free meditation
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practices that protect your brain health

Struggling with brain fog, I consulted my trusted expert, Dr. Daniel Amen, a distinguished psychiatrist and brain health authority. His advice has had such a profound impact on up-leveling my brain that I invited him on my Dear Gabby podcast to share his tips for saving your brain.

feed your mind

Nutrition and cognition are closely linked. Dr. Amen is a fan of eating a diet low in carbohydrates and high in healthy fats. He’s taught me to avoid nutrient poor simple carbs and to pile my plate with nutrient rich foods, such as avocados and cacao. (Don’t miss Dr. Amen’s amazing recipe for brain-healthy hot chocolate, which he shares in the episode).

never stop learning

Learning new skills (such as playing an instrument) keeps your brain young and strengthens cognitive abilities. In his new book—Change Your Brain—Dr. Amen offers 366 short essays on brain health. A daily commitment to these practices—just like the daily commitment to a brain-supportive meditation practice—will improve not only your brain but your overall quality of life.

The great news is, there is so much you can control when it comes to the health of your brain—you can even reverse some of the damage that has been done.

in this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How Dr. Amen supported my recovery from addiction and trauma
  • The brain-damaging impact of alcohol, nicotine and sleep deprivation
  • Why meditation is so, so good for your brain
  • The fun brain “workout” I do every day
  • The link between childhood trauma and cognitive issues

Trust me, after this conversation, you’ll think differently about every choice you make!

listen now

watch this clip from the episode:

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disclaimer

This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #188 Jan 22, 2024 manifesting

habits for a healthy brain: big talk with dr daniel amen

Gabby: Let me tell you something, my friends. If there was ever something that was super stressing out my brain, it was trying to get the genius of the brain on my podcast. The brain guru, getting him on my podcast was like a brain mess for me because we just, I don't know what it was. Sometimes the universe has obstacles that are detours in the right direction.

And over and over we continuously had these crazy obstacles. The day that you came into the studio to try to record this episode with me was a complete

Gabby: shit show. And so this beautiful man is sitting here with me.

Gabby: So, devoted to coming back on the show after recording for hours and wasting his time.

So thank you. Not only are you my friend and someone who I admire deeply for being so forgiving as we carry on with this interview, but you're also a really important doctor in my life because I have had the privilege of being in your clinic, having gone [00:01:00] through a full brain scan. and getting expert, expert, the best, best in class advice on how to support my brain health.

And as someone who is a recovering cocaine addict, you know, been sober 18 years now, but I have had, repeated cocaine addiction, someone who's experienced trauma, someone who's experienced a lot of, ADD, there has been damage to my brain. And. Your guidance and expertise has been extremely valuable to me.

And so I just want to begin this conversation by expressing how grateful I am for you and what it means to me to be able to have you on speed dial when I get long COVID or to be able to have you here on the show even after hours of wasted time. So thanks for for showing up for this. Thank you so much for being here.

Amen: It's my honor. Thank you so much for having me and helping me spread this message. It's not mental [00:02:00] illness, it's brain health. And if we work together on getting our brains healthy. Everything, including our minds, will be

Gabby: That's right. And you have this new book out that's called Change Your Brain Every Day. Now, I think that the idea of exercising our body… Or eating mindfully, or maybe a daily meditation practice. These are things that so many people in this space, in the wellness space, are just like, yeah, that's, that's a thing.

But I don't think that people wake up every day saying, I'm going to exercise my brain today. Or I'm going to take one small action towards my brain health. I think the brain gets left behind. What do you think about that?

Amen: Absolutely gets left behind, you know. Most people never really care about their own brains, even though it controls everything you do and everything you are. [00:03:00] And when I first got scanned, I was 37, and I didn't care about my own brain. And I'm a double board certified psychiatrist. I was the top, student in medical school in neuroscience.

And I didn't care because I'd never seen it. And then when I looked at it and it wasn't as healthy as I wanted it to be, I developed this concept called brain envy. And I'm like, Freud is wrong. Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem. You gotta care about your brain. And when I cared about… My brain, my energy was better.

My memory was better. My focus is better. And tomorrow I turned 69 and my brain,

Gabby: my friend. You are so well. You look so well.

Amen: is. is as sharp or better than when I was 35. And isn't that really what [00:04:00] we all want? Is, you know, however long we live, we want to take a healthy brain with us, because then we're not a burden on anybody. Then we stay independent.

Then we continue to have meaning and purpose for as long as we live.

