Faith & Brain Health with Pastor Miles McPherson

Faith & Brain Health with Pastor Miles McPherson

What drives someone to seek a healthier brain and a deeper faith at the same time? This conversation between Dr Daniel Amen and Pastor Miles McPherson sets out to answer exactly that, with humour, straight talk, and a lot of hard stats that might make you rethink your daily habits.

Recorded live at Rock Church in San Diego, the chat centres on what Dr Amen calls a “whole four crisis” – physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual health all hitting the skids at once. You’ll hear him explain why “every day, you are making your brain better, or you are making it worse,” and how things like obesity, diabetes, alcohol, marijuana and ultra-processed foods quietly chip away at brain function.

Pastor Miles brings the spiritual punch, tying in verses like Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 6 to show that “your body is a temple” isn’t just a slogan; it’s a daily call to treat brain health as part of worship.

He jokes about his own history of football concussions while Dr Amen walks the audience through his brain scan, using it as a real-life example of how repeated head trauma changes blood flow – and how “even if you've been bad to your brain, you can make it better.” Parents and anyone working with teens will zero in on their blunt warnings about smartphones and social media.

The numbers they quote around teenage depression, suicidal thoughts, and early phone use are stark, and they repeatedly stress that these devices “were created to be addicted.” Rather than leaving things on a bleak note, they round off with practical tools: asking “Is what I'm doing today good for my brain or bad for it, and does it honour my creator?”, challenging automatic negative thoughts, turning off the news, and focusing on what loved ones do right instead of wrong.

If faith, mental health, and sobriety all matter to you, this chat might help you decide what your next brain-friendly step looks like today.