0:00 Justin Bieber, Muhammad Ali, Miley Cyrus. And then there's murderers, rapists, arsonists. I probably have seen more brains than anybody in the world. And now, your brain. So, this is going to be really hard for you. You have ADHD. Really? Dr. Daniel Amen, the world's leading expert on the brain. Dr. Amen's mission is to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. Buckle up, Dr. Amen. Let me know what you see. Your brain is involved in everything you do. And after today, you will always care about your brain. What things make the brain worse? Drugs, alcohol, not getting good sleep, sugar, fruit juice, hitting a soccer ball with your head, caffeine. Caffeine? It shrinks it. What's bad about sugar?
0:45 You're more likely to get an obesity. And as your weight goes up, the actual physical size and function of your brain goes down. That should scare the fat off anyone. And then there's social media. If you're on 3 and 1/2 hours a day, you begin to wear out those pleasure centers that bring you happiness and they bring you pleasure and they bring you drive. You thrill them to death. But, you're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. I can prove it. So, it starts with Let's look at my brain. Let's do this. We have evidence of And that's normal in our society. The problem is two or three of those can impact the rest of your life and nobody knows about it.
1:30 Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the back end of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to just subscribe. Helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So, if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched this show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal? Dr. Amen,
2:16 if someone's just clicked on this podcast and they're considering sticking around or maybe doing something else with their time. Can you explain to me based on what you know that we're going to be discussing and the subject matter we're going to be discussing and how important it is, the benefit to their life if they stick around? 10 extra years of cognitive performance in their life, better love, better money, better health, because your brain, we're going to talk about, is involved in everything you do. How you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people. And my goal is to end, this is going to sound huge and it
3:04 is, and it's going to sound impossible, but it's not. My goal is to end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health. I hate the term mental illness. It shames people. It's stigmatizing and it's wrong. These things aren't mental disorders, they're brain disorders. If you get your brain healthy, well, your mind tends to follow. So, you're depressed, an antidepressant is not doing one thing for getting your brain healthy. Nobody's talking to you about your diet, your level of exercise, your sleep, not living in a mold-filled home, not really
3:49 allowing your kids hit soccer balls with their head, right? Cuz that's not brain healthy. And if we can create this revolution in brain health, the incidence of mental health disorders will go down by half. And I guess that's part of the reveal here is you've actually scanned my brain. And you're going to tell me today the results that you have on your laptop over there in the corner of the room. So, I came to your clinic in Los Angeles, and they made me do a test on a computer. Like it was almost like a speed test of sorts. And then they made me lie down in a big machine for about How long was that? About 30
4:34 minutes? 15 minutes. 15 minutes? While this big machine rotated around my head and looked at my brain. That was my experience of what happened. And then I filled out some questionnaires about myself and my brain and my life generally. And from that, all that data feeds into the thing you're about to show me now. Yes. So, I never will make a diagnosis from a scan. Okay. I make a diagnosis from all the information, which is why we had you fill out all that information and I gave you a test called the Conners Continuous Performance Test, which is a 15-minute test of attention. And every time you see a a letter, you hit the spacebar, except when you see the the letter X.
5:20 When you see the letter X, you don't do anything. So, it measures impulse control and inhibition, response time. And you actually did fine on the test. And but there's other evidence that you might in fact have ADD or ADHD from getting bored easily to poor handwriting, being disorganized, and so on. Uh Uh and obviously you're very bright but struggled a bit in school. So, with all that information, um first thing to do is look at a healthy scan so we know what a healthy scan
6:05 looks like. And we're going to show it in two different ways. We're going to look at the outside surface of your brain. So, a healthy one is the image on the left and all we should see is full, even, symmetrical activity. So, the image on the top left is looking underneath the brain. So, the top is the front part of the brain, the bottom is the back, the top is an area called the prefrontal cortex, hugely important in humans, largest in humans than any other animal by far. It's 30% of the human brain, 11% of the chimpanzee brain. And then the back is the cerebellum, back
6:51 bottom part of the brain. Um again, very important, involved in processing speed. The bottom right of the images on the left is looking down from the top. Uh the other two looking at the brain from the side. Color doesn't matter, it's the shape. It should be full, even, and symmetrical. The images on the right, the color matters. So, it's what we call our active images. Blue is average activity, red is the top 15%, white is the top 8%. And you see all the white. So, the white is where things are really happening. It's really hot. Okay. And that's healthy. That's normal. And
7:38 that's going to become very important for you. So, if we look at your brain, it's a little bumpy, and so I'll ask you about toxins. Are there anything toxic in your life? What What are all toxins? So, think alcohol, marijuana, mold uh heavy metals in your body, infections, and so if it's not alcohol or drugs, then I begin to go, "Have you ever lived in a mold-filled environment? Maybe we should test you for that. Do you have more mercury in your body or lead in your body than you should?" So, for example, I had very high mercury levels. My brain sort of looked like that when I first scanned
8:24 it. It was toxic. And I had very high mercury levels. Like, I never drank. I just don't like it. Never smoked. Never did drugs. But, my brain looked toxic. And so, you then have to go hunt down "Well why?" And for me, it was mercury. Um decreased activity in your left prefrontal cortex. So, when I think of maybe ADD-like symptoms in your life, probably coming from there. And decreased activity in your left temporal lobe. And you right-handed? Yeah. Yeah. So, that can go with the irritability. What I've seen is that can go with sort of
9:12 short fuse. Mhm. And your prefrontal cortex is sort of the brain's supervisor. It watches you. And your prefrontal cortex is flat. Mhm. And I don't like that. And then when I heard you played soccer or when I read you played soccer, it's very common in my soccer players. Now, how long did you play soccer for? Uh, pretty much all of my childhood. And any concussions playing soccer? I think I had a couple of big head bangs that were significant, but not many. Not nothing that took me to hospital, but I had a couple of moments where I was pulled off the pitch because like there was a clash of heads. So. Your brain is soft, about the
9:59 consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and has sharp bony ridges. Um. Two or three of those can impact the rest of your life and nobody knows about it. Because nobody looks. Right? If you went in saw a thousand psychiatrists, say, "I want to focus better and have better temper." You saw a thousand psychiatrists, two of them would look at your brain, which I think is insane. So, the colors here that I'm looking at, the What does the the red and the green So, the color really Doesn't matter here. doesn't matter. It's the shape. So, when I see this hole, you don't have
