Change Your Brain Every Day - COVID-19: Get Off Your Couch and Do This to Feel Better, with Julianne Hough

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Before she danced with the stars, Julianne Hough experienced the anxiety and depression that comes with leaving home at 10 to pursue a passion. However, she soon discovered that through the therapy of dance she was able to transform her brain and her thoughts to a more optimistic baseline. In this second episode in a series with Julianne, she illustrates why dancing is the universal language, and why we should all learn to speak it.

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're here with Julianne Hough. We're having just such a great time talking about the importance of dance and the brain. And Julianne, tell us

how this became important to you. Why is this important to you? Tell us a bit about your story. Absolutely. So, I grew up the baby of five kids and dance was always relevant in our household. I mean, we constantly had music on, we were singing, we were dancing. That was our form of connection. You know, a connection to self, to feel self-expressed, but then also to connect with each other as a family union. And I then left my home at 10 years old without my family and pursued dance as a professional dancer and doing competitions and then did it more so in the world.

And dance has become a universal language. It is a language that you do not need to speak and articulate the same words. But when you dance, you connect with someone and you see them for who they really are, because you enjoy their company. You don't have to speak. You just know who they are. So as this was happening throughout my life, I've danced my whole life, but I didn't realize the impact until a few years ago when I started doing research of mental health. And when I was growing up and doing competitions, I lived in London. And I was a normal teenager without my family working very, very hard. And I had a lot of depression from being lonely and a lot of anxiety because I felt like I had to achieve, achieve, achieve. And if I didn't, I would go home. And then if I went home, then my whole life would be over.

And, you know, especially as a teenager when you're in development, it's life or death at that point. So what I realized, though, later on is that with that anxiety, and then that depression and sadness, if I didn't have my dance, and my form of expression, I would be a very different person, my belief systems, my positivity would probably be very low in comparison to what they are now because I felt like through movement through dancing through that freedom of expression I was able to transform that energy that anxiety that stress or that depression and liberate it for me to move on to the next day and not hold on to it so as as I you know a few years ago when I realized, you know what, I've done a lot of amazing things. I feel very fulfilled with what I've accomplished in my life.

This next chapter of my life is about contribution. So how can I give what I have learned throughout my life and what has helped me become who I am in my most free effervescent self. And that was through movement and dance and giving people an opportunity to heal themselves from the inside out, doing something that doesn't have to be scared or scared. Sorry, not doing something that they would have fear doing like maybe going to therapy or something like that like dance is therapy dance is a form of expression for you to um maybe say with your body or your mind or whatever that sometimes that you say something that maybe you didn't feel like you could speak in the past. When you were training to be a dancer,

did they ever, was mental training part of that to get your mind right? I mean, I understand most dance teachers don't really understand the brain and how that works, but was there any mental training? Because dancers are vulnerable to eating disorders. They're vulnerable. I've treated many of them over years to anxiety and depression. And I found many of them never get sort of the mental training that is critical to be part of an athlete's journey because you're

really an athlete. Oh, 100%. And in fact, if you look at, we're artistic athletes. And the reason why we started in the first place was out of passion, out of love, out of artistry. And then something happened where we took that art and we said, we need to win and we need to be the best. And in order to be the best, these are the things that have to happen. And so somewhere, something shifted from the artistry and the expression to now the mechanics of how

to succeed. And that I totally agree with you, the art and the passion, probably with a lot of those people that have had eating disorders or, you know, addictions, whatever it may have been, it's because they lost that, the reason they started. And a lot of what I went through as well was not a lot of mental training of continuing to enjoy and celebrate. It was win or lose, that's your option. And so for what I want to give to people, especially young people who are, whether it's dance or soccer or whatever it is, that they continue to celebrate their passions versus, and really seeing the artistry versus it becoming something that defines their worth. Well, I think so often, and this was on Dancing with the Stars, Donny Osmond's actually a friend of mine, and I think he won or was runner-up. I mean, it was something. Yeah, he won.

But it's that number people hold up, and they attach a number to you. So what makes me more hesitant to do it in public is I don't want someone holding up, whether it's a 2.3 or whatever it would be. Being judged. We're all afraid of being judged. It's that self-consciousness we have and we don't want to feel less than or inferior to other people and actually think it's the inferior flawed dragon that's driving the epidemic of teenage suicide because of social media.

