Change Your Brain Every Day - Dopamine: Can You Have Too Much?

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

Deep in your brain lies the nucleus accumbens, which plays a major role in how we as humans experience happiness. But what happens when we overload our brains’ pleasure centers? Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen dive into some material from Daniel’s new book Feel Better Fast and Make it Last to explain how to properly feed your brains with the stimuli that will leave you feeling happy.

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. Thanks for being with us. We continue on our series, feel better fast and make it last. And we've gone through our brain XL formula. You got to get your brain right and then your rational mind right and then your attachments. And we're going to talk about inspiration. And talking about inspiration, I am here with Tana, who inspires me every day in so many

ways. And your reviews, when you write a review of the podcast, it inspires us. We read them. It also helps us because we know what you guys want to hear and we like doing that. So I want to read this one. This is from Kindred Spirit. Love, love, love your podcast. I listen regularly on my commute to and from work. I've been a fan ever since the Daniel Plan. It's a long time. Ever since the Daniel Plan came out and I Googled you to see just who Rick Warren was. So they started listening to Daniel plan without even knowing who's

Saddleback church or Rick Warren was, um, and was keeping company with big fan of daily hope. Also, I get your regular emails as well. So, and so much appreciate the good advice and great information. I share much information with my human AP students during our nervous system unit.

That's awesome. I really appreciate reinforcement of basic concepts I've preached for three decades, as well as the newer modern info that is not in the textbook yet. Keep doing what you do. You are changing lives for the better. Awesome. Thank you so much. I love that.

Yeah, me too. So in this week, we are going to talk about an area of your brain that's so important and it just doesn't get any respect. It's called the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens. What's that? It's a little pleasure button in your brain. You have two of them. And when you push on them, you feel happy, driven, motivated.

You're going to do it again. And it works on a neurotransmitter called dopamine, but you don't want to push that thing too often. Otherwise, you wear them out. Well, and we write a lot about this. This is precisely why food is addictive. It's precisely why, I mean, certain things become addictive like video games and stuff like that. So it's because of this little nucleus accumbens thing and what happens

to it when you do certain things. Well, interesting. There's a book on this, on how the Silicon Valley steals your mind. And the food companies have known about it for a very long time. And the book is called Hooked. And it's how to create addictive products. And so our iPhones or your Samsung phone is totally addictive. And it was purposefully made that way. So it's constantly stealing your attention. But we're going to protect your pleasure center so that you can live with passion and purpose and avoid addictions and depression. And passion and purpose is associated with so

many good things. Like longer life and happier life. Longer life, better sleep, self-love, personal growth, more happiness, less depression. It's also purpose has been associated with mental sharpness, less risk of Alzheimer's disease, and slower decline with age. Isn't that interesting? That's so interesting. And here at Amen Clinics. Lower risk of Alzheimer's disease because you're purposeful. That's fascinating. Because you're purposeful. That's so interesting. And here at Amen Clinics. Lower risk of Alzheimer's disease because you're purposeful. That's fascinating. Because you're purposeful.

That's just fascinating. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning. It gives you a reason to eat right. It gives you a reason to do the right thing. And here at Amen Clinics, we actually have our purpose statement. We want to change how psychiatric medicine is practiced by 2024 by adding imaging. We talk about that on the podcast. Natural ways to heal the brain in a personalized medicine context.

Yeah. And in a, you know, like on a very personal level, I know some of you will relate to this if you are parents or, you know, you've got parents that you take care of, things like that. Because I've got a daughter, right? That's underage. And I often, it just, it, there's this little bit of worry in the back of your mind

that you need to take care of yourself because you know you've got this person you have to take care of. And that's always been there for me from the minute I became a mom. How I take care of myself completely changed the minute I became a mom. And then it got worse the day she walked in the kitchen

and said, I have a goal for you. You have to live to be a hundred. I'm like, why you can't give me that goal. But she worries about something happening to me. And now all of a sudden it's, it's a worry, but it's not necessarily a bad worry because what I find is even though it's annoying that she did that, I find myself, even when I don't feel like getting up and exercising, even when I don't feel like eating something healthier, I feel like going and having something that isn't good for me, that little voice, her little voice in the back of my head going, I need you. You need to be here is just always there. And that's purposeful, right?

