody? Are you happy that you spent the time with us here today? I got to tell you something. I think this is his best book, and I've read most of them. And so I don't say that just because we're friends. By the way, it's certainly not a small book either. You won't. You won't be done in five minutes. Change your brain, change your pain. We've gone through a lot today to help you. Thank you for being so generous, by the way, with your information and your time. When I interview you every single time, you don't hold anything back. And I love you and I'm grateful for you in my life. So thank you for being here today, my brother.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I love you back and thank you for helping me spread the word. And the one question. Always remember this question. It'll help you stay on track with your habits. This is the national Brain Health Revolution question, is what I'm doing now good for my brain or bad for it? And if you can answer that with information and love, love of yourself, love of your family, love of the reason God puts you on earth, you just make better choices.

[Ed Mylett]

Really good. I will remember that. I think people are going to remember this, you guys. I don't. There's. Sometimes I don't have to even ask you to share an interview. I just know you're going to share this one. So go ahead and do that. And by the way, if you're listening to this on the audio and you're not on the YouTube channel, go subscribe to YouTube. And if you're watching YouTube, go subscribe to an audio platform. Whether that's Apple or Spotify or your audio platform of choice. Thank you, doctor. Amen. God bless you, everybody. Max out.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

This is the Ed Milan Show.