The Charlie Kirk Show - How to Change Your Brain with Dr. Daniel Amen

00:00:00.000 Happy Sunday, a game-changing book, Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:04.000 Maybe you're dealing with depression, anxiety.

00:00:06.000 Maybe your loved one is.

00:00:07.000 I encourage you to listen to this episode.

00:00:09.000 I think you'll learn a lot about what this doctor is presenting and what he is doing.

00:00:14.000 Dr. Amin from Amon Clinics, change your brain every day.

00:00:17.000 It could change your life.

00:00:19.000 Email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:21.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA today at tpusa.com and support our program at charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:29.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:30.000 Here we go.

00:00:31.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:33.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:35.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:39.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:42.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:43.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:44.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:51.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

00:00:52.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:01.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:04.000 Doctor, welcome to the program.

00:01:07.000 Charlie, I'm just so grateful that you helped me spread the message of brain health.

00:01:14.000 It just changes everything.

00:01:16.000 It does.

00:01:17.000 I am grateful to you.

00:01:18.000 Well, I got an advanced copy of your book, and we've got a chance to get to know each other, albeit only in the last couple of weeks.

00:01:26.000 And I think you're onto something here that could change the world because a lot of people talk about mental health.

00:01:31.000 But if I understand the approach that you argue in this book, you talk about, well, first, let's talk about brain health.

00:01:36.000 And you've been doing this for quite some time.

00:01:38.000 You've done hundreds of thousands of brain scans.

00:01:42.000 And this book is written in a really digestible way.

00:01:44.000 It's called Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:01:46.000 I want everybody in my audience to pick up a copy.

00:01:49.000 And it's written in a way where every single day there's a little piece of wisdom, everything from how to deal with unwanted intrusive thoughts or automatic negative thoughts to what is a healthy brain look like and all that.

00:02:03.000 So, doctor, before we get into the specifics of the book, introduce your general philosophy.

00:02:07.000 What is brain health and how does that contrast with people labeling it as mental health?

00:02:12.000 So about 32 years ago, I started looking at the brain with a brain imaging study called SPECT.

00:02:18.000 And SPECT looks at blood flow and activity.

00:02:21.000 It looks at how the brain works.

00:02:24.000 And very early on, I learned that most psychiatric problems are not mental health issues at all, but rather they are brain health issues that steal people's minds.

00:02:39.000 And this one idea changes everything.

00:02:43.000 Get your brain right, and your mind will follow.

00:02:48.000 Nobody wants a mental illness.

00:02:50.000 I have to tell you, when I told my dad in 1979 I wanted to be a psychiatrist, he asked me why I didn't want to be a real doctor, why I wanted to be a nut doctor and hang out with nuts all day long.

00:03:03.000 Now, my dad would not get Father of the Year award, but he reflected what society thinks about people who struggle with their mind.

00:03:14.000 Nobody wants a mental health issue, but everybody wants a better brain.

00:03:23.000 And I have argued for decades: well, what if mental health was really brain health?

00:03:30.000 Then everybody would want it.

00:03:32.000 Plus, it's your brain, the physical functioning of your brain that creates your mind.

00:03:38.000 So if your brain's not healthy, you have post-COVID, you have a head trauma, you have Lyme disease, you have mold in your home.

00:03:46.000 If your brain's not healthy, it's really hard for you to think right.

00:03:53.000 What it's such a rational way to put it.

00:03:56.000 And having read a couple books in the genre and also having so many listeners that email us and they say, Charlie, I'm dealing with depression or anxiety.

00:04:06.000 Your first question is, why is the profession that's focused on the mind or the brain not even looking at the organ that they're trying to improve?

00:04:16.000 I mean, you say that, look, if you have a heart issue, you're going to try to figure out what's going on there, kidney, liver.

00:04:21.000 But, doctor, what percentage of people in psychiatry actually look at the physical brain before they go about treating it?

00:04:29.000 Less than 1%.

00:04:30.000 It's horrifying.

00:04:31.000 We are the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats.

00:04:39.000 And because of that, stigma lives.

00:04:43.000 And Charlie, do you know last year, there were 337 million prescriptions for anti-depression?

00:04:52.000 337.

00:04:53.000 That's almost the whole population.

00:04:55.000 Well, you know, people get all of course.

00:04:57.000 No, I'm just saying the volume of that is extraordinary.

00:05:00.000 It's extraordinary.

