← We're Out of Time
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- [00:00]
Dr. Daniel Amen
You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. I can prove it. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was not telling the truth about traumatic brain injury in football, 80% of our brain damage players got better.
- [00:15]
Podcast Host (Out of Time)
We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our listeners because of your incredible support. We're out of Time has reached number one on Apple's mental health podcast chart, number two on the health and fitness chart, and number 26 overall. We couldn't have done this without you. Thank you for being part of this journey with us.
- [00:29]
Co-host or Interviewer
If someone has a problem with substance.
- [00:31]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Use disorder, please call one call placement.
- [00:34]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's 888-831-1581. And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. Please, we're out of Time. Today on we're out of Time, I'm joined by world renowned psychiatrist and brain health pioneer, Dr. Daniel Amen, the man helping millions change their brains and change their lives. You've helped millions rethink what it means to be mentally healthy, not just emotionally, but physically and neurologically. What first led you to see the brain as the gateway to healing?
- [01:10]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So When I was 18, I was an infantry medic. So being older than you, when I turned 18, there was a draft in Vietnam was going on, and I became an infantry medic. And that's where I fell in love with medicine. But about a year into it, I realized I didn't like being shot at. So I got myself retrained as an X ray technician. And that was very important. Our professors used to say, how do you know unless you look? And that really stuck with me. And then 1975, I got out of the army, finished college, went to medical school. And when I'm a second year medical student, someone I love tries to kill herself. And I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I came to realize if he helped her, which he did, it wouldn't just help her, that it would help her children, it would help her grandchildren as they would be shaped by someone who was happier and more stable. So in 1979, I fell in love with psychiatry because I realized it can change generations of people. Your work in addiction changes generations of people. But I fell in love with the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. Think that's right? Right. Every other medical specialist look at the organ. Psychiatrist, guess. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew it would change. And I started agitated in medical school, and then in my psychiatric residency, I'M like, well, why aren't we looking at the brain? Of course we should look at the brain. So when I had the opportunity in 1991 to do a study called Brain Spect Imaging, which is the imaging study we do at Amen clinics, it literally changed absolutely everything in my life. From the time I go to bed to what I eat, to how I interact with other people. And what I realized. Most psychiatric issues are not mental health issues, they're brain health issues. Get the physical functioning of your brain healthy and your mind is better because the brain, the physical functioning of your brain creates your mind. And if your brain is inflamed, your mind's much more anxious, it's much more negative. Now, where I went to medical school at Oral Roberts University, they always talked about four circles. Biological, psychological, social and spiritual. And I believe in all four circles all the time. But when people come to one of your treatment centers, no one's looking at their brain, which is basically insane, right? And last year there were 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants without any biological data. And I don't think depression should be a diagnosis. I think of depression like chest pain. Nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain. Why? It doesn't tell you what's causing it and it doesn't tell you what to do for it. Right? There are so many different causes of chest pain. Heart attack, heart arrhythmia, heart infection, lung cancer, pneumonia, gas, an ulcer, H. Pylori. Grief, anxiety can cause chest pain. You don't get a diagnosis. And if a cardiologist gave everybody the same treatment for chest pain, he'd lose his license and be sued for malpractice because it's ridiculous. But yet you go to the doctor and you go, I'm tired, I'm sad, I wake up in the middle of the night. You end up on an SSRI and you have no idea if that's a good thing or a bad, bad thing.
- [05:16]
Co-host or Interviewer
What if they do 8 to 20 hours of psych testing?
- [05:21]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So psych testing helps, but it doesn't tell you one thing about what's going on in your brain. It doesn't tell you if your brain is healthy, if it's underactive, it's, if it's overactive, it doesn't tell you if the brain has been traumatized from a concussion. It doesn't tell you if the brain is toxic because you're living in a mold filled environment. The idea that you're depressed, take Lexapro is ludicrous, but yet it's happening millions of times. I mean, literally every day.
- [05:56]
Co-host or Interviewer
What's the difference between what you're doing and a Q eeg?
- [06:02]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So we actually do both here at Amen clinics. Quantitative EEG looks at the electrical activity in the brain. Spacked looks at blood flow and mitochondrial function or energy metabolism.
- [06:19]
Co-host or Interviewer
I love the fact that you said you do both of them. Okay. Because you and I have taken a lot of heat sometimes because we're innovators, okay. And we've done something that is effective and built to last and helps a lot of people. You've launched a true revolution in brain health. How is it changing the way we think about and treat mental illness today?
