Stop Believing Every Thought You Have: Healing Your Anxious Mind Part 1
41 min
•Apr 13, 20266 days agoSummary
Dr. Amen and co-host Tana discuss the neurobiology of anxiety, revealing that it stems from multiple physical causes including brain inflammation, infections, head injuries, and past trauma rather than purely psychological factors. They emphasize the importance of brain imaging to identify root causes and explain how anxiety circuits in the brain can be addressed through targeted treatment rather than one-size-fits-all medication.
Insights
- Anxiety has identifiable physical causes (inflammation, infections like Lyme disease, head injuries, thyroid dysfunction) that require investigation rather than assumption of psychological origin
- Brain imaging reveals anxiety involves multiple interconnected structures (amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, basal ganglia, insular cortex) and distinguishes between overactive anxiety centers versus underactive frontal lobe braking mechanisms
- Some anxiety is essential for survival and conscientiousness; the goal is optimization (reducing from 80 to 15 on a scale) rather than elimination, as zero anxiety correlates with higher accident and preventable illness rates
- Childhood trauma and adverse experiences become neurologically embedded in the brain and can trigger anxiety responses decades later without conscious awareness of the original trigger
- Cannabis is ineffective for treating anxiety and common mental health conditions despite widespread belief, with research showing no evidence for efficacy in anxiety, PTSD, or other disorders
Trends
Rising societal anxiety driven by news consumption and 'doom scrolling' creating global amygdala hijacking effectIncreasing recognition that artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose) function as neurotoxins affecting anxiety and mood through microbiome disruption with potential epigenetic effectsGen Z demonstrating significantly lower alcohol consumption than previous generations, potentially shifting toward alternative substancesGrowing clinical adoption of brain imaging technology to differentiate between hardware (neurological) and software (behavioral/psychological) causes of mental health conditionsShift toward personalized medicine in psychiatry moving away from one-size-fits-all pharmaceutical approaches toward targeted treatment based on individual brain imaging and root cause analysisIncreased awareness of post-infection neurological complications (COVID-related brain inflammation, PANDAS syndrome) as overlooked anxiety triggersRecognition of thyroid dysfunction as underdiagnosed cause of anxiety and depression, particularly in cancer survivors undergoing hormone replacement therapy
Topics
Brain imaging and neuroimaging for anxiety diagnosisAmygdala and fear center activation in anxiety disordersChildhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACE) impact on anxietyHead injuries and concussions causing anxiety and panic attacksLyme disease and infections triggering neurological anxietyThyroid dysfunction and anxiety correlationCannabis efficacy for mental health conditionsArtificial sweeteners as neurotoxins (aspartame, sucralose)Gut-brain axis and microbiome effects on anxietyFrontal lobe function and anxiety regulationBasal ganglia and thought-looping in OCDCOVID-19 induced brain inflammationCaffeine and sugar sensitivity in anxietyTrauma-informed anxiety treatmentPersonalized psychiatry and precision medicine
Companies
Amen Clinics
Multi-location psychiatric practice using brain imaging for diagnosis and personalized treatment; operates 11 clinics...
The Lancet
Medical journal publishing research review on cannabis inefficacy for treating anxiety and common mental health condi...
People
Dr. Daniel Amen
Co-host discussing anxiety neurobiology, brain imaging findings from 193,000 scans on 103,000 patients, and personali...
Tana
Co-host sharing personal experiences with anxiety, childhood trauma, and thyroid cancer treatment; provides patient p...
Quotes
"Every day you are making your brain better, or you are making it worse."
Dr. Daniel Amen•Opening segment
"If the software isn't working, there's something going on with hardware, right?"
Dr. Daniel Amen•Mid-episode
"How do you know unless you look?"
Dr. Daniel Amen•Recurring throughout episode
"In this moment, I have everything I need. In this moment, you're okay."
Tana•Anxiety management discussion
"When it begins to interfere with your life, when you think it's interfering with your life, if it's interfering with your relationships, affecting work, affecting your productivity, your happiness."
