Change Your Brain Every Day - Can’t Stop Eating at Night? Here’s What We Recommend

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

You have questions? Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen have answers! In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Pocast, the Amens answer some of the questions that have recently come in from our listeners. This episodes features tips and information on such topics as nighttime eating, the meaning behind overactive brains, and dealing with personal relationships when an infidelity is involved. 

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. In this episode, we're going to answer questions that you submitted and we're grateful for you, but you have another winner.

I do. This one is from Shakib Hikmat. And it says, I love this podcast. This is from the United States. I love this podcast. I can't believe it's been going on for as long as it has, but I'm glad I know now about it because I have so many episodes to listen to. Why do I love it? Dr. Amen and Tana Amen cover very well the various aspects of how we can be taking care of our brains and bodies to live healthier, smarter, and up to our potential. I quit drinking in part because of hearing Dr. Raymond and Tana on Jim Quick's podcast. I highly recommend this podcast for anyone. And my second favorite part about it is that these episodes are so short and yet still full of knowledge, which is my favorite part. So that's fantastic. Thank you so much. And if you, um, if you left

your, if you left these reviews on iTunes, please make sure you go to brain warriors, way podcast.com. If we read yours and leave us a message in the comment section on how to get a hold of you. Um, cause we don't have a way to reach you. If you're on iTunes, we are grateful for your reviews. And so if you do submit a review on either iTunes or Brain Warriors Way podcast, we will, or any of the formats where you can do that or platforms, it'll submit you into a drawing to win one of our books.

Either your book, The End of Mental Illness, my cookbook, The Brain Warriors Way Cookbook, or my new book, which is The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. So, and we will sign those. All right. We have questions. I want you to answer the first one. How do you get past infidelity when the person it was with is still in your life? Get the person out of your life. I mean, I'm not making light of this.

I, infidelity is so tricky. I think it's so hard for people to heal from. It occurs for so many different reasons. But I think having that person in your life, it sounds like it's triggering you. And I guess I would ask, why is that person still in your life? Is there just no way to get that person out of your life? Yeah. I mean, what if it's your sister-in-law? Well, for me, it wouldn't be anyone. For me. Yeah.

I know. That's why I wanted you to answer the question. For me, we're clear. Because it's really, I mean, I think you're right. It's really tricky. And forgiveness is so important. For you. We've had a number of episodes on forgiveness, but the problem with

having the person in your life is you're constantly being triggered. And that's where something like EMDR or havening can be so helpful to help deal with the trauma. But whenever there's infidelity, you know, it's easy to blame the person as bad. It's often you want to take a deeper look into why that happened and what you can do to prevent it in the future. And sometimes you butt up against sex addiction or people of really low self-esteem or people have had brain trauma. Or sometimes- They have judgment and impulse control issues. Or sometimes it's because of issues you've had in your relationship. And it's not like

someone woke up one day and went, I think I'm going to go mess up my life today, it's because there was a lack of intimacy already. And so be honest with yourself if that's true. And the forgiveness piece, which I love that you brought up, so many people have a hard time with that because they're like, I just, they don't deserve it. But do you deserve it? It's not for them. It's for you.

When you forgive people, you release all that negativity. It's, you know, hating people is like, I love what, um, the saying it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. So when you forgive them, you stop drinking the poison. So, and one thing I love, I love Byron Katie's expression, um, which helped me so much at a hard time in my life. Um, It's like this person did this to you once or that you found out about it once, but you've been replaying it in your mind probably a thousand times. Who was less kind to you?

Who was meaner to you? You were the person who did it. I'm not making light of it. I'm saying when you allow your thoughts to continually torture you, it's not a good thing. Yeah, I love that. I think that's so important. I'm going to be on Dr. Phil coming up, filmed just last week from when this episode is being

released. And about 10 years ago, I told the story of 10 years ago, Dr. Phil, I was on Dr. Phil for compulsive cheaters. And I evaluated Jose who cheated on his wife eight times in four years. She had the hydro. And yeah, she had a gun. She was about ready to use it. That's how they ended up on Dr. Phil. And, you know, his his brain was troubled but he just did everything I asked him to do and within seven months or so you could just tell he was just making much better decisions his brain was significantly better and he ended on finishing college going to nursing school and just graduated with a nurse anesthetist degree.