- [06:45]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, let's just compare. If we think of it as mental health diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data, the outcomes in psychiatry are not better than the year I was born, 1954. Think about that, right? There's no other specialty in medicine that has not made significant progress. 25% of the adult population is on psychiatric drugs. Huge win for the pharmaceutical industry. Huge loss for our society. When you think of it as mental health, 57% of teenage girls report being persistently sad. And suicide in the young has gone up 740.
- [07:33]
Co-host or Interviewer
I want to hear about that. Tell me about that in detail because that was so interesting.
- [07:39]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Suicide has gone up 746% since the year 2000 in young people. It's so sad. And we, we're thinking of it as you have a mental health problem when your dopamine stores have been depleted because of the cell phone in your pocket or because of social media. And you constantly comparing your life to people' that are in fact not real. You are being hijacked by big corporations, Facebook, Google for money because their algorithms make you sad, mad and anxious. And the sadder and madder you are, the more likely you are to stay on the platforms. And the platforms are not about your health. They're about marketing and making money. So what happened from 2000 to 2025 is we had the cell phone revolution and social media, where children aren't spending 30 minutes on their phone, they're spending seven hours or 10 hours on their phone. And dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter of more or it's a neurotransmitter motivation of focus of zest of let's get stuff done that we're thrilling these kids to death and literally to death, because every time you get a notification, every time you scroll, you're getting a little Bit of dopamine, which presses on the nucleus accumbens, that pleasure in your brain and it wears it out. So if you think of so you.
- [09:36]
Co-host or Interviewer
Find no pleasure in anything, eventually you.
- [09:38]
Dr. Daniel Amen
End up no pleasure in anything. And then you go to substances because the substances make you feel initially, but then it flattens you out further over time.
- [09:51]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's right.
- [09:52]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So but I want to finish this idea of mental health or brain health, because mental health, it's, oh, you have this problem based on these symptoms. So we'll do these treatments which usually are medication if you get a doctor involved. If it's brain health, we have to eat right and you have to go to bed and you have to exercise and probably you should be taking omega 3 fatty acids and you probably shouldn't be drinking. And marijuana is not innocuous. You have to get healthy. And with 75% of us overweight or obese and 50% of us diabetic or pre diabetic, there's no way you're going to be mentally healthy. Because if you're overweight, the fat on your body is producing inflammatory cytokines that are damaging your brain.
- [10:52]
Co-host or Interviewer
That just brought me to how you feel about GLP1s, like Zepbound.
- [10:59]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, I think of it like lap bound. Surgery would never be the first thing I'd recommend because they don't teach you habits. But if there's no other way for you to manage your weight, then they can be a tool. But if you don't use it as a gateway tool to get healthy, it's going to end up hurting you in the long run.
- [11:24]
Co-host or Interviewer
So you think it's a good. Maybe I'm not putting words in your mouth, but it would be okay to give you a head start so long as you followed it up with the right eating behaviors.
- [11:40]
Dr. Daniel Amen
If you can use it to teach you to know how many calories you eat. To think of calories like money and you know, it's like, I hate wasting money. It's just, I hate it. I'm a value driven person. But I think of the same thing as calories is this. I have a thing I teach my patients. I like questions. Do I love it and does it love me back? Because you're in a relationship with food, I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship.
- [12:17]
Co-host or Interviewer
I certainly, I'm in a horrible relationship with food. It's the only thing I got left.
- [12:23]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So I've been in bad relationships. But now you met my wife, I'm in the best relationship of My life, huh? I'm damn sure not going to be in a bad relationship with food, because I can control that. And I just ask myself this question, do I love it? Like, I love donuts, but they hate me. They make me foggy, they make me fat, they make my knees hurt. It's like, no, I'm not getting a donut because it doesn't love me. And I love me so much. I only want to put something in me. I was at the White House recently. Don't hate me. But I sat next to.
- [13:07]
Co-host or Interviewer
I call him the president. I do not hate you.
- [13:10]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I. I was sitting next to Lisa Trout. And Lisa and her husband Kenny own Justify Justify is the triple Crown winning thoroughbred. And as I was sitting next to her, I'm like, would you ever feed Justify junk food? And she goes, no. I said, would you ever get them drunk? She goes, no. I said, would you ever get them stoned? No. I thought, why? He would never perform to his potential. But aren't we worth so much more? Yes, but we don't even think about what we put in our bodies. And your brain uses 20 to 30% of the calories you consume. And I think treatment centers should really be focused on feeding people.
- [14:07]
Co-host or Interviewer
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- [14:10]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And I know you have the same thought.
