YTread Logo
YTread Logo

Feed Your Mental Health | Drew Ramsey | TEDxCharlottesville

May 30, 2021
What can we do in 15 minutes to improve

your

mental

health

? Now I'm a psychiatrist. I usually have 45 minutes. We have like years to work. It is an individual treatment. You do most of the talking. I brought my sofa. help us I'll show you how it works in a second, but I want to make sure when we start talking about

your

mental

health

that you're very clear about my mental health, I mean brain health, like maybe you woke up this morning. There's a group of eighth graders in the audience, maybe they woke up this morning scrolling and wondering about that thing that they want or need and I just want to let them know so clearly that they have it, they have the most amazing complex miracle. in the human universe you have a human brain, a hundred billion specialized cells that make you, make all of this make sense one small lapse in the health of your brain one small lapse in your mental health and the world doesn't look much alike Now you will be amazed by the miracle that this is the most advanced and effective piece of diagnostic and therapeutic equipment.
feed your mental health drew ramsey tedxcharlottesville
We call it the 3000 brain scan. Let me show you how it works. It's good because you have one of these in your house. so here we go, the brain goes right there and because if we are going to work on your mental health, this is really the most important first step if what the brain and the couch take you to the radical truth that is at the center of your mind. health like here I will demonstrate a radical truth I am a 45 year old doctor I am married I have two wonderful children confused about what to do we moved with my parents in the poorest county in Indiana like in the same house where I live with my parents the radical truth we have a mental health epidemic on our hands the radical truth is that I think none of us really prioritize our mental health is the most important aspect of our health that's really what we should be thinking about so many times we think about you know health mental illness in terms of similar mental illnesses, just as you've heard that statistic, one in five people has a mental illness, we need to be aware of that, like these people here, you with depression, anxiety, panic disorder, OCD, dementia. addiction to those people and that doesn't work for me anymore, I wonder what happens, we really change this narrative and if we stop thinking about mental illness, it doesn't work for me because if I go back to my family tree a little bit, I see everything. those illnesses depression anxiety suicide addiction dementia so I don't think it's one in five of us, I think that makes my family like yours and if five out of five of us are working on our mental health, I think that's it as we take on the mental health epidemic and that is my request to you today to think about that version 2.0 of your mental health.
feed your mental health drew ramsey tedxcharlottesville

More Interesting Facts About,

feed your mental health drew ramsey tedxcharlottesville...