00:05:01.000 25% of the population is on psychiatric medications.

00:05:07.000 And it's just nuts when you think of they make diagnoses exactly like they did in 1840 when Lincoln was depressed.

00:05:17.000 You know, here are my symptoms.

00:05:20.000 And then they go, oh, well, here's your diagnosis and here are the drugs to treat it.

00:05:25.000 And I argue there's a much better way.

00:05:28.000 Now, sometimes medicine is really important and helpful, but flying blind is not helpful.

00:05:38.000 For example, I did the first and largest study on active and retired NFL players.

00:05:43.000 I published this study in 2011.

00:05:46.000 What we found, high levels of damage, and they had four times the level of depression as the general population.

00:05:54.000 So does this mean, oh, they should all be on antidepressants?

00:05:58.000 It's like, no.

00:05:59.000 First thing is let's rehabilitate their brain, which is clearly possible.

00:06:04.000 I mean, that's what my work has been about.

00:06:06.000 Change your brain every day.

00:06:09.000 And when you get to the root cause, there's less shame.

00:06:13.000 There's more compliance because people want a better brain.

00:06:19.000 And it's the future.

00:06:21.000 The future is we are going to see mental illness as brain health issues.

00:06:27.000 Which is, it's such a clear and easy way to understand it because I think far too often this conversation gets lost in abstractions.

00:06:36.000 And also people feel as if there's nothing I can do about it, right?

00:06:39.000 I have to take the medication.

00:06:41.000 It's the only way.

00:06:42.000 And that might be the case.

00:06:44.000 But having really carefully read your book, doctor, the way that you go about it is you say, well, let's exhaust every possible natural option, healthy living.

00:06:53.000 We're going to talk about all this, by the way, throughout this hour, dieting, supplementation.

00:06:58.000 And, you know, talk about medication should not be the first option, in your personal opinion, correct?

00:07:04.000 Well, when I was in medical school, I was taught, as all doctors are, first do no harm, use the least toxic, most effective treatment. 0.89

00:07:17.000 And head to head against antidepressants, exercise, omega-3 fatty acids, learning how to not believe every stupid thing you think have been found to be equally effective.

00:07:28.000 So why wouldn't we start with that while at the same time making sure your thyroid's not low? 0.52

00:07:36.000 That can cause depression.

00:07:38.000 Or your testosterone level, which is at epidemic levels with young men, your testosterone levels aren't low.

00:07:46.000 Because if your testosterone levels are low, it affects your libido, but also your memory and your mood.

00:07:56.000 So we need to find why you're depressed.

00:07:58.000 So I hate the diagnosis of depression because depression is like chest pain.

00:08:05.000 Nobody gets a diagnosis of chest pain because it doesn't tell you what you got it.

00:08:11.000 Okay.

00:08:11.000 What to do for it.

00:08:12.000 And that's so clear.

00:08:14.000 You say here on day 36, this is the most rational question that I've heard in this whole topic, which is not an insignificant issue.

00:08:23.000 We have the most depressed generation in American history right now.

00:08:26.000 How do you know unless you look?

00:08:28.000 And then you link at the bottom of here, page 40, the most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans.

00:08:34.000 What is that lesson, doctor?

00:08:35.000 What is the most important lesson that you derive from now?

00:08:37.000 I think it's what, 247,000 brain scans, right?

00:08:40.000 I mean, it's much more than that now.

00:08:43.000 Is you are not stuck with the brain you have.

00:08:46.000 You can make it better.

00:08:47.000 And I can prove it.

00:08:50.000 And we've done thousands of before and after scans.

00:08:55.000 I do a series on Instagram called Scan My Brain.

00:08:59.000 And about 16 months ago, I scanned Major League Baseball player Troy Gloss, who's the 2002 World Series MVP.

00:09:08.000 And his brain looked terrible.

00:09:09.000 He had four concussions.

00:09:11.000 He was drinking too much.

00:09:12.000 He had lots of dark thoughts.

00:09:14.000 He was suicidal.

00:09:16.000 And I did his third scan last week and it looked dramatically better.

00:09:22.000 And he's dramatically better, which not only impacts him, it impacts.

00:09:26.000 You see a correlation then.

00:09:28.000 You see the healthier brain.

00:09:29.000 You also see symptoms improve.

00:09:31.000 And it's proof that 99% of the profession is missing it.

00:09:39.000 And it's a long-term play.