- [14:12]
Co-host or Interviewer
The Blue zone. Blue Zone diets are what we typically serve our people in a general way.
- [14:18]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I mean, we'll just hold the alcohol with the Blue Zone diet.
- [14:22]
Co-host or Interviewer
Well, we do. We do, because it's called rehab.
- [14:25]
Dr. Daniel Amen
All right.
- [14:27]
Co-host or Interviewer
In your new book, change your brain, change your pain, you write that pain isn't two problems, it's one system. How does emotional pain and physical pain intertwine? And why is that so often misunderstood?
- [14:44]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So chronic pain, if you've had pain for more than three weeks, it's not just in your back or in your knee or in your neck. It's activated the pain circuits in your brain.
- [14:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
Thank you.
- [14:59]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And they're the same circuits that cause grief and depression and anxiety. And so learning to really get out and stay out of pain, you have to have a healthy brain. And did you know Tylenol, which has made the news for all the wrong reasons recently, actually helps with grief. It actually helps with the emotional pain from a breakup. Why would that be? Because it calms down the same circuits. Or Cymbalta, one of the really good antidepressants, it's FDA approved for chronic pain. Why is that? Or same. The supplement that's been found to be helpful for mood also helps arthritis. Why is that? Because they work on the suffering Pathway in the brain. So when you think of pain, think of three pathways. There's the feeling pathway. Oh, I stubbed my toe. So it activates a part of the brain called the thalamus and then goes to the sensory cortex. Go, ouch. Oh, my toe hurts. And then if your brain is busy in the middle, it'll activate the suffering pathway. And that sort of smears that pain with fear and dread. Oh, I won't be able to dance again. And then if the calming pathway, which is your frontal lobes isn't working right, won't be able to turn off the pain. And so ultimately, in Change youe Brain, Change youe Pain, I talk about those three circuits and how to balance them so you're not living a life of chronic pain.
- [16:56]
Co-host or Interviewer
I love that. I love that. Did you innovate that?
- [17:00]
Dr. Daniel Amen
What? No. People have talked about these three circuits. But I really got interested in why does Cymbalta and Sammy work for both physical and emotional pain? And in the book, the star of the book is called the doom loop. It's how you hurt for physically or emotionally. I mean, I could hurt because I got rejected or I lost my job or my wife left me. It activates those same circuits. And so it's pain happens. The fear center smears it, which then leads to negative thinking. I call the man. So automatic negative thoughts. Which then goes to muscle tension, which increases pain, which then goes to bad habits, whether it's opiates or benzos, alcohol, marijuana, whatever, which then just keeps you into this doom loop. And to get out of it, we need a healing loop.
- [18:08]
Co-host or Interviewer
So what you're saying is all these things compress on each other and then it just starts a vicious cycle of, of repeat, rinse and repeat.
- [18:17]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And people in chronic pain have a high incidence of suicide because they're just predicting nothing will work. And they see a life of chronic pain. I opened the book with the story of a police officer who was involved in two high speed car crashes, ended up with chronic back pain. Six surgeries, opiates, alcohol, and he tried to kill himself. And I met him, and as I do, I scanned him. The brain's gear shifter, it's called the anterior cingula gyrus. Working way too hard. And I'm like, oh, you can't get away from the pain because it just cycles. So that was that suffering pathway. And as we calmed it down, he got his life back. And he said, I still hurt. I just don't think about it all the time. And so I fixed him with saffron One of my favorite supplements raises serotonin, calms down the cingulate. We use saffron, omega 3 fatty acids, curcumin, to calm the suffering pathway. I taught him not to believe every stupid thing he thought. I teach this for all my patients. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, out of control, right down what you're thinking, and just ask yourself whether or not it's true. We used hypnosis to calm down the tension. And I taught him how to love and care for his brain by what he ate and reconnected with his wife.
- [19:59]
Co-host or Interviewer
I love that. I love that you hit every note on that. Every single one. You began your psychiatric career at Walter Reed and Tripler Army Medical Center. What did those early experiences with soldiers teach you about trauma and invisible wounds?