10:45 holes in your brain. What the hole means is less blood flow than is optimal. In fact, I'm going to show you if you do what I ask you to do and we scan you 6 months from now, that'll be better. I have a program that tells me if you do what I ask you to do, this is what's generally going to happen. And if you don't do what I ask you to do, well, this is what it's going to look like 5 years from now, 10 years from now. And you're young. If you get serious about loving and repairing your brain, your 60s, 70s, 80s are going to be amazing because you're going to have a healthy brain. If you go, "Oh, Amen's a
11:33 quack and I don't believe any of this crap." it's going to be really hard for you because you're not going to have full access to your brain. And that's scary. So, I know that's sort of a big deal, but I think this is from traumatic brain injury at some point and a bit of a toxin, which may be mold. Mhm. And then when I say mold, our house was very, very dirty growing up. So, that's what I assume you're speaking to that. And we did have like mold around the window sill sometimes and we had mice and rats at some point and it was like living in a house that a
12:19 hoarder had uh lived in because some of the rooms were just stacked to the ceiling with crap. So, I think maybe if you're talking about mold or a toxic brain, I I I'm guessing that's where it's come from. If that makes it gets in your body, unless you do something active to get it out, it stays. I really and can continue to cause problems. And then if we go to the active scan, it's very different than I want it to be. And I know I can make it better. But if we go back to what's healthy, lots of activity in the cerebellum, your cerebellum is sleepy
13:05 despite you probably being very coordinated. I need to activate that thing. It's really important to get better activity there. And you have this diamond pattern. So, you have ADD and we'll talk more about it. It's a subtype I call overfocused ADD where you can be obsessive when you're really interested in something, but if it doesn't interest you, it's hard for you to focus. So, if you look at this, it looks like a diamond. And when I see that diamond, I think of past emotional trauma. And uh I published a big study
13:53 looking at this 20,000 people, can I separate emotional trauma from physical trauma? And I can with actually high levels of accuracy, and it looks to me like there's sort of bit of both for you. Do you play racket sports? No, I don't. So, that'll be one of my prescriptions for you. And actually, study from England, people play racket sports live longer than everybody else by far. Soccer was on the bottom, like soccer and football were on the bottom, but tennis, table tennis, racket ball, now pickle ball, uh badminton are on the top. But let's talk about this diamond for a bit. When I say emotional trauma, Mhm.
14:41 what comes up for you? So, a few things. The first thing is my parents were always at war. Growing up as a kid in a household where there was so much screaming and negative energy, but then growing up with shame because we was I was so different from everyone else around me. Never inviting friends back to my house in those 16 years that I lived there before I left, so nobody really knew where I lived either. I think of all that stuff when I think about like emotional trauma. Well, that's a lot. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you grow up in a stressful environment boo and um a hostile environment where your parents are at war, it trains your brain,
15:26 your emotional brain to become hyperactive, Mhm. because you always have to watch for danger. And that gets programmed early. And even later, when there's not the danger, your body still can look for Mhm. You're waiting for that next bad thing to happen. And Do you think I have ADHD? I do. Now, the question would be, who has it in your family? Cuz it doesn't just show up. But often, children who have ADHD have one or both parents who have it. And you can see
16:12 those similar traits. And it sounds like one or both of your parents could have been a little bit conflict seeking. My My mother. And if I was to hazard a guess at which one of my parents had ADHD, and this is just me guessing, not trying to diagnose my parents, I would say it's would have been my mother. Why? She's the She's the most irritable. Handwriting isn't great. She is a little bit more sort of like scat scattered, I should say. She's a lot more messy. My dad's like very organized with everything. My mom's very very very messy. Like me. Um
16:59 The The other thing I would ask is, what did teachers say about you? I went back to speak at my school to the GCSE and A-level students. I've done it twice. And I remember one of the teachers came up to me. Bearing in mind at this age, I'm 24, 25 years old. And she said, "You are a useless student, but you are nice. You're a nice person." I was never swearing or throwing chairs, but I was useless. And I spent most of the time in the exclusion unit, which is where you go if you don't do your homework or you don't attend. I just couldn't sit in classrooms. I couldn't sit in classrooms and stay focused on what they were telling me, es- especially when I wasn't interested. That's been like a defining quality of my life. I'm exceptionally good
17:44 at not doing things I'm not interested in. And I'm ex- And I'm good at when I'm interested, but when I'm not interested, I could see my peers almost like will themselves to engage in things they're not interested in. I'm I will I could never do that. And I've always said I'm a remarkable quitter. So, you think about stop going to school, then went to university for 1 day and was like, "Nope." Never went back after that first day. So, So, it's it's a very important piece of advice for people who have ADD. Is pick something you love, not a job that you think you'll just make more money in. And that's another sort of piece of the puzzle that completely fits with having
18:30 ADD. And as as we know, there are problems with it, but there are also huge benefits of it. Your prefrontal cortex, when it works too hard, so I imagine if I scanned your dad, that it would be busy, cuz he's very organized and like collecting. Um but there's less creativity that goes with the busy frontal lobes. When there's a little bit sleepy, you entertain all sorts of thoughts, and you're a little less rule bound than people whose prefrontal cortex more
19:17 active. They like rules, and they like sameness, and they like predictability. And probably like some of that because I think you inherited some of your dad. That's the top of the diamond. But you're obviously very creative. Mhm. I do um I do think of myself as being um a a creative entrepreneur. I I know other entrepreneurs that are like really good at finance and operations and processes, whereas my skill in entrepreneurship has always been the creativity. That's why I'm a marketeer. That's where I built my my fortunes, per se, was in marketing and creativity. So and I've always found other people to do the finance or the process or operation
20:04 stuff for me because that's not where I I'm engaged or or where I think I'm particularly good. So Well, and since a lot of CEOs listen to this podcast, a lot of CEOs have ADD of one form or another. And they thrive when they hire people who are organized. So it's very important cuz we tend to like to hire people like ourselves. And it's very important to hire people who help us where we're more vulnerable. It's almost like hiring people with different brains. Yes. Literally. Yes. We we we talked about something a second
20:50 ago. You said, "When you saw your brain for the first time, it changed your life." I do feel like that now. I do feel like when I almost didn't realize my brain was there. And I think a lot of people we go through our lives just kind of cuz we never see the thing. We don't appreciate the thing. So step one is that awareness and then step two is the realization that we can do something about it. Because I grew up thinking that your brain and your body generally is just it just is what it is. Like I can't do anything about, you know, I tend to think I can't do anything about, I don't know, my fingernail. I probably I mean you can, but you just see these things as static objects that are what they are. This idea that I can do something about it is the most important idea. It's the it's the empowering idea.