Dr. Daniel Amen•Defining problematic anxiety
Full Transcript
Anxiety is not merely a fleeting feeling of nervousness. It's a complex emotional state deeply rooted in the brain's intricate networks. Some anxiety is absolutely essential. People who have low levels of anxiety, direly from accidents and preventable illnesses. In this episode, Dr. Amen and Tana reveal the truth behind anxiety and how it impacts your everyday life. If you are struggling with anxiety, you really have to investigate the physical causes, but you probably should do it with a professional. It can be crippling. At what point does the anxiety start to control you? So I think when it begins to... Every day you are making your brain better, or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Are you a doctor or mental health professional who's tired of one-size-fits-all care? Are you passionate about helping people heal the root causes of their issues, but frustrated by the limitations of standard care? What if you didn't have to guess what's going on with your patients? Because you could see it. At Amen Clinics, we do psychiatry differently. We use brain imaging to improve diagnoses and guide personalized treatment, because mental health is really brain health. If you are ready to be a leader in the future of mental health care, we are looking for you. When you join Amen Clinics, you don't just make a difference, you own it. With our Employee Stock Option Plan, you become an owner in the mission, a stake in every life we change. This is your invitation to be a healer, a brain health warrior, a pioneer. Join us. Let's end mental illness by creating a revolution in brain health together. So today's episode is about anxiety. We're actually going to do a two-part series on anxiety. And before we start, you are wearing a blouse with the same material the same as the day we met, which was January 1st, 2006, in Newport Beach. And it brought me such happiness today to see you in that blouse, because it triggered one of the happiest memories my whole life. And I think our lunch was like two hours. And I'm like, okay, I think I'm in love. I think I'm hooked. But that's how the brain works. The brain works through association. Good. Like my brain's still buzzing or bad. So if you got assaulted and it was a park, go into any park, can all of a sudden make you feel anxious. So I have two things to say about the sweater. The fact that you remember what I was wearing, the actual sweater and the type of material, like it's amazing. Well, it's anchored. But the look on your face when I walked out, like, it's very inappropriate. And everybody knew what you were thinking. I frequently say this. Please don't read my mind. I have enough trouble reading it myself. Then don't make it so obvious. Don't make it so easy. But I wasn't thinking anything inappropriate. I mean, one we're married. So most things are appropriate. But yeah, I didn't have one sexual thought when I had was joy. But this is where couples often get into trouble. Oh, I think it's fun. Because you think you know what I'm thinking. Oh, absolutely. And you're completely wrong. I'm usually right. But the brain works through association. It does. And I associate the sweater to joy and some pain. Right. Because I mean, what's the biggest pain that I can actually think of? Losing you. Because we're so attached. So that's the anxiety. And the anxiety is being in the future with fear. Yeah. And there's a lot of that going around right now. So I think it's important to sort of address that. There's a lot of societal anxiety at the moment with all the stuff happening in the world. And a lot of doom scrolling, I had to catch myself. I normally don't do that. But I think it's we need discipline because it's easy to go into the future with fear. And when I was doom scrolling, I found myself doing that and I had to stop myself. I literally had to go outside, ground myself, breathe, do some praying, and then say, in this moment, I have everything I need. Now, I know there are many people in the world who don't. And that you can pray for. But if you can't do anything about it, it's like just grounding yourself and reminding yourself in this moment you have everything you need. In this moment, you're okay. And it's very hard during a war. Not to anchor yourself to the news. Which is always about whatever is the worst thing that's happening, making you afraid, elevating the parts of your brain like your amygdala that make you then project out the worst things that will happen. Do you remember during the pandemic, I coined the term global amygdala hijacking? It's because soon as you watch the news, you know, it was the death tolls. It was the hospital. Oh, no. I had to ban that from our house. I was just so done. Yeah. I was so frustrated with it. And the funny thing is, there are some people like if you talk to a lot of the moms that are my age, they loved it because they had their kids home. They didn't like the pandemic, but they love those times of having their kids home. And then when now that their kids are gone, they're not so happy, you know. So it really depends on where you put your focus. And you can find something good even when things are bad. And I think this series is so important. Yeah, I agree. So anxiety, we are talking about anxiety. We're going to kick off a two-part episode series on how to manage anxiety and put your brain into a healing environment. Before