Gabby: m, most crucial elements of your brain health daily ritual, daily practice that have made it so that your 69 year old brain is better than it was 35?

Amen: So it's really three things. Brain envy. I care about it. I mean, I'm obsessed with it. Um, I avoid things that hurt it with a good attitude and then I do things that help it. And I never feel burdened by doing the right thing. In [00:05:00] fact, when I do the wrong thing, then I feel And so,

Gabby: What's the right thing? What's the wrong thing?

Amen: well, I think most seven year olds would, if you gave them a test, here's 20 things, separate them, good for your brain or bad for it.

I actually went to my daughter's second grade class

when she was seven and I drew 20 things on the board or wrote 20 things on the board and I'm like, separate them for me and they got all of them right except one thing. Orange juice, which they put in the good category when it's in the bad category, because it's, when's it rational to have the sugar from four oranges?

Amen: That's just not right. but things like marijuana and nicotine, head trauma, alcohol, not sleeping, spending too much time. [00:06:00] On video games or gadgets. They got all of that right. So, brain health, ultimately it's not hard, although we live in a very confusing time, where people think of alcohol as a health food.

It's clearly not, right? Ireland just stunned the world. Because, Ireland's putting alcohol warning labels. On all bottles of alcohol, cancer warning labels and liver warning labels. And I'm like, whoa. And just a couple of years ago, the American Cancer Society came out against any alcohol. They basically said, we've been lied to.

You know, you should have one or two glasses of wine a day because it's good for your heart. Well, it's not. It's a lie. And when they look at all of those studies, they find bias [00:07:00] and they find, you know, calculations that weren't done properly. And now we're in this, well, marijuana is innocuous. Well, it's not.

I published a study on a thousand marijuana users. Every area of their brain was lower. Um, and teenagers and their group, which is suffering more with mental health stuff than anyone else is because, well, it's legal, it's innocuous. You smoke, uh, or use as a teenager, you have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide in your 20s.

And we're, we're paying this price right now.

Gabby: Is that partially because their brains are not fully developed? Because I've been hearing a lot about teenagers going into psychosis and being sent to treatment right away because of these horrific episodes with marijuana. What's that about?[00:08:00]

Amen: So, partly, it's probably a marijuana gene interaction. So, clearly doesn't happen to everybody, but it happens to vulnerable people. And your brain is not fully developed until you're about… 25 in girls and a little bit later in boys. And so it's like, from the time you're born to the time you're 25, you're creating this just amazing universe of cities and highways and connections.

And it basically makes you who you are. And so early toxin is like throwing a smoke bomb. Into the universe and damaging it, you know, I mean, the same thing's true with bad food. The same thing's true with chronic stress. You and I bonded a little [00:09:00] bit over ACE scores, adverse childhood experiences. I don't know if I told you, but you know, I now have 15, 000.

A scores on our patients and I have all their brains and it changes your

Gabby: Yeah. Oh, yes, it

Amen: right? The more trauma you have activates your emotional brain makes it work too hard and dampens down your more thoughtful brain. And it puts you,

Gabby: to addiction too. So then you're, yeah, keep going, sorry.

Amen: it does, it makes you much more susceptible to addiction because you're anxious and you can't concentrate, you're anxious and you don't feel right and so addictions are a short term fix that cause a long term problem. And for my patients, I always want them to feel better fast, but I want it to last.

Gabby: right. Yeah. okay. So [00:10:00] actually now that I'm talking to you, I'm just like really compassionate for my, 20 something brain because here it was. It's not fully developed and I'm pounding it with cocaine and alcohol and toxins and cigarettes and just, it's just sending some love and compassion to my 25 year old brain.

Now, I've been clean and sober 18 years, but what are the most important things I can be doing to repair and restore this brain that has had historical damage.

Amen: So, the first thing is care, you already do that. Avoid things that hurt it. So when I go through my day, I carry this question with me. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? Like I went out to dinner last night. And the first thing they did was bring bread and I'm like, take it away. I mean, you got to be with people where that's okay.

Otherwise I [00:11:00] just wouldn't say anything, just not eat it. And then the second thing they go, well, what would you like to drink? And they're meaning alcohol. And I'm like, I'm good with water. And it's being aware in every decision you make, is this good for me? Or bad for me. So I start every day with a little phrase in my head.

Today's going to be a great day. And I knew I was going to talk to you. And so it's like, just saying that you go, well, what am I looking forward to today, as opposed to one of my, and then I hydrate, because I think that's really important. Your body is 70%, your brain is 80%. Water. So just being dehydrated a little bit, you don't think as well as when you're hydrated.