21:35 And that is what you're telling me is possible. I can change my brain. It's the most exciting lesson that I've learned. You're not stuck. I'm not stuck with the brain I had. You're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. I can prove it. In fact, every day, what I've come to believe, you're making your brain better or you're making it worse. Let's start there. you're doing. What things make the brain worse? What are the common things that most of us do without thinking that make the brain worse? When my daughter, Chloe, was in second grade, I went to her classroom and I
22:20 wrote 20 things on the board. And I went separate them for me. Good for your brain, bad for your brain. 7-year-olds. They got 19 out of 20 right. So, most people know. The only thing they got wrong was orange juice. They put it in the healthy category. When, in fact, when is it rational to unwrap fruit sugar from its fiber source? Because it turns toxic in your body. So, I'm not a fan of fruit juice. I'm a fan of fruit, not fruit juice. But so, the bad category. Hitting a soccer ball with your head. No, don't do that. Um What's bad about sugar
23:06 for the brain? Which What does that mean? It makes you diabetic. But I mean as it relates to the brain, why is like orange juice or the ice cream bad for my brain? Because it's ultimately going to give you high blood sugar levels, Mhm. which erode your blood vessels, and you're going to have lower blood flow to your brain. That's bad. It's a bad thing. I mean, there's so many things about it. So, it's addictive, it's pro-inflammatory, it makes it more likely you're going to have diabetes and obesity. So, 72% of Americans are overweight, 42% are obese. I've published three studies on 35,000 people.
23:52 As your weight goes up, the actual physical size and function of your brain goes down. That should scare the fat off anyone. I used to be chubby, but when I figured out that connection, I'm like, "Oh, no. I am It was that that gave me the motivation to drop about 25 lb. And so sugar is the gateway drug to diabetes and obesity. And so, not to mention inflammation, which is the cause of depression and dementia. So, I've got sugar, I've got a head injury. I'm going to avoid both of these things.
24:37 What else should I avoid? And then you have low blood flow in those two very important areas. And so, how can we increase blood flow? So, you want to avoid things that cause low blood flow, caffeine, nicotine. Caffeine? Caffeine constricts blood flow to the brain. What does that do to my brain? It Well, constricts blood flow. So, you're going to get less blood flow. And remember, I showed you that progression with age? No, you don't want that. You want to do things that increase blood flow to your brain. So, exercise. Um ginkgo is just one of the supplements I'm going to give you. Eat foods like um beets oregano
25:23 rosemary, cinnamon, they increase blood flow. And do you think there's a correlation or link between caffeine consumption and a shrinking brain? Yes. And a shrinking brain, is that associated with things like dementia? Aging brain. I You know, I don't think there's a connection. I haven't read any research that says there's a connection between caffeine and dementia. There's a connection with sleep problems, and there's connection with sleep problems and dementia. Mhm. I think if you have like 100 mg a day of caffeine, it's probably fine. But, one venti
26:10 Starbucks coffee has got 330 mg of caffeine. Jesus. And people just aren't thinking about the level of caffeine they're having in our society. What are the other very obvious things that are not good for my brain? Cuz I really want to make sure that I avoid those things. So, I've got sugar, So, and erectile dysfunction. I mean, while we're at So, B is for blood flow, right? While we're on blood flow, 40% of 40-year-olds have erectile dysfunction. 70% of 70-year-olds have erectile dysfunction. What that means, if you have blood flow problems anywhere, it means they're everywhere. And so
26:55 like no. And it means either you're too sedentary, you're overweight, you're smoking, or having too much caffeine, or using marijuana cuz marijuana lowers blood flow to the brain. And so just in that one of the 11, it's exercise, ginkgo. For you, not for everybody, but for you hyperbaric oxygen, those three things will make a big difference in blood flow. Ginkgo? Ginkgo. What is that? It's a supplement. What does it do? Uh increases blood flow. To the brain? The prettiest brains I've ever seen take ginkgo. There's actually SPECT study.
27:43 Uh they gave people 100 20 mg of ginkgo twice a day, significant improvement in blood flow to the brain. And so in one of the supplements I'm going to give you, we have ginkgo. I I've taken it every day for the last 20 years, at least. And then this is where the US government got an F for the pandemic, loneliness accelerates dementia and brain problems. And so when they isolated us, the whole significant increase in brain problems. So get connected to other people. The I in bright minds is inflammation. So what increases inflammation? Low
28:28 omega-3 fatty acid levels. And we are deficient. 93% of the population is deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. 93%. So all of us should be either eating more fish or taking an omega-3 supplement like fish oil. Gum disease. Like who knew? Like I wasn't really that good at taking care of my gums until I started reading the studies. You have gum disease, you have inflammation, you're more likely get depressed and have dementia. I'm like, "Oh my goodness." So, I'm a flossing fool. Um ages, head trauma, we talked about that. I did the big NFL study when the NFL was
29:14 struggling with the truth on traumatic brain injury in football. 80% of our players got better. T is toxins. Um drugs alcohol. Um but other things like mercury and What are the unobvious toxins? Because Anesthesia. Anesthesia. I I was looking at my bathroom items. And I have like mouthwash and toothpaste and deodorants and aftershaves. And I was wondering to myself whether those were toxic to some degree. So, there's an app. There's a couple of them, but the one I like is called Think Dirty. Mhm. Where you can scan those products and it'll tell you on a scale of 0 to 10
30:02 how bad they are for you. So, 0 is you live a long time and 10 is you die early. And so, when I figured this out, I was scanning everything. Um I mean, it cost me hundreds of dollars to replace things. And my wife more than that with all the makeup and stuff. But I shaved for 50 years with Barbasol. And it's a nine. Which is die early. And now I shave with something called Kiss My Face. And it's a two. It's like, you know, we teach people read the labels on food stuff, should read the labels on anything that goes on your body or on your child's body. And
30:48 we have this epidemic, and we'll get to it, of low testosterone in males because of the toxins we put on their bodies when they're young. What is the M in bright? So, the M is mental health. It's the quality of your thoughts, the level of your stress, and the level of trauma you carry in your body. And whether or not you have any of the psychiatric stuff. Like depression, for example, doubles the risk of Alzheimer's disease in women and quadruples it in men.