we begin the anxiety series, though, we're going to start with a segment called Brain in the News, where we cover ongoing brain-related trending news. First segment is cannabis is not an effective treatment for common mental health conditions. Told you so. Contrary to popular belief. Told you so. So new research suggests that cannabis is not an effective treatment for common mental health conditions despite the global surge in patients using it for that purpose. So a review in the Lancet has found that researchers concluded there was very little evidence for its efficacy in treating anxiety, anorexia, psychotic disorders, post-traumatic stress, or opioid use. So, um, told you so. Yeah. So when we first met, and I don't know how you forgot this. What? How do you know I forgot it? You told me you would never tell me I told you so. I did not. It's my favorite thing to say. Why would I ever say that? It's my favorite thing to say. And I don't think you have to whine when you said that. No, I would not say that. Or maybe you just really wanted me to like you. I think you just heard that because you heard what you wanted to hear. That's your favorite thing to say. I told you so. And this is so clear with marijuana. So many people think it's good medicine, but it's not. Right? As we have legalized marijuana across the United States for medicinal purposes and now for recreational purposes, has the incidence of anxiety and depression gone down? Absolutely not. No. In fact, we've been seeing a lot of issues. Right? What is the percentage of people that can have a psychotic break? It's small, but it's real. But we have such an increasing number of people now using it with no restriction that... Right. Yeah. It's real and it's associated with a certain genetic profile, but most people never get their genetic profile taken. So here at Amon Clinics, we often see people who were fine then started using marijuana, became psychotic, and were not fine. Now, maybe they had an underlying vulnerability, but I just think we have to be so cautious with it and not have the mindset that marijuana is innocuous because it is not. And a lot of people get hurt by it. Another new study out today, Gen Z, significantly less alcohol than baby boomers or millennials. Now, I think part of them had picked up on marijuana... And mushrooms. Mushrooms. But I think that is a good trend. So anxiety is not merely a fleeting feeling of nervousness. We all have that. It's a complex emotional state deeply rooted in the brain's intricate networks. On my computer today, I have 193,000 scans on 103,000 patients. And as I ask it about the anxiety circuits in the brain, it's very clear. Area called the amygdala, sort of our fear center, the hippocampus, our memory center. So when I saw you in that sweater, my hippocampus went to my nucleus accumbens. That's responsive to dopamine and it just made me feel happy. But anxiety is also associated with low frontal lobe function. So it's like the anxiety centers in the brain, amygdala, hippocampus, there's something called the insular cortex and basal ganglia, anterior cingulate. So these are structures deep in the brain and they generate anxiety. But if your frontal lobes are not online, if you will, it can't break the anxiety. So it's very important to have a healthy, balanced brain. We brought up COVID earlier. COVID causes an inflammatory bomb to go off in the brain. And it often depends on the brain you brought in to getting that infection, to how much it can run over you. But the before and after scans I saw, those limbic or emotional structures just flamed. See, you actually help to calm my anxiety. You make me feel grounded. And how do I do that? Because you're just my, you're my ground, you're like the yin to my yang. Because you always, you always say the same thing when I'm getting worked up about stuff, you're like, it's going to be okay. I'm like, no, it's not. You're like, it's going to be okay. I'm like, is it? Really? You're just very compared to death. Yeah. When I was in college, I took a death and dying class. It was the most important class in college. Yeah, me too. I thought it was great. I loved it. And since then I live with the end in mind. And so I'm like, so how important is this compared to death? And if you believe, like we believe, death isn't the end. Right. It's what gives me hope. It's what gives us hope. So we've been talking about the brain's anxiety system. And when your brain is inflamed because you eat processed food, because you have a low inflammation, doesn't do anything good, fatty acid level, because of past trauma, because of certain infections like COVID or something called pandas syndrome, pediatric autoimmune, neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strap infections, that all of a sudden you're anxious and you have no idea why. Or if your thyroid's not right, you know about that. I do. Can cause depression, anxiety, but I've also seen even personally in our own family, Lyme is like, or some of these infections are like a bomb going off in the brain. It's crazy. And it can, without you understanding why, just you're anxious for no reason. There is a reason. But you're, in your mind, there's no reason. Like my life is good. Why do I just feel like this impending doom all the time? Well, when we scanned her, her brain, I mean literally. On fire. One of the worst that I. Had seen and calming it down. Treating the Lyme. Treating