00:09:41.000 So it's not just, oh, let me give you this medicine and you're less depressed.

00:09:46.000 Let me get your brain healthy.

00:09:48.000 So long term, you have a dramatically decreased risk for Alzheimer's disease.

00:09:55.000 And I turned 69 this year.

00:09:57.000 And one statistic that just horrifies me is 80 is 50% of people 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

00:10:10.000 And I'm not okay with that, right?

00:10:13.000 It's more normal to be demented than not to be demented.

00:10:18.000 So as I take someone in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, the idea is not to just get them symptom-free.

00:10:25.000 It's to get them to fall in love with their brain and keep it healthy for the rest of their lives.

00:10:33.000 Most psychiatrists never even entertain these things.

00:10:36.000 And become a brain warrior.

00:10:40.000 So Dr. Amin, let's go through some of the specifics you talk about here.

00:10:43.000 One that I thought was so interesting.

00:10:45.000 And you go there because in the culture we live in, you're not supposed to say that, but you say, look, you got to lose some weight.

00:10:52.000 That if you're overweight, it actually might be impacting your brain health.

00:10:57.000 And I read that.

00:10:57.000 I was like, boy, I got to try to trim down a little bit.

00:11:00.000 It compelled me.

00:11:01.000 Explain that because you don't hear that every day.

00:11:05.000 Well, and I had no clue about this connection until I think it was 2009.

00:11:12.000 There was an article from the University of Pittsburgh that showed as your weight goes up, the actual physical size and function of your brain goes down, which should just scare the fat off anyone.

00:11:29.000 I looked at my normal population.

00:11:33.000 I have a group of normal scans, and we didn't use weight as an exclusion criteria.

00:11:41.000 So we looked at overweight versus healthy weight, significantly lower blood flow in people who are overweight.

00:11:49.000 And then I published a study on 33,000 scans, one of the world's largest imaging studies.

00:11:56.000 And we demonstrated as your weight goes up, the function of your brain goes down almost in a linear pattern in virtually every area of the brain.

00:12:09.000 And people go, well, why?

00:12:11.000 And in the book, I talk about bright minds.

00:12:14.000 So if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind.

00:12:23.000 And the acronym is bright minds, blood flow, retirement and aging, inflammation, and so on.

00:12:29.000 Well, if you have the D, which stands for diabetes, high blood sugar, and/or overweight, you now have seven of the 11 risk factors because the fat on your belly produces inflammatory cytokines.

00:12:48.000 It decreases blood flow.

00:12:51.000 It increases aging markers.

00:12:54.000 It stores toxins and disrupts so many different functions in your body.

00:13:03.000 And, you know, the whole purpose of the body is to care around the brain.

00:13:07.000 Yes.

00:13:07.000 On day 93.

00:13:09.000 So every you could read the book as I did its entirety, or you could do it throughout the course of a year and just say, Hey, I got it.

00:13:14.000 I got one page a day.

00:13:16.000 It's called Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:13:17.000 Day 93.

00:13:18.000 And I just love how blunt you are with this because you're not allowed to say this.

00:13:22.000 You say, Look, a half dozen ways donuts can ruin your life.

00:13:26.000 And you talk about here, you say, Look, chronically high blood sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes.

00:13:30.000 And then you have an action step: list foods that are a struggle for you to give up.

00:13:34.000 How many of them are sugary?

00:13:35.000 And you talk, this is a theme.

00:13:36.000 I mean, I've got to say, probably on 20 or 30 of the days of pages, you're basically saying, Look, if you care about your brain, you have to care about your diet and care about your waistline.

00:13:46.000 And you do it in a really loving, but also factual way.

00:13:50.000 Doctor, tell us about one of the friends you talk about in this book where you met with a friend who was overweight and you loved him enough to say, Hey, you probably need to lose some weight if you want to get your life right.

00:14:00.000 And he did, and he lived a better life.

00:14:03.000 Oh, it's just such an emotional story for me.

00:14:07.000 Mark and I had been friends.

00:14:09.000 He's a psychologist, and we go to the same conference every other year.

00:14:16.000 And we're having dinner at the restaurant, and I see him injecting himself with insulin at the table.

00:14:26.000 And I'm like, Mark, how much, how tall are you?

00:14:30.000 He said, I'm six feet.

00:14:31.000 I said, how much do you weigh?

00:14:33.000 He said, 244 pounds.

00:14:36.000 And I calculated on my phone his BMI, which was 31.