31:34 And so, the M is what's going on in your mind. And so, I teach people to kill the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal their happiness. Um understand and process their traumas, and treat whatever psychiatric issues may be present. Like in your case, the ADD. And I think cuz start with the supplement um or even consider medication. Talk about the natural ways to do it, the medicine ways to do it. And for me,
32:22 I'm not opposed to medicine. I'm actually really good at it. But it's never the first and the only thing I think about. I've really never taken medication in my life. Even like if I get a headache, I don't take medication. I'm not the type of person. I probably haven't taken a pill in like really in years. The only time I've taken medication is if I have a severe infection of sorts. So like there was this one time where like my foot was going green and I'd stood on some glass, whatever, and it was really getting out of control. I'm talking like a 2-in purple thing growing on my foot. I thought, "Okay, instead of getting my leg cut off, I'll take this medication the doctor's given me. Otherwise, I just do not take it." So I would rather go through severe pain than take medication because I believe that my body can fix things. Um
33:09 So when I think about taking ADD medication or ADHD medication, I don't really know the difference, I go, "Well, if my if I'm messy or if I'm my handwriting's bad or whatever it might be, then that's just who I am. And that's okay. I can get better at it. I can be less I can be more organized. But why why do I want to take medication? Well, I'm not going to I'm not going to be the one to sell you on medication, but what I would say is So a lot of times people ask me the side effects of medication. Mhm. And for stimulants for ADD, it could be
33:54 it decreases your appetite or can negatively affect your sleep. But you always have to ask the second question. Which is what are the side effects of not taking the medicine? What's the impact on your life, on your business, on your money, on your relationships, on your health? Because living with untreated ADD for many people, and maybe not you, but for many people goes with chronic stress because of the negative things that tend to go along with it. Dysfunction. And for you, you're clearly not broken. But are you optimized?
34:40 Do you have full access to your own brain? And I would argue no. And we can do and we can do better. But we can do it in steps. And ultimately, I see my job is giving people options. And then telling them the pros and cons of each option, and then letting them choose. Right? I mean, that's what good doctors should do. It's called informed consent. Um and you know, I can just tell you my experience. I told you the story with my daughter. And I've seen that play out thousands of times.
35:27 That people just become more optimized. In what way? not necessarily the medicine. But that medicine, when it's for the right brain, right? The wrong brain, it makes people worse. And if you read my book, Healing ADD, I talk about the Ring of Fire ADD. So, ADD and ADHD are different terms for the same thing. 1980, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I hate that, but it's what we have, was Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD, with or without hyperactivity.
36:12 1987, God knows for what reason, they changed the name to ADHD. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, basically throwing out half the people who had it. Cuz half the people who have ADD or ADHD are never hyperactive. And they don't get diagnosed because they don't bring enough negative attention to themselves for parents to go, "You have a problem. And you're giving me a problem." Um so anyways different names for the same thing. And if you can manage it by having extra help for the things you're not good at, with exercise,
36:59 with all of the good habits you have, well, that's awesome. If you want to be be 10% more focused, like I treat this writer, um and she only takes medicine when she has to get stuff done. But she never takes it when she writes because she has 16 plot lines going on at once in her books. And she goes, "No, I think it decreases my creativity a little bit." Interesting. Because the the fact that we're medicating the a brain like mine, I
37:45 I go, "Is that for professional optimization?" Cuz if you just go back like, I don't know, a couple hundred years. You go back even further to a a time when we couldn't like read or write, there wasn't computers, and all of these things, you would have had no idea that You know, if you go if you go back far, you wouldn't have been able to tell a really a an ADHD Well, what I'm trying to say But you'd be able to tell their life. I mean, I have a patient from Ethiopia. And I'm like, "So, tell me the impact in your culture." And he said, "The people with severe ADHD get excluded because they can't be relied on. And the isolation causes great shame and pain. Um and
38:30 they have no idea it's a brain thing. Where does it come from ADHD? Or ADD? Well, it's genetic. Okay. It's clearly genetic. I mean, I if I don't see it in someone's family, I think head trauma. And with you, I think that's possible because of soccer. Um except you see it in your family. Um Is it a defect or is it a difference? It's a difference. If I if I chose to take a drug, was it like equal to Ritalin that you called it one of the So, Ritalin would be one of the options. Whatever drug it was, what exactly would it do under brain scanning to my brain? So, if I scan my brain and took the drug, what would you see in my
39:15 brain? Well, I can tell you. It would activate your cerebellum. Okay, the bit that was a bit sleepy. It was a bit sleepy and it would activate your prefrontal cortex. And um it would give your brain better energy. So, my first SPECT scan, 1991, a woman she tried to kill herself the night before. I went to the lecture on brain SPECT imaging and then I walked out of the lecture and she was my new patient. Her name was Sandy. She tried to kill herself the night before and as I'm getting to know her, I'm thinking she has ADD. She has an 8-year-old son who has ADD, talked about the genetic connection. She had an IQ of 144 but never finished college. And I'm like, "How did you study?" She said,
40:02 "Well, I never really did except maybe the night before a test, I'd put on a pot of coffee, stay up all night cramming and then I'd take the test. That's classic ADD way of doing things. And I'm like, "You know, I think maybe you have adult ADD. And she goes, "Oh, adults don't have ADD." And I'm thinking, I'm the doctor, I'm like, "How about if we look at your brain?" And And I knew from other work I'd done that I should do it twice, at rest and concentration. And when she tried to concentrate, her brain completely deactivated. Turned off. Like, for you, we only did it once, but if I had done it twice, probably your brain would be busier at rest, and then when you try to do it, it
40:47 would drop. And I put the pictures on a couple of days later, I put the picture on the table in front of her. And as I explained it to her, she started to cry. And she said, "You mean it's not my fault." And I said, "Having ADD is sort of like people who need glasses." And I wore glasses to drive, and took my glasses out, put them on. And I said, "People who wear glasses aren't dumb, crazy, or stupid. Their eyeballs are shaped funny, and we wear glasses to focus." I said, "People with ADD aren't dumb, crazy, or stupid. Some are among the brightest people I know, but their frontal lobes deactivate. Taking the medicine is like glasses for your frontal lobes, help you focus."
