Change Your Brain Every Day - Can Nutrition Assist In Healing An Addict’s Brain?

Episode Date: November 20, 2017

When it comes to treating a damaged brain, nutrition can be crucial to getting the mindset needed to kick bad habits. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss strategies to make sure what you put on your fork is going to help your cause, and not hurt it.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We are talking about addiction. This is our third podcast in our series of addiction. Today, we're going to be talking about eating for the recovering brain, how to put the brain in the healing state. If you are a recovering addict, or if you're a therapist who deals with recovering addicts, this was actually requested by a therapist on my Facebook page. So, um, thank you to that therapist. We are dedicating this to you because we listened. She watched,

she listens to our podcast. So if you have, um have topics that you want to have covered, please write to us. And if they fit in with what we do on this podcast, we would love to be able to help you out. I want to read this testimonial because I love this. This is what pushes on my pleasure center since it's not drugs for me. This is my drug. I love this. It says, a must listen.

I've been listening to all of the podcasts during my commute to and from work. I learned about this podcast after having listened to the audio version of Dr. Amen's book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. It's so interesting and informative, and the podcast is an entertaining tool. The banter between Dr. Amen and his wife, Tana keeps things light and entertaining as well as comfortable while discussing many difficult or serious topics. They share personal stories, which makes them feel like friends. I highly recommend subscribing to their podcast. I would love to visit one of their clinics. So thank you so much. There's no name here. Um, but she says healing my brain. So she is a brain warrior. I think it's a she. Might be a he.

But thank you so much, healing your brain. I love that. So, and it's funny things that push on the pleasure centers. It is, isn't it? We were helping someone in our family and you had got some furniture and it came in boxes as opposed to came put together. And I looked at it and I'm like, no. And I recruited you. I mean, that reminded me of when I was like 22. But I have to preface this.

So my husband is really, really, really busy. He travels a lot. He's on your what, 40 what book? 44th book? 45th book? I don't know. Crazy. So he's doing his 13th PBS show.

It's pretty intense. So, on his one day off, I'm like, I need you to come over with me to get this apartment set up. I have four days. I got this apartment. I bought furniture, had it put in, decorated it in four days. So, it's pretty crazy. On his one his one day off I'm like I need you to come over I did not tell him that I needed him to put together furniture um but he did that and I have to tell you we all have our you know our love language well mine is acts of service and um it worked that pushed on my pleasure center I. So you put together furniture for me. He was, I have to tell you, I'm going to be really honest because we're honest here. He was really irritated. Okay.

He was annoyed putting together furniture. He's like, I haven't done this since college. Why am I doing this? And I'm like, you know, you should really stop complaining because it's kind of hot. Actually. It's nice for your wife to know that you actually know how to use a screwdriver. So let's just go with that and finish putting the furniture together because this is working in your favor. So let's leave it there.

So figure out the things that push on the pleasure center of your partner. If you want to keep a healthy. Right. It's kind of hot when your husband like doesn't own a screwdriver, but actually knows how to use one. Are you kidding? It's good. I have like 15 screwdrivers. You just never use them. Not often. No. So it was really cool. So anyways, let's talk about the recovering brain. So food and pleasure centers.

Because one of your best gifts, you have many, is taking super healthy, reparative food, medicine quality food, and make it taste awesome. So here's what I like about this. Number one, we're talking about food to heal the recovering brain, right? But it's not really significantly different than what we talk about for like what we do in our clinics in the Brain Warriors Way. In your new book, Memory Rescue, we still use the cookbook, the Brain Warriors Way cookbook. And our website, you know, Brain cookbook, the Brain Warriors by Cookbook, and our website, Brain Fit Life.

The recipes are on there. So the recipes are the same. Why? Because what's good for your brain to heal the brain is good for the rest of your body. It's going to put it in a healing state. So this is not too difficult. But then why? Because you and I both worked at the salvation army's drug treatment because they don't

know no so why when you're trying to help someone recover from an addiction do you give them orange juice bagels pancakes two reasons sugar cereals pasta um dessert why would you put the brain that is already damaged into a toxic food environment? So two reasons. Some people don't know. And most of the leaders are addicts. That's the truth. They are food addicts. So they're really hurting their own mission. And getting people to change their food, oh my God, that's so hard. Even harder than getting people to admit that they need to get off substances. So because food is pervasive, it's an everyday thing you can't get away from. But here's the thing.

