Change Your Brain Every Day - Americans Are The Unhappiest They’ve Ever Been. Here’s Why

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Research has shown Americans are the least happy they have been in decades. Dr Daniel and Tana Amen are starting a happiness challenge to help out, and ask you to join them on the adventure.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Hey, Brain Warrior community. We are so happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy that you are with us. If you go to 30dayhappinesschallenge.com, we'll put a link for you, 30dayhappinesschallenge.com, you can join Tana and I for a month. Now, it starts May 15th, but for those of you that have ADD and are coming to it late, we're going to still keep it up. But every day,

Tan and I are going to release a new video anywhere from four minutes to 15 minutes long. And we'll have a happiness exercise for you. Americans are the most unhappy that they have been in over five decades. And we aim to do something about it. This is a perfect brain warrior community service project. It's free. What we want is we just want happier people in our lives because happiness is contagious. So we're going to talk about the challenge, but before we do, do you want to read some? I have a testimonial from Sarah Tapps from Canada.

Brilliant. Found this podcast through a YouTube video only to realize Dr. Amen's book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, literally changed my life about 10 years ago. You guys are rock stars. I love that. Yeah. Although most rock stars are messed up, so I'm not to go there. Yeah. So let's modify that a little. So you just got off a lecture. I did. It was so fun. It was for Laura's house. They deal with abused women and children. And it was, yeah, it was very purposeful. And how did it go over talking about your journey and the brain? It was great. They actually, so she loved my book,

The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child, because it fits right in with their mission. And so I talked a lot about our four circle treatment, biological, what's going on with your brain and body, psychological. Are you disciplining your thoughts? Are you getting therapy like EMDR specific to trauma? What are your social connections like and what is your purpose and meaning in life and then i talked about you know my own journey and um it was really good and we talked about well i didn't there was another presenter doing aces scores but i am fascinated by ace scores which is adverse childhood experiences and how they affect your physical functioning in your life how they affect your physical health. And I've been fascinated by that for a while. So yeah,

you are more at risk for seven of the 10 most common causes of death. If you have a score of four on the quiz for, for ACE, the ACE quiz, my score was an eight. My nieces are a nine and you are a one. So apparently I'm going to live a long time. Yeah. But living the interactions between a one and an eight are really interesting, but now you understand me. Well, I think that then, so that's nine.

So together we're 4.5. You just took years off my life. I didn't like my score. So I tried to cut it in half, and it doesn't matter anything about before. You're sort of like, you know, you're messed up. But it explains. James, put the link to the ACE test for the podcast for people to take.

It's so interesting. And so your brain was actually trained. Well, it actually changes your brain. So let me finish. Your brain was trained to be unhappy. Yeah. Because of the chronic stress you experienced, your brain was trained to look for trouble. But structurally, it changes your brain.

That's what's mind boggling. But what the exciting thing that we can tell you is you can train your brain to look for what's right rather than what's wrong. And that's what the happiness challenge is all about. It's literally to train your brain. So when you grow up in early emotional trauma as a child, it structurally changes how your brain functions. And so it's really interesting.

But what I love is that with our work, we, I love your expression, you can make your brain better and I can prove it. You are not stuck with the brain you have. And that's what I love. That's the exciting part is that when you really understand how early childhood trauma changes things like your amygdala, your hippocampus, your frontal lobes, you know, it's, it's really interesting. Now you're talking dirty to me. Right. But you can, you can fix it because we get stuck in fight or flight all the time, even when there's no threat.

Like I hear ice cubes melting in the sink and I jump and I'm like, you know, because you're always looking for a threat. But you can fix it. And that's exciting. And that's what we're going to do in this 30 day challenge. So you talked about the four circles that all brain warriors know, you know, there's a biological part to you, a psychological, a social and a spiritual. Well, the happiness challenge is based on seven secrets, seven happiness secrets nobody's talking about um except we should and seven simple questions and actually secrets one two three and four are biological i mean you know we're brain health group we're brain warriors um five is psychological six social, and seven is spiritual. And so what you'll

learn in this happiness challenge is you'll learn one of the big secrets is happiness is not the same for everyone, right? So I just listened to a great TED talk today by Sean acre. And he talked about how they increased happiness. And it was things like notice what you like gratitude, write down three things you're grateful for three new things you're grateful for every day for 21 days, and look for what's right rather than what's wrong. And that's all awesome. except it doesn't work for every brain type. Right. That some people, it works for the balanced people, but for the spontaneous people, they're

actually happier when they're causing trouble. Right. Well, they're stirring it up. For the persistent people, they like sameness. They like just knowing there's predictability and they sort of like arguing with you. Like their first response is no. And then you've got people who are a combination like me. And then there's sensitive people who are deeply feeling and empathic, but can be negative. And they're anxious people, we call them cautious. And yes, there are lots of combinations. And so we'll have people go to the brain health assessment, know their brain type and

how to help it. And so the question is, am I doing something today that makes me uniquely happy based on my brain. The second one's actually the foundation of happiness. It's the physical functioning of your brain. And none of the happiness gurus talk about that, right? I did a study on 500 patients at Amen Clinics using the Oxford happiness question. Did you ever take that? No.

I should give that to you. Yeah. And I bet you from the time I met you until now. Oh, huge difference. Your score has gone way up. No, it's a huge difference. It's 29 questions and it's score one to six. I'm a 5.4.

So I'm pretty happy. And we compared the people with low happiness versus high happiness and low happiness had low frontal function. Do not let your children hit soccer balls with your head. And so we talk about our bright minds approach that we've talked a lot about here on the brain warriors wake podcast and three is am i nourishing my brain every day i mean that's really the secret the choice is to nourish your brain every day it's why we talk about supplements like happy saffron and omega-3 fatty acids and smart mushrooms and all the different ways to nourish your brain.

And then four, all of this is biological, is am I choosing foods that elevate happiness or am I choosing foods that diminish happiness? Well, and people don't realize how much food actually does affect mood and decision making and people always want to fight that that reality. But it affects your mood and your decision making. So I have a brand new chapter. I don't know that I told you this.

There's a new book out, an academic book by academic press on depression. And it's like this 600 page book. And I have a chapter on how brain spec imaging informs diagnosis and treatment of depression. But there's also there's a lot of chapters in the book on food and on the microbiome. And there was one specifically on the glycemic index and people who eat foods that are high in the glycemic index. That means foods that quickly turn to sugar had a higher incidence of depression. And that actually a treatment

for depression is to go on a low glycemic diet. Well, and there's so many reasons because the high glycemic aspect affects your mood and your decision making, as well as messing up your gut because your gut brain connection. And there's lots of other reasons, too. But those two big things, because when your gut's not healthy, you are much more likely to have depression and anxiety. So, you know, there's, there's many reasons and people fight it still. And it's like, okay, do you not want to feel better? I'm confused. So go to 30 day happiness challenge, sign up, it's free. And we want our brain warrior community to be the leaders in this happiness challenge. And you'll be able to ask questions and leave comments.

And we're gonna measure your happiness as you start the challenge. And then we're gonna measure your happiness in 30 days. And then for those who stick with us for 30 days, we're gonna introduce you into a drawing to win all sorts of cool things. So stay with us in the next podcast. We're going to talk about secrets, five, six, and seven.

Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.