the Lyme can be. Life changing. Well, not just helpful. Life changing. And she had been telling you that I'm not right. I'm not right. Crying for no reason. Yeah. Imaging was just critical. Yeah. To getting her, because she could have done some of the things we'll talk about in the anxiety. Oh yeah. She's a perfect candidate for like, you know, self-medicating, but has too much knowledge. Been using things like hypnosis or not believing every stupid thing you think. Well, she was doing that. And it wasn't working. No, that's when you want to know. That's when you want to look deeper. Because if the software isn't working, there's something going on with hardware, right? You're so smart. I love that. I love it. So it's both hardware and software. Right. So if you are struggling with something and it's just not getting better doing the simple thing, you should look. Because if you don't look, how do you know? So. Right. It could be from a head injury. So I have this case of a guy who actually you know, Andrew, who good-looking, wealthy, purposeful, great business. And all of a sudden he's having panic attacks and nothing worked. They put him on Prozac. Now he has suicidal thoughts. They put him on Xanax. He knows the consequences of that. He's like, no, I don't want to do that. And so he came to see me and I'm like, well, when did the anxiety start? So this very important point, very important question if you struggle with anxiety. When did it start? And he goes three months ago. I'm like, what happened three months ago? I don't know. I scanned him. Clearly had a concussion affecting the left front side of his brain. I'm like, when did you have a head injury? Three months ago. I said, what happened? He was riding his bike in the mountains, in a mountain bike. His front tire hit a rock, flew. Over the handlebars landed on the left side of his skull. He had a helmet, broke the helmet, didn't lose consciousness. So he's like, I didn't lose consciousness. Therefore I didn't have a head injury, but he clearly had. And because you don't have to lose consciousness in order to have a bad brain injury. You and I've had this discussion. Pairing that was critical to the anxiety going away. So Prozac, which would have been good for some people, was clearly bad for him. Because his anxiety wasn't due to increased. Right. It was due to decreased. It was due to decreased actually. So you have to know why. So sometimes it's the gas where your brain's working too hard. It's like your foot's on the gas pedal too much. And sometimes it's because the brake isn't working. Right. So it's really important. How would you know if you didn't look? Right. So what about the basal ganglia? I know we've talked about this before. The basal ganglia, the large deep brain structures that sit near the limbic system. You've talked about that because it's important in coordinating thoughts and emotions and physical actions helps regulate movement. So what happens when that is in trouble? We are so grateful you are listening to this podcast. Virtually everything I've learned. I've learned from our patients. I've learned from the brain imaging work we do at Amon clinics. We now have 11 clinics and have over 10,000 patient visits a month. We want to serve you. If you're struggling with anxiety, depression, concussion, ADD, temper, relationship issues, it could be your brain. And I always say, how do you know unless you look? That's what we do. But we do way more than brain scans. We look at your brain and then we give you a plan to make your brain, your mind, your relationships, even your deepest sense of meaning and purpose better. Go to amonclinics.com or call us. So let's talk about the circuitry in the brain with anxiety. And I often write about the basal ganglia, big structures deep in your brain. And it has multiple parts, something called the caudate nucleus, which is where thoughts tend to get stuck. And we see especially the right one in right-handed people is overactive in people who have OCD. So they get stuck, but it sort of then becomes like a scratch on an old vinyl record. It's the thoughts begin to loop and they tend to go over and over. Another area called the putamen, lower, that is where habits come into. And I'm very interested in that because when I was little, I used to bite my fingernails. And I'm like, why do I bite my fingernails? Because it became an anxious habit. There are other structures, though, really interesting structures, insular cortex, which it makes you feel your body. And when you're anxious, when it works too hard, you begin to notice everything that's wrong, whether your heart's beating too fast or your muscles are tense or you end up anxious diarrhea, I know, too much information. And then the amygdala, sort of the fear center in the brain and the hippocampus that then remembers thing good or bad. So all of the sort of limbic basal ganglia structures are involved. And what we see with imaging is when people are anxious, they tend to work too hard. And if your frontal lobes are low, it can't break those systems. So always want to think about your brain as a system and is it too high? Is it too low? How is the symphony working? Does that make sense? Perfect. And so the one person we talked about had too much anxiety, too much activity from an infection, where the other person had anxiety because of a head injury. And the question always is, how do you know unless you look? Just