Change Your Brain Every Day - Are Extramarital Affairs Caused by Anxiety?

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen turn once again to some “Brain in the News” topics to weigh in from a neuroscience perspective. This episode features such newsworthy topics as Bill Clinton’s affair and anxiety, Bebe Rexha opening up on being bipolar, problems with the safety claims of BPA-free products, the mental health of a potential mass shooter, and a study on the positive effects of saffron.

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. Welcome back. We are so grateful you are here. In this podcast, we're going to talk about Brain in the News. I mean, we've been talking about coronavirus,

that's clearly in the news and will be in the news. But first uh let me read a review from lewis thank you for connecting the gut to the brain didn't we just do that again and enhancing how all other pieces of our lives are connected also electronics stress scripture exercise friendships you have found a niche in my life and i am so grateful well we are grateful lewis to you um if you leave a review or a comment or a question we'll enter you into a raffle to win a signed copy of either Tana's cookbook, The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook, or my new book, The End of Mental Illness. So brain in the news.

So coronavirus is in the news, no question, but it's not the top news story. It's, there's a new docu-series out with bill and uh hillary clinton called hillary and when he said he had his affair with monica lewinsky he did it to manage his anxieties uh and in the doc he said that he had oral sex with Monica to ease pressures of the job. And he feels terrible. The scandal defined her life

and confessing to Chelsea was the absolute worst. You ever thought about this? If I said I had an affair to manage my anxiety... What do you think? I'm not thinking it'd go very well. Do you think your anxiety would be decreased by having an affair? Actually, I don't.

So what are other ways? You don't even know the definition of anxiety. Let's just put it that way. I do. Have you ever had your skin peeled off your body? See, just so everybody knows. Just so everybody knows. If I'm dead, I didn't do it.

But you deserve it. So seriously, what did you think when you heard that? It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. If you cannot, I'm just going to be honest. I don't care what your politics are. If you cannot control yourself in the Oval Office, what are you doing being the President of the United States? It's not a good excuse.

Figure out a way outside the Oval Office to manage your life. That is not a good excuse. That was a cop-out. And it's not going to work. So just FYI. You know I love you. I do know you love me. He might love Hillary.

It still isn't going to work. No, I'm not going to use it as an excuse. No, I know you're not. There's not a good excuse to hurt deeply someone you care about. Yeah, that was just a cop-out. That was a power over thing. It's often associated with very low frontal lobe. Yeah, that was an ego power over thing.

Because what I often tell my patients over and over, we talk about these two words, then what? If I do this, then what happens? If I say this, then what happens? At least with me, you know what happens then.

Because you're constantly reminding me. You are constantly supervising my frontal lobes and even though we play a lot on on the podcast um you know we actually have a great relationship in large part i think because we do trust each other and trust comes from consistent behavior over time. But there are way better ways, as Tana mentioned, to manage your anxiety from diaphragmatic breathing, to writing down your negative thoughts, to listening to music, to exercise. It's so important. And, you know, I basically spent my whole book feel better fast and make it last talking about ways to feel better now and later versus you know what happened with clinton is now but clearly not later because it's one of the things that defined you know his marriage, his relationship with his child, and his presidency.

So learning how to manage your anxiety in healthy ways is just a critical human skill. I mean, we all have anxiety now in the time of coronavirus and divisive politics. It clearly is up. I actually don't know how to say this. Bebe Rexha talks about living with bipolar disorder for the first time. I decided to open up and free myself. And that's happening more and more with celebrities. I'm in the new docuseries with Justin Bieber. And that's happening more and more with celebrities. Yeah.

That, you know, I'm in the new docuseries with Justin Bieber that he opened up. And it's really nice when they do that because it really makes it, somehow it makes it safer and okay for their fans to, it normalizes it somehow. So. Well, I'm going to be on the Mel Robbins show this week and we scanned her. And we're going to talk about the scan. And

she has all sorts of reasons for the scan that she had, including a bad car accident when she was 19 and had amnesia after the accident. She was hit by a car, actually. So amnesia after the accident. She was hit by a car, actually. So there's another article that came out.

Think all BPA-free products are safe. Not so fast, scientists warned. Interesting. So that was really interesting. Let me go to the article. Not so fast. So that was really interesting. Let me go to the article. Not so fast. This was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And so for decades, scientists have studied BPA extensively and found it's associated with all sorts of problems.

And it's found in plastics and in a lot of cans. Plays a role in early pregnancy loss, placental diseases, negative health effects after birth. And so there are a lot of companies that came up with BPA-free products, but they replaced it with BPS, bisphenol S. And what they found is the replacement is still not safe. Oh, interesting.