41:34 And she did it. She was conflict-driven. She was always poking her husband. They got into a huge fight, which is why she tried to kill herself. She stopped that. She's a better mom. She went back and finished college. I mean, her life's It's like your brain with glasses. Wow. My friends that take medication for ADD say that to me. They say it's like their life is before and after that moment. So, I've, you know, I've I completely believe what you're saying. Um A second ago, you said this phrase when we were talking about the M, which is your mental health, and the impact that has on the development of a brain that's either healthy or unhealthy. And you said this thing about you got to make sure you kill the ants, which is killing those negative thoughts. Um that's much easier said
42:19 than done. How does How does someone go about killing their negative thoughts? Is there a process they can go through to do that? Yeah, it's a habit. Right? And it's not hard. But like any habit, you have to do it repeatedly, like over and over and over and over and over and over. Um Whenever you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals. Whenever you have a bad thought, a sad thought, a mad thought, your brain releases a certain set of chemicals that make you feel bad. Immediately. Your hands get cold. They start to sweat. Your muscles get tense. You start to breathe erratically. And it all happens instantaneously.
43:06 Whenever you have a positive thought, a happy thought, a hopeful thought, a loving thought, like I'm back cuz I loved the first time I was on the podcast with you. Um a completely different set of chemicals come out. And your hands get warmer, drier. Your breathing slows down. Your heart beats in a healthier It happens like immediately. People have ADD, since we're talking about that, they tend to go more toward negative thoughts cuz negative thoughts are more stimulating. And uh here's the exercise. Whenever you feel sad, or mad, or nervous, or out of control, write down
43:51 what you're thinking. And then ask yourself, is it true? Is it absolutely true? This is a process I learned from my friend Byron Katie. How do I feel when I have this thought? How do I act when I have this thought? And what's the outcome of the thought? So, is it true? Is it absolutely true? How do I feel, act, and the outcome of the thought? How would I feel if I didn't have the thought? How would I act if I didn't have the thought? What's the outcome of not having that thought? Then my favorite part of it is take the original thought, "Tana never listens to me." Tana is my
44:36 wife. I've had that thought. Um and then turn it to the opposite. Tana does listen to me. And then just ask yourself whether or not that's true. And by directing my thoughts, by managing, so rather than being a victim, so many of my patients are victims of their thoughts until they do the work, right? This is one of the things where do what the F I say. Write down 100 of your worst thoughts. Take them through that process. And by the time you get to 30, they'll stop bothering you. So, if I'm a repetitive negative thinker or a repetitive positive thinker, does that alone change the shape of my brain?
45:23 Yes. And in my new book, Change Your Brain Every Day, there's actually pictures of Noelle Nelson. She was writing a book called The Power of Appreciation. And I had her she wanted me to scan her while she was appreciating her brain, and it looked beautiful. And I'm like, as I'm showing it to her, I'm like, "You need to come back tomorrow, and I want you to hate yourself." And she goes, "Oh, I don't want to do that." I'm like, "Come on, you have to suffer for science." I said, "We want to We have positive scan, and then we have negative scan." And the negativity dropped her left temporal lobe, her left frontal lobe, and her cerebellum.
46:09 So interesting. I mean, similar to what your scan looks like, but hers was way worse. I mean, this is healthy brain and then a deactivated brain. And that explained to me athletic slumps. It's like, why do people get in athletic slumps? Cuz negativity turns off their cerebellum. And they become just a little less coordinated. Interesting. And I'm not a fan of positive thinking. I'm a fan of accurate thinking with a positive spin. So, positive thinking is I can have this third piece of cheesecake and it's not going to negatively impact my body or my
46:55 brain. Like no. The don't worry, be happy people die the earliest of accidents and preventable illnesses. So, a lot of people come to me for anxiety. And I'm like, so, on a scale of 0 to 100, how much is it? And they're like, 50. I said, okay, our goal is not zero. Our goal is 15. I want you to have enough anxiety you do the right things. Somewhat linked to that is a word you used as well, which is stress. When we're talking about the M in bright minds, how to have healthy brains, what role does stress play on our brains? Stress, um, especially chronic unremitting
47:43 stress. So, if we think of the stress you had growing up, um, where there was a lot of fighting, it raises a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol begins to shrink activity in the hippocampus, one of the major memory and learning centers in the brain. So, one could at least argue or postulate your struggle in school was because your emotional brain was busy cuz you were worried about things at home. Um it makes it more likely you get infections. It makes it more likely um that you have learning problems. And trauma. Trauma was the other word
48:29 you used which I I thought it was worth diving into. Um the impact that trauma has on our brains. Um and does trauma show up when you scan someone's brain? Can you see it? Yeah, so trauma shows up as that diamond pattern, uh which is why I asked asked you about it. It's your emotional brain anterior cingulate at the top. It's the brain's gearshift, thalamus often involved in mood, basal ganglia, amygdala involved in anxiety. So, we often see worry, anxiety, and sadness. And it shows up as that diamond pattern. But after people do EMDR, a specific psychological treatment for trauma, calms it down. And I say psychological treatment, I'm like, "Yeah, but it has biological effects." Uh
49:14 it's a very interesting treatment. So, I get you to like first thing, write down 10 big traumas in your life. And we'll go after the worst one first. Um and have you bring it up. And there's a whole process to it. But have your eyes go back and forth while you bring it up. And it's so interesting the connections your brain will make to it. But as you process it, you find you're actually less bothered by it. And it's masterful for single incident traumas like being robbed or being in a car accident. For chronic trauma, it takes longer. Um but it's so helpful. Um when I met my
50:02 wife 18 years ago, um her ACE score, adverse childhood experiences, on a scale of 0 to 10, how many bad things happened to you, was an eight. And I was so taken with this woman. And one of my first gifts to her was 10 sessions of EMDR. One, I wanted to see if she would like wrestle with her traumas. But she went for 2 years. And I'm absolutely convinced that's one of the reasons she and I rarely fuss with each other. Because we don't trigger each other. And when you talk about trauma, it's not these big T traumas that some people sometimes talk of, which is
50:48 you know, when I was young, I was fondled by my uncle, for example. It can also be an isolated incident that happened when you were an adult. Absolutely. It can be anything that attacks your sense of safety, either physical or emotional. Getting fired is traumatic for a lot of people. Um not performing in a high in an important situation can be traumatic. And that changes the activity within your brain. On Well, it depends on how strong it is. If it was really strong. If it was really strong. Then the activity centers of your brain would Well, and there's one thing we haven't talked about yet called brain reserve, which is how healthy was the brain that
51:36 you brought into trauma. Because you can take two soldiers, put them in the same tank, and expose them to the same blast, the same angles, everything is the same. One walks away unharmed. The other one's permanently disabled. Why? It's the brain they brought into the trauma. And so, if your mother used drugs while she was pregnant with you, she decreased your reserve. If your mom and dad fought a lot or they separated when she was pregnant with you, that decreased your reserve. If she gave you bad food, if she neglected you, if there was chronic
52:22 stress, that's decreasing your reserve. So, all of us have a certain level of reserve when we go into that trauma. And some people get post-traumatic growth that they're actually better after the trauma. You know they make the trauma and makes something meaningful out of it. And other people have post-traumatic stress where it really um causes them to suffer. I love the idea of brain reserve cuz I'm like always thinking of boosting mine. Yeah, because then also when something traumatic happens, I'm in a better place, right? Right. Like if you kill the ants, like if your ant population is low, my automatic negative thoughts.