Sugar and processed food, so when sugar is combined with trans fats and salt and it's in certain combinations, and especially in the processed form, it pushes on the same part of the brain as heroin and cocaine, that nucleus accumbens. So sugar and fat. Only it's eight times more effective because sugar is, it's highly addictive, right?

So it's really, and it's these small little pushes. So, but don't you think it's just a little nuts that they're feeding addicts addictive food well and when we it damages their ability to get well because it's wearing out their pleasure and it keeps them constantly so the part of their brain that triggered their addiction is constantly being triggered. So all they need is to be a little too tired, a little too hungry, a little too lonely. And if that part of that pleasure center is being triggered, they're going to be thinking about addiction. So you just started with the acronym to help prevent relapse, which is HALT. And we call it HALT Plus. But don't get too hungry because low

blood sugar levels are associated with lower blood flow to the brain, which means more bad decisions. Don't get too angry. We've actually done studies of people focusing on what they love about their life versus what they hate about their life. And when you focus on positive things, your brain works better. If you focus on negative things, it's hard to learn and it's hard to make good decisions. Don't get too lonely. So H-A-L, lonely. Because when we're disconnected from people who care about us and that we care about, it actually has a negative impact on the brain. Did you know that loneliness is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease?

Yeah. And don't get too tired. If you don't sleep, you have lower overall blood flow to your brain, which means more bad decisions. Car accidents are more bad decisions. And one of our- Car accidents are more pervasive. One of our famous young patients, his blood sugar was dangerously low, and that's often when he might make bad decisions. And one of our very famous patients, did you say are physicians or patients?

Patients. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're talking about the same person. But they didn't realize how low his blood sugar was. And he was getting himself into a lot of trouble. And so when people do bad things, rather than judge, go, why? And if you can be curious and not furious, you just can be so much more effective. So one thing I want to point out since you brought

up the treatment center that we put our program into, the results when we finally explained to them why it was so important to change the food and really educate the people, the people just took it in. I mean, the people that were recovering took this information and they understood it. They were excited because these people wanted to get wealth. They understood it. It was harder getting the leaders on board because that was a harder thing to do. But these people who were recovering really understood it and our results were off the charts.

It was unbelievable how well they understood it. So talk about what did you have them eat? Okay. So they went from white bread, sugar, pasta, you know, the cheapest food they could get. We still had to do it on a rock bottom budget. So I'm going to be honest. I mean, we're not doing this like 100% with all 100% perfect ingredients. And we still made it work. Okay. So even doing it about 80 to 90%, we made this work amazingly well. We cut out the worst things

first. Okay. That's all. We always start with cutting out the worst things first. So we cut out white sugar. I mean, we just got rid of the white sugar. And then we started next with things like the white bread and the, um, like white potatoes. So we switched those things. So we did things like added stevia. Okay. Um, we added brown rice instead of white rice. We switched. Now I would rather you get rid of bread, but they added some wheat bread when they could, they did gluten-free things. Um, we, cause you know, in a perfect world, we would get, have you get off of all grains for a while. We couldn't quite do that there, but they limited grains. They started doing like lettuce wraps. They started doing sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. So we switched some of the most

toxic things first. Right. Um, and this was without getting rid of dairy. We would have you take dairy out for a month and then sort of add it back in and see some people will tolerate it fine and others not as well, right? So we didn't do that. We were not able to do the dairy and we still had these amazing results because what we did- So we increased the vegetables, we increased the healthy protein. 70-30. 70% plant-based foods and 30% high-quality protein. And we cut out as many of the refined carbohydrates as possible. Right. So low-glycemic, high-fiber foods were the center of this healthy protein. And we went to things like steel- cut oatmeal instead of frosted flakes.

