Change Your Brain Every Day - Do Humans That Live With Passion Live Longer?

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

Studies have shown that people with passion and purpose tend to live longer, happier, healthier lives. So how can you find your own passion and purpose? In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen explain how the “One Page Miracle” can help you to find and focus on the things that are most important in your own life.

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're talking about dopamine and protecting your pleasure center so that you can feel better fast and make it last. And one of the ways you drip dopamine into our brains is you send a review for the podcast. Okay. So this is Who Knew? This podcast is full of insightful wisdom for a variety of aspects you may not connect to brain health. So refreshing to know

they're looking into new ways to diagnose and treat various brain issues. I love it. So yeah, it's true because everything connects to your brain. So some of the things we talk about, you don't really necessarily think of as being related to your brain, but everything is your relationships, how you get along with your kids. I mean, every single thing, how we. Managing your money. I mean, how things are going in the world.

Every sort of thing is connected to how we take care of ourselves, right? You mean how often you tweet in the middle of the night? Don't, don't, don't, don't. Just don't. Just don't. All right. So now we're going to start into six strategies to create lasting joy from feel better fast and make it last. And strategy number one, and you've heard me talk about this before, is you need to focus daily on what gives you passion and purpose. And for me, that would be you. And I love an exercise that we tell our patients to do called the one-page miracle. Virtually every single patient I've seen over the last 30 years, I ask them to do this exercise.

This is so helpful. One piece of paper, write down what you want in your relationships, in your work, for your money, for money for your physical emotional and spiritual health why are you on the planet what is your deepest sense of meaning and purpose and it starts there so under relationships i always want to have a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship with Tana. I always want that. Now, I don't always feel like that. I may be tired. I may be stressed.

I may be mad, whatever. But no matter what is going on in my moment-by-moment life, that is the stake in the ground. And so if I'm smart, you know, when I get this random, rude, irritating thought that I think I should say, I really try to filter it through. Will this get me what I want? Kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate. And we're all busy. And you know, I'm like, I'm at an age, like many of our listeners, because they write into me sometimes, you know, hormones start to just, they wreak havoc with, with how you feel about yourself, with how you feel within your relationship. This is important when it comes to relationships, because everything's not about how you feel about something. And I'm sorry to be that blunt about it, but it's just not. Like you said, you don't always feel loving, but you know, you always want that in your

relationship. Same thing. You don't always feel sexy. You don't always feel all these things. But if knowing this is not, this is your one page miracle. If knowing this is ultimately what your goal is, you do it anyways, because it's an investment. You do it because it's the right thing to do for your marriage, for your family, for your kids, for your home, for your long-term happiness. It's the right thing to do. You don't go by moment to moment feelings because that will not get you where you want to be ever. So write down what you want, relationships, work, money, your physical, emotional, and spiritual self, and then you ask yourself every day, does my behavior get me what I want?

And people go, oh, that's so selfish. It's totally not selfish because the things you want generally are good things that move your life forward. If they're not, that's a whole other thing. You might need some therapy. But one thing I want to say about the one-page miracle, one thing I like to tell people is don't write it and put it away where you're not going to see it.

Now, if you're going to keep it on you, like in your pocket, that's fine. But I usually coach people to keep it on a bathroom mirror or somewhere where they're going to see it regularly. And one thing that I've done, like once you get really used to doing this and you do it regularly, like when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night, it's automatically, now it's just automatic. It's sort of in my head. So when I do my prayer and meditation, it's like, okay, relationship. And I would like focus on that. What do I want just, I pray good things for people in my life, you, Chloe, my mom, and I go through my list and then next business, like, you know, I pray for

our business. I pray, you know what I mean? So then you go through it. It's like, and I, it's like on one hand, I know that these are the five points that I want to like really focus on when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night and just, it becomes automatic. But if you know that there are like five, those five major categories, and then within those, it's like the people in my life, you know, business, what is it that we want to accomplish and money and all that. Notice money is only like one part of that, but so many people are so focused on that, that they abandon their health, they abandon their relationships, and then they wonder why they're miserable. The second part is, so these are six steps to create lasting joy, know what you want.

The second part is you want to start limiting low value dopamine producing activities. So those are things like much caffeine, nicotine, excessive television, politics, video games, undisciplined digital. So let's go just for one second, quickly. I know we need to keep going, but caffeine. So that was a really hard one for me. And I'm not going to lie, I still, it's not that I don't like caffeine. So you got to come up with strategies. So maybe switching to, you know, some switch some things to green tea. I, in the past, I used to drink caffeine all day long, especially when I was working in the hospital. So now in the afternoon, I switched to, I definitely don't drink any caffeine past like 1130 in the morning, switch to green tea. And in the morning we do

half cap or quarter cap. I mean, like you dilute it down with almond milk. We like, we have strategies that we're not getting a lot of caffeine-caf. I mean, like you dilute it down with almond milk. We have strategies that we're not getting a lot of caffeine. So from where I was, like when I used to drink a pot, pot and a half a day of coffee before I met you and I really understood what caffeine does to the brain, it's not that I don't have any caffeine, but I really limit it. And I still have the idea of like the comfort of a cup of coffee, but, or I'll have decaf and it still feels like you're having it. And when I met you, you were way more intense than you are now. Yeah.