- [20:19]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So I was an infantry medic when I was young, and then I got out of the army, went to medical school, and then went back in. And I loved my time at Walter Reed. And one of the big lessons, my first, first professional paper was called post Vietnam stress disorder, a metaphor for current and past life events. And what I came to believe and actually believe more strongly now. It's the brain you bring into war that often determines the brain that comes out of war. Oh, explain that. It's based on a concept I developed called brain reserve. So take two soldiers, put them in the same tank in Iraq, expose them to the same blast, same forces, same angles, everything's the same. One of them walks away unharmed. The other one's permanently disabled. Why? It's the brain they brought into that accident. So did they have a mom who was really stressed when she was pregnant with that child? That decreases brain reserve. Did they feed the child in a healthy way? That increases brain reserve. Did they play tackle football? That decreases brain reserve. Did they have concussions? Did they. There's so many things of both increase and decrease reserve. And I think it's so important to look at their brain. I published a huge study on PTSD and traumatic brain injury, and imaging can separate. Is this post traumatic stress disorder, or is this traumatic brain injury? Or is it both? And why is that important? Well, emotional trauma tends to activate the circuits in your brain. Physical trauma tends to deactivate them. So if you don't know, you may do the exact wrong thing for them. So say you think it's emotional trauma, but really they have low activity. Give them an ssri and you can disinhibit them and make them worse, because SSRIs decrease brain activity. But if you start with decreased activity and you decrease it further now they can become homicidal or suicidal.
- [22:51]
Co-host or Interviewer
How do you feel, feel about tms?
- [22:55]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I'm a huge fan of tms. If it's scan guided tms, right, to stimulate everybody's left frontal lobe who's depressed. Assumes everybody who's depressed has low left prefrontal cortex activity. That's a wrong assumption.
- [23:16]
Co-host or Interviewer
So how do you figure? Because first with the, with the QE.
- [23:19]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Imaging, you image them.
- [23:21]
Co-host or Interviewer
Can you.
- [23:22]
Dr. Daniel Amen
You could use quantitative eeg, or you can use spec, or you can use pet, or I have a friend in UCLA uses fmri. But we need some biological data, right, to target treatment. This flying blind stuff should go away.
- [23:43]
Co-host or Interviewer
No, it needs to be objective and not subjective.
- [23:46]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And that's what you're now also for ptsd. I'm a huge fan of emdr and I know how to do it. I practice it and I find it incredibly helpful for the right brain.
- [23:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's right. You've treated addiction for decades. From your perspective, what's actually happening in the brain when someone breaks free, when that craving no longer controls them?
- [24:11]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, their brain is getting healthier. That's what happens when the craving, you know, I just had on the podcast was Julius Randall, who really struggled with marijuana addiction. And he doesn't struggle at all. He doesn't even think about it anymore. I think in large part because his brain is much healthier and he doesn't believe every stupid thing he thinks. He's also very goal directed. I have all of my patients do an exercise called the One page Miracle on one piece of paper. What do you want? Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. And as a high level athlete, he's goal driven. So he knows what he wants and marijuana just doesn't fit any of them. Plus he wants to have a better brain because that's what makes him a great basketball player. It's his brain. He wants to be a good dad. What is that? It's my brain. And so I think it's getting your brain healthy. And the addiction treatment field, there's actually very little discussion about healthy brain, about. Let's look at it and get your brain healthy so you don't have to be controlled. That's right.
- [25:34]
Co-host or Interviewer
Most, most treatment centers don't talk about the brain at all. All right. In my new book, Experiencing Transcendence, I talk about what happens after recovery. That moment when someone truly moves beyond the identity of addiction or trauma. From your view, what's happening in the brain when someone reaches that higher level of peace or purpose.
- [25:58]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So there's an interesting area of the brain. It's called the default mode network, mostly in the posterior cingulate, in the back, top, middle part of the brain. And when that's too busy, you have a lot of negative chatter about yourself. And learning to calm that down, which we actually see in meditation, can cause transcendence. And psilocybin does it, although I'm not a huge fan, but it calms down that EMDR does that. Prayer and meditation does that. And one technique I give to all of my patients is give your mind a name. It's. You don't have to listen to the noise that your brain generates. And so I named my mind after my pet raccoon. So we both have a raccoon. We both grew up in Encino when I was. So I guess it's 1970. I'm 16. I have a German shepherd. I went to the pet store to get him a leash, and a little baby raccoon climbed up the back of my leg up to my shoulders, started playing with my hair when I had hair, and I grabbed her. She was so cute. I bought her, took her home, got into lots of trouble, but I loved her. But she was a troublemaker. She TPed my mom's bathroom, ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium, would leave raccoon poo in my shoes. That's my name. And so I named my mind Hermy, after the raccoon. And so I just don't have to listen to it. You know, I can choose if I want to listen to it. If I don't, or if she's really bothering me, I put her in her cage.
