The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett: Moment 123: 11 Extremely Damaging Things You NEED To Avoid For A Healthy Brain: Dr Amen

You want to prematurely age your brain, drop out of school, do not engage in new learning.

I mean, you doing this podcast, you're always learning new things, which is great for you.

But the lack of when you learn something new, your brain makes a new connection.

When you stop learning or you start doing the same thing over and over again, your brain

starts to disconnect itself.

Being in a job that does not require new learning is a risk factor for dementia.

Being lonely is a risk factor for dementia.

So be an ass and be more likely to hurt your brain.

At my workplace, we have the no asshole rule.

So there's a book by a Stanford professor called the no asshole rule.

Love that book.

And the no asshole rule is the CEO starts with me.

So I don't get to be one, but I'm not tolerating anybody who has asshole behavior at work.

And if you're not an asshole, you're less likely to be lonely.

And loneliness is terrible for brain function.

If you want to prematurely age your brain, eat a lot of red meat as if your iron and

ferritin levels are high.

This ferritin, it's just stored iron, 10 stage the brain.

If you want to increase inflammation, which is a root cause of so many medical and mental

health issues, never floss, don't really care about your teeth.

So you want to love your brain, you have to love your mouth.

It's absolutely critical for you not to have gum disease.

If you have gingivitis, you're at increased risk for heart disease and depression and

dementia.

It's fascinating.

Like I didn't learn about this and I didn't really care about my teeth until I started

seeing the links between gum disease and heart disease, gum disease and brain disease.

And now I'm a flossing fool.

But if you want to damage your brain, don't care about your mouth, about your teeth.

Don't ever eat fish.

People who have grilled or baked fish once a week have more gray matter in their brain.

People have low levels of omega-3 fatty acids, have smaller brains.

And if you want to damage your brain, eat the standard American diet.

So processed food, like eat most of your calories from the gas station and from the fast food

restaurants nearby.

And they spend billions on getting those foods to the perfect crunchiness, the perfect meltiness,

the perfect aroma, because they hire neuroscientists to addict your brain.

Be suspicious.

You want to damage your brain?

Blame everything on your genes.

Like I have obesity and heart disease in my family, but I'm not overweight and I don't

have heart disease.

Why?

I'm on an obesity heart disease prevention program every day of my life.

Because genes load the gun, it's what happens to us and what we choose to do that pulls

the trigger.

So I adopted my nieces because their parents couldn't stop using drugs and I'm like adamant.

If you want my help, you have to cooperate.

There's no vaping, there's no drug use, there's no alcohol and it's working.

I taught them a new word last week, scrumiting.

Have you heard of scrumiting?

I haven't.

It's a combination of screaming and vomiting.

And because of the legalization of marijuana and the increased use, teenagers are getting

this and in record numbers, they're in emergency rooms screaming and vomiting.

It's called scrumiting.

So genes load the gun, but know your risk and be on that prevention program.

I mean, that's just the sign of intelligent life.

The H is head trauma.

You want to damage your brain, play football, play soccer, play rugby and box.

And text while you're walking in LA.

I mean, you're just more likely to have a brain injury because you fall over just because

in case that wasn't clear, people are going to think texting is bad for their brain.

Texting marijuana is innocuous, it's total crap.

I mean, I'm happy they legalized it, please don't put people who use marijuana in jail.

It's a really bad use of resources, really stupid, but let's not say it's good for us

because teenagers who use have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide and psychosis.

That's not okay.

The brain undergoes wild development and people sort of don't get this.

They think little kids, their brain is undergoing wild development.

But from the time you're 15 to 25, it's gone through wild construction.

In fact, that's when the highways are being myelinated.

If you ever heard of myelin, myelin is a white fatty substance that gets wrapped on your neurons.

When a neuron or a brain cell becomes myelated, it becomes 10 to 100 times faster, it's more efficient.

And when a baby's born, there's very little myelin in the cortex laid down.

When they're about two months old, their occipital lobes, their visual cortex becomes myelinated.

And when you smile at them, they smile back because they can really see you.

Well, slowly myelination goes from the back all the way to the front, but it doesn't get to the front until you're about 25.

So this masterpiece building, if you will, is under construction until you're 25.

So many teenagers, it's the crappy food.

It's just like throwing poison into the construction zone.

Marijuana is innocuous.

We're going to the parties and getting drunk, and they're damaging the building.

And yes, there are ways to repair it, but what idiot would damage the most beautiful building in the neighborhood?

And I often say to my teenage patients, I said, hey, if you had a million-dollar racehorse, would you ever feed it junk food?

Would you ever get it stoned?

Would you ever get it drunk?

And the smart ones would go, only if you were an idiot.

But aren't you worth so much more?

And we have a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25.

We studied it in 16 schools, decreases drug alcohol and tobacco use, decreases depression, and improves self-esteem.

And one of the weeks is things to avoid, to have a healthy brain.

And at the end of the lecture, it's a boy, never a girl.

That's really irritating.

Raises his hand and goes, how can you have any fun?

And we play a game with him called Who Has More Fun?

The person with the good brain or the person with the bad brain?

Who gets the girl and gets the keeper because he's not an ass?

The person with the good brain or the person with the bad brain?

Who gets into the college they want to get into, who has the best life?

And ultimately, it's the person with the good brain.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm interrupting this broadcast with a very special announcement.

Two years ago, I started writing a book based on everything I've learned from doing this podcast

and meeting all of the incredible people that I've had the privilege of meeting.

But also from my career in business, from running my marketing businesses, my software business, my investment fund,

and everything else that I've been doing in business and life.

And from this, I've created a brand new book called The Diary of a CEO, The 33 Laws for Business and Life.

If you want to build something great, or become great yourself,

like the guest that I've sat here and interviewed, I ask you, please, please, please read these 33 laws.

The book I always should have written.

If you like this podcast, this book is for you.

And it is available now in the description of this podcast below.

And every single day until it's out later this month, one person that pre-orders it,

that takes a picture of their pre-order, uploads it to their story on Instagram or social media and tags me,

will win a gold version of this book signed by me.

And there's only 33 copies of those available.

So pre-order it now, tag me on social media when you do.

And 33 of you are going to win a very, very special book.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.