00:14:40.000 And I'm like, dude, you're obese.

00:14:44.000 And I also saw him order chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and a brownie for dessert.

00:14:53.000 And after I saw that, I just, I couldn't just stay quiet.

00:14:56.000 And I saw it, I'm like, Mark, you're obese.

00:14:59.000 And he's like, Daniel, you're so cold.

00:15:02.000 I'm not as cold as you're going to be when you're six feet under.

00:15:07.000 What's the matter with you?

00:15:09.000 Why aren't you paying attention to your health?

00:15:13.000 And he didn't eat any of the dessert.

00:15:16.000 And I felt because I love him.

00:15:20.000 But when we were at that conference two years later, he'd lost 52 pounds.

00:15:26.000 And I was having lunch with his wife and with Mark, and he was telling me how much better his sex life was.

00:15:35.000 And I'm like turning red, but it's absolutely true. 1.00

00:15:39.000 When you get physically healthy, blood flow, you have better blood flow to your brain.

00:15:48.000 It's just so simple.

00:15:50.000 You have to wonder how many people that go in and they get these very aggressive pharmaceuticals, how supplementation, we'll talk about supplements in a second after the break, and just losing some weight could at least improve some of their symptoms.

00:16:06.000 Buy his book, Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:16:08.000 If you have a child, if you have a grandchild that says, I'm dealing with depression or anxiety and all this, this book is a great starting point.

00:16:15.000 You'll learn so much.

00:16:17.000 So, Dr. Ahmed, while we're on the theme of talking about things that people don't want to hear, there's two topics that sometimes my target demographic college kids don't like it when I talk about the negatives of drinking and marijuana.

00:16:31.000 Let's start with drinking.

00:16:33.000 Is it true that if you drink too much or drink to excess or even drink at all, that it can damage your brain?

00:16:40.000 Any drinking, any alcohol has been shown to disrupt the white matter in your brain.

00:16:49.000 So gray matter is brain cell bodies.

00:16:53.000 White matter is brain cell tracks, or it's the highways in your brain.

00:16:59.000 And alcohol is poison.

00:17:01.000 I mean, everybody should know that, right?

00:17:04.000 Drink too much, can't walk a straight line.

00:17:05.000 Walk in a straight line is brain function. 1.00

00:17:08.000 Drink too much, you say stupid things, you act like an idiot. 1.00

00:17:12.000 Well, inhibiting is a brain function. 1.00

00:17:16.000 But there's so many reasons that alcohol is bad for a developing brain because it disrupts a process called myelination.

00:17:28.000 Your brain constantly is putting down this white fatty substance called myelin that causes your brain to mature.

00:17:37.000 And so if you're drinking at 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, you're delaying and sometimes permanently damaging the maturity of the brain.

00:17:51.000 Not to mention last year, and I've been talking about alcohol for 30 years, ever since I started looking at the brain.

00:17:57.000 Last year, I wrote a blog called I Told You So.

00:18:01.000 The American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol because any alcohol increases your risk of seven different types of cancer.

00:18:13.000 And I predict, you know, if you see somebody smoking now, you sort of look at them like, really?

00:18:21.000 You know, at least where I live, it's like, seriously?

00:18:24.000 Smoking cigarettes, that is.

00:18:25.000 Yes, that's right.

00:18:27.000 I think we're going to get that same societal look at alcohol years from now.

00:18:36.000 And marijuana is just a disaster.

00:18:39.000 I am so unhappy about what we're seeing in our country.

00:18:44.000 Last year, babies born with marijuana in their system has gone up 1700% in Colorado.

00:18:53.000 It is just a nightmare.

00:18:56.000 As the perception of the dangerousness of a drug goes down, its use goes up.

00:19:03.000 And even during the last presidential debate, that President Biden said, you know, somebody asked him, should we legalize marijuana?

00:19:14.000 And he said, I think we need more study, which I thought was a reasonable answer.

00:19:20.000 And Corey Booker shamed him.

00:19:23.000 He said on national television, man, are you high?

00:19:29.000 Like, it's been decided that marijuana is safe.

00:19:33.000 Except, teenagers who use in their 20s have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide.

00:19:42.000 Teenagers who use have a 450% increased risk of having a psychotic illness.

00:19:50.000 And Tana and I, my wife and I, adopted our two nieces because their parents had problems with substance abuse.