So I hydrate. And then when I do my [00:12:00] huddles with my team at Amen Clinics, I'm usually walking around on a bike. I get outside, get some sunshine and get exercise because it's all about blood flow. I'm going to talk about blood flow for a long time, but you know, one of the problems with substance abuse is it decreases blood flow, damages the brain.

And so to repair it, you want to increase blood flow. And, so it hurts blood flow, caffeine, nicotine, not exercising, having high blood pressure, any form of. Heart disease having erectile dysfunction because if you have blood flow problems Anywhere it means they're everywhere and so When you get on a brain healthy program it also improves your sex life so Exercise and I take my supplements.[00:13:00]

I think supplementation is very important because we live in a society of chronic stress and low quality food. And so we're not getting the nutrients we need. Multiple vitamin. Thank

Gabby: I do. I take the curcumin, for the brain, which you just recently put me on. And I take your supplement packets, which is like the full resources for your brain. And I, You know, just taking those supplements is a mindful choice that I make every day to restore my own brain.

would 10 minutes a day on the trampoline for, you know, speaking for a friend, would that be enough blood flow? Or do I need to be doing like a half hour or an hour of cardio? Or what would be the best movement for my lifestyle, my day to day experience? Like a little yoga and a trampoline.

Amen: Well, I think if you can get your heart rate up for 10 to 20 minutes, and I like high [00:14:00] intensity training. So interval training. And there's some research that if you just do it for two or three minutes, right? So say you go on a 10 minute walk, but for two or three minutes of that, maybe in 30 second instruments, you sprint or you walk as fast as you can.

That boosts the number of mitochondria you have in your cells, and then you have more energy.

Gabby: That's how my,

Amen: I love

Gabby: trainer would train me is just the high interval training, right? So she'll do sprint at this period or, jump on the trampoline for a third, like one minute at this pace or, and then we can slow it down. I definitely feel more. mental fitness occurring at the same time.

Even afterwards, I love to go sit down and write after I've had a high impact workout.

Amen: Well, and I'm also a huge fan of weight training. Because the [00:15:00] stronger you are as you age, the less likely you are to get Alzheimer's disease. Yes, the thing that kills older people is frailty and so muscle on your body is your protein reserve. And so, um, strong is good for your brain. Obviously, not if you're doing steroids or something stupid like that.

And then diet is just so critical and I'm pretty much a fan of very low carbohydrate diets, high in fat and, healthy protein. I have a granddaughter that has a seizure disorder. And, as a child psychiatrist, I've known about the ketogenic diet for decades because it decreases seizure frequency by more than 50 [00:16:00] percent in kids.

And for my granddaughter, it basically took the seizures away. but if it's doing that, if it's stabilizing nerve cell function. A number of researchers have also found it good for mental health, especially for people who have bipolar disorder. And isn't it interesting, one of the medicines I use as a psychiatrist, medicines like Neurontin, Lamictal, Optal, they're anti convulsants that decrease anxiety, that stabilize.

The decreased temper problem. So I'm like, so maybe carbs, not all carbs, right? Broccoli is mostly carbs. yeah, you have to be really careful with them. Because 50 percent of the population is diabetic or pre diabetic. And if you go, you want a healthy brain, don't have diabetes. [00:17:00] Because diabetes damages blood flow.

And your brain, even though it's only 2 percent of your body's weight, it uses 20 percent of the blood flow. in your body. And so, the problem with high blood sugar levels is it causes these blood vessels to become brittle, more likely to break, leading to things like inhibited in, decreased healing.

Gabby: Right. Okay. So, high fat, we're going back to the diet, so I'm just going to hone in on some of the key things that you've shared. So high fat, obviously fish oils and omegas why is it so important to have the fish oils and the omegas and the high fats for the brain? You want to plump it up?

Amen: But your brain is 60%. And so everybody knows, you know, you want your cholesterol at a certain level. [00:18:00] We have this epidemic now of kids who have low cholesterol levels. If your cholesterol is under 160 or total cholesterol, you have a higher incidence. Depression, violence,

Gabby: Mm.

Amen: and suicide, and many of the autistic kids we treat have low cholesterol.

Think of cholesterol as like the mother material for all of your hormones. And so if your cholesterol is low, you don't manage stress. Very well, because everything goes to cortisol and nothing's left over for estrogen or progesterone or testosterone, you know, things that are super important.

Gabby: What are the most important foods we want our young people's, little guys brains, little girls and guys brains to have?

