Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Dr. Daniel Amen

I recently interviewed Dr. Daniel Amen on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today has been called the most popular psychiatrist in America by the Washington Post, and has written 10 New York Times bestselling books. Dr. Daniel Amen is the founder of Amen clinics, and the author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and the number one New York Times bestseller, The Daniel Plan. Daniel, thank you for joining us.

Dr. Amen: Lots of pleasure to be with you today.

Adam: The pleasure is mine. How did you become the most popular psychiatrist in America? What attracted you to the field of psychiatry and how did you build your brand and national profile?

Dr. Amen: It's consistent effort over time. And being willing to do things differently than my colleagues. I decided to be a psychiatrist in 1979. Someone I love tried to kill herself. I was a second year medical student at the time. And I got her help. And when I saw that psychiatry really had the ability not just to change her, but to change generations of her, I got really excited about that. And I've loved it virtually every day for the last four decades. But I joined the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ trade. And I've been involved in using brain imaging tools to transform psychiatry. And that's been super exciting. For me, the brain imaging work just transformed virtually every aspect of my life and the lives of the people I care about.

Adam: A lot of our conversation is going to focus on your best advice, including your best advice on how we can improve the health of our brains. But before we dive into that, I want to better understand how you got to where you are now, and get a little bit more advice for listeners on the branding and how you were able to go from- we'll call it unknown psychiatrists to someone who has 10 bestselling books is a household name in the field. What are some tips for listeners who are thinking about ways to establish themselves in whatever industries they're in?

Dr. Amen: Well, I mean, the first thing is you got to know what you want. I think that is just step number one. If you want to beat an addiction, if you want to, you know, be successful at managing your money or starting a business, you have to tell your brain what you actually want. So I have an exercise I developed in the middle of the 1980’s called the one page miracle. On one piece of paper, write down what you want, relationships, work money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. What do you want? And then you ask yourself every day is my behavior, getting me what I want? And if you have a healthy brain, you're more likely to be consistent over time. I think one of my secrets to success is when I graduated from medical school, I wanted to be a really good psychiatrist. But I was also a writer, I love taking complex concepts and sharing them with the most people I can. That has served me so well. Then my ability to communicate complex concepts at a sixth grade level, clearly one of the things that has grown our business. A lot of doctors use really big words and complex and the people have no idea what they're talking about. And I often say you know, I don't think I'm very smart. And so, you know if I can understand it, I can get you to understand that life is better. So simplicity is critical. And I think that's why Apple sort of works. They made things so simple that an 18 month old baby can figure out how to work an iPhone. So I think keeping it simple is important. Daniel, those

Adam: Daniel, those are great tips, really tangible pieces of advice that listeners can apply to their lives. I was wondering if you had any other insights that you thought would be applicable to listeners early on in their journeys, thinking about ways that they could take that next step, or even mid career professionals, any lessons that you learned early on in your career that you think would be applicable to listeners, regardless of the industry that they're in?

Dr. Amen: You know, one of the things, whenever I evaluate a new patient, I'm going to do a new patient later today, I always think about them and for a bit. I learned this in medical school, and it just helped me so much. And this directly answers your question. So there's a biology to success. Nobody talks about that. Tony Robbins came to my clinic and got scanned, and then he and I did a Facebook Live and I loved him, and I loved his work. But he doesn't talk about the hardware of success, which is the actual physical functioning of your body and your brand is your brain and it makes every decision that you may. And success is based on 1,000’s of individual decisions you make every day. And so if your brain’s not right, you're likely not to be as successful as you could at work, with your money, with your marriage, parenting, with your health. And so getting the physical functioning of your brain healthy, we'll talk about that. The second circle is the psychological circle or your mind. And we live in an age of people who do a very bad job of managing their mind. People believe every stupid thing they think, and there's no mind training programs in school. They absolutely should be in school. We should teach every second grader not to believe every stupid thought they have. I call it killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness. So really engaging, and mental discipline, and something I called positivity bias training. So when you're actually training your mind to look for what's right, not just looking at what's wrong, because the mindset is success called people back all the time, I can't do this. They compare themselves to other people in a negative way. And it really holds them back. So if you think of hardware, the physical functioning of your brain, and then software, how you program it. The next thing to think about is the social circle, or what I call network connection. And if you're hanging around with people who diminish you, who demean you, who are not encouraging for you, you're way less likely to be successful because people are contagious, like COVID-19, or the cold. Who you spend time with just matters, moment by moment. But it doesn't mean you should just be a taker. You want to find people who are like what you want to be like, and be of service to them in some way. So they'll want you in their life. And then the last circle, the one actually very few psychiatrists ever talk about is this spiritual circle. Why do you care? What are your values? What are your morals? Why do you think you breathe? You know, what's the whole point of your life? Does it have meaning and purpose? And we know purposeful people live longer, but there's really no training in life on the why you are on the planet, and how can you use that to motivate you. We find money is not a very good motivator, that your level of happiness actually doesn't increase. anymore after you make $75,000 a year, so if you're in it to just make money, it's probably a bad idea. There has to be something deeper. And knowing what that is, is critically important. So when I think of tips for anybody, whether to beat depression or on addiction or be more successful, I always think in those four big circles.

