- Hey guys, in this video,
I wanna talk about something
that is an important and topic to me
and that's brain health.
And under the category of brain health,
specifically, what I mean is depression,
anxiety, brain fog.
And these are all really serious issues
that a lot of people struggle with
and to an extent, I do as well.
So I'm saying this, not as a person
who is just talking to you about,
"Hey, this is how you should handle it,"
it's about, this is how I handle it in my own life.
It's taken me 47 years to get to this point
where I handle it this way,
but it's such a refreshing way for me to handle it.
Brain fog, ADD, anxiety, depression,
things that have hurt me a lot in life,
things that have held me back
maybe from not accomplishing my goals.
With that said, I've memorized the entire
United States Constitution, 4,543 words,
and wrote it out on a wall from memory.
When people see me do that,
they'll say, "Man, I wish I had the mental clarity
"that you do, I can't focus.
"I have brain fog, I have anxiety,
"I have depression, I have ADD.
"I wish I had your mental clarity."
And I'm like, (laughing) "You know,
"no, you don't, trust me, you don't."
I struggle with these issues of brain fog
and anxiety and depression in major ways.
So what's the breakthrough that I had?
Here's the breakthrough that I had,
give yourself permission to have ADD,
to have brain fog,
to have anxiety, to have depression.
Now, when I say permission,
that's a totally different thing than me saying,
"Hey, just wallow in your depression,
"just enjoy your depression,
"just let everything take over your life,"
that's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying do everything you can
to fight the depression and an anxiety and brain fog.
And you can do that through health and nutrition,
drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep,
seeing your doctor, seeing what they suggest for you to do.
I have videos that I've done
on how to deal with brain fog
and how to deal with depression,
and I'll put the links to those in the comments.
But even though I know
that science tells me to deal with brain fog,
and I know how science tells me to deal with depression.
Guess what, I still get depressed,
I still have panic attacks,
I still have brain fog,
and here's the breakthrough.
I give myself permission.
I might be studying or trying to read a book,
and then all of a sudden, my mind's wandering,
I'm depressed, it's brain fog,
I'm just staring out the window for 20 minutes
and I'm making no progress.
And then it's like alarm bells go off in my head.
(imitates sirens)
"You've been staring out the window for 20 minutes,
"you've been just looking out there
"in a blank stare for 20 minutes
"and you've gotten nothing done."
And it's in that moment that I think,
"Okay, you know what?
"This is something you struggle with.
"You have permission, it's okay that that happened,
"that's something you deal with.
"Now, what do we do?
"Well, let's get up,
"let's get a glass of water,
"let's walk around, let's close my eyes,
"let's take a deep breath,
"let's meditate, let's talk to a friend,
"let's pick up the phone and call somebody.
"Let's go do some things
"that are gonna switch that cycle.
"And then jump right back to the memorizing,
"or the reading, or the studying,
"or my job, or whatever I wanna do."
Previously in my life,
I'd be like, "Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it,
"you just wasted the day.
"Why do you have this depression?
"Why do you have this anxiety?
"Why can't you kick this habit?
"Why can't you do it?"
And guess what happens,
I just get more anxious,
I get more depressed,
the brain fog increases
because I'm not giving myself permission,
I'm not acknowledging that it's just a part of my life.
Because you often don't realize
you're in the middle of it
until you're 20 or 30 minutes into it.
And then 20 or 30 minutes,
those alarm bells go off, and then I'm like,
"Whoa, snap out of this. (fingers snapping)
"Let's take some time the steps now to change it."
So giving yourself permission
does not mean you're giving yourself permission
to stay there.
Giving yourself permission means,
when you're 20 or 30 minutes into it,
the alarm bells go off,
"Whoa, wait a minute,
"this is anxiety,"
I have a checklist that I go through.
Are the things that I'm having anxiety about now
real or are they imagined,
has this ever happened to me before in my life?
If it has happened, what is the worst case scenario?
Can I survive the worst case scenario
if that's what happened?
And when I go through that checklist,
my anxiety will start calming down inevitably.
If it's brain fog, it's a different checklist,
or getting a drink of water,
or getting up and doing some exercise,
some pushups or whatever,
give yourself permission
when you catch yourself in these moments,
tell yourself it's okay.
And here's the magic of this,
you're gonna find that the anxiety
and the depression and the brain fog
will happen less and less frequently
because you're taking steps to remedy it,
but you're also giving yourself permission,
which does not lead to beating yourself up,
which will just increase all of those things.
So that's my advice on that,
it's something that I struggle with,
it's what's helped me.
I'm a two time USA Memory Champion,
I teach memory courses,
I have a memory course down in the comments below
if you wanna improve your memory.
In the comments below,
tell me, do you struggle with depression,
anxiety, or brain fog?
If you do, let me know how you handle it
and let me know about your struggles with it.
We're all in this together.
Give me a thumbs up if you liked this video.
Please subscribe, I've got tons of videos
and I always put a lot of work into 'em
and so dose Caleb.
Caleb edits these, and he does a great job,
so we both would appreciate the thumbs up.
I'll see you on the next video.