It's been associated that it's been found to go through the mother's placenta. In mice they found that it can cause health problems as well. And so what do you do? So I have a question. But let me just

go back to what do you do is you think of glass containers as better. And you certainly don't microwave things in plastic. Yeah, I know that makes sense. But why is it that in Europe, the FDA, the way their FDA works is products have to be found to be safe before they are approved. And with our system, they have to be found to be harmful before they will

ban them. Yeah, and that really seems backwards. It does. But when possible, it's not possible to get rid of all the plastics in your life, but work and store things in glass containers.

Yeah, no, it's hard when you're traveling and stuff like that. Than in plastic containers. There's another news feature. UPS worker planned a mass shooting and had 20,000 rounds of ammo and weapons. So police found tactical backpacks with ammunition staged at the suspect's California apartment. He was a UPS worker. Authorities searched his home,

and Thomas Andrews, 32, was arrested on suspicion of evading police, driving under the influence, and several weapons violations. And the reason we're bringing this up, because this is a story that happens over and over again, that people who worked with him noticed that something wasn't right, and they reported him to the authorities. So when you notice things aren't right, when people are talking about violence, when their behavior is off, it's so hard. Because often you'll report nothing happens. Or people are so afraid to say anything because they're like, it's so hard because often you'll report nothing happens. But in this case- Or people don't want to,

people are so afraid to say anything because they're like, well, I didn't want to be mean. I didn't want to snitch. I didn't want to like, they like don't want to hurt someone because they don't want to be wrong. But you tend to know in your gut when something is wrong. I always tell our girls,

like our two nieces and our daughters, like listen to your gut. Apologize later if you're wrong. I mean, don girls, like our two nieces and our daughters, like, listen to your gut. Apologize later if you're wrong. I mean, don't, you know, pay attention. Think for yourself. Like, don't be that sheep person who we talked about before. Don't be a sheep. Don't follow everybody else because that's just as bad. Don't just follow a crowd just because. Think for yourself. But thinking for yourself means standing up and going, I might be wrong on this, but my gut is telling me that this isn't right. And I'm going to be the one that says something, even if it's uncomfortable for me.

And sometimes you can report it anonymously to the HR person at work or even to the legal authorities. Better to say something than not to say something. i think that's the point of that story you know i mentioned divisive politics and during the time of a crisis is not the time to have devices it's so not politics i didn't turn the news on to come's the time to come together as much as you can. And, you know, think about what's going on in the country and how it's not helpful. But when there is a crisis at home, the more you can come together, forgive each other, really help with the communication, the better it is. One more study that just came out this morning.

We have a brand new product at BrainMD called Happy Saffron. And saffron has so many scientifically validated benefits from mood and memory and sexual function. It's been shown to help with PMS. And there are a group of studies on eye health well there's a brand new study that just came out on waist circumference and blood sugar metabolism and so happy saffron so i've been taking three of them a day because i'm like with all this benefit i mean i, I'm not depressed. I'm generally pretty happy. But I like that it's going to support my eyes and my blood sugar, which can be high if I don't pay attention to it. And so this group of researchers from Iran, and a lot of the studies on saffron actually come because they grow a lot of it in the world. And they did a comprehensive systematic review

of all of the studies looking at weight and blood sugar. And they found nine articles containing 595 people. And their study found waist circumference was significantly reduced. And fasting blood sugar was reduced following the saffron intervention. Interesting. And I'm like, give me some of that. Yeah, that's interesting.

And so the studies, it's about 30 milligrams, which is in our new happy saffron. Why I have a separate, well, it's not just saffron, but it has the dosages used in a number of the studies that was found to be helpful for teenage mood issues, significant improvement, and in the elderly, mood issues, significant improvement. So is it decreasing inflammation also? Well, we don't know, but in our Happy Saffron product,

there's the therapeutic dose of saffron plus 400 milligrams of curcumin, which decreases inflammation, and zinc, which actually helps them work better. Interesting. And so I'm pretty excited. I don't think we've actually formally launched happy saffron, but it's coming soon, and I have it, and I'm taking it. Anyways, Brain in the News, thank you for listening to us um if you like this podcast please post it on any of your social media points i mean just

one thing you learned today maybe saffron uh can make you happy um and post it on any of your social media sites tag us leave a question a question, a review, a comment at brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. And we'll enter you into a raffle to win either a copy of Tana's cookbook, The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook, or a copy of my new book, The End of Mental Illness. Stay with us. We're going to answer your questions next. 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

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