Amen: So, I think healthy fats, [00:19:00] avocados, like Tana has a recipe for avocado gelato.

Gabby: Oh, I've got to make that for Oliver.

Amen: uh, like my grandson when he was a year old, he was like super picky and my daughter was very stressed out and Tana made him avocado gelato and I have a picture of him with it all over his face because, you know, cacao is actually good for people.

Um, It's loaded with nutrients, avocados, um, amazing recipe. And, you know, I often say, well, I do that every night for my

Gabby: your hot chocolate routine because this is great for the kiddos. Maybe not at night for the little guys, but it's a great way to get the chocolate. But what is it about the cacao that's so good for the brain?

Amen: Well, it has nutrients that actually increase blood flow. And it's got flavanols that enhance development and decrease [00:20:00] inflammation. it's also a really good source of iron. And I use unsweetened organic almond milk, heated up. a heaping teaspoon of raw cacao. And a little bit of sweet leaves.

Chocolate flavored liquid stevia. Love it. And put it in the blender. It tastes amazing. It's calorie smart. It tastes good. And when it comes to food, I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. but I have.

Gabby: Uh huh.

Amen: And I'm not doing that anymore. Uh, when it comes to food, I only want you to love food that loves you back.

Gabby: Right.

Amen: And… The loves you back, the brain healthy hot chocolate totally loves you back. And now I'm figuring out, brain healthy lemonade. [00:21:00] So it takes.

Gabby: brand? You have a brain healthy hot chocolate that you, that you sell? Because that's a, that's a business idea for you, my friend.

Amen: Thank

Gabby: want the Daniel

Amen: I, I have, uh, Brain in Love bars, which is like a Hershey car, and then Brain on Joy. I think I have one of those every day. Chocolate coconut bars. I haven't made, uh, uh, hot chocolate powder. That's a great idea, thank

Gabby: here with Gabby Bernstein. You might need to dedicate your chocolate powder. Call it the
Gabby. Just kidding. Um, um, you know, I have so much I want to just unpack with you here because you are my guru. You're my brain guru. The uh, salmon for our omegas, the chocolate at night, the high fat, the low carb.

But the thing that I love most about our friendship is the first time we sat down to a meal together, we were in Miami, your beautiful wife was there with us and you bust out, we're all drinking sparkling [00:22:00] water because none of us are drinking alcohol because we're very mindful of our health and you bust out.

My trick. Here it is. My trick. He has the sweetened sweetleaf. I think he might've had like a vanilla sweetened or some other, flavor that I love. And he's dropping it into his, sparkling water. And I'm like, Oh my God, we are best friends. It was love at first sight of your sweetleaf because here I was,

I've been sugar free for almost a decade and I. I really care about these little sweet hacks because I want that sweetness in my life. And so this is one of your sweet hacks. My audience is going to love it. Just share with them what you do to make your little, your little sweet sodas when you're at a restaurant.

Amen: You know, my grandchildren love it.

Gabby: Mm hmm.

Amen: So, uh, Pop Pop, do you have the bottle?

Gabby: The bottle. The bottle.

Amen: The bottle. So, Sweet Leaf, I have no financial interest in Sweet Leaf. Except I buy a ton of their products. And they have ten different [00:23:00] flavors. Orange, and lemon, and root beer, and hazelnut, and English toffee. My favorite is chocolate.

I love chocolate. And so I just carry a little bottle with me. It's in my car, it's in my briefcase, wherever I go. If I'm on a plane. And this, stewardess goes, can I bring you a drink? It's always sparkling water. And, I have my chocolate stevia. And it's so simple. There are no calories.

It's not bad for you, right? I'm in all the research on artificial sweeteners. Bad for you, but not stevia. Um, I mean, don't go crazy with it. But. You know, if I make Tana decaf cappuccino, I'll put it in that. If I, uh, make hot chocolate, I put it in that. If I'm, I now bring healthy lemonade, take a lemon, squeeze it, add a little bit of the chocolate stevia, [00:24:00] sparkling water, little bit of ice, put it in a blender.

Explodes, but it basically turns into, a slushie,

Gabby: it too. Mm hmm.

Amen: um, or a Slurpee. It turns into a Slurpee from 7 Eleven, but it's not going to kill you.

Gabby: second. You're sparkling water with your stevia in the blender with some ice. You just literally changed my life here. this is the moment. This is the Gabby moment. I'm going to go make that the second that we're in this recording. I am making my Daniel Amen slushie. Thank you. Done.