Adam: That's great advice. And I truly love every element of what you shared. I’d like to touch a little bit on the last piece of advice. A question I've asked a lot of guests on this podcast is on a scale of one to 10, how important is ethics to leadership? And every single guest I've asked, and I've asked this question to lots of America's top leaders off the air, not one person has given me an answer other than 10 on the air or off the air. And it doesn't matter if you're a fortune 500 CEO, if you're a military leader, if you're the founder of a billion dollar company, that's been the consistent answer. And it really falls in line with the piece of advice that you gave, which is, you need to be driven by something bigger than you. Leadership is ultimately not about you. It's about your team. It's about your organization. It's about the people around you. And, Daniel, you and I are on the same page on that topic. So I really appreciate that being an integral part of what you convey to the people who you work with.

Dr. Amen: Thank you.

Adam: I want to ask you about your daily routine. What are some of the things that you do on a day to day basis that you think would be interesting to listeners? And what are some of the best practices that you advise the patients who you work with to incorporate into their lives to optimize their health and their mental health?

Dr. Amen: So I have all sorts of little tiny habits. They take me through my day. And the first one is when I wake up in the morning, actually on the top of my to do. And I say to myself, today is going to be a great day. And then my brain finds why that's going to be true. And I love that exercise. It's so simple. And if you have children and breakfast in the morning, they're going to be a great day for you. It's training their mind, even during a pandemic, to look for what's right, rather than what’s not now. I'm not a positive thinking sort of person. I'm an accurate thinking sort of person. Jim Collins tells this great story about Admiral Stockdale who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven years. And he asked him who didn't make it out of Vietnam. And he said, oh, that's an easy answer. It was the optimum that they thought they'd be home by Christmas. And by the third Christmas they weren't home, they died of a broken heart. So I think it's critical to be real while looking at what's right, rather than just what's wrong. So I start every day with today is going to be a great day. I knew you were going to interview me. And there’s somebody I'm going to see later today. I mean, right away I know what I'm looking forward to. And that throughout that day, as I go through my day, I have another question I ask myself. Is this good for my brain, or bad for it? And not always, but almost always I choose the most loving answer, which is I do things that are good for my brain because I love myself. It's the other tiny habits. It's the most important tiny habit and all you have to do is know the less these things are good things or bad, choose good, because not only do you love your style, you love your mission, you love your spouse, you love your children, because without a healthy brain, you're a burden to other people. I mean, you're less independent, right? The older I get, I don't want my kids having to be worried about taking away my driver's license. I don't want Alzheimer's disease. 50% of people 85 and older get Alzheimer's disease. The last thing I do- I mean I do all sorts of things, but the one for this conversation is before I go to bed at night, for me, I say a prayer. And then I go, what went well today? And I loved this exercise because, you know, like you I'm really busy. And often awesome things happen and I overlook them. I don't really take time to celebrate them. So I put myself to sleep celebrating the best part of my day. And I've done this for years now. And, this pandemic has been hard. It's been hard for a lot of people. It's been hard for me. I have nine clinics around the country, we had to close our one in Manhattan. I had a young team member who ended up on a ventilator in New York at the worst time of the pandemic for six weeks. And, I lost my dad in May. And the night my dad died I did this habit, because it's a habit. So when you develop a habit, you just do it no matter what the situation and part of me went, really, you're gonna do this today? Your dad died. And it was so helpful to me, because I was there right after he died, I got to be there with my mom, the interaction between my mom and the police officer was actually very funny. And I got hundreds of texts that day. So even in the darkest depths of the pandemic, my daily habits were serving my health, rather than dealing with my health.

