Interview with Dr. Joe Bates author of Making Your Brain Hum
Dr. Joe Bates, M.D., FAPA, FAAP is a double board-certified award-winning psychiatrist and pediatrician who recently retired as clinical director at Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas to spend more time serving his fellow veterans by getting help & answers to their most asked questions. His current role is proving the power of true brain training that changes the way people age, think and feel across the country. His mission is to help people balance day to day wellness in a ‘smart device life’. He is a native of Homer near Shreveport, Louisiana, and graduated from LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans, where he was president of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and was honored with the “Highest Ideals of Medicine” Award.
Dr. Bates received the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam with the US Army as a major in the Medical Corps. He completed residencies at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and has taken a leadership role in medical practice and teaching for the past fifty years. In 2013, Dr. Bates’s designed the Wellness Program that was the recipient of the David Pharis Award for making significant contributions to the safety and quality of inpatient care and outcomes for Texas state psychiatric hospitals. This program has recently been endorsed by the Joint Commission and is included in the national Leading Practice Library.
Dr. Bates is a member of the Christian Medical Society and has traveled to Russia, Estonia, and Belize on mission trips. He was awarded The National 2015 Mensa Intellectual Benefits to Society Award for his work with cognitive remediation training. He and his wife, Paula, live in Tyler, Texas, and are the proud parents of four children and grandparents of thirteen.
His latest and ongoing achievement is helping people age, think, feel and live better with a series of personal brain fitness workouts he developed proven to increase confidence, hope, well-being, energy, and best of all memory. The exercise method is called braincardio™. Government agencies are using braincardio™ training to help increase cognition at work, home, and specifically, active senior-life. He is the author of the award winning book, Making Your Brain Hum: 12 Weeks to A Smarter You. The scientific success of the book stems from the CRT (cognitive remediation therapy) study that was published in Current Psychiatry, April 2016. He enjoys speaking across the country about the beauty of building brain power and has been interviewed on TV, radio shows and national magazines about mental fitness topics. He is currently right in the middle of teaching someone to live their best life, RIGHT NOW.
Can you tell our readers about how you are helping to de-stigmatize the focus on mental wellness?
What’s at the core of living well, not only for ourselves, but our family, community and world? Our collective mental health. I would be bold to say most of the news stories we hear today are because of mental health issues or challenges. This is from how we lead our own lives, our families, our career and hour our worldview is really built, or what people refer as ‘our true selves’. Knowing this, I wanted to do as much as I could to continue helping people with my chosen profession(s), a Psychiatrist and Pediatrician and keep working as I get older. I love what I do. So, I wanted to do everything I could to make sure my own capacity for clarity, energy, memory, and well-being remains solid. It was my goal to find a way to continue to recharge my brain now that “growing our brain” is a proven fact, or what we as physicians call ‘neuroplasticity’. This certainly wasn’t taught to me in medical school! I researched on my own a way to recharge my own brain and put myself to the test, and found the National A.C.T.I.V.E study results done a few years back was extraordinary. (google it!) The study energized me to help my mental health patients who had cognitive decline and design specific brain exercises that would ‘workout’ the entire brain, mine included! After a few years, I finally found the difference between true brain exercise that sharpens the mind and works, or what I call, ‘making the brain hum’, with my vision of ‘braincardio’ fitness, NOT mere brain entertainment which is a waste of time. Next came making a few revisions to make brain exercise courses available to the general public, and here I am today helping people Think Better all because of trying to think better myself! Mensa selected the program as the winner of the national 2015 Intellectual Benefit to Society Award. When you find something that really works, you don’t care about ANYTHING else, especially as a physician, to help people help themselves feel better, heal, and most importantly, have hope for the day, after day and live in wellness. Today in my mid 70’s I’m even more invigorated now that I know my bigger mission in life JUST STARTED! — helping one individual after another live their best life by knowing how to take care of their best asset, their brain, even after trauma, disease, mental health issues, or just getting older. Mindfulness is now being taught just like cardio workouts started in the 80’s so I’m hoping this is the new decade and “age” of great Mental Health Fitness & Awareness. Every time I see someone talk about their fight for mental health, from super star to the ‘guy next store’ I stand up and praise them for their courage as it encourages more to ask for help, seek guidance and find wellness. These are NOT your ‘mammas mental health coverups’ anymore! YES!
Was there a story behind why you decided to launch this initiative?