That's purpose. You know, and so few people actually think about that, that children do what you do, not what you tell them to do. So are you modeling health or are you modeling illness? So getting in touch with your purpose is so important. Well, and just being here until I'm 100, if I am a complete burden to her, is not helping. Well, and you had her a little bit later. So she's only going to be like, what, if you're 100, she's 65. And you totally want to see what kind of adult she's going to be. I mean, she's an awesome teenager.

So where does passion and purpose live in the brain? And so we talked about the nucleus accumbens. There are also deep structures in your brain that you need to keep healthy because the areas that produce dopamine and respond to dopamine, when they die, you end up with Parkinson's disease. You end up with movement disorders. You end up with depression. So you want to protect your pleasure centers. So now I've mentioned dopamine. It doesn't mean you're dope. It's a very important neurotransmitter that is involved with pleasure and happiness and

joy and reward and motivation and focus. It also smooths motor movements. And it is incredibly important. And the nucleus accumbens, that's where cocaine works. Right. That's where smoking works. Sugar, fat, and salt. That's where sugar, fat, and salt work.

Food companies figured that out a long time ago. Which is why when something awesome happens, you jump when you get excited or you freeze when you get scared because it's messing that part. Or you get crazy. Like Tana is totally good. Go a little psycho. A little psycho. Getting scared is not a good thing. When dopamine is too low, people get depressed. You know, you think of people with Parkinson's, they often get depressed. They have apathy, low energy. They don't focus very

well and they can have tremors. When dopamine is too high, so think of that hit of cocaine that's excessive, anxiety, agitation, aggression, obsession, confusion, racing thoughts. And what I argue in… So let me clarify this. Are you trying to say that the fight or flight response is connected to dopamine being too high or too low? Well, it can be similar to that, but that's actually not dopamine. That's adrenaline. So adrenaline, if you get scared, your eyeballs, your iris gets big, your heart rate goes fast. Your hands get cold. So that's different.

We're on a different system a little bit. But I want to just go over the addiction cycle. So you engage in actions that increase dopamine. And it could be you're on Tinder or you're on Match. And you go, whoa, whoa, I like that. I like that. And so you feel high or you feel pleasure. And didn't someone study this and people who didn't do well on those sites got depressed?

That's right. I did. Dr. Oz and I did. Someone did. Someone did, yeah. My husband. Like, Why are you studying Tinder? I'm not doing it for myself. Yeah, that would be really bad for flight or fight response.

You would be flying. I'd be fighting. That's back to the addiction cycle. My daily threat of my life. Gives me my dopamine. There's something to the addiction cycle, my daily threat of my life. Gives me my dopamine. There's something to that. So you engage in actions that increase dopamine. You threaten your husband's life.

You feel higher pleasure when you do that. Then when dopamine wears off, you feel withdrawal, flat, or depressed. So you re-engage. you feel withdrawal, flat or depressed. So you re-engage. So the next day you threaten me again, dopamine producing babe, you're even if it's bad for you. It's not bad for me though. So let's go with cocaine. Feel high or pleasurable, but when it wears off,

you feel withdrawal, flat or depressed. You re-engage, use cocaine again, and you feel better. But the more you do it, when you dump dopamine, we're going to talk about that, you actually begin to wear out the nucleus accumbens. So what that means, it takes more and more in order to get the same response. And that's the cycle of addiction. And so how you break it is you don't dump dopamine, you drip dopamine, and you have to take care of your pleasure centers. And people who are obese, their pleasure centers are not responsive. So, you know, if you don't eat a lot of cake and donuts and brownies and really high fat, high salt, high sugar foods, you protect your nucleus accumbens.

Yeah, and then you notice when you have a bite of something, you're like, that's really sweet. But if you don't, then it takes more and more. And so when we come back, we are going to teach you how to take care of your pleasure centers so that you can feel better fast and make it last. And if you go to feelbetterfast.com and order or pre-order the book, we have all sorts of gifts for you.

Stay tuned. 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 or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. of The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way Cookbook we give away every month.