53:07 Right. Yeah. So, if you're masterful, if you have an anteater running around in your head cleaning up the negative thoughts that all of us have, when you go into that trauma, well, you're just better able to deal with it than if you have an undisciplined mind that's infested. And there's nowhere in school that people teach you to kill the ants. We have a foundation called the Change Your Brain Foundation. And I love it so much. Uh we're dedicated to research, education service. But last year we produced this new course called Brain Thrive by Five. So it's for preschoolers, kindergarten,
53:53 grade one, where we teach kids to love and care for their brain. It's like 30 modules, they're 6 to 7 minutes long, and six of them are on learning to kill the ants. Uh, little kids just love that. You don't have to believe every stupid thing you think. And I don't know if you know, but Jerry Seinfeld once said, "The brain is a sneaky organ." We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear. And just because you have bad thought doesn't even mean you believe the thought, right? It's not the thoughts you have that make you suffer, it's the thoughts you attach to that make you suffer. I get all sorts of crazy thoughts and I'm like,
54:41 "My brain is so creative." But I don't believe most of them. Quick one. Just want to talk to you about our sponsor super quick called LinkedIn Jobs. Hiring is one of the most important steps in your business, and without good people, there is literally no company. Trust me, I found out along the way that your business is nothing without good people. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best candidates available, and that's why I need you to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps you to find the right people for your team faster and for free. So when I'm expanding any of my teams in any of my companies, I go straight to LinkedIn, and I'd highly recommend you do the same. There are simple tools like screening questions, which make it easy to focus on candidates with the right skills and experience, so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview
55:26 and hire. It's why small businesses rate LinkedIn Jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com/doac. That's linkedin.com/doac to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. As you'll know, this podcast is sponsored by Huel. One of my favorite products that they've ever created is their Huel Daily Greens. It actually performed so well when we released it that it sold out completely and the next thing I'm back to here to say to you guys is that it's now back in stock. It tastes amazing and it's actually got 91 vitamins and minerals and whole food ingredients in one scoop. It's nice not
56:12 to have to think about taking lots of different pills and vitamins in the morning. I can just take this and I know that I'm giving my body a good dose of all the vitamins and minerals that it needs every morning. It's a lot better tasting than having to force down some of the other green powders I've tried and it's really reassuring to know that I'm looking after my body properly. Unfortunately and currently, this product is only available in the US. So, anyone in the USA head to huel.com to get it before it runs out again. But, anyone that's not in the US and wants it to come to their country, please send me a DM, a direct message and I'll speak to the team at Huel in our board meetings and I'll let them know that you want it in your country. Tell me about the most unhealthy brain you've ever seen. For a 15-year-old was Kip Kinkel. He's a 15-year-old boy in Springfield,
56:59 Oregon who brought weapons to school, got arrested, his parents picked him up from jail, and sometime between 6:00 that night and 8:00 the next morning, he murdered his mom and dad. And then he went to Springfield Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon and shot 25 people. Based on my work, they scanned him for his trial. His brain was so awful. Like, I'd never seen a 15-year-old that had a brain so damaged. And his life reflected it. What did you see in his brain? It was shriveled. At 15? At 15.
57:45 And it's like, okay, why? Well, he murdered his mom and dad, so I couldn't get a good history. But he either had anoxia at birth, lack of oxygen, a severe infection, or something was poisoning his brain. It could have been lead. It um could have been an infection. I mean we're talking about M, the I is immunity and infections. It's a major cause of psychiatric problems. Nobody knows about it. Have you scanned the brains of lots of psychopaths? I have. And what do you see when you look at a psychopath's So I published a study on murderers, and young murderers have really low frontal lobe function. Older murderers, it's
58:31 global low activity. Now, not all murderers are the same. I have one murderer's brain Her brain actually looked pretty good. But she was in the middle of being abused by her husband, and she murdered him. And it wasn't that irrational, you know, when you really know her story. Um but most brains are troubled. Do you think you could look at a brain and predict Now you should ask me, should you scan presidential candidates? Interesting. Especially now. Uh What do you think Donald Trump's brain looks like? Well, I think if we scanned President Biden or former President Trump, neither one of them would be healthy.