And it's like, I'm not as pretty. I'm not as smart. I'm not as wealthy. I'm not as pretty. I'm not as smart. I'm not as wealthy. I'm not as whatever. But your message is that doesn't matter. What matters is you do it. Yeah, you're doing it for yourself. You know, our Kinergy philosophy is once you can connect to yourself first and foremost, put the oxygen mask on for you first, then you can relate and see the people around you with no separation or division or judgment, but just who they are. And then you can actually experience the world in its most true and pure form, which is

love and acceptance. You know, I can't even imagine the amount of information and content that we are receiving today versus 100 years ago, that that content is defining who we are and our self worth. So on social media, young girls, young men, the suicide rates, the depression, the anxiety is because we're receiving content constantly. And it's like a library of information that, at least for me and what Kinergy is about, is about getting rid of all that information. Like clearing that information out that doesn't serve you. So you can actually create the authenticity and truth that wants to come from within you and let that out versus receiving all of this coming in at you. I've never, well, actually, it's not true. When I was in high school, I was a dancer,

but I was never at that level or very good at it competitively or anything like that. But a totally different, I can relate to what you're saying. I took up martial arts about 15 years ago and all of that negative talk that kids go through went through my head. I'm too old. I'm never going to be able to compete. And I thought I finally, but as an adult, I was able to talk myself through it and go, you know, I'm not doing it for that reason. I'm doing it for myself. You know, I'm doing it for self-empowerment for, for all of these different reasons. And once I was able to talk myself through it And go and just hit pads and just have fun with it. I fell in love with it. There's this passion that happens

I'm listening to you and your passion. I'm like, oh, that's how I feel when I walk into it it's just you know, so it's you have to be able to talk yourself through that though and You know be able to do that and I think kids have a harder time and I love what you're doing Helping them do that not And I think kids have a harder time, and I love what you're doing, helping them do that and not define themselves by what other people are saying about them. And how did you go from this sort of incredible competition and competitiveness to being the eternal optimist? Was that something you were born with,

or that was something you developed over time? I think a combination of both. I think I was definitely born that way. And then I think life and survival tactics and social conditioning and all of that happens and you build up layers of survival mechanisms and, and all of that. I had to learn, unlearn. I had to unlearn the thing that I learned to protect myself. I had to unlearn it around 25 years old.

And I got really lucky that I, I was 25. Some people don't start unlearning and de-layering until they're in their 60s, you know, and so, and you know, everybody's on their own timeline. So again, it's not about competition. But I got lucky that I found this awareness of, wow, I'm not living my life for me anymore. I'm living it to be validated for the success that I have achieved. And as I started to unpack and de-layer, I just realized, man, I don't ever want to live any other way than just feeling free.

So that's how I feel. Well, it's funny when, so Tan and I, when we work with our patients, we help them not believe every stupid thing they think. So we call it killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts that steal your life. So the exercises, whenever you feel sad or mad or nervous or out of control, write down what you're thinking. And then we have these five questions. But the question that I love is who would you be

or how would you feel without the thought? If you didn't have the thought, if you couldn't think it. And invariably what people say is they would feel free. Free. Free. Free and peaceful. Learning to manage your mind is absolutely essential, but back to dance for a little bit, why I got so excited about it was at Amen Clinics,

what we do is brain imaging. So we looked at Rebecca's brain. We do a study called Brain Spect Imaging and SPECT looks at blood flow and activity, looks at how your brain works. And one of the first things I learned was mild traumatic brain injuries ruin people's lives and nobody knows about it because most psychiatrists never look at people's brains. And so that's been sort of my professional fight to get psychiatrists to look at the brain. But then I realized hitting soccer balls with your head is just flat out stupid. Your brain is soft about the consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and has sharp

bony ridges playing football I did the big NFL study when the NFL was lying they had a problem we scanned 300 NFL players and the level of damage is terrible don't let your kids play football so it's like well then what do you want them to do play table tennis tennis? And I would go, yes. And dance. Because that, there's no brain injuries with dance, at least, you know, mostly no brain injuries with dance. It's great aerobic exercise. And then as you're teaching us, it also helps you to connect emotionally to yourself and then to whoever you're dancing with now of course if you drink when you dance that ruins the benefit but that's where again like we

we throw these sober dance parties because the endorphins the experience that you get from like the high that you get the the expansiveness that you feel is what people drink to to experience and if you can just allow yourself to just be a little vulnerable just go in and it's not about doing it right or wrong or good or bad you just express yourself and have fun with it all of a sudden the high is is higher than anything you can experience and there is no come down in fact it's more sustainable so yeah you know I'm so grateful for the work that you have done and that you're continuing to do it because I really do believe especially in this time we're shifting into a new paradigm of how the world works and people are connecting to what's important and what's not important

and how do they clean their slate and have a new path in front of them and a healthier path that gives more freedom, more aliveness, more knowledge and less brain fog, you know, and just allowing us to live our most extraordinary life. And that's my hope and my dream for the world. Awesome. When we come back, we're going to talk more about dance and the brain. 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 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

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