like depression can have many causes. So can anxiety. And we talked about that. But also we talked about medications, things like that. But also trauma, we haven't hit on that too much. Past trauma can get stuck in the brain and cause anxiety if it gets stuck, correct? So so many people have that and they don't even know why they're anxious. Well, and when I first scanned you, so... You use me as an example a lot. It was this sweater. It was this sweater that I really liked you. And I wanted to know about the state of your brain. See, everybody thinks that's so crazy. No, it's like that was the best line. I have to tell you, it's the most unique line I've ever heard that you wanted to see my naked brain first. I always say that you wanted to see my naked brain. I'm like, never heard that line before. Well, you know, ever since I started scanning people, I'm like, if you date any of my children, I want to look at your brain. And given at the time, I was single. But I really liked you a lot. I knew for myself, I would never marry anyone until I could see their brain. And when we scanned you and you had an A score of eight. Which at the time, I didn't even know what that was. But I thought I was fine. Perfectly fine. Failed up in secure neurotic emotional. Yes. And given the childhood trauma that you had been through, I wanted to see your emotional brain. Which, by the way, I thought was very garden variety, American dysfunctional, normal family. Because I think that's what a lot of people do as their way to survive. So a lot of people listening who have been through a sort of craziness in their childhood, and you're like, yeah, but who hasn't? Sometimes we do that and minimize things to survive. But what you don't always realize is that it gets stuck in your brain. So things you might not understand. So for example, we would go for a walk. And it would drive me crazy that you're not like noticing all these things around us. And you're, I'm driving you crazy because you're like, oh my God, it's so stressful walking with you. You're always looking behind you. You're looking at cars. You're like, you're watching everything. And you didn't even understand why. You know, because you don't understand that some of those things that happen to you as a child get stuck. So don't minimize it. I published a study last year on 7,500 patients with the adverse childhood experience questionnaire. So childhood trauma, the higher the number, the more activity in these limbic or emotional centers in the brain. And, you know, I had my own traumas. They weren't anything like yours. They're different. And I'm not looking around. Like I'm always waiting for someone to jump out. Like, right. And I was actually assaulted. Now part of that, part of that is the childhood trauma. Part of that is females hold more anxiety. Well, for good reason. In general. I mean, how often do you walk to your car thinking I might get raped? Today? To all the men out there. How often do you have that thought as a female, you're walking to your car at night. And you that thought crosses your mind a lot. I have to pay attention. I have to see who's around me. So to be fair, we have more anxiety. Because you also have a larger limbic brain. Right. Because it's also involved in bonding. Right. And there's not one society on the face of the earth where men are primary caretakers for children. Right. But women are. And so our brains are different. Right. And so for the women out there, well, not just the women, I mean men too. But for the women out there, I'm talking from personal experience. If you have grown up in an environment where you were either assaulted, I was assaulted at 15 walking to high school. And drugged down an alley. And or you've had situations happen in your house or whatever it is. Those get stuck. And so yeah, when I go for a walk, I am always ready to fight. I'm just like, I is in the back of my head, always paying attention. Body language is not friendly. And you were like, this is stressful. And I didn't even understand it until I really, I mean, I was a neurosurgical ICU nurse. So I understand the brain. But from more of a medical, you're bleeding out perspective, not from an emotional behavioral perspective. Yes, it was stressful. Because I'm going to be relaxed and be with my sweetheart. And she's paranoid. Oh, absolutely. And when you come to a men clinics, we actually test your brain. We do a test called Total Brain, where we see how good you are at recognizing faces. Oh, we're doing this again. And you're very good at recognizing faces. And I think it's the dumbest game. Wait, wait, wait. Let me finish before you judge. Let me finish before you judge. And then so how good are your recognizing faces? And do you recognize positive or happy faces faster, the negative faces? Now me, I recognize positive faces faster. And you are paranoid. I'm not paranoid. I'm prepared. I am prepared. I am not paranoid. So I think it is the dumbest game. And yes, mine was very much, I noticed all the negative faces. And I got so mad at you. I'm like, why would you want me to notice the guy on the corner smiling at me saying hello? And standing with a guy that's going to jump at. We developed a game to help people train positivity. And as soon as you started playing the game, I was like, this is stupid. I don't, I want to notice the guy who's going to jump me. I'm not doing that. And now I have a dog. People are having