The No.1 Brain Doctor: "This Parenting Mistake Ruins Your Kids Brain!", "Alcohol or Marijuana Will Destroy Your Brain!", "A Stagnant Career Can Increase Your Chance Of Alzheimers!" - Dr Daniel Amen

**Daniel Amen** (0:00)
There are, in fact, many roads to Alzheimer's disease, and it's things like marijuana, alcohol, and football. And then a study found that people that had a simple carbohydrate-based diet had a 400% increased risk of getting Alzheimer's. But one of the major causes is, gosh.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:19)
Dr. Daniel Amen is the renowned psychiatrist and brain health expert who has scanned over 260,000 brains, including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Kendall Jenner, to determine what we need to do for optimum brain health.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:30)
In 2024, the word of the year was brain rot. Why?

**Daniel Amen** (0:34)
Because people are worried that their habits are shrinking their brain, like food, gaming, social media, pornography.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:41)
What about working with assholes?

**Daniel Amen** (0:43)
Bad for your brain.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:45)
And then, is there anything non-obvious that we do to our children's brains?

**Steven Bartlett** (0:48)
Yes.

**Daniel Amen** (0:49)
And this is so important, because this is one thing a lot of parents do without knowing the consequences for their children. And we'll talk about that.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:58)
What about the negative thinking?

**Daniel Amen** (0:59)
Well, we just published this huge study on this. And the science is really clear. It decreases activity in your prefrontal cortex, which impacts your motivation, focus, and mood. It is detrimental to your brain. So, how can you kill the negative thoughts? Well, there's a whole bunch of things. One is sapon. Head to head has been shown to be equally effective. There's anti-depressants. And then, whenever you feel sad, or mad, or nervous, what I want you to do is, it's so simple.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:31)
I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button. Wherever you're listening to this, I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favour and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button. The show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love. If you could do me that small favour and hit the follow button, wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favour I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time. Back to this episode.
Dr. Daniel Amen, if someone's just clicked on this conversation now and they have no idea who you are, which is highly, highly unlikely, can you tell me why listening to you and this conversation and the work that we're about to go through now is so important for everyone, even those who believe that right now they have no issues?

**Daniel Amen** (2:39)
Everybody has a brain that's listening. It controls everything they do, how they think, how they feel, how they act, how they get along with other people. And most people know it but don't. Your brain is the organ of intelligence, character, and every decision you make. And when it works right, you work right. And when it doesn't, you have trouble. And most people have no idea that their bad decisions, their sadness, their anxiety, their insomnia, their poor relationship has to do with the physical functioning of their brain. So if they want to be happier, they need to think about loving and caring for their brain. Optimize your brain. You optimize your mind's ability.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:47)
You mentioned scanning brains there. Remind me again how many people's brains you've scanned now.

**Daniel Amen** (3:51)
So it's now about 260,000.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:54)
260,000 people's brains. And you've scanned some famous brains.

**Daniel Amen** (3:59)
Yes, actually people from 9 months old to 105, from 155 countries. And it's public knowledge. I've been in Justin Bieber's docu-series, Seasons. I scanned his brain. I've scanned Miley Cyrus' brain. Mel Gibson just went on Joe Rogan and talked about me scanning his brain. Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Jake Paul.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:26)
You also scanned my brain. And you actually taught me a lot from scanning my brain, which I'm incredibly grateful for.

**Daniel Amen** (4:30)
And did you think about your brain after we talked about it?

**Steven Bartlett** (4:32)
Of course. I think about it all the time now. It's also interesting that in 2024, the year just gone, the word of the year was the word brain rot. And that's interesting because the subject of the brain, I don't think has been given the credit and the attention it deserves. Really, until recently, and much of your work has played into that. Why do you think, if you had to guess, why do you think Oxford University's word of the year was brain rot?