And he's still married to the same woman and has not been shot. Yeah, it's a good thing. Another question was, I just got a SPECT scan at one of your clinics. Can you talk about what an overactive brain means? So SPECT basically tells us three things, good activity, too little or too much. And then our job is to balance it. And when the brain works too hard, it sort of depends on where it works too hard,

but it's often associated with anxiety and worry. I often describe it as you have a little mouse in your head and the mouse is unhappy and the mouse is on an exercise wheel and it can't get off. You just see the anxiety and the problems go over and over and over and over. And so when we see the brain works too hard, we'll use strategies to calm it down, such as happy saffron or GABA calming or serotonin mood support, everyday stress relief, theanine is a way to balance your brain.

So when your brain is overactive, you tend to spin on. That happened to me during all the social stuff that was going on and I couldn't sleep. And so I started taking GABA and I can't take it during the day. It makes me a little slow. For some people, it does that. And for others, it doesn't. But when I take it at night, it's just amazing. And I have to admit, I did notice that I say no much less often,

which is a really good thing for me. So I'm doing it for her sort of with a better brain comes a better relationship with a better brain comes a better way. All right. We only have time for one more question. Um, how to stop night munching. Oh yes. I love this one. So the first thing is what are you eating during the day? That's the first place I'm going to go with it. What are you eating during the day? If you are eating simple carbs, you are going to crave simple carbs. The more carbs you eat, the more during the day? If you are eating simple carbs, you are going to crave simple carbs. The more carbs you eat, the more carbs you crave. If you cut that cycle and you manage to just, you know, you might have to white knuckle

it the first day, but I actually have a ton of strategies in Brain Warrior's Way and the Brain Warrior's Way cookbook to help you with this. So the first few days when I'm helping someone break this addiction to their nighttime munching and it makes you really hungry when you eat carbs is that when you switch to no simple carbs, I mean, like be really strict for the first three days. And when you get hungry, switch over to things like cut veggies. I'm not talking about all carbs. I'm talking about like simple carbs. So switch over to things like cucumbers and celery and stuff like that, just to munch on something. And then you can even have some guacamole with it, have fat and protein, healthy fat and healthy protein together throughout the day in small amounts.

It will not only does it balance the hormones of metabolism, but it balances your blood sugar. So you don't feel that need to like constantly eat. Um, but it also sends the signal to your brain. So the hormones of metabolism, meaning it sends the signal to your brain saying that you're full, that you're satisfied. When you eat carbs, it thwarts that signal. So make sure you're doing that. And then after the first couple of days, you're going to start to notice that those cravings go away. And then it's not that you can't munch on something, but make it something like veggies, make it something healthier, and it will start to go away. Another strategy that really helps is start doing intermittent fasting. So go 12 to 16 hours between your last meal and your first one of the next day.

But to get to that point, if they're craving. Well, but if you know that's what you're doing, then you really do stop eating at seven o'clock at night or six o'clock at night, because you have a strategy that will help you so much. Serotonin mood support has been found to be really helpful. Um, actually got something in it called Satterial that has been shown to decrease cravings. BrainMD also makes, uh, craving control and it was not just for food. It was also helping with cravings for drugs and alcohol, sex addiction, and so on. All right, well, we're out of time. And, you know, we're just so grateful that you're part of our Brain Warrior community. We want to create a revolution in brain health, and that is going to require Brain Warriors.

That's why it's called the Brain Warriors Way podcast. So if you learn something great, write it down, post it on any of your social media sites, hashtag Brain Warriors Way podcast, and then leave us a comment, question, or review. And share it, please. Share it, but leave it on Brain Warriors Way podcast, or leave it on Apple podcast. Put your contact information in the comments section of Brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. Thanks so much. 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 considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.