Change Your Brain Every Day - Dopamine Drip: What Happens When the Brain Releases Too Much?

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen dive into the mailbag to answer reader questions. The discussion ranges from the differences between hypnosis and meditation to the effects of too much dopamine in the brain.

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 so happy you're with us. We're doing BrainXL and we're coming to the end of L. We're going to love you back by answering some of your questions. But before we get to that, Ellen McCarthy said, this is such an informative and helpful podcast that you, Tana, and Dr. Amen are doing. I am a child of an alcoholic and this is encouraging me to considering getting treatment at your

clinics. Well, thank you so much, Ellen. We wish you the best. Children of alcoholics have, you know, there's genetic vulnerabilities because that stuff tends to run families, tends to go with depression and ADD and there's emotional issues that go along with that. But getting your brain right is the first step to getting your life right. Okay.

Quickly. Can you do a podcast about PTSD, childhood sexual trauma, and how it's treated? Would that be helped with hypnosis and or EMDR? I'm curious because of past personal experience from trauma. I know we've done, we have done several podcasts on PTSD. We should do probably an updated one, a new one, and specifically relate it to sexual childhood trauma, childhood sexual trauma. So when you're traumatized early, it resets your brain to a higher level. No.

Yes. And then people do all sorts of things to try and calm it down. And it can be weed. It can be alcohol. It can be weed. It could be alcohol. It could be karate. It can be things that are really good for you or things that are not good for you. EMDR is really helpful. So helpful. I mean, I did it for two years. There's actually a brand new study out on eye movements, getting your eyes to move left, right, left, right. So bring up the trauma, think about it, and then do the eye movement for about a minute.

And new studies showed it actually helped calm down the amygdala, which is the area of your brain that actually feels anxiety and fear. Yeah, I did it for two years and I found it incredibly helpful. Is there a wrong or right way to do hypnosis? Can you also call it meditation? For me, they're sort of connected and I know they're slightly different, but I've sort of, the way that I do it, I connect them a little bit. So, I mean, you're probably better at answering whether they're different or not. I just find that it's helpful to sort, I do sort of a self-hypnosis and I connect it to my meditation.

They're actually very similar. Yeah. And it's similar to guided imagery. Right. One is sort of directed – well, no, they both can be directed by other people. But you can also be directed by yourself. You can be directed by yourself. One, it puts you in a trance-like state, but meditation states are very much trance-like states.

So I would say they're very similar. I have a bunch of them on my site. You have a bunch. We have a bunch on Brain Fit Life to help you get started. Another one. I wonder if there's anyone you can recommend for hope and help with mental issues. If we are in Wales, the United Kingdom, and cannot bring a client to the USA, we need to go beyond what the National Health Service has offered after 14 months in mental health

for true recovery. Please help. OUCH. We actually have a number of brain health coaches around the world where we teach our method to other people. And if you're a professional, if you go to brainhealthcoaching.com,

you can learn about it. You can get 50 units of continuing medical education, which is monstrous. More importantly, you can learn the method we use here at Amen Clinics to help people. So if you go to our website, you'll see where our professionals are out around the world. Another question. I noticed that when I take Concerta, which is a stimulant that people often prescribe for ADD, I become depressed after a couple of weeks.

Oh, interesting. What do you think would be a good supplement to counteract that? I need some ideas to take to my doctor. So one, take it to your doctor. Whenever I hear that, I wonder if there's not an underlying mood disorder that Concerta is triggering off. And so go to our brain health assessment. It's free.

Go to brainhealthassessment.com. See what your type is. And you may either be four, which is sensitive, or two, which is spontaneous, or maybe a combination of those two. And sometimes SAMe can be really helpful to actually help your mood and help concentration. So I'm a huge fan of SAMe. If you take SAMe, you also take it with betaine, trimethylglycine, they've found that they work synergistically.

Can undiagnosed diabetes contribute to symptoms similar to borderline personality disorder? Well, if your blood sugar is not being balanced, for sure it can be problematic. It can certainly increase things like depression. But usually with diabetes, it's high blood sugar. Yeah. Not low blood sugar. So it depends on what's going on.

But if you have low blood sugar, you can have episodes that you're emotionally- But I'm wondering, by the way, they're asking that- Oh, it's undiagnosed. Never mind. I was thinking if they were taking diabetic medication. Yeah. And I would say, you know, that's not a combination I see together. High blood sugar is clearly bad for you. One thing that is often misdiagnosed as bipolar, it's a little different, a little bit different.

PCOS is often those two. So explain that. Polycystic ovarian syndrome. Because of the hormonal imbalance that happens with polycystic ovarian syndrome, you're kicking me. Do you have to say something? No, I just want you to know how it feels to be kicked out. Because of the hormonal imbalance that happens. She kicks me like all the time.