What would it look like? We think about developing our physical health. There are so many things we can do. I was at the gym this morning getting ready. building my physical health, how about you are going to build your mental health? What if instead of teetering between Oh, mental illness and mental health, we actually thought about what the next version is, like what dr. Drew Ramsey mental health edition 2.0 looks oh, he's emotionally resilient, he's optimistic, he has amazing sleep hygiene, that would be great, what would it take for you? What are the things you can do every day to improve your mental health and, more importantly, in some way?
feed your mental health drew ramsey tedxcharlottesville
What are the things you are doing every day with every meal to take away from your mental health instead of having a vibrant, growing brain like all brains can be? You have a shrinking brain that doesn't fill the world. as a joyful and happy place, let me tell you that this sofa has taught me a lot about my patients. People think I treat mental illness, but I think I build mental health. Let me tell you about a young man who graced my couch recently. Well, we. I'll call him Pete Pete is a college freshman and he's struggling with his mental health.
feed your mental health drew ramsey tedxcharlottesville
The university is not working as he expected. He feels a little confused in class. He falls asleep. He can't sleep very well at night. Maybe it's Netflix maybe it's video games, we're not so sure he's having some dark thoughts he's never had before and he's a little teary, he sometimes has a hard time going out because he feels anxious, what would you do for Pete? ? It's really easy to give people advice about their mental health, like Pete, buck up, go out, join some clubs, talk to some girls, it's college, there's a new field in mental health called nutritional psychiatry and it's based on a A lot of data that looks like these researchers in Spain followed 10,000 94 college students for four and a half years and at the beginning of the study they looked at their diet and ranked how closely they followed the Mediterranean diet, you know, that great diet that works for everything with olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables lots of nuts some seafood for four and a half years students who most closely followed a Mediterranean diet were actually in the top half had a 42 to 50 percent lower risk of becoming depressed just think about that it was only half the truth only 25% less risk of becoming depressed and what about patients like Peter who already struggle with their mood?
I mean, it's a correlational study, everyone has heard that like correlations don't equal causation. A randomized clinical trial, the first to use food. to Treat Clinical Depression was published on January 31, 2017. Researchers took people who were struggling with their mental health, who already had depression and were in treatment, and added the Mediterranean diet, which sounds pretty good. They had seven sessions and what they found is over 12 weeks, 33% of those people went into complete remission of their depression, they were already in treatment like many people, but they were not improving at all, which made me wonder in my mind. clinical practice, what should I tell Pete?
I mean, make no mistake about it. I am a licensed psychiatrist. I prescribe medications. I find them useful and effective for many people. I like a lot of psychotherapy. I like it. I like to talk a lot about your mom. I think she's fascinating. Hello mom, are you talking about my mom? Later I go back to the couch, but I'm wondering what foods I could scientifically prescribe or think about prescribing to Pete and a colleague, Dr. Laurel, Opportunity and I looked at all the scientific literature, looked at all the vitamins and minerals, and tried to figure out which ones. are more correlated with depression, we found that there were 12 and then we got this question, this key to nutritional psychiatry if you're going to count calories, you should only do it for one reason and that's to find out what's called nutrient density.
It is a key part of nutritional psychiatry. We want you to eat more brain nutrients and focus on that instead of counting calories because it's like a can of coke. one hundred and forty calories kale salad 140 calories is not that difficult we discovered that there was a set of foods and it taught me a lot about how I prescribe foods, reestablishing the food categories that have the most of these nutrients and correlate with the brain health. things you read about long chain omega-3 fats and vitamin b12 b9 completely magnesium and they were divided into these categories which led to a little rhyme that I shared with Pete seafood, vegetables, nuts and beans and a little dark chocolate if he it said What's at the top of that antidepressant food scale document?
I was like um hoisters and uh water crest Pete and he didn't really think those sounded like the most delicious foods and that's why we think of food categories, it's these seafood food categories right where you find that college women who Eat two servings of seafood a week have a 25% lower risk of becoming depressed. Women who eat more fish during pregnancy or six times less likely to become depressed in the postpartum period. The researchers took this type of data. and they decided, you know, let's do something, have Pete struggle, let's put Pete in a little studio, it's really interesting, just released about three weeks ago.
Researchers in Australia took a hundred students with depression and poor eating habits and gave them a box. Like, hey, Pete, what's in here is a little box of brain food, bro, Pete. What's in the box that you open is like olive oil and nuts and these little Mediterranean diet factors and then they asked Pete to watch the video. He likes to watch videos. That worked 13 minute video What are the recommended foods for the brain? Eat more vegetables. Eat seafood three times a week. thirty percent and that the falls were maintained during the following three months compared to students who received nothing.