Adam: That's incredible. And that's applicable to each and every one of us. Hopefully, listeners aren't going through deaths of loved ones, but we're all struggling with something. We're struggling with things, if not big, small, every day. We're facing different challenges in our lives. And what I truly appreciated that you brought up as an integral part of your daily routine is the ever present focus on positivity all the way through the time you go to sleep. And something that is a common theme of my conversations with so many successful leaders, is the importance of acknowledging failure and recognizing that failure can be a gateway to success. Understanding that, as human beings, we fail all the time. And we should study our failures, learn from our failures, and continue to push forward. But recognize that failures are tremendous learning opportunities. But what I truly enjoyed about your answer was the opposite approach of that, or I don't know if the opposite is the right word. But looking at it a little bit differently. And thinking about what we do, right? What went well? What are things that we can look back on, that were wins today? Big wins, small wins; a win is a win. And I think that's incredible advice.

Dr. Amen: I don't think there's been a day since I've done this practice that I couldn't find something that made me smile. And the benefit to that is you're getting your dreams up to be more positive. So you're actually directing your focus, which can help you sleep and sleep is one of the major brain health strategies. I have a mnemonic to help me sort of teach people what to avoid and what to do called bright mind. Like the B is blood flow and R is retirement and aging and I is inflammation but the ad is sleep. Because when you sleep your brain washes itself. It cleans itself. And if you don't get enough sleep for trash build up and it’ll ruin tomorrow.

Adam: What are your tips for listeners on how to optimize their sleep?

Dr. Amen: So routine is very helpful. And, you know, brain health- I always say there are three things and we got to care about it. Freud was wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. I've never seen that in my 40 years. As a psychiatrist I got to care about the three pounds without between your ears. And then avoid things that hurt and do things that help it. So when I think of sleep, you want to really have sleep envy. You want to care about it, make it a major priority in your life, and then avoid things that hurt it and do things that help it. So what do we know? For sleep, gadgets and blue light and your eyes now blue light in the morning? Fine, probably helpful. My products and supplement company, we actually make a bright light therapy lamp. But after dark, you should get rid of the gadgets that are pouring blue light into your brain because they turn off the production of melatonin. A noisy room, a light room, warm room, all of those things alter sleep. Unresolved conflict, negative thoughts, caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, I'm not a fan of any of that because it pollutes and can negatively impact your sleep. Now I know people are like, well, how much caffeine can I have? And you know, caffeine constricts blood flow to the brain. Anything that constricts blood flow to the brain prematurely ages the brain, like nicotine. So give them a cup of coffee a day. It's not a big deal. Yep. Three, yeah, it's probably having a negative impact on your brain and on your sleep. Alcohol people go, but I use alcohol to go to sleep, right? But it doesn't give you restorative sleep. And it often wakes you up a couple of hours later as your neurons rebound from being suppressed. And they often rebound high. So you're often not your best the next day. The American Cancer Society, our best blog this year- when I was dating my wife, who I adore, she told me, I promise you, I'll never tell you I told you stuff. And she completely lied. Just lied. But you know, I've been talking about alcohol and the brain for a very long time. And just this year, the American Cancer Society came out and said you shouldn't drink at all because alcohol is a risk factor for seven different kinds of cancer. And so the headline on my blog that did so well was I Told You So. So another good thing for sleep, have a regular bedtime, a cooler room. Darkness, no light, which means you should probably have gone around your bedroom and turned off all the gadgets, all the lights on at night. You know, for so many people, it looks a little bit like New York City at night, because of all their gadgets. And I'm a huge fan of hypnosis to the music of nature sounds. You figure out what’s right for you, what really gets you in that peaceful place that can help put you to sleep. Wait for supplements. Some people need them. I'm not a fan of sleep drugs at all. That’s, like, 10th on my list. If I have somebody with insomnia, I like a low dose, a very important low dose of melatonin, magnesium, gabba. Those things have been found to help improve sleep.

Adam: You brought this up when you were talking about your daily routine and you expressed that no one wants to lose their memory as they get older, but the truth is that no matter how old you are- you could be a college student- you always want a better memory. You're studying for a test and you wish that you had better recall as you're taking the test. What are some practical, actionable tips that listeners can implement to improve their memories

