Does living in the country – versus the city – living make you healthier?
Is nature important for your mental health?
How do I help people change using kindness instead of fear?
Promoting a book means a lot of interviews and in the pandemic era, that means I am recording podcasts almost daily. And I love it. With Eat To Beat Anxiety and Depression launching in a few weeks, I’m getting to explore the book and answer questions with a variety of journalists, podcasters, and social media influencers.
Tom Bilyeu co-founded Quest Nutrition, grew the company to a 1 billion dollar valuation and launched his show Impact Theory. Going into the interview, I did a little research on Tom and I was a bit nervous….after all, he has interviewed all the experts I know. He wasn’t going to be surprised by my food recommendations. In fact, he starts the interview saying as much.
Tom is interested in what makes an impact and particularly interested in efficiency. And with that, the mash-up conversation of brain nutrition, male mental health, and the challenges to our mental health today unfolded. Tom was particularly interested in the new addition to my mental fitness routine: a large horse.
SHOW NOTES:
- [01:05] The current state of depression.
- [1:25] Why nutrition is the easiest way of influencing depression positively.
- [2:41] A psychological lever to reduce your anxiety.
- [3:36] How your anxiety is influenced by the food you eat and the food that causes Tom anxiety.
- [6:44] What creates lasting change, and how to lead with kindness to change behavior.
- [8:40] Why most diets fail.
- [9:25]The food basics almost every Nutritional Psychiatrist agrees on and why they matter.
- [12:03] Drew reveals the things that are NOT part of every good diet.
- [14:29] One thing Tom and Drew disagree on.
- [19:11] Why knowing where your food comes from can help you cure loneliness.
- [24:40] The big benefits of eating seafood and the top 3 kinds of seafood to beat depression.
- [28:00] How Omega 3 fats in seafood work like snipers in your immune system.
- [30:25] Drew’s take on being vegan and which fats are bad for you.
- [33:35] What you should rather do than buying expensive tests and supplements.
- [34:34] How moving away from New York to a farm improved the mental health of Drew.
QUOTES:
- [1:05] “Its an epidemic. Everything is going up. Depression is up…Recently showing male depression is up 60-70% over the last 12 months.”
- [1:55] “They found that the risk of depression during quarantine, if your nutrition is bad, went up over 1000%.“
- [7:15] “There are foods that people need to cut out of their diet. Diets need to change drastically…”
- [12:12]“All good diets are lacking ultra-processed foods. The reason I think they’re evil because of the way they increase inflammation.”
- [26:00] “We did a research study where we said: When we look at all the literature, what are the top nutrients that are most important for brain health and helping depression? Twelve nutrients stand out. So we asked ourselves: What foods have the most of these 12 nutrients? Aside from plants, 3 of the top 5 foods were seafood.”
- [42:57] “I have treated people with every type of mental illness, and it’s actually what gives me hope. It’s what gives me strength and resilience. I have seen people who have it so hard with what happens in their minds, and to see them just do amazing things: Start companies, have families, whatever it is, makes me very hopeful.“