I mean, intense is just part of who I am, but. But you're calmer for sure. Well, I think, I think menopause does that too. Not generally. And you're not, absolutely not generally speaking from a psychiatrist standpoint. And scary movies. Oh my gosh. This is just, standpoint and scary movies. Oh my gosh. This is just,

I, why? So you have to go. Why does the movie saw exist? And Halloween 35. I just want, but my mom used to drag me to these movies when I was little. And I'm like,

I still am traumatized. Like, I hate scary movies so much. So what do you remember? What movies do you remember? The Hills Have Eyes, Silent Scream, Onion Field. Like, I remember going to those when I was a little girl. And I still to this day ask her, why did you do that to me? Because she wore out her pleasure centers.

She's like, well, I didn't know. I didn't know they were going to be that bad. She drank coffee all day. She smoked cigarettes. She's ADD from hell. didn't know. I didn't know they were going to be that bad. She drank coffee all day. She smoked cigarettes. She was ADD from hell. Come on. Let's just say it like it is.

So this was her stimulant. But when you overstimulate the basal ganglia where dopamine is produced, when you overstimulate, you wear out the nucleus accumbens, which then requires more and more, which explains SAW 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 3D. And I'm going to throw you under the bus for a second. So I spilled my dirt on the caffeine. Yours is the mistress, okay? So he's got to put parameters around his mistress because I will get really upset and I don't

share very well. The mistress is the phone. Okay, that's the other woman, is the phone. And so he's always on the news sports, whatever. But if he, but he knows that he can't do that all the time because you know, it's not good for you. So, so we have, we have boundaries around the phone and we have to do that. And the other one is you would listen to the news way more than I will allow. Like we don't do news first thing in the morning. And I do not do news before bed. Those are my rules.

Like absolutely no news in the house when I wake up. If I come downstairs and the news is on, like I'm turning it off. This is just not going to happen. So you have to put boundaries around it. It's okay to listen to the news, but it's not the first thing I want to hear and it's not the last thing before bed. So dumping dopamine wears out your pleasure centers. So some activities that dump dopamine, besides the one we just talked about, helicopter skiing, racing motorcycles, jumping out of airplanes, running with the bulls.

Why? Why? How is that even rational? I don't know. Because it's a dopamine rush. See, for me, karate is, but that's not a bad thing. It's life without your frontal lobes. Like, you can do fun things. Drugs dump dopamine.

So whether it's cocaine or marijuana does it. Alcohol does it. Opiates do it. You press on the pleasure centers. And over time, you wear those suckers out. But oh, by the way, so does hugging someone you love. Wait, you're getting ahead of me. That's dripping.

We're into dumping dopamine. Got it, got it, got it. Other things that dump dopamine. Pornography, video games, constantly falling in love. Now there are people who get addicted to that like initially. Which we're fans of. But we're not fans of the love. But we're not being a fan of addicted.

And the one thing is fame. When you become famous and people recognize you when you go to the grocery store, that's like a hit of dopamine. And for the young actresses and singers I saw, my prayer for them is

dear God, please don't let me be famous before my brain is developed. It's hilarious. Now, Tana does not like it when people... I don't like it. Oh, she does sometimes. We're just... Where were we? No. In London. No, no, what I like... Hold on. And people recognize you. What I like is I like it when people say that something in their life has changed. The teacher in me, the helper in me loves that. The purposeful person. The purposeful

person. I don't love the recognition part when I'm just out somewhere. That kind of freaks me out. It's so weird because I always expect people people to recognize you so when someone comes running at me from like far away It freaks me out. You think they're about to talk do I get freaked out? So like someone came running up and knocked on our car window Please don't do that if you know anything about me do not do that so come up slowly say hello Don't run up and knock on my window. So sugar also dumps dopamine and ultimately it wears out your pleasure centers. And I talked about people overweight or obese. They actually have a blunted response in their nucleus accumbens, which means they don't feel pleasure, which means they have to

overdo things in order to feel normal. So people don't abuse drugs because they just constantly want to feel good. Ultimately, when you wear out the nucleus accumbens, you end up doing drugs again, not so that you're going to get high, so that you're not depressed. You're really, you're using them now as self-medication because you've worn out those pleasure centers. When we come back, we're going to teach you how to drip dopamine. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. 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 Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.