59:17 I mean, one, we talked about the older you got, the less healthy they are, and um if someone is going to have nuclear codes, shouldn't we know what their brain looks like? And I wrote an op-ed piece in 2008 when Barack Obama was running against John McCain arguing for don't you think we should scan presidential candidates? And yeah, I don't think either one of their brains would be healthy and that concerns me. Because I mean, what do we need for our top politicians? Judgment,
1:00:03 forethought, impulse control. Okay, so playing devil's advocate to that. If we started to do that at the very highest office in the land, then that philosophy might creep down to lower offices in the land and when you go and try and get a job at I don't know, a restaurant or a marketing agency, it might become the norm that there's a almost brain discrimination or brain prejudice in play where someone like me, they have their brain scanned, they go, "Listen, this guy's he's not going to be very good at I don't know, focusing on things like that." interesting question. I have to tell you if you date one of my children for more than 4 months, I'm going to get you scanned. Really? I'm going to figure out how to do that. It's the rule in my family.
1:00:48 Um and if you have a bad brain, it doesn't mean you can't come back. But are you smart enough to fix it? That would be the question. Have you done that? Well, my son-in-law, Jesse, who I love, his mother has paranoid schizophrenia. And I'm like, "I want to scan your brain." And I have. He actually wrote a book called Change Your Brain Before 25 and he opens the book with the story of his scan and him sitting with me. He's 6'4, I'm 5'6, and he said he'd never felt so small. And Yeah, no, that's the rule in my family.
1:01:37 I like I said when I met my wife, I really liked her. And the first naked part of her I wanted to see was her brain. And so 3 weeks into our relationship, I'm like, "Hey, you haven't seen the clinic. Don't you want to see the clinic?" She came, I scanned her, and it passed. Do you use her brain against her? I bet you do. I bet you do. No. We spoke to Tana, she said you do. You're telling me there's not been one time where you've brought up her brain in a moment of conflict or arguments. Not once, cuz I will call Tana. I I don't. Yeah. No, okay. Because you know what I do? And this is
1:02:23 this is on par with killing the ants. I do an exercise with my patients called the one-page miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want. Relate and in a very specific way. What do you want in your relationships? Your work, your money, your physical, emotional, and spiritual health. What do you want? And with her, cuz she's on the top of my list, I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. I always want that. I don't always feel like that. Rude thoughts come into my head. And if I've slept and I've eaten, I never say them.
1:03:09 Why? Cuz it doesn't get me what I want. Mhm. Right? And that's not selfish. People go, "Oh, but you know, what you want What what I want is not selfish. It's good. Cuz hedonism is the enemy of happiness. But happiness is a moral obligation because of how you impact other people. Your brain's so smart, but you have to tell it what you want. And every major business, including mine, we have a one-page strategic plan. We know what we want, and we know what we're going to do this quarter and this year. But people don't do that in their lives. And you think they should have like a life plan? Every
1:03:55 person should. What do you want? Is your behavior getting you what you want? Do you think the brain almost conspires to make to fit what you want? I either brain, once you're clear on what you want, I guess your actions will change a little bit, and then your brain will change shape to fit what you've said you wanted. Yes. And the brain is lazy. The brain does what you allow it to do. And it's habitual. I was talking to one of my patients about this yesterday. Um cuz we were working on his one-page miracle. And he's like, "You know, I could be more positive." And I go, "It's a habit to be negative or to be positive. Which
1:04:42 highways are you building in your brain? Positive highways or negative highways? Accurate highways or distorted highways? You build that." And if you watch the news, they'll become more distorted. Cuz it's Yeah. In my book, The End of Mental Illness, I I did something It was very fun for me to do. I imagined if I was an evil ruler and I wanted to create mental illness, what would I do? And watching the news, I think it was there's 62 evil ruler strategies and I think that's like 12. Um, because the news is no longer the news. The news is about eyeballs and selling things.
1:05:28 And negativity sells. If I can scare you, that will sell. And so, um you have to be very careful with what you allow in your brain. And yes, you should be informed. But not over and over and over and over again. People who start the day with the news are 27% less happy in the afternoon. Well, I listen to lots of true crime and serial killer things. Like every day. Are you telling me funny. I have this show on Instagram called Scan My Brain. I take influential people and scan them and I did Meghan Trainor uh the uh, musician. I love her music. And she
1:06:16 goes, "I can't sleep." And every night before bed, she's listening to true crime. And I'm like, "Stop that." Do you think it matters? Cuz I listen to true crime before bed. I have this exercise that I recommend all my patients. I've done it for 10 years. What went well when I go to bed. I start at the beginning of the day and just go hour by hour looking for what went right about my day. I think that's set your dreams up to be more positive. I think it's I do both and then I just see which one works better for you. Every day win or learn. What is the I in Bright Minds? Immunity
1:07:02 and infections. So, do you know your vitamin D level? No, but I do take the only supplement that I take frequently, I'd say there's two, is vitamin D and omega-3. But I've because I'm black as well, I was You need more vitamin D. Yeah. So, uh people have darker skin need and going from Africa, where there's a lot of sun, to the UK, where there's no sun, dramatically increase the risk of mental health problems. Yeah. Because of vitamin D deficiencies. Do you know what? I think there's a certain member of my family, who I won't name, who went from Africa, they're they've got two Nigerian parents, went from Africa to the UK,
1:07:49 and I saw their mental health deteriorate quite significantly to the point that we believe this person might have bipolar now. And I I I part of me suspects, once I learned about vitamin D deficiency in people that have darker skin, this person has very, very, very, very black skin, um that it might be associated with that change. Being in a new country that has no sunlight for 30 years when you're, you know, black black. You bet. Yeah. And it's part of So, if you see mental health is brain health, then that becomes a critical intervention. If you're not paying attention to brain health, then you're like, well, what antipsychotic or what mood stabilizer can
1:08:34 I give them. And I'm fair well, may use an antipsychotic or a mood stabilizer, but if I get your brain healthy, you might not need it, or you'll need half the dose. So, and and then infections, I mean, we're just coming out of a pandemic, and COVID changes your brain in a bad way. It causes, um like a a inflammatory bomb to go off in your brain. I was on the Kardashian show last year because I scanned Kendall. Kendall came to see me. And obviously I was on the show, so it was public knowledge. And it was post-COVID, and her emotional brain just was on fire.