Amen: Well, then you have to text me

Gabby: I'm going to send you a photo of it. I'm going to, send you, I'm going to tag you in a

Amen: but it's like no suffering. And I watched, Russell Brown yesterday on a TikTok. And he said, cause he really struggled with addiction. And he's like, I have to live like a monk. And when I live like a monk and really purposeful about what I drink and what I [00:25:00] eat, you know how I think my life works.

And I just, I wanted to reach out and go, it's not a monk. You're living with abundance.

Gabby: Mm hmm.

Amen: By doing the right thing. And that's that mindset of Drew Carey said it really well. He lost a lot of weight and he said, eating crappy food isn't a reward. It's a punishment. And that's the mindset that you have to have, because for most people, the four year old inside them wins.

Gabby: Mm.

Amen: Like they have a tantrum about the ice cream or about the alcohol and they give in because they're not a good parent to themselves. I have a book coming out next year called Raising Mentally Strong Kids. Very excited about, [00:26:00] but really, if you're going to raise mentally strong kids, you have to parent yourself and the best parents or firm, you have goals.

And when I say something, I mean it and I'm backing up and they're kind. And too often people

Gabby: That's like the

Amen: are abusive to

Gabby: but firm. And I'm really with you on taking parenting tools and applying them for your own inner children. Because We would never treat ourselves, our children, the way we treat ourselves. I mean, you hope you wouldn't, right?

You wouldn't say the horrific things you say to yourself to your child. In my yoga teacher training years ago, I was sitting with a young woman and she said to me, I have this beautiful mantra before my meal.

Do you want to do it with me? We're having lunch. And I said, yeah, totally. She said, I love my food. My food loves me. And just by saying that prayer or affirmation before I eat my food, I make more mindful choices. I eat more slowly, I chew, [00:27:00] I enjoy, I enjoy. And I celebrate that I'm eating well because that's the reward, right?

So I really want to just emphasize everything you're saying there. There's something else I want to tell you as my friend and doctor. Here we go. Ready? Yo hablo, estudio espanol, todos los noches en mi dormido, con un app Duolingo. Now I wanted to tell you that I'm speaking Spanish every single night, I'm studying Spanish every single night.

Tú hablas Español? Tengo? Do you speak Spanish? Okay. Great. But I'm bragging to you that yo hablo espanol todos los dias para mi serable. I think it's, I think that's brain. Serable. It's like, I may be getting that one word wrong, but I'm doing it. One, people are like, well, why are you randomly studying Spanish

Don't you have enough on your plate? And my response is number one. yo tengo un grande boca. I have a big mouth. I like to speak with mi amigos. And, I [00:28:00] want to be able to communicate with more people. I have a vision of being able to give a live talk in Spanish one day. The biggest reason is I.

I want to exercise my brain. And so every day when I turn to my Duolingo app and I start practicing for 15 minutes to an hour a day or night, I feel my brain, it's weird, I can almost sense my brain exercising. Talk to me about that. Is that happening?

Amen: Well, you're keeping your brain young. So, one of the most important strategies to keeping your brain young is new learning. So, if I just kept reading brains. Well, my brain knows how to do it, and it doesn't really enhance it, it doesn't grow it, it doesn't cause more connections. When I learn to do something I don't know how, that grows my brain.

And [00:29:00] so, new learning, whether it's a language, or a musical instrument, or artistry, or cooking, or gardening, or, my favorite thing. To enhance brain function is a coordination exercise like pickleball or tennis or table

Gabby: I got it all going on. I'm doing tennis too. Tennis and Spanish.

Amen: because it activates your cerebellum. So if you're going to write, probably better to do that a half an hour after you play tennis,

Gabby: Great advice.

Amen: because you've just activated all of your brain.

Gabby: I am so happy to hear that. I'm going to start my day with tennis. I'm going to force my husband to the court, hit some balls, and go back to my desk. Thank you. That was a huge. That and my
Amen: Well, so you're getting exercise, you're getting sun, which is important. You're getting time with your husband. And it's [00:30:00] just, it's a great way to start the day for your breath,

Gabby: So, so exercise in the morning in some way, some kind of coordination exercise, doing whatever you can to eliminate the sugar. I'm just recapping here. Great fats. so I like to boil things down in threes. So what are the three worst things that we could do for our brain?

What do we have to really watch out for?

Amen: not care about it. So that would be it. the thing that will make you feel the worst, the fastest is don't sleep. and so bringing your gadgets to bed, flooding your lights with blue light, and which turns off melatonin production and impairs your ability to sleep. Teenagers who sleep, Justin. Our less than their peers have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression and suicide.