Changing our diet seems to deeply influence our brain and it may seem like a simple statement but it is something that we often do not connect with what we think. on how to fuel your mental health, we think mental health version 2.0, maybe it's the farmer in me, but I want a foundation to be built from real, whole foods, it's very, very clear that when we eat a western diet, your brain shrinks with age. From sixty to seventy you actually lose about the size of my pinky in terms of brain cells. Now there are many brain cells.
I think what you want is for your mental health to have as many goals that you can set in that mental health 2.0 edition, but I hope these foods are part of it. I told Pete Pete that they may not be oysters, but is there any shellfish you can eat? I've asked some of the 8th graders this before and they're like shrimp. It's a good place to start with shrimp. the most amazing source of omega-3 fats, but it's a way to start developing that palate because it doesn't work. I found a mental health just to give everyone a list of foods like eating wild salmon, eating blueberries, kale that doesn't work. helps what helps really encourages you to find a happy place with food and think about these food categories seafood, vegetables, nuts and beans and a little dark chocolate, now leafy greens that may seem difficult, but there is a food so wonderful and rich in nutrients, think of all the The calories you get in a few ounces of something like kale, arugula, or Brussels sprouts should be a staple part of your diet now, not in my seafood greens, no beans with a little dark chocolate, but I hope you include them in your mental health journey.
Another very important factor a simple test when you look at your plate do you see colors there? do you see a rainbow of colors? Pete was like a rainbow of colors in my brain, that's right Pete, it's like you should call those brain branches doc brain. box Peet's is starting to get it, bro, rainbow, so seafood, Pete, what you gon' do? Fish tacos, maybe some ceviche, right? It's one of those things that is so difficult for America. Swedish, about 14 pounds of seafood a year and not people like P Tiger and me. I grew up in the Midwest, fish meant fish pullets.
I didn't fish until I was thirty, yeah, fish dicks like whoo, but again, that challenge to yourself to develop more mental health, it's not like you wake up tomorrow and there's a better version of It's just baby steps when it comes to the meals to eliminate these foods, the foods that I think we all know now are really bad for your health, but the part that hasn't really been in the news is how bad they are for the brain, and again. that's your miracle, I mean, that's the most important asset you have so far, why nuts and beans are first of all a great snack and also nuts contain a very special scientific fact about them, There is a molecule in your brain called BDNF, derived from the brain. neurotrophic factor and in addition to building better brain cells from all these great nutrient-dense foods, we also want to get your brain into growth mode and BDNF is responsible for that;
It is the only study that has been published that looks at BDNF levels and its relationship with foods and They found that when they added walnuts to the Mediterranean diet, there is actually protection against extremely low levels of BDNF, that factor that seems to help The brain grows and repairs itself, in fact even reproducing and birthing new brain cells. I'm 45 years old, that seems incredible to me. more brain cells and why beans to the cutting edge of science and brain health is that there's a lot of things happening down here that affect the brain, we call it the microbiome, all the bugs in the gut, it's amazing because in medicine we've been killing bacteria for hundreds of years we want you to eat trillions of bacteria, billions and billions of insects down here and the type of food you eat directly impacts what lives there now why is our mental health so important ?
We've heard this buzzword inflammation, okay, it's like it's going around like a chronic disease.from inflammation, heart disease, diabetes and it turns out that depression and dementia are also related to inflammation, while this inflammation comes from well, the majority of your immune system is actually your gut and when we eat a more food based on floors. diet when we eat more of these rainbow vegetables we have a diverse microbiome that appears to support your mental health your gut is in constant contact with your brain and in fact over the last year studies have been published for the first time that analyze the microbiome of people with depression and anxiety is a little different in that for the first time in clinical trials probiotics are being used to try to do things like prevent people with bipolar disorder or mania from being rehospitalized, so nutritional psychiatry like this is often used idea that, oh my god.
If you just drink a little apple cider vinegar in the morning you will never get bipolar disorder or if you just eat a little more kale, and my patients, you and I, we all deserve better than that. That's the stigmatizing attitude that creates the notion that whatever your journey is, whether it's medication, psychotherapy, wherever it takes you, meditation, that as you build mental health 2.0, one thing. It's very clear that food needs to be part of this now there's a small moment in the session where it gets difficult our last minute there's a lot more to talk about regarding your mental health I hope it's very clear to you that there is a substantial amount of data that gives you control, that gives you something you can do every day, three times a day, four times a day, if you eat nuts, you can move that ball a little bit more towards the mental health 2.0 version of you now.
You might be wondering what happened, you know, Pete Pete 2.0, what would that look like? A radical truth. I'm Pete and I worked very, very hard to develop my mental health to take care of the mental health of my family and my patients, and I want to make sure that from this moment on you think about prioritizing and taking care of your mental health and I hope that you nourish your mental health

If you have any copyright issue, please Contact