1:09:19 Uh, and that's what we saw with COVID. And long COVID, emotional brain is hot, but then the cortex begins to um get low in activity. It's it's a bad combination. Well, I mean, what does that mean? It's like chronic damage. And what does that mean if the in terms of behavior? What's the implications for behavior? So, the hot limbic brain tense anxiety that she hadn't had. Um, if you start damaging your cortex, then all of a sudden you're sad, you're impulsive, you're irritable, you uh, can get dark thoughts, sometimes even suicidal thoughts. And people got COVID, significantly
1:10:05 increased in dementia. Someone who's listening to this right now that is depressed, clinically depressed, um or just feels, you know, depressive symptoms, where do you start? Let's go to the extreme end. Someone that can't get themselves out of bed. I sat here with Jada Pinkett, and she told me that she was clinically depressed, and she if she just got to 4:00 p.m. every day, to her that was a victory. There are lots of people out there that are in that situation right now. Where do you start with those people? What advice do you give them? Cuz I'm sure you see a lot of them in your practice. It starts with awareness. Yeah. That maybe this is not me, maybe it's my brain. Mhm. And
1:10:52 then it starts with loving your brain, and then investigating Mhm. your brain. Cuz depression is like chest pain. So, if you if somebody's like had chest pain, you're like, "Well, where would you start?" Well, you start with an evaluation. You wouldn't start with drugs. I mean, that would be like ludicrous. You would like go, "Well, why do you have chest pain? Why are you depressed? You know, how's your thyroid? Right? The person that can't get off the couch, they they could be hypothyroid. Or one of my friends got depressed, she had anemia. She had pernicious anemia because it was a B12 deficiency. I I wouldn't assume, "Oh, you're depressed, take this medicine."
1:11:40 Depression is what it is, it's not why it is. And if you don't know why it is, how do you effectively treat something? Like so many people come to me and they go, "I have an autoimmune disorder." It's like, "Well, why do you have an autoimmune disorder? Why is your body so mad at you it's attacking itself?" And so, Because my body's broken. But why is your body broken? Right? And I and I I hate the term broken, right? The the series like the broken brain. And it's like, no. It's not optimized. Let's optimize it. I I never want my patients to think of them as mental. And I never want them to think of themselves as broken. You're awesome. So, how can I help you be maybe 10%
1:12:26 more awesome? People feel like their brain is against them. Is working against them when they're feeling depression or those chronic cycles of negative thinking. Why is my brain attacking me? Why is it against me? So, part of it is it's not healthy and part of it's undisciplined. And I got to do a lecture last year for the coaching staff of the Miami Heat. It was so much fun for me. And I'm really thinking a lot about elite performance. And I think it's just such a better model. It's like let me help you be your best rather than let me fix you. And and I think someone like you, I mean, it's like you're already awesome.
1:13:13 How can I make you more awesome? How can I give you more access to your brain. And it's just it's easier to sell that than you know, let me give you a diagnosis of a mental illness and then let me give you a medicine you have to take for the rest of your life. This is the wrong model that psychiatry is currently operating with. Really good for the pharmaceutical industry. Really bad for our society. 25% of the American population is on psychiatric drugs. That's just horrifying. Is Ritalin a psychiatric drug? It is. And I'm not opposed to psychiatric
1:13:59 drugs. Let's be really clear. I'm actually really good with them. It's never the first and only thing I think about. What is the N in Bright Minds? Neurohormone. If your hormones that affect your brain, which are all of them, are not optimal, you're not optimal. And the D and S? Like if you're um cold when other people are not, we should look at your thyroid. The D is diabesity, where you're overweight and/or have high blood sugar. It's the most common of the 11. 72% of people are overweight. And as your weight goes up,
1:14:46 you have seven of the 11 risk factors. It lowers blood flow to the brain and prematurely ages the brain, increases inflammation, it stores toxins. It's a bad thing. And then the S is sleep. I've got obsessed with my sleep recently. I have my Whoop on pretty much all the time and they're sponsor of this podcast, I probably should say, but I'm also like a equity shareholder in the company. But it's become one of my biggest obsessions in my life is waking up in the morning and looking at how I slept, how much deep sleep, restorative sleep I've had, my heart rate variability, all that stuff. I'm obsessed with it. What does sleep do to my brain? I guess you said earlier that it kind of cleans it, cleans it and refreshes it. Well, we didn't even know that until it's just 10 or 12 years ago where researchers saw that
1:15:32 the fluid system in your brain, it's called the glymphatic system, doesn't open up when you're awake, but when you're asleep, it opens up and then sort of cleans things, washes things. And so for those people like me, who I thought I was special because I could get by on 4 hours of sleep at night, I'm sort of running around with a toxic brain or dirty brain. And so What are these toxic toxins? So what is it cleaning? Have you heard of beta amyloid, which is cluster of proteins that increases your risk of Alzheimer's disease? So they build up during the day, system cleans it. But if you're not getting good sleep, you have more of a toxic buildup of those kinds of clumping
1:16:19 proteins that are problematic for you. Interesting. Is there anything else people need to know about sleep in the brain? Because I think everybody knows sleep is important. A lot of people struggle with sleep. Sleep apnea triples the risk of Alzheimer's disease. One of the big lessons Imaging has taught me that I can actually see the pattern for sleep apnea on a scan and it looks like early Alzheimer's disease. Bilateral parietal top back part of your brain decreases. What is sleep apnea? Snore loudly, stop breathing at night, chronically tired the next day. So, when
1:17:04 you sleep, your breathing um you have many apneic episodes where you stop breathing. And so and if you're sleeping alone, you actually might not know it because no one's being woken up by your snoring. Um and even people who've been diagnosed with it don't treat it because they don't want to wear the mask at night. And I'm like, no, you have to treat it. Otherwise the worst thing you can do for your brain is starve it of oxygen. That's the worst thing you can do for your brain. So, breath work then must be quite good for the brain. Breath work is good for the brain.
1:17:50 Um one of my tiny habits, I have many of them for brain health is the 15-second breath. Uh 8 seconds in, hold it for a second and a half, 4 seconds out, hold it for a second and a half. Do that four times eight times, it'll break a panic attack. Do it on a routine basis, it'll increase your heart rate variability. Breath work will? Breath work. Heart rate variability is this metric that I think society, much of society, has suddenly become quite obsessed with it, including me. Me and my friends
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