empathy for us. Yeah, I feel safe. They're having empathy for me, actually. All right. So let's. Are you saying I increased your anxiety? Yes. I'm actually. But let us be very clear. Some anxiety is absolutely essential. People who have low levels of anxiety, direly from accidents and preventable illnesses. So there's a study from Stanford where in 1921, they looked at 1500 and 48 10 year old children. And then they followed them for 90 years looking at what goes with hell, success and longevity. And the only thing that went along with longevity was whether or not you were conscientious, whether or not if you said you were going to show up, you show up on time consistently, predictably. So you need some anxiety that don't worry, be happy people. So I always wanted to be one of those because I have an older brother who's sort of the don't worry, be happy. It's like, I have to leave work at three and I'm going to go play golf. And I sort of wanted to be like him until I realized they die early from accidents and preventable illnesses. And so when my patients go, I don't want to be anxious anymore. That's like, why don't we take it so zero to 100 from 80 where you are today down to 15. Right. So I want you to have some. Appropriate anxiety. Anxiety. To keep you on track. Like now there are lines at the airport because of the government shutdown. And it's like, oh, I have to be there three hours early. Otherwise you might not make this life. There's no way I'm traveling right now. I would be afraid to travel right now. I'm not afraid to travel. You're not afraid of much. I'm just going to be prepared. Yeah. There's just no way. So at what point does the anxiety start to control you? So I think when it begins to interfere with your life, when you think it's interfering with your life, if it's interfering with your relationships, affecting work, affecting your productivity, your happiness. Okay. So let's talk to the audience for those people out there who are anxious. Like you mentioned earlier, I think it's really important. Ask yourself, when did my anxiety begin? Like what was the trigger? What was the shift? I know I was assaulted when I was a kid. That's a trigger for me when I go for a walk. So what was the trigger? When did it happen? How long have you been experiencing it? Well, during our first lunch with the famous sweater, you told me that you were a frequent flyer in the hospital and you had upper and lower GIs. At four years old. At four years old. And by ass, I said, what happened at four years old? And you said, oh my God, you're shrinking me. Don't shrink me. Don't shrink me. This is why I didn't want to date a shrink. That was your biggest worry, right? You almost canceled your first date with me. I'm like, nothing happened when I was four. And then you kept asking questions because that's what you do and you get people to talk. And I just looked at you and I'm like, you sure nothing happened at four? And then what did you say? Well, my uncle was murdered. And you did the eyebrow thing like you're doing now. I remember the day the police were in my house, everyone was screaming. He was murdered in a drug deal that went wrong. And then my other uncle tried to commit suicide with an intentional overdose as a result of that whole thing. It was very crazy. Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with the. Of course. Because I'm a hard charging ICU nurse and I don't believe in that. And your gut has 30 feet of smooth muscle. And what happens? I'm joking. I do believe in that now. What happens when your gut, what happens to muscle when you get stressed? I mean, people know you get diarrhea, you throw up, all sorts of bad things happen. You know, it is, it really is an emotional center in your body. It's a reflection of what's happening. And we have a lot of people who are like, I'm not sure what's happening. It's a reflection of what's happening. And we know that now. I mean, I was in denial completely. So I do this exercise a lot with my patients. It's a bridging exercise. So if they have panic attacks or they're really anxious, often I'll put them in a hypnotic trance or just get them to close their eyes and go when's the first time you had that thought or that feeling. Right. And it'll go back to often. Don't you think so? You have to do that a few times. Don't you find that most people have a hard time recalling the first time it takes a minute for them to get there? Sometimes, sometimes not at all. I had Patrick who was 16 and he had panic attacks. And I got him into sort of a relaxed state. And I'm like, when you're having a panic attack, what are you thinking? And what are you feeling? And he's like, I can't breathe. I'm going to die. Okay. Now in your mind, imagine yourself getting younger and smaller and smaller and younger. When's the very first time in your life you couldn't breathe and you thought you were going to die? Boom. Four years old. Had a piece of steak stuck in his throat and someone had to do a Heimlich maneuver. He'd turn blow. It was traumatic. And his anxiety dissipated after that. So often it's just making the connection so you can then do the work. Right. Yeah. Nothing is really, really important. Yeah. So if you can, try to notice when it began. Now sometimes there's nothing. Right. Because your thyroid works too high. Right. And you know that, right? As somebody with thyroid cancer, your chemotherapy is you take high doses of