Dr. Amen: So I already have a book called Memory Rescue and the big idea behind that book is if you want to keep your memory healthy, or rescue it, if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And that's that mnemonic I mentioned earlier, bright mind. So for example, B is for blood flow, or blood flow, number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. So what lowers blood flow is hypertension, so if somebody says you have high blood pressure, you need to be serious about any form of heart disease, being sedentary. So exercise is really important, especially coordination exercises. People who play racquet sports live longer than anybody else; tennis table tennis, squash, badminton, all just great brain exercises. Erectile dysfunction you know, if you have blood flow problems anywhere it likely means they're everywhere. And one of the biggest benefits of our brain health programs is people or actions are better and their life is better and you know, blood flows better in one place and better in another place. So I love that. So for each of the risk factors, okay know if you have hypertension, heart disease, being sedentary, erectile dysfunction, caffeine, nicotine, decreased blood flow, and then do things that help it. So exercise on a regular basis is really important, especially coordination exercises. Supplements like Ginko, foods like beet and cayenne pepper, rosemary, oregano. Retirement and aging. New learning just got to be part of all of our lives, not doing the same thing you do over and over again, but new and different things- whether it's learning an instrument, learning a language, learning how to garden or cook or just something new 15 minutes a day. Inflammation is a major cause of depression and dementia. We are inflamed as a society because of the processed food. We diet, it really does matter. I think all of my patients should be taken on omega three fatty acid supplements because it helps calm inflammation. G is genetics, know your vulnerabilities and attack them as soon as possible. She has head trauma, she said, hey, Daniel, what’s the single most important thing you've learned from 160,000 scans- I think we have the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior. It is that mild traumatic brain injury ruins people's lives and nobody knows about it. Don't let your children hit soccer balls with their head. Just a dumb, dumb thing to do when you understand the physics of the brain toxin, the talks about alcohol and marijuana. But it's way more than that. General anesthesia can be toxic for a lot of people's brains. The products you put on your body, there's an app I like called, I think, dirty. It's not what people think. It’s an important app. It’s an app that allows you to scan your personal products and it tells you on a scale of one to 10 how quickly they're killing you. Because when you put things on your body like parabens- they're hormone disruptors and they talk to your body. If you want a better memory, you want to support your detoxification system. Drink more water because it flushes things through your kidneys. Eat more fiber to flush things through your gut. Stop the alcohol because that hurts your liver. And then eat brassicas, detoxifying vegetables, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and exercise because you sweat. And saunas are awesome. They've actually been found to have antidepressant qualities. The things like Infrared Sauna in the end. The second end is mental health. If you have anxiety, depression. That'd be where it's horrifying. 8% of the population before the pandemic started and now it's 28% of the population and it's just terrible. Getting that treated doesn't mean just okay, go start taking Prozac. There are natural ways to do it, which I talked about in the book. The second is immunity and infection, who knew? It's perfect. You needed your vitamin D level to be high. Mushrooms help boost immunity. The n is neuro hormone deficiencies, get your hormones jacked and optimize yearly. D is diabesity. If you're overweight, and a lot of people picked up the COVID-19, you need to work hard to lose that weight, because fat on your body increases five of the 11 risk factors. And S is sleep that we talked about

Adam: That’s great advice. There’s so much that listeners can consume. I personally am gonna have to go back and listen to this episode at least a couple of times with a notepad and pen. So I really enjoyed that. I want to ask you one last question, which is a big one. One of the biggest challenges that most people face, even the most ambitious among us, and maybe even especially the most ambitious among us, is focus. You've written and spoken a lot on this topic. What are your best tips on how to better focus?

Dr. Amen: Well, I think if we go back to love, focus is so important. Avoid things that damage and do things that help. That’s really sort of a great framework. And so distracting, multitasking, they damage focus. People think they can do it all along with one. But none of the studies show that. So decreasing distraction is important. Don't let your blood sugar go low. This is great study. I love this study. Researchers looked at 107 people and they measured their blood sugar right before bed. And then they gave each partner a booboo doll and said, we want you to express your feelings about your partner with dependence on the doll. And the people who had the lowest blood sugar had more than twice the number of adults. So blood sugar goes low, you are not going to focus and you're more likely to make someone unhappy. So eating healthy food often enough to maintain your blood sugar is just critical to focus. And you know what we're doing with kids is just insane. Give them sugar in the morning, send them to school and tell them to focus or you know, doing it on Zoom at home and they can't because they don't have the right fuel. So protein and healthy fat are really good for energy and focus. Simple carbohydrates, sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes, right? It makes you spacey too. And so you can actually eat to increase your focus. Certain supplements like tyrosine, rhodiola, ashwagandha, ginseng can help with focus as well. I make something called brain boost on the go that has DNA from green tea. It's one of my favorite supplements because it helps you focus but not like caffeine where you get an edge. It helps you feel relaxed and cope.

Adam: Daniel, thank you so much for all the great advice and thanks for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Dr. Amen: Thank you so much. What a joy to be with you.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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