So sleep is essential. The second worst thing you're doing for your brain is putting toxic [00:31:00] products on your body. So there's an app. I like called Think Dirty, it lets you scan your personal products and tell you on a scale of one to 10, how quickly they're killing you. And so we need to be really careful about the products we put on our body.

And before I was aware of it, I shaved for 50 years with Barbasol on a scale of zero live long, 10 die early.

Gabby: Yeah.

Amen: And so now I shave with something called Kiss My Face and it's a tip. And it's actually not even more expensive 'cause it lasts forever. Um, and then the third thing is not being mindful about what you eat.

We live in a society where 72% of people are over, 42% are obese. This is not okay. There's nothing about this [00:32:00] that it's okay. I published three studies on over 30,000 people showing as your weight goes up. The actual physical size and function of your brain goes down, which should scare the fat off anyone.

And, you know, I often talk about bright minds. If you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And bright minds is the mnemonic. The D is diabetes city, overweight or have high blood sugar. If you just have that one risk factor, you have seven of the 11 risk factors.

It's crazy.

Gabby: Right. Boy, oh boy. Okay. So, I downloaded the app, Think Dirty. I have adjusted my skincare, but I can fall prey of some really fancy, not toxic, makeup. So I gotta, gotta have my balance here. Maybe [00:33:00] once a month I can go full in with my makeup when I'm doing something important.

Amen: Well, if you do the non toxic makeup, you're going to be naturally prettier. So, if you're toxifying your body, your skin's not going to be as healthy because our skin, the health of our skin is an outside reflection of the health of our brains.

Gabby: beautiful point. I really appreciate that. Well, my friend, I adore you and I'm so grateful for your commitment. There's folks out there that when they post something or they put a book out, it's my A committed mission. And you of a handful of folks in my life, I really see that come through for you.

And you care deeply about this education for people. And so I think that when, you know, look, you've got tons of books behind you that are yours and they're beautiful and they're like Roy G bibbed in the background, the red, orange, yellow, green book. And this new book is called Change Your Brain Every Day.[00:34:00]

Simple daily practices to strengthen your mind, memory, moods, focus, energy, habits and relationships. You packed it all in right there in that subtitle. And it's true because when you really work with your brain, all of the other areas of your life will benefit. Is there anything else you want to share about the book before we close the conversation?

Hmm.

Amen: It's 366 short essays. On the most important things I've ever said. So, given I've written a bunch of books, if people go, where do I start? This is the one to start. I actually think of it as, like, my greatest hits. Like, took everything from all my other books and go, these are the snippets that you will benefit from.

So I'm very excited about

Gabby: Would you recommend we read one snippet a day? Is that what you'd recommend?

Amen: Yeah, because, is a daily practice.

Gabby: Yeah.

Amen: And if [00:35:00] you are daily committed to the health of your brain, everything in your life is

Gabby: Hmm. The last thing we didn't mention, and I really want to let you go because I want to be conscious of your time, but we didn't mention meditation. So one last word on the power of meditation and brain support.

Amen: So there are a couple of days on meditation. I published a study on a Kundalini yoga form of meditation called Kirtan Kriya.

Gabby: Sata Nama. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Amen: Dramatic changes. And activated the thoughtful brain, calm down the emotional brain. You sort of lose sense of time. And there's another day in the book on loving kindness meditation, which I love because it's got great research and it's just such a positive healing. Meditation

Gabby: I have practiced that one for, I did 180 days on it and it greatly [00:36:00] benefited my brain. I don't know. It reminded me to go back to it. And I love a loving kindness meditation as well, so thank you for that. I also practice Transcendental Meditation.

They've done a lot of studies on TM and the brain as well, I thank you so deeply. And I am really proud to,brag that I have you on speed dial, but I really mean it because going through long COVID recently and you were just right there to support me.

And it's just a privilege to have your help as I carry out my own mission and keep my brain healthy to do it. So thank you.

Amen: always here for you. My

Gabby: I'm going to make my slushie now, Daniel.

Amen: let me know. Text me

Gabby: I'll send you a picture of my slushie.

thank you, Daniel. And everybody head over to amenclinics. com to learn more about Daniel Amen, his books, his work, his clinics, which I highly recommend, and just getting a lot of free information there as well.

So just get all the resources right there and go buy the book loves go get that book, change your brain every day. [00:37:00] Thank you, Daniel.