00:19:58.000 And when we adopted them, I'm always like showing them scans, I'm teaching them, and I taught them a new word.

00:20:04.000 And there's a new word called scrommeting.

00:20:08.000 Like, what's squometing?

00:20:09.000 It's a combination of screaming and vomiting.

00:20:14.000 And emergency rooms are seeing more and more with teenagers and young adults who are being poisoned by marijuana.

00:20:23.000 Because when I was growing up, the THC in marijuana was 10% what it is now.

00:20:32.000 And still not good for you.

00:20:34.000 And it's unfortunately one of the tragedies of this, and I spoke out, I speak out against this, and people don't like it when I say that I don't think it's a good thing that we're commercializing the widespread use of marijuana, is that we're almost making it just normal and mainstream for a 13 or 14-year-old.

00:20:52.000 What does that do to a developing brain in particular, though, doctor?

00:20:55.000 I mean, you talk about the alcohol effects.

00:20:57.000 I mean, you have THC-laced, very heavy THC-laced marijuana for a 15-year-old.

00:21:03.000 I mean, no wonder why they're 21 and they're depressed.

00:21:07.000 It's damaging their brains.

00:21:10.000 I published two big studies, one on a thousand people, where I compared healthy brains versus marijuana brains. 0.66

00:21:18.000 Every area of the brain was lower in blood flow and activity.

00:21:22.000 And then I published the world's largest imaging study on 62,454 scans on how the brain ages.

00:21:32.000 And it's just fascinating.

00:21:33.000 Little kids have really busy brains, older people, not so much. 0.97

00:21:38.000 And then we looked at, well, what are the factors that accelerate aging?

00:21:44.000 And schizophrenia was the worst, so very severe psychiatric disorder.

00:21:51.000 The second worst was marijuana.

00:21:54.000 And then it was alcohol, and then it was smoking.

00:21:57.000 But marijuana ages your brain.

00:22:02.000 It also ages your lungs, and it's worse than nicotine.

00:22:08.000 So the lung damage, they looked at smokers who just smoked cigarettes versus smokers who smoked marijuana.

00:22:17.000 And the marijuana was significantly worse.

00:22:20.000 The lungs aged faster.

00:22:23.000 So this is not innocuous.

00:22:26.000 And I worry so much about it.

00:22:29.000 And I've seen it.

00:22:30.000 You know, I'm old enough.

00:22:32.000 You know, I saw, oh, benzos are mommy's little helper in the 80s and they're innocuous.

00:22:38.000 They're totally not mommy's little helper.

00:22:40.000 And once you start them, it's hell to get off of them.

00:22:40.000 They're addictive.

00:22:43.000 Or opiates.

00:22:45.000 My wife is a nurse, and pain was the fifth vital sign.

00:22:49.000 And you were almost shamed if you didn't give your patients opiates.

00:22:54.000 And we know how that turned out.

00:22:56.000 Well, the same thing, the exact same thing is happening.

00:23:00.000 Alcohol is a health food.

00:23:02.000 No, that was a lie.

00:23:03.000 Marijuana is innocuous.

00:23:05.000 That's a lie.

00:23:06.000 Honestly, God bless you for speaking out on this because too many people dance around this when it's so obvious it's not good.

00:23:13.000 One that was very hard for me, though, doctor, and I have reduced my intake and I have seen positives is some caffeine is okay, but caffeine does limit blood flow to the brain.

00:23:25.000 Do I have that right?

00:23:26.000 You do.

00:23:28.000 And it's like, you know, I have no dog in the fight.

00:23:31.000 And when I first started doing imaging, SPECT is a blood flow study.

00:23:37.000 And I read one study that showed caffeine constricts blood flow 30% to the brain.

00:23:47.000 And I'm like, well, then it's going to prematurely age the brain.

00:23:51.000 Plus, if you start the day with caffeine, caffeine also increases cortisol, which is a stress hormone.

00:24:00.000 And cortisol puts fat on your belly, impairs your immune.

00:24:05.000 It's like, it's not your friend.

00:24:06.000 It kills cells in the hippocampus, the major memory center in the brain.

00:24:11.000 So if you have 100 milligrams a day, it's not a big deal.

00:24:15.000 But one Venti Starbucks is 330 milligram of caffeine, which is an addiction dose.

00:24:24.000 I fully acknowledge marijuana drinking, not even close to, you know, that's not my, the caffeine thing is where I have to be most improved player.