And do you see what I'm saying? So we didn't, it wasn't 100%, but it was way better than what they started with. And what were some of the results? Oh my gosh. So I'm going to use Thomas. Thomas was one. He ended up losing 85 pounds. He finally passed.

So he was a gang person. Oh, yeah. The gang unit broke into his house. How did he end up at the Salvation Army? Well, gang unit broke into his house and they took his six kids away and he went to prison. And when he finally went up for parole, the judge said, you either go to Salvation Army or you go back to prison. And so he was great. These people scared me when I first started because of my background,

but he ended up being amazing and he lost 85 pounds. He finally passed his GED. He said he could not focus before this. He, he didn't understand the role that food played. Now for him, the spiritual component was huge, massive. I mean, God in his life for him was a massive component. The big, that was the big thing that he added. And then he said what surprised him though, that didn't surprise him. What surprised him was that food made such a big difference. So the food for him, he didn't know would make a difference. He didn't understand that the brain fog, he thought he was stupid. He thought that he was dumb. And all of a sudden he could think his brain fog cleared and he passed his GED after the third

time. Um, so he left this, he wrote me this amazing testimonial that I just, um, it was amazing. He said, my life was a mess and now it's a message. I've been tested and now I have a testimony. I was a victim and now I am victorious. i went through trials and now i am triumphant and he ran up to me with his giant pants and gave me a big hug and i have to tell you it was really it was a really weird moment for me so his giant pants that he didn't fit into anymore right because he lost 85 pounds got his ged right completely transformed his life. And none of it was hard. And he did a video with me on how to do this on a very, very rock bottom budget. And it's on YouTube. You can still find it. So it was really cool. And then another one was John. John said,

he said, I have a six pack now, but the kind that won't get me arrested. So I just love that. So, so i mean he lost like i don't know 40 something pounds but he's he said i have you know i finally have a six pack but it's the one that won't get me arrested i just thought that was so cool i mean i had dozens of these testimonials so food matters food so if you want to rescue your brain it starts by knowing your type and by loving your brain but you got to get your food right. So let me, but everything you put on the end of your fork matters because it affects your mood day to day. This is not just a long-term thing. It affects your mood day to day.

It affects the moment to moment things you do. It affects your outlook. We talked a little bit about, you know, food affects dopamine, whether or not you need more dopamine. It affects whether or not you need more serotonin. And we talk about this in great detail, um, in the brain warriors way cookbook about what to eat for, you know, helping if you need to settle down your anxiety, um, what you need to do if you need to increase your focus. Um, so all of those things are in there, but all of the recipes are designed to help the recovering brain. So you can go to my, you know, to the website, tanaayman.com. Or if you're a member on BFL, you can go to BFL and all of the recipes are on there. Brain Fit Life, mybrainfitlife.com.

Mybrainfitlife.com. You can get the book for, you know, $20. You can get Brain Warrior's Way cookbook. And it's got all of the herbs and spices, the recipes, um, what, why to do this, how to do this on a budget. It's got literally all these tips and you know, people sometimes will say, well, you're selling your book. Yeah. I'm selling my book because for that amount of money, why would, I mean, that's why we write it. But the point is, is for that, for that amount of money, you're getting an enormous amount of information to help you put your brain in a

healing state. I really dumped my heart and soul into this book to help people with this specific topic. So I would just strongly suggest you do that. Cut out those most toxic foods first, the sugar, the white rice, the pasta, the potatoes. Um, if you can cut dairy back, at least the milk. Um, and then, you know, if it's yogurt or whatever, that's not quite as bad. Um, add those more, you know, add more vegetables, the clean proteins and see what happens. This is going to be amazing, but there are supplements that will help too. And I don't know if you want to do that in a separate, a separate podcast. Cause it's, this is long. I mean, there's a lot here, right? That's why we wrote the books we wrote, um, to help you with this. Well, we hope people will stay with us for a long time. And I could keep going on and on. So stay with us. We

will be back. You're listening to the Brain Warriors Way. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook we give away every month.