thyroid every night. But yeah, I have to be careful because like we just got my test back and it's way too high. And so, and I noticed like I'm wired, tired, you know, that's how I know. Which can make you anxious and it's not psychological. No. You don't sleep at night, hot all the time. And your depression actually first started when they took away all your thyroid. Right. Yep. Back then they used to treat thyroid cancer by taking, literally taking your thyroid out and then making you wait a couple months before they gave you. Taking your thyroid out, killing it with radiation. No, no, no. They didn't give you the radiation until they waited a couple months until there was no thyroid in your body. Then they gave you the radiation. And so they don't do that anymore. It's very different now. There's a new way they can do it that they can interrupt whatever thyroid's in your system and it doesn't, they don't have to do that. It was miserable back then. Anybody who had to go through thyroid cancer treatments. Took out your thyroid. Yes. So you had no thyroid at all. And then they waited a couple months and then they gave you thyroid treatment. Well, no one explained your body without thyroid isn't going to kill you. It's going to make you wish you were dead. And that's exactly how I felt. And no one really prepared me for that. So, so I thought I was just depressed. So the treatment for that isn't prozac. Well, and I was depressed because, you know, I'm a 23 year old person who had to drop out of school, quit my job, had the life, had life by the tail, who that came to a screeching halt. So there's lots of psychosocial things going on when you go through something like that that cannot be underestimated for anyone who is going through stuff like that. However, there's the biology that has to be addressed. So you need a really good doctor who's addressing that biology for you before they just put you on something like prozac or whatever else that almost ruins your life. If it's the right medication for you, it's life changing. If it's the wrong medication for you, it's a disaster. Yeah. Another question. Do you notice anxiety spikes after caffeine or sugar? And for some people, the answer is absolutely yes. For other people, they can have caffeine at night and they go to sleep. So wouldn't you say that part of that has to do with you have a busy brain, it could make you more anxious if you have a really sleepy brain, it can make you feel temporarily good. Yes. And sugar, it's not actually when you eat the sugar. Yes, crash. It's like 40 minutes later after your pancreas is seen and released insulin and then it drops. It's something in many people, it drops too low and then they're anxious, they're irritable, they make bad decisions. A recent study we've talked about before, they gave mice aspartame, made them really anxious. So aspartame's in 5,000 products and made the mice really anxious. And then the researchers decided to give them volume and I'm like, that's an interesting design. It calmed them down. Right? I mean, that's what benzos do, volumes of benzo. No, we're not going to give people benzos to manage their diet coke. Like that's ridiculous. But the scary thing is their babies were anxious, their grand babies. So somehow epigenetically changed something. Aspartame is now in 5,000 products and if you just think of diet soda or sugar-free gum. Well, it's a neurotoxin. I think we know now it's a neurotoxin. Well, if you're anxious for no reason, kill the diet soda. It's also an excitotoxin. Lots of neurosurgeons really don't like it. And that's just one of dozens or even hundreds of chemicals in our food. Plus it's really bad for your gut because it affects your microbiome. And if you're affecting your microbiome negatively, you are affecting your mood and anxiety. And actually sucralose. There's a study that it decreased the healthy gut bacteria by almost half. Yeah. So I think it's really important if you are struggling with anxiety, you really have to investigate the physical causes, but you probably should do it with a professional because it can be crippling. So investigating it with a professional is life changing in most cases because these examples we gave you of like even the person in our own family just crying every day, even though things are great and not understanding and feeling crippled like they can't leave their house. And then treating one thing, treating the Lyme completely life changing. So but how would you know? You know, you have to really work with someone who can tell you these things. And if you try and it doesn't work, then you should think about coming to one of the clinics. Don't give up. Because you know, how do you know unless you look? And I think that's so important. There are days when I need to be at my best, whether it's back to back clinic sessions, long writing days, or just keeping up with life. That's when I take peak energy from Brain MD. It gives me clean, steady energy without jitters or crashes. And I'm not the only one who loves it. It just won a 2025 Nexty Award beating over 500 other supplements. If you want real energy that lasts, check it out at brainmd.com and use the code podcast20 for 20% off. In the next episode, we're going to talk about practical things that you can do. But there's so much hope. People who struggle with anxiety when you find the cause and you get on the right treatment, you can just be so much better.