00:24:32.000 So doctor, however, you say something also fascinating in the book.

00:24:36.000 You say the goal should not be to get rid of anxiety, the don't worry, be happy people, that some anxiety is actually good.

00:24:45.000 What do you mean by that?

00:24:47.000 Well, if you think of anxiety on a scale of zero to 100, 100 is totally freaked out.

00:24:55.000 And zero is you just have no anxiety at all.

00:25:00.000 Well, the no anxiety people, it has been discovered, they die early from accidents and preventable illnesses.

00:25:10.000 I want your anxiety to be about 30.

00:25:13.000 I want you to be, oh, I don't text while I drive.

00:25:17.000 I'm not driving fast in the rain. 0.99

00:25:20.000 I see a cute girl, but I have enough anxiety to know my wife will kill me.

00:25:27.000 So some anxiety just helps you make good decisions.

00:25:32.000 And so we don't want, there's actually this great study out of Stanford, started in 1921.

00:25:40.000 They looked at 1,541 10-year-old children, and then they followed them for up to 90 years, looking at what goes with health, success, and longevity.

00:25:53.000 And the don't worry, be happy people, the low anxiety people died the earliest.

00:25:59.000 The number one hallmark of success, health, and longevity was conscientiousness.

00:26:07.000 That if you said you were going to show up and you show up consistently, predictably, you do what you say, you're going to do, you live longer than everyone else.

00:26:19.000 And the don't worry, be happy, who cares if the rent is late, the landlord can litigate, that doesn't work out really well, actually.

00:26:25.000 It actually probably makes you more likely to, you know, make a pretty, pretty terrible error.

00:26:34.000 Another one I have marked here, doctor, and I don't want to focus too much on the kind of things you're not supposed to talk about, but I can't help but ask you about this because we get questions about this from young ladies.

00:26:43.000 You talk about how the pill could actually be making young women depressed.

00:26:47.000 That was fascinating to me.

00:26:49.000 What did you find here?

00:26:51.000 Increased risk of depression, 40%.

00:26:55.000 It's the pill often depletes serotonin, one of the chemicals that's just essential to have stable mood.

00:27:06.000 It depletes magnesium, so you're more anxious.

00:27:11.000 It can deplete zinc.

00:27:13.000 So your immunity and your mood is not as good.

00:27:16.000 Now, it's just, it's important to know these things.

00:27:21.000 And if there's an alternative, that's probably better.

00:27:25.000 But just know the risk.

00:27:29.000 And, you know, I hate prescribing an antidepressant to deal with the side effects of another virus.

00:27:36.000 Yeah, the reason I ask, though, doctor, and because sometimes the way that these things are communicated to young people, no side effects, perfectly safe, perfectly fine.

00:27:46.000 And that is not true.

00:27:47.000 In fact, that does a fair amount of damage.

00:27:49.000 People need to know what you're signing up for, what you're getting into.

00:27:53.000 The book is called Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:27:56.000 Doctor, we have 45 seconds in this segment.

00:27:58.000 Can you also just talk about your clinics?

00:28:00.000 You have them across the country.

00:28:02.000 I guarantee you, people will also be interested.

00:28:04.000 Like, wow, this sounds, you know, I'm a believer.

00:28:07.000 Where can they find information on that?

00:28:10.000 AmonClinics.com.

00:28:12.000 So, Amon, like the last word in a prayer, clinics.com.

00:28:16.000 We have 11 of them all around the United States.

00:28:19.000 And if you've struggled and not gotten the help you need, somebody should look at your brain.

00:28:27.000 And we have more experience than anyone in the world.

00:28:33.000 Just can you just kind of pepper off a couple of the things?

00:28:35.000 How else can people improve their brain?

00:28:37.000 Obviously, by the book, but omega-3 supplementation, understanding inflammation, healthy diet, exercise, not doing marijuana, not doing alcohol.

00:28:45.000 But I love this, also embracing the attitude of a brain warrior.

00:28:49.000 What am I doing today to improve my brain health?

00:28:53.000 Well, you're in a war for the health of your brain.

00:28:56.000 Everywhere you go, someone's trying to shove bad food down your throat that will kill you early.

00:29:02.000 Everywhere you go, people are trying to put an addictive gadget in your hand that steals the dopamine, the pleasure centers in your brain.

00:29:13.000 Negative news that you and I both know the news is no longer the news.

00:29:17.000 It's new meant to scare you so they can have your attention to sell you copper underwear.