No, he's like, he's like this. Okay. Anyways, because of the hormonal imbalance that happens with polycystic ovarian syndrome, with your female hormones being out of balance, as well as testosterone, now you become testosterone dominant. And it causes this problem. You're also insulin resistant so lots of issues going on with your hormones and all of a sudden um a lot of times it's not diagnosed properly you're

not diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome but because of the radical mood swings and the testosterone dominance sometimes people are misdiagnosed as bipolar there are several studies on that and when you and i were first together, you had PCOS. I did. I'd never been diagnosed with something like that. But what I, what you used to make fun of me and say is the only time I scared you was when I acted like a girl. So I didn't have the bipolar part.

I was just very driven and intense. So you're like, the only time you scared me is when you act like a girl. I'm still a little driven. And when you got it balanced, you went from wanting a big killer dog to Tinkerbell. I'm back to wanting my German Shepherds. Although the Shepherd I got is completely worthless. But anyways. He's not worthless.

Why would you say that? No, he's worthless for anything except love. Totally worthless. Well, I'm all for that. He's not a protection dog at all. All right. According to conventional medicine psychiatry, too much dopamine gives you psychosis.

What do you think of that? Kind of needs to be balanced, doesn't it? Well, what are conditions that give you too much dopamine? Cocaine. Start taking too much cocaine. Can you get psychotic if you take too much cocaine? You won't sleep. You certainly can get psychotic.

Meth. And when we give dopamine blockers, like Risperdal or Zyprexa or Thorazine. Because you don't have enough dopamine. But it's way more complicated than that. And you want to keep dopamine balanced so that you feel happy. Because without it, you're like super unmotivated and depressed. Well, and the real serious low dopamine state is you get Parkinson's disease. Right. And when we block dopamine too much, you get a Parkinsonian syndrome where you actually develop tremors.

Don't you remember when I was going through treatments for my thyroid thing, that the wired tired thing I had, and then all of a sudden I would just feel like someone pulled the plug and we sort of figured out it was dopamine. I would just be like, whoa, like just, but I think it was that cause I would just be like, whoa, like just, but I think it was that

because I was so revved all the time and then I just crashed. But dopamine can make you really not feel good if it's low or if it's too high. Two more questions. What are the acceptable safety helpful games for a 10 year old boy who is in anxious? This is a grandmother who is watching, learning,

and grateful to you and Tana for the last 12 years. I would say anything that you do with like board games are great. Anything you do with them. Like we play family games together, board games. And we're still one of those weird families, even though my daughter's 15, we're still one of those families that plays board games. My daughter loves that we play board games together. They hate, well, you like playing Scrabble with me. But we like playing card games.

We like playing board games. I don't know if she's talking about video games or not. Well, so we wouldn't be a fan of video games because they're fairly addictive. But when you think of sports, so we should talk a little bit about sports, that we're huge fans of track. Right. Right? But not pole vaulting. Right?

Right. Not things that put them at risk. Water polo is pretty good. No, water polo has a lot of head trauma. Does it really? A lot. So swimming then? Swimming can be good, but not diving.

Lots of head trauma. Okay. So swimming. Diving. Basketball. Golf is Okay, so swimming. Diving. Basketball. Golf is good. Tennis. Basketball.

Tennis. Table tennis, obviously, is my favorite. Dance is really great. And I love saying karate, except that now the culture in many studios is more aggressive. I mean, where I train, it's not so much. But, I mean, it actually is in a lot of places. So you have to be very careful if you're going to train in martial arts,

where you train and how you train. Because it's really good for the brain. The complex moves both sides of the body, the more traditional types of martial arts. But the new, more MMA is not so good. And the last question, can you tell us more about your trip to Greece? Oh, you?

I've not stopped hearing about the food. Still. It was amazing. It was incredible. We went to Corinth. Corinth was interesting. It was really interesting. That's what my favorite place was.

In fact, the Acropolis of Corinth is larger than the Acropolis in Athens. It's like a city on top of a mountain. It's crazy how big it is. I'm grateful we didn't have to hike it. We could drive up to the top. That was crazy. But then you still had to hike another mile up in the air.

It was beautiful. They're struggling still. So it's a place steeped with history, and I love history. And it's sad to see them still struggling so much. So the old city is beautiful. The Plaka. Plaka is great. It's great.

And I love all the sights. And the food is awesome. And the history is wonderful. And the coastline is beautiful. But there's a lot of poverty. And they're struggling with a lot of issues that they've had economically and with the government. So you'll see that if you go there. But we love history.

So write more, write your questions. We're happy to answer them. We hope you really loved this series on Feel Better Fast and would dearly love for you to buy the book. And when you do, if you go to feelbetterfast.com, you can download the introduction and chapter one immediately. You can also download some free audios we do for you, along with Tana's brand new cookbook,

The 10 Day Brain Boost. 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.