“Did they make it?” When I tour or speak, the biggest WOW that I hear from the audience are when I show “before and after” pictures of three dear loved people in my own family — that when you see them “before”, you think they would not be here today, or thriving. These three medical miracles in my own family are examples of neuroplasticity at work and jettisoned me to help others. There’s nothing more powerful than being up close and personal with what you saw happen, my own experience of Brain Power at work. People gasp when they see my own family members incredibly well, or some that are called “Super-Agers” because of training their brain with specific types of exercise that at first were doubted. Braincardio is based on the awesome concept of stimulating neurocircuits and growing new brain cells but also having fun, which as humans, if we’re not having fun, or seeing the benefits or payoff, we’re not returning. Having a dream does not have an age restriction. Learning can, and should, occur throughout life. Dementia is never a normal part of aging. We have the power to reduce our chances of developing Alzheimer’s by lifestyle choices, such as making our brains hum with optimal mental stimulation. It’s why I think to myself, “these are some of the most exciting days in which to live now that it’s proven, we CAN heal our brain!” Now we just need more brain champions to get other people excited about taking care of something they can’t see, like their biceps grow at the gym.
In your experience, what should a) individuals b) society, and c) the government do to better support people suffering from mental illness?
This whole thing about “snap out of it” just sucks. Sorry, that’s not a medical term but it’s how I feel. Mental health problems today are fortunately having less of a stigma, but many people continue to think the individual can “snap out of it” and consider the underlying cause as a character weakness. Because you can’t “see” the illness, like a broken leg, rash, or surgical scar, “what’s the big deal”? I think there is also an uncomfortable feeling of not knowing how to respond or offer help. ‘Don’t talk about it; you might make them cry.”
More education needs to be offered to the public along with the caveat that help really IS available and most importantly accessible like you see someone walking into a gym to get a great workout. We should perceive ourselves and each other that when our brain hurts or feels weak, we should ask for help and find it easily. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is ubiquitous and does not respect any socio-economic boundaries. It’s also why we are enamored when a famous person comes out like Lady Gaga and talks about mental health issues which is great! But now, we need to figure out how the ‘average person’ finds help easily as fractured toe or sore throat. This is why developing a health care system that works today is difficult, but I’m certain we shall find a way to incorporate mental fitness/health into the system just like how we take care of heart health, or our cholesterol levels. It starts by more people that are so-called normal, just like you and me, saying we’d like to keep our mind healthy too and sign up for preventative care without that mental health stigma attached.
What are your 6 strategies you use to promote your own wellbeing and mental wellness? Can you please give a story or example for each?
My personal strategies are the B.R.A.I.N. acronym: Believe, Recover, Activate, Inspire, Nourish. I exercise, read, attend movies but discuss them with others, stay involved within my community, concerts, church, and lectures. I continue to pursue my “purpose” of helping others through counseling and prescribing medicines, which requires ongoing study in a continually evolving field. I always ask people, “what did you learn today?” Learning to become proficient in electronic medical records continues to challenge this “digital immigrant,” who did not grow up in the computer age, but never thinking, “I’m just too old for that”! That’s just an excuse. Have you really seen that when humans really want something, they figure out a way to get it or at least attempt? How do we make training our brain fun? It first comes by taking the time to stop and literally think about what things you’d like to do in your life, what is feasible, and scouring out doubts and to TRY NEW THINGS without fear of failure. Fear of failure is so boring! Oh, and that’s any age. Kids do braincardio best, they just “try new things” and grow! In fact, because I want to “walk the walk”, I challenged myself to pick up the saxophone that I played in high school and wanted to read and play music again. That’s learning an entire new language and skill set and now I’m playing in a band. I’m not the best, but hey, I like ‘Saxophonese’ very much, thank you and I play my sax in front of people when I’m asked to speak about brain health. What’s my main riff? “If I Only Had a Brain!” That song always makes me smile because we all have so much potential it’s mind boggling.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources that inspire you to be a mental health champion?
One of my most favorite book is Making Your Brain Hum: 12 Weeks to a Smarter You because it’s one of the things that changed my life. Sure, my name is on it, but my grandkids even helped me bring this book alive! My podcast is actually listening to my own thoughts and siphoning out the ‘junk’, not relying just on my feelings and trying new things — and that can even be, doing a loving thing for someone even if I don’t ‘feel like it’. Feelings lie, but staying aware and rooted in reality that we are all unique and beautiful with gifts to share with others is what I plug into daily. I want others to do the same. Can you imagine what our world would be if we were all using our gifts to help ourselves and others thrive? Yes, I can and why I’m unstoppable about all this brain talk!