00:29:25.000 We live in a society that perpetuates mental health problems and we're seeing it.

00:29:33.000 It's just horrifying, especially in teenage girls.

00:29:39.000 The level of anxiety, depression, suicide is at epidemic levels.

00:29:45.000 So being a brain warrior, you're armed, you're prepared, you're aware to win this most important fight for your life.

00:29:56.000 In closing here, Doctor, as much as you're comfortable with, we have an audience that is very faithful and dedicated Christians.

00:30:05.000 You helped write a forward to a book with Rick Warren.

00:30:07.000 Can you talk about just some of your faith and how you incorporate it in the work that you do?

00:30:13.000 You know, I always think of myself and my patients in four big circles.

00:30:18.000 It's what's the biology, so the physical function of your brain that we've been talking about.

00:30:24.000 What's the psychology or how you think?

00:30:28.000 What's the social circle, the situation you find yourself in?

00:30:33.000 And the spiritual circle, which is ultimately, why do you care?

00:30:38.000 What is your deepest sense of meaning and purpose?

00:30:41.000 It's your relationship with God, with the planet, with the past, and with the future.

00:30:49.000 And I was raised Roman Catholic.

00:30:53.000 Believing God has always been part of my life.

00:30:57.000 And when I was a young soldier in West Germany many years ago, I got involved with a group called Teen Challenge, a Christian group that deals with drug addicts that deepened my own faith.

00:31:13.000 I went to medical school at Oral Roberts University.

00:31:16.000 So I learned medicine in the context of my faith.

00:31:21.000 And people go, oh, how can you be a neuroscientist and believe in God?

00:31:26.000 It's like, well, how can you be a neuroscientist and not believe God? 1.00

00:31:30.000 To think all of this happens by random chance, that's stupidity, right? 0.97

00:31:36.000 If you just know the second law of physics, where things go from order to disorder, you know, random evolution just virtually makes no sense to me. 0.96

00:31:50.000 Creative design, that makes a lot more sense to me.

00:31:56.000 Plus, you know, I know through the things I've done and my personal relationship with Jesus, it's the only way I've been able to accomplish the cool things I've been able to do to help people.

00:32:08.000 Do you find in your patients, younger ones in particular, if they get that spiritual bucket filled, do you find that they start to heal in other areas of their life?

00:32:19.000 Yes.

00:32:20.000 In fact, there's really good research that demonstrates if you have a close relationship with God, that if you get depressed, you heal faster, that you also tend to live longer and your baseline level of happiness is higher.

00:32:40.000 And yet, it seems as if our culture, that's the one thing they don't always want to talk about.

00:32:45.000 The book is Change Your Brain Every Day, one minute remaining.

00:32:47.000 Any closing thoughts, doctor, that we didn't cover or points that you wanted to make?

00:32:52.000 Brain and mental health are daily practices.

00:32:56.000 So just like spiritual health, just like physical health, you want a sharp mind.

00:33:01.000 You want to be happy.

00:33:03.000 You want to have energy and memory.

00:33:05.000 We got to take care of your brain every day.

00:33:08.000 And it's basically three things. 0.94

00:33:09.000 Brain envy, got to care about it.

00:33:11.000 Avoid things that hurt it.

00:33:13.000 Do things that help it.

00:33:15.000 It all comes down to this one simple question.

00:33:18.000 It's really a theme throughout the book.

00:33:21.000 Whenever you go to make a decision, just ask yourself, is this good for your brain or bad for it?

00:33:27.000 And if you can answer that with information and love, all of this is about love, love of yourself, love of family, love of the reason God puts you on the planet.

00:33:38.000 You just start making better decisions.

00:33:41.000 Change your brain every day.

00:33:42.000 Dr. Raman, thank you so much.

00:33:44.000 Hope we're going to have you back on soon.

00:33:45.000 There's so many more questions and we'll get questions from our audience, I'm sure, as well.

00:33:48.000 Thank you so much.

00:33:50.000 So grateful, Charlie.

00:33:51.000 Thank you.

00:33:52.000 Thank you.

00:33:53.000 Everybody, email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:55.000 God bless you.

00:33:55.000 Check out the book, Change Your Brain Every Day.

00:33:57.000 Have a great day.

00:33:58.000 Talk to you soon.

00:34:01.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:34:02.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:05.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:34:10.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 19, 2023

How to Change Your Brain with Dr. Daniel Amen

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