- [27:44]
Co-host or Interviewer
I get these little thoughts that are scary, right? Because nobody can scare me the way I can. And, you know, they're like clouds. They come and I go, ah, ooh, ah.
- [27:56]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Who?
- [27:57]
Co-host or Interviewer
And I've just learned that my thoughts are not facts. And they're just like clouds. They. And they pass, right? And so I love the way you put it, because it's just a. People learn in different ways. They have to hear it in different ways. They have to see it in different ways. People are different.
- [28:18]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I have so many crazy thoughts, and I just don't attach to them because it's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to. So if a guy.
- [28:32]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's very Buddhist, by the way. I'm sorry, that's a very Buddhist principle.
- [28:36]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, it's also a very Christian principle. I'm working on a program for churches called the Amen. Whole4 and it's based on Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you can test if it fits God's good, perfect and pleasing will. And that thought, you know, I'll tell you this, and your audience will think I'm really crazy, but we have two dogs at home, and one of them loves me, and one of them loves Tana. And the one that loves Tana, when she comes home, he's just so happy. He acts just insane. And one day, Terrace. That was his name, in my office and hanging out with me. And I had the thought, if I killed Tana, Terrace would get really excited when I came home. And I'm like, no, I don't think I'm going to kill 10. Right? I mean, it was just this crazy thought that I just didn't have to attach to. And I told 10, and she's like, you know, if you say that out loud and I'm dead, they're going to think you did it.
- [29:49]
Co-host or Interviewer
Right?
- [29:50]
Dr. Daniel Amen
That's right.
- [29:52]
Co-host or Interviewer
So you wrote this great book. Tell my viewers about the book, because I'm very impressed with it. I have not read the whole thing, but I have a summary of it, and I love it. And you're gonna give me a signed copy before I leave. And I am going to cherish it and I'm going to read it. Wow.
- [30:14]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Thank you so much. Change your brain, change your pain. 50 million Americans suffer with chronic pain. 20% of children have chronic pain. And I want people to know that ultimately, it's your brain that feels it, and it's your brain that reacts to it. And if we change your brain, if we help heal your brain, pain will dramatically decrease. And I'm so excited about it. One of the studies, I quote people my age, so I'm 71. 80% of us who have no pain have abnormal MRIs. Why? Because, you know, our bodies break down over time, but our body also figures out how to get around that crushed disc or that bulging disc or the arthritis. So many people get the abnormal mri and it's scares them into surgery when, if you do conservative care, it has the same efficacy as surgery, but 21 time fewer side effects. And so I want to just give people, because every time it's my neck, it's my knee, it's my shoulder, my hip that hurts, I get an mri, and they're always abnormal. And people go, oh, well, surgery could really help, but I know general anesthesia is bad for my brain. And so, you know, as I said, imaging just Changed everything for me. And then there's another study. This is, like, crazy. On aspartame. So you know the sweetener, Diet Cokes.
- [32:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
Right?
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Dr. Daniel Amen
Right. Of all the people been to your treatment centers, you know, a lot of them were addicted to Diet Coke. For sure, aspartame. So they gave mice aspartame, made them anxious, like, really anxious. And then they gave them Valium and it calmed them down. No, that's not the answer to aspartame. But the scary thing, the babies of the mice who never had aspartame were anxious. The grandbabies were anxious. What does that mean? It means environmental toxins like aspartame could be driving the mental health epidemic in kids, and nobody's thinking about it. And aspartame is in 5,000 products.
- [32:57]
Co-host or Interviewer
Okay. You got any good news for me?
- [33:00]
Dr. Daniel Amen
You're not stuck with the brain you have. You could make it better. I can prove it. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was not telling the truth about traumatic brain injury. In football, 80% of our brain damage players got better. So with a better brain, better life.
- [33:21]
Co-host or Interviewer
Doctor, where can people learn about your work?
- [33:23]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So we have a podcast that you're on Change youe Brain every day. They can also follow me on Instagram or TikTok at DOC. Amen. Or learn about our 11 clinics@amon clinics.com.
- [33:38]
Co-host or Interviewer
And you've got one right in Encino, right where we started?
- [33:41]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes, I do.
- [33:42]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right. I just want you to look into the camera and say, see you next Tuesday.
- [33:46]
Dr. Daniel Amen
See you next Tuesday.
- [33:48]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's right.
- [33:50]
Podcast Host (Out of Time)
We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube. Click the thumbs up and leave a comment. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast and Spotify and leave. Leave a rating and a review and share